Relentless in Texas

by Kari Lynn Dell

  Her return smile was equally wicked as she walked her fingertips up to his shoulders. “Obviously.”

  Just as they started to lean into the kiss Gil had been starving for all day, Delon came blasting down the mezzanine with Quint and Beni on his heels, all grinning like loons.

  “Ho-lee shit! You got the best damn horse in the whole pen!”

  Gil scowled. Dammit! Can’t they see I’m busy here?

  “Dad!” Quint shoved at his arm. “Did you hear what we said?”

  “Yeah.” And then to Carma, as they dragged him away, “Later.”

  She gave him a smile that made his heart flop like a beached fish. “Ride hard, cowboy.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Gil was geared up and ready for a date with a horse called Angel Wings.

  “She’s just like her name,” Delon said. “Pure heaven.”

  As the national anthem played once more, everything inside Gil coalesced into a certainty as crystal clear as gazing into the sky stone. It was all coming together. His family. Carma. The luck of the draw.

  This was his night.

  He stood on the back of the chutes, eerily calm, until it was his turn. The silver-gray mare seemed to absorb and reflect his mood, as relaxed as a saddle horse when he settled onto her back and worked his hand into the rigging.

  Until he nodded his head and she took flight, the equine epitome of power and grace. With each high, floating jump, it felt as if they might brush the rafters. His chaps beat like wings as they flew in perfect unison, the roar of the much-larger evening crowd rushing past his ears. Exhilaration flooded him, and he was so absorbed in the sheer joy of the moment that the shrill of the whistle came almost as a shock.

  It was over already?

  When his feet hit the ground, he pivoted to watch the mare canter around the arena, head high, mane and tail rippling—and tipped his hat to her. Hot damn, what a horse.

  Then the bubble burst and the rest of the world came blasting in.

  “Eighty-nine points!” the announcer bellowed. “That is the high-marked ride of the entire day! Ladies and gentlemen, Gil Sanchez came to make a statement, and all the other bareback riders had better be listening.”

  He leaned on the fence to catch his breath and drink it all in. The smiles, the cheers, the sheer exhilaration. Rather than dying down, the applause rose as his ride was replayed in slow motion on the giant video screen. Un-fucking-believable. That was really him up there.

  And it was a thing of beauty.

  Now all he had to do was wait and see if it was enough.

  * * *

  Carma felt as if she’d ridden that horse right with Gil, jump for jump, breath for ragged breath. If she’d had any doubt that this was what he was meant to do, that eight seconds of pure brilliance had erased it—and she wasn’t selfish enough to wish otherwise. For now, it was enough to be carried along on the wave of awe and adrenaline he’d generated.

  Gil had every person in the arena rooting for him.

  But the real suspense came after he was done, multiplied by the tension rippling off the dozen people around her. And it was bad enough to have to sit through each ride once, without Violet’s preview of each rider, and each horse, and the chances that they might beat Gil. The high school champion bobbled, the pressure obviously getting the better of him. The next two matched their first round scores of eighty-two, falling well short of Gil’s total on two head of 169. The next ride had them all digging fingernails into palms.

  “Eighty-five! That gives the cowboy 167 on two, and puts him in second place.”

  Air leaked out of Carma’s lungs. Four to go. Gil only had to beat one of them to advance.

  The Californian who went next wasn’t about to let it be him. The judges awarded him a well-deserved eighty-six, dropping Gil to second. The next cowboy matched it, moving his name to the top of the leaderboard and Gil to third. Two more to go. Quint had his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He peeked through his fingers as the next chute gate cracked, then flung himself back in his seat when the whistle sounded.

  “Shit. That’s another one.”

  Carma nodded dumbly as the score was posted and Gil dropped to fourth place. A single cowboy left to ride, and he was a former world champion and perennial contender.

  “He can be eighty-four in his sleep,” Violet said gloomily.

