Rodeo Nights

by Patricia McLinn

  But she couldn’t, thanks to his foresight in making her promise to be around for all his interviews.

  She lined up as many as possible. Newspapers—from Billings, Cheyenne, Casper, and, not to be left out, Denver, plus a stringer from the Los Angeles Times. Radio—local at first, then a telephone hookup with his old buddy Sailor Anderson’s stations in Texas drew more interest. And television—regional shows mostly, but there’d been interest from a local affiliate. And each of those showed up on the Internet in several forms.

  He could see it paying off, too. The rodeo had drawn record crowds for the Fourth of July weekend. And he’d had the pleasure of Kalli’s company a lot more than he would have had otherwise.

  The pleasure of having her by his side during the interviews, of greeting people together, as a team. Almost the way a real couple might.

  That made the interviews worthwhile.

  * * *

  “HEY, KALLI, YOU know where Walker is?”

  The voice from behind stopped her in the act of opening the door to the Jeffrieses’ truck.

  “Hi, Matt. I’m just going to pick him up.” She gestured in the direction of the opposite side of the rodeo grounds, where Walker and Gulch were fixing a section of livestock pen a recalcitrant bull had loosened the night before. “Then we’re heading out for an appointment. Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Uh, no. That’s not... I mean, uh, you probably got to get going.”

  She checked her watch, though she already knew she’d left three times as much time as necessary for the trip to a local radio station. She didn’t want to risk anything going wrong with this hookup with the network personality who’d carved out a reputation for warm, cozy “chats” amid the reports by hard-hitting journalists. She’d put in a lot of work to line this up. Giving in to a whim this morning, she’d replaced her simple white blouse with the jade one Walker had bought her that day at Lodge’s, with some vague idea it might bring luck.

  If she showed up now, Walker would probably give her that amused look, remind her they didn’t have to leave a lot of extra time for traffic around Park and make her wait until he’d finished the job.

  And she couldn’t complain. Because, despite his dislike for being a public person, he’d handled all this like a pro. She couldn’t help but be impressed by his willingness to do something he hated for the good of the rodeo. She also couldn’t help but be impressed that he encouraged her to take the lead in dealing with the business side and being the spokesperson with the business community, and that he pointed out her role in each interview.

  “It’s okay, Matt. I’ve got time. Is there a problem?”

  “Problem? No, no, it’s not a problem. I just wanted. I mean... I wanted to ask Walker if he’d explain something. You know I’ve been trying the bulls some, along with the broncs. I’ve been practicing like he told me, going through things over and over on the practice drum, so it’s natural and doesn’t need any thinking when I’m on the bull. But there’s this one move I saw that Trembler bull make last night, that real rank one?”

  She nodded at his description of the animal who’d earlier taken exception to the pen fence.

  “Well, he was spinning inside, and kicking his back legs out the same time. I wondered what Walker’d say to do in a case like that, when a bull has a lot of snap in him. I would have tried to draw my own conclusions, but Johnny Prentice got thrown so early, I didn’t have anything to go by.”

  “I can see your problem.” Amused, Kalli also was touched by Matt’s obvious regard for Walker and his ardent desire to improve his skills, even though she knew he’d been thrown himself the night before. She’d seen him earlier in the day, walking with a gingerliness that spoke of aches and bruises. “But you’re right, you would need Walker for that. Perhaps when we return from the radio station, or after tonight’s events.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. That’d be fine. I don’t mean to be holding you

  As she turned to go, Kalli almost sighed at the respect Matt showed her these days. There’d been no harm in his slightly cocky flirtation at their first meeting, but Walker had definitely put an end to that. She swung back around almost immediately.

  “Matt? Let me ask you a question.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Why do you do it? Why do you ride? You get thrown off and it’s got to hurt, but you keep going back—you and...others.”

  His brown eyes snapped with an inner excitement and his mouth tilted up, but his brows drew down in an effort to explain.

