Playing Dead (15 page)

With every jab and poke and giggle, I had time to doubt the
sense of showing up here and getting Hudson involved. I glanced at the door. Maybe he hadn’t spotted me yet. As if he read my mind, he caught my eye and winked. He’d known all along, probably from the second I walked in.

Sadie said he showed up at Daddy’s funeral and sat at the back of the church, that I just didn’t see him. It would be rude to go.

Damn Sadie. Damn her for telling me Hudson was back from the war zone, for finding out that he was teaching this class tonight as a favor for a friend, for writing the time and location on a piece of paper she shoved in my purse, for reminding me without saying a word that I’d never come close to finding any man I loved better.

Eventually, most of the class was exercising serviceable moves. The granny in the back row with a cane and an ass-kicking left leg was the one I’d bet on in a dark alley.

“Knees, eyes, throat, groin,” Hudson said. “Repeat it back.”

“Knees, eyes, throat, groin,” they chirped obediently.

“Those are your target spots. Don’t forget it.”

For the last fifteen minutes of the class, the women sat cross-legged on the carpet and listened to Hudson’s no-holds-barred lecture on weapons laws in Texas and the advantages and disadvantages of carrying guns and pepper spray.

They were rapt because Hudson had that effect on women. Sadie put him in the category of guys you could take home to Mama, but Mama would be shocked if she knew what he’d do to you later that night.

When his mouth was curved up, emphasizing crinkly lines around his eyes and deep dimples, he was irresistible, James Franco and Clint Black rolled into one, a magnet of sexual energy and charm and intellect. When it didn’t, when his mouth formed a tight, inscrutable line, you took a step back.

I stepped back a long time ago and kept on stepping.

“You shoot a gun in self-defense and the bullet hits somebody, that’s just the beginning of your problems,” Hudson was telling the women, holding up his hand amid a spree of protests.

“It doesn’t matter if you’re completely justified. You’ll have to hire a lawyer for the investigation. When you’re cleared, you’ll have to keep him for the civil lawsuit the ‘victim’ will slap you with.” He grinned. “Hey, ladies, that’s life in America, home of the free.”

When he was finished, a teenager, her iPhone on the floor inches from her leg in case of a Facebook emergency, stuck her hand in the air.

“Should I get a gun?”

“No,” Hudson said.

She made a face and glanced down at a flashing text message. “Should I carry pepper spray on my key chain?”

“It depends,” he said. “How pissed off do you get at your boyfriends?”

“My parents are making me take this class.”

“Yes,” he said, pointing to a thin woman with wire-frame glasses who had raised her pencil, briefly halting her compulsion to write down every word he said in a black notebook. She had a bruise around her right eye. “You have a question?”

She cleared her throat. “What specific kind of gun do you recommend that I carry?”

“I don’t recommend that you carry any gun at all,” he said gently, “unless you’ve practiced with it until it is like a glove in your hand. That said, a lot of women like .42 caliber revolvers or 9 mms. Some of them carry .380s. They’re all effective, fairly easy to shoot. With a lot of practice.” He paused. “Never, ever use a gun if you’re afraid of it.”

She wrote this down.

Who would be safer tonight when we drove home
, I wondered,
her or me?

I wanted to beg her not to return to the man who delivered that punch.

A thirtyish woman, poured like cake batter into a pink tracksuit, waved her diamond rings vigorously.

“OK, what about this situation? A man is coming toward me with a gun and I don’t have one. What should my first move be?” She chopped her hands in the air, karate-style.

“He’s got a gun?” Hudson asked.

“Yes, a big one.” She couldn’t help herself. She lowered her eyes to his crotch.

“And you don’t?”

“Right. What should my move be?”

Hudson crossed his arms and propped himself against the blackboard that listed two reputable shooting ranges, one that I used to frequent every Sunday night.

“Your move,” he drawled, “should be the same as mine. Haul ass.”

The class erupted in laughter, the teenagers helped up the old ladies, the suburban moms swarmed Hudson for a few extra questions, and I waited in the corner, wondering how to smother the heat coming off my body before he got too close.

Finally, when the last woman scooted out the door and Hudson moved deliberately toward me, all I could think about was how he’d looked on the top of a bull, a moving sculpture of grace and power, fighting for his eight seconds.

His archnemesis was a one-ton creature called Drill, Baby, Drill, a name that had nothing to do with oil and everything to do with West Texas testosterone.

Hudson and I met on the competitive rodeo circuit the year I turned eighteen. Eight months of daredevil riding, passionate arguments, and sex that disturbed the horses. It was the most alive I ever felt. Now he was inches from my face for the first time in six years, and I could barely breathe.

“So Tommie with an
ie
,” he said, drawing out the words slowly, “what can I do for you?”

For the first time in two weeks, I wished I looked better, as his eyes roamed my face, makeup free, which is the way he always said he liked it.

No prelude, I just spit it out.

“I need one of your cop friends to let me into the downtown jail tomorrow to meet the murderer who might be my real father.”

“Done,” he said. “If you buy me a couple of shots of Dulce Vida.”

An hour later, we sat in a heavily graffitied wooden booth at The Rope bar, breathing the cloud of smoke puffed our way from a guy who looked like Santa Claus with a black leather fetish.

Underneath a studded jacket, Santa wore a T-shirt that read, “You never see a motorcycle parked outside a therapist’s office.” I didn’t take it personally.

