Page 41 of My Cowboy Freedom
“I didn’t either, apparently.” His words held a world of pain. “Her heart was always somewhere else. Eventually, she left to find it.”
“People leave,” I said, but I wasn’t sure why. It didn’t seem like he expected a reply anyway. People’s hearts... well, what did I know about those? I knew about people’s bodies.
Their crimes and their lies.
We rode the rest of the day, so by suppertime I regretted my earlier enthusiasm. My ass was on fire and I had a blinding headache from too much sun. I washed up at the basin outside the ranch house and grabbed a towel. Nobody paid me any attention, so I guessed word got around about the ink and it wasn’t that interesting anymore.
I didn’t see Rock or Elena during supper so I guessed they ate in the house with the boss. We helped ourselves from a table laden with Crock-Pots and hot dishes, baskets of cornbread muffins, and a bowl of fruit. We poured glasses of water and lemonade from several large, frosty pitchers.
The hands laughed and joked while putting away an immense amount of food and I got a second chance to meet Robbie and Jason.
They’d started out in Oklahoma with rodeo dreams. The younger one, Jason, had been eyeing me most of the meal but I couldn’t figure out why, unless the prison thing made him curious. Probably it did. Like with rubbernecking at an accident on the side of the road, some folks just can’t help their curiosity.
My theory proved correct when Jason cornered me later at the dessert end of the buffet. “So what was it like?”
“What was what like?” I dipped a scoop of some sort of cobbler from a Crock-Pot. It looked like what my mother used to call “dump cake.” Cherry filling with a crumb crust. Tasty.
“Prison? Duh.”
Jason seemed like a decent kid, and he wouldn’t have asked if he had a clue, so I cut him some slack. “I’m out, and I am never going back.”
“Were you scared?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Tad says you killed a guy for raping your girlfriend?”
“Knock it off, Jase.” Robbie interrupted him before turning to me. “You don’t have to answer that. Some people got no class.”
The most interesting thing about this conversation—to me—was that nobody’d set them straight yet. Apparently, what you told Rock in confidence stayed private. Which only made me like him more. “It’s public record what I did.”
“I know.” Robbie’s tone was gentle. “But you don’t have to tell everyone you meet your whole life story. Jase here always wants to know everything.”
“Is it so wrong to be interested in people?” Jason asked. “I just like to know who I’m sitting down to eat with.”
“Some stuff ispersonal.” Robbie cuffed his arm. “And you do not have to know every little thing.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I said. “I did time for murder. It wasn’t my intention to kill anyone, but intentions don’t mean shit. I can’t bring him back.”Not that I’d want to.“I wish things were different.”
True enough.
Tad sat down with us, “As far as I’m concerned if you were protecting a woman, you did what you had to do.”
“You don’t always think straight in the heat of the moment,” Robbie was on my side too, apparently.
“Where’s your girlfriend now?” Tad asked. “Is she okay?”
“It was my sister,” I said quietly.
“Oh shit.” Jason’s face fell. “No fucking way. I’m so sorry, man.”
“It is what it is.” I wished they would let it go. Maybe that got through to them, because Robbie put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and stopped him from asking anything more.
“Let the man eat in peace.”
I made myself take my time. I made myself put a napkin in my lap and adhere to manners I hadn’t dusted off in years. Like unfamiliar clothes, polite conversation was uncomfortable. “Pass the hot sauce, please?”
“Here you go.” Robbie handed the bottle my way with a grin. “You excited to be on the trail tomorrow?”
