Sweet on You (Sweet on a Cowboy)

by Drake, Laura

  Cam yelled across the room, “Maybe so, Tuck, but that kid in diapers just beat the snot outta you!”

  Tucker fired back, “Hell, kid, save those Pampers, cuz Grandpa over there’s gonna need them next!”

  Cam shook his head, and caught movement to his left. The new therapist stood, arms crossed in the doorway, watching with a wistful smile. He’d never seen her smile before. It relaxed the tight lines of her face, making it rounder. Softer. Even more beautiful. But why wistful? Did she have a redheaded little brother at home?

  She turned, and walked away.

  None of your business, Cahill. He waded through the other riders to his locker.

  But he wondered about that sadness, just the same.

  An hour later, the weekend was over. The crowd had filed out and the arena echoed with the sound of the road crew disassembling the chutes, and the noise of the Bobcats scraping up the dirt. Katya, equipment bag over her shoulder, once again navigated the pipe corral maze. She flipped her phone closed and rubbed the cramp between her thumb and forefinger. The taxi wouldn’t be here for a half hour.

  As stressful and confusing as the weekend had been, at least it had given her purpose. The weekdays between events stretched ahead of her, barren as the Montana winter landscape. She knew from experience that the worst thing for her was idleness. Memories and loneliness would wash over her, rolling her in churning emotions, leaving her unsure of the way to the surface. Days later, the undertow would release her and she’d struggle back, weakened, covered in a salty film of guilt.

  Why had Murphy died and she survived? The army chaplain told her it was God’s will. The army psychiatrist said it was chance. She knew what Grand would say. That she had an unfulfilled purpose.

  Katya knew that to heal, she’d have to find her own answer.

  She mentally shook herself. Wallowing in self-pity was not helping. She stopped, put her hands in her jacket pockets, and leaned against the fence watching the men load the bulls onto trucks.

  “Damn. That’s all we need.”

  The Marlboro Man with the pink shirt and a navy down vest leaned against the fence opposite her watching a small, gray spotted bull limp around the pen. A long-legged redhead wearing the same uniform leaned next to him. “He’ll be okay, Max. We’ll get him home and have the vet take a look.”

  Katya watched the bull pace. Sure, it was an animal, but she could tell from his stride… “It’s his hip.”

  The couple turned to her. “Are you a vet?” the man asked.

  She walked the few steps across the aisle. “No. I’m a physical therapist and licensed athletic trainer.” She smiled. “For people.” She watched the bull. “But you can tell. Watch the leg joints as he moves. They’re not stiff, see?”

  “She’s right.” The woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Bree Jameson, and this is my husband, Max.”

  “I’m Katya.” She shook hands then pointed to the bull. “If that were a man, I’d suggest heat and massage. Maybe your vet—”

  “I’m worried about trailering him home, limping like that. We came a long way, and it’ll be hard on him, trying to favor that leg.” Max pushed his hat back on his head. “I’ve heard of horse therapists doing massage. Why not a bull?”

  They looked at her. So did the bull.

  Max said, “Katya, meet Beetle Bailey, son of the PBR Champion bull Fire Ant.”

  She backed away, hands up. “Oh no, I don’t know the physiology or the pressure points.” She watched the bull out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t know large animals.”

  Max ducked under the pipe rail. “Oh heck, Bailey’s a lover.” He walked up to the bull, hand outstretched. The bull licked his palm. “See?”

  Every day she dealt with the results of bull encounters. She was smarter than a man. “There’s no way I’m going in that pen.”

  “You don’t have to.” Max put his hand under the bull’s cheek and led him to the fence, then pushed his side until he stood parallel to it.

  Bree patted the mottled flank through the fence. “Not all bucking bulls are mean. We put my two-year-old up on Bailey and lead her around the paddock.” She looked at Katya. “Look, I know we’re putting you on the spot. I’m sorry about that. And maybe you can’t help. But would it hurt to try?”

  Katya swallowed and glanced to the parking lot… still no taxi. A muscle in her stomach jumped. The bull’s huge soft brown eye watched her.

  If it turned out she couldn’t do the sports medicine job, maybe she’d have a fallback position. Bulls might be easier to understand than men.

