Page 49 of Rough Stock
“Oh yeah? Do you want this deal or not?” Max barked back at him. “Because if you do, this is the only way to do it.”
“There’s got to be another way. Dale’s been my friend for years! I mean, I know his wife and kids and?”
“Think about the money, Jimmy. Think about all the things you can do foryourwife,yourkids,yourgrandkids, that you won’t be able to do otherwise. This is our only chance. It’s all we’ve got. And besides,” he added, “nobody wants her around. This would be doing everybody a favor.”
“Yeah, she’s like a pecker gnat, but still… do you really think we could pull it off?”
“Leave it to me,” Max said with a malicious grin. “I can take care of it, I promise. And no one will ever guess.”
“They’d better not. I’m not going down for something that was your idea, do you hear me?”
“I hear ya, I hear ya,” Max said, but inside his head, a voice said,Shut the fuck up, dickhead, and do what you’re told unless you want to screw this whole thing up. Oh, if only he could say exactly what he was thinking.
But he couldn’t. The plan was too despicable to outline again out loud. Regardless, pretty soon Dale would be out of their way and unable to stop the deal with Zesser Pharmaceuticals.
And ShyannaOwens would just be a distant, unpleasant memory for the USPCA. Two birds with one stone.
They pulledinto the arena grounds in Texarkana at five the next day, thanks to the Central time zone. A lot of competitors were already there, but there were plenty of spaces up close to the back of the barn, so they pulled in side by side. Once they stopped, Jensen pulled his rig out and Shyanna wondered what he was doing. It became clear as soon as he was parked?he’d turned his truck and trailer around so the doors of their living quarters were facing and four feet from each other.I found myself a smart guy, she chuckled to herself.
As soon as both rigs were stationary, they took the horses to the barn and found stalls for them. To their amusement, they put Snowman between Rhubarb and Cobra, and the old dun pitched a fit, trying his best to kick his way out of the stall, so they swapped him with Snowman and he settled right down. “Somebody’s got a girlfriend,” Jensen said, laughing.
“Oh, for god’s sake, he’s a gelding,” Shyanna said, laughing along with him.
Jensen snickered. “Looks like that doesn’t make any difference to him!”
They spent the rest of the daylight hours cleaning saddles and other tack and checking all their equipment before they decided they should probably find something to eat. Shyanna headed to the office to ask what was around there while Jensen put everything away. As she rounded the corner to the stairwell, she ran shoulder-to-shoulder into MaxBarlow. “Well, fuck me,” Max muttered. “First person I see has to be you.”
“Feeling’s mutual,” she snarled as she kept going.
“Hope you lose every damn event, bitch,” he called out to her back. Shyanna said nothing and let the middle finger of her left hand do the talking for her.
She wasn’t going to say anything to Jensen but on the way to the restaurant, she felt like she had to. “So I ran into Max in the stairwell.”
His voice was passive when he said, “Yeah?”
“He wished me well in all my events,” she said, hoping her voice sounded appropriately snarky.
“Oh, is that right? Did he touch you?” Jensen asked, and she could hear that protectiveness rising in his voice.
“I said I ran into him. I meant that literally. We bumped shoulders as I rounded the corner but other than that, no. He didn’t touch me.”
Jensen snickered. “He’d better not. I’ll kick his ass. And boy, I’ll really have to keep an eye on you after you start with bull riding. They’ll all be after you then.”
“I can take care of myself,” Shyanna snorted.
“Yeah, like you took care of yourself that last time and got the shit beaten out of you,” he reminded her.
“I would’ve been fine if you’d left me to it!” she almost yelled.
“No, you wouldn’t have. Two against one? Those odds would be almost impossible for me, let alone you.”
“And what exactly is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.
“It means exactly what it sounds like. Yeah, you’re tough as nails and strong, but you’re smaller, so?”
That statement really riled Shyanna. “Just a few days ago I gave a speech to SammyJo about how her size didn’t matter in steer wrestling, and now you’re telling me?”
“Steers don’t throw punches! That’s completely different!” Jensen barked back.
