A Cowboy's Pride

by Pamela Britton

  Googly.

  Like a swarm of gnats fluttered around her belly.

  “You never know.” He smiled down at her. “Stranger things could happen.”

  “Why don’t we focus on you not falling off Baylor right now?” She stoked the big bay. Good Lord, she hoped he didn’t see the way her cheeks flushed with color.

  He liked her.

  Stupid. So what? She’d spent most of the morning thinking about him—and why a relationship with him was out of the question. She went over that list now as she held Baylor so he could mount.

  Lives in another state. Check.

  Has major emotional baggage. Check. Check.

  Might be latching on to her for all the wrong reasons. Check. Check. Check.

  “Let’s go,” she heard him say.

  What if this was some kind of Florence Nightingale thing? What if it was a Florence Nightingale thing for her? What if she had confused her desire to help him with a different kind of desire? Dang it. Why had she jumped into bed with him?

  She went to her own horse, still cross-tied inside the barn, and blinked against the sudden darkness. In seconds she was beside Trent, a part of her admitting he looked good sitting atop Baylor in jeans and cowboy boots and his beige cowboy hat.

  “I feel like one of those elephant riders,” he said. “You know, the ones that sit in those weird saddles? Or maybe it’s camel riders.”

  “Just focus on using your legs.”

  He shot her a sexy grin. “I can think of one way to use my legs that’s a whole hell of a lot better than riding a horse.”

  Ignore him.

  “Yeah, right.” Although she had no idea if she meant the words for herself, or for him.

  Either way, it was hard. Riding alongside him, having him right next to her, for all intents and purposes like a normal man, it made her think of things. Scary things. What if she did help him? What if she helped him to overcome his mental disabilities. What if he went back to the rodeo circuit?

  Could you care for someone else again? Even if it meant leaving Rana and the ranch?

  She shooed the thoughts away. It was too soon to be thinking that way. They barely knew each other. Sure, last night had been wonderful and remarkable and unforgettable, but if that was all there ever was between them, she could be happy with that.

  Couldn’t she?

  Because the truth was she really liked this man. Sure, he’d started out as an ass, but she’d also witnessed his softer side, not just last night, but with Rana and the rodeo fans, too.

  “Let’s trot,” she said.

  “Ah, do we have to?”

  “Yes.”

  Trotting was one way to keep her mind off things.

  She kicked her horse forward, and damned if Trent didn’t handle himself well. He looked perfectly poised atop Baylor. Occasionally, she saw him clutch the horse’s mane as they made their way around trees and up the gentle incline, but he really could use those legs far more than a man with his supposed degree of disability. He’d done so last night, too, but he seemed to have slipped back into his original frame of mind—paralyzed from the thighs down—because he was bouncing around like a sack of potatoes.

  Damn.

  She pulled her horse up, took a deep breath. If she were to help him, really truly help him, she needed to get to the bottom of things.

  “Why are you afraid to walk again?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Behind him, already far in the distance, sat New Horizons Ranch, looking smaller than it really was, and like an oasis in a sea of light-and-dark-green patches of trees.

  “You can use your legs, Trent. You did last night. Now you can’t. Or you think you can’t. So what’s blocking you?”

  She turned her horse to face him. Up ahead, the path they followed disappeared into trees with tall blades of grass on either side of the road dancing to the tune of a small breeze.

  “Didn’t we have this conversation before?”

  “Not really.” She stroked Radical’s mane, the black strands falling through her fingers like corn silk. “Sort of.”

  “Nothing changed last night.” He patted his own horse. “Sure, I stood up for a moment or two, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Doesn’t it?” She took a deep, fortifying breath. “Didn’t last night prove to you that you were capable of more than you thought?”

  He studied the scenery below them, shrugging before he said, “I don’t know. I’m half inclined to believe that was a fluke. Believe me. I checked my legs this morning and they still feel the same as before.”

  She sighed. “You really think that, don’t you?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, if that’s what you think, why don’t we put it to a test?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She grabbed his horse’s reins before he could protest, the two leads sliding through his fingers, although he managed to hold on to the tail end of them. Baylor knew the drill. The moment she clucked, he trotted, and when she kept on clucking, cantered.

  “Hey!” He tried to pull back. “Not this again.”

  “We’re going to do way more than trot this time.”

  “What?”

  “Hold on.”

  Her conscience twanged, but only for a moment. He’d be all right, just as he had been at the trot. The saddle would hold him no matter what happened; she was the one who had to keep an eye out for stray rocks and holes.

  “Just use your legs.”

  Believe, she silently urged.

  “Alana—”

  She glanced back at him, nearly smiling at the fear mixed with dismay on his face, but she urged Baylor and her horse into a lope just the same. As she suspected, the saddle did its job. Twenty feet, forty, the rhythmic thuds of their horses’ hooves kicking up tiny dust plumes.

  He must have realized he wasn’t going to fall off because when she next glanced back she could tell he’d started to relax, the irritated flexing of his jaw fading away. And his legs. They weren’t flopping around anymore. Not at all.

