Ryan nodded.
“I always go to church. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it in time for you to go with me. I should have.” She brightened. “But there’s always next Sunday. And Wednesday nights, for prayer meetings and Bible study.”
“That’s okay. No harm done.”
“Except that I feel bad,” Julie told him. “I should have invited you even though you—”
He didn’t have to hear it spelled out, so he interrupted. “I know. I didn’t sound enthused before. That’s okay. I’m not much of a churchgoer anyway.”
“It wouldn’t hurt for you to give it a try. We have a new, younger pastor, Ethan Johnson. He’s the one giving the invocations before each performance of the rodeo. I think you’d like listening to him preach. He’s real down to earth.” She gently touched Ryan’s forearm through his sleeve. “Will you at least think about it?”
“Because your folks will have a conniption to see us together again?”
Julie shook her head and bestowed a smile on him that made him feel weak as a kitten for a moment.
“No,” she said softly, tenderly. “Because I’d like you to be there with me.”
“Really? Why?”
She was slowly shaking her head. “I don’t know. It just seems like it’s right, you know? As if I’d be showing you something that’s important to me and sharing that part of my life.”
“You’re going to be showing me the ranch and your sheep. Isn’t that enough?”
“No,” she said flatly. “It isn’t.”
* * *
The afternoon festivities kicked off with the ropers and steer wrestlers competing first. By the time it was Ryan’s turn, Julie was a nervous wreck. She knew better than to anticipate disaster. It was unspiritual. It was also quite human, and she was prone to every one of those failings in spite of her Christian beliefs.
Faith and Hannah had joined her for this part of the competition. They were each holding one of Hannah’s young twins, and both Corey and Chrissy had been eating cotton candy.
Julie felt a chubby hand touch and cling to hers. “Ewww. Sticky.” She held up her nearly empty water bottle. “Here. Let’s wash them off before we’re all as big a mess as they are.”
Faith giggled. “For a girl who has wool fibers floating all over her house and a dog who sleeps at the foot of her bed, you sure are picky.”
“Wool brushes off. So does dog hair. Cotton candy melts, as we can all see.”
“Speaking of dog hair, how come you didn’t bring Cowboy Dan along? I haven’t seen him with you since the rodeo started. Aren’t you afraid he’ll be jealous?”
“He’s working. Watching the sheep.”
“I thought that’s what your Great Pyrenees dogs are for.”
“They are. Dan is a born herder and working dog. He’d get bored hanging around here every day, that’s all.”
“You can’t fool me, baby sister. You didn’t bring your Australian shepherd pal because you didn’t want him to interfere with your budding human friendship.”
“Don’t be silly.”
Hannah was wiping her little boy’s hands with a damp napkin before turning to his twin sister. She huffed quietly. “Well, at least you don’t have a couple of kids to get in the way of new relationships.” Coloring, she added, “Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids like crazy and wouldn’t change a thing about them, except maybe their time of arrival. Sometimes it seems as if I was pushed so hard to settle down I missed a whole chapter of my life. David and I had almost no time as husband and wife before he shipped out. It’s hard to believe he’s never coming home.”
“How are you doing?” Julie asked tenderly. “I’d think the kids would help keep you from being too lonely.”
“They do. And I’m certainly not ready to consider marrying again. It’s just that sometimes, even with Mom and Dad pitching in, my life feels overwhelming.” She sighed and straightened after washing the last little hand.
The arena announcer took that moment to begin reading the lineup for the bareback riding. Julie’s pulse jumped. Almost Ryan’s turn. Another ride. Another risk of life and limb. It was funny how she’d felt so differently about rodeo before she’d had a special someone competing.
Granted, the bull riding was the most dangerous, but those horses were nothing to sneeze at, either. They were big and strong and loved to buck. Some of them were smart, too, meaning they could tell when a rider was off-balance and would adjust their actions to take advantage of his shortcomings and toss him into the dirt.
Once that happened, it was the cowboy’s job to make for the fences—if he was able. There were no men on foot to intervene the way they did when bulls bucked. If a pickup man didn’t ride to the rescue, it was the competitor’s job to save himself.
Trying to appear unconcerned when she wanted to scream for Ryan to be careful, Julie clasped her hands in her lap and sat very still on the hard wooden bleachers. Watching. Waiting. Holding her breath when she saw him climb to the top of the fence at the back of the chutes and push his hat down harder.
“Is that him?” Faith asked.
Julie nodded, her eyes for only one man. “Yes.”
“Have you talked to him today?”
“I stopped by after church.”
“And?”
Shushing Faith with a wave of her hand, Julie leaned forward, tensing as if she was the one about to leave the chute on the bad-tempered horse. This was a big dun-colored mare with a reputation for trying to stomp her riders flat if she got them on the ground.
Ryan raised his free hand.
Julie was on the edge of her seat, literally.
The gate opened. The clock started.
The audience began to cheer, Julie among them. Others stood and blocked her view, so she jumped to her feet. “Go, go, go!”
