CHAPTER TWO

      BILLY WAS SETTING the food on the kitchen table, cowboy style: pot of beans next to the pot of franks next to the plate of sliced white bread. Stack of mismatched plates, a coffee can full of silverware. Plastic tub of generic margarine. Plastic salt and pepper shakers. Roll of paper towels. Jug of milk. Four chipped cups that would do double duty for milk or coffee. Shannon smelled the sharp aroma of coffee as it started to perk.

      Her dad was nowhere in sight.

      “Your father went to the tractor shed,” Billy said, reading her questioning expression. “Said not to wait on him. He didn’t know how long he’d be.”

      Shannon felt another bitter stab. He’d gone to find one of his bottles of whiskey. He used to have them stashed all over the place, hiding bottles the way squirrels hide their nuts. He was sitting out there somewhere, drinking cheap hooch to avoid his daughter and granddaughter.

      “Come wash your hands in the sink first, Rose,” she said as her daughter started to sit at the table. They shared the soap, warm water and towel. Billy removed his hat before sitting, revealing a short haircut that didn’t quite hide a nasty six-inch scar on the left side of his head above his ear.

      Rose stared at it as she climbed into her chair. “Does that hurt?”

      Billy shook his head. “Looks worse than it is. The doctors had to put a metal plate in my skull. Here, Rose, have some beans.” He dished some out for her, adding a hotdog and a slice of bread.

      “Thank you,” she said. “Why did they put metal in your head?”

      “Rose, it’s not polite to ask questions like that,” Shannon said as she took her own seat. She tried unsuccessfully to catch her daughter’s eye, but Rose was still staring unabashedly at Billy.

      “It’s all right,” Billy said. “I got hurt when the vehicle I was riding in hit a roadside bomb when I was in Iraq. The doctors had to put me back together again the best way they could.”

      Shannon wondered how many more ugly surprises the day could throw at her. “You joined the military? I always thought you were going to be a big rodeo star or the highest paid quarterback ever for the Dallas Cowboys.”

      “That might be a first for an Indian off the rez.” Billy’s grin was sardonic. “Signing up with the Marines seemed like a good idea at the time. The recruiter made it sound like an opportunity I’d be crazy to pass up. I’m glad things worked out better for you in Nashville, Shannon. A lot of talented musicians go there hoping to make a name for themselves, but not many do. You did real good.”

      Shannon served herself up some beans and franks, avoiding his eyes. “Thanks.”

      “Bet your next song tops the charts, same as all the others.”

      “There aren’t going to be any more songs. For ten years I lived mostly on a bus and never knew when I woke up what state or town I was in.” Shannon concentrated on cutting up her hotdog into precise segments. “I’m done with that life.”

      Billy had the good sense not to pursue the subject. He helped himself to the beans and took two slices of bread, laying them carefully on the edge of his plate, then hesitated, his fork poised. “Your father probably told you I bought that piece of land by the creek.”

      Shannon studied her hotdog segments. “Yes, he did.”

      “He put a for-sale sign out on the road about the same time I came back home. I didn’t have much money saved—the military doesn’t make a man rich—but I didn’t want anyone else buying a piece of the McTavish ranch, so I went to talk to him about a job. He ended up selling me the land and hiring me on at the same time.”

      “Lucky for you,” Shannon said drily, poking at a piece of hotdog.

      “I work at Willard’s part-time, too. Your father can’t pay me, but he’s letting me work off my mortgage.”

      There was an awkward silence. Shannon forked her beans and hotdog segments together in a pile in the center of her plate and stared at them. She’d never faced a more unappetizing meal.

      “I guess my father isn’t gentling mustangs anymore,” she said. “I don’t see any horses down in the corrals.”

      “We shipped five out to auction last week. The Bureau of Land Management’s due to bring another batch in any day now, but McTavish doesn’t make much money taming wild horses for their adoption program. Barely enough to buy groceries, really.”

      “What about horse training for the film studios?”

      “He had some sort of falling-out with a studio over a dog being killed on location maybe five, six years back. He blamed them for it and quit. I don’t know the details.”

      Shannon prodded her beans with the fork. The bread was stale and the swelled-up franks were downright suspicious. Who knew what they were made of? She pushed her plate away and reached for her glass of milk, taking a tentative sniff to make sure it hadn’t soured.

      She gazed across the room to another time. “My mother was the mover and shaker around here. She trained the horses and the dogs. Daddy learned from her after he got busted up in that horse wreck and couldn’t work as a stuntman anymore. He did all right with it, but my mother was the best of the best.”

      “She was a legend around these parts,” Billy said.

      Shannon was surprised he remembered the strong-willed, independent-minded woman who had been her mother. She caught his eye and felt herself flush. “Finish your beans, Rose.”

      “But, Momma...”

      “Clean your plate and I’ll take you out to the barn to see the horses.”

      Rose dutifully lifted her fork while Billy scraped his chair back and pushed to his feet.

      “Coffee’s done,” Billy said. “I’ll pour.”

      Shannon downed her milk in four big swallows and held her stained Bear Paw Bank and Trust cup out. He filled it with hot strong coffee. “Thanks,” she said. “How many hours are you putting in a week to work off your mortgage? What’re you doing, exactly?”

      Billy set the coffeepot back onto the stove and returned to his seat with his own mug. “I work at Willard’s store, stocking shelves, mostly at night. For your father, I help with the mustangs and other odd jobs. Right now I’m working on the fence line down along the black road. It’s slow going. Most of the posts are rotted off and need replacing.”

      “I