Her Cowboy Hero

“I’m gonna need it for the National Finals in Vegas in a couple of weeks,” Tanner continued. “I was hoping to practice on it before that.”

“Your mother said you had qualified. That’s quite a feat.” Keira knew this from terse comments Alice dropped here and there, but overall Alice kept most news of Tanner to herself, and Keira didn’t press for more. She knew she had no right to know what was going on in Tanner’s life. Not after she’d left him the way she had.

“I placed third overall in the regular season,” Tanner said. “Missed a few rodeos cause of injuries, so I’m hoping to do better in Vegas.”

Tanner and his brother, David, had ridden the rodeo together since they first qualified as novices. They had both rode saddle broncs and competed in the same rodeos, often working their way up the ranks together.

In fact, it was Tanner’s involvement in rodeo that had been one of the points of contention between them when she and Tanner were dating. She hated watching him risk his life each time he mounted a saddle bronc. She also hated the fact that after his father died, instead of working on the Circle C Ranch, he had taken a job working as a mechanic’s apprentice. Between his work and rodeoing, they’d hardly seen each other. She had always thought he would take over his father’s ranch. He’d been working on it since he was a boy, but after Cyrus Fortier died, Tanner went to work full-time as a mechanic. He couldn’t get work in Saddlebank or Bozeman, and ended up working for a mechanic in Sheridan, Wyoming, a five-hour drive from the ranch. They had fought bitterly about that, and Tanner wouldn’t tell her why he had taken on the work. She’d finally found out after their worst fight, when she’d ended their engagement, that Tanner’s stepmother had inherited the ranch and all the holdings. But by the time she’d found out, it was too late to talk about it. She had already given him his ring back and had moved on.

“I heard you’re still doing mechanic work, as well?”

“Still pulling wrenches except last year I bought out the owner. Now I’m the boss, which means I can take off when I want. I took over the shop in Sheridan after a good rodeo run. The same one I started working on before—” He cut himself off there, but didn’t need to finish. Keira knew exactly what he meant.

Before that summer when she left Tanner and Saddlebank, without allowing him the second chance he so desperately wanted. Before that summer when everything changed.

A heavy silence dropped between them as solid as a wall. Keira turned away, pushing the memories down again. Burying them deep where they couldn’t taunt her.

But Tanner’s very presence teased them to the surface.

Dear Lord, help me through this situation. I don’t have enough strength on my own.

She looked up at him to tell him she couldn’t work on the saddle, but as she did she felt a jolt of awareness. In his eyes she saw puzzlement and hurt. She tried to tear her gaze away but it was as if the old bond that had once connected them still bound them to each other.

Her resolve weakened and against her better judgment she took another look at the saddle, weighing, judging. “I don’t know....” Her voice trailed off. She wasn’t sure she wanted to have anything more to do with Tanner than she could possibly avoid. Fixing his saddle would put them in each other’s paths far too often.

“I’d appreciate it if you could fix it. It means a lot to me.” His conciliatory tone, so at odds with the faint mockery that had laced his words previously, caught her off guard.

She sighed, wondering again if she was letting sentiment dictate her actions. She turned the saddle over again, looking at it more closely. Then she frowned.

“This saddle has some initials stamped on it,” she said quietly, turning the leather of the skirt over to show him. “I can’t make it out.”

“D.F. David Fortier. It was my brother’s saddle.”

David’s saddle. Keira’s heart, already overworked, kicked up another notch. “Why are you using it?” She pulled her hands away.

“In honor of him. We were getting to the end of the season when he died. He had qualified for the NFR. I promised myself to finish what he started. It took me two years, but here I am.”

Keira turned the saddle over again with trembling hands, then set it carefully aside. “I’m sorry, Tanner. I can’t fix the saddle for you.”

“What? Why not?” Tanner shot her a frustrated scowl. “I thought you said it would take two weeks.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think I can find two weeks to work on it. I’ll get you the card of someone who might be able to help you,” she said, turning her back to him as she rummaged through the old wooden desk, her hands trembling again as she pulled a business card out of one of the drawers. Sugar, startled out of his sleep, stood and looked up at her, his head tilted to one side as if wondering what she was doing.

Keira took a deep breath, sent up another prayer then handed the card to Tanner.

He took it then frowned. “Landolt?”

“He does good work.”

“Not as good as Monty. And you.”

Keira’s hand lowered as she looked from the card Tanner held to the saddle laying on the table. It was as if that inanimate object encapsulated so much of what lay between her and Tanner. And what could never be changed.

“There’s another guy in Idaho who dad refers people to,” she said, turning back to her desk. “I’ll see if I have his information.”

Just then the door of the shop opened, bringing in the chill of the outdoors and a flash of sunlight. Sugar jumped up and ran to the door.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Tanner Fortier.” Her father’s voice boomed into the silence as he shut the door behind him, closing off the cold and the light.

Keira turned in time to see Tanner enveloped in a bear hug by her tall, lean father. Monty was easily six feet tall but Tanner topped him by a couple of inches. Monty pulled back, shaking his head as he looked Tanner over. “You look like some castaway cowboy,” he teased, clapping a hand on Tanner’s worn jacket.

“I feel like one,” Tanner retorted as a truly genuine smile softened his harsh features, put a sparkle in his dark eyes and disturbed Keira’s equilibrium. “Been a busy season.”

“You did well, I understand. Enough to qualify for the NFR. Good stuff. Proud of you, son.” Monty beamed his approval. He had always liked Tanner. Solid, dependable. Hardworking.

An overall great guy. Someone Monty easily called son as he had while he and Keira were dating. When they got engaged, her parents were thrilled. Part of that happiness was because Monty and Ellen needed some good news in their lives. Their oldest son, Lee, had just been sent to prison, and Keira’s older sister, Heather, had just moved to New York against their wishes. The engagement of a Fortier to a Tanner had been the one bright spot in that horrible year.

Keira’s heart stuttered again.

“So what do we have here?” Monty was saying as he picked up the saddle. “Not this saddle’s first rodeo.”

“I brought it here hoping you could fix it.”

Monty turned the saddle over and smiled. “I made this one,” he said. “For your brother, David.”

“I was just telling Tanner that we don’t have time to work on it,” Keira said, praying again as she caught Tanner’s confused gaze in her peripheral vision.

“Of course we have time,” he said, his frown showing her he didn’t get her unspoken message. “For Tanner, we make time.”

“We’ve got an exhibition to get stuff ready for and that order from that store in Seattle,” Keira replied, wishing she could keep the pleading tone out of her voice. She had no concrete reason not to do the job, nor was she about to get into specifics.

“Get Allison to come in and help you,” Monty said. “Or I can pitch in.”

“The doctor said you had to slow down. I don’t want you working too much.”

Monty waved off her concerns then turned to Tanner. “Just leave it here, son. We’ll get it fixed up for you one way or the other.”

Keira maintained a veneer of tense restraint but she felt it slipping. She wasn’t going to look at Tanner, but as if her eyes had their own will, they turned to him.

It wasn’t hard to see the hurt and puzzlement on his face, and for a moment she prayed for a return to the muted anger he had shown when he’d first come in.

That would be easier to deal with.

God had been her refuge and strength the past few years. Her strong fortress. And from the way events were moving now, she would need His strength more than ever in the next few weeks.

Chapter Two (#u76c2797f-a67d-5933-abee-84cd115bf199)

“You better come up to the house,” Monty said as Keira moved the saddle over to the workbench.