The Bull Rider's Homecoming

by Jeannie Watt

  “You know, I’m fine with you simply being a great associate.”

  Annie gave a soft snort. “I want a talent like everyone else.”

  “Maybe you’re really good with interior paint,” Danielle said with a wry smile.

  “I do sling a mean brush.” She did. The house she’d grown up in had been grim when she’d moved back home after Wes had left her. She and Grady had rented it out while she’d been in college and the renters hadn’t been all that careful with the place. It’d taken Annie a long time to brighten the house with paint and small touches, making headway whenever her budget allowed.

  “I was thinking Friday evening to paint? You can bring the girls.”

  Paint and her twins were usually an explosive combination. Annie lifted an eyebrow, thinking that Danielle had a learning curve ahead of her. “That sounds great and since its Friday, I think that would be a good night for the twins to spend the night with friends.”

  * * *

  THE DAYS PASSED SLOWLY. Trace saddled up every day, exercising each mare in turn and even giving the cranky old gelding, Snuff, a go. After the daily ride, he worked out as best he could, read, watched videos and wished that Lex had a less meticulously cared for ranch. A guy named Hennessey had a practice pen nearby and Trace thought he might check it out, but knowing himself as he did, he didn’t want to be tempted to hurry things along. The longer he healed, the better his chances of having a winning season the next year—and the better his chances of getting the best of Brick and funding that season. Or at least part of it.

  The problem, as he saw it, was that the only way to be a successful bull rider was to live and breathe the sport. Unfortunately, that made downtime difficult. Trace had nothing to fill the hours once he’d gone through all his exercises and rehab, mental and physical, and fed the animals. The one positive to the ranch was that for the first time in forever, he had a real kitchen to work in—one where his stepmother wouldn’t instantly kick him out, anyway—and within a matter of days his simple meals became more elaborate.

  Being at the stove reminded him of being with his mom. As she’d grown more ill, he’d taken over the cooking, following her instructions as she sat at the table and watched, sometimes with her head resting on her arms. She hadn’t had much of an appetite by that point, but she’d taught him to make hearty food that would feed a growing kid. She’d also taught him how to stretch ingredients, shop sales, use coupons and maintain a household budget.

  Trace’s mouth tightened as he put a cast-iron pan on to heat. He missed his mom. Sixteen years and the ache was still there. He’d lost his father not that long ago, but mostly he felt resentment when he thought of his dad. It wouldn’t have killed the guy to open up a little—at least tell him he had a serious heart problem. But no. He didn’t find that out until the heart problem had put his dad in the ground.

  Lex had a nicely stocked kitchen and Trace started a list of the things he needed to replace as he used them. She also had a decent collection of cookbooks, and it was while he was thumbing through one, looking for inspiration, that he stumbled upon the Gavin chamber of commerce pamphlet and discovered that he knew a local bar owner. Gus Hawkins was also from northern Nevada, and he and Trace had competed in a lot of the same rodeos in high school and college.

  It would be great to see someone he knew. Someone he didn’t have to fake small talk with. For all of the time he’d spent alone in his life, alone on this ranch felt different. It had to be because he wasn’t traveling and he wasn’t riding bulls. His life had changed radically after the surgery and his brain was still trying to figure out how to cope with these new limitations.

  * * *

  TRACE DID HIS grocery shopping Friday evening, just before the store closed for the night, then parked outside the Shamrock. The place was beginning to get crowded, but there were still a few empty tables around the periphery of the room. Trace bypassed the tables and headed to the bar, which was manned by an older guy who looked at him over his glasses as he approached.

  “Hey.” Trace put his hands on the edge of the bar and looked at what was on tap. He ordered then asked if Gus was around.

  The old guy’s glasses slipped a little lower as his chin dropped. “It’s his day off.”

  “I rodeoed with Gus during high school.”

  “You did, now?” Trace started to pull out his wallet but the bartender waved his hand. “First one’s on me.”

  Trace smiled. “Thanks. I guess I’ll stop by on a day that’s not Friday.”

  “Or Thursday. His other day off. By the way, I’m Thad. Gus’s uncle.”

  “Trace Delaney.”

  “You ride bulls.”

  “I do.” He wasn’t a big name, but it wasn’t unusual for people who followed bull riding to know who he was.

  “Are you done with the circuit?” Thad pushed a foaming draft across the bar.

  Trace raised his glass. “Bad shoulder. I should be good to go in a matter of weeks.” Months, he reminded himself. No pushing this recovery as he’d always done in the past.

  “It’s got to be rough on the paycheck being out for so long.”

  “Doesn’t help,” Trace agreed with a “that’s life” smile.

  A group of six or seven youngish guys dressed in matching baseball shirts came in through the back door, and Trace stepped back as they crowded up to the bar. “I’ll tell Gus I saw you,” Thad called as he backed away.

  “Thanks.” The place was filling up, but Trace found a quiet table near the empty pool tables, where he sat and slowly sipped his beer, watching the people around him. He was in no hurry to get back to the lonely farm and was therefore in no hurry to finish his beer. It was only 7:30 p.m., so a long night stretched before him.

