I offered to find Winnie a house in town, somewhere closer to work but with a bit more space. She turned me down flat.
Lanie is right. Winnie will never accept help, not mine or anyone else’s. I respect that. As a single mom, she wants to be independent. I just hate seeing my sister struggle to make ends meet. At least she lets me get away with gifting a few small things to Sally for school. Tech, instruments, bits she can’t otherwise afford.
But Winnie’s roommate… Lanie’s a mystery I can’t wait to unravel.
I don’t hold back on my grin as I climb into my truck.
FIVE
CORD
Chasing the Sun
Flirting with Lanie is like riding a rollercoaster: one moment I’m gliding high on the thought of a date with the girl I’ve been crushing on for days, and then next, I’m in freefall at the thought of letting her into my world. I’ve cloistered myself away like a fucking nun for so long that I’ve forgotten how to socialize beyond business and the Invitational.
Maybe we’re a match in that. She’s a nomadic scientist; I’m a reclusive rancher. We’re both so used to keeping our distance from our own kind that we’ve forgotten what being around others outside our immediate stratosphere is supposed to look like.
West will tell me to watch my pocketbook, but I’d rather watch the way her ass sways in denim that looks painted on. Or how her hair curls around her body in wild waves that I want to wrap around my hands.
Lanie Parker is the new addiction I can’t afford, and I’m not used to looking outside my price range.
By the time I arrive at the produce store on the other side of town, Dallas stands at the rear of the yard with his arms folded over his chest. The stub of a cigarette dangles from his lips when I pullup. He spits it out, stepping over the still-wafting smoke with his hands held face up and spread wide at hip level.
“What time do you call this, asshole?”
“I pay you. Aren’t you supposed to bend over, or kiss my ass?” I grin harder as his habitual scowl deepens.
“I’ll show you how to bend over,” he grumbles.
I smirk. “I’m sure you can. Have you got what I ordered?”
“If you knew you were gonna be this late, why didn’t you send someone else out to collect your shit? You’ve got an army of little minions who can run around after you.” He waves at the empty space around me, sans minions. “You know you don’t have to do everything yourself.”
“And you know me better than that,” I snap, running a hand over my short hair. Apparently with Lanie in my head, I’ve lost track of everything else in my life, including my sense of time. “Sorry, Dallas. Being on time is a thing with me.”
Dallas stares at me as though he hasn’t been a critical part of my life for the last fifteen years. “I know, man. Just giving you shit. C’mon.”
He leads me behind his workshop, where a stack of metal is laid out on the ground in a neat pile. I count the gates and star pickets, relieved. We have more than enough to set up the chute and the yard for the pending event. Not that I should have ever been worried. Dallas has helped me organize the Valiant Peak Invitational since its inception. Hell, he’s been around since I first bought Coyote Falls back in my early twenties.
He also knows I rarely accept help.
“I thought you had all this from previous years’ events,” he grunts, hefting the first rail. “You wanna bring your truck around and load it all in?”
“Who the fuck knows. I lost some. Maybe ours got shipped out with the rest of the stage gear.” Dust swirls in tiny eddies around us, the chaotic patterns matching the mess in my mind.
“Yeah, or someone swiped it and thought you wouldn’t notice. Or care.”
I press my lips together. “West did suggest that,” I acknowledge, turning my back on my friend. The thought that one of my regular boys stole from me sits poorly, and West knows it. Dallas, too, from his tone, though he knows better than to push me on the subject.
“Rich boy still hanging about your place?” Dallas asks my back, pulling me out of my head.
“Jed? Yeah. Maybe he wants to see what the competition does. He is my neighbor, after all.”
“With his own damn ranch to manage. He doesn’t need to be hanging around yours.”
What Dallas says makes sense, but without being an asshole I can’t shove Jed off my land whenever he wanders over the boundary line between our properties. Courtesy dictates otherwise. Seeing that we share over fifty square miles of fence line, I try to keep the peace.
I move my truck, pulling the parking brake up with more force than required. I have to admit that when both of my closest friends suggest the same thing, they’re probably right. Even I know in my gut that losing parts of the rodeo setup isn’t an oversight on my part, or West’s.
