The man pressed a button on his phone and dropped it in the pocket of his jacket. “Are you Bullet Simmons.”
“The one and only.”
“Mr. Simmons, you’ve been served.” The man handed Bullet a folded piece of paper.
“What the hell?”
At the same time the man went out the door to the parking lot, Billy, Lyric and Slade walked in.
“What’s with him?” Billy asked Liv.
“Someone just served him with some papers.”
Billy walked over and took the paper out of Bullet’s hand. Bullet stood completely still, a stunned look on his face.
“What the hell?” Billy repeated what Bullet had said moments earlier, when he finished reading through the document.
“What is it?” asked Lyric.
“A subpoena,” Bullet answered.
“For what?”
Bullet turned and looked at Tristan, who hadn’t moved from where she stood when they walked in. His eyes met hers, as though he was trying to tell her something.
“My DNA.”
Tristan grabbed Liv’s arm, afraid she was going to topple over. This couldn’t be happening. His DNA? There was only one reason she could think of that someone would want his DNA. Bullet must have a third child out there somewhere.
“Wait,” she heard Bullet say, but she was already through the door. She raised her hand to hail a cab. When it pulled up, she recognized the person getting out of it.
“Tristan? Are you okay?” asked Walter.
“I’m not,” she murmured, too stunned to explain, too stunned to ignore him.
“Where are you going?”
“The hotel.”
When Tristan climbed in the back seat. Walter followed. “I’ll make sure she gets there okay,” he explained to the driver, who looked as though he really didn’t care.
***
“Let me see that.” Lyric pulled the subpoena out of Billy’s hand and started reading out loud. “It’s for a paternity test.” She looked at Bullet. “Do you know anything about this?”
“It’s gotta be wrong,” he told her.
“Why? I mean how can you be sure?”
“Look at the date.” Bullet pointed to the section that said, “On or about…”
“Why do those dates sound familiar?”
“Pike Peak or Bust,” said Slade, who hadn’t spoken to that point.
“Then he’s right!” shouted Lyric. “He couldn’t have been with someone else. He was with us every night. And by us, I mean Tristan.”
“Not every night,” said Liv. “There was one night he wasn’t.”
Lyric first looked puzzled, then her expression changed. Instead of looking at Bullet, she looked at Slade. “You wanna tell me what the hell went on that night?”
“Lyric—”
“Stay out of this Bullet,” she snarled at him, and then turned back to Slade. “You find some buckle bunnies to polish your buckles that night?”
The fact that Slade didn’t answer, wasn’t helping Bullet’s cause. He had a hell of a lot to drink that night, and there were bits and pieces of it that he didn’t remember, but he was damn sure he didn’t have sex with anyone. Not anyone. Not Tristan, and not anyone else.
***
1981
“It’s a boy,” said the doctor, who handed the baby to a nurse, who wrapped him in a blanket and took him to the other side of the room. “I’ll just get him cleaned up a little.”
Bill had witnessed heifers and horses giving birth, even a goat, but watching his own dear wife suffer through labor was almost more than he could bear. He’d held her hand, rubbed her back, and fetched her ice chips and a cool damp cloth to soothe her brow.
“We have a boy,” Dottie beamed at him.
How could anyone look this beautiful, this happy, after what she’d just endured? Bill didn’t know. She’d been his hero since the day he met her, but today, Dottie was superwoman.
The nurse brought the little blanketed bundle back over and handed him to Dottie. “Look Bill, isn’t he beautiful?”
Bill was looking at the two most beautiful people he’d ever seen in his life, his wife and his son.
“What should we name him?”
Tears ran down Bill’s cheeks, and he couldn’t speak. Dottie held the bundle with one hand, and with the other, reached for Bill.
“It’s okay honey. I’m okay. And the baby is perfect.”
Bill looked up at the nurse who nodded her head. “He’s perfect,” she concurred.
Bill closed his eyes and said a prayer. God had kept watch over his wife and his baby. They were both okay. Better than okay, they were perfect. He opened his eyes and looked up. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“I think we should name him William Flynn Patterson, Junior,” said Dottie.
“That’s a right beautiful name sweetheart,” Bill answered.
He looked up again and closed his eyes. He’d never, ever forget his promise. And he’d never, ever compete in another rodeo.
Chapter 22
“I understand sweetheart,” her daddy said. “But you simply don’t have a choice.”
“If I was sick I’d have a choice.”
Her father folded his arms. “You’re not sick.”
“Daddy, please. I can’t go.”
“I’ve said it once, twice, three times, and I won’t say it again after right now. You have commitments Tristan. And you will honor them. I don’t care if there’s one or twenty cowboys you don’t want to see at the NFR. There are people counting on you to be there. And you will not let them down.”
They’d had this argument at least once a day for the last week. Tristan tried everything she could think of to get out of going to Las Vegas for the PRCA National Finals Rodeo. Her daddy wouldn’t hear of any of it.
It had been almost two months since she’d talked to anyone from Flying R Rough Stock other than Liv, who promised she’d let everyone know how hard Tristan was working to have more of the line ready to present in Las Vegas.
