The phone was still ringing. I stood and stared at it, willing it to stop. On the fourth ring, the answering machine picked up. Frowning, I waited to hear the message.



"Ya, Nikki, it's Dalton. Need to talk to you about that horse, figured I'd call your mom and dad's since you don't answer your cell anymore. In case you forgot, my number is 555-4565."



Click.

Then the line was dead.

I hit the play button, let the machine start the message then hit the delete button. Hearing from him was the last thing I wanted today. Dalton had been a friend of my older brother's, a good friend before their wreck. A rainy night on a back road, Dalton had been driving. Simply put, Dalton lived and Jace didn't.

Dalton was calling about a horse that he and my brother had bought together, it was the last thing I wanted to think about today.

My brother was old enough and odd enough that he'd had a will drawn up before he passed. Being a saddle bronc rider, he was always uber cautious about the "red tape side of things" as he told me repeatedly. He'd left everything he had to me, and being 10 years my senior, it was a surmountable thing to happen when you weren't even out of high school left. I'd been left with his truck and trailer, a small house and land in southern Texas, a handful of corriente cattle, a registered bucking bull, and all 6 of my brother's horses. My dad helped me to sell his step son's truck and trailer, I couldn't even look at them without breaking down. The house and land had sold quickly, and provided more than enough to take care of a wonderful memorial for my big brother. My uncle had let me turn the cattle out at his place, I knew the plans Jace had for them and wanted to continue them if I could.

The bull I kept as well, knowing the potential Jace had seen in him. He'd had him in several bucking bull futurities, and had done very well with him. The bull, named NB 459, had been my pet. A big hot shot stock contractor had given the calf to Jace when his mama had died, and he'd brought him back home to me, asking me to take care of him for him. NB stood for Nikki's Boy, and the 459 represented the time he'd looked at the clock when he was filling out the forms to have the calf registered. He'd never been one for flash and pizzazz, so it was a simple and straight forward name for the little guy. I'd leased him back to the contractor who'd bred him, I didn't have the money to haul him like he deserved. I'd been more than appreciative of the fat checks that the big red bull had earned for me, they went along way to pay a girl's entry fees!

I'd done the best I could with the horses he'd left to me, most sold quickly, and for good amounts. Two open caliber calf roping horses had been sold before we even had Jace's funeral. A heeling horse went to a cousin of mine to use for the college rodeos, a broodmare went to a stud farm to be bred to have my next barrel horse. A 2 year old that wasn't broke yet went back to his breeder, I just didn't have the time or patience for a baby they way Jace had. The sixth horse was the reason Dalton had just called. Jace and Dalton had been partners on the horse, bought him from a big breeder in North Dakota. He was Jace's ideal horse. Juice was leggy, athletic, and pretty as a picture. Jace had started him as a 4 year old, then turned him out again. He'd just started roping on him in the arena two weeks before the accident. My dad and my uncle had gone to Texas to be sure the real estate deal with Jace's house had gone smoothly, and to bring all the livestock back north after the sale. Dalton's dad had shown up a day or so after they did, to pick Juice up and take him back to their place. None of his family knew that my brother had left me everything he had, so when the news was passed along to Dalton that the horse wasn't his outright, he'd been furious. Hard feelings came to the surface with a vengance, and needless to say, Juice came back to our place for a time. I loved the horse as much as I'd loved my brother, he was what I'd dwelt on in my grief. When I got the sideways glances in town, and heard the hushed rumors circulate, along with the pats on the back, I'd go to Juice and bury my face in his shoulder and cry.