Reckless in Texas (2 page)

The last Brahma to buck at the Puyallup, Washington, rodeo was a huge red brindle named Cyberbully. Three jumps out of the chute he launched his rider into the clear blue sky. The cowboy thumped into the dirt like a hundred-and-forty-pound sack of mud and stayed there, motionless, while the bull whipped around, looking to add injury to insult.

Joe Cassidy stepped between them and tapped Cyberbully's fat nose. “Hey, Cy. This way.”

The bull took the bait. Joe hauled ass, circling away from the fallen cowboy with the Brahma a scant inch behind. The big son of a bitch was fast. Caught out in the middle of the arena, Joe couldn't outrun him, so he opted to let Cy give him a boost. With a slight hesitation and a perfectly timed hop, he momentarily took a seat between the bull's stubby horns. Startled, Cy threw up his head and Joe pushed off. As he was thrown free, he saw a flash of neon yellow—his partner sprinting in from the opposite direction. “C'mere, Cy, you ugly bastard!”

The bull hesitated, then went after Wyatt. Joe landed on his feet and spun around to see Wyatt vault up and onto the fence next to the exit gate with a stride to spare. The bull feinted at him, then trotted out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, give a hand to our bullfighters, Joe Cassidy and Wyatt Darrington!” the rodeo announcer shouted. “That's why these two are the best team in professional rodeo.”

The air vibrated, fans whistling and stomping their appreciation as Joe jogged over to check on the cowboy, who had rolled into a seated position.

“You okay, Rowdy?” Joe asked, extending a hand to help him up.

“Yep. Thanks, guys.” Rowdy swiped at the dirt on his chaps and strolled to the chutes, unscathed and unfazed.

Wyatt folded his arms, glaring. “We should let the bulls have the ones that are too dumb to get up and run.”

Joe snorted. That'd be the day. Wyatt was hardwired to save the world—even the parts that didn't want saving.

“That wraps up our rodeo for this year, folks!” the announcer declared. “If you have a hankering for more top-of-the-line professional rodeo action, come on out to Pendleton, Oregon, next week for the world-famous Roundup…”

One more rodeo, then six weeks off. Seven days from now, after Pendleton, he was headed home. Fall was Joe's favorite time of year in the high desert of eastern Oregon, weaning this year's crop of colts and calves under the clear, crisp sky.

He twisted around, checking the spot where the bull had tagged his ribs. Not even a flesh wound thanks to his Kevlar vest, but the big bastard had ripped a hole in his long-sleeved jersey. “Damn. That's the third one this month.”

Wyatt took off his cowboy hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with a shirtsleeve. “You're gettin' old and slow, pardner.”

“Five years less old and slow than you.”

“Yeah, but I take better care of myself.”

“Says the guy with five shiny new screws in his ankle.” Joe nodded toward Wyatt's right leg, supported by a rigid plastic Aircast. “How's it feel?”

“Like they drove the bottom two screws in with a hammer.” Wyatt rotated the ankle, wincing. “Still works, though, so they must've got 'em in good and tight.”

Joe rubbed the sting from the elbow Cyberbully had smacked with the top of his rock-hard skull. He ached from head to toe with the cumulative fatigue of six straight days of rodeo piled on top of all the other weeks and months of bruises and bodily insults. “What the hell is wrong with us?” he asked.

Wyatt started for the gate. “I'm in it for the women and free booze. Let's go make that stupid shit Rowdy buy us a beer.”

“Just remember, you're driving,” Joe said, yawning.

Wyatt sent him a sympathetic glance. “Long night, huh?”

“Yeah.” Tension crawled up his back at the memory. Goddamn Lyle Browning. Someone should've castrated the bastard by now. His wife had plenty of reasons to cry, but why did she insist on using Joe's shoulder?

Wyatt shook his head. “I shouldn't have left you alone at the bar. You were already upset before the weepy woman.”

“I wasn't upset.” The tension slithered higher, toward the base of Joe's skull.

“Bullshit. Your old man lives fifteen miles from here and couldn't show up to watch you in action. That sucks.”

“I'm thirty years old, not ten. It's not like he skipped a little league game.” But he'd missed plenty. Most of Joe's high school sports career, in fact.

