Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance (3 page)

I chuckled, and one of the ladies slurred, “Miss Goody Two Shoes ain’t got nothing on us. Come on over here, hot stuff.”

I said, “Shut up. I’m listening.”

“You know that skank?”

“Uh-huh. She’s my stepsister.”

That
shut them up, so I could listen some more before Mr. Pleasure hustled April down the hall.

“I’ve been more than patient with you since your mom died. But if you don’t start straightening up your act, young lady, you’re going to wind up with
no
college prospects.” He was always comparing me to my sister May, studying business at Stanford.

“But Dad,” April whined, suddenly not so ballsy, “it was a bogus charge! You know I’m no damned hooker.”

“And I’ll thank you to stop swearing and start acting like a member of an upstanding ranching family!”

I got a huge chuckle out of all that, naturally. I knew I could somehow use this information to my own advantage. I knew Mrs. Pleasure had passed of cancer, but not until my mom had already hooked up with Cliff during their attendance in the Texas circuit. Cliff was a well-known stock contractor for the PRCA.

Yeah, they’d fucking hooked up before that poor lady died. This disgusted me. You might think well, who was
I
to be disgusted? I’d been known to bang more than two lookers simultaneously, usually without the others finding out.

But these consenting adults riled me up. It was downright wrong to be humping behind the catch pens while your wife lay dying in hospice. And Sadie got no credit either. My dad may be a hard-as-nails, dyed-in-the-wool asswipe, but he didn’t deserve that.

So I hated Cliff Pleasure’s spawn. I wanted to twist the knife in April’s gut. I’d find creative ways to use my knowledge of her arrest against her. I wasn’t too high and mighty for that.

I talked with the ass-peddlers for a while just to stay awake. Their honey man was coming to bail them out. No one was coming for me. Who would I ask—Sadie? She was too busy trying to perform like a trained seal for her new husband. She hadn’t even asked him if I could move in and away from that sleazy motel.

After a while, another fellow was thrown in with us. Took me awhile to realize I knew this guy, Sequoia, from my algebra class. What’re the odds of that? Well, if I gave a flying fuck about math, I might be able to calculate them.

The reason it took me awhile was, he was maybe even filthier than me.

He was a Cahuilla Indian, I knew, and he gave me a shit-eating grin, all crumbled up in a corner of the bench. Had he been bronc busting too? When he grinned, I saw he whistled through a hole where his tooth used to be.

“Imagine meeting you here.” Sequoia was still panting from his run-in with the cops. I had the feeling he was more used to it than I was.

I snorted bitterly. As in
what else is new?
We were such hardened criminal cases, we had nothing better to do on a school night. “Where’d you get nailed?”

Sequoia tried to make a lip fart, but only sprayed blood and saliva in an impressive arc. “Down at the Bitter End. One of your rodeo buddies started making cracks about what a dirt worshipper I was. You know, what a cowboy-killer. I wasn’t about to sit around taking that shit.”

I had to laugh. “I’m with you. I was carrying on over at The Neon Cocktail when I was nabbed for D&D. But they ain’t my rodeo buddies. I ride alone.”

Sequoia attempted a worldly, all-knowing sneer. True, if he had been a white guy, he would’ve been taken to the hospital before being thrown into the jail. They might’ve even tried to find his tooth on the ground first. “Same here. I don’t ride with no one. You cowpoke over on Hardscrabble, don’t you?”

How’d he know that? “Yeah. What of it?”

He shrugged. “Nothing, man. Just that I live there too. We’re neighbors.”

Now I did make a lip fart. “Not hardly. I may work there, and my mother may live in the big house, but
I
personally have to ride my scoot every morning from some scumbucket motel over on Monty Hall Street.”

Sequoia genuinely laughed. “I know. Strange street names around here, huh? You’ll get used to it. It’s always funny when some moron gets into a skateboarding accident on Sonny Bono Boulevard.”

“Why’s that funny?”

