sneaked a glance at Jake and then looked quickly back at the road. No wedding ring, but she could see a tanned-over mark where one had been. His hair had fooled her about his age. Once she had sponged the blood off his face, she pegged him as early forties, possibly good-looking once the bruising and swelling subsided. She’d come to think of his build as cowboy-cut, narrow-hipped and heavily muscled through the chest and shoulders from wrestling calves and bucking sixty-pound bales.
Not that she cared. She had left a man behind in Texas, a nice guy who had mistaken their shared love of horses for a prelude to wedding bells. The ugly scene she’d staged still made her cringe, but she’d made sure he wouldn’t come chasing after her with a ring in his pocket.
Shelby put Texas behind her. Not a cloud marred the morning sky, and last night’s snow lay on the red-gold buttes and bluffs like sugar icing on a layer cake. Silver peaks appeared teasingly to the north, only to disappear as the road dipped to cross a shallow wash or follow a winding valley. Her heart quickened with anticipation. She had crisscrossed the prairie states for more than a decade, with a couple of jobs in California, but somehow her wanderings had never brought her to the spine of the Rockies.
“So there stood Great-Great Grandpa Jacob, eyeball to eyeball with the grizzly and no weapon but his Navy Colt the Yankees let him keep. He got the bear, right through the mouth, but the bear got him, too—fell spang on him and half scalped him on the way down.”
Shelby realized Jake had been talking a blue streak—she’d seen that with concussions, sometimes drowsiness, sometimes running off at the mouth.
“I guess he survived,” she said.
“Only because some Ute girls picking berries found him the next day. My great-great grandma probably never saw a white man before, never mind a redheaded one—”
“You’re part Indian?” She glanced again at his face. Mighty light-skinned, but something about the tilt of his eyes and the shape of his mouth...
“I know I don’t look it,” he said. “I take after old Jacob, redheaded like him before my hair turned. Our ranch backs up to Ute land, so I grew up hunting and fishing and scrapping with my cousins on the rez. My boys have dark hair and brown eyes, but my daughter got the red hair. It looks a lot better on her than it did on me.”
“The lady at the diner said your sons are bull riders?”
“Tom rides bulls, and Luke’s a bullfighter with the Professional Bull Riders tour. I don’t know who takes more risk—Tom riding once, maybe twice a night, or Luke every time the gate opens. I can’t say much—I rode rough stock myself till my wife put her foot down. Of course, the prize money’s better nowadays.” He gave a wry laugh. “In between getting busted up.”
“So now your wife frets about them.”
He looked away. “Annie died coming on two years ago—complications of lupus.”
Before she could respond, they crested the next rise and she caught her breath. The peaks, pure with new snow, reared like a breaking wave frozen against the impossibly blue sky.
“Pretty, huh?” he said. “Always grabs me when I come home this way. Durango’s just ahead. You need anything before we go on to Norquist’s?”
“Not for me, but I’ll need a sack of food for Stranger—I couldn’t carry but enough for a couple days.”
Entering a new town always excited her, like holding a lottery ticket. Maybe this would be the place where she could finally stop running. She never actually counted on winning the jackpot, but she still let herself dream about having a real address and shopping in stores where people would come to know her name.
They passed chain hotels and box stores on the strip before turning onto Main Avenue lined with Victorian storefronts. The shrill hoot of a train whistle startled her. Just off the main street, a steam locomotive chuffed beside a gingerbread station.
“Durango and Silverton Railroad,” Jake said. “That engine shows up in a lot of Western movies. It hauled silver ore down from the mines back in the 1880s and now tourists.”
He pointed out a red brick storefront sandwiched between a shop displaying leather vests and hats in the window and Burke’s Sundries with T-shirts and postcards in racks on the sidewalk. Ornate gold letters spelled out Silver Queen Saloon and Dance Emporium across the plate-glass window.
“My daughter works there weekends and after school some days. She’s stashing her paychecks for college. At least I hope that’s how she’ll use the money.”
“Isn’t she underage to work at a saloon? Sorry, none of my business.”
“The Queen stopped serving liquor during Prohibition, but folks around here would shoot anybody who tried to change the name. Margie serves the best food in town—in La Plata County, for that matter. Chicken-fried steak and liver with bacon and onions...” He rolled his eyes and smacked his lips.
“No sushi or veggie wraps, I’m guessing.”
Jake laughed. “Not hardly.” He checked his watch. “Too bad she isn’t serving lunch yet, but we could stop for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. Margie makes a dried peach pie that’s been written up in the Denver Post—some food show even featured it.”
“I’d better get out to the Norquist ranch.” Spending the whole morning—and the night before—with Jake Cameron had become claustrophobic, too comfortable for her peace of mind.
“Maybe another time,” he said, and directed her to the Farm and Ranch Exchange on the outskirts of town. A rustic log structure anchored an ell, sided with pale shingles, and a steel shed with loading bays.
“Might as well pick up a few things myself,” he said, “as long as I’m here.” He climbed down from the truck.
She entered the store with Stranger at her side, breathing in the comforting smells of leather and molasses feed, saddle soap and new sisal. Hunting and fishing supplies filled the front room, with mounted heads of deer and elk and pronghorns staring sightlessly from the smoke-darkened walls. Garden supplies, hardware and pet products could be found in the next room, according to the sign over a wide archway. She found the proper dog food and followed Jake to the checkout.
A heavy-shouldered man, dark-skinned with a single long braid, stood behind a long counter. “Hey, cousin. Nice win for Tom, but you look like you did about three seconds on Bodacious.”
“Skidded off the road on my way home,” Jake said. “No real harm done.”
“June’s been asking about you.”
“I’m keeping pretty busy with the boys gone so much.” He looked away. “Calving season, you know. Tell her hey for me.”
He nodded toward Shelby. “Meet Shelby Doucette—she’s going to start those mustangs for Ross Norquist. I’m giving her a ride up to his place.”
“Oscar Buck,” the man said, reaching across the counter to shake her hand. “What tribe, sister?”
“Choctaw a long way back,” she said, “crossed with Cajun and a dash of runaway slave.”
“Don’t mind Oscar,” Jake said. “He’s nosy as a pup but not near as smart.”
