Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance (7 page)

“What’s your dad do?” I stood near the bar while wrapping my bare torso with the bandage. “He must work for Cliff Pleasure.”

Sequoia lay stretched on the couch, as though he were the injured one. “Used to. Got kicked by a horse so now he can’t work at all.” Mr. Crooks was usually lying silent as the grave in one of the filthy bedrooms. It was pretty unpleasant in that house, reeking of dust, popcorn, and cat shit.

“So he gets disability?”

“Well, he was never an official employee of the ranch, just worked under the table. So Pleasure lets us live here. It’s a sweet deal.”

Some deal
. “Then how you get food?”

“Food stamps. Indian Health Services. Hey, is there any gin left in that big bottle?”

I didn’t bother glancing at it. Did food stamps pay for the booze? “Get up and get it yourself. Look, you know that bruiser Lawson Willard is going to come after you.”

“You too, from the sounds of it. Especially now he knows you’re April’s new stepbrother.” Sequoia ambled over to the bar as I clipped the bandage snug around my ribs.

I muttered, “Guess that was bound to happen sooner or later.”

Sequoia poured himself some gin into a grimy glass that looked like it had contained a Bloody Mary, from the color of it. “Want some?”

“No thanks. Little too early in the day.” Truth was, I suddenly didn’t feel like drinking. Ever. Again. I’d seen my mother fall prey to the chains of alcoholism. I don’t think she’d gone a day without a drink in years. She said it was part of her social agenda, but what agenda required you to have an “eye opener” martini for breakfast? I could drink like the best of ’em, but suddenly, it just didn’t seem attractive. Watching Sequoia fritter away his very good chances at the rodeo had left a bad taste in my mouth.

Sequoia tasted his concoction and smacked his lips. “Now April will make sure you
never
live in the big house. Now that you’ve protected me and caused a giant rift between April and Lawson—not to mention pushed up on that peroxide Olivia babe—she’s
never
going to let her dad invite you to live in the lap of luxury.”

“Is it up to her?” I had the impression April didn’t control anything around “Camp David West,” the name of the big house back in the sixties. The main house bragged of twenty-two bedrooms overlooking reflecting pools, some with Kissinger, Nixon, Capote, and Rock Hudson memorabilia actually left by the people who had slept there. I’d heard that Cliff had donated many midcentury paintings by the likes of Rothko, de Kooning, and Wayne Thiebaud to the modern art museum in New York, replacing them with fakes. But there were real bronze statues of cowboys and dead Indians on horseback supposedly all over the place, according to Javier.

“Ah,” breathed Sequoia, exhaling liquor all over me. “He may force her to work for him, but she’s got him by the short hairs. Maybe you should stop pushing up on her best friend.”

I snorted. “Why would that piss April off? What does she care?”

Sequoia looked thoughtful. He gazed up at a poster advertising the virtues of skiing in Gstaad. It had probably been left there by the builders in the sixties. “Oh, I think she cares, all right.” He was the spitting image of the stereotypical wise Indian, giving a shit about the state of pollution in the rivers. “I watched your ride from the office window. You didn’t see her jumping up and down. Her eyes were fucking
shining
with excitement, man. You didn’t see her practically stampede Olivia to smithereens when your ride was over, trying to get to you. It was like something out of a fucking movie, man.”

“Yeah?” It irritated me how this news made my chest swell with pride. I wasn’t supposed to give a shit what that daughter of a wife-stealer thought. Her father was just a manipulative scumbag who wanted to increase his family name by marrying into another ranching family. Sadie made good arm candy for his social functions. Coming from Texas, she had the right hair and makeup down pat.

On paper, it was a good match. In reality, I foresaw disaster. And his daughter was the least of it. That bitch April spelled trouble with a capital T. “If I want Mr. Pleasure to sponsor the bareback event, I’d best stay far, far away from that twat.”

