Conner must have sensed what she was doing. “Am I good to go, Doc?”
“Yep. I don’t find anything except for a couple of bruises, which will only take you an hour or so to heal from.”
Taryn rushed up to him and said, “Are you okay? You flew across the arena. Everyone was talking about how they had never seen anyone go so far in their entire lives.”
“It was definitely an interesting experience,” Conner said. “It was a first for me, and I’ve been thrown off a lot of bulls and horses in my lifetime. I hit that post hard and for a second, I couldn’t move. I was afraid that I had broken my back.”
“I saw Mother in the crowd earlier. She disappeared right after you were thrown. I’m pretty sure she had something to do with it.”
Conner sighed. “At least I know who we are. I didn’t forget one or more of us this time.”
“I’m just worried that she’s going to do something worse.”
Shaking his head, Conner said, “I guess we’ll deal with that when it happens.”
Beth stretched and yawned. “I’m ready for bed. Come on, Taryn.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” he said.
Beth’s heart sank when they got to her car. All four tires were completely flat. The knife gashes were clearly evident.
“What in the…” Conner looked at Taryn and said, “Hades happened?”
“I’ve heard worse at school,” she assured him.
“Not from me,” he said. “I’ll give you three guesses who did this, and the first two don’t count.”
“Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Rogers, and Her Majesty, the rodeo queen,” Beth said through gritted teeth.
She was already on the phone with her insurance company. Beth explained that someone slashed her tires and told them what size tires she had.
“They’ll be here in half an hour to an hour,” she said. “I guess we wait.”
“I’m sorry,” Conner said. “I knew that she was a nasty individual, but I never guessed that she would do something like this.”
“She confronted me earlier. Kelly told me to stay away from you guys because you were in a relationship. You had to keep it on the down low, because, to make your roles as queen and cowboy more appealing, you had to seem as though you were single and available for potential romantic hookups.”
Conner shook his head. “I don’t know what she’s smoking, because I’ve told her over and over again that I have absolutely zero interest in being her friend, let alone anything beyond that.”
“Some women just don’t get the hint,” Beth said. “Speak of the devil.”
All three of them looked at the woman, still dressed in her sequined outfit, strolling up to them, almost as though she was on a runway in Paris.
“Oh, my goodness,” Kelly said, with fake shock, putting her fingers over her mouth. “What on Earth could have happened?”
“I think you know damned good and well what happened,” Conner growled.
“Language. There’s a little one here,” Kelly said, sweetly. “We wouldn’t want to upset the child, now, would we.”
“What do you want?” Conner asked.
“Why, I just saw you guys standing out here by her car and I was worried that something was wrong. I simply want to help.”
Her fake, sweet voice was getting on Beth’s last nerve. Never in her life did she want to so badly take a swing at someone.
“I think that you’ve done enough,” Conner said.
“At least let me give you and Taryn a ride home,” Kelly said.