Rodeo Nights

by Patricia McLinn

  “What if I said I think I love you, Walker?”

  The words came before she could consider if they were true, or if they were wise.

  Hearing them, she still didn’t know if they carried truth. But Walker’s tense stance and taut jaw proved they hadn’t held wisdom.

  “All right, you think you love me. Well, you said that before, and then you walked away, didn’t you, Kalli?” She winced. “Only you were more positive about it then. You said you loved me, and you said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. But you didn’t love me, you loved what you thought you’d turn me into. And when I wouldn’t be what you wanted, you walked out. If that’s what you’re meaning by love this time, Kalli, I’ve got to warn you. This is who I am.”

  His gesture took in his rodeo gear.

  “I can try a computer for you, Kalli. I can talk to reporters. I can step back and let you head the business. I can look beyond today to what the future’s bringing and maybe, eventually, I could accept you giving us—me—only your summers. But I can’t let go of rodeo. It’s who I am as much as it’s who Jeff is. And I don’t understand how you can think you’re loving me when you’re wanting me to be a different man from the one I am. That’s what I don’t understand, Kalli. Don’t understand at all.”

  Because the thought of your getting hurt scares me to death. What would I do if anything happened to you?

  Each word came crystal clear into her head, but something stopped her from speaking them.

  She caught the gleam of precious metal at his waist. The championship buckle. The emblem of all those times he’d risked his body, and her heart.

  “I just want you to be a man who wants what I can give,” she said, fighting the fear. “I can’t give you what the rodeo can. I can’t make you a champion. Someone for boys like Matt Halderman to idolize. Someone for strangers to cheer when you make a good ride or to gasp and cluck when the bull wins the go-round. All I can do is love you. I can’t give you gold buckles or make you a national champion!”

  “You think this is what the rodeo gives me? You think this is what it’s about?”

  He unhooked the massive buckle with one jerk of his hand and yanked the leather belt through the denim loops. With a curse, he slung it onto the narrow bunk.

  Her eyes followed the arc of its movement.

  “Then you still don’t know me, Kalli. Dammit, you still don’t know me.”

  The door banged shut behind him, but Kalli couldn’t take her eyes off the buckle. Weighted by the heavy metal, the belt lay twisted and curved, like a dying snake. The buckle, face up, innocently blinked at the ceiling.

  You still don’t know me, Kalli. Dammit, you still don’t know me.

  Why did he have this need to climb on the back of a nineteen-hundred-pound Brahman when he knew how it scared her? When he knew how she felt about it? How…

  How it scared her.

  How she felt about it.

  The phrases dinned at her until she sank under their weight, slipping to the bunk, one hand outstretched for balance.

  Her fingers encountered the buckle and held on.

  How it scared her.

  How she felt about it.

  Even greater than her fear for him had been her fear for herself. What his injury—or worse—might do to her. All these years, the fear had been for herself. Because she couldn’t take it if something happened to him.

  The truth became a roaring in her ears, a slicing pain in her heart.

  The edge of the buckle bit hard into her palm and fingers. She tightened her hold.

  Because the thought of your getting hurt scares me to death. What would I do if anything happened to you?

  Scares me...scares ME...ME.

  Now she knew what had stopped her from speaking the words—an instinct that recognized that the words revealed her selfishness. Showed that her fears for herself, for her own feelings if he should get hurt, were more important to her than having Walker do what he loved.

  As if Mary sat beside her now, Kalli felt the older woman’s hands clasping hers, and heard the quiet, certain words.

  When you love someone, really love someone, what they want and need is more important than your own wants and needs. It’s even more important than your worries and fears.

  She understood now, in a way she hadn’t even when the evidence was in front of her eyes, the love and strength Mary had shown all these long weeks by encouraging Jeff to fight the limits left by his stroke—because that’s what he wanted and needed, and his wants and needs were more important to Mary than her own.

  Do I truly love Walker ?

  More important, did she love him the right way, the way that would help her put his wants and needs ahead of her own?

  The pounding on the door barely penetrated Kalli’s consciousness.

  “Kalli? Walker? You two in there? If you’re doing something you don’t want the world to see, you better stop, because I’m coming in.” Roberta’s face in the open camper door followed her words.

  Kalli looked at her without moving.

  ‘‘Oh, you’re alone.”

  At another time, Kalli might have found some humor in the disappointment in the older woman’s voice.

  “Yes, I’m alone.”

  Roberta’s look sharpened, but she asked no questions.

  “Well, get a move on. There are tickets to sell, money to count, results to figure. We’ve got a rodeo to run.”

  Trying to push aside questions she couldn’t answer, Kalli tackled the nightly routine. But for the first time, she made no pretense of ignoring it when the loudspeaker announcement came:

  “And now, out of chute two, the first bull-riding competitor in our final event of the evening—two-time national bull-riding champion, one of the legends of the sport, Park’s own—Walker Riley!”

  She knew her stillness had attracted Roberta’s attention, but she didn’t care.

  Eight seconds until the ride was over. Eight seconds to get through.

  Beneath the crowd’s roars, she could almost imagine she heard the faint chunk of the chute gate opening, allowing the bull to bolt into the arena where he’d have full freedom to buck and whirl, spin and kick, with Walker on his back.

