when he saw Matt standing twenty yards away.
Matt started walking toward him. He didn’t know why, but it was something he needed to do. Charles stood planted where he’d stopped and then Ryan started to approach from behind.
Caught between his sons.
This son had no idea how this was going to play out, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other, Beckett following behind him on a loose rein.
“Hey, Dad,” he said.
Charles had a wild look in his eyes as Ryan came up behind him. Matt met his brother’s eyes directly for probably the first time since they’d fought in the men’s room all those years ago. Now he could see a little of his father in Ryan. The jaw. The line of the nose.
And for the first time since that fight, Ryan spoke directly to Matt. “I was just explaining to your father how much his recent phone call to my mom had upset her.”
Matt’s blood pressure red-lined. Charles was still in contact with this woman?
Ryan jutted his chin out at Matt, as if Matt were somehow responsible. “If it happens again, I’ll make a call of my own.”
There was no mistaking his meaning. He’d call Matt’s mother, just as Charles had called his.
“Do that,” Matt growled, “and I will beat the shit out of you.”
“Or try?” Ryan turned his attention back to Charles before Matt could reply and said, “No more calls, you son of a bitch. Leave her alone.” With that he turned and strode back toward his thousand-dollar trailer with the forty-thousand-dollar horse tied to it.
Charles face was now more white than red. “Are you still involved with her?” Matt demanded.
“No!”
“Just calling her for old time’s sake?” Matt asked with a sneer.
“Calling her to tell her to keep her mouth shut.” Charles took on his defensive self-righteous stance. “She was the one who clued you in, right?”
Matt just stared at him. “I clued me in. I’ve known since I was fifteen and she had nothing to do with it.” Charles’s jaw dropped. “Shit, Dad—”
He needed to get out of there, before he gave in to impulse and punched his father in the teeth. He turned and abruptly started back toward the warm-up area. He was almost there, rounding the last trailer when he heard his name.
Liv. Oh, man. Liv to front, his father to rear. Who knew where the hell his brother was? It was more than he could handle right now.
“I can’t talk.”
She reached a hand out toward him, touching his arm, but Matt shook it off and walked on. He had to. If he talked to Liv, he was going to lose it and he couldn’t afford that right now.
All he wanted to do was to hole up, get his head on straight before his run. To bury himself in the heat of competition, which had saved him before and would hopefully save him again.
* * *
LIV WALKED STRAIGHT back to her trailer, climbed into the tack room and pulled the saddle pad and shiny red cover off the storage bar, stepping back down to the soggy grass just as Tim passed her going into the room to get the saddle.
Matt had shut her down in a spectacular way and it hurt like hell. But what had she expected? A tearful reunion?
No. But she hadn’t expected him to be so brutally cold.
Numbly, she helped get Queso ready for the drill, exchanging greetings with her teammates as she worked, watching with a stab of envy as Pete patted Susie on the butt when she walked by in her shiny jeans.
She put glitter on the horse’s rump while Tim did the same to all four hooves. She’d never thought she’d see the day. Probably neither did Margo, who was parked a couple spaces down, casting the occasional glance in Tim’s direction.
Okay, Matt had every right to brush her off, but Liv was going to have her say. Get the closure she didn’t yet have.
She looked up to see her father studying her. “I’m fine,” she said automatically.
Tim just shook his head. Apparently, she was a bad liar.
“Okay, I’m not fine. I screwed up with Matt.” Tim already knew that, so she may as well confess out loud.
“Talk to him,” Tim said gruffly.
I tried. “I will.”
Tim’s eyes went to Margo’s trailer, even though she’d mounted and left a few minutes before. “Do that,” he said.
* * *
MATT HAD WONDERED if it was a mistake to ride Beckett competitively for the first time in this rodeo,