  “Once, when I was a kid, I was visiting my grandparents over in Nebraska, and a twister came through. A real big one. We could see it, way out across the fields, going this way, then that. And you never knew where it would go next. It was scary, but there was a feeling, you know, kind of under my skin. An excitement. And when it ended... Well, it’s something you don’t ever forget. Not ever. And that’s the feeling, I guess.” A flush stole across his cheeks at the effort to articulate, or perhaps at the self-exposure.

  “Thank you, Matt,” she said solemnly. “I appreciate your answer.”

  He tugged at the brim of his hat, mumbled a goodbye and hurried off.

  The conversation lingered in her mind.

  Even as she picked up Walker. Even as she instructed him to wash off the worst of the dirt and put on the clean shirt she’d brought from the selection he kept in the office. Even as she tried not to react to the sight of his supple, bronzed back as he splashed water from a nearby spigot before drying off with a bandanna.

  Even as she swallowed dryness in her throat to smile at his halfhearted grumble that at least for radio he’d have thought he could stay in his work clothes. Even when she should have had all her attention focused on the taping. Even when the interview ended and they went back out to the truck.

  “Well, that didn’t go too bad, did it?” Walker fastened his seat belt and settled in the passenger seat with a satisfied sound.

  Starting the truck and heading out the winding dirt road that led back to the highway, she figured he deserved to feel pleased.

  It had gone great. The interviewer had blended Walker’s achievements, the rodeo’s current status and enough background information to pull in the uninitiated. Walker had also slipped in several comments about her contributions.

  “You just liked the interviewer because he’d seen you win your second All-Around at the National Rodeo Finals,” she teased.

  “Hey, after all these folks you’ve had me talking to who don’t know there’s a difference between steer wrestling and bull riding, it was a pleasant surprise.” She made a face at him, but it didn’t dent his smile or erase one bit of the satisfied-with-the-world tone as he went on, “You know you’re starting to drive like Wyoming again, Kalli.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you first came back, you were hugging the side of the road, minding your manners.”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  “Maybe. But now you’re driving down the middle where the road’s better, like everybody else, until there’s somebody around you need to share it with.”

  She glanced at his grin, then out the windshield to see that she was doing exactly what he’d said.

  “The edges are rougher and there’s nobody coming,” she explained, perhaps mostly to herself.

  “That’s what I said. Turn right here.”

  “Here? Why? That’s not the way back.” She looked doubtfully at the rock-strewn road that seemed to make more vertical than horizontal progress, but turned. The vehicle took the new surface in stride. A pretty good road, after all.

  “Different way back,” he said complacently.

  She grinned at herself. Maybe she was driving more like Wyoming if she found herself accepting as “good” any road with rocks as big as her fist. Hell, two months ago, she probably would have been horrified at the idea of driving on any unpaved road. Though she would have thought nothing of braving a pothole the size of a
city bus.

  She laughed out loud.

  “Something funny?”

  “Nothing I could really explain.” How often had she laughed for no clear-cut reason in recent years?

  “Okay.” He accepted that easily, and she liked him for it.

  She could feel his eyes on her as the truck gripped hard, then seemed to catapult over a final rise to a flat expanse where the road ended. She brought the vehicle to a stop, turned the engine off—it deserved a rest after this climb— unhooked her seat belt and looked at him questioningly. He looked back.

  “Always liked the sound of your laughter.” Walker’s voice dropped so low, it seemed to rumble through her blood.

  She grew breathless. His eyes pierced into her, leaving her muscles heavy, liquid and useless.

  Then he turned away, was out his door, around the other side and gesturing her to come out the driver’s door he’d opened before she could replenish her oxygen supply.

  “C’mon, I’ve got something to show you.”