  One second passed. Two. Three.

  Her eyes went to the wall clock, watching the second hand tick its way toward Walker’s safety. Six, seven, eight. The horn. The ride was over.

  Then came the crowd’s gasp, a chorus of dismay condensed into a single strident note that screamed that something had gone wrong. Horribly wrong.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  “KALLI, WAIT...”

  “Kalli, you can’t…”

  ‘‘Kalli, don’t...”

  The voices, the orders blended. She moved too fast from the office to the arena, and cared too little for what they said to pay any heed.

  She reached the fence and climbed it before anyone could stop her. The clowns tried to corral the bull at the far side of the ring, but she hardly noticed. She focused only on the figure in denim and white, sprawled just this side of the arena’s center. Even as she tried to sprint across fine dirt that gave under her feet like sand, she felt terror rising, the urge to turn around and escape.

  She kept going.

  Closer, she saw a splash of red. Blood.

  Her heart seemed to stop, and she gasped for the oxygen she needed to keep running.

  Then she realized he was moving, and her heart tripped. His head turned toward the bull, Walker levered himself up, favoring his left leg, where the blue of denim opened to tanned skin and the red of welling blood.

  Seeming to catch the different quality of the crowd’s noise as it reacted to her arrival, he turned once he got upright. Grimacing, but also grinning.

  Light brightened his eyes, the light of a man who’d ridden the tornado, who’d shared the power of a force of nature. And didn’t mind that he’d paid for the privilege with his blood.

  Then he saw her, and t
he light changed.

  “Kalli! What the— Get the hell out of here!” He limped toward her.

  She ignored him and kept going over the irregular ground that tried to suck her down.

  He glanced at the other end of the arena, where the clowns had herded the still-uncooperative bull, then limped faster toward her.

  ‘‘Walker! Are you—’’

  “Kalli, will you get out of here?” He tried to grip her arm, but, instead, she slipped her shoulder under his arm and wrapped hers around his waist in support.

  “Fine,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Let’s go.”

  He cursed under his breath, but didn’t stop to argue. He sent a couple of looks toward the bull, which she suspected he wouldn’t have done if she hadn’t been with him, and when helpful hands opened the gate, he placed a firm hand on her back to make sure she went through first.

  But as soon as the gate closed behind them, she slipped her shoulder back under his arm.

  “Where’s the doctor?” she demanded of Gulch.

  He jerked his head toward the square-bodied first-aid vehicle that dispensed cures for cuts and bruises, and doubled as an ambulance in an emergency.

  “Let’s take a look at that.” The retired doctor who attended each session to provide medical services ambled up.

  “It’s nothing,” Walker said. In case his words got covered by the grunt the doctor gave as he squatted and poked at the raw flesh, he repeated louder. “Nothing.”

  The word didn’t mask his grimace as the doctor’s fingers probed.

  Kalli didn’t need the doctor’s diagnosis. “You’re going to the hospital. Gulch, get ready to drive the van.” She looked up to see Roberta’s concerned but calm face in the circle. “Call the hospital and let them know we’re coming.”

  “Okay, Kalli.”

  “You got it.”

  Gulch and Roberta disappeared in opposite directions.

  “Aw, hell, Kalli. I don’t need the hospital,” Walker protested. “Doc here can clean it up and stitch it. Tell her, Doc.”

  “Well, he’s right it’s not that bad, Kalli. But,” he continued, turning to his patient, “you ought to take that ride over to the hospital. Doctors there will take neater stitches than I could here.”

  “You heard what the doctor said. Get in the van, Walker.”

  He protested more, but Kalli didn’t listen. And with everyone cooperating with her, he didn’t have much choice.

  The doctor cut the rest of the jeans leg away, gave the wound a preliminary cleaning that had sweat popping out on Walker’s forehead, laid a temporary covering over it and pronounced the patient ready to go. Since Walker already sat on the cot in the back of the van, all that was required was for Gulch to start the engine and Kalli to pull the door closed after the doctor climbed out.

  They sat in silence the first few swaying minutes as the van negotiated the dirt-packed parking area and gravel drive before lurching onto the paved highway.

  “I’m sorry, Walker, if I insulted your manhood by insisting on basic medical attention and by going into the arena after you, but—”

  “My manhood!” He added an obscenity that made her blink. “I was worried about getting your butt out of that ring with a ton of angry bull still roaming around. Don’t you know it could have been dangerous for you?”

  Reaction roared through her, swirling fear, anger, caring, fury and adrenaline like so many feathers.

  “Dangerous? Dangerous for me! That bull tossed you in the air like you were a rag doll. You were lying out there bleeding, maybe bleeding to death with that bull on the loose. And you’re telling me it could have been dangerous?”

  She knew she was shouting, but wasn’t aware of the tears streaming down her face until she automatically dashed them away.

  “You were worried.”

  She shouldn’t have heard his soft words over the thundering in her ears, but she did.

  “Worried? Worried, you unmitigated ass—I was scared to death! It could have been an artery that got slashed. It could have been your head he trampled. It could have been one hoof to your temple. It could have been you, just like Cory.... Oh, God, it could have been—”

  Tears and fear strangled her.

