Page 49 of Worth the Trouble

When the horse dropped his head against Jason’s chest, the sound the grandstand made wasn’t a cheer. It was an exhale.

He worked the banner loose without hurry, ran a hand down the shivering neck, and led the horse the length of the pen to his handler on a palm and two fingers, no rope at all. The applause came then, and it came from everywhere.

“That,” said someone behind Cecelia, to nobody in particular, “is the other Dennison.”

“The quiet one.”

“Whose is he?”

“His own, looks like. Heard he’s taking clients.”

“He is,” Wendy said, turning full around and beaming, not quiet about it at all. “He takes referrals, too.”

For the rest of the evening there was a knot of men wherever Jason stood. From the grandstand it formed and re-formed. Ranchers with their hats tipped back, the arena manager, a father with a horse-crazy daughter tugging his sleeve. Jason listened, and nodded, and said almost nothing, and every one of them walked away as if they’d been paid.

Mrs. Bailey found him near the rail with Danny in tow. Cecelia was close enough to hear that the trainer in Ennis had retired before they’d ever hauled to him, that Danny had not stopped complaining since, and that the mare, in Mrs. Bailey’s opinion, had likely forgotten everything she’d learned.

“She won’t have forgotten, ma’am,” Jason said. “She’s smarter than both of us.”

“Bring her by whenever suits,” Mrs. Bailey said, which was not an apology. Then she looked over and found Cecelia looking on, and something went back and forth behind her eyes. “Miss Williams,” she said at last, with a nod, and moved off with her boy.

A name, spoken out loud, in public. It wasn’t warmth. It was more than she’d had.

Near the concessions, the woman from the council appeared at her side. “Miss Williams. The re-notice is moving. The flyers are going up, like you asked.” A pause with a dry note underneath it. “There are a great many windows in this town. Your check is going to feel it.”

“Best money I ever spent,” Cecelia said.

The councilwoman smiled and moved on.

Cecelia found Jason at the rail while the crew dragged the arena ground for the last event, the arena lit now, everyone’s breath showing. He turned before she said a word, as if he’d known exactly where she was the whole evening. She suspected he had.

“Well?” he said.

“You didn’t tell me it would be like this.”

“Like what?”

She looked at the arena, the crowd, the whole cold bright noisy world of it that had spent the evening deciding, and hadn’t decided everything, and had decided enough. “Like a town,” she said.

Jason took her hand where every soul in the grandstand could see it, and kissed her knuckles, a promise being signed, and their row of family whooped loud enough to spook the pens all over again.

The town hadn’t forgiven her. He hadn’t asked it to, and neither had she. But between the anthem and the last event, Rocky Ridge had watched Jason Dennison become inevitable, and it had let her stand close enough to be caught in it.

It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was a start.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The notice was in the window of Sweet Everything Bakery, taped at eye level. It was on orange paper in big letters with the town seal across the top. Jason read it from the truck while he idled at the stop sign. Town Council Rezoning Hearing. All Residents Welcome. The date sat at the bottom.

Every window that’ll take one. She’d meant it.

His phone hadn’t been quiet since the rodeo. Mrs. Forsythe’s colt, the one that wouldn’t take a bit. A barrel racer out of Ennis with a mare that had started refusing the alley. Two calls he’d let go to voicemail because the men on the other end wanted to talk about that night at the pens more than they wanted to talk about their horses. He’d called them back anyway. Tate said that was the job now. Answering all the calls.

The Baileys’ mare had come home the morning after. Loaded without a fight.

He’d come in for halters and a coil of soft rope from Bob’s, and he’d have been in and out if he hadn’t noticed all the orange notices everywhere.

He counted a couple more before he reached the square. Cliff’s Country Store. Bob’s Hardware.