A Bull Rider To Depend On

She drove home, racking her brain as to her next move. She could maybe eke out six months. If nothing happened. If the strange sound in the truck’s reverse gear didn’t get more persistent. If the animals all stayed healthy. If she could nail down another part-time job, work eighteen-hour days. It wouldn’t have to be forever. Just long enough to catch up. But it also wouldn’t buy hay for her cattle.

Skye felt tears start to well up, but she blinked them back, suddenly sitting taller in her seat when she saw the truck parked next to her house.

Ty Hayward’s truck.

Unless Jess had borrowed it.

Yeah. That had to be it. But when the man got out of the driver’s seat as she pulled in, she instantly knew it wasn’t Jess. They might be twins, but Ty’s movements were different, smoother, more catlike than Jess’s. More...predatory.

Ty Hayward had come to call, and she hated to think of what that could mean. She was very certain, however, judging from the grim expression he wore, that he wasn’t there to offer her money again.

* * *

SKYE STARTED WALKING toward where Ty stood beside his truck, stony expression firmly in place. Her hair was pulled into a sophisticated-looking bun thing instead of tumbling around her shoulders in dark waves as usual, and she wore a light blue dress with sensible heels.

He instantly surmised that she’d been to another bank and that things had not gone well. Ty told himself he didn’t care.

“Hello, Tyler.” She came to a stop a few feet away from him, just as she had the day before, and adjusted the position of the purse strap on her shoulder, keeping her fingers lightly curled around the black leather.

“Skye.”

“What brings you here today?”

Coolly spoken words, but Ty read uncertainty in her expression. Guilt, perhaps...?

“I’m for sure not here to offer you money.” He took a lazy step forward. “I want you to set the record straight.”

“What record?”

His voice grew hard as he said, “Where do you come off telling people that I’m trying to buy a clear conscience?”

Skye gaped at him. “What?”

He cocked his head. “What part needs repeating?”

“I never told anyone you were trying to buy a clear conscience.”

“Well, that’s the story going around, Skye. I wonder how it started.” He didn’t need any hints as to how it spread. Angie was something. He took another step forward, doing his best to ignore the fact that she looked utterly confused. “I tried to help you, Skye. I wanted to help you. It had nothing—not one thing—to do with my conscience.”

Her chin went up at that. “Nothing?”

He shook his head, realizing then just how deeply ingrained her dislike of him was. She was never going to believe anything but the worst of him, and he wasn’t going to try to convince her otherwise. “I’m wasting my time here.” He turned and started back across the drive toward his truck, cursing his stupidity in driving to her ranch. The damage was done. And realistically, he’d never expected her to be able to make the situation better, but he wanted her to know what she’d done so that she didn’t do it again. Mission accomplished.

He jerked the truck door open, and then, because this could well be the last time they ever spoke, he said, “For the record, I never gambled with your husband.”

An expression of patent disbelief crossed Skye’s face, but before she could speak, he said, “I know it’s really handy to blame me, since you’ve never cared for me. I’m a nice, easy target to make you feel better about things, but here’s the deal—I don’t gamble.”

“Ever?”

“More like never as in...never.”

“You’re saying my husband lied to me.”

Sorry, Mason, but the roosters have come home to roost. “I’m saying he used me as an excuse.”

“You never partied with him.”

“Of course I partied with him. We drank together. A lot. But we never went gambling.”

She looked at him as if he was missing the point. “If Mason had stayed in at night, if he hadn’t drunk too much, then he wouldn’t have gambled. But would you leave him alone? No.”

“He never once said anything about wanting to stay in.” That was the honest truth. “He never acted like he wanted to stay in.” And Tyler hadn’t seen the danger of encouraging him to go out until it was too late. But Mason would have gone out no matter what. Tyler was convinced of that.

“Or you’re not presenting things the way they really were.”

Ty’s eyes narrowed. “Why would I present things any other way?” In other words, why would he lie?

“I don’t know. Guilt, maybe? Public image?”

“I’m not lying, Skye. I know you believe that I’m the reason you’re broke. I’m the reason Mason had hangovers. Yes, you asked me to leave him alone. No, I didn’t do it. But I didn’t encourage him to gamble and lose all of his money—or to gamble some more to try to make it all back. That was fully his thing.”

Tyler’s jaw tightened as he fought the urge to tell Skye the whole truth. To tell her what her husband was like on the road. To tell her that gambling wasn’t the only vice Mason indulged in.

But angry as he was, he couldn’t do that to her.

He also couldn’t handle being in her presence any longer. “You want to hide behind a lie? Fine. Have a good life, Skye.” The words came out bitterly, as if he cared in some way about what she thought, but he didn’t.

“You, too,” Skye said in a stony voice, before walking past him, her heels tilting in the gravel as she made her way around his truck. She was almost directly in front of the vehicle when she stopped dead in her tracks.

Ty followed her line of vision and instantly saw the problem. One of her horses was down, next to the water trough, and from the way it was lying with its neck stretched out and its head at an odd angle, he didn’t think it was napping. He got back out of his truck at the same moment that Skye started running toward the pasture in her heels.

He might be angry. He might have been happy to never see Skye again. But no way was he going to drive away when she had a horse down.

The horse needed help even if Skye didn’t.

Chapter Four (#u9b1a17c3-f462-500b-8da8-c2eea914ba01)

Mr. Joe lay stretched out on the ground next to the water tank, and even as Skye raced toward him, she knew it was too late. She slid to a stop close to his head, dropping to her knees in the dirt and reaching out to stroke his face. His eye came open and rolled up at her. He blinked once and shut his eyes again as he gave a rattling breath.

“No, no, no.” Skye barely registered what she was saying as she stroked his ears and then wrapped her arms around his neck, burying her face against him, pulling in his scent. This day had been coming. Mr. Joe hadn’t been able to hold weight for the past year, despite her best efforts and bags and bags of senior horse chow, but, dignified gentleman that he was, he’d never shown any sign of weakness or pain. He’d eaten what he could and spent his days ambling around the pasture, hanging with his best buddy, Pepper, or just sleeping in the sun.

Tyler dropped down beside her, checking the horse’s pulse at his throat and then running a gentle hand over the animal’s jowl as his gaze traveled over the horse’s bony frame.

“How old?”

“Twenty-eight.” The words stuck in Skye’s throat. She swallowed and said, “I knew it was coming, but I’m not ready yet.” As if she’d ever be ready.

She jerked her gaze away from Tyler’s before tears could form. Why did he have to be here for this? But he was here and her horse was dying and she had to deal. Again she rested her cheek against her old gentleman’s neck and squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out. Denying. She felt the last breath. Felt him go still, but she did not move. Could not move. Mr. Joe had been with her since she was ten. He’d been her 4-H horse, her very slow rodeo horse, her friend, confidant. Companion. After Mason had died, she’d spent hours grooming the old gelding, talking to him, mourning his weight loss and the inevitable, but loving him while he was there to love.