A horn blasted to announce completion of eight seconds. Julie was jumping up and down. “Yes! Yes! Hooray!”
At her side, Faith turned to Hannah. “You’d think she liked that guy or something.”
The young mother agreed, chuckling and bouncing her children on her knees. “Yeah. You’d think so.”
Since they were right, Julie ignored them as best she could. Was it that obvious? Of course it was. And if her sister and best friend were aware of her feelings, there was a good chance Ryan could tell, too.
Is that a bad thing? she wondered. Maybe. Maybe not. A lot depended on whether or not the cowboy’s opinion of her had changed. Clearly, she’d gotten off on the wrong foot with him by suggesting they pretend to be a couple. What did that say about her ethics, not to mention her morals? There she was, preaching to him about faith and prayer yet involving him in a farce.
At least it had been make-believe when she’d first suggested it, Julie concluded. Half of it—her half—had turned out to be all too real. The most important question was, what was she going to do about it? How could she possibly explain herself without making Ryan so uncomfortable that he headed for the hills, so to speak?
More honesty was called for. She knew it as well as she knew her own name. And she didn’t like the pictures her mind kept creating as the possible result of too much candor.
* * *
Ryan collected his day money and looked around for Julie. He’d seen her in the stands with other women and heard her cheering for him, but he’d lost sight of her after the crowd had cleared.
He supposed, given the fact that he wouldn’t be competing again until next Friday night, she might have simply gone back to her normal routine. Which was what he should do, he told himself.
The trouble was, nothing seemed normal anymore unless Julie was included. The plain fact was he missed her. He’d already stowed his bareback rigging and bronc saddle in his truck. Now he put his leather gloves and bull rope into a smaller gea
r bag, grabbed his chaps and headed for the area where he and the other riders had parked. There was still plenty of activity back there, including the old guy in the Mule who was scooting around barking orders to other gray-haired men wearing fluorescent vests.
The Mule roared by, then stopped ahead of him. Ryan kept walking and caught up.
“Evenin’. You lookin’ for a pretty gal with freckles and red hair?” the old man asked.
“Not just any girl,” Ryan replied with a slight smile. “Have you seen Julie?”
“Yup.” He jerked a thumb over his left shoulder. “She was headed this way from the grandstands about ten minutes ago. Does she know what your truck looks like?”
Ryan nodded. His smile broadened. “Yes.”
“In that case, I reckon she’s lookin’ fer you, too.” The tone of his voice dropped and he ran a hand over his thick mustache before he added, “You’d best treat that gal right or you’ll have more than her brothers after your hide. Get my drift?”
“Yes, sir.” Amused but also touched that the old man would stick up for Julie, Ryan tipped his hat. “Message received and noted.”
“Just so we understand each other.”
It occurred to Ryan to mention that Julie and he had been pretending to be a couple. Then he realized that that was no longer so, at least not for him. Thankfully, she was aware that any relationship they might develop would be short-lived. It had to be. He was going to stick around for a couple more weeks, providing he kept winning and qualified for the finals, but after that he’d hit the road again.
Therefore, he reasoned, it was best that Julie kept assuming he was not getting serious about her. He would have given all of his hand-tooled, gold-and-silver prize buckles to have that actually be true.
* * *
Locating Ryan’s red pickup truck wasn’t hard. Julie knew where he usually parked, and since the lot was well lit it was easy to find, even at dusk.
She cupped her hands around her eyes to peer into the camper shell. His special bucking saddle and some other gear was in there, but she suspected he hadn’t had time to stow the bull rope and chaps yet.
“What I should have done was wait at the back of the chutes and catch him there,” she muttered, knowing full well why she had not done so. She was beginning to get cold feet, not to mention a roaring guilty conscience.
That’s what happens when a person stops being totally honest, she decided. It made no difference that her motives were innocent. She had told a fib. Worse, she had involved Ryan in her plot. Both were wrong, but she had an idea that drawing him into it was worse than simply making her own mistakes.
“Hey! What’re you doing to my truck?” boomed at her out of the twilight.
Julie jumped back. “I wasn’t—”
He was already laughing at her. “Simmer down. Rusty thought I’d find you out here. Why didn’t you come by to congratulate me after my last ride?”
“I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of your friends.” Despite her attempts to quell her errant emotions, she could feel her cheeks beginning to burn.
“Embarrass me?” Ryan continued to chuckle as he opened the back of the camper shell and tossed in the last of his gear. “Honey, they might have been envious, but believe me, I would never be embarrassed to be seen with you.” Pausing, he slammed the door and turned to face her. “Are you sure it’s not the other way around?”
“Of course not.”
“I don’t know. That father of yours can be pretty formidable. Some of the riders were talking about the way he’s taken charge of this town and is so determined to run it his way.”
“That has nothing to do with me,” Julie insisted. She could not tear her gaze from his if she wanted to. Even without bright light for reflections, Ryan’s eyes glittered like black diamonds. His aura was one of sheer power, yet tempered with underlying gentleness and grace that took her breath away. She began to feel as if she’d been aboard a bucking bull with him and was so spent, so unsteady, she needed to lean on him for support or fall at his feet.
