Gambling On a Heart (13 page)

Grinning, Zack touched the brim of his hat in salute as he climbed in behind the steering wheel.

There was another reason he insisted on fixing the fence. He’d been thinking about his roots, and the events that had changed his life, such as why he’d moved away to begin with. If he denied Tracy’s cheating on him had been the main reason he’d left Texas, he’d be lying to himself. He would have rodeoed even if they’d married, but he’d always known rodeo was a temporary thing. However, after her betrayal, he’d wanted nothing to do with the CW. Every dream he’d ever had about the place had included her.

He’d already decided he’d never come back to Texas when he’d met Lisa. After he’d been thrown during a rodeo in Cheyenne, he’d been taken to the hospital where she worked as a brand new nurse–fresh out of college and fresh off her reign as Miss Wyoming. Lisa had been super-model beautiful and they’d instantly clicked. And had instantly ignited into flames. He hadn’t lived as a monk in the two years after he’d left Texas, but he’d never been so in lust with a woman besides Tracy as he’d been with Lisa.

Although she’d been a beauty queen, she’d lived a sheltered life. Zack still remembered his shock when they’d made love the first time on their second date and discovered she was a virgin. He’d proposed two weeks later, and after only two months of dating, they’d married. Their parents had thought they were making a huge mistake, and Logan had come to Wyoming to talk him out of it.

Zack had met Lisa in August 2001. When the terrorist attacks on the US happened in September, he knew what he had to do. He’d signed up at a recruiting station in Cheyenne and had been immediately processed through. Two days after his wedding in October, he’d shipped off to a tearful goodbye that had been on the local news. Due to his status as a professional athlete, not to mention being married to a former Miss Wyoming, and being the oldest son of former rock star Jackie McGinnis, he’d been lauded as special.

He’d hated the reporters who’d shoved microphones in his face asking stupid questions about why he’d felt compelled to fight in the war. He’d never forget Lisa’s response,
“My husband is an American. We all should stand up and fight.”

The war and her death had changed everything again. His drinking had gotten worse, and he’d quit his job on the Cheyenne PD. When his in-laws had threatened to take his little girl from him, he’d sought out help for the depression that wouldn’t leave him. And then he’d moved his daughter home to the CW where they belonged.

By helping Dylan Quinn through his issues with the war and his possible role in the deaths of the men under his command, Zack realized he had to work through his own issues concerning Lisa’s death.

But there was one thing for which he’d never forget or forgive himself–Lisa’s death wouldn’t have happened if he’d been able to forget the past and Tracy.

Driving over the rough ranch roads crisscrossing the pastures and crossing an old wood bridge straddling Oak Springs Creek, he made it to his cousin’s half of the ranch in a fraction of the time it would have taken by main road.

Lance Cartwright had built his house as a wedding gift to his wife twelve years ago. It dwarfed all of the homes on the twenty-thousand-acre ranch. Modeled after a Spanish hacienda, it boasted natural stone and stucco exterior walls, a four-car garage, a portico and an interior courtyard.

Lance leaned against the railing of the corral by his barn with his hands in his pockets. Dressed like Zack in old jeans, work shirt open over a t-shirt, work boots and an old brown hat over his unruly blond hair, Lance could have passed for Zack’s brother rather than first cousin.

“Hey, cousin.” Lance wore an easy grin as Zack got out of his truck. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up until dinnertime.”

“I was thinking about it, but I don’t want Luis Estrada to start charging me for Thunderbolt’s stud service.”

“Audrey fixed us enough food and drink for a week.” Zack turned at the sound of his brother’s voice. From the back of the house, Logan Cartwright ambled toward Zack and Lance carrying a red cooler. “But she refused to send along any beer. Said we wouldn’t get a lick of work done.”

Zack didn’t bother hiding his surprise, or his irritation. “What are you doing here?”

As Logan placed the cooler onto the back of Zack’s truck, he grinned. “Nice to see you, too, big brother. I’m coming to help with the fence. Lance said you could use some help. Or is this a first-sons only party?”