  And that was all he needed to leave Gil in the infamous crying hole, one place out. They all watched, resigned to the inevitable, as horse and cowboy launched from the chute, jump after flashy jump, with the cowboy in perfect position.

  Then the horse stumbled. Just a buckling of knees as its front feet hit the ground, but enough to bounce the cowboy’s shoulders forward, dropping his spurs almost to the belly. The horse gave a hop and skip, then recovered, but the rider took a few beats to catch up.

  A critical handful of wasted seconds.

  “You…are…shitting me,” Melanie breathed, as the pickup man set him on the ground.

  Chin ducked, the cowboy shook his head, knowing what everyone in the arena had already guessed.

  “Tough luck for the former champ,” the announcer intoned. “That’ll be a seventy-nine, five points short of what he needed. So here are the four who’ll be back tomorrow!”

  He directed their attention to the results posted on the massive video screen. And there it was, in blaring white letters on a red background, so bright Carma could barely stand to look at it.

  4th—Gil Sanchez

  Their section of the stands exploded, screaming and hugging. Before she realized what was happening, Carma was being herded onto the mezzanine and around to the stairway that led to the ground level, Beni and Quint blazing a trail, Violet and Wyatt at her back. They didn’t even pause at the security entrance, blowing past the startled guard. Each of the semifinalists was surrounded by a cluster of well-wishers, but by far the majority of the stock contractors, cowboys, and crew had mobbed Gil—a solid wall of bodies.

  Beni and Quint dove into the scrum, but Violet, Wyatt, and Carma held back.

  “It’ll clear out in a minute,” Wyatt predicted. “They have to get ready for the saddle bronc riding.”

  As he spoke, men began peeling off the edges to hustle back to their duties or prepare for their own rides. Soon Carma could see Gil, sweaty and euphoric, with Delon standing beside him looking as flushed and proud as if he’d made the ride himself. Quint threw his arms around his dad, all teenage cool forgotten as they exchanged a back-thumping hug. Beni shoved his cousin aside and followed suit.

  “Let’s go,” Violet said.

  Wyatt gestured Carma to precede him. As she stepped forward, Gil spotted her. Their gazes met for a brief instant. Then a woman laid a hand on his arm. Blond. Beautiful. Smiling at him with a microphone in her hand and an extra sparkle in her eyes. Gil turned to smile at her.

  Oh God. It was starting already.

  Someone tapped Carma’s shoulder. The security guard, apologetic but firm, said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you shouldn’t be in here.”

  Wyatt started to plead her case, but Carma waved him off. “No. She’s right.”

  This was Gil’s moment. His triumph. Whatever part of it he wanted to share with her, they could do it later. Assuming there was anything left to share.

  No, dammit. She would not let Jayden’s doubts creep into her head. Or her own. She would have faith. Gil had trusted her with Jayden. She had to trust him now.

  As she climbed the stairs, the last of the exhilaration faded, and just like that, she was done, going flat as a punctured tire. It was all she could do to drag herself back to her seat. The barrage of questions about what Gil said and where he went and “Seriously, they wouldn’t let you talk to him?” felt like a physical assault.

  Too many days and weeks of anticipation, too many hours spent restl
essly kicking at the sheets the night before—excited, anxious, wasting energy and sleep fretting about a couple of stupid songs. Plus the music, and the lights, and the rodeo announcer yammering on and on mostly to hear his own voice…

  Then Bing was nudging someone out of the seat beside Carma, and Tori was saying, “Would you all hush and let me pay attention to the team roping?” and Carma realized she must have hit the wall in a big way for both of them to see it.

  She gripped her phone in both hands, peering into the crowd behind the chutes for a glimpse of Gil, barely aware of the other events proceeding in the arena. Any minute now she’d see his triumphant smile. He’d wave, call to whoop it up, send her a GIF full of fireworks.

  Any. Minute. Now.

  * * *

  Gil had grossly underestimated the shitstorm he was about to unleash…and the number of reporters who gave a damn about some has-been from Earnest squeaking into the Diamond Cowboy finale.

