Page 31

I'm halfway down the row of troughs when he sets down his hoof knife. "That trough do something to you?"

"It was dirty."

"It was dirty an hour ago. Now it's a mirror." He picks the knife back up. "Scrub it any harder and you'll owe me a trough."

I'd wanted Knox Hollister's attention long before he knew I existed. Back then, I'd imagined what it would be like to have all that dangerous authority focused on me instead of a barn full of fighters. I hadn't known what he'd ask of me, only that I wanted to hear it.

Now I knew. And I wanted him just as badly.

Years later, in the cigar room, the masked men barked their orders, and my body responded to them while I hated every one of them.

The other night on his porch, Knox gave me orders in that voice before I could say yes or no. I went quiet and did what he said. Tonight I want to hear it because I asked for it.

After dark, I walk across the wet yard in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, socks, and sneakers, all from the Kerrville bag. Those socks are the first I've had on my feet in a year.

Knox's rule says I leave a note. I write one with the pencil stub I carried home from the tack room and stick it on the guest house door.

Main house.

The light on his keypad glows red. I punch in the code he gave me, and it turns green. The door swings in under my hand, and when it closes behind me, it locks without a sound.

Knox is at the kitchen table with his pistol in pieces on a towel, cleaning it. He doesn't get up. His chair is turned toward the window over the sink, the same as the other night, so he's watched me cross the whole yard.

"The other night on your porch, you gave me orders," I tell him. "I did every one of them."

He sets the slide down on the towel and waits.

"I want that again, in your bed." My face is burning, but I keep my chin up. "I want you to tell me what to do, and I want to do it."

He looks at me for a long moment, and his face doesn't give me anything.

"That night I told you I'd ask next time," he says. "So I'm asking. You sure?"

"I crossed your yard to ask you for it. I'm sure."

"Then here's how it goes." He leans back in his chair. "You say Bandera, and it's over. Everything ends that second, and I don't ask you why. You say stop, or no, or wait, and I stop and find out what you need before I touch you again. Bandera is the one that ends it."

He says it easily. He sounds like a man who's handed a woman a word like that before.

Most of the men I met this past year heard a girl say no and kept right on going. Knox tells me my no still counts, and then he gives me a word that ends everything, before he's laid a finger on me.

"Why Bandera?" I ask.

"Because nobody says it in bed by accident. And because the first time I ever saw you, you were sitting on the top rail of the arena fence in Bandera, right by the bucking chutes. You watched me tape my riding hand from start to finish. When I looked up and caught you looking, you didn't look away."

My throat closes up. I was seventeen, and I've never told a living soul about that afternoon. I never once thought he remembered it.

"You never said," I manage.

"You never asked." He stands up to his full height. "What can't I do?"

I've had all afternoon to think about it. "Don't put me on my face. Don't put your weight on my back or my neck. Don't touch my wrists."

"Done. What else?"

"Don't tell me to keep my eyes down."

"I'll tell you the opposite." He leaves it there, no questions, and I'm so grateful I can't say anything back. "Your mouth?"