If anyone else called, and Lyric and Bullet called often, she ignored the call. If it wasn’t a number she knew, she ignored that call too.
After Liv explained what was in the subpoena, she never mentioned the paternity test, or anything else about Bullet again. The only thing she said was, “if you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
Every time the scene at the Thomas and Mack Center played over in her memory, her humiliation grew. What a fool she’d been. To think she’d been figuring out when to tell the lying, cheating bastard that she loved him. What a ridiculous fool.
Walter rode in the cab with her back to the hotel, but she wouldn’t let him walk in with her. She told him she was picking up her bags and catching the next flight home.
“I told you there was something important about him you needed to know,” he said as she was getting out of the cab.
Those words stuck in her head. When had Walter said that to her the first time? Wasn’t it at Pikes Peak or Bust? From what Liv told her, the woman said she had sex with Bullet that week. But didn’t all the guys go out the day after Bullet fought with Walter behind the chutes?
It continued to nag at her, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t let go of it. Something wasn’t adding up. The problem was, in order to get to the bottom of it, she’d have to talk to Bullet, and that was something she wasn’t ready to do.
***
“Need a ride from the airport?” the text from Lyric said.
“Catching a cab,” she answered.
“Need to talk,” Lyric wrote back.
“I know.”
“Drink at 5 hotel bar.”
That worked. None of this was Lyric’s fault or doing, and Tristan felt bad that she’d avoided her friend for the last two months. She needed to apologize, and hope that Lyric understood why Tristan had been so distant.
Lyric was already at the bar and had a drink in front of her when Tristan walked up.
“H
i.”
Lyric jumped off the stool and threw her arms around Tristan. “God girl, I’ve been so damn worried about you. You look like shit, by the way.”
Tristan smiled. Only Lyric could get away with telling her she looked like shit, and Tristan would know she didn’t mean it in an insulting way.
“What’re you drinkin’?”
“I think I could use one of your five-ingredient cocktails, but that probably isn’t a good idea right now.”
Lyric motioned to the bartender. “Two shots of Makers,” she told him. He nodded his head and went to get the shot glasses. “Wait,” she added. “Better make that four.”
Tristan smiled. “What the hell, I don’t have any meetings tonight. Might as well get lit up.”
“It isn’t his,” Lyric said after they both downed their second shot.
“That really isn’t the point.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I can’t do this Lyric. I can’t be with a man who randomly fathers children.”
“But it isn’t his.”
“Again, that isn’t the point. It could’ve been.”
“No, it couldn’t.”
How could Lyric be so sure? Was it because Bullet swore he didn’t have sex with anyone else that week? Or did Slade come to his defense and swear Bullet didn’t hook up with any women the night they all went out and got drunk? What about the rest of the Flying R partners, were they willing to vouch for Bullet too? It didn’t matter if they all swore on a stack of Bibles. Tristan was done with Bullet. She couldn’t trust him, and she couldn’t be with someone she didn’t trust.
“Oh God, not him again.”
Tristan looked where Lyric motioned. There was Walter Harris, and to her shock, he looked even worse than the last time she saw him.
“You keep turnin’ up like a bad penny. Or shit on the bottom of my shoe,” Lyric said to him.
“I’m not here to see you.” Then he looked at Tristan. “Can we talk?”
“I’m sorry Walter, but I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“You’re back with him? How could you be? You swore over and over again that you couldn’t forgive my infidelities, but he gets some whore pregnant and you just look the other way?”
“This isn’t any of your business Walter.”
“I can’t believe this. I never dreamed you’d forgive him.” He turned and walked away.
“Does that strike you as odd?”
Lyric looked at Walter. “That? Yep.”
“No, not him. What he said. ‘He never dreamed I’d forgive him.’ Isn’t that a weird thing for him to say?”
“To be honest with you, I think the guy is as dirty as they come. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out someday that he set this whole thing up to get you away from Bullet. Problem is, there’s no proof.”
“And what about the girl? Why would a woman claim someone is the father of her child, if she knows he isn’t?”
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna make you a promise right here and now. By the time the last gold buckles are awarded this week, I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
***
“He’s ridin’ great,” Bill told Buck. “But otherwise, it’s as though the light went out.”
“Damn mess.” Buck shook his head. “Has he found out anything yet?”
“Nope, but he said somethin’ about gettin’ the results in January.”
They thought he couldn’t hear them, but Bullet could. Their voices carried to where he sat on the back of the chute waiting for his turn to get on the back of a bull. He rode by rote. No emotion. No excitement. His nerves were icy steel. Part of him hoped he’d buck off, because then maybe he’d feel something.
He was loading broncs to bring them to Las Vegas a couple weeks ago, and cut his hand good on a sharp piece of metal on the trailer. He watched the blood pour from the wound, but couldn’t feel it.
Billy, Jace, even Ben tried to talk to him about the paternity test, but he didn’t have anything to say on the subject. He may have been drunk that night, but there’s no way he had sex with the woman accusing him. It had been months since he had sex with anyone other than Tristan McCullough. A fella may be able to forget having sex when he was doing it with randoms every night of the week, but once you committed yourself to one woman, it wasn’t something you’d forget.
