Broken Strings

Two

Travis

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are our own fears – Rudyard Kipling

"Are you still leaving this afternoon?" Ginger Lacroix asked.

She leaned across the diner counter, throwing down the rag she'd been using to wipe away a few spare breadcrumbs that someone had left behind. A few wayward dark curls fell into her brown eyes but Ginger brushed them back – a routine gesture.

Perched on a stool across from her, Travis Grant nodded. He paused to take a sip from the glass of ice-cold water she'd dropped in front of him when he'd entered Annie's Diner in downtown Tishomingo, Oklahoma, a few minutes earlier.

"Yeah. I'll get there tonight and relax in the hotel tomorrow before competing on Sunday. I want to give myself a full day in Austin before I have to compete so that I'm not all stiff after sitting in my truck for five hours. The last thing I want to do before climbing onto the back of a bucking bronc is to be stiff as a board."

Which was the truth. Travis was a professional saddle bronc rider and competed in rodeos all across the country. He travelled far and wide from his home in Tishomingo, not caring about the distance spent on the road. He liked the driving. But he liked the buckles and the purse money he won on the circuit even more.

It helped that Travis was a great rider. He'd started off with mutton busting when he was four years old and had progressed steadily since. Rodeo was in his blood. Travis' father, Rob Grant, had been an award-winning cowboy in his day and had started both of his sons early in training so that they may follow in his footsteps. Even Travis' younger sister, Bailey, had competed in barrel racing for a couple of years so as not to be left out of the fun of the rodeo.

But Travis and his older brother Jake had stuck with it longer than Bailey had. She was a gifted musician, taking after their late grandmother Camille Grant, and had quit the rodeo for the Nashville city lights. Though her career had gone through some ups-and-downs over the past year – following the dissolution of her band – she was now taking the country music scene by storm as a successful solo artist. It had been a year and a half since she'd signed with her new record label and there was no denying that she was off to a strong start as her label's top artist.

As Bailey had pursued dreams of music, Jake too had moved on to other things. He'd traded his spurs for a stethoscope and had recently finished his studies in veterinary medicine at the Oklahoma State University. Now, Jake was working with Dr. Madison Reeves, his mentor and the Tishomingo town veterinarian, at her clinic. Occasionally, Travis could still persuade Jake to compete in the odd rodeo, but those events were growing fewer and farther between.

Which left Travis on the rodeo circuit alone. Travelling by himself to events near and far. Never taking his eyes off of the prize. Often, he followed the circuit, not bothering to come home for weeks on end. But the Austin rodeo was close and there was still plenty of the season to go so he'd opted to pick a few events closer to home in order to take a break from travelling.

"Is that how long the drive is going to take you?" Ginger asked. She cocked her head to the side and raised a brow. "Five hours?"

Another curl fell across her face and she brushed it away absentmindedly – a familiar and unconscious gesture. Something she probably didn't even notice that she was doing. It happened frequently, Travis had noticed. Not surprising since Ginger had the wildest curls Travis had ever seen. Voluminous and dark but rarely frizzy.

He still wasn't sure how Ginger managed to keep her curls tamed in such a way considering the humidity that the state was prone to getting. His sister's curls were rarely that tamed. Bailey had a tendency to get a frizz so bad that her hair almost resembled a lion's mane.