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“Aw, Daisy, I can’t change the past, and I sure can’t change my daddy. You and Gypsy Girl were at every rodeo I hit last year, an’ this year’s likely to be the same. I know you’ve got your pride, but if it’ll save you a few bucks and maybe some headaches, we can ride together. We’re neighbors, y’know. I’m right up the road from your place, drive by it all the time.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call us neighbors, Hank Gallagher.”
He was stupid, giving her an in. She sure knew how to torture him. Every time he was in her presence the past ten years, she’d made him feel like a jerk. Ignored. Invisible. He hated that. Back in high school, she’d roll her eyes whenever he was foolish enough to get in range. Turning quickly, she’d walk away, fine cheekbones and pink lips held high, honey-smooth ponytail swinging.
She’d stuck almighty close to T.J. Watkins, though.
T.J. was a tall, lean wise ass with a cocky mouth and nothing going except his talent in the saddle. Junior year, he took “Best Young Rider” at Beeline’s Annual Rodeo and Fair before going pro, finishing only a half point ahead of Hank.
Hank started senior year angry with Daisy for the big brouhaha she’d made over T.J. He’d shown off with the assortment of petite, big-chested cheerleaders fussing around him, but it hadn’t done much to dull the echo of Daisy’s whoops and cheers for T.J. Some days, they still rang loud in his ears.
Then last spring, he’d heard her daddy was sick, and he couldn’t stay mad. Buck had looked out for Hank from the time he was just a little bit of an ankle-biter, taught Hank to ride, taught him a lot about ranching, as a matter of fact. Nobody could read a Black Baldy or Angus or Hereford the way Daisy’s daddy could. He let out a long breath. “You still mad about something I did in high school, Daisy?”
“What happened between your daddy and mine was a long time before high school, Hank,” she snapped.
“You want to talk about it?”
She sent him a withering glare. Crossing her arms, she spoke to the window. “What’s to talk about? Let’s just leave it be, Hank. It’s a long trip ahead of us, and Gypsy and I are stuck counting on you for the ride back, too.”
Her arms stayed across her chest. He didn’t mind; it gave him a good look at her chest. Daisy ran lean, but her breasts were high and plump, like ripe peaches under her pale, fitted shirt.
“I’ll stop for gas, next exit. We can check on the horses. You want ice cream?”
“Nope.”
“Aw, it’s just ice cream, Daisy Mae. You don’t want it, you can toss it out the window,” he said.
Carefully bored, she sighed.
He pulled up to the gas pumps and opened the front door of the gooseneck, surprised when Daisy slipped by, scrambling between the horses. She put hands on chests and flanks, making sure they weren’t breathing too hard, or worse, colicky from heat.
“Oo, it’s cool back here, the temperature’s just fine,” she said. In ten years, it was the first Daisy’d approved of anything he’d done.
Smiling, Hank poured water into buckets. He held one up for Gypsy, but Daisy bumped his elbow, easing her denim-clad behind right in front of him to take the bucket. “I got this. I’ll water Cuervo, too. You go pump gas,” she said, her voice velvety-smooth.
Stepping from the trailer into the hot afternoon sun, his groin stirred, and the hair on his arms prickled from the sense of her. Maybe things would settle between them. But where the hell will that leave me? She was a rare kind of pretty. There had always been something special about Daisy.
He paid for the gas and returned to the truck, dropping a cool paper bag on her lap. Ignoring it, she sucked her water bottle.
Shaking his head at her obstinance, he took a paper-wrapped frozen chocolate bar from the bag and held it by the stick, waving it in front of her as he accelerated onto the highway. “C’mon, Daisy Mae, I know you like ice cream.”
After a long minute, she rolled her eyes and whipped it away from him. Tearing its wrapper, she bit the top off and passed it back, tooth-marked and sticky smooth.“Here, happy now?”
Chocolate dots dripped onto his dusty arm. He grinned, letting his fingers sweep over hers. Finishing in two bites, he licked both sides of the wooden stick, reached across the console and pressed it to her worn denim thigh. Shaking her head, trying not to smile, Daisy took the stick and tossed it into the ashtray.
After that, things were better between them.