Lance slapped Logan on the shoulder. “It’s a we-can-use-all-the-help-we-can-get kinda party. Let’s get going. Audrey and I have a date later.” He winked and gave them a cocky grin as he headed for the passenger side. “Timing is everything.”

They got in the Dodge–Zack behind the wheel, Lance beside him in the passenger’s side, and Logan in the back next to Mandy’s empty car seat.

Once they settled and Zack shifted into gear, Logan drawled, “You know, Lancelot, all that clock watching can take the fun out of the doing.”

Zack chuckled at the old nickname as Lance looked over his shoulder. “Not really. But the pressure can get to me at times.”

The fact that Lance let slide Logan’s teasing him with his hated childhood nickname cued Zack into just how much stress his cousin was under. Zack glanced at him. Lance and his wife had been trying to have a baby since a riding accident caused her to lose her first pregnancy over a decade ago. Zack drove the truck through the gate into the pasture, heading back the way he’d come earlier. “When’s that appointment with the fertility specialist y’all want to see?”

Lance shrugged and looked down at his hands, which, Zack noticed with a glance, were curled into his thighs. “At the end of the month. But I know what he’ll say. Two years ago, when we saw that other specialist, he didn’t know why we aren’t able to conceive and suggested we’re trying too hard. How can we not try when the timing’s right? Besides, Audrey and I never had a problem in the bedroom. I don’t consider loving my wife ‘trying too hard.’ But I’ll be thirty-seven in October. Audrey just turned thirty-five. We just want a baby before we’re too damned old. If the specialist can’t help, or she miscarries again, we’re going to look into adoption.”

Zack made a U-turn in the pasture and Lance asked, “What are you doing?”

“Taking you back to your wife.” Zack looked at his first cousin again. “You and Audrey need a day away from this place. I suggest you pack a lunch and ride over to that little grove of trees by the lake on my side of the ranch and get busy.”

“Or better yet, drive down to Crawford and use that hunting cabin on your uncle’s ranch.” Logan laughed and cuffed Lance on the shoulder. “Get going, Lancelot. Why should Estrada’s Thunderbolt be the only stud making babies?”

Lance smiled and opened the door when Zack stopped the truck by the back of the house. He looked from Logan to Zack and bobbed his hat brim before jumping out.

Zack waited until his brother climbed in the front seat before driving off again. An uneasy silence buzzed the air. They both were avoiding the subject of their cousin’s problems. Audrey had been pregnant twice early in their marriage. The first one she lost in an accident, the second one she miscarried. For the past six years, she hadn’t been able to get pregnant at all.

“Would it really be all that terrible if that paint and those princesses were to mix?” Logan asked, breaking the silence by referring to the stallion and Zack’s thoroughbred fillies.

“How about it’s the wrong time of the year, and I would’ve liked to wait until next spring when the fillies were older before breeding them?” Zack glanced at Logan. “I’m sure that stud would throw some nice looking foals. He’s a beautiful horse. I won’t deny he looks like he’s from good blood. Do you know where Luis got him?”

“I heard that stud was a rodeo bronco.”

Zack spared a glance at his younger brother. “Really? Local or national circuit?”

“Don’t know. I just know Luis bought him hoping to use him for breeding.”

“Interesting. I drew a stallion I swear was possessed by demons in the last NRF I was in.”

Logan fiddled with the radio and chuckled. “I remember.”

As Alan Jackson’s
Livin’ on Love
came streaming out of the speakers, Zack flashed Logan a grin. “That was the longest eight seconds of my life.” He’d won the saddle bronco title that year and walked away with more cash than most people made in a year in prize money, and a silver belt buckle. Zack lost the cockiness as he remembered the ride that ended his career. “I drew that same horse again in Cheyenne the following year. That monster must have remembered me, because he showed me in a big hurry that he was the boss. Five seconds out of the chute, he had me in the dust and cracked two of my ribs.”

“Thus, the end of Zachery Cartwright’s rodeoing days.”

Zack could sense his brother watching him.