“Twat,” Sequoia agreed, but quickly took back his word. “She’s alright once you get to know her. I’ve known her since the fifth grade. She was probably defending me as much as she was defending you during that fight with Lawson and his gang.”

Now it depressed me hugely to think she was just standing up for Sequoia and not me. Suddenly I longed for the good ol’ days when I thought April crushed on me, when she seemed to respond ardently to me pinning her to the bleachers with my giant hard-on. I was not imagining that. She had squirmed with the intent to get me hot. She’d look good in a pair of handcuffs. I’d have to get some. Just to, you know, torment her. To remind her of how we met, the secret I still hoped I held over her.

Then I wanted to slap myself in the face. What was fucking
wrong
with me? I needed to get my fucking high school diploma, win big in the rodeo, and get my fucking trust fund. If that was even still on the table. Then I could go on the road, follow the circuit, wind up at national finals in Pocatello, Idaho in March. That was my life’s goal of my sage and far-seeing seventeen years go to Dodge National Circuit Finals in Idaho. Funny how stupid things seem, looking back several years later. Hard to believe that was my end-all and be-all of existence, getting to finals.

“Yeah, that’s probably it,” I said with disgust. “She’s probably been madly in love with you since fifth grade. I’m outta here.”

“Aw,” whined Sequoia, “I didn’t mean to imply she was madly in
love
with me. Just, you know, I know how much you hate her.”

“With a fucking passion,” I agreed, breezing out the front door.

“Wait,” said Sequoia, going back to the bar and grabbing something.

It turned out to be an opened bag of chips. “For the road,” he said.

He looked so god damned pathetic and sad, standing there holding that bag of chips. I had to take the chips—what else could I do? It was like his one pitiful contribution to our friendship—chips bought with hard-earned food stamps.

“Thanks,” I said, half-heartedly.

Sadie had just texted me.
Come to Hardscrabble big house. Big news. Come in the kitchen service door.
I didn’t want to mention that to Sequoia in light of what we’d just been discussing. So I left him in the dust, standing out front of his hovel holding his loser highball glass. I knew I should rethink my choice of friends. But there was something of the philanthropist in me, wanting to help Sequoia out of the muck. To raise him up to the noble level of a proper native. To help him realize his potential. Or some such shit.

Come in the kitchen service door
. It fucking figured.

I was finally “allowed” into the big house, and I had to come in the entrance reserved for black people, Mexicans, and other service types.

In fact, a Mexican lady probably called Maria or Josefina let me into the kitchen. We had a lot of those at the ranch in Paducah, so I spoke passable Spanish.

“
Buenas tardes. Cómo va tu día?”

“Está bien, gracias
,” said Maria.

Sadie was perched on an enormously long butcher block table smoking a cigarette. I smoked now and then, but I didn’t think a guy whose wife had just passed of cancer would appreciate someone smoking indoors. In his kitchen, no less.

I sunk my fingers into my jean pockets and gave Sadie my best hangdog look. Whatever I’d done, I was sorry for it. It was a look I’d perfected over seventeen years.

“David. I finally convinced Cliff to let you live with us.”

Suddenly, what I’d wanted for so long sounded like the stupidest prize in the world. Why the fuck would I even
want
to live under the same roof as Cliff Pleasure and his evil spawn? “That’s great, mom, but you see, his daughter and I hate each other. I appreciate all your hard work, but I don’t think—”

“Hate her? Oh, no. Oh, lord. She seems like a perfectly friendly person to me, David. And you don’t know how much I really,
really
need you to get along with her. I know she has her moods—”

I rolled my eyes. “Oh, boy. That’s an understatement.”

“—and can be, well, maybe sort of a bitch sometimes—”

“You said it, not me.”

“—but you see, there’s a family picnic thing coming up for the Modern Committee. We’re going to need you and April to attend with us, you know, make a big show of being civil.” She got up and tossed her lit cig into the sink. “Don’t you think you can do that? I’ll see about getting you a bedroom as far as possible from April, don’t you worry.”