  Another rowdy group of kids dressed as cowboys came into the bar and soon commandeered the pool tables. Trace watched the dynamics in the group, pegged the cocky guy with the black hat as the leader and wondered if he’d looked that stupid after having one too many. A girl in tight silver pants draped herself around Black Hat, who practically shook her off. Silver Pants pouted a little as Black Hat took his pool shot then gave a smirk when the ball hit the edge of the pocket and rolled to the center of the table.

  “I told you to rub me for luck,” she said.

  And Trace had had about enough people-watching.

  He went back to the now almost deserted bar to drop off his glass, and he and Thad started talking again. Thad seemed fine to talk despite being busy at the bar, so Trace lingered a bit before heading out the back door leading to the parking lot. He’d barely stepped outside when he heard a woman cry out and then the sound of a scuffle. He rounded the first row of vehicles in the lot and saw Black Hat and Silver Pants standing next to a tricked-out truck.

  “Leave me alone,” the girl yelled. Black Hat didn’t move, so she started slapping at him, until he put his hands up and pushed her back into the truck. Her head struck the mirror, and even though she didn’t appear to be hurt, Trace started toward them. If it had been a couple of evenly matched guys, it would have been different, but this wasn’t an even match.

  “Mind your own business,” the guy growled, barely sparing Trace a glance as he faced off with the girl who was now spitting curses at him while rubbing her head with one hand.

  Trace stepped in between them. “She asked you to leave her alone.”

  “You going to get involved, cowboy?” the guy asked in a deadly voice.

  Trace took another step forward, hoping the woman had the good sense to take off while she could. “I don’t want to get involved, but if she wants to go—” Something hit him hard on his temple, knocking him sideways. His teeth clacked together and he tasted blood, but he didn’t go down.

  “You get away from us,” Silver Pants shrieked. When Trace turned toward her, the guy swung at him. Trace managed to p
ull back enough to miss the brunt of it, but the guy swung again, hitting him square in the bad shoulder as he attempted to dodge the blow, and the fight was on. Trace got a couple punches in with his right hand before the guy grabbed his shirt and swung him around. He lost his balance and went down, pulling Black Hat with him.

  They rolled in the gravel, hitting one another, the girl shrieking and smacking at them with her purse—the same purse she’d used to coldcock him. Just when Trace got a lucky shot to the jaw, he heard the sound of tires on gravel, and then the reds and blues lit the ground nearby. A pair of rough hands pulled him away from Black Hat and the next thing he knew, his hands were cuffed behind his back, the pain in his shoulder so raw and deep that he could barely catch his breath, much less give his name when the cop demanded it.

  “He started it,” the girl sobbed. “He did. We were out here talking and he just attacked us!”

  Trace let his cheek drop to the gravel. He was so thoroughly hosed.

  Chapter Three

  “We need to give a statement,” Danielle said as the deputies finished handcuffing the two men who’d been fighting in the parking lot behind the store, not far from Annie’s car.

  “Not until they get Shelly under control,” Annie muttered back, even though she agreed wholeheartedly. They’d come around the corner just in time to see Shelly Hensley wallop the guy who’d tried to intercede on her behalf. Typical Shelly move. As the deputy turned her around to cuff her she loudly cursed him out.

  “I think it’s safe now,” Danielle said.

  Annie nodded and they started across the lot. The deputy looked over his shoulder at them as they approached, and she saw that it was Cullen McCoy, whom she’d gone to school with. “We saw the whole thing,” Annie called as she and Danielle stopped a safe distance away.

  Shelly glowered at her in a way that made Annie glad they’d waited until the cuffs were on. “They did not.”

  Cullen gave his head a tired shake, giving Annie the impression that it wasn’t the first time he’d dealt with Shelly. Another cruiser pulled into the lot and after a brief conference with the female deputy who stepped out of the car, Cullen jerked his head toward the street. “I’ll talk to you one at a time. You first.” He pointed at Danielle, who followed him a few yards away.

  Annie stayed put, shifting her weight and thinking that this was the most excitement she’d had since the girls let the snake loose in the house. The female deputy put her hand under the still-handcuffed rescuer’s arm and when she helped him to his feet, a sound of pain escaped his lips.

  Annie’s mouth fell open, then she snapped it shut again. The guy who’d gotten creamed trying to help Shelly was Trace Delaney.

  * * *

  TRACE GLANCED PAST the female deputy to see who else was witness to his humiliation then swallowed a groan. A leggy blonde woman and...Annie Owen.

  Excellent.

  Shaking his head, he looked down at his boots, tightening his jaw against the pain shooting through his shoulder. To his left the woman he’d tried to help was spewing venom, and to his right the deputy who’d cuffed him was talking to the blonde. He had no idea where Black Hat was, but his hat still lay in the gravel close to where they’d fought.

  He sensed Annie moving, cast another quick look and saw that it was her turn with the deputy. When she’d finished, the deputy came toward him.

  “I’m going to ask you to take a breathalyzer test,” he said after checking Trace’s identification.

  Trace nodded. He was more than willing to take the test—not that he had much choice in the matter. They’d draw blood if he refused. He blew into the tube and a moment later the deputy unlocked the cuffs.