  “Look at your legs,” she said, pointing.

  He glanced down, shook his head.

  “You’re using them.”

  He didn’t look convinced, but he couldn’t see them, at least not without leaning to the side, something she knew he wasn’t about to do.

  “Let’s go faster,” she said.

  “No.”

  She ignored him. He tried to gather up the reins, but she had too firm a grip on Baylor to be effective.

  “Yee-haa!” She cued her horse into a run.

  “Alana!”

  He held on. By God the man rode just as well at a run as he did the slow canter. Most important, he was using his legs. They clutched his horse’s sides like a trick rider. The road raced beneath them, and she closed her eyes for a second at the sheer joy helping him made her feel. This was why she did what she did, why she kept to herself at the ranch, why she would never leave. When she opened her eyes again it was to glance back and make sure he still did okay.

  She smiled.

  The man wore a fierce look of concentration on his face; it turned his eyes dark, caused his jaw to thrust forward. She’d seen that look before, but only ever on TV, and only just before he’d been about to nod his head seconds before he burst from a chute.

  “You’re doing gr—”

  “Watch out!”

  She jerked forward, gasped.

  Tree branch.

  She ducked. Too late.

  Bark dug into her shoulder. The impact knocked her sideways. She tried to cling to Radical’s back. No use. She hit the ground. Hard.

  “Alana!”

  She tried to call out, couldn’t, and felt herself coll
apse.

  “Damn, damn, damn.” The reins. Trent used everything he had to lean forward and reach for them. “Whoa,” he called, drawing back on the slack.

  Baylor slowed.

  “Whoa,” he ordered again, tugging on the reins this time. The gelding instantly obeyed. One more tug and the big gelding stopped.

  “Come on,” he told the horse, jerking the reins toward Alana.

  She hadn’t moved.

  He kicked Baylor forward, giving it all that he had. Damn it, he couldn’t seem get there fast enough.

  “Alana,” he called again.

  With a thud of hooves on dirt, he finally made it back to her side. Trent jerked Baylor to a stop only inches away from where she lay. Her eyes were still closed, and a gash oozed blood on her forehead.

  Bleeding.

  His hands made quick work of the buckle around his waist, but once finished, fear overtook him. He couldn’t do it. There was no way he could get off the horse on his own. No way at all.

  Sickened, he ran through his options. Race back to the ranch. Get help there. But he’d have to leave her behind. What if she had internal bleeding? What if she had brain damage?

  Did she have a cell phone?

  Surely she did. Why hadn’t he grabbed his?

  Minutes counted.

  It would take minutes to race back to the ranch. Minutes more if Cabe wasn’t at the barn. Even more minutes if someone was in the house and couldn’t hear him shouting.

  “Shit.”

  Before he could think better of it, he undid the buckles around his legs, then clutched Baylor’s mane and flung himself off.

  He nearly fell to the ground.

  “Alana,” he called again.

  Still no movement.

  You can do this.

  Just like last night, he forced himself to balance, forced himself to wedge his legs beneath him. Baylor, trouper that he was, didn’t move. He used the horse’s neck as a balancing bar, forced his hips to move, his legs to swing. One step. Two. Three. She was right beneath him.

  He let go.

  He didn’t fall.

  What the—

  He stood. On his own.

  But only for a moment because then he collapsed next to her. “Alana.”

  Still no movement.

  He began to search her pockets. “Where the hell did you put it?” he muttered, his hands running down her pockets. “You have to have one somewhere.”

  “Have what?”

  He rocked back on his knees. Or he tried to. In their weakened state, his thighs couldn’t quite manage the movement.

  “Shit,” he cried as he fell backward.

  “Trent?” She slowly sat up, her pretty blue eyes meeting his gaze.

  He held out his hands toward her. “Don’t move.”

  She touched her shoulder, winced. “I hit it.” And then of all the crazy things, she started to laugh. “I hit the damn tree.”

  “You have a gash on your head.”

  She brushed the wound with her fingers. “Just a scratch.”

  “It’s bleeding. We should call 911. Where’s your cell phone?”

  “A stupid tree.” She winced again. “I can’t believe I did that.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “I’m fine.” Her gaze hooked his like a harpoon. “You got off Baylor all on your own.” She went from laughing to serious in the space of an instant. “Trent, do you know what this means?”

  He smirked. “I’m better at getting off a horse than you are?”

  She went back to smiling again. “You did it.”

  “Only because I had to. Come on. Let’s get you back on your horse. We need to get you to a doctor.”

  “I don’t need to see a doctor. I’m fine.” She pushed herself up. “Look at you.”

  Yeah, look at him. Weak. Sitting on his rear, propping his upper body up with his arms, while she stared at him with a bloody gash on her forehead.

  “Alana, I’m not joking. Give me your cell phone so I can call 911.”

  “No.”

  “You were unconscious.”