It started to occur to me how much havoc I could wreak living under the same roof as April. We both held things over each other’s heads. Neither one of us would be the first to break. The tension would be delicious. It would be sinful training for my rodeo skills, to keep her on edge, to dish out the stress just enough so she didn’t quite crack. I could break her, in other words, like a green-broke filly.

“Alright. I trust you and Cliff,” I lied.

“Come to dinner tonight.”

“In the big dining room?” I taunted.

Sadie frowned. She could look quite used up when she drank too much, was too tired or hungover. She looked like hell right now. “Yes, of course the big dining room. And what’s wrong with you? Been playing in the rodeo again? Why aren’t you in school?”

I was spared answering as the double doors swung open, and the man of the house himself strode in his fancy cowboy boots.

“David,” he said grandly, holding his hand out for me to shake.

Sadie said, “He prefers to be called Dyno.”

“Dyno. Great rodeo name.”

“Yeah,” I said, breaking the handshake. “That’s why I picked it. We had unofficial pretrials at the arena last night. I stayed on Young Blood for fifteen seconds.”

Boy, it didn’t take long for that sandblasted douchecanoe to lose his brilliant sheen. I could see his daughter in him—the icy blue eyes, the plastic, cap-toothed smile. “Yeah. About that. I heard about the tussle that took place last night from Bob Groff.” Groff was the arena director. I knew he’d be a real narc, a real shit disturber, no matter how much he’d raved over my skills.

“Just a load of misunderstandings,” I tried to say.

“I know you were trying to protect Sequoia Crooks. But let me tell you, David. That boy is nothing but trouble. If you keep hanging around him something even worse is going to happen. He’s heading nowhere but rehab or the Indian welfare line. If you want me to sponsor the bareback event, you’ll have to agree to stop hanging around him.”

“Well, that’s just not right—” I began, but he cut me off.

“Another thing. You need to stop getting into it with Lawson Willard, too. That boy is up and coming, and he’s heading to Harvard in the fall. I know those boys might taunt and tease once in a while, but you’ve got to find a way to ignore—”

“Taunt and tease?” I blurted. “This isn’t fucking kindergarten—with all due respect, sir. Those ‘boys’ have been harassing and bullying Sequoia by calling him a blanket-ass, a smoke signal, a wounded knee jerk. Last I checked, that was racial discrimination.”

My mother only nodded. She could care less about racial stuff.

But Cliff was obligated to at least pretend to care. He was a businessman, highly visible in the community. “You’re right, David. That’s completely wrong, and I’ll have a chat with Lawson’s father about it. But in the meantime, I want your promise to stay away from Lawson. My daughter
needs
him, and I don’t want anything to come between them. My April might not get into an Ivy League school with the way her grades have fallen lately, but you can hardly blame her, with her mother’s passing and all.”

That was an easy enough promise to make. Since I hadn’t actually promised about Sequoia, I could easily promise about that snake, Lawson Willard. Who the hell wanted to be around him, anyway? I’d be forced to see him at rodeo events and that was it, once school let out. Fact, if he was going to that snob school, he wouldn’t make any of the finals anyway—if he even got that far.

I could wreak more havoc being an inside man like this. It fulfilled my sneaky, devious nature to know I was heaping undue stress upon that lily white April just with my mere presence. Maybe I
wanted
a bedroom close to hers. If her relationship with the great Mr. Willard was so tenuous that it was hanging by a string like that, the evil, underhanded possibilities were endless. I might have an amusing enough summer after all, especially if I was accepted into the circuit.

“No problem, sir. I’ll stay far away from Lawson Willard. Just talk to Mr. Groff about my scores last night. I had a really good start. I can focus on the next couple rounds, wrangle for you, and ride bucking horses.”

Cliff was all smiles again. “That’s fine, David.”

“Dyno.”

“Dyno,” Cliff agreed.

I was back in good. I was getting my way once more.

APRIL

W
hen the dinner
bell rang, I meandered down the hallway just like any other evening.