Page 17 of Dallas

He doesn’t introduce me as his foster sister. I guess I’m not, currently. But it’s still noticeable that he edits out the truth of our relationship, and I’m curious about why, but I also can’t ask right now.

“Nice to meet you,” says Stella, who is as bright and lovely as her beautiful face suggests, and I am irritated by it.

“You here for the event?”

“She’s coming back to Gold Valley with me,” Dallas says, and again he offers no real explanation, though this time I’m relieved.

“Oh, Gold Valley,” says Stella. “I’ve been there a couple of times. It’s really pretty.”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Colt says. “Boring.”

“It’s not boring,” Dallas says.

“That isn’t what you thought in high school. Anyway, maybe it’s because I grew up there. Spent my whole childhood in that place,” Colt says, turning a chair around backwards and sitting straddling it, looking at me with a smile that I’m sure most women consider charming. He’s extremely handsome, in every way that one might measure that metric. His jaw is square, his dark eyes are compelling. He’s got the kind of easy smile that transforms his entire face from a brooding intensity to the brilliance of the sun.

But he just doesn’t do anything for me. In general, no one does.

That’s another thing that’s been taken from me.

Because touch has become weaponized. And all these years later, I haven’t figured out a way to make it not something that just reminds me of violations of trust. Anyway, I’ve never wanted to get close enough to a man to try and work through it. I don’t mean physically. Emotionally.

That’s one reason Dallas has always been so important to me. Touching him has never felt scary.

I look between Colt and Stella, and I wonder if there’s something romantic between the two of them, though it doesn’t seem so. And now that I’m not being weird and possessive about Dallas, I can’t see any special connection between him and Stella either. She’s not gazing at him with any sort of admiration. Which I find kind of insane, because every time I look at him, I’m flooded with admiration.

Colt suddenly grimaces, and Dallas follows his gaze. “Oh, good, the bad guy has arrived.” Colt looks murderous. I don’t need to be a keen judge of people to read that.

“Who’s that?” I ask.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I tell myself not to be dramatic, because it’s not like there’s an actual bad guy roaming around the rodeo, but I don’t take accusations of men being bad lightly. For obvious reasons.

“Maverick Quinn,” Stella says, leaning forward. She jerks her head back, and I follow the motion. It’s like people part as this man walks into the food tent. As if everyone knows better than to be in his way. There’s a confident swagger to the way he walks, and a wall of unfriendliness. I recognize it. The man is a walking red flag, but he’s also a walking tribute to trauma. I can clock it from this far away. The rest of them don’t see it, but I do.

I can also see that he’s toxic. No doubt about it.

He’s wearing a black cowboy hat, a black shirt, and black jeans. He has a dark, heavy beard, and there’s a malice to the smile on his face that suggests he enjoys all that darkness. Playing in it, making others have to contend with it.

Stella shivers just slightly, and I realize that Colt and Dallas aren’t on her radar at all. For a reason.

I guess everybody has inclinations toward making a little bit of trauma in their lives, even if they don’t come by it naturally.

“I’ll be back in Gold Valley too,” Colt says. “If all goes well tonight.”

“In what way?” I ask.

“Well, we have to get high enough scores tonight to qualify for the championships. Or we don’t, and we have to keep going to try and scrape up enough points at some of the smaller events. But the ideal will be to finish out on top.”

Dallas laughed. “That’s always the idea.”

“I have to keep going,” says Stella. “Because mainly I’m just trying to win money. They don’t have a championship like that for barrel racing. It doesn’t get the same kind of attention.”

I frown. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

“Welcome to sports,” Stella says. “None of it’s fair. But that’s not why I do it. I do it because I love it.”

“So,” I say, looking around the tent. “If you all don’t compete for the rest of the year, that must make the rodeo boring in other cities.”

“That’s flattering,” Colt says. “But yeah. The best riders are out before the season is over. There’s no point tempting injury for points you don’t need.”

---