The smile evaporated from his face. It was then I knew that he wanted to impress me, to be my friend. I almost felt a little sorry for the guy. I did not do friends. Even in Paducah, I’d been a loner. Friends just wound up stabbing you in the back.

“Not funny. Just making an observation. Hey, I saw Mr. Pleasure’s Caddy pulling out of the station as they brought me in. Why’re you still here?”

What
? He thought that fucktard Pleasure would bail out the likes of me? “That dog don’t hunt, Yazzie. That douchetard Pleasure would rather have a Jolt enema than bail me out. He didn’t even recognize me, don’t think. Or maybe he did, and just didn’t show it. He was here bailing out that tight snatch of a daughter of his.”

It looked like it hurt Sequoia to gape at me. “
What?
Not April.”

“Yes April.”

“No fucking way! She’s been a straight arrow—well, okay, maybe since her mom died she’s gone off the rails, been carrying on a little.”

I noticed he said “carrying on” just like I had.
Maybe this guy isn’t half bad.
I could use an ally around this burg, especially if he was an ass-licking sycophant like this guy. And an outsider like me.

I said, “Well, apparently someone mistook her for one of these gals here.” I tossed my head at the vice sisters sharing our little room. “That, or she really
was
soliciting.”

“Oh, I fucking doubt that, man. I fucking doubt that very much. She’s attached to that jock Lawson Willard. We compete against each other at the arena—saddle broncs, mostly, sometimes bare. He’s a complete douchecanoe. He’s always pulling leather, grabbing the apple when he’s riding saddle.”

I sat up straighter. “You compete at the arena? I’ve been, ah, meaning to get into that scene. Just never a second’s worth of time what with being a vaquero for Hardscrabble in my every spare second.”

Sequoia sat up straighter, too. “Sure I compete. CCPRA’s taking entries right now. Callbacks are next Thursday.”

This intrigued me. I didn’t have two nickels to rub together until I collected my first paycheck, and I’d need to join the California rodeo association. I could still get in as a rookie youth since I wasn’t yet eighteen. “Bareback and saddle were my events.” I nearly called him “brother”, I was so worked up. If I could compete, and maybe even win against that Lawson Willard buttmuncher, well, that’d give me an immediate goal for the summer.

That was,
if
I could make it through the next two weeks without getting kicked out of motherfucking high school.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “Come on over to our corral after seven tomorrow night—or maybe the night after, if you need to fix yourself up. The cow boss Javier has been timing my rides but I’m sure you’re a much better coach.”

Sequoia’s eyes gleamed with excitement. Or maybe it was the liquor that Indians famously couldn’t hold. “Okay, but we can only practice bareback. The rigging on my saddle’s, ah, you know.”

I knew. He couldn’t afford to take his saddle to the saddler to repair it. Mine was in a similar condition, but Javier had invited a guy over next week to fix my rear riggings, my horn, my seat.

“Bareback. Deal.”

I nodded, smug and satisfied, the way I liked to be. I was just one smug and self-satisfied motherfucker back then.

In a way, I think it helped me plough ahead in life. I had none of the doubts I have now, having served my country in SEAL Team 6. Engaging in all sorts of questionable and dubious fatal missions has given me a perspective on things. And looking back on my final days at Mario Lanza High School, nothing ever seemed so vital, so death-defying, as entering that bareback competition.

It was the end all and be all of existence, those Last Chance competitions. And I knew April Pleasure had some crucial role to play in the drama of it all.

APRIL

I
couldn’t believe
I had school the next day.

After what had happened at the jail and my dad yelling the roof down for another hour at home, well, I barely got any sleep at all.

I was hungover as shit waiting for Lawson to pick me up for first period. There was no way in hell I could avoid school, and frankly, I’d rather be there than listening to my dad storm around. He wouldn’t buy me my own car. Some school of hard knocks thing or something. It was his way of forcing me to work for Hardscrabble, I knew. My mother had done all the books and I’d taken over a year ago when she got too ill. I hated it. It was dull as dishwater using this CowBucks program, which was about as exciting as it sounded. CowBucks, can you believe it? My dad said that if I earned enough, he’d buy me half a new Mustang.

