Page 25 of The Cowboy Comes Home

“That, and fully functional hands again,” Nic answered.

And that last statement sent an entirely different kind of image through Emily’s mind, the kind she hadn’t thought about in longer than she could calculate. In fact, maybe never.

She didn’t understand. She’d spent all of maybe an hour around the man, between the school encounter and out at the ranch. And yet her mind was inspired to create all kinds of different things he could do with those hands. This hadn’t happened to her in…ever. She never fantasized about a man she barely knew, not like this.

It took more than a sip of the peach lemonade to cool down that suddenly reckless imagination.

Chapter Twelve

Considering how longit had been, Tucker thought the piano thing had been okay. He’d hit some wrong notes, but nothing jarring. Only to be expected, since he hadn’t practiced in ages, and hadn’t even been at a keyboard in he didn’t know how long.

And he’d actually enjoyed it, something he never would have expected back when it had been therapy, a way to get his hands and fingers working again. At the time he’d nearly given up. He’d been feeling pretty sorry for himself. Wasn’t it enough that it hurt to simply breathe, and that he’d be setting off metal detectors for the rest of his life? But he’d fought on, probably too stubborn to just give up even if he wanted to. Stubborn, after all, was what had gotten him through most of his life, especially after those uniforms had arrived at the door that night.

Well, that and ignoring some of the cautions people threw at him. Like the doctor who said he’d be happier if Tucker would just avoid anything cowboy for the rest of his life. He’d told him that was not going to happen, so the man had sighed and said just try to stay away from the ones that buck, then.

Tucker had followed that advice, sort of. He hadn’t been aboard a bucking bull or horse since, but he’d intentionally bailed off a couple, for film shoots. But that had been intentional and controlled, and the metal parts bracing his ribs had held up just fine.

So far, anyway.

He took another swallow of the beer the saloonkeeper—he still chuckled inwardly at the fact that he was the police chief’s brother—had insisted on giving him in payment for what he’d called a great four minutes. Since several other people had made similar comments, he figured he hadn’t been too bad.

He caught himself scanning the room again, searching for the woman with those golden eyes. He’d never felt anything quite like the jolt that had hit him when, through the crowd, he’d seen her gaze fastened on him as he stood up from the piano.

He’d convinced himself they weren’t really that golden, that they were just light brown eyes like millions of people had. But now he wasn’t so sure, he could have sworn he’d seen the glint of gold reflecting what light there was in the saloon, making them almost glow. A glow that had somehow, even at that distance, warmed him.

He tried to laugh it off, telling himself he was being an idiot, but the feeling wouldn’t go away. She, however, did, seemingly having vanished moments after he’d spotted her. The crowd had moved, shifted, hiding her, and when the spot where she’d been was visible again, she was gone.

And that left him with a sense of disappointment that seemed all out of proportion to the short time he’d known her.

He heard the buzz of multiple greetings from the area near the front door of the saloon, and turned to see a lovely woman with long red hair tied back, bangs over her forehead coming in. She was accompanied by a tall, lean man with a touch of gray in his hair and a million miles in his eyes.

“Now that’s good to see,” Nic said from behind him. “Chance has come a long way since Ariel came into his life.”

The name rang a bell. “He’s the dog guy, right? Who saves the military dogs they write off, and gave Jeremy Maverick?”

“And trained Lobo and Emily to work together,” Nic said. “And time was you’d never see him show up for one of these informal gatherings. He was so isolated, we were all worried about him.”

And that, Tucker thought, was one of the things he was coming to like best about this place his best friend had landed. He’d heard he phrase “a tight-knit community” before, but he’d never seen one up close before. Amarillo, where he’d grown up, was a big city, the fourth largest in Texas. He didn’t know what the population of Last Stand was, but if it was a tenth of that he’d be surprised.

But it had something a big city could never have. The kind of kinship he was seeing here tonight.

“And look who’s right behind them,” Nic said, grinning now. “The dog whisperer to the horse whisperer.”

That got his full attention. He’d seen Jackson’s sister when she’d come to the house that night, but the man who had changed her life had been out of town working another rodeo. He was always here in town for the Last Stand Rodeo, though, Jackson had said.

So now Tucker found himself, after a big hug from Tris, studying the man with her rather intently, not as the farrier he’d known before, but as the man who had brought a happiness back to Tris that Tucker had never thought to see in her again. He knew from Jackson that he’d had an utterly hellish childhood—he supposed the source of that scar along the side of his jaw—that made his own look like paradise. Since he’d been pretty much ignored by his mother in favor of her drugs after his father had been killed, he could guess at how bad Logan’s life must have been.

Sometimes being ignored was a better option.

The man smiled when Jackson started to introduce them. “I remember the famous Tucker Culhane. You’re the only man who ever got me to watch bulls instead of horses.”

Tucker laughed appreciatively. “I remember you, too. Getting that ornery cutting horse of Jack Parker’s reshod in three minutes between rounds.”

“He was a bucketful,” Logan said tactfully.

Tucker hesitated, then said simply, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Fox asked.

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