Chapter 1
At this distance Jesse couldn’t make out much about the truck tearing up the long dirt road towards his front porch, but based on the cloud of dust the driver was kicking up, he was trying to outrun someone. Adrenaline surged in Jesse's veins for the first time in months, his heart pounded, and his thoughts slid into sharp focus. He didn’t yet know if he was on the side of the driver or his pursuers, but finally something interesting was happening. He’d been seeking peace when he’d moved home to help on the ranch, clarity after the cacophony of two miserable semesters in New York, but all he’d found was boredom and chores.
Jesse’s mind raced through possibilities. They were a thirty minute drive from the closest town and even that was only big enough to support one grocery store. The mysterious driver could be anyone. His father had two award winning stallions in the barn, both incredibly valuable to the right person, and they were close enough to the Texas - Mexico border that the driver could be a drug runner who’d taken a wrong turn.
The odds were it was one of the high school kids his father occasionally hired to exercise the horses, but even that would interrupt his long stretch of loneliness. He’d probably known the driver or at least known of him for years, but maybe the judgmental kids from school had joined the rest of the modern world and gotten over gossiping while he'd been away at college. Not likely, but there was always hope.
Jesse ducked back inside the house, locking the door behind himself, and bolted up the stairs to the bathroom to check a mirror. As expected, he was a far cry from ready for company. He’d been out checking fences this morning and caught his sleeve on a barbed wire line, tearing a small hole in it that had only grown as he'd gone through the rest of his chores. He’d spread on sunscreen before he left the house too, but it was nearly supper time and he'd long since sweated it off and grown rosy. He stole a look out the bathroom window at the battered truck parked in the yard and wondered if it would be better or worse if he looked more pulled together.
The driver unfolded from the cab of his faded red pickup and settled a worn cowboy hat on his dark blond hair. The hat, dirty in places and crumpled in others, obscured his face, but his posture was unmistakable. Jesse had seen it off and on his whole life. That was Derek Heller, his father’s best friend. The Paces loved Derek like a pet pirate, welcoming him into their home whenever he was nearby, and since Derek’s parents had passed away four years ago he’d spent most of his time off the rodeo circuit at their house. Jesse had known Derek his whole life and always found him easy to love, and but since Derek had started coming around more it had become a little harder to tell him goodbye each time he left.
Jesse's mother's friend, Kayla, didn't share the Pace family's high opinion of Derek. According to her, her ex-husband was a hard drinker with a bad attitude and an inability to value a good woman. “Never love a rodeo man” Kayla warned anyone who would listen. By all appearances, Derek was a rugged man's man, hard riding and hard working. As there always were about anyone who made it out of town, there were a few scattered rumors about Derek's “big city ways,” but Jesse'd never seen any evidence Derek was anything but straight as a board. Jesse knew he had no business even thinking about those strong callused hands or the crinkles around Derek's eyes from years of squinting into the sun on the back of a horse.
Jesse certainly shouldn’t have let his eyes linger last year when he’d caught Derek in the hallway making the dash from the shower
At this distance Jesse couldn’t make out much about the truck tearing up the long dirt road towards his front porch, but based on the cloud of dust the driver was kicking up, he was trying to outrun someone. Adrenaline surged in Jesse's veins for the first time in months, his heart pounded, and his thoughts slid into sharp focus. He didn’t yet know if he was on the side of the driver or his pursuers, but finally something interesting was happening. He’d been seeking peace when he’d moved home to help on the ranch, clarity after the cacophony of two miserable semesters in New York, but all he’d found was boredom and chores.
Jesse’s mind raced through possibilities. They were a thirty minute drive from the closest town and even that was only big enough to support one grocery store. The mysterious driver could be anyone. His father had two award winning stallions in the barn, both incredibly valuable to the right person, and they were close enough to the Texas - Mexico border that the driver could be a drug runner who’d taken a wrong turn.
The odds were it was one of the high school kids his father occasionally hired to exercise the horses, but even that would interrupt his long stretch of loneliness. He’d probably known the driver or at least known of him for years, but maybe the judgmental kids from school had joined the rest of the modern world and gotten over gossiping while he'd been away at college. Not likely, but there was always hope.
Jesse ducked back inside the house, locking the door behind himself, and bolted up the stairs to the bathroom to check a mirror. As expected, he was a far cry from ready for company. He’d been out checking fences this morning and caught his sleeve on a barbed wire line, tearing a small hole in it that had only grown as he'd gone through the rest of his chores. He’d spread on sunscreen before he left the house too, but it was nearly supper time and he'd long since sweated it off and grown rosy. He stole a look out the bathroom window at the battered truck parked in the yard and wondered if it would be better or worse if he looked more pulled together.
The driver unfolded from the cab of his faded red pickup and settled a worn cowboy hat on his dark blond hair. The hat, dirty in places and crumpled in others, obscured his face, but his posture was unmistakable. Jesse had seen it off and on his whole life. That was Derek Heller, his father’s best friend. The Paces loved Derek like a pet pirate, welcoming him into their home whenever he was nearby, and since Derek’s parents had passed away four years ago he’d spent most of his time off the rodeo circuit at their house. Jesse had known Derek his whole life and always found him easy to love, and but since Derek had started coming around more it had become a little harder to tell him goodbye each time he left.
Jesse's mother's friend, Kayla, didn't share the Pace family's high opinion of Derek. According to her, her ex-husband was a hard drinker with a bad attitude and an inability to value a good woman. “Never love a rodeo man” Kayla warned anyone who would listen. By all appearances, Derek was a rugged man's man, hard riding and hard working. As there always were about anyone who made it out of town, there were a few scattered rumors about Derek's “big city ways,” but Jesse'd never seen any evidence Derek was anything but straight as a board. Jesse knew he had no business even thinking about those strong callused hands or the crinkles around Derek's eyes from years of squinting into the sun on the back of a horse.
Jesse certainly shouldn’t have let his eyes linger last year when he’d caught Derek in the hallway making the dash from the shower
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