“Why’d you give it all up so easily?” Logan asked. “It’s not like you hadn’t eaten dirt or gotten kicked in the ribs before.”

“You know why.” Zack looked at Logan. “I met Lisa. She hated everything to do with rodeo.”

“Yet, you weren’t willing to give it up for Tracy.”

“That’s different and you know it.” Zack tightened his grip on the steering wheel as he fought to keep his voice level. Logan knew exactly which of his buttons to push. “Tracy was supposed to be going to college, then on to medical school. Instead she was screwing my best friend.”

Logan sighed and shook his head. “Ever wonder about why she’d do that?”

“Hell, yes!” Zack focused on the rutted trail. “For over two years, I wondered. I still wonder,” he added a little subdued as he remembered their evening together watching her son’s team win the football game.

“Zack,” Logan said calmly, “have you ever asked her?”

“No.”

“Why not? It’s all over town that you and she are seeing each other.”

Zack glared at his brother. “We aren’t ‘seeing each other.’ Being forced together for her brother’s wedding and sitting together at a Pee Wee football game isn’t dating.”

“Mandy likes her.”

“Mandy likes everyone. She takes after her mother. But even if I did want to date Tracy, I couldn’t. Mandy is too–”

“Bullshit.”

Zack stopped the truck beside the patched fence and snapped his attention on his brother as heat climbed his neck.

Logan didn’t give him a chance to explode. “You’re still blaming yourself for Lisa’s death. Why is that? She’s the one who got mad, walked out, and chose to drive on a snow-covered mountain road.”

“I should’ve realized how hard my PTSD was on her.”

Logan huffed. “Lisa was a nurse. She would have understood how watching your buddy getting shot after he saved your life had affected you. If I had to guess, I think you fought about something a lot more personal than your drinking whiskey instead of eating her cooking.”

Zack wouldn’t talk about the fight that ended with Lisa losing her life. He pushed the door open with more force than it required and got out, then slammed it for good measure.

Logan followed him at a much more leisurely pace.

Zack lowered the tailgate and started unloading tools. “You never did tell me why you’re here.”

Logan grabbed the cooler he’d put on the truck bed back at Lance’s barn. “I wanted to talk to you.”

After depositing the crate of hand tools on the ground beside the bundle of barbed wire and cedar fence posts he’d brought out yesterday, Zack straightened and narrowed his eyes on Logan. “Since when have you ever wanted my opinion on anything? You’re the one with all the answers.”

“I don’t want your opinion. But I hope I get your support.” Logan sat the cooler down and faced Zack. In jeans, plaid cotton shirt, boots, and Stetson, Logan looked every bit like the cowboy he pretended to be when he was up on stage singing before an audience. Zack knew his brother had no interest in the ranch or working on it. He didn’t have much interest in being a lawyer either. Logan rubbed a hand over the dark growth of beard on his chin. “Thanks for coming to my shows over the past few months. It means a lot having you out in the audience.”

Zack shrugged and grabbed a posthole digger from the truck bed. “I never said you couldn’t sing, Logan. But, I think sometimes you’re putting too much energy into a hobby.”

“What if singing and songwriting weren’t hobbies anymore?”

Zack met his brother’s green eyes. “Logan, you had your chance, and it didn’t happen. Let it go.”

“No. One lousy summer in Nashville when I was eighteen doesn’t count. Sure, I fell on my face. I didn’t get a record deal, but I never gave it a chance either. I expected to blow into town and sing in a couple of bars and get picked up in a few months. To be honest, I figured Mom’s fame would have opened doors for me. It didn’t, and I was too impatient and let one
no, thank you
discourage me. I came back to Texas and headed off to college like Dad wanted me to. But I’m selling songs I’ve written to big name singers. Seth Kendall’s latest number one single is one of
my
songs, and Nate McConnell’s got one climbing the charts.” He tapped his chest. “I have a CD full of my own music that’s selling locally and a couple of demos making the circuit in Nashville. Plus, I’m a hell of a lot smarter now.”