Once a Champion

“Is it my horse?” Matt asked quietly.

“I bought him from Trena.”

Relief surged through him, even though he knew he had some work ahead of him.

“Trena had no business selling him.”

“Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t.” And from the expression Liv now wore, she apparently believed Trena did have a reason to sell. “That doesn’t matter. If the horse was sold before the divorce, he was community property and the sale is legal. Trena’s name was on the papers.”

Well, shit. Matt took a moment. One thing he’d learned over the years was that expressing anger solved nothing. There were other ways to get what one wanted.

“She had no right to sell, Liv.” He spoke in his most reasonable voice, no easy feat under the circumstances. Trena had skewered him every way she could prior to their divorce, but selling his horse had been her vengeful coup de grâce. “Beckett was home recuperating from an injury.”

“I’m aware,” Liv said stonily.

“And you would keep him, my horse, even though you know that he shouldn’t have been sold.”

“Legally—”

“I’m not talking legally, Liv. I’m talking about a vindictive person trying to hurt another by selling what was dear to him.”

If he’d expected the speech to make a difference in her demeanor, he was disappointed. She continued to stare at him as if he were a nasty slug or something.

Matt rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, feeling like he’d stepped into the twilight zone. Who was this woman? Where was the Liv he’d once known? That nice kid who’d saved his academic life?

Probably scared to death that he was going to take Beckett away from her—which he was, once he figured out how.

“Can I at least see him?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s my horse, Matt. I’m keeping him.” Once again anger started to rise, and once again Matt tamped it down. He needed to be careful, not burn bridges.

“What did Trena tell you?” Because it was pretty damned obvious that Trena had told her something that wasn’t true.

Liv shrugged carelessly, but her expression was taut as she said, “It doesn’t matter. I bought the horse. I’m keeping the horse.”

“Liv...”

“It’s time for you to leave.”

“Liv—”

“Now.”

Matt exhaled, told himself to calm down. Not blow this. “I’ll buy him back,” he said. “For ten percent more than you paid.”

She smiled a little at that, the first smile since he’d arrived and it was more of a smirk—an expression he’d never seen on Liv’s face before. “I’m not selling.”

There was a noise from inside the house and Liv glanced over her shoulder then back at Matt. “My dad is not well,” she said, finally explaining why she was guarding the door, “but I think he’d take a good shot at kicking your ass if you don’t get out of here. So unless you want to fight an ailing older man, I’d get into that fancy truck of yours and get the hell out of here.”

And with that, Liv turned and walked back into the house. For a moment Matt stood, staring at the door she pulled shut behind her.

Realizing that standing on the front walk wasn’t doing him any good, Matt started back to his truck, striding down the cracked sidewalk and across the weed-choked gravel, his knee throbbing with each step. Anger solved nothing, but he was pissed as hell when he climbed into the cab of his truck. Yeah, he could hammer on the front door and maybe Tim would try to kick his ass, or he could go home, regroup. Think this through. Figure out a way to get his horse back.

He was going with plan B. It’d be easier on both him and Tim in the long run.

* * *

AN UNEXPECTED SHIVER ran through Liv as she watched Matt Montoya turn his truck around and drive past the barn. Delayed reaction. She rubbed her hands over her upper arms. She would not let Matt have Beckett.

“Who was here?” Her father’s deep voice sounded from behind her. She’d hoped he’d sleep through Matt’s visit, and he had, so thank heavens for small favors.

“Matt Montoya.”

“Did he need a calculus lesson?”

Liv turned back to her father and smiled a little. Rarely did her father make jokes, and even less so now that he was not feeling well. He was tall and lean, his dark hair streaked with silver, and normally he held himself in an almost military posture. Right now, though, his shoulders were slightly hunched, as if he were in pain. Liv hated seeing him that way, hated that he was pretending he was merely recovering from the flu.

“My horse. He had questions about him.” Liv took one last look at the rooster tail of dust from Matt’s truck, then moved away from the window. “Seems he wasn’t in favor of Trena selling Beckett.”

“Good thing she did,” was all Tim said. “Did Matt give you any grief?”

Liv shook her head.

“Good thing,” Tim repeated as he sat in his leather recliner, a chair that had been in the house ever since Liv could remember. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes. Seeing her father in a chair during the day had shocked Liv when she’d first moved home from Billings a week and a half ago—almost as much as the fact that he hadn’t cut the hay on time. Not that he’d let her cut it for him. That would be admitting there was something wrong instead of pretending it was a conscious choice on his part.

She needed to get him to a doctor, but there was no forcing Tim Bailey to do anything he didn’t want to do. They both knew the ranch was a wreck, that it was due to health issues, but he resisted all of Liv’s efforts to discuss the matter. Finally she’d stopped trying—at least until she had more of a handle on the situation.

“I’m feeling better today,” he said, keying in to her thoughts. “Whatever this bug is, I’m finally getting the better of it.”

Liv didn’t believe him.

“You’re dressed for town,” Tim commented. Meaning that she was wearing slacks instead of jeans and sandals instead of running shoes.

“I’m having lunch with Andie.” Her doctor friend who had the clinic where she was going to start providing physical therapy services. She was just glad she’d still been at the ranch when Matt showed up looking for Beckett. She hadn’t expected that to happen, not in a million years.

“Don’t know why you left an established business in Billings,” Tim grumbled. Liv knew he suspected it was because of Greg, her ex-fiancé, but that wasn’t why she’d left.

“I wanted to come back to Dillon.” She didn’t dare say “to be closer to you and find out what the hell is going on because the ranch is a wreck and we both know it.” Out loud, anyway.

Her parents—polar opposites—had divorced when she was five. She’d spent every summer with her father on the ranch, and even though she loved him, she didn’t really know him. She didn’t know if Tim Bailey let anyone truly know him—even those he loved.

Living with her father had never been uncomfortable, merely silent. Sometimes they talked, but usually about small things. Things that didn’t require Tim to open up. And when they weren’t talking, they’d worked together on the place. Every morning Tim would have a written list of chores and Liv would do her part, some in the house, some outside, mostly what her father considered to be girl stuff, not hard labor. She’d often wondered if her father wrote a list to be organized, or so he wouldn’t have to talk. She’d wanted to talk. She still wanted to talk.

Fat chance.