Page 79 of Tempting Fate
A Randy Travis song played in the background, and outside she could see it had started snowing again. During the night they’d gotten an inch or so. Hopefully, they wouldn’t get much more. Otherwise, it would be a bitch for digging.
A couple wandered in out of the cold and fixed themselves each a cup of coffee. They were dressed in Western attire that looked straight off the rack and boots too nice to ride in. They examined the buckles for a few seconds, then seemed to notice her for the first time and smiled.
“Are you going on the ten o’clock trail ride?” the woman asked.
“Uh, no,” Raylene said. “I’m not a guest.”
The woman took a seat on the sofa across from Raylene. “Then you must be a local. We love it here, don’t we, Rob?”
“Yep.” Rob was immersed in reading one of the pamphlets at the desk about things to do in the Sierra.
“We already made a reservation for summer,” she continued. “This time, we’re planning to spend a couple of days at that Victorian hotel in town.”
Raylene nodded, too rattled by nerves to give the woman her full attention. The lady kept up a steady stream of conversation, unaware that Raylene wasn’t really listening.
The door opened and Lucky wiped his boots on the scraper before coming in. He’d caught her off guard the other day when he’d come to yell at her about the motocross park. Now, she took the time to really look at him. He was as gorgeous as ever, maybe even more so. His face had always been arresting, but the years had whittled away his full cheeks, leaving a profile that was raw and rugged and breathtaking. There were a few streaks of silver in his dark hair that hadn’t been there a few years ago. And his body had lost some of its ranginess from his rodeo and PBR days. But what she noticed most was that he looked happy, like a man at the top of his game, blessed with people who loved him.
He scanned the lobby, and his expression went from bright to dark the second he spotted her. To her advantage, he couldn’t banish her from the property in front of his two guests. She rose, calculating how to play this.
“I was hoping you, Tawny, and I could talk.”
He nodded a greeting at the couple, put his hand under Raylene’s elbow, and walked her out of the cabin into the parking lot.
“Before you kick me out, let me say what I’ve come to say.” Step nine out of twelve. She’d already made amends to Logan and to all the others she’d hurt, leaving the Rodriguezes for last. With them, she had the most justice to restore.
“Unless you’re here to tell me you’re not selling to a motocross company, we’ve got nothing to say.”
“Please, Lucky, it won’t take long.”
He dropped his hand and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I’d hoped you’d left by now.”
“I’m leaving Monday. And you’ll never have to see me again, I swear. Just give me a few minutes.”
He looked at his watch. “You’ve got eight seconds.” The length of time a bull rider is required to stay on a bull’s back to receive a score. Basically, a death-defying eternity for a cowboy. She hadn’t missed the reference, or the jibe.
“I had hoped we could do this inside…with Tawny, too.”
“Nope. You’ve just used two of your seconds.”
“I came to make amends,” she said.
He made a bitter sound in his throat that she presumed was supposed to be laughter. “We both know there’s no way you can do that.”
“I can’t undo what I did, but I can own up to every horrible piece of it.” She shuffled her feet. The snow was coming down harder now, and she was so cold her lips were numb.
“How about you make good on your promise to leave Monday, never come back, and we call it amends.” He took her by the arm again and started walking her to her truck.
“I’m sorry, Lucky. What I did to you, Tawny, your mom…I can’t even live with myself it was so awful.”
“Yet here you are…living.”
She flinched. She deserved every drop of his vitriol, and then some. “I’m not asking you to forgive me, and I know I can’t make it right, but I’d like to make restitution.”
She and her sponsor had spent a considerable amount of time deciding what would be appropriate compensation. Money had seemed crass, and anything of her father’s Lucky would spit on. In the end, they’d settled on a generous donation from her property sale proceeds to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford in the Rodriguez name. It was the hospital where their daughter, Katie, had been treated for leukemia.
“There’s no restitution in the world that will cover what you did to me…to my whole family.”
She dropped her gaze to the ground. “I understand that, and I’m not trying to buy your forgiveness. I know I can’t have that. This is for me, proof that I’ve changed and the key to my recovery.” And that’s when she knew what she had to do. “You can have my land for two hundred thousand dollars.”