I loathed working in the Hardscrabble office. I used to want to become an aeronautical engineer, or something where I could use my math skills. Since Mom died, those goals had pretty much shriveled into modeling for the pro rodeo. I had lots of sexy, pastel cowgirl outfits. I could pose well. I had hair the color of saltwater taffy and my teeth were as white as little Chiclets. I knew I could work the hell out of some rodeo website, some team roping competition, or maybe even Spin to Win Rodeo Magazine. I could model some spurs or display some saddles. There was nothing to it. I was already in talks with a local sponsor, a boot barn.

I couldn’t ever recall being so hungover. I used to revel in that slightly buzzed, out-of-it feeling. It made me feel trashed, like I had
done
something, something worthwhile. I know it didn’t make much sense. Not many people like feeling hungover. It just let me know that my life was active, full, and damn it,
at least I had a life
, unlike so many losers who just stuck their noses in books.

But today it didn’t sit right with me, maybe because my stomach was empty. It growled and rolled like the ocean with all the acid and poison of the five beers I’d had the night before, and the noxious air I’d been breathing in that holding cell.

Of course, I’d taken a shower. Several times. Meeting up with that odious Melrod from school assured that. Just being in the same room with him was enough to send you screaming to the decontamination shower. I couldn’t shake the image of him with his stupid cutoff army jacket, his inked biceps covered in dust, his lip bloody.

Why was he taunting me? Boredom? He was just that sort of guy, I guess. One of those morons who sits in the back of the class giggling and making idiotic jokes at the expense of people who are trying to learn. Only, in this case I guess he was taking creepshots of my fucking
ass
. Just standing there, I felt like I needed to go shower again.

At seven thirty in the morning, it was already hot enough to make you sweat. I was in my sleeveless cheer squad costume. It was more like a sports bra, really, with straps that crossed in back. We’d had a bit of a tiff with the school about getting that one to fly, but we’d prevailed, citing the broiling Mojave Desert weather as just cause. As the sweat dried on my skin, I actually shivered, stiffening my nipples inside the scratchy bra cups. Or maybe it was the rumble of the large motorcycle engine heading my way.

I tried not to look. I tried to look stiffly ahead at the road that stretched flat toward the horizon. Of course it was that fucking Melrod creepazoid. He looked much better now, to his credit. Spending the night in a holding cell hadn’t raked him over the coals like it had me. He was still a scruffy ragamuffin, but he’d finally managed to shower, and he looked at me from under a silken curtain of hair. He still wore his dad or big brother’s army jacket and the long stovepipe jeans capped by two steel-toed boots. His half-lidded eyes could have made him adorable, in the long slanting rays of morning sun. Like the daredevil he was, he wasn’t wearing a helmet.

“Want a ride to school?”

I sniffed, literally looking down my nose at him. “No thanks,
Melrod
.” I spoke his name as though it were shit. I wondered what he was doing on my turf. Coming here just to annoy me? That seemed pretty far-fetched. “I’ve got a
decent
ride, not some fucking hog.”

It was his turn to sneer. “It’s not a fucking
hog
, Miss Squarepants. It’s a Harley custom Panhead. And you’re going to be seeing it a lot more often in your palatial drive.”

It didn’t sink in, what he was saying. I just sneered and looked at my phone. Olivia was texting. I still hadn’t answered her about whether or not she’d be coming to pick me up. “Dream on, loser,” I said vaguely.

He had to yell above his usual mumble to be heard over the engine. “You’ll be singing a different tune when I’m sitting across from you at your dinner table in a few days.”

I jerked my head up.
What?
“What?”

He revved his engine, annoyingly. He had this cat that ate the canary grin. “You want to tell your chef I’m allergic to zucchini? But don’t worry. I don’t avoid vegetables totally. I enjoy the hell out of green beans and asparagus, even if it makes your pee smell funny.”