  He took her hand before she could think to protest and strode ahead, leaving her to hurry to match his pace. Thirty yards away, she saw they weren’t on a completely flat expanse. A sort of wide, natural stairway led down four feet to a flat rock set like a shelf in the side of the mountain. The earth fell away below that, seeming to open to the entire Big Horn Basin. The rest of the mountains stretched along the right side of the horizon, in front of them and behind them as far as the eye could see. The sun dropped lower, appearing about to be impaled on one of the sharp peaks. The sky stretched as wide as the world and as high as infinity, making everything below seem insignificant.

  ‘‘Walker…”

  “Sunset’s something from here, Kalli.”

  ‘‘But—’’

  “The rodeo’ll start fine without us this once.”

  She turned her back to the view and looked at him for a long moment, without anything as coherent as a thought forming in her mind. Abruptly, she turned again and sat down, her back propped against the wall of rock.

  Wisely, Walker said nothing, either. Moving slowly, he came to where she sat, easing down next to her—close—before he tipped back his hat and hooked one elbow around his bent knee.

  They sat in silence as the sun began to slip behind the peaks, leaving the sky an inheritance of dazzling color. She was aware of him watching her. Turning to face him would be an acceptance of sorts.

  She turned to him.

  His face was close. Close enough that she could see the variations of blue that made up the bright color of his eyes.

  Close enough that she could see his intention.

  He dropped a kiss on her lips, then slowly raised his head, as if listening, perhaps to the wind that sighed around them.

  With great deliberation, he took off his hat, removing its protection and its masking. Light flooded his face, eliminating the shadows that had hidden what she saw now—hunger.

  Then his mouth returned to hers, shifting and meeting, finding a new angle and pressure, tugging on her bottom lip with his teeth, then flicking her top lip with his tongue. He never pushed her to part her lips, but when she did, he took possession immediately, one hand coming up to cup the back of her head as he stroked and explored.

  She could taste his hunger, rigorously restrained but stretching its leash as he sought her tongue, then enticed it into his mouth.

  Clinging to his shoulders wasn’t enough. She wrapped one arm around his back, guiding her fingertips to relearn, through the fresh cotton cloth, this particular topography of muscle and sinew. Her other hand more gingerly slid beneath his collar, then around to the back, to slip lightly up under the ends of his hair.

  With something like a shudder, he released her mouth as they both pulled in air. His gaze rose from her lips to her eyes and locked with them for a moment, and she saw the pure, blue fire of desire.

  When his mouth slammed back on hers, she opened to him heedlessly, and knew the fire had reached her veins.

  His hands never seemed to hurry, but they were everywhere. Everywhere she wanted them, and nowhere long enough to give her release. He’d opened most of the buttons of her blouse and she could gather only enough wits to wish he’d hurry.

  His shirt was opened, and pulled from the waist of his jeans, so she could slide questing palms and fingers over the heat, strength and smoothness of his chest and back.

  His mouth left hers and she felt the shock of separation, an atom of the loneliness of the past decade, before his warm, wet caress touched her jaw, then her throat, reuniting them.

  She arched into the hand he cupped over her breast, straining for the contact that through the sheer covering of her bra would almost satisfy a craving for skin against skin.

  A sound came from deep in his throat as his mouth dragged lower, to the bones at the base of her throat—how could she feel such exquisite sensation through her bones? But she did. He slid his fingertips lightly over her nipple, so lightly it shouldn’t have made her shiver, But it did. The fabric covering it seemed an abrasion against flesh he couldn’t possibly make more sensitive. But he did.

  Warm, moist, hungry, his mouth covered her nipple. She felt his teeth’s slight scraping and his tongue’s lashing, then the strong, even pull.

  And she knew blinding, instant fear.

  Sensation was pulling away her defense. Pulling away her safety. Pulling away the facade of her success and competence. Pulling away the pretense that she was over Walker Riley.

  “Walker...no.”

  She couldn’t have gotten out any more than that. If he’d ignored it, she would have crumbled into his arms, unable to resist the pull.

  But he heard.