  “Hey! What about Danny?” Silver Pants shrieked before the female deputy took her by the arm and hauled her a distance away.

  “Do you know these two?”

  “No.” And he knew better than to give more information than was asked for.

  “What happened?”

  “I was on my way to my truck and these two were dusting it up. The guy laid hands on the woman and I told him to stop.”

  “Did you threaten either of them?”

  “No. I just told him to leave her alone.”

  “According to the witnesses,” the deputy said to Trace, “the female suspect struck you without provocation and then the male suspect—” he glanced down at his notes “—took a swing and from that point on you were acting in self-defense.”

  “The guy in the black hat pushed her against the truck and she struck her head on the side mirror. She didn’t appear to be hurt, so I thought I’d distract him so she could leave.” His jaw tightened. “She chose not to go.”

  The deputy gave a weary nod. “I’ll be dealing with both of them. Her for battery on you. Him for battery against both of you. Do you want to press charges?”

  Trace shook his head. He just wanted to forget the evening, and he really wanted Annie to leave.

  “Then you need to head on home.” The deputy gave him a long, hard look. “Are you okay to drive?”

  “I only had one beer.”

  “I’m talking about your injury. Maybe you should go to the ER. Get checked out.”

  “It’s an old injury. He didn’t do it.”

  “He didn’t do it any good, either,” the deputy said, shaking his head again.

  “I’ll take him home.”

  They both turned to see Annie standing a few feet away. Trace’s chin jerked up. Yeah, as if he’d let her. He’d had his quota of embarrassment tonight.

  “He got his head pounded against the ground at one point,” she told the deputy. “Pretty hard.”

  That’d happened early on. She’d seen the whole thing.

  “I’m fine.”

  Annie merely raised her eyebrows at the deputy, who then nodded. “Yeah. Take him home. Thanks, Annie.”

  Thanks, Annie. Trace’s mouth tightened, but there was no good to be had from arguing with the law, so he started for his truck.

  “My car is over here,” Annie called.

  “Her car is over there,” the deputy echoed. Trace reversed course and by the time he got to Annie, she’d finished saying a few words to her friend and pulled the keys out of her pocket.

  “It won’t kill you to accept a ride home,” she murmured. “I’ll help you get your truck in the morning.”

  And the only thing that kept him from arguing was the fact that, yeah, he was starting to feel a little light-headed. He knew that feeling. Knew it well, actually. It happened when he got clocked too hard in the arena. It’d pass, but maybe he should be grateful instead of all surly. So after he scrunched himself into the front seat of Annie’s car, he said, “Thank you.”

  She snorted a little and started the engine. “Right.”

  “No. Really.”

  She shot him a look then shook her head.

  “What?”

  He saw a corner of her mouth tighten. “No wonder Grady asked me to keep an eye on you. You’re here less than a week and you’ve already tangled with Shelly Hensley.”

  “What a minute.” Maybe he’d been clocked harder than he thought. “Why would you need to keep an eye on me? Grady asked me to keep an eye on you.”

  “Whatever.” She slowed to a stop at an intersection then continued on out of town.

  Trace fell silent, irritated, his shoulder throbbing. They rode for several miles and it wasn’t until they got close to his place that Annie said, “Hey,” in a somewhat grudging voice.

  He glanced at her, frowning.

  “He didn’t tell me to keep an eye on you. He said you might need a contact in the community. You did. It all worked out. And I know that he asked you to keep an eye on me. He told me.”

  Trace nodded instead of answering.

 
Annie pulled into his driveway and then stopped next to the front walk. “Is everything really okay?”

  “I just got beat up by a douche bag. What do you think?”

  Her expression softened an iota. “If you need anything, will you call?”

  “Like what, Annie?” It was the first time he’d said her name out loud and it sounded oddly intimate. She seemed to think so, too, because those blue eyes widened then narrowed.

  “I don’t know what your needs are,” she said calmly.

  He did and he was beginning to feel a need directed toward her, despite the humiliation of the evening. He had to get out of there. He reached for the door handle. “I’ll figure out a way to get my truck.”

  “Or I could pick you up on my way to work at eight.”

  She was challenging him. Trace rarely if ever backed down from a challenge. “Thanks.”

  “Common sense wins. Cool.” She gave her slim shoulders a shrug and despite the pain beating through him, and the very real concern that he’d set his rehab back by a week or two, Trace found himself wanting to smile.

  * * *

  ANNIE TOLD HERSELF—firmly—that there was no need for her to feel self-conscious about picking up Trace Delaney and giving him a ride to his truck, which was parked where she parked every day. It was the natural thing to do. The neighborly thing to do.

  They were kind of neighbors...several-miles-apart neighbors, but they had the same zip code.

  She pulled her car up to the gate at the end of Trace’s walkway. The dogs shot out from behind the house, leaping up and down, their heads appearing and disappearing from behind the fence, and a few seconds later Trace came out of the house, looking dark and withdrawn.

  He held his shoulder stiffly and his arm wasn’t in his jacket sleeve, which concerned her, but having grown up a bull rider’s sister, she didn’t say a word about it and pretended not to notice the grimace of pain that flashed across his face as he got into her car.