The downtown dive catered to cops and Harley riders who shared an unlikely bond after years of drinking beer and twisting on bar stools together. I didn’t want to know what kind of life-and-death issues were decided in this room as the two tribes handed tips back and forth. Regardless, sitting here felt pretty damn safe.

After an intent half-hour of listening to my spew of emotion and wild facts and then reading the letter for himself, Hudson made a few calls. My wish was granted. Tomorrow morning, 6 a.m. Everyone, it seemed, at least those in Hudson’s network, either owed him a favor or wanted Hudson Byrd to owe them one. Now I could be added to the list.

I fiddled with the laminated list of 150 beers from around the
world, wondering if the waitress would really bring me a Fredericksburg brew called Not So Dumb Blonde. Today I felt like Pretty Dumb Blonde, and the “pretty” didn’t refer to my looks.

Being this close to Hudson Byrd again, depending on him, was dangerous. He’d almost killed a man because of me. While I lay in a hospital bed with broken bones, he found the rodeo official who had substituted Black Diablo in the lineup at the last minute, a bull unofficially banned on the circuit that year for wicked moves that had nearly killed two other female riders. I was simply unlucky enough to get him in the draw.

Hudson didn’t blame the bull. The bull was a first-class athlete doing his job, almost a thousand pounds of muscle who could leap six feet in the air and spin at a freakish hundred miles an hour.

No, Hudson blamed the human being who put me on that bull. I couldn’t face Hudson after finding out what he did when he found the man at a bar in the Stockyards.

Or so I told myself. The truth was, I couldn’t face my own future. The bull had shattered more than my arm. I was in pieces, devastated, no longer sure what was left of me. We had one more date, an awkward one, and then he stopped calling. Sometimes I think that if one of us had made the slightest move, uttered one more sentence, we might be married and divorced by now, burned out by our passion and tempers.

The relationship was all heat, nothing more, I told Sadie at the time, a lie. We fought too much, the truth. It took six months of healing for me to realize that I loved Hudson, and eight years for us to connect again, unexpectedly, at a New Year’s Eve party in Dallas thrown by an ex-rider we used to hang with. Hudson was flying to Iraq the next day. I gave him a send-off kiss at midnight, which I’d do for any guy going to war, or so I convinced myself.

“How’s the horsey psychology biz?” Hudson asked, tipping his beer, bringing me back to the present. I wanted him to hit the pause button on the charm.

“Technically, I’m a licensed equine therapist,” I answered. “It’s going fine.” I shook my head. “Actually, I love it. Horses are amazing teachers. There’s no bullshit with them. No human emotion to get in the way. The horses don’t feel sorry for kids, don’t care about their baggage. Treat the horse with respect and control or he won’t cooperate. But, of course, you know this.”

He grinned. “I was trained by a stallion named Wicked when I was six. Some would say he could have done a better job.”

The waitress, walking past, slid a cardboard container of fried jalapeños stuffed with cream cheese onto the table, her fingers brushing Hudson’s on purpose as she picked up an empty glass. It ticked me off, a ridiculous, involuntary response.

“I’m running a program with juvenile delinquents, mostly boys who’ve shown aggressive behavior,” I said, trying to keep the conversation neutral. “They train our wild mustangs. It is a beautiful thing to watch. One rebellious spirit against another.” I bit into a pepper, catching the cheese dripping down my chin. “But what about you? How’s Afghanistan?”

“A disaster in every way,” he replied grimly.

His lips curved into a slow smile. “You’ve still got the softest, sexiest drawl on the planet. You used to drive all those rodeo boys crazy. They said you had the guts of a tiger and the face of an angel.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. He was piling it on and the liquor was doing its job. I felt like I was rafting on a warm river.

“What, you don’t think cowboys can be poetic?” He leaned in, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear.
Stop it
, I pleaded silently. “You were hard to resist then and near impossible to resist now.”

I could feel the blood surging in my face, a tingling where his finger had grazed my cheek. It had just been two of the worst days of my life. I wasn’t ready for a full-on advance from Hudson, especially if it didn’t mean anything to him.

“Are you scared?” he asked gently, his voice low.

“Of you? Or Anthony Marchetti? The answer is yes on both counts.”

“You don’t have to meet with Marchetti. There are other ways.”

“I need to do this,” I insisted stiffly. “I appreciate your help. I’ll owe you a favor.”

“That might be one more reason this is a bad idea.” His finger trickled over the back of my hand. “I usually collect.” He leaned back. “You understand you only have ten minutes?
Outside
the bars of his cage? With Rafael standing right beside you? You understand that now I know about this, I’m in all the way. I will be a wart on your very nice ass. You accept these conditions?”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I do.”

“I’m committed to a job out of town for a few days. So don’t do anything stupid until I get back. Just the Meet and Greet.”

I heard him, but my mind was on something else.

“Are you going back?” I pulled it out of the air, but he knew that I was talking about the desert, where I’d been afraid he’d vanish into the sand.

“No,” he said. “Never.”

The next morning, in the pre-dawn, air-conditioned cool of my bedroom, I pulled on old Wranglers, my hair still wet from the shower. I refused to dress up for my meeting with Anthony Marchetti. I stared at my extra-pale complexion in the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, sorry that I’d
let Hudson talk me into joining him for a couple of shots of tequila.

Then I bent over the toilet and threw up.