  He’d escaped the TV reporter only to have some guy with an Event Personnel badge herd him toward the area roped off for media. Gil barely had a chance to take off his chaps and vest and hand them over to Delon before he was planted in front of a mob armed with recorders and questions.

  How does it feel to be riding again? Were you intimidated by the level of the competition? Do you have any pain?

  Incredible. Yes. And, “Right now, I feel bulletproof.”

  They kept at it, question after question about what had made him decide to try a comeback, how he’d prepared, what did he think his chances were in tomorrow’s finale, until the voices and faces blurred together.

  Gil might’ve just said Enough! and walked away, but Delon had had their logo slapped on everything Gil planned to wear and warned him that he was representing Sanchez Trucking and he’d better not make them look bad.

  No swearing, no sarcasm, no rudeness. Or as Delon had put it, “Don’t be yourself.”

  Gil was doing okay until a sweet-faced girl who looked about Quint’s age flashed him a dimpled smile and said, “I understand that you’re recovering from an addiction to pain medication. How did that play into your decision to return to a sport where injuries are considered inevitable?”

  Everyone froze, as if she’d hit a pause button. Gil’s mind went blank. He opened his mouth, but he had no idea what would’ve come out if Delon hadn’t jumped in to cut him off.

  “My brother’s struggles with substance abuse are not a secret, but as we are all aware, the opiate crisis is a serious issue. This isn’t the time or place to have the kind of discussion it deserves.” His politeness made it even more of a reprimand, and the reporter’s face flushed as the others followed Delon’s lead, shooting her disapproving frowns.

  One of them called out, “What’s it like having your brother back in competition, Delon?”

  “A dream come true,” he said without hesitation.

  “Are you still going to feel that way if the two of you end up riding off for the ring?” another asked.

  “Absolutely, but with the cowboys who are entered here and the caliber of the stock, we both need to bear down and have Lady Luck on our side to get to the finals.”

  Then he deftly guided them into a discussion of the horses he’d most like to draw and which cowboys he considered the biggest threat…other than the two of them, of course—wink, wink, laugh. Then the winners of the steer wrestling and team roping were ushered in, and Gil and Delon made a beeline for a side door, into a hallway accessible only to staff. His ears rang in the sudden silence.

  “Sorry,” Delon said. “I got back as soon as I could, but about a hundred people tried to stop me.”

  Gil slumped against the wall, feeling like he’d been drained by a pack of vampires. “Whatever happened to pretending cowboys don’t do drugs?”

  Back in his day there had been a strict, if unofficial, don’t ask, don’t tell policy. Nobody wanted to hear that the guy who’d crushed it over the Fourth of July had made eleven rodeos in seven days courtesy of a steady supply of uppers.

  “We hit the mainstream media.” Delon’s easygoing humor had evaporated. “We used to only talk to local papers promoting their rodeo, or writers from western magazines. They have a vested interest in preserving the noble cowboy image. This bunch was everything from bloggers to national sports outlets, and there’s always one who’s trying to prove they’re a serious journalist.”

  “Thanks for covering my ass. I didn’t even think…”

  Delon shrugged. “You’re not married to a Patterson. They try to blindside me with questions about whether my father-in-law is considering going back into politics since his party has gone off the rails.”

  “What do you tell them?”

  “That they’d have to ask him. The answer is no, by the way. He’s done his time.” Delon heaved a pained sigh. “His daughter, on the other hand…”

  “Tori?”

  “Yeah. She’s so disgusted by all the bullshit her patients go through with our healthcare system, she’s about ready to go fix it herself.”

  Gil did a full-body shudder. “Geezus. With the Patterson name and all their connections behind her, she’d be a shoo-in even if she wasn’t a human bulldozer.”

  And from a purely cynical standpoint, having a Native husband with a Hispanic name would not hurt when it came to attracting certain demographics. Hell, the Patterson political machine could probably even make Gil’s addiction work for them.