But that was ancient history. Joe tipped off his cowboy hat, peeled the ruined jersey over his head, then balled it up and gave it a mighty heave. It landed three rows up, in the outstretched arms of a little girl in a pink cowboy hat, who squealed her excitement. Joe smiled and waved and kept moving. He wanted to be gone. Far, far away from Puyallup and any expectations he hadn't been able to stomp to death.

“I haven't seen Lyle's wife around today,” Wyatt said.

“Probably still hugging the toilet.”

Or maybe she'd finally smartened up and left. 'Bout time. Lyle Browning was a sniveling dog, dragging along on the coattails of his dad's successful rodeo company. They'd grown up in the same small town and Joe had started working summers on the Browning Ranch when he was fifteen, but he and Lyle had never been friends. Early on, Joe had had some sympathy. Had to suck for Lyle, his mom dying when he was so young, and his dad not exactly the nurturing type. At some point, though, a guy had to take responsibility for his own life.

As they stepped into the narrow alley behind the bucking chutes, a hand clamped on Joe's shoulder. “Hey, asshole. I need to talk to you.”

The words were slurred, the voice a permanent whine. Joe turned and found himself face-to-face with the last person he wanted to see. He brushed off the hand. “Whaddaya want, Lyle?”

Lyle Browning tried to get in Joe's face, but came up short by a good six inches. Even at that distance, his breath was toxic. “You fucking prick. How long you been sneaking around, fucking my wife?”

“Don't be stupid.”

Lyle rolled onto his toes, swaying. He smelled like he'd passed out in the bottom of a beer garden dumpster. Looked like it, too. “Everybody saw you leave the bar together, you son of a bitch, and she told me what happened when you got back to her room.”

The
fuck
she did. But Joe could think of a dozen reasons Lyle's wife would want her husband to think she'd gone out and gotten a piece. At the very least, it'd sure teach him to screw around every chance he got. Lyle had mastered the art of trading on his daddy's name with the sleaziest of the buckle bunnies who hung around looking for a cowboy-shaped notch for their bedpost. Too bad for them, they got Lyle instead.

“See?” Lyle crowed. “You can't deny it.”

Joe ground his teeth. Hell. He couldn't. Not without humiliating her all over again in front of the gathering crowd. “You're drunk. Crawl back into your hole and sleep it off. We'll talk later.”

“We'll talk now!”

Joe put a hand on Lyle's chest, making enough space to take a breath without gagging. “Back off, Lyle.”

“Don't push me, asshole!” Lyle reared back and took a wild swing.

His right fist plowed into Joe's stomach. Even if Lyle wasn't a weenie-armed drunk, it would've bounced off Joe's Kevlar vest. His left fist grazed Joe's chin, though, and that was too damn much. Joe popped him square in the mouth. Lyle squealed, arms flailing, then toppled straight over backward, his skull smacking the hard-packed dirt. He jerked a couple of times before his eyes rolled back and the lights went out.

Joe barely had time to think
oh shit
before Dick Browning's voice sliced through the crowd. “What the hell is going on here?”

A whole section of the onlookers peeled away to clear a path. Dick crouched over his son and gave him a not-very-gentle tap on the cheek. “Lyle! You okay?”

Lyle moaned, his head lolling off to one side. Dick jumped up and spun around to face Joe. Where Lyle was scrawny, Dick was wiry, tough as a rawhide whip. He was only a hairbreadth taller than his son, but somehow, when Dick decided to get in your face, he made it work.

Joe took a step back and put up his hands. “He took a swing at me.”

“What did you expect? You mess with a man's wife—”

Like Lyle was any kind of man, but Joe didn't dare say so. Sweat beaded on his forehead, part heat, part panic, as his gaze bounced off Dick's and around the curious crowd. This was not the time or place to set Dick straight. “Can we talk about this later, in private?”

“You disrespect my family, assault my son—there is no later,” Dick snapped. “Consider yourself unemployed. And don't bother showing up at Pendleton, either.”

Joe flinched, the words a verbal slap. “That's crazy. You know I wouldn't—”

“Then why would she say so?”

Joe opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. God
damn
it.

Wyatt yanked him backward and slid into the space between Joe and Dick, smooth as butter. “If that piece of shit you call a son could keep his dick in his pants, his wife wouldn't be out at the bar drinking herself into a coma.”

“This is none of your business.”

