Rough Rider (Hot Cowboy Nights, #2)(61)

“That’s different,” he said.

“How? I’ve been through a hell of my own.”

“Then tell me. We’re damned well gonna talk about this, Red. I have some Pendleton or Jack Daniel’s if you need fortification, but you’re not leaving here until you tell me everything that happened. There’s stuff I need to know. Did you love him?”

Janice sighed. There was no point in fighting him. He’d either pull it from her piece by agonizing piece, or she could just bite the bullet and get it over with once and for all.

“No, Dirk. I didn’t love him.”

“Then why did you do it? Why’d you take up with Grady?”

“I told you why! My father was sick. I needed help and he was there.” She’d been desperate and felt like she had no one else to turn to. She’d even thought she might grow to love Grady in time, but she hadn’t really known him at all.

“You told me that part, but it doesn’t explain why you married him.” He was watching her too closely. He suspected there was more to the story and there was.

She looked away, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Shortly after he and I got involved, I found out I was pregnant. My father was sick. My mother couldn’t help me. What else was I to do? Grady said he’d take care of me. It wasn’t so bad at first, but you and I both know what an addictive personality Grady had. He was hooked on the adrenaline rush of bull riding. His drinking got heavier. Then there were other women.”

She was too embarrassed to mention the porn. That was her private humiliation. He’d even made her watch it with him. Rather than being a turn-on, it had made her feel dirty. Once he was gone, she’d conducted a thorough search-and-destroy mission.

He shook his head. “Shit, Janice. I had no idea. No,” he corrected himself. “That’s a lie. I just hoped it would be different, but men like him don’t usually change.”

“Grady was always arrogant and full of himself, but his success only brought out the worst in him. He was incapable of love…of fidelity…but it was meth that pushed him over the edge.”

“Meth?” Dirk almost choked on his beer.

“Yeah. I think he’d been using a while before I ever knew. He probably got turned onto it by one of the buckle bunnies he’d been screwing around with. A lot of people use it to enhance sex. It’s supposed to heighten arousal and delay orgasm, sometimes for hours. I’d never been around drugs, so I didn’t recognize what was happening until it was too late. I only noticed the changes—the mood swings, sudden rages, insomnia. I had already refused to have sex with him anymore, but by then he couldn’t get it up at all. They call it crystal dick. Of course that only incited more rage. It was a horrible cycle.”

“Shit, Janice. Why didn’t you just up and leave him?”

“I was going to. I knew he was out of control. I was even saving up money to come back home, but when it came down to it, I couldn’t just walk out on him if there was any chance I could help him through it… God knows I tried.”

“You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help himself.”

“I know that now.”

His expression grew grimmer. “What happened?”

“He finally agreed to rehab, but it only lasted a few weeks. He left the program early for fear the bull-riding association would find out where he was. It wasn’t long before it started all over again. I knew it would kill him if he didn’t get off it… I was right.” Her eyes burned and her throat knotted but she refused to shed any more tears.

“All the reports said his death was a bull-riding accident,” Dirk said.

“It was,” Janice replied, “but the accident probably wouldn’t have happened if he wasn’t high. Meth would have killed him anyway—even if the bull hadn’t. No one else knows about all this, Dirk. There was an inquiry by the bull-riding association, but the idea of a drug-related scandal scared the shit out of them, so I was able to keep it all quiet. I thank God for Cody’s sake. My greatest fear was that he’d grow up under that shadow—that stigma.

“By then I felt so beaten down. Cody was pretty much my reason for being…and the hope of making a better life for him is the only thing that’s kept me together. Now I’m just trying to put it all behind us.”

He was quiet for a long time. “I knew things weren’t right when I came out to Vegas for the World Championships, but I thought it was just the whoring. Why the hell didn’t you tell me the rest?”

“Part of me wanted to, but when did I ever have a chance? You left without a word.”

Another heavy silence weighted the air.

“Why did you leave like that, Dirk? What happened between you and Grady?”

“You did.”

“Me?” she exclaimed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I didn’t like what I saw in Vegas, so I kept a promise.”

“You aren’t making any sense. What do you mean?”

He gave a resigned sigh. “I told Grady the night I left Cheyenne that he’d answer to me if he ever mistreated you, so I beat the shit out of him, just like I swore I would. I left thinking I’d set him back on the straight and narrow… Apparently I was wrong.”