He laughed. “Yeah, honey, that’s me.”
And it had been, for a long time.
“Funny, but I don’t see you that way.” Her smile dissolved and her eyes studied him, holding his gaze until he felt fifteen and unsure.
“How do you see me?” This wasn’t working out the way he had planned, as a way to distract her.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how she saw him. And really didn’t want this conversation to take place with an audience. He smiled across the fire, at Willow and Clint, holding the little girl they’d adopted from China.
“I see you as a guy who is always laughing and smiling so he doesn’t have to deal with how much he hurts on the inside.”
“I think we should roast hot dogs.”
“Exactly my point.” And she took her roasting stick and walked away, leaving him as unsure as he’d ever been in his life.
From across the fire he saw Clint Cameron laugh and sign something to his wife. They were looking at him. Willow signed back and Clint nodded.
Married couples. They thought everyone should follow their example.
Alyson had joined Jenna on the lawn chairs a short distance from the fire. He thought about joining them, but instead he went the opposite direction, finding a place with a group of teenage boys who were intent on discussing the steer riding they would do the next day.
That was a lot safer than any other conversation Jason thought he could have at that moment. And definitely safer than spending too much time with Alyson.
Chapter Eleven
Alyson walked through the doors of the now familiar Mad Cow Café. The black-and-white painted walls were even starting to grow on her. So was Vera. It was only seven in the morning and the place was packed.
From a corner booth, Jenna waved to get her attention. That was the reason she was there, to meet with Jenna about the charity concert for the camp. They’d discussed it the previous evening at the bonfire, and decided it would be easier to talk at the Mad Cow, without camp responsibilities to distract them.
Alyson sat down across from Jenna and Vera hurried across the room with the coffeepot. Alyson turned her cup and smiled up at the older woman, who no longer treated her like the stranger that had shown up in town.
Alyson was already a part of the community.
And last night her mother had left a message on her cell phone that she was expected to play in Chicago in three weeks. The same weekend as the fund-raiser.
“That’s a long face.” Vera poured the coffee and dropped a couple of creamers on the table. Her smile was bright for so early in the morning.
Alyson couldn’t imagine wearing that smile before noon.
“Sorry, I’m not great at mornings.”
Vera laughed. “Honey, you’d better get used to them if you’re going to stay around here. You are going to stay, right?”
“I don’t know.” Alyson stirred creamer into her coffee and ignored the way Jenna watched her, curious and concerned.
“You have to.” Vera, not as subtle as Jenna. “Why, honey, we’re all itching to get Jason Bradshaw married off. He isn’t getting any younger, and he’s a pretty decent catch.”
Jenna laughed. “If he can remember your name.”
“Oh, he’s getting better.” Vera pulled the order pad out of her apron pocket. “What can I get you girls for breakfast?”
“Poached eggs and toast.” Alyson didn’t have to open the menu.
“Omelet, hash browns and bacon.” Jenna handed the menu back to Vera. “And milk.”
“Eating for two.” Vera winked and then she was gone, hurrying off to the kitchen, but refilling several cups of coffee along the way.
“Don’t let it get to you.” Jenna stirred sugar into her coffee. “This is hard to get used to, having just one cup of coffee in the morning.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“About the matchmakers. Don’t worry. They’re harmless and they all know that it has to be God’s will, not theirs. They love you or they wouldn’t be trying to pair you up with Jason.”
“I’m not anyone’s match.” Alyson tried to smile, to let the words sound light.
“Of course you are. You have to trust God, Alyson. I don’t think you showed up here by accident.”
Alyson looked up. “You really think that God, as busy as He is with this messed-up world, looked down and thought about me, and getting me here?”
“I do think that.”
Alyson leaned back and it was okay to smile. “Maybe I’m here because God knew I could help with this fund-raiser.”
“Maybe.”
It felt right. God had brought her here to help these people. She liked that thought. And she also thought that she might not have found faith if she hadn’t come here. It was new faith, but it was real enough for her to know that God would do this for Camp Hope, for Jenna and Adam.
If she put her time here in that box, then it made it easier to leave, easier to deal with what she thought she might feel for Jason. Because she didn’t want to miss him when she left and she knew she would.
“I have an idea about the concert.” Alyson steered the conversation back to the reason for meeting and Jenna shot her a knowing smile.
“Okay.”
“I could work with the kids on a few songs.”
“Sounds great to me.”
“And they could display their artwork and photographs they’ve taken. We could do an art show for guests to look at, even bid on.”
“Wow, great ideas.” Jenna bit down on her bottom lip and then she leaned forward a little. “What about you, Alyson? Are you going to play?”
“I think the children would be the real attraction. People need to see what Camp Hope is all about.”
“If you can’t…”
She smiled at the young waitress who came around the corner with their food. She set their plates down in front of them and then promised to refill their coffee cups.
“Jenna, I really don’t think I can.”
Jenna switched the plates, giving Alyson her eggs. “It’s okay. If you can help the kids and help me get the invitations out to the right people, I think that’s going to be more than enough.”
“Of course I’ll do that.” She buttered her toast and started to take a bite, but she put it down on the plate. “I want you to understand. It isn’t that I don’t want to. I just can’t. And I’m not sure if I’ll even be able to be here for the fund-raiser.”
“I forgot that you mentioned that. It got lost in Vera trying to marry you off to Jason.” Jenna put her fork down. “Why would you leave?”
“I have a career. As much as I don’t want it, I can’t walk away and leave everyone in a lurch.”
Jenna nodded, thoughtful and sweet.
