Ganged at the Rodeo Read online

  We weren’t going to make it out of this battle alive.

  Tanner stared silently at the horizon for a long time before saying quietly, “I’m glad you’re here with me at the end of it all.”

  I looked at him, and then back out to our encroaching doom. I wasn’t glad. I wanted him to be back safe at home, reading his books about birthing calves and storing grain. The last thing I wanted was to have him standing next to me when those ships hit the shore. I lit a cigarette, trying to keep my hands from shaking. I realized how many hours of my life I’d just let escape me without ever thinking about them. I’d never treated a moment as precious before, but I was acutely aware of how beautiful everything around me was. I inhaled the crisp dewy morning, and looked out at the sparkling ocean. The heat of a cigarette had never felt so good. Even the sunlight coming off all those ships was beautiful in it’s own way. I tried not to look at Tanner, because the beauty of the boy might completely undo me. Tanner and I were the same age, and had grown up together, but it was hard not to think of him as a boy with his blond hair and dimpled cheeks. He had an elvish quality about him, like his beauty radiated from some inhuman source.

  … I stopped those thoughts as quickly as they surfaced. It wasn’t the time to think about that. It had never been the time.

  Wave after wave of ship poured over the horizon. I exhaled a slow puff of smoke and tried to keep my voice steady as I asked, “Any regrets?”

  His eyes flickered to me and lingered for a second before gazing back out the window of the turret. He stood in silence for a another moment before responding, “You know what I regret.”

  “Not that.” I let out a long sigh. “Not now.”

  “There is only now.”

  “I won’t let you waste all your dreams on me. I’ll keep telling you that until I run out of breath.”

  He looked down at the ground, and his eyebrows knit together, accentuating the scar on his forehead. I wished that I could brush my fingers over it and make it disappear.

  I’d fallen in love with him slowly after dozens of hot summers, and drunken nights, and dimpled grins—and then suddenly, when he held me the day my father died. He’d found me outside the church, rested my head on his shoulder, and gripped my hands until they’d stopped shaking.

  I inhaled smoke and looked away from his hands shaking on his gun.

  “You don’t need to be with a man who’s killed people.” I exhaled slowly.

  “I’ve killed people too.”

  “I know.” I sucked back more smoke and exhaled as I spoke. “That’s why you need to find a sweet, soft woman who can soothe out all your scars. Take her back to your farm when you finally get it, and love her for all she’s worth.”

  “I’m never going to have the farm.” His voice was so soft. His gaze stayed on the horizon. “You know that.”

  “I still won’t let you to waste your dreams on me.” My own hands started to shake…. Keep Reading