  “It’s okay, Kalli. It’s okay, honey. I’m all right and we’ll work this out.” He put his arms around her, and she accepted the warmth and solace.

  He said other things, but she heard only the tenderness of his tone, felt the warmth of his arms and most of all, the strong, steady beating of his heart under her ear.

  He was alive, so very alive.

  The van came to a stop and the doors swung open. An orderly stood at the opening, looking from one to the other, both smeared with blood and dirt.

  “Two of you? They only said one.”

  “Just me,” Walker said.

  Half expecting him to try to weasel out of the medical care, given such an opening, she looked up, surprised.

  “Might as well get this over with,” he said to her with a ghost of a smile. “And then you and I are going to do some talking.”

  * * *

  “ARE YOU SURE you’re okay?”

  He stifled the urge to growl at her. She’d fussed around his bedroom for half an hour now. And on top of the fussing at the emergency room, on the drive back and during the time before they could get Gulch and Roberta to leave his place, he’d about had his fill.

  Kalli had gotten him to lie in bed, his back propped against pillows, his leg throbbing no worse than various parts of him had throbbed a hundred times before. Then, just when he thought she would settle down next to him, she’d started flitting around the room, pretending to pack some of the things he’d encouraged her over the past weeks to leave at his place.

  As far as he could tell, she hadn’t put anything resembling clothes into the carry-on bag that was all she said she’d need for New York. Guess nothing from Wyoming would do for New York City, he thought sourly.

  “I’m fine. Now come to bed.”

  “I am. I just wanted to finish.” She zipped the bag closed and looked around the room as if searching for another project. “Are you sure you don’t want another pain pill before I—”

  “I’m sure. Kalli, get in bed before I get out and put you in bed.”

  She was so worn-out she could hardly stand, but only when he tossed back the top sheet in preparation for making good on his threat did she switch off the lamp on the dresser, leaving the room in the soft glow of the bookshelf lamp. And, finally, she eased into bed next to him.

  He gave out a sigh of satisfaction as she slid partway down against the pillows behind her.

  His relief was premature. She hadn’t finished.

  “I think you should stay in bed tomorrow,” she announced.

  “No way, Kalli. The emergency-room doc said—”

  “The doctor doesn’t know everything.”

  “That’s not what you were saying before. Changed your tune, huh, once she agreed with me? Besides, who’d run the rodeo with me in bed and you off to New York City?”

  She sidestepped the edge in his voice. “I could postpone my trip a day.”

  “No. I’m not keeping you that way, Kalli.”

  She sidestepped that, too. “I just want you to be sensible.”

  “I am being sensible. I’m used to this.”

  She winced.

  Oh, hell, he’d never figured to win any championships when it came to tact, anyway, so he might as well say what he thought right out.

  “Look, Kalli, this should make things easier between us if you look at it right.”

  Apparently, she was only prepared to look disbelieving.

  “The worst’s happened from your standpoint,” he explained. “I got thrown. I caught a horn a little bit, but—”

  “A little bit?”

  “But,” he repeated, overriding her protest, “I came through fine. That emergency-room doc says I can ride tomorrow—”

  Her eyes jerked up to
his, then away. It made it harder to finish, but he did. He wouldn’t lie to her. “And I will. So why don’t you come watch tomorrow?”

  Almost absently, she reminded him, “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

  “That’s right, you won’t.”

  Something in his tone must have caught her attention, because she turned to look into his eyes. He had the uncomfortable feeling she saw more there than he would have liked.

  “I’m coming back, Walker.” He hadn’t wanted to be transparent, for God’s sake. “I told Jerry two days. I’ll be here Wednesday night. Thursday at the latest.”

  “Rodeo season ends Saturday.” Pointing out what they both already knew served as a setup, so he could tack on the question he couldn’t ask outright. “Doesn’t seem real practical if you’re coming back for just two days.”

  “I don’t know how long I’m coming back for. I don’t know how we’ll work that out, but I promise you, Walker, no matter what, I’m coming back.”

  He shifted, uneasy with the intensity of her gaze, or maybe with the idea that she could see in his face how pathetically eager he was to believe that. He couldn’t crawl. Not even for Kalli.

  “Well, if you come back—”

  “When.”

  He took the risk and conceded to her certainty and his desire, “Okay, when. When you come back, why don’t you come watch me ride instead of sitting in the office imagining things? Your imaginings are a load worse than the real thing, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Besides, you’re stronger than you know, Kalli. Just take tonight—the worst happened, and you handled it fine. Except if I catch you coming in the ring like that again, I’ll—”

  “The worst?”

  The quaver in her voice stopped him. It had been a long, wearing night for both of them. But she sounded more than tired.

  He ducked his head for a better look at her face. And felt a clutch in his chest. From beneath her closed eyelids tears gathered in her lashes, then slipped down her cheeks, over her chin and down her throat.

  “The worst?” she repeated. “This wasn’t the worst. The worst would be losing you. For...forever.” Her voice broke, but she went on. “Losing you... Like Cory.”