Ryan lightly cupped her shoulders with both hands. “Fair enough. I suppose he would tend to be wired, particularly over the loss of the time capsule. Has there been any word on it?”
“No. Nothing. It’s strange that nobody’s come forward with information. You’d think someone in a town as full of busybodies as this one would have seen something suspicious. I mean, the site is behind the bandstand in that grove of trees, so it’s not as if the capsule was buried out in the middle of nowhere.”
“The sheriff’s office has no leads?”
“They say not.” She shrugged, taking care to not disturb his hands. “I imagine, even if they did, they’d keep it to themselves until they’d had time to properly follow up on clues. Dad sort of suspects Ellis Cooper, the guy he beat out for the mayor’s job, but there’s no proof.”
“I see.” Stepping back, he bestowed a quizzical, lopsided smile. “So, Ms. Shaw, are you going to turn me down again if I offer to buy you a cup of coffee?”
“Nope. I’d love a cup. As a matter of fact, some of us were planning to meet at the café in town. We’d love to have you join us.”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind, but it’ll do. Will your father be there, too?”
“No. He and Mom headed home right after Sunday-evening services.”
“Church? Again? You didn’t go?”
She had to give in and smile or burst. “Not this time. I tried to talk the pastor into delaying until after the last bull ride, but he didn’t think much of that idea.”
“You didn’t!”
Julie was shaking her head and giggling. “Of course not. I may be a dyed-in-the-wool rodeo fan but I have my limits.”
“Is that another sheep joke?”
“I guess you could look at it that way. It is amazing how many common sayings are related to sheep ranching.”
Opening the passenger door of his truck and standing back, Ryan said, “It seems wrong to use the words sheep and ranching together. A ranch should mean cattle.”
“Spoken like a man from Ezra’s time,” Julie countered. “There’s room in Montana for both.”
“Only if you happen to have a father who owns the biggest spread in these parts and is willing to let you graze part of it down. How much supplementation do you have to do for top production?”
“The ewes get extra rations before lambing and I keep it up until their babies are weaned.”
“I really am looking forward to touring your operation. It’ll be four days before I have to ride again. Would it be okay if I spent a day or two just following you around?”
“As long as you work, not just stand there.”
“Okay, but no secret filming. I don’t want my buddies to see me sheep wrangling on some viral internet video.”
“Would I do that?” she crooned.
Ryan laughed. “My personal opinion? In a heartbeat.”
Chapter Eight
Great Gulch Grub, across Shaw Boulevard from the bank, was crowded when Ryan and Julie arrived. She’d had him drop her at her truck so she could drive herself into town rather than return to the fairgrounds later for her pickup.
“Besides, the café is on the way home for me,” Julie had told him convincingly. He had to accept her choices or find himself classed as a manipulator like her father. Why an otherwise intelligent man didn’t see how his actions were alienating his children was puzzling. Even if the mayor did basically run the town, that was no reason for him to try to control the lives of his grown children.
Of course, Ryan concluded as he hurried to join Julie at the door to the quaint restaurant, Shaw had done a pretty good job so far. His kids seemed like level, good citizens, a credit to his parenting skills, which was more than Ryan could say for his own upb
ringing.
He reached past Julie to open the heavy glass door for her before she could do it herself. Although she looked a bit surprised, she permitted his gallantry.
“I get the feeling you’re the independent type,” he joked. “I hope I haven’t offended you.”
“I’m not so progressive I’m silly about it,” she replied. “It’s just that I’m used to doing things for myself, not that I’m too stubborn to let somebody be nice to me.”
“That’s good to know.” Before he could follow her, a blond teenage girl flounced past and into the café.
Ryan’s brows arched as he rejoined Julie. “Who was that?”
“Lilibeth Shoemaker. She was a runner-up for Miss Jasper Gulch. She’s been in a snit ever since she found out Alanna Freeson beat her.”
Julie paused to scan the room. “Oh, what a shame. The tables are all taken. I guess you and I will have to find a separate place at the counter.”
“Works for me. If your family wants us to join them in that booth, they’ll have to send somebody home to make room, right?”
“My thoughts exactly.”
As Julie weaved her way between tables, Ryan took in the scene. The café was clean but obviously old. Wagon wheels holding hurricane lamps hung from the tin-clad ceiling, as did a few fans. The floor was comprised of squares of beige tile and it looked as if many of the tables had been cleaned so often that portions of their embedded finish had been worn away.
The stool Julie chose left only her right side open, so Ryan quickly laid claim to the spot. Looking past her, he realized who their fellow diner was.
Ryan tipped his head politely and Rusty Zidek did the same.
“I see you two found each other again,” Rusty drawled. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
“It was a good rodeo tonight, wasn’t it?” Julie offered.
“That it was.” He stroked his ample gray mustache as he leaned to peer at Ryan. “I hear you did pretty fair, son.”
“Earned a good check. Glad to get it.”
Her Montana Cowboy Page 7