“If it's Joe's business, it's mine. We call that friendship—not that you'd know.” Wyatt leaned in, got his eyes down on Dick's level. “Don't give me an excuse, Herod, or I'll lay you out in the dirt with your spawn.”

Joe grabbed him, afraid Wyatt might actually punch the old man. “You can't—”

Wyatt yanked his arm out of Joe's grasp. “It'd be worth the bail money.”

For a long, tense moment they remained locked eye to eye. Then Lyle groaned, rolled over, and puked. Dick jerked around, cursing. “Somebody give me a hand getting him over to my trailer.”

Out of reflex, Joe took a step. Wyatt jabbed an elbow into his sternum. “Don't even
think
about it.”

He hauled Joe away, around the back of the grandstand, over to the sports medicine trailer that also served as their locker room.

“Who is Herod?” Joe asked, unable to process the rest of the scene.

“The most evil fucking tyrant in the Bible, but only because Matthew never met Dick Browning.” Wyatt yanked open the door to the trailer and dragged Joe up the steps.

Matthew. Herod. Christ. “Who says that shit?”

“I'm a preacher's kid,” Wyatt said. “I get my gospel up when I'm pissed.”

Preacher. Hah. Try
Lord High Bishop of Something or Other.
Wyatt's family learned their gospel at Yale Divinity. He read big fat history books for the fun of it. For two guys who had nothing in common, Joe and Wyatt had been a dream team from the first time they worked in the same arena, and hell on wheels outside those arenas. The mileage added up, though, and a thirty-year-old body didn't bounce back from hangovers the same way it used to. Joe sure didn't miss them, or waking up next to woman whose name was lost in his alcohol-numbed brain.

As they stepped into the trailer, one of the athletic trainers grabbed a gauze pad and slapped it on a split in Joe's knuckle. “You're dripping. Wipe it off, then I'll see if you need stitches.”

Wyatt leaned against the counter and folded his arms. “What he needs is a rabies vaccination.”

The trainer's head whipped around in alarm. “It's a dog bite?”

“No,” Joe said.

“Close enough,” Wyatt said. “He cut it on Lyle Browning's face.”

The trainer smirked. “So, more like a rat. Better dissect Lyle's brain to see if he's rabid.”

“Good luck finding one,” Wyatt said. “But I volunteer to knock him over the head. And his little daddy, too.”

“Not very Christian for a choir boy,” Joe muttered.

Wyatt's grin was all teeth. “One of a long list of reasons the Big Guy and I are no longer on speaking terms.”

Fifteen minutes later, the last of the cowboys had cleared out of the trailer and the trainers had gone to have a beer, leaving Joe and Wyatt stretched out on the padded treatment tables. Stripped down to a pair of black soccer shorts with his blond hair slicked back and a bottle of water dangling from long, manicured fingers, Wyatt looked exactly like what he was—the product of generations-deep East Coast money. When asked how he'd ended up fighting bulls, he liked to say it was the best legal way to be sure his family never spoke to him again. The reporters thought he was joking.

Joe's knuckle was bandaged, but his whole hand throbbed in time with the pounding in his head. His initial shock had morphed into fury, churning like hot, black tar in his gut. He punched the pillow with his uninjured fist. “I
should
skip Pendleton. It'd serve Dick right.”

“Don't be an idiot,” Wyatt said. “Just because you're his chore boy on the ranch between rodeos doesn't mean Dick has shit to say about when and where you fight bulls.”

Joe scowled, but couldn't argue. The mega-rodeos they worked were too much for any one stock contractor to handle. Cheyenne lasted two weeks. Denver had sixteen performances. Rodeos that big hired a main contractor to gather up at least a dozen others, each bringing only their best bulls and horses. The rodeo committee also hired the bullfighters. Down in the bush leagues, you worked for the contractor. At the elite level, they were freelancers. Joe and Wyatt were the most sought-after bullfighters in the country, stars in their own right, which meant they could pick and choose from the most prestigious rodeos.

It irritated Wyatt to no end that Joe chose to stick mostly to the rodeos where Dick Browning had been hired to provide bucking stock, and continued to work on Dick's ranch for what was chump change compared to his bullfighter pay. Wyatt blamed misplaced loyalty. And yeah, Dick had given him his start, but Joe had paid that debt a long time ago. The ties that bound him were buried deep in the hills and valleys of the High Lonesome Ranch. He loved that land like nothing else except the stock that ran on it.