myself off my rock, standing upright before him. I felt fine—for an instant—and then I blinked as the sky spun slowly around.
He sat me back down again on the rock. One hand pressed my head down against my knees. The hand remained on the back of my neck, fingers tangled in my hair. “Cry, if you want,” he said.
I laughed once, seeing nothing but the distorted close-up of my knees. “I’m scared, but not that scared. I’ll be okay.”
His fingers remained on my neck. They were hard and callused, tough like leather. He was right-handed; he had used the hand to hold himself aboard a spinning, bucking bull. To hold onto a bareback horse, and to grip the rein of a saddle-bronc. That much I knew.
And now he held my neck, gentling me as he would a fractious filly.
I sighed and let myself go limp against my knees as the tension and fear drained away. The fingers moved, shifting from neck to shoulders, until two hands massaged away the rigidity of my battered muscles.
“Easy,” he said gently. “I’m in no hurry to leave just yet; take your time.”
He was in no hurry. But was I? It was I who sat with his hands against my flesh, all unexpected. Or was it? There had been a tension of sorts between us almost from the beginning. And now it was being acknowledged.
I sat upright again and felt the hands pull away. And then one reached out to part my hair where it hung into my face. “What’s this?”
I thought he meant the old scar. Automatically I drew back, pulling my bangs down, and then I felt the wetness. Blood. Not much, but something had scraped me across the forehead and temple, slicing into the ridged flesh of the scar.
I laughed a little. Yet another to add to the collection. Harper took a clean bandanna from his back pocket and started to pat the blood away. I moved from the ministration. “Don’t bother.”
“Why? There’s dirt all over your face. This’ll do until we get back to the Lodge.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said resignedly. “One more scar won’t matter.”
“No,” he agreed, and I realized he was serious. I was not, and said so. Harper ignored me and patted the blood away, then returned the bandanna to his pocket. “You’ll do.”
I smiled. “Will I?”
“I think so.” Still he squatted next to me, his hands hanging limply over his knees. He did not touch me again, but he did not need to. “Cassie said you were behind the wheel when that actor died.”
“I was,” I said quietly.
“So now you’re carrying the guilt around like the Ancient Mariner and his albatross.”
“How poetic.” I sighed. “I suppose so. But it was my fault. If I hadn’t been driving, Tucker might still be alive.”
“Or you might both be dead, if he was as drunk as Walkerton said the night I overheard you.”
“Maybe,” I admitted, “but it doesn’t make it any easier. Guilt’s one of those things you can’t always rationalize out of your life.”
His eyes were steady on my face. “Do you ever think it might have been better if you had both died?”
I felt the old pain and guilt surge up to fill the cavity I’d managed to forget about. Oh yes. There were nights I lay awake wondering why Tucker had left me behind; wouldn’t I be happier with him? We’d been meant for each other, and I was here while he was not.
My throat cramped and I swallowed to loosen it. “So would you, sometimes, if you were in the same situation.”
“I was,” he said quietly. “Oh, maybe not exactly the same, but close enough. When the doctors told me my back was broken and that it might not heal right, that was bad enough. But when they told me I’d better not rodeo anymore, I was mad enough to hope I wouldn't walk again.” He picked at the dirt with a stick. “All I knew was that if I could stand up and walk out of that hospital, nothing could keep me from rodeo. It would be better to be paralyzed and have a damn good reason, than give it all up just because there was a chance.” He shook his head. “I can’t say it right. But it has to do with making a choice, and I didn’t want it made for me. ”
“But you did make it., You gave up rodeo.”
His mouth jerked. “For a woman. For my wife. She wanted a man