Rodeo Father. Mary Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ made it to the Double U?”

      “Yeah. Made it there just fine.”

      A dark shadow painted his strong jawline. He smelled of citrus. His body generated heat.

      She stepped away.

      Come down to earth, she scolded herself.

      She dropped the one barely there steak she’d picked up onto her discounted vegetables and lentils. His basket held seven steaks. Seven!

      Her economic situation had never embarrassed her in the past. Frustrated her? Oh, yeah. But caused her shame? No. It had merely been a fact of her life. It disconcerted her now, though.

      Neither of them had said anything for a while. Their silence fell into truly awkward, uncomfortable territory.

      “Don’t forget to add some vegetables,” she blurted.

      Cripes, small talk had never stressed her out before. She could usually talk the paint off a barn door, yet here she stood with her mouth gone as dry as a popcorn fart.

      Travis sidled away from her, hefting the basket with a rueful kick up of one side of his mouth. “Yeah, guess I’ll grab a few potatoes.”

      “And greens.” Brilliant conversation, Rach.

      He grimaced. “Maybe.”

      She managed a reasonable facsimile of a grin. “Which means you won’t.”

      His sweet fraction of a shy smile made a brief appearance.

      He doffed his hat and left. “See you ’round town, Rachel.”

      She watched him stride away.

      The phrase salt of the earth came to mind. Travis Read would fit in well in Rodeo, maybe better than she did. After all, she wasn’t much of a cowgirl. She didn’t ride horses, and she didn’t live on a ranch.

      She loved Montana, though, and loved her town with all of her heart. Rachel adored its basic, varied, salt-of-the-earth residents. She was working her fingers to the bone on next summer’s fair to keep the town alive and make it prosperous again.

      Tamping down her wayward daydreams, she paid for her purchases.

      At home, she poured a glass of OJ, taking it and an oatmeal muffin outside to soak up the rays of what might be one of the last good days of autumn.

      She sat on the porch step—porch being a generous term for the slice of tilting wood and two steps hammered together under the front door of her mom’s trailer.

      Sunlight flooding the valley reflected off the tarnished white wood siding of the Victorian across the road.

      Rachel sighed. She missed Abigail Montgomery, her elderly friend. Her death, days after Davey’s, had been devastating. Worst time of her life.

      She’d lost too much six months ago. Thoughts of her big, irrepressible Davey... Whew! Those could still bring her to her knees.

      She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked. She missed him every night.

      She’d already cried a river for him, and for Abigail, but she had a life to live and children to raise. She needed her good spirits to help shoulder her burdens.

      Veering away from her grief before it brought on tears, she concentrated on the Victorian.

      Her every-second-of-the-day dream about owning that house perked her up, rerouting her thoughts away from devastating memories.

      To everyone else in Rodeo, the aging home looked like a run-down romantic anomaly in the Western landscape, but to Rachel it was perfect.

      But then, romantic notions and daydreams had always been her downfall, hadn’t they?

      Davey had never known about this particular dream. She’d wanted to surprise him with a fait accompli. Look, honey, I bought us a house.

      Any day now it would be hers. She hadn’t heard even a whisper about whether Abigail’s British relatives were going to put it up for sale, but why wouldn’t they?

      It was useless to them.

      She’d scrimped and saved until she had just shy of five thousand dollars in change and small bills hidden in her closet.

      Dumb spot to keep her money, but she and Davey had had a joint bank account. Had he known about this money, he would have siphoned off every spare cent for his motorcycle passion...or for treating his friends to beer every Friday night...or for chewing through money like it was cereal.

      Davey had had those great big hands that could love her with enthusiasm, but they were a pair of sieves where money was concerned.

      She should roll the change and count the money soon and get it into the bank. Later. Right now she needed these moments of rest.

      The pretty trills of a horned lark on Abigail’s land floated across to her on the late-October breeze.

      No one else in town would want that house.

      There was no way there would be a speck of competition. It needed work.

      It would be hers. It could have been hers a lot sooner had she married someone more practical.

      The heart has a mind of its own, Rach, and you just have to follow it.

      I sure did, didn’t I?

      Yes. She sure had, right back into the financial insecurity she’d grown up with.

      She let out a sigh full of hot air and yearning.

      The distant hum of an engine—a motorcycle—cut through her daydreaming. Her unreasonable heart lurched with thoughts of her late husband.

      A big Harley shot down the old road toward her.

      It wasn’t Davey, of course. Never again would her husband ride home with a shit-eating grin that would light up any cloudy day.

      She scrubbed her hands over her arms and shivered despite the sunshine. Oh, Davey.

      The bike came close, closer, and slowed down enough to initiate the turn into Abigail’s driveway. Who was it?

      The noise disturbed the lark. Routed, he surged from his hiding spot, his distinctive yellow-and-black face catching the eye of a white cat crouching in the grasses along the side of the road. Ghost. Abigail’s cat shot out toward the songbird, right into the bike’s path. No!

      Rachel stumbled to her feet. “Get back,” she yelled.

      The biker swerved to avoid the cat, Ghost ran back into the tall grasses and the bike tipped over. The machine flew across the road, screeching and shooting sparks, leaving the rider bouncing and rolling along the shoulder in a plume of dust.

      In the ensuing silence, dirt and stones fell on his still body.

      Rachel froze. Unwelcome memories of that awful day and the police officer at СКАЧАТЬ