“I understand.”
“I love it here, though.” Alyson looked around the room, at tables full of people she had gotten to know. “I’m so glad I found this place, and found my family.”
“Why can’t you finish your obligations and come back home, to all of us?”
“I’ve thought about it.”
“And you don’t know if you will?”
Alyson shrugged. “I’m not sure. I came here looking for my family and I’ve found them. I know that I’ll never lose them. But I have an apartment and I have my family in Boston.”
There was so much she hadn’t planned on. She hadn’t planned on having a twin. She hadn’t planned on Camp Hope. She definitely hadn’t planned on Jason.
There were no easy answers for her future.
The arena was empty. Jason walked through the double doors, glad for a few minutes alone. He had seen the kids going from the dining hall to their dorms. He had a few minutes to get his act together and to get ready for the kids who were going to try their hands at steer riding.
He needed to be thinking about them, not about Alyson standing next to the bonfire last night, the glow of the flames flickering in her eyes. And when he’d dropped her off at home, she�
��d thanked him and walked inside. He remembered standing there in the cool evening air, with nothing.
He flipped on the lights and the arena changed from a dusky place, shadowy and quiet, to bright and ready for action. From a pen at the other end of the building low mooing erupted.
He walked along the outside edge of the arena to the pens where steers were being held. He flaked off hay and tossed it in. The steers, rangy and young, ran to the back of the pen. They eyed him, snorting and wide-eyed, and then came forward again, taking bites of hay.
They had water. Now they had food. And he had time on his hands.
He turned away from the steers as Adam and Clint led a group of about twenty kids into the arena. Adam pointed to the small riser of bleacher-type seats and the kids filed single file down the row and took seats.
“This is what we’re going to do today.” Adam leaned against the gate and addressed the kids. “Our rodeo is in a little over a week. You’ve learned to ride. You’ve learned to rope. And today we’re going to put a few of you on steers. But before we do, Jason is going to do a demonstration on a bull.”
Adam shot him a look. “You up to that?”
Jason shrugged. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Clint ran a bull into one of the chutes and held Jason’s bull rope up for the teens to see it. “Here you go.”
Jason walked to the chute, rethinking his involvement in this, in teaching kids, in the camp, and bull riding. He had a nice piece of land, some livestock, a great house. Why in the world was he still riding bulls?
His dad had always said that someone needed to pound some sense into him. A couple of months ago, a bull had tried. So where was that sense? Shouldn’t he be handing the rope to Clint, telling him to go for it, or find someone a little younger to climb on that big, red bull snorting in the chute.
The bull was one of Willow’s older bulls. The animal snorted and pawed. It rammed against the metal gate and bellowed. Clint laughed a little as Jason stood on the platform overlooking the animal. Nearly a ton of bone-breaking ability caged inside a metal chute and about to be unleashed on him.
He hadn’t been on a bull since the accident. He’d been on the mechanical bull at the camp. The kids had trained with him on it. He’d taught them the basics and knew their skill level would match the steers they were going up against today.
The steers were a third the size of and not nearly the man this bull was.
“If you’re not ready?” Clint had his bull rope ready and Jason had to make the move.
“I’m ready.” Jason climbed over the gate, trying not to think about the ride that had changed his life and how it had felt before he climbed on the back of that bull. He didn’t remember the ride, just the way the animal snorted as he lowered onto its back.
He remembered the music. He lowered himself onto the back of the bull with Clint leaning over him, ready to pull the rope and help him get it tight.
Heavy metal music had been playing the night he got trampled into a hard-packed dirt arena in Arizona. There was no music today. The bull shifted beneath him, lowering its massive head and then leaning into the gate, pushing Jason’s leg into the metal. Adam Mackenzie pushed from the outside of the gate, the arena side, moving the bull.
The rope was tight. Clint handed him the end and Jason wrapped it around his hand. The moment of truth. Could he get back into an arena without losing his nerve? When the gate opened, would he jump before the bull made its first jump?
Jason felt the bull settle. He nodded and Adam opened the gate. The bull turned out, bursting into the arena with two thousand pounds of fury and force. It bucked, hopped to the side and rolled its back a little to the left before settling into a spin that included a front jump with each revolution.
A few jumps felt as if the animal’s back end was trying to meet up with its front end. Jason gritted his teeth and clenched his hand a little tighter. His spine felt like it was being jammed into his brain.
Jason didn’t wait for the eight-second buzzer. He loosened his hand from the rope and waited for the right moment to jump, knowing Clint and Adam would distract the bull as he fell to the ground.
When he landed, he landed on his feet, lost his balance and fell to his knees, but the bull was there, head just inches away, snorting, blowing hot air at Jason. He got to his feet, helped by Adam grabbing the back of his Kevlar vest. Clint pushed the head of the raging animal, giving Jason a few seconds to recover and climb the gate, out of the arena.
Alyson didn’t realize how tightly her hands were clenched in her lap until Jenna patted her on the back and whispered for her to relax. As if she could. Her heart was pounding so hard she didn’t know if it would ever return to its normal beat and she’d bitten into her bottom lip hard enough that it was probably bleeding.
That man who had sat on the back of that bull was a Jason Bradshaw she’d never met. He wasn’t the same cowboy with the quick smile and easy laugh that she knew. This man was dead serious about his sport and willing to go head to head with a two-thousand-pound animal.
As he limped out of the arena, she moved toward him, but Jenna grabbed her arm. “Not yet. Let him throw something or kick something.”
“But what if he’s hurt?” Alyson watched him walk out the gate, past the chