“YOU CAN’T RUN FOREVER, Kate,” Dusty called after her, as he slipped the rope from his shoulder. To his surprise and pleasure, the people in front of him parted, giving him a clear view as Kate came flying out of the café, with a surprised but troubled expression. Darla, the waitress at the café, stepped out of the doorway, shaking her head. It seemed she wasn’t going to help Kate out of her predicament, and Dusty couldn’t have been happier.
He lengthened his stride and watched as she hesitated, looking right and left, and he knew the moment she saw him. Unfortunately for her, the crowd was enjoying the show as she tried to zigzag her way through them.
He gained on her quickly, thanks to folks stepping aside for him. When he knew he was close enough and nobody would be in the way, he weighted the loop of his rope and tossed it at her. It slipped easily over her shoulders before he tugged it tight.
“What the—” She staggered as the breath whooshed out of her, but she stayed on her feet. He didn’t want her hurt, just stopped, and he handled the rope with expert hands.
She looked around, as if she thought someone would step in to help her, but no one did. “Sheriff Rule,” she shouted at the man who stood at the front of the crowd now surrounding them. “Do something, for heaven’s sake. Stop him.”
Morgan shook his head. “Can’t do that, Kate. Looks to me like Dusty is just practicing his roping. No law against that.”
Dusty smiled at the sheriff and nodded his thanks. Being careful not to hurt her, he began to haul Kate in. With each easy tug, he spoke. “You are—without a doubt—the most—stubborn—muleheaded—argumentative—independent—hot-tempered woman—I’ve ever known.” He brought her to a halt in front of him, her arms held snugly at her sides by the rope.
“And I love you,” he finished.
Unable to move, Kate’s fury vanished. Her eyes stung and her lip trembled as she tried to speak. “This isn’t fair,” she whispered with a sniff.
“You haven’t played fair, either,” he pointed out. “You keep running off, instead of talking to me.” Dropping the end of the rope, he caught it under his foot before taking her in his arms. He felt her tremble as he reached for her braid and slipped off the cord that bound the end. “You know I’m not one to give up, but this is the only time I’m going to ask you this,” he said, sliding the twisted hair apart.
“Ask me what?”
He could feel the pounding of her heart beneath his chest. The crowd around them was silent, as if holding its breath to see what would happen next. He looked into her blue eyes and offered a silent prayer. “Kate Clayborne, will you marry me?”
When she shook her head, he heard the disappointment ripple through the crowd and felt the pain her refusal caused. But he wasn’t going to walk away. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Turning to the crowd, he kept a tight hold on Kate. “I know y’all want to know how this is going to turn out, and I can promise you won’t be disappointed. But Kate and I need some privacy to talk this over, so if you don’t mind…”
With a collective groan, a few started to move away and others followed, pieces of their conversations drifting back to Dusty. He looked around for a quiet spot, found one around the corner at the end of the block and carefully led Kate to it.
“Why won’t you marry me?” he asked, when they were finally alone and he held her close.
“Can’t marry you,” she corrected. Her chest rose and fell against his as she took a deep breath. “Because you have no plans, no goals. No dreams. You think that riding bulls, even though it could kill you, is all you need.”
“Wrong,” he told her. When she looked up at him, his resolve to convince her that they belonged together forever grew stronger. “I don’t ride bulls anymore. I’m officially retired from that.”
Her eyes widened and brightened. “You are?”
Nodding, he smiled. “Anything else?”
The light in her eyes dimmed. “But why? You love rodeo.”
“I realized I liked freckle-faced redheads much better than ornery bulls.” He kissed the tip of her nose, then leaned back to look at her and saw something in her eyes he couldn’t quite read. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
Hesitating, she lowered her head. “No.”
He placed a finger under her chin and tipped her face up, forcing her to look at him. “What is it, Kate? Tell me.”
“I—It’s just that I can’t.”
He felt a strange foreboding when she dipped her head again. “You can’t what? Tell me? Marry me? We just went over the bull riding and rodeo.”
“I don’t want you giving it up for me.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m giving it up for me. It isn’t what I want anymore. I want you.”
She raised her head to meet his gaze. “Then you are giving it up for me. But that isn’t the problem,” she hurried on to say before he could tell he she was wrong. “I thought it was the bull riding, but it isn’t. I’m still afraid.”
“Of what?”
She took a deep breath before answering. “Of losing you. I lost my parents, the two people I loved the most. I can’t lose you, too.”
In that moment, he knew she loved him. “I was afraid, too,” he admitted.
“Of what?” she asked.
“You were right, Kate. Risking my life would be wrong. You made me realize that. But I thought there wasn’t a reason not to risk it. I thought there wasn’t anybody who would be affected by what I did. You showed me there was.”
“But—”
“And I was afraid of losing you. Of losing the life I want with you.”
She shook her head. “You still don’t have any plans for your future.”
“Wrong again. I have lots of plans, and they all include you.”
“Like what?”
“Like maybe merging our farms. If Aggie is agreeable, that is. Even if farming doesn’t pay off, if that’s what’s important to you, then it is to me, too. And I don’t care if you never boil as much as a pan of water or if you turn a can of tuna into roast beef, I still want to marry you.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes darkened with a passion he’d never forget. “But what will you do?”
With a grin, he rocked her in his arms. “Well, there’s the rodeo stock company Tanner and I are starting up.” Her look of surprise pulled a chuckle from him. “And we have someone special in mind to do our accounting.” He pulled her closer, loving the feel of her. “And when we’re not working—and that will be a lot of the time—I’ll be busy loving you and filling the house with babies.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “If that’s what you want.”
Kate’s smile nearly knocked him over. She nodded. “One at a time, though.” Her smile dimmed, and her lips drew down in a stubborn frown. “But we’ll argue.”
“And make up,” he said, ducking his head to nibble her neck. “And argue and make up, and—We’ll never be bored. And you’ll never let me get a word in because you’ll be—”
“Dusty?”
He pulled back to look at her, wondering what else she could think of to keep them apart. “What?”
“Just kiss me.”
He barely noticed the cheers from the crowd that had gathered again as he granted her request. She would never be tamed, never be like anyone else, but that was one of the reasons why he loved her. She was all he would ever need.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4672-4
BACHELOR COWBOY
Copyright © 2010 by Roxann Farmer.
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