  My family has personally experienced the impact of the opiate crisis.

  Delon scrubbed a hand over his face. “If she sets her mind to it, I’m gonna end up sleeping in the fucking White House.”

  “Be sure you’re wearing a Sanchez Trucking shirt when you do the Easter egg roll,” Gil deadpanned.

  Delon gave him a look that should’ve blistered the paint on the wall behind his head. Gil ignored it and reached into his pocket, only to find it empty.

  “I was gonna bring your phone, but it was down to one percent battery and the calls and texts were rolling in nonstop. They ran mine down too.” Delon slouched against the other wall, tipped his head back, and gave a stunned laugh. “Eighty-nine goddamn points. You are unbelievable, you know that?”

  “Thanks.” For once Delon actually meant it as a compliment. Gil pushed away from the wall. “I’m going to talk to Carma.”

  “Good luck with that. I’m not throwing my body in front of the mob if you go strolling into the stands.” Delon pushed the door open a crack, cocking his head as he listened to the announcer. “I don’t think you have time anyway. They’re almost done with the saddle bronc riding. By the time we sneak around to the sports medicine room to cut your tape off and grab a bottle of water, they’ll want you lined up for the introduction of the finalists.”

  Damn. Damn. Delon was right, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.

  And it only got worse. Everyone they met wanted to shake Gil’s hand and hear his story. After the spotlight introduction of all the finalists there were photos, more interviews, and a review of the next day’s schedule from an event official, with dire warnings for anyone who didn’t comply. Geezus. They’d barely get home before they had to turn around and come back for an 11:00 a.m. press conference. That meant leaving Earnest no later than nine thirty, to be safe, then cooling their heels for three hours until the rodeo started.

  Gil couldn’t imagine there was a reporter left who hadn’t already talked to him, but attendance was not optional.

  When he finally broke free, Gil was craving a tall, ice-cold Coke and an armful of sweet, soft woman, not in that order. He ached from the physical effort of the rides and the need to feel Carma’s warmth. To wrap her up so tight and close she could absorb the triumph coursing through him. Hold her hand on the drive home and squeeze it every time he was hit by one of those aftershocks of awe and disbelief.

  He’d done
it. From over a hundred cowboys who’d entered the four qualifying events on a hope and a prayer, he was one of the sixteen who’d survived. No matter what happened tomorrow, that was one hell of an accomplishment.

  And he wanted more. Now that he’d proven he had a shot, he wanted it all.

  The seats were empty except for janitors sweeping up spilled popcorn and empty beer cups when he blew past and into the lobby—and found only his mother and Quint waiting.

  She gave him an awkward half-hug. “Great ride.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Everybody else took off,” Quint said.

  Not surprising. It had been one hellaciously long day. Gil glanced around, frowning. “Where’s Carma?”

  His mother didn’t quite look him in the eye. “She, um, left with Bing and Johnny, right after the tie-down roping.”

  “She what?” Gil looked around again, sure Rochelle must be kidding. Carma couldn’t just leave. He’d been waiting for hours to see her. And yeah, maybe he should’ve fought his way through the crowd to go see her. Borrowed a phone to call her…except he didn’t have her number memorized. Still, he probably should have done something.

  But she hadn’t bothered to call or text that she was taking off with the girls—and his car. He’d even stood back and let her go off with Jayden and trusted her when she said that whole thing was over and done.

  And now she’d just gone off and left.

  “It wasn’t her idea,” Quint said. “After the excitement passed, she did that thing where she sort of wilts, and Bing insisted on taking her home. She said Carma needed her strength for tomorrow, and you’d understand ’cuz you know how Carma gets sometimes.”

  Drained. Fuck. It had been a brutal day—mentally and physically—and it would have taken a toll on her. The nerves. The suspense. That marathon first round followed by tonight’s performance, with an entire coliseum flooded with overwrought emotions. And goddamn Jayden popping up like a noxious weed. Naturally Carma had redlined.