A Bull Rider To Depend On

As soon as she got home, Skye took off her uniform and put it directly into the washer before pulling on worn jeans and a crewneck sweatshirt, dressing in quick jerky movements. She wanted to stop thinking—to turn off her brain and just...be.

As if.

It was going to be another sleepless night. She was certain of that, just as she was certain that Tyler was to blame...although it wasn’t in the way that she usually blamed him. He’d simply uttered a truth that she hadn’t wanted to hear. A truth that had echoed through her brain for the entire trip home.

Mason was a grown man. Mason had made his own choices.

She knew that. But he’d also had an addiction that his friends could have helped him manage. They didn’t. End of story.

She gathered her hair into a ponytail, slapped on a ball cap and headed out the door to take care of her menagerie.

Skye loved animals, as had Mason, which was why she now had so many mouths to feed in addition to the cattle. Cattle she wouldn’t have for much longer if she couldn’t secure a loan to buy the hay she needed to feed them. If she had to sell the cattle at a loss, see all of her hard work go by the wayside, it was going to kill her. She could catch up on the truck payment if she sold, but without that cow money being there when she needed it, she couldn’t afford the ranch. And if she couldn’t afford the ranch, then she was going to have to give up her livestock.

Her animals had been the one thing that had seen her through after Mason had died. How could she even think about giving them up?

Simple. She couldn’t. And she wouldn’t.

Her mini-donkey, Chester, came trotting across the pasture with the old mule, Babe, not too far behind as Skye walked the short distance down the driveway to the barn. Chester ducked under the bottom wire of the fence as if it wasn’t there and continued on to Skye, stopping directly in front of her. Skye reached out to rub his wiry forelock, shaking her head as Babe gave a loud protest from the pasture.

“You know it upsets him when you do this,” Skye chided the little donkey, who rubbed his head on her hip, almost knocking her over. Babe called to his buddy again in his rusty voice, and Skye gave the little donkey a push. “Back to the pasture.”

The donkey showed no signs of minding, so Skye went to the dwindling haystack and tossed several flakes of alfalfa over the fence into the low feeders. Chester shoved his way back under the wire and joined his friend, who was already tossing hay in the air, looking for the good stuff. Vanessa, the Canada goose she’d rescued from the creek when she’d been a hatchling, waddled out of the barn and into the pasture where Skye’s mare, Pepper, and Mason’s gelding, Buzz, grazed near Mr. Joe, the horse who’d raised her. The grass was tall and would feed the three for several weeks. The cows had decent pasture, too, on the remnants of the newly cut alfalfa field. Her closest neighbor, Cliff, had cut her hay twice this year... Thank goodness for good neighbors. But the fields hadn’t produced nearly enough to see her through the winter.

Hay. Money. Problems.

She had one more bank appointment. A smaller bank that was friendly toward ranchers—probably the first place she should have gone, except that it was in a small town thirty miles away from Gavin, and she felt a loyalty to the bank that had given her the mortgage. The bank that was not one bit interested in working with her now that she’d hit a bump in the road.

She understood the concern, but it wasn’t like she wanted the money for a vacation or something. She wanted the money so that she could make money to pay back the bank and thus save them both a lot of headaches and hassle. The bank guy didn’t see it that way.

She felt hopeful about the new bank, though. She’d gone to school with the loan officer and felt certain she could talk to him as a person, explain the run of bad luck and exactly how she planned to work her way through it. One loan. That was all she needed to prove herself.

Jinx the cat came trotting toward her from the direction of the barn and threw his heavy body against her legs. Now that he’d had his night out, he was ready for some TLC, so Skye leaned down and scooped him up.

“Well, Jinxy old boy, I struck out again.”

The cat butted his head against the underside of her chin as if telling her he had total faith in her. She set the cat on the lodge pole fence, and he trotted easily along the top rail to the next post, where he stopped to groom himself.

Ah, to be carefree.

Although, honestly, Skye didn’t need to be carefree. Being a widow had knocked most of the carefree out of her, and she truly doubted that she’d ever get it back. What she wanted was to be secure. Secure enough to not worry about losing her place. Secure enough to provide for her pets and livestock.

Secure enough to not lie awake worrying at night.

Was that too much to ask for?

* * *

SOMETHING WAS UP with Tyler’s cousin, Blaine Hayward. Whenever he shifted his jaw sideways and did the thousand-mile stare instead of making eye contact—or in this case, watching the high school kids practice bull riding in Hennessey’s practice pen—he was dealing with something. And Tyler had a strong suspicion that whatever his cousin was working over in his head involved him. Blaine was dating Angie Salinas from the café, and Skye worked with Angie. Blaine had barely met Tyler’s gaze once that day, which meant that Tyler was probably at the center of whatever.

“Something on your mind?” he finally asked after they’d watched the last practice ride.

Blaine shot him a sideways glance, looking relieved at the question. “I heard you offered Skye a loan.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Because Tyler couldn’t see Skye spreading the word. She had her pride.

“Angie saw the two of you talking yesterday, and asked Skye about it, because...well, you know how things are between you two.”

Yeah. He did.

“And Skye told her about the loan?”

Blaine met his gaze then, dead on. “Skye told Angie that you were trying to buy a clear conscience.”

It took Tyler a couple of seconds to say, “No kidding.” He even managed a fairly reasonable tone, given the circumstances, but he didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to do that. Not with his jaw muscles going tighter every second. Buy a clear conscience? Really, Skye?

Blaine shrugged his big shoulders. “You know she blames you for Mason’s issues.”

“Because Mason was such a saint.”

“She needs to think so.”

Tyler understood that, but still...to accuse him publicly—because anything said to Angie would soon become public—of trying to buy a clear conscience when all he’d wanted to do was to help her?

That grated.

Really grated.

“Don’t do anything to make me regret telling you this,” Blaine muttered. Ty frowned. “I’m serious, man. Angie will kill me.”

Ty gave a nod, somehow keeping himself from pointing out that Angie had probably already filled in half the town, which totally ticked him off. He could deal with being the scapegoat for Skye’s dead husband’s behavior, but he was not going to put up with her spreading blatant rumors about him.

He was going to have a word with Skye. Set the record straight. Most of it, anyway. And he was going to have Skye issue a retraction—via Angie or any other method she chose.

* * *

ANY HOPE SKYE had of negotiating a loan with Marshal Valley Bank was squelched the instant she took a seat at the loan officer’s desk. Dan Peterson wore “the look”—the one that clearly indicated that he’d investigated matters and, even though his bank was smaller and more lenient in their lending practices than most, and even though they’d known each other since high school, Skye didn’t qualify for a second-chance loan.

She gave it a shot anyway after they’d exchanged stiff opening pleasantries. She explained the reason for the mortgage, how she and her husband had accidentally overextended, and because of his gambling addiction had lost the fund that was supposed to see them through rough times. She handed over her figures and explained that there would be no more gambling, that her husband was dead and she was trying desperately to hold on to her ranch.

It was obvious that the guy felt for her, and equally obvious that his answer had to be no.

“For now,” he’d told her when she’d gotten to her feet. She was used to the rubbery-knee, rock-in-her-stomach feelings by now, so she simply smiled when he said, “Come back in six months, when your payments are current, and we’ll talk.”

Six months. Dead of winter. When her cows needed the hay. Right.

“I wish I could do more, Skye, but my bosses—”

“I understand, Dan. Thanks.”