The Rancher and the Redhead by Suzannah Davis Page B

“You’d be surprised what a starched white coat can do to a man’s imagination.”
    The salesgirl, who was wearing just such a jacket, blushed. Then she noticed her other customer. “Hey, Sam. What can we do for you today?”
    â€œMissy.” He tipped his straw hat and passed the prescription number to her. “A refill for Jessie.”
    Travis turned to the newcomer, and some of the mischief went out of his expression. “Howdy, Sam. Long time no see.”
    Sam barely nodded an acknowledgment. “Travis.”
    â€œHear you got yourself hitched again. Roni Daniels, wasn’t it?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œYou’re a lucky man.”
    â€œI think so.” Sam’s measured gaze took in Travis’s saucer-size rodeo trophy belt buckle and the white sling. “Still riding rank stock, I see.”
    â€œYeah.” He shrugged. “That’s where the money is.”
    â€œLooks like you had one wreck too many.”
    Travis’s lean features tightened at the double meaning, but he chose to ignore any intentional reference to the past, and his smile was easy as he indicated his injured arm. “This little old thing? Just a minor dust-up. I’ll make the Reno rodeo in June, easy.”
    â€œGettin’ a mite old for that kind of cowboying, aren’t you?”
    â€œNaw, I’m indestructible. Too mean to quit, anyway. Besides, I got me a few Mexican Corrientes out on my place now.”
    Sam’s attention sharpened. Corrientes cattle were the favorite rodeo roping steers. That kind of prime stock could make the difference when a rodeo supplier was talking contracts.
    Travis hung a thumb in his belt loop and gave Sam a speculative look. “If I can sweet-talk Buzz Henry, maybe I can get me something going with the Wichita rodeo. Heard you’re dealing with Buzz, too. Brahmas, right?”
    Sam had always been a man who played his cards close to his chest, and his reply was typical. “Could be.”
    Travis laughed without humor. “All right, have it your way, Sam. But you and me, we could make an attractive package to offer to old Buzz. You take a notion that direction, you let me know.”
    When hell freezes over. “Sure.”
    At the bitter sarcasm in Sam’s single-word reply, Travis’s affability vanished, and his look turned hard. “You ain’t ever going to let me off the hook, are you, Sam?”
    Sam didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “Kenny’s dead.”
    â€œHell, we weren’t much more than kids. I made a mistake.”
    Sam’s mouth tightened with anger that was still festering after more than ten years. “You sure as hell did, but don’t look to me for absolution.”
    â€œAs if I’d want it from a stiff-necked Preston.” Travis picked up his pill bottle and stuffed it in his jeans pocket, unable to hide the stiffness of his movements, an indication that his arm wasn’t his only injury. “Blame me all you want, but I’ve paid well for that night. I’m still paying.”
    Sam’s only reply was a stony look. Regret and resignation flickered in Travis’s dark gaze for a moment; then his mask dropped, covering whatever he was feeling with a smile that didn’t reach the bleakness in his eyes. He tipped his hat at Missy behind the counter and gave Sam a brief, two-fingered salute.
    â€œGive Roni my best, will you? I only hope the gal knows what she’s in for.”
    Travis’s parting shot ate at Sam all the way back to the ranch. What the gal was in for? Roni ought to know, especially since this marriage had been all her idea. But Sam’s conscience besieged him as he drove down the dusty highway toward the Lazy Diamond. Roni’s rough time with Jessie, his preoccupation with the ranch’s troubles, maybe going flat broke with him, being groped in her sleep by a horny husband—no, she probably