He rode. He didn’t buck off. He waited for his score. Robotically. Eighty-two points. He walked through the back of the arena to gather his gear.
He heard someone talking on a cell phone. “It didn’t matter to her.” He recognized the voice, and the man speaking. Walter Harris. He went back around the corner, out of sight, to listen to more of the conversation.
“You have to make sure the test comes back with him as the verified father.” Silence. “What’s it gonna cost me?” More silence. “You better make damn sure your cousin gets the samples switched.” Another long pause. “Yeah, well, as long as she don’t show up here, we’re all good.”
He had to find Lyric. If anyone could find out who this woman was, Lyric could. If they didn’t, Bullet was going to get slapped with a paternity suit that would seal the fate on the rest of his life. Tristan would never believe it was rigged and he wasn’t the child’s daddy.
***
Tristan rode the elevator alone from the twenty-second floor to the nineteenth, where it stopped. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. She opened them again, when she didn’t hear anyone get on. She looked up, and Bullet stood in front of her.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. The elevator doors started to close, and both reached out to stop them.
“Get on the elevator Bullet,” she told him, and then folded her arms in front of her.
“How are you?” he asked once the doors closed.
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“Okay. I guess.” Bullet reached over and hit the emergency stop button. “That isn’t true, I’m not okay.”
“Bullet—”
“No Tristan, I need to say this. You may not believe me, but I swear on Pearl and Grey’s lives that what I am about to tell you is the God’s honest truth.”
When he told her what he overheard in Walter’s conversation, she believed him. She might not have if she didn’t have her own suspicions. She didn’t admit it out loud though.
“I couldn’t have done it Tristan. I know I didn’t handle it very well, but when I told you I love you, I meant it.”
“I know.” She sighed and looked at the floor.
Here she was, at her own crossroad. Bullet’s reputation was such that no one was overly surprised when he was served with the paternity subpoena. That reputation was borne from the way he lived his life. Even with her, sex was the way their relationship began. From the first time she saw him in Liv and Ben’s hot tub, she wanted him. Somewhere along the way, it had turned into more.
“Can we talk? I mean really talk?” Bullet pleaded.
Tristan reached forward and hit the emergency button again, and the elevator continued its descent. When it came to a stop in the lobby, she didn’t disembark. She pressed the number twenty-two.
“We can talk in my room.”
“But we need to talk Tristan. Nothing else.”
She rolled her eyes and smirked at him. “Yes Bullet, I’ll try my hardest to keep my hands off you.”
“I don’t know about tryin’ your hardest,” he smiled.
***
He smiled. It had been so long since he had, and God, it felt good. Once he started smiling, he couldn’t stop himself.
“What’s so funny cowboy?” The smirk hadn’t left Tristan’s face.
He couldn’t stop himself. He had to touch her. He put one hand on her waist, and hesitated. When she didn’t back away from him, he put his other arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close to him.
Her body was taut, but she didn’t resist. She even rested her head on his shoulder.
“I missed this s
o damn much. Just holdin’ you against me.”
“I missed it too Bullet.”
No buts. She didn’t say “but.” He had no idea where her head was, but he was about to find out.
Tristan’s room was much bigger than his. She had a suite. The furniture in the outer room was covered in McCullough Cowgirl and McCullough Cowboy clothing. There was a garment rack that held more. “You got a fashion show you’re doin’ or something?”
“Yes. Not something. We have a fashion show scheduled this afternoon.”
“How come you didn’t ask me to model for you?”
He was joking, but Tristan looked serious. “I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for us to be together.”
“Really? I mean you actually considered it? I thought you’d have professional models.”
“No, the clothes are going to be worn by NFR competitors. The show is a fundraiser for the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund.”
He looked around the room until he saw the chaps. “You got anybody wearin’ mine?”
“I only made one pair of those Bullet. Those are custom, and won’t be available for sale.”
“You gonna do more custom work? I mean can fellers order custom chaps from your company?”
“I guess so. It isn’t something I’ve thought much about, but the professional cowboys would want something custom, not something off the rack. It’s a good idea Bullet. Thank you.”
“Then I guess I need to be in your show after all.”
“Oh yeah? Do you have them with you?”
“C’mon Tristan, they’re my good luck charm. Why do you think I’m ridin’ so good?”
Tristan bristled. “Let’s talk Bullet. About something else,” she snapped.
“Wait a minute. What just happened? What did I say?”
Tristan explained her run-ins with Walter Harris, and how he told her he needed her because she represented luck to him. Whenever the comparisons between the two men came too close, she couldn’t help the irritation she felt.
“There’s a difference. I said the chaps were my good luck, not you.”
She smiled again, and punched his arm.
“Let’s talk.” Bullet motioned toward two chairs by the window, and helped Tristan move the clothing out of their way.
And Then You Dare (Crested Butte Cowboys Series Book 5) Page 24
