“Sorry. No can do. But I’ll get my own glass.” He went to the bar, turning on a lamp on his way. When he returned he had a different, and much better, brand of bourbon, which he poured into his own glass. After taking a drink, he set it down and said, “That’s more like it.”
“Where did you find that?” Chase demanded.
Marshall smiled and shrugged. “Where it always is.” He took another drink. “So, trouble in paradise?”
Chase snorted his disgust. “Ella broke up with me.” He didn’t really want to talk but he knew Marshall wouldn’t leave him alone until he did.
“Why?”
“Because I’m a ‘rodeo cowboy,’” he said, making air quotes.
“That doesn’t make sense. She’s known that from the first, hasn’t she?”
“Almost.” He drank some more then told Marshall what Ella had said. “Damn woman is so stubborn there’s no changing her mind.”
“Did you try?”
Chase looked at him like he was crazy. “Do I look stupid? Of course I tried. But she doesn’t believe I really want to retire. She thinks it’s all her idea and that I’ll resent her if I retire.”
“Will you?”
“No, damn it. I’ve been thinking about it since this last injury. At first it was just some time in the future. But the longer I was out the more I realized it wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Really? I figured you were in it for life. Or until you got too damn old.”
“I thought so too for a while. But I changed my mind. I’m tired of life on the road. Tired of the aches and pains and broken bones. I still love the competition but I’ve had two world championships. I sure can’t get another this year and by next year who knows what will have happened? But I haven’t totally figured out what I want to do if I do retire.”
“Totally?”
“I’ve got some ideas. Not that I can convince Ella of that.”
“Women,” Marshall said, shaking his head.
“You can say that again. Now pour me some of the good stuff. If I’m going to have a hangover at least let it be from good liquor.”
Marshall laughed and poured.
*
Ella avoided Chaseas much as possible over the next few days. Luckily, he’d spent most of the time since their breakup on the road.
As for Marshall and Damaris, she didn’t think they planned to fire her. Damaris would have already done it if that was what she wanted. In fact, both of them acted as if nothing was wrong. While she appreciated that, she knew they were aware of the breakup. But neither held it against her, it seemed. She’d even asked Damaris about it but her boss had blown her off and told her that was hers and Chase’s business and she wasn’t getting in the middle of it. And she wasn’t about to try to talk to Marshall. Chase’s brother never talked a lot anyway. And he left the hiring and firing to Damaris, so he’d be unlikely to say anything to her.
She needed to talk to a woman and clearly, she couldn’t talk to Damaris about why she’d broken it off with Chase. She made plans to talk to Hazel one night.
Hazel had made a pitcher of margaritas. “I’ve been dying for one but I didn’t want to make a batch just for me.”
“I think it’s just what I needed. That and someone to talk to who isn’t a Walker.”
“Uh-oh. What’s wrong? Besides the obvious.”
Hazel knew all about her breakup with Chase and why she’d done it. While she’d been sympathetic, she’d also told Ella that she might be making a mistake in assuming that Chase would only retire because she asked him to. “I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that Chase wants to retire,” Hazel had said.
“No one in the family that I’ve talked to thinks he’s serious. They all say they can’t imagine Chase not rodeoing.”
“People change. Sometimes those closest to us can’t see it.”
But Hazel had also made it clear that she would support Ella no matter what her decision was. So she felt comfortable talking to her. She took a sip of her margarita and said, “I was afraid they were going to fire me but Damaris swore they weren’t.”