  “Katya Smith, bull therapist. It kinda has a ring to it.” Before she could change her mind, she stepped onto the lowest bar and hoisted herself up. Leaning over the top pole, she tentatively ran a hand down the animal’s back. The bull stood quietly. This is just a patient, like any other. Well, a hairier one, but still…

  She closed her eyes, to focus her concentration on the data her fingers transmitted. The muscle was much larger than she was used to, of course, and tighter. She felt between the hip bone and the spine, on both sides, to gauge any differences. There! Near the back of the hip on the inside. A muscle was tighter. She dug into it, and the animal started. So did she, jerking back, she straightened fast, grabbing the fence to keep from falling.

  “Easy, Bailey.” Max rubbed the beast’s forehead, then nodded to her when the bull calmed.

  She went back to the tight spot, slower this time, digging her fingers into the core of the muscle, holding them there until the muscle gave up and loosened. She massaged it and it loosened more. After ten minutes, she moved up the muscle to the tendon. It was inflamed, larger than the other side. “If this were a man, I’d ice him.” She patted the bull’s flank and hopped down. “Try walking him now. The tendon is swollen, but maybe the massage helped.”

  Max led the bull out. He walked around the pen, his limp much improved.

  “You’re a wiz!” Bree clapped her hands.

  Katya rubbed her throbbing forearm. “And I thought cowboys had hard bodies.”

  At the sound of a car horn, she looked up to see her taxi idling outside the huge roll-up door. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Wait, at least let us buy you dinner,” Bree said.

  “I can’t. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

  “Well, let me pay you something then.” Max ducked under the pole fence.

  “You don’t owe me anything. I’m glad to help.”

  Max reached for his back pocket. “No, I insist. This is really going to help him ride easy on the way home.”

  Katya could see they weren’t going to let it go. She considered a moment. She’d already stepped on one IED in the treatment room minefield. She needed reconnaissance to avoid others.

  She had questions about this world and asking the cowboys was out. If she got to know them more, she’d risk caring about Cam—er, them.

  And she couldn’t afford to get close to anyone she worked with. They’d want to know things. Things she wasn’t talking about with anyone.

  “Maybe there is a way you could help me. See, I’m a city girl. I don’t know anything about bull riding, or cowboys, or country music, or… anything.”

  Bree laughed. “Believe it or not, I can relate. I’d be glad to fill you in. Will you be at the event in Denver next weekend? We could get together then.”

  When in Rome, I should at least understand why the soldiers wear those cute little leather skirts.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Cam tightened the hydraulic line on the old Deere, then rolled out from under it.

  “You sure you got it tight enough?” His dad leaned down, one hand on the grille, considering checking the work, Cam was sure.

  “Dad, relax. I’ve only wrenched on this workhorse for the past twenty years. I know it better than a woman’s body.” He sat up.

  His dad’s high color wasn’t from bending over. “No need to be graphic, Son.” He pulled the rag from his back pocket and wiped his han
ds.

  Cam’s knee wobbled when he tried to stand. He grunted and grabbed the bumper to take off some strain.

  “When you gonna announce your retirement?” His father’s face might be wrinkled as a tote sack, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes.

  Cam took the rag his dad offered and scrubbed his hands. “When I’ve got something to step off onto.” He’d known when he decided to stop at the farm on his way to the Pueblo event, that this conversation was coming. But if he’d come this close to home and gone on past, his mother would have skinned him.

  “You know there’s always room for you here.”

  Cam looked out over the flat, golden fields, acknowledging the lie with a nod. His sister Carrie’s husband had taken over most of the day-to-day farming. Dad groused, but Cam thought that he secretly enjoyed it, especially the “supervising” part. “I know, and I appreciate that, Dad. But I think if I settled one place after all these years on the road, I’d end up chasing chickens like that crazy old Bo.”

  His dad shook his head. “That dog sure did vex your mother.” He clapped a hand on Cam’s shoulder. “Let’s get to dinner before she turns that vexation on us.”

