Change of Hart (Wells Ranch, #3)(8)
Fat chance.
There she was. On a patch of grass directly in the middle of my route. Watching a steer wrestling slack event in dusty jeans and a hot pink rodeo shirt. Her dark brown hair was braided down her back, and the warm sun had it shining.
Blair Hart.
We’d known each other since preschool. Same age, same grade, and same class for our entire lives—not that it meant we were friends. Mostly, we passed each other in the hallways, and sometimes I’d be a middleman when she passed notes with her friends. We operated in separate circles until Blair decided she wanted to start barrel racing. The Hart family wasn’t in the rodeo scene like mine, so Mom took her under her wing. She’d said something about wanting more estrogen in a house full of boys, on a ranch full of cowboys. Suddenly, Blair was tagging along for nearly every rodeo, and taking the school bus home with us three days per week to practice in our arena.
She was a nice enough girl. Smart, a bit quiet, and she could even be funny sometimes. Though I’d never admit that to the guys from school.
Still though, I wasn’t interested in hanging out with her for the entire day. I really didn’t want to buy her a stupid pop with my hard-earned cash. And yet, I’d rather do both than deal with Mom’s rage.
“Hey, I’m headed to buy a cold drink.” I stared down at her, waiting for her eyes to meet mine. “Whaddya want?”
“Oh, um.” Blair popped up to her feet, brushing the dirt from her pants. “Let me see what they have.”
She fidgeted with the sleeve of her pearl-snap shirt the entire fifty-foot walk to the concession. Keeping a gap wide enough for two more people between us, she clearly didn’t want to be stuck hanging out with me any more than I wanted to be with her. Thankfully.
Two cans of pop and a measly amount of change back, I handed a can over to Blair beneath the thin shade of a pine tree. She grinned, wiggling a finger under the metal tab to open her Dr Pepper with an aggressive crack and carbonated hiss. “Thanks, Denny.”
“No problem.” I took a swig of my Mountain Dew while looking around for somebody to hang out with, stuffing my change into my pocket.
“Hey, I saw some train tracks down the hill when we drove in,” she said with a mischievous grin. “We should go put those pennies in your pocket on the tracks.”
I lifted a brow, talking into my open can. “For what?”
“?’Cause it’s cool. When the train runs them over, they get really big and flat. Although, it is a little dangerous.” She gave me a look like she knew that last word was my kryptonite.
Not seeing anybody else around worth hanging out with, I shrugged. “Sure. Okay.”
Blair was already turning on her heel and quickly walking away before I had the words out, and I had to jog to catch her. It turned out, the “hill” was a steep embankment filled with loose clay, and we were left with no choice but to slide down on our butts. No clue how we’d get back up, but Blair giggled the entire way down, and I couldn’t help the smile teasing my lips.
“So, what do we do?” I eagerly awaited whatever risky thing Blair had planned for us, pulling the loose change from my pocket and presenting it to her.
“We lay the money flat on the tracks and wait for a train to come.”
I squinted at the narrow steel. “Hardly sounds dangerous.”
“Well…I guess it’s probably not as scary as steer riding. But your foot could get caught in the tracks, or you might not hear a train coming in time. Also, it’s illegal to play on train tracks. So if the conductor sees us…run.”
Illegal—now we’re talking.
“Okay.” I grabbed the three copper pennies, jamming the rest of the money back into my pocket. Handing her two, I stepped toward the tracks and waited for Blair to show me what to do.
She diligently set the coins dead center on the steel, about a foot apart, then stepped back to admire her handiwork. I followed suit, putting my coin tails up before collapsing onto the soft grass a few feet from the railway.
We sat in silence for the next twenty or so minutes. Unable to ever sit still for more than a moment or two, I fidgeted to keep myself from walking away and hurting her feelings. Plucking grass and rolling it between my fingers, picking dried mud and horse crap from my boots, rationing sips of my pop.
“Sorry,” she said softly. “I figured there’d be more trains coming by.”
Her cheeks were a light shade of pink but, despite being painfully bored, I didn’t want to make her feel worse about her silly idea of fun. “Let’s sit here awhile longer…. A train has to come eventually, right?”
“It’s okay if you don’t want to. The flattened coins aren’t that cool.”
“I have nowhere else to be.” I knotted a blade of grass carefully. “So, what made you decide to start running barrels?”
“My parents wanted me to take up a sport.”
“And soccer wasn’t an option, or…?”
She laughed. “Have you seen our school’s sports teams? Nobody takes it seriously. I’m too competitive to be on a team like that.”
Explained why she had been practicing more than anybody I knew. Sure, she was at a disadvantage when she started a few months ago, having only been on horseback a handful of times in her life. But by mid-June, you’d never guess she was new to this.