Rough Rider (Hot Cowboy Nights, #2)(46)

*

It was Sunday. Three full days since Wade and Nikki had walked into the Pioneer—and three long and sleepless nights that Janice had waited for her silent phone to ring. Although she hadn’t given Wade her number, Dirk would surely know how to find her if he was inclined to. Maybe he wasn’t inclined? She quickly canned that thought, instead favoring the possibility that Wade had simply forgotten to mention her.

For weeks she’d struggled to come up with any plausible excuse just to “happen by” the Knowlton place, but so far nothing had come to her—neither had Dirk. Although the idea terrified her to the core, she was growing more convinced that she’d have to just cowgirl up and take the bull by the horns. Bull? The thought stopped her in her tracks.

How ironic that bulls would be her link to him. Dirk was a rancher said to be branching out into a new breed of beef cattle. How hard would it be to go out there and strike up some talk about his bulls? Maybe even ask about a job? She was a bit of an expert in that arena, after all.

She sank her teeth into her lip and looked at her watch. If she drove out to the Flying K now, she could visit an hour or two with the Knowltons and still be back in time for supper. Even if she was a bit late, Mama would surely watch over Cody until her return.

She’d taken him to Caleb’s house early this morning to ride horses. It’d been years since he’d been on one, but he was too young at the time even to remember it. They’d once kept a number of ranch horses for moving cattle, but the stock had been sold off long ago to pay medical bills and the bulk of the property had soon followed. Little good it had done. The cancer had not only eaten her father alive—it had taken his entire life savings. After the bills were paid only the old farmhouse and five acres remained of the original two-section homestead. Things had gone south real fast after that.

She’d realized too late that she was only an insurance policy to Grady. He’d married her in hopes of getting the ranch, but no one had counted on the bill collectors getting it instead. The ranch sale marked the beginning of the end of their marriage, or maybe better said, it was the nail in the coffin. At one time she was desperate to save her sinking marriage, even though she’d been bailing buckets out of it almost from the start. She’d wed Grady for all the wrong reasons but had hoped to make it work anyway. On that account she was also wrong.

Horribly. Horribly. Wrong.

She hadn’t loved Grady. He hadn’t loved her either. Nevertheless, she’d somehow managed to keep it together for Cody’s sake. In the end, there was no saving it and no saving him. Now Grady was gone, but she couldn’t shed any more tears. She’d wasted too many while he lived.

But the nightmare was finally over. She was safe from all the dirty secrets she’d struggled to keep hidden from the world. Now free of all that, she longed for a second chance to see what might have been. She’d lived too damned many years with what-ifs not to see this thing through once and for all. There was so damned much history and hurt to overcome, but she wasn’t about to live out the rest of her life with added regrets.

That’s right, Janice. Now or never. Just do it before you lose your nerve.

With her pulse racing, Janice shed her ratty sweats and pulled on her best ass-hugging Wranglers. Maybe she wasn’t the lanky cowgirl she’d once been, but a lot of men preferred curves on a woman. Today, however, she was unable to decide whether she should emphasize or downplay. She didn’t want to send the wrong message.

In the end, she settled for something in between, donning a fitted Western blouse in a turquoise shade that suited her well. She always tried to stick to blues and greens. She had Rachel Carson to thank for that. After dressing, Janice dug into the back of her closet for her only pair of dress boots—the worn pair of Old Gringos she’d spent eight hundred dollars on at Cheyenne Frontier Days a decade ago. She had Rachel to thank for that purchase too.

The boots represented the biggest act of self-indulgence in Janice’s entire life, and one she’d never repeat. Although wearing them always invoked bittersweet memories, she’d never been able to bring herself to throw them away. Instead, she’d resoled them three times. Although they’d both seen some hard times, like the boots, Janice had held together all these years—even if sometimes by a thread.

*

Two hours later and halfway up the mountain, Dirk was still seeing red. Arriving at the spike camp and finding Wade’s horses picketed outside had him ready to rip his brother a new one. Dirk tethered Copenhagen and approached the cabin, forcing himself to count slowly to ten but only making it as far as eight before he slammed his fist into the door. He didn’t wait for an answer. The single knock was as much courtesy as his brother was going to get.

He shoved the door open with a thud, his blood pressure skyrocketing as he took in the scene—scattered clothing, two bodies huddled together in a single sleeping bag. It was exactly as he’d thought. He braced himself in the doorway with a glower while the startled couple disengaged and scrambled for their clothes. “Just f*cking great, Wade. You told me you were going to bring down the strays. Instead, I come all the way up here to find you two knocking boots!”

Wade yanked on his jeans and tossed Nikki his shirt before stepping toward the door, blocking her from Dirk’s view. “What the hell are you doing up here? I told you we’d bring them down, and we will.”

“I’m playing the messenger boy for Allison Evans, that’s what. Seems she has a new offer on the table and needs you, Wade. She won’t go into it with anyone else.”