Jeannie Watt - Once a Champion

“You know all about that?”

“Well, Mom and her friends talk a lot.”

“And you listen.” Great.

“Well, she and I talk a lot, too. It’s just, like, the two of us, you know? That was bogus what your wife did to you.”

And not something he wanted to discuss with a fourteen-year-old, not even one whose eyes were now ablaze with indignation on Matt’s behalf.

“What are you going to do while you’re here?” Matt asked. “Besides play on your phone.”

Craig shrugged. “Whatever, I guess.”

Matt finished his sandwich and sat back in his chair. He would have liked to have had a beer with his meal, but didn’t know if that was allowable with an impressionable houseguest under his roof.

“If you have any work or anything that needs to be done around the place, well, I could do that.”

“Work?”

“Mom thought it would be a good idea. Keep me busy.”

Damn, this had to be tough on the kid. The problem was that Matt’s place was well-kept. He had a cleaning lady and the guy who fed his livestock when he was on the road also did the maintenance.

“Yeah. I can use some help.” Or come up with something. “I’d pay you.”

Craig shook his head. “No. You’re giving me a roof and food.”

“Your mom paid for the food.” Or had tried to.

“A roof, then, and she didn’t pay for that.”

“We’ll negotiate later, okay? You want to watch TV now?”

“In the worst possible way,” Craig said. “Mom says I can’t watch someone else’s TV unless they invite me to.”

“Consider yourself invited,” Matt said. “For as long as you’re here, the TV is yours.”

“Thanks,” Craig said, gathering up his plate and heading for the dishwasher. Matt watched in surprise as the boy loaded his dinnerware, then added the dishes that had been soaking in the sink. A quick swipe of the dishcloth around the sink after he’d rinsed it, then Craig headed to the living room. Wow. Willa had taught her son well.

As soon as the television came on in the next room, Matt opened that beer and sat at the table drinking it. Talk about a strange day. Found his horse, got an unexpected roommate—with whom he had nothing to talk about.

Matt reached out and grabbed the newspaper off the sideboard where he’d stacked all the stuff that’d been on the table when he’d cleared it to feed Craig. He flipped it open with one hand and looked at his brother—make that his half brother’s—smiling face on the front page and almost closed it again. But he didn’t.

Ryan Madison. The darling of the Montana rodeo circuit, who’d just done a charity roping clinic for the local kids, and who was also within striking distance of qualifying for the NFR for the second time in a row.

Matt shoved the paper aside.

Not that he didn’t want Ryan to qualify. He enjoyed beating his brother. He wished he’d had a chance to beat him last year, except he hadn’t because of four hundred lousy dollars. Ryan had come in a respectable fourth, which wasn’t bad for his first NFR and considering he’d been on a borrowed horse.

It’d killed Matt to sit on the sidelines and watch.

He and Ryan had been roping rivals since they were ten or eleven, and by the time Matt was fifteen, the two of them had developed an animosity that bordered on legendary—they’d also had no idea they were related. As far as Matt knew, Ryan was still in the dark—which was just fine with him.

CHAPTER THREE

THOUGH SHE TOLD herself she wasn’t going to think about it, Liv tossed and turned that night, and when she finally did fall asleep, she dreamed about searching for Beckett. She found tracks and bits of mane and tail hair clinging to branches and fence wire, but no horse. She woke up with her heart pounding.

A dream.

Even so, she got out of bed and walked over to the window looking out over the pasture and felt a wave of relief when she saw Beckett grazing near the barn. Her horse was still there. Hers. She couldn’t imagine losing him, not after everything they’d gone through. He was the reason she’d been able to stay strong against Greg, stick up for herself, let her true feelings show even if they were at odds with the people around her. It had been so very hard in the beginning....

Liv slipped out of her pajamas, folded them and put them under her pillow before she pulled on jeans and a Montana State T-shirt. After that she straightened the covers and opened the curtains all the way.

If she hadn’t tried to buy the gelding, if Greg had succeeded in forbidding it, she might now be Mrs. Gregory Malcolm, bending over backward to do whatever her husband wanted her to do. Be who he wanted her to be. During their relationship she’d had moments when she showed some backbone and argued her position, but ultimately she’d always backed down, as she’d done for her entire life—as her mother had done for her entire life—and let him have his way. Because if you made waves, people might abandon you.

The thought made her shudder.

A clattering of cutlery greeted her as she walked into the kitchen. Tim was already there, dressed and standing straighter than he’d been the day before. He put a couple more knives into a drawer, then turned.

“Coffee’s on,” he said. “I’ll be in around noon if you don’t mind getting me some lunch then.”

“Where are you going?” Liv asked.

“To salvage what I can of the hay.”

“You’re feeling better,” she said flatly. He was standing taller, but his color was still off. “And you can spend a day on the tractor.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Initiating confrontation still did not come easily to her—even after months of post-Greg affirmations and years of practice with her patients, who often did not want to do what they had to do in order to heal—but she was so much better at it than she’d been before.

His thick black eyebrows came together. Tim was not used to being challenged. He was used to living life alone, his own way.

Tough.

“I wouldn’t be going out if I wasn’t sure. I have work to do.” He grabbed his battered cowboy hat off the table and jammed it onto his head before stalking out the back door.

Liv let out a breath and then poured herself a cup of coffee, her movements automatic, mindless. Confrontation or concern? Which had her stomach in a knot?

She heard the tractor fire up as she took her first sip from the heavy ceramic mug. She had five days at home before she started seeing patients. Five days to keep a full-time eye on her father to make sure that he really was recovering and not just blowing smoke.

* * *

MATT CALLED WILLA at 6:00 a.m. to see if she’d made it safely to her new job and to find out if she was okay with him leaving Craig alone for the day while he went to his doctor’s appointment in Bozeman. The connection was awful, cutting in and out, and Willa had been on her way out the door—in fact she was late—but no, she didn’t have a problem with Crag spending the day alone. She’d hung up before Matt could ask about what day the kid would be leaving so he could make some plans.

The drive to Bozeman took almost two hours, which gave Matt a goodly amount of time to stew about the issues in his life while his knee stiffened up. His mom had called right after Willa had hung up, inviting him to a family dinner that Sunday. Matt had said yes, even though he hated formal family dinners, and mentioned that he might be bringing a guest. His mom had instantly gone on alert, assuming he meant a woman, and he’d had to tell her no. It was a kid. He was babysitting.

There’d been a strangely awkward silence after that and Matt had quickly filled her in, wondering what had made her go so quiet. Perhaps the fear that he’d fathered a kid, just as her husband had?