  And he stilled. Along with her heartbeat, through tortured seconds, with his mouth on her, with her flesh carrying the imprint of his touch, with the power of him under her hands.

  He sat up, away from her, with an abrupt jerkiness so unlike his usual slow grace.

  “Walker, I...” Tears burned bright hotness behind her eyes, but she wouldn’t let them fall.

  There was nothing she could say.

  There was nothing he would say.

  In silence, with a return to his usual measured pace, he put his hat on, angling it low, then stood.

  He watched her, without a word, without a readable expression on his face, as she adjusted her clothing. She overruled the temptation to turn her back on that unnerving regard as cowardly. Her fingers felt numb and clumsy, but she buttoned her blouse at last, and stood, too near him in the limited space of their rock balcony. To hide her hands’ unsteadiness, she brushed industriously at the dust on the seat and back of her jeans.

  He made no move to button his shirt or stir the dust that clung to his clothing, but waited, watching and silent, until she finished, as the sun slipped completely behind the mountains. Then he simply nodded for her to precede him up the natural stairway.

  Finally, a yard short of the vehicle, he spoke.

  “I’ll drive.”

  She didn’t argue. She wasn’t sure she could negotiate that steep road down right now, anyhow. Not feeling so dizzy already from their intimate descent.

  * * *

  KALLI ENTERED THE room the woman at the front desk had identified as Baldwin Jeffries’s with a bright smile. It sank to something near panic at its emptiness. Rushing out, she snagged a gray-haired nurse.

  “Jeff—Baldwin Jeffries... No one’s in his room.”

  The nurse consulted her utilitarian watch. “I expect he and Mary are still in the therapy room. He should be back in ten minutes or so, or you can go on down.”

  By the time Kalli had followed the nurse’s directions, she felt considerably heartened. Jeff was already well enough to have therapy out of his room.

  But her spirits dipped and she came to a sudden halt at the sight of Jeff struggling to stand by himself while a therapist and Mary watched. Kalli took an instinctive step to help him. Couldn’t they see how much trouble he had coordinating
the movements of one side of his body? The left side, the side Mary had said had some paralysis.

  Jeff and the therapist were too intent on the task to notice her. But Mary, facing the door, must have caught the movement. She looked up, started a smile, then switched to a slight, warning shake of her head. Kalli remained still.

  Jeff laboriously straightened his spine, the aligning of each vertebra a seeming triumph of will. At last, to a murmur of praise from the therapist, he turned his head toward his wife. Mary smiled, a wealth of approval in her eyes. He slowly pushed back his shoulders to an approximation of his customary upright stance.

  At the therapist’s quiet request, he shifted his balance, swaying a little before holding the line, then doing it again. Another quiet murmur and he put weight on both feet, though Kalli thought his left leg trembled.

  When he reached the chair, Kalli let out a pent-up breath and wiped her damp hands down the sides of her jeans.

  With the therapist commenting, praising, fine-tuning and preparing Jeff for a repeat, Mary slipped away without being noticed, snagged Kalli’s elbow and guided her out.

  In the hallway, they hugged, then Mary reached up to take Kalli’s face between her palms.

  “If you show him that face, Jeff will think the rodeo’s closed,” she said in gentle scolding.

  “He just looked so...so unsteady.”

  “He is unsteady,” Mary said flatly.

  “But couldn’t that be dangerous? He might fall.”

  “That’s not likely. They know what they’re doing here and they aren’t overly fond of having patients fall over. But it’s always a possibility.”

  “It seems so dangerous.”

  “So’s driving and flying and taking a shower and living in general.”

  “Couldn’t they wait until he’s stronger—”

  “This is how he gets stronger, Kalli, by pushing his endurance,” she said. “You’re seeing him at the end of a session, and that’s always harder. The way the therapist explains it, he’s reteaching his muscles—especially on that left side—to follow orders. He pushes beyond what those muscles learned last time, so they rebel and he has to work even harder to get them to do what he wants.”