  In the mudroom, they stepped into the smell of roasting meat. Cam’s mouth watered. It seemed Mom was treating him to his favorite, pot roast. They washed their hands at the sink, then took turns pulling their boots off at the bootjack. His dad stepped into the misshapen leather slippers that had stood by the back door since Cam could remember, then led the way to the kitchen, slippers slapping the tile floor. Cam padded after in his socked feet.

  “Well, put up the Tupperware, Cass, they’re gonna eat after all.” His mother walked a pan from the stove to the sink, gray hair frizzing from the bun at her neck. His three sisters flitted around her like worker bees around the queen, carrying plates and pouring drinks.

  “Wouldn’t miss the best supper on the planet, now, would I?” Cam pulled a deep breath of home through his nose and held it. Too bad the smell alone couldn’t take him back to the days when this home was his. A knife of homesickness slid between his ribs, hitting near his heart.

  Chrys, the youngest imp, looked him up and down. “Doesn’t look to me like you’ve been skipping meals. Do the bulls groan when you set on ’em?”

  “Nope. They’re just proud for the opportunity.” He poked a finger in her ribs as she passed him, carrying a crock on a plate.

  She squealed and jumped, sloshing gravy.

  His mother didn’t even look up. “You two, quit messing around. Cam, you get to the table and stop pestering.”

  “Yes’m.”

  Chrys scooted ahead. “Let me go first. I don’t want to be behind you when you get stuck in the doorway.”

  When he pushed the door open for her, she stuck out her tongue then sashayed through. He wondered if she’d gotten a lecture yet about those tight jeans. No wonder his mom’s hair was frizzled.

  Carrie’s husband, Dan, was already seated. Dad sat in his spot at the head of the table, Dan to his right, Cam’s seat, growing up. After a pause, Cam walked around the table, to sit at Dad’s left.

  The women filed in, hands full. His mom, then Cassia, Carissa, and Chrysanthemum. Thank God dad put his foot down about naming a boy after a flower.

  The afternoon sun turned the walls of the dining room gold and settled on the lace tablecloth Mom only brought out for company.

  Once they’d all settled, he grasped Carrie’s and his dad’s hands as they bowed their heads for his dad’s quick, heartfelt prayer. Then everyone dug in, all talking at once. Cam ate slowly, taking in pot roast and the comfort of home in big savoring bites.

  “Betsy’s sorrel is coming right along. I think if I can get him fast enough to win, she’ll recommend me to her friends.” When Carrie retired from barrel racing, she’d put her experience to good use, training horses. She’d fallen in love with Dan, a team roper at a rodeo.

  “Mom, if old ‘PBR Confidential’ over there was home more, he could help you.” Chrys had nicknamed him that years ago. But why use ten words when two would do?

  She turned to him. “Did you know Mom was thinking of keeping bees?”

  Cam chuckled. “That’s ’cause she’s already got experience raising little stinging bugs like you, squirt.” He glanced down the table. His mother looked tired. More than he remembered from last time he was here. “Why don’t you get the stuff, Mom? I’ll set you up when I’m home on break in June.”

  She frowned. “That’s your time to heal up, Cam. You don’t need to be toting around bee housing.”

  Dan broke in. “I’ll be happy to do that for you, Mom.”

  Stung, Cam focused on his plate. He’d moved out and been on the road for years now. He knew life here went on without him. So why did that hurt all of a sudden?

  Well, I’ve got stuff that needs doing at home anyway.

  Two hours later, in his old room, which now doubled as a sewing room, Cam tossed his clothes in his carryall.

  “When are you going to come home and stay for a couple of days?” Carrie leaned on the door frame.

  “I don’t know, exactly. Why?” He folded his sweats and laid them on top of the pile.

  “Well, you remember Lucy Powers? I think she was a year behind you in school.”

  “You mean the Powers’ that own the gas station on County Road Eleven?”

  “Yeah. Anyway, she’s a friend of mine. She’s had a rough time of it the past year. Her husband, you know Ty Randall? No, you wouldn’t, he grew up outside Loveland. Anyway, they divorced last winter, and—”

  “Not happening.” Now, where was that baseball cap?

  “She’s a barrel racer and really sweet.”

