thought … because Logan is on the Tribal Council …”
“That’s his story.” He set the glass down and smiled as he slid to the end of the booth. “You wanna talk politics, you’re followin’ the wrong Wolf Track.” He glanced toward the bar and its deserted stools. Remote control in hand, the bearded bartender was surfing channels on the screen above the Bud Light sign. “Looks like your fans have moved on.”
“I doubt that pair watches much news. They know you, though.”
“Yeah. You need a name to drop in low places, you’re welcome to use mine.” He gave her his signature wink again. Damn if it didn’t give her the same deep-down shiver. “You decide to do a story on wild horses, look me up.”
And damn if he didn’t walk out first, taking the book she hadn’t been able to identify.
Ethan sat behind the steering wheel of his pickup, parked in the shadows across the street from what had once been the Hitching Post. The neon had given up the ghost on the letter H, so it was now the itching Post. The sign had called out to him the first time he’d seen it. He’d finally had his freedom back—most of it, anyway—and it had some weight to it. He was itching to do something different with his life, but damned if he knew what. So he’d answered the blinking call of the itching Post. He’d claimed a bar stool, wet his whistle after a long dry spell and gotten himself wasted. Stupid drunk.
The next morning he’d looked at himself in the mirror and scratched his face. He’d scratched his neck, his shoulder, dug all his fingers into his hair, looked in the mirror again and nearly busted a gut laughing.
The sign said itching post, you idiot. Not scratching post.
If he’d learned one thing from spending two years behind bars, it was that the word freedom pretty much summed up everything a man had to lose. Freedom was living. Two years without it and you had a foot in the grave. Deadwood. Reviving that foot meant getting a leg up somehow. He hadn’t been quite ready for South Dakota. He still had some growing up to do.
He’d gone to Colorado—as good a place as any that wasn’t South Dakota—and taken up his parole officer’s suggestion that he continue on the path he’d taken with the Wild Horse Inmate Program. Ethan had answered correctly—yeah, I like that idea—but mentally he’d added that the prison program couldn’t claim credit for anything except maybe backing him into the right corner, the one that gave him a clear view of where he’d come from and where he might go. He’d spent most of his life within earshot of a horse barn, which might have been why he’d taken horses for granted, along with every other promising path he could have taken instead of the one that had cut off his slack.
Before the horses—before Logan Wolf Track—his life was hazy. He’d been Trace’s little brother. They’d had a mother, but she was part of the haze. Even after she’d married Logan, her part of the family equation was hazy. Muddy, more like. He remembered the sound of her voice and the way she’d drawn out certain words so that South Dakotans looked at each other and shrugged. An accent, they’d called it, but to him it was the sound that settled an unsettled mind. Mom’s here. He couldn’t picture her face, but he still felt an odd sense of relief when he heard her voice, even though it was only in his head. He was up to his neck in hot water, hot muddy water, shrouded in early-morning haze, but he wasn’t alone. He could hear her. She hadn’t gone away.
And neither had that stupid kid. God, how he hated that quivering, shivering little boy who still clung to the soft tissue of his innards. He was pitiful, that kid. He had to get tough or get dead, that kid, and he’d damn sure better not show his face. Keeping that kid quiet had been a full-time job. Ethan needed all the help he could get, and he’d assigned roles. Whether they knew it or not, every person, place or thing within spitting distance had a part to play, and he’d taken it all for granted.
Including the friendship he might have had with the woman who’d just stepped into the spotlight under the itching Post sign. Of course he remembered her. Straight-A student with a straight body and a straightforward approach. She would go places and do things, and she wasn’t letting anyone get in her way. Not that his charm was lost on her, or that he wouldn’t pass up the chance to use that to his advantage, but there was an air of dignity about her that gave her some protection from guys like him.
But not from guys who had no use for dignity.
Tom “Loopy” Lupien and his forgettable sidekick were back in play, following Bella out the door. Two colorless figures casting long shadows across the dimly lit sidewalk. He’d thought they were gone. Must have been hiding out in the can.
“Hey, did the Wolf make tracks?” one of them called after her.
“You need a ride?” the other asked. In this light it was hard to tell one from the other, but it didn’t matter. Any friend of Loopy’s had been scraped from the mold underneath the empty barrel.
A remote-control lock chirped, headlights flashed, car door opened and shut, engine roared. Bella was safe. Ethan smiled to himself. No-nonsense Bella.
No sooner had she turned onto the street when another engine fired up. An old Ford pickup—even older than Ethan’s rattletrap Chevy—emerged from the lot behind the building and followed her car.
Damn. Loopy wouldn’t be able to bring any prey down himself. He was a scavenger. The other one must’ve been driving. Between the two of them, they could do some damage.
Ethan joined the parade. When they reached a one-way residential street, Bella parked her little white Honda on the curb near the front entrance to a modest two-story apartment building. Ethan peeled away from Loopy’s tailgate, pulled over to the opposite curb, and watched Loopy and his pal roll past Bella’s parked car. They’d taken the hint. Ethan chuckled. My job here is done.
Bella hopped out of her car, slammed the door and turned toward Ethan’s pickup, gripping some kind of bag made out of blanket material with a string handle—was it a purse, or a grocery sack?—under her arm.
“Hey! I carry a .38 Smith & Wesson, and I know how to use it!” she shouted across the street. “So whatever you’re thinking, think again.”
Her face was hidden in the shadows, but her hands were steady, her shoulders squared and her long black hair shone blue-white under the streetlight. He didn’t know who she thought she was talking to, but she wasn’t bluffing.
And he loved it.
He was thinking, I’ve got your back. Not that she needed him, but he was there, just in case.
Hell of a woman, he told himself as he watched her stand her ground. She was on TV, but that was just a job. It wasn’t her life. Pretty cool. Cool enough to get the message without some big explanation to go with it. Whatever her interest was in Senator Perry Garth—the man who’d helped put Ethan away for two years—it was of no interest to him. Neither was any rivalry between neighbors, nor tribal politics. Ethan was looking for a new life. He wanted the kind of freedom Bella had—the opportunity to chart her own course, to do a job and then some, and that some could be more than what somebody else was willing to pay for.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been a sweet young girl with a big brain. He’d assigned her brain a role, but the girl was sweet and young, and she’d had that straight body and those big ideas. Sure, she’d had the hots for him, but back then she’d been more appealing walking away from him in a huff than looking up at him all wide-eyed and innocent. She’d
