Redneck Romeo (Rough Riders 15)

“How’d you get roped in?” Tell asked.

“Chase had been asked to play a trio of celebrity couple tournaments and the sponsors were expecting Ava, but she had to back out because she was scouting movie locations. I’d hung out with Chase at the poker tables in Vegas after the PBR World Finals. He’d seen me play and knew I had the cash for buy-in, knew I was traveling around, so he asked me to fill in.” Dalton grinned. “We thought it’d be hilarious if I showed up in drag—blond wig, evening dress, the whole nine yards—trying to look like Ava, but Ava nixed that idea.”

Georgia and Jessie laughed.

“Chase got knocked out early on. I kept playing the angle that I was his rube cousin from Wyoming. The crowds ate it up. Hell, I even had folks askin’ for my autograph, which was weird. An hour before the final round started, the TV producers and sponsors called a meeting with me. Said they wanted me to throw the game because my opponent, JT Judson, was riding the comeback wave and it’d make for better drama if he won.”

“Did you tell them to stick it?” Tell demanded.

“Nope. Luckily Chase was with me. He’s used to dealing with them TV types. He said I’d go all in if I got my seed money back and if they put me on the tour for at least a dozen stops. So basically I got to play in a million-dollar poker tournament for free. For the next eight months I ran the circuit. Then I’d had enough.”

“You disappeared.”

Dalton nodded. “I’d had my fifteen minutes of fame and that was fourteen minutes too many.”

“Is that why you grew the beard? So you weren’t recognizable?” Tell asked innocently.

“Fuck. Off.”

Tell laughed.

Brandt said, “What did you do after that?”

“Yeah, the I’m fine texts once a month and the occasional package from some weird place overseas really doesn’t tell us what you’d been doin’.”

“After I had extra cash I made a list of all the places across the world I wanted to go and I went there.”

“By yourself?”

“Yep.”

“Bro, ever since you were a little kid you never liked doin’ stuff by yourself.”

“Because I never had to. I always had you guys or our McKay cousins.” Or Rory. “When I got older, I had girls—” he flashed Tell a sly grin, “—not as many girls as I’d claimed.”

Tell gave him an odd look—as if surprised that Dalton had admitted that.

“I met a few people in my travels, so I wasn’t always alone, but the majority of the time, yeah, I was and I preferred it.”

His brothers wouldn’t understand why he’d chosen to redefine himself without his family’s influence. It’d been scary shit, being forced to do things on his own. No one telling him to feed cattle or move cattle or mow the hayfield. No one telling him to fix fence, or demanding explanations for how he conducted his social life. He’d been one hundred percent in charge of every decision he made every day. It’d been overwhelming at first, especially in countries where he didn’t speak the language—he’d almost turned tail and run home. But he’d stuck it out.

So he’d learned a few things about himself: he was adaptable. He was a self-starter—he could count the number of times he’d lazed in bed on one hand. It’d been easy to get up and start his day when he hadn’t a clue what the day had in store for him.

“Didja take pictures, play tourist, what?”

“Not really. I mostly wandered here and there. The reason I haven't tried to explain it to you guys before now is because I can’t. Not over the phone, not in person. Alls I can say is I had to go and I don’t regret a minute of bein’ gone.”

“So now you’re livin’ in Montana? What do you do up there?”

“Been a logger in the summer. I’ve been leading elk-hunting parties in the autumn during bow hunting season for the past two years.”

“So you really have become some kind of Montana mountain man? Hunting, logging, and livin’ off the land?”

“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” he answered Brandt a little testily.

“Just don’t seem like your kinda thing. Your social life was almost as busy as Tell’s. And now you’re just happily holed up in the middle of nowhere Montana?”

Tell leaned forward. “Ya ain’t on the run ’cause you killed somebody?”

“No. Enough with the questions about me. I’m here to talk about Casper, remember? I understood about half of what the doctor said yesterday.”

“Dad refuses to speak. But he won’t get better without therapy. So the doctor wonders if there’s anyone Dad will listen to about resuming therapy,” Tell said.

“What about the uncles?” Dalton had seen them briefly yesterday.

“He fakes sleep whenever they show up. They’d be the hardest ones for him to face with his stroke-altered speech issues.”

“Was the woman I saw darting in and out of the room a nurse or something?”

“No. That was Dad’s girlfriend. Barbara Jean.”

Dalton laughed. “Good one, Tell.”

“I’m serious. Barbara Jean and Dad have been together for over a year.”

“They met at church,” Georgia said. “She’s really sweet. She takes good care of him.”

“Casper has a girlfriend,” he repeated. “Is she deaf so she doesn’t care if he yells his head off at her?”

“Jesus, Dalton, that’s not funny.”

He looked between his brothers. Then his brother’s wives. “Am I missing something? Or did I stumble into an alternate reality where Casper isn’t a flaming ass**le?”

“No, but—”

“But what? He made some kind of amends with you guys, given how horrible he’s always been?”

“It’s not like that,” Tell said.

“Then maybe you oughta tell me what it is like.”

“It’s gotten easier.”

“Like you’re havin’ him over for supper kind of easy?”

Brandt shook his head. “He asks to see the boys and we meet. During that time he doesn’t give us ranch advice, or try to convince us to join his church. He ain’t allowed to run down Mom, or say nasty shit to our wives.”

“So the meetings last…under four minutes? Because that’s about as long as he can go without bein’ insulting.”