Claiming The Cowboy (Meier Ranch Brothers 3)

“You got anything on the horizon?”

Chase knew Yancy meant bull riding. The man had come to more competitions than Chase’s father. Hell, maybe even understood him better. Chase always told his father that bull riding was who he was, not what he did, to which his father would always say that no one is born with that level of mindless disregard. How many times had he heard “bulls are for breeding, not riding” and “you’ll put your mother in an early grave”?

Turned out, the early grave was his.

“Actually, I’m looking further down the road,” said Chase, pushing past the unpleasantness that always settled beneath his skin at the thought of his dead father. “Why I’m here. I could use your help.”

“Oh?” Yancy brushed the last of the feed crumbs against his overall bib and pointed to the vinyl bench seat of an old truck he had positioned in the barn’s shade. “Let me get off my bad knee. You can tell me about it.”

Chase waited until they were settled and he had downed most of the tea. Liquid courage as much as refreshment. God, it was humid for April. His pits sprouted moisture, nothing at all to do with the morning’s rain. He wanted Yancy to be proud of him like his father never was.

“I’ve invested in a craft distillery. Caters to the same market as those who have a passion for rodeoing and bull riding. Consumers who aren’t afraid of a little danger in a bar glass, or at least the illusion of danger. No fruity bullshit, no lavender essence, nothing that shouldn’t be in a fine glass of whiskey. We’re looking for a place to set up operations. I want that place to be Close Call.”

Yancy’s expression was all cowboy, squinting into the morning light. Gave away nothing.

“You speak to the mayor?”

“Just came from there.”

“And?”

Yancy was Yancy. The man knew sixteen ways to glitter up his favorite curse, son of a bitch, but Chase still knew politics enough to slice words carefully. “Let’s say she hasn’t warmed to the idea yet.”

“Damned near blistered your ass, I’d imagine. She’s a pistol, that one.”

Pistol wasn’t quite how Chase would describe her. A .50 BMG rifle maybe, his entire future in her crosshairs.

Yancy added, “Best mayor this town has ever seen.”

“A little narrow-minded for someone who wants growth. I could sure use your vote if it comes down to rezoning.”

“Depends.”

Chase’s mood blistered. He took a swig of tea to pull himself back from an ugly place he didn’t want to go. So much for a quarter of a mil and low-hanging fruit. “On what?”

“If you’re running toward something or away from something.”

“What does that mean?”

“Remember the day you came to me and wanted me to teach you to ride?”

Chase slouched. Head leaned against the seat, he watched the morning breeze rope the yellow Indian grass. His patience was running out of idle, but he owed Yancy a lot. Maybe everything. What was the harm in a quick memory or

two between friends?

“Yeah. My old man had just taken a belt to me for stealing baseball cards in town. He didn’t believe me when I said Austin Pickford slid them into my coat pocket.”

“You were so mad at your father, I thought steam would come out of those ears. I told you there was no place in this sport for emotions—the first time the bull sensed that weakness, you’d be dead. That you should come back when you were here for the right reason. You kicked up half my pasture on your way back home that day.”

Yancy slipped loose an amused chuckle that branded Chase’s nerves, already exposed from his showdown with the mayor.

“Never did know if you took up bulls out of spite,” said Yancy. “But the next day, when you didn’t have your feathers all riled, you retraced your path across my pasture, counted out your savings into my hand—every last nickel—and said—”

“‘I’ll turn it into a million if you believe in me.’” Chase remembered the conversation well.

“I’d never seen that kind of passion. From then on, it was like you were born to ride those majestic animals. Floating like you did over the strap.” He finished his declaration with a grunt—half awe, half disbelief, maybe.

“I’m long in the tooth, Yance. For a bull rider, anyway. I’ve broken damned near every bone in me at least twice, and some days I wake up with pain from my ears to my ankles and feel like I’m eighty. I’m eating caviar one day and cinnamon red hots the next and watching all the boys I came up through the circuit with snort half their earnings up their noses because there isn’t anything beyond that life for them. So yeah, maybe I am running away, but it’s a hell of a lot better than being too far gone to run at all.”