Blood Bourbon

Bruises

Several Weeks Later

Daryl

"You're off for the rest of the season." Daryl's boss had handed him an envelope with what he assumed was a paycheck to cover the final two and a half months, which was a surprise. Usually you had to fight for medical leave. "Though the doctors will be following up with you, just let the offices know where you settle."

And with that, Daryl had headed back to Texas, to his brother's farm to stretch that final paycheck and help out with the farm. Though Charlie's wife didn't let him near a horse or anything strenuous for the first month because Mary was a nurse who took concussions seriously. Which left Daryl to fix up the old farm equipment and be contracted out to help doing handy-man jobs for her mother's and grandmother's female friends. Some of whom were single, others who just had enough of their husband's ever lengthening to-do lists.

After two months of that, Daryl sighed as he watched the rodeo circuit end on the television, knowing it was only a few short months before he would be needing to be ready to go. He willed his head to be fixed enough to at least pass the doctor's screening, he could get by as long as he was really working again.

Daryl knew that he had been lucky, the steer had been a nasty one and the rider had been caught up real bad. Daryl'd had no choice but to break several safety rules to distract it while the others cut the near-unconscious kid loose. He had ended up slammed hard into the rails and ground, then apparently made it out of his own accord and went and sat down on a chair before passing out.

He had come to the next day in the hospital with several fractured ribs and a bad concussion. Saved the kid's life, if you believed the newspapers, which Daryl didn't. He was just glad that most of them had shown a picture of him prior to the ride as opposed to the one that had captured him being body slammed into the metal fencing by the two-thousand-pound animal.

"You sure you don't want to stay for supper?" A feminine voice cut through Daryl's contemplation as he gave one more tug to the wrench.

Daryl straightened from where he had finished repairing the kitchen sink that hadn't really been leaking as badly as he had been told over the phone, turning to regard the middle-aged woman.

Sometimes, he would oblige the offers of a meal but not when the woman was married, even if the asshole spent more time at the local strip club than paying attention to her. "No thank you ma'am. Supper with my brother tonight."

She followed him out of the kitchen and through the house. "Rumour is that you're quitting the rodeo business. Gonna stick around here from now on?"

"Not if I can help it, ma'am. I love home, but only thing I know how to do is rodeo." Daryl slid his hat on and strode down her front steps, tipping the brim to her.

"It's going to kill you one day, Daryl." She crossed her arms over her chest. But she didn't follow him as he walked down the sidewalk to climb into his decrepit rust bucket of a truck. He was just pulling onto the road when he heard a ringing sound and cursed.

His brother had made him get a cellphone the second week here, seeing as how everyone apparently had one of the damned things now. He didn't know what half the buttons did, but his nieces had programmed it for him and taught him how to answer the phone and read text messages.

Daryl pulled over and put his truck in park, hitting the green button and bringing it to his ear. "Hello."

"Where the hell have you been? Been calling you for an hour now. Mary thinks you've fallen into a ditch and need to be saved. You coming for supper?" Charlie laughed as he talked.