  “No, I wasn’t.” She shook her head in a self-deprecating fashion. “I just had the wind knocked out of me. Took me a minute to catch my breath.”

  “Your brain could be swelling.”

  She twisted around so that she sat next to him. “Would you stop it, Trent? I’m fine. There’s not even a bump.” She touched her forehead again. “I got whipped by the branch.”

  “What’s your name?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Madonna.”

  He shot her a look that clearly said, ha, ha, ha. “What’s today’s date?”

  She tipped her head sideways and smiled. “The day you got off a horse all on your own.”

  “Alana—”

  “Shh.” She moved toward him, placed a hand on his lips. “I’m all right.”

  But she seemed to regret the gesture the moment she touched him, because she snatched her hand away. He grabbed it back.

  “You scared the crap out of me.” The gash really wasn’t a gash, he admitted. It was, as she’d said, just a scratch. He could see that now. “I thought you’d blacked out when you didn’t answer me.”

  “I couldn’t breathe. You know how it is. Lungs compressing and forcing the air out. Takes a minute for them to fill back up.”

  He did, indeed, know the feeling well. He studied her face, seeing the truth in her eyes. She turned, scouted around for her horse. The animal hadn’t gone far. “At least we don’t have to go hunting for Radical.”

  “You certain you’re okay?”

  “Fine.” He watched as she forced a grin onto her face. “Let’s see if you’ve gotten any feeling back in your legs, too.” She reached for them.

  “No.”

  She drew back. “But you believe me now, don’t you, Trent? You’re not as bad as you think. You just need to believe. Up here.” She tapped her head.

  He didn’t know what to believe.

  You jumped off a horse.

  All right, so he hadn’t exactly flung himself off like the Lone Ranger, but damned if he hadn’t done it. That was twice now he’d used his legs when he would have sworn it was impossible.

  “Can you help me up?”

  Her eyes brightened. “Going to try standing again?”

  He held out a hand. She stood, saying, “Wait.” Then she ran to grab Baylor so he could use the horse to steady himself. “Here.”

  She held out a hand. He took it, pulling himself to his feet, and though he’d done so twice, a part of him still marveled.

  He did it.

  He wobbled a bit, had to clutch Baylor’s saddle for assistance and then lean on the side of his horse for support, but he did it.

  “I don’t get it.” He was weak, sure, but apparently he could stand on his own. What did that mean?

  Her grip tightened around his hand. “Can I have a look at them?”

  Though he didn’t expect any different results than before, he said, “Go ahead.” He kept standing. He was afraid to move, afraid he’d lose his balance and fall.

  “Here.” She let go of his hand, squatting down and touching just above his left knee, the spot that had always been numb since the accident. “Can you feel that?”

  Could he? He forced himself to concentrate. “Maybe.”

  “This?” She squeezed his knee.

  He was starting to feel something, all right, but it had nothing to do with his knee. Actually, it had everything to do with the way she touched him.

  “How about the other leg?” She repeated the process.

  And maybe he did feel something. Maybe...

  Whatever it was, it fade
d beneath the sight of her kneeling down at his feet, and it amazed him, really, that all it took was watching her do something mundane, like stroking his knee, to get him going.

  “Anything?” She glanced up at him, her ponytail cascading over one shoulder, the shape of her face so perfect he found himself wanting to study it. If she wore makeup, he couldn’t tell.

  “Honey, what I’m feeling has nothing to do with my legs.”

  Her mouth formed an O of surprise before she stood again, but she clutched a hand to her head as if it suddenly hurt.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. No little headache will get me down, not when I think we’re finally seeing some progress.”

  Were they?

  “Look.” His gaze moved away from hers. It was stunning up in the mountains, he admitted, surveying the ranch less than five miles away, the slanted slope of the barn, the patchwork of pastures, the Feather River snaking its way through the valley and glistening like a ribbon of liquid silver. Cabe and Rana appeared to be riding below. He spotted Cabe’s black cowboy hat and Rana’s petite frame. “No matter what happens—” he glanced down at his legs “—if this is as good as it gets, I can’t thank you enough for everything.”

  “This isn’t as good as it’s going to get.” Her eyes grew intense, as if she tried to telepathically transfer her determination into his mind. “You wouldn’t be able to stand like this if you didn’t have at least some muscle control.”

  “I do have muscles that work. You know that. Some of my thigh muscles. I must be learning to use them better.”

  “No. It’s more than that.”

  He dropped his hand, stroking the side of her face as he smiled. “I think if you could will me to walk again, you would.”

  She looked away with a smile. “I would.”

  “No sacrifice too great for my recovery, huh?”

  She laughed softly, and he admitted that she gave him hope. “Have you helped many others?” he asked. “Like me?”

  She worried her bottom lip before answering, and for some reason, the gesture made him want to pull her to him and kiss her.

  “Not as many as I would have liked.” She, too, studied the scenery below. “Rana was my biggest success. Sure, I do a lot of therapy here, but never a case like yours, someone whose issues might be more mental than physical.”