Marin Thomas - No Ordinary Cowboy

Tony stepped down from his truck. “Get the hell off my ranch, Bravo.” Cal Durango sat on the front porch, smoking one of his expensive Cuban cigars.

“Be happy to hit the road as soon as I unload this cargo.” Tony snapped his fingers. “Come on, Maddie.”

The stubborn boxer wouldn’t budge.

Tony reached for her collar, but Maddie scrambled into the backseat.

“Damn dog’s a nuisance. Should have put her down long ago.” Durango acted tough as nails, but Tony knew the death of his son had cut him off at the knees and he was a broken man on the inside.

“Got a leash?” Tony asked.

“Here’s one.” Lucy stepped out the front door. Had she been eavesdropping? She skipped down the steps and clipped a tether to Maddie’s collar. “Naughty girl.” Lucy tugged the dog from the truck. “She must have come back after I left.”

“Left where?” Lucy’s father stood on the top step and glanced suspiciously between Tony and his daughter.

“Maddie misses you, Tony,” Lucy said, ignoring her father’s question.

“Enough about the damned dog. Get off my ranch, Bravo.”

“I’d like a word with you first.” Tony moved closer to the porch.

“A word about what?”

“We believe—” Tony had yet to convince his boss of his hunch “—that underage girls are being kidnapped and brought over the border then sold into the sex trade in the Midwest.”

“How awful,” Lucy said.

Durango chomped on his cigar. “And this concerns me how?”

“We suspect members of a Mexican cartel are crossing into the United States between the San Luis and Lukeville ports of entry then making their way north through Stagecoach.” Tony paused for a moment to allow the information to sink in. “We have reason to believe the men are using your ranch as a shortcut through the area.”

“You got any proof of that?” Durango puffed on his cigar.

“Witness reports spotting young females walking on your property along highway 41.”

“Reliable witnesses, or illegals you didn’t catch at the border?” Durango asked.

“Reliable witnesses. I’d like to take a look around your place.”

“Have your boss call me. I’ll consider giving him access, but not you.”

“Dad!” Miffed at her father’s rude behavior, Lucy spoke to Tony. “Thank you for bringing Maddie home.”

Tony flashed a half smile and her pulse fluttered with yearning, just as it had each morning he’d kissed her goodbye after each of their motel rendezvous. They’d kept their affair a secret because Tony’s mother had been old-fashioned and expected her son to marry a Hispanic girl. Of course, Lucy’s father wouldn’t have approved of Tony, because he hadn’t come from a wealthy, prestigious family. They’d also worried that their parents’ objections to their relationship would distract Michael from his quest for a national title.

Each time she and Tony had seen each other, they’d fallen more and more in love, and the strain of keeping their affair a secret had worn them down. Finally they’d decided to tell their parents during Lucy’s spring break in April, after Tony and Michael returned from the rodeo in Prescott. But Michael had died that night, and Tony had refused to see Lucy or take her calls. He’d broken her heart when she’d needed him most.

Shoving the memories aside, Lucy blamed her sudden queasiness on the fact that tomorrow was the anniversary of her brother’s death, and although she’d tried to avoid thinking about it, the pain was a constant presence in her heart. If she knew what was good for her, she’d also keep her feelings for Tony locked away and focus on her fundraiser.

After the taillights of Tony’s truck disappeared, she said, “Dad, don’t make it difficult for the border patrol to do their job.”

Her father stared unseeingly into space.

“If illegals are cutting across the ranch, what’s going to stop them from coming up to the house and robbing us, or worse?” Lucy said.

“Bravo’s making a big deal out of nothing, because he’s looking out for himself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He requested a transfer to the border patrol office in San Diego.”

“How do you—” Never mind. Her father had eyes and ears all over the state.

“He needs credit for cracking a big case in order to get his transfer.”

“You don’t believe Tony deserves the promotion, do you?”

Her father retreated inside the house, the smack of the screen door answering Lucy’s question.

When would he stop blaming Tony for Michael’s death?

When you tell him the truth.

Lucy’s eyes burned with tears. She’d hoped the Pony Express would make up for her grave blunder the night Michael had died, but maybe she was fooling herself—there were some things in life one couldn’t make amends for.

“Back to the kennel for you, girl.” Lucy put Maddie in the outdoor cage and secured the lock. On the way to the office in the barn, she silently cursed. She’d forgotten to ask Tony if he still had her brother’s bucking machine. Now that she thought about it, she’d wait to ask him until she heard back from Shannon about the rodeos. No sense stirring up trouble until she knew for sure that she’d be riding a real-life bull.

* * *

“HEY, MOM , IT ’ S ME,” Tony called out as he entered his mother’s trailer.

“In the kitchen!”

He found her sliding a cake pan into the oven.

“You’re late.” She closed the oven door.

“Sorry.” Tony hugged her. “I should have called.” But he’d been too agitated, his mind a jumble of tangled thoughts after running into Lucy along the highway then dealing with a stubborn dog and a mulish Cal Durango.

“Problems at work?”

In his line of duty there were always problems. “No.” He watched his mother dish out the chicken pot pie she’d made for their once-a-week supper together. “I ran into Lucy Durango today.”

“Oh?”

“Maddie took off and Lucy was out searching for her.”

“Did you find the dog?” His mother set their plates on the table and sat down.

“Yeah.” He omitted the part where Maddie had waited for Lucy to leave before approaching Tony. His mother would insist the dog missed Tony and that he should visit Maddie once in a while—as if Lucy’s father would allow him near the dog, never mind his daughter.

“Mr. Bonner lost his cat last week—flattened by a semitruck.”

“Nice visual before we eat,” Tony said.

“Sorry. No more animal talk at the table.”

Tony would be lying if he didn’t admit that he missed Maddie and all the dog represented—a friendship with Michael that had begun with an I-dare-you game on a school playground and had evolved into a brotherly bond. Tony had lost a part of himself when his best friend died, and Maddie brought to the surface all the pain buried inside him.

“How did you do at the rodeo last weekend?” His mother’s brown eyes twinkled as they roamed over Tony. “You’re not sporting a cast or bandages.”

“I got thrown.” Tony was twenty-seven, but some days he felt like an old man. He used to be a decent bull rider before he’d begun working for the border patrol. Now he was lucky if he lasted eight seconds on the back of a bull in one out of ten rodeos. He should retire his spurs, but he was reluctant to give up those few hours a month when he could keep his memory of Michael alive.

“Any news on the transfer?” his mother asked.

“Not yet.” Six months ago, after two years of pretending he’d moved on from Michael’s death and his affair with Lucy, he’d finally admitted that he wouldn’t be able to put the past behind him until he left Stagecoach.

“The cost of living is much higher in California.”