Lone Star Nights. Delores Fossen

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      “Uh, yeah. About 70 percent of the time. But I got the feeling that Dixie Mae meant something, well, deeper.”

      Heck, he hoped so anyway. Lucky hated to think Dixie Mae had used her dying breath to state the obvious.

      Cassie glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “So you’re still bull riding?”

      The question was simple enough, but since it was one he got often, Lucky knew there was more to it than that. What Cassie, and others, really wanted to ask was—Aren’t you too old to still be riding bulls?

      Yep, he was. But he wasn’t giving it up. And for that matter, he could ask her—Aren’t you too young to be a shrink? Or rather a therapist. Of course, her comeback to that would probably be that they were the same age and that she’d just managed to cram more into her life than he had.

      “Are you okay?” she asked. “You seem, uh, angry or something.”

      Great. Now he was worked up over an argument he was having with himself.

      “I’m still bull riding,” Lucky answered, knowing it wouldn’t answer anything she’d just said. “And you’re still, well, doing whatever it is you do?”

      She nodded, not adding more, maybe because she was confused. But Dixie Mae had filled in some of the blanks. Cassie had gotten her master’s degree in psychology and was now a successful therapist and advice columnist. Cassie traveled. Wrote articles. Made regular appearances on TV talk shows whenever a so-called relationship expert was needed.

      Bull riding was the one and only thing he’d been good at since adulthood. Ironic since he failed at it 70 percent of the time.

      Cassie took a deep breath. The kind of breath a person took when they needed some steeling up. And she got those sensible shoes moving closer to Dixie Mae’s coffin. So far, Lucky had kept his distance, but he went up there with Cassie so he could say a final goodbye.

      Dixie Mae was dressed in a flamingo-pink sleeveless rhinestone dress complete with matching necklace, earrings and a half foot of bracelets that stretched from her wrists to her elbows. Sparkles and pink didn’t exactly scream funeral, but Lucky would have been let down if she’d insisted on being buried in anything else. Or had her hair styled any other way. Definitely a tribute to Dolly Parton.

      Too bad the bracelets didn’t cover up the tattoo.

      “I loved her.” Lucky hadn’t actually intended for those words to come out of his mouth, but they were the truth. “Hard to believe, I know,” he mumbled.

      “No. She had some lovable qualities about her.” Cassie didn’t name any, though.

      But Lucky did. “Right after my folks were killed in the car wreck, Dixie Mae was there for me,” he went on. “Not motherly, exactly, but she made sure I didn’t drink too much or ride a bull that would have killed me.”

      More of that skeptical look. “Your parents died when you were just nineteen, not long after we graduated from high school. She let you drink when you were still a teenager?”

      “She didn’t let me,” Lucky argued. “I just did it, but she always made sure I didn’t go overboard with it.”

      “A drop was already overboard since you were underage,” Cassie mumbled.

      Lucky gave her one of his own looks. One to remind her that her nickname in school was Miss Prissy Pants Police. She fought back, flinging a Prissy Pants Double Dog Dare look at him to challenge her until Lucky felt as if they’d had an entire fifth-grade squabble without words. He’d be impressed if he wasn’t so pissed off.

      “You can’t tell me you didn’t love her, too,” he fired back.

      At least Cassie didn’t jump to disagree with that. She glanced at her grandmother, then him. “I did. I was just surprised you’d so easily admitted that you loved her.”

      Easy only because it’d dropped straight from his brain to his mouth without going through any filters. That happened with him way too often.

      “Men like you often have a hard time saying it,” she added.

      “Men like me?” Those sounded like fighting words, and he was already worn-out from the nonverbal battle they’d just had. “I guess you’re referring to my reputation of being a guy who likes women.”

      “A guy who sleeps around. A lot.” She hadn’t needed to add a lot to make it a complete zinger.

      “Rein in your stereotypes, Doc.” While she was doing that, he’d rein in his temper. And he’d do something about that blasted tat.

      Lucky grabbed the felt-tip pen from the table next to the visitor’s book, and he got to work.

      “What are you doing?” Cassie asked.

      “Fixing it.” Not exactly a professional job, but he made a big smudgy i out of the e and an e out of the i.

      Cassie leaned in closer. “Huh. I never noticed it was misspelled.”

      Lucky looked at her as if she’d sprouted an extra nose. “How could you not notice that?”

      She shrugged. “I’m not that good at spelling. I mean, who is, what with spell-checkers on phones and computers?”

      “I’m good at it,” he grumbled. So that made two skills. Spelling and bull riding. At least he succeeded at the spelling more than 30 percent of the time.

      Cassie stepped back, looked around the room. “I need to find the funeral director and then call the hospital and find out if Gran left me any instructions. A note or something.”

      Lucky patted his pocket. “She gave me a letter.”

      Cassie eyed the spot he’d patted, which meant she’d eyed his butt. “Did she say anything about me in it?”

      “I’m not sure. I haven’t read it yet.” And darn it, the look she gave him was all shrink, one who was assessing his mental health—or lack thereof. “I was going to wait until after the service.” Except it was as clear as a gypsy’s crystal ball that there wasn’t going to be an actual service.

      “Well, can you look at it now, just to see if she mentions me?” She sounded as though she was in as much of a hurry as Logan.

      Lucky wished he could point out that not everything had to be done in a hurry, bull riding excluded, but he was just procrastinating. Truth was, as long as the letter was unread, it was like having a little part of Dixie Mae around. One last unfinished partnership between them.

      He huffed, and since he really didn’t want to explain that “little part of Dixie Mae” thought, he took out the letter and opened it. One page, handwritten in Dixie Mae’s usual scrawl.

      Cassie didn’t exactly hover over him, but it was close. She pinned her chocolate-brown eyes to him, no doubt watching for any change in expression so she could use her therapy skills to determine if this was good or bad.

      Dear Lucky and Cassie...

      That no doubt СКАЧАТЬ