  He sighed. “Dang it, Carrie, you do this every time I walk in the door and I ain’t interested.”

  “Not every woman who hangs around the rodeo is like Candi, Cam.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her eyes went soft. “But you’re never going to know that if you don’t open yourself up to meet a couple of them.”

  “Well, I’m relieved to hear that, Sis. I’ll be happy to take your word on it.” The burn from Candi’s heat had cured him of his rodeo chick habit. For good.

  He must’ve left the cap hanging in the mudroom.

  “You’re going to retire soon. Please tell me you’re not going to hole up in that log cabin of yours and start building a moat.”

  He zipped the carryall. “That’s a great idea. A moat will look better than that razor-wire fence I had planned. Thanks.” Smiling, he brushed by her to the hall. “Now, if you’re done dispensing sisterly advice, can we go? I don’t want to miss my plane.”

  Katya merged the rented Chevy onto I-25 South. She now understood why the state’s plates read “Big Sky.” The winter-hibernating land seemed only a table for the bowl of the blue sky to rest on. The road stood empty before her, the rolling land stretching to the edge of the earth.

  Nothing like being an ant on the landscape to put your problems in perspective.

  She’d gotten to the airport on time. But at a glimpse of desert camos in a crowd ahead, she had to drop out of the flow of people and bend over to breathe, rubbing the hollow pain in her chest.

  She’d flown, of course, coming home from Afghanistan. She’d flown to Grand in Chicago, and then to DC.

  I must be getting worse.

  The thought of walking into that tiny tube and being strapped in, sealed in… she couldn’t make herself do it. Passing the car rental desk had given her an idea.

  She slid the window down a crack. The biting cold that swirled in smelled of arctic caverns—stony, timeless, silent. Katya pulled the emptiness into her lungs and exhaled. Empty was good.

  Glancing at the time display on the dash, she did the math. Her Afghan team would be mid-shift about now. The matinee of memories started up.

  Her first day back to work, she’d been first to arrive at the camo-filled stretcher the orderlies ran through the doors. Rules of triage dictated she catal
og wounds and deal with the most dire first. Instead, she made the mistake of looking at his face. Brush cut hair—blond rather than red—but familiar freckles scattered across his nose.

  She stood rooted, hands halted midair. Eyes closed, his mouth pulled to a grimace of pain. Sweat dampened her armpits. When she put her hands to his chest, her stomach flipped. Her heart banged like a tank laboring uphill. She tried to focus on his body, dripping blood onto the tile. In spite of the clawed panic that slashed at her, she tried.

  Then he opened his eyes. Green eyes full of confusion and pain. A bolt of fear slammed into her chest, pushing her back.

  “Help. Me.” His bloody hand snatched her wrist and instinctively she jerked it away, turning her head just in time.

  The scuff-marked gray tile tilted.

  Her knees hit the floor.

  She couldn’t hear past the roar in her ears, but felt the vibration of boots under her bloody hands. Through the black edge of her vision, she saw a forest of camo trees, before the black bled into everything.

  The bump of a pothole brought her back with a start. The empty road rolled under her tires. Katya shuddered, and checked the rearview mirror. Empty was good.

  And yet, empty wasn’t working either. Sure, she’d avoided the claustrophobia of the flying tube, but even in Big Sky Country the landscape was crowded with memories. No matter how fast she drove, they hovered on the horizon like heat shimmered on a hot day.

  How could she get past something that never left? Her future sat waiting for her return, but how long would it wait?

  The cold had scoured a hollow place in her chest. For a time she listened to the wind howling there, then closed the window.

  Doc Cody had warned Cam that it was going to take more to prep this year: more time, more massage, more ibuprofen. He dry-swallowed two white pills then walked into the training room of the Denver Coliseum.

  Dusty stood, checking medical supplies in a huge soft-sided carryall, and Cam glimpsed the new girl’s very nice rear, poking out from behind the refrigerator door. The stir below his waist surprised him. He’d easily kept the promise he’d made to himself after the breakup with Candi. So what was it about Katya that changed that? Even her name was foreign on his tongue. Was it Russian? In a way, he was keeping his vow. This woman was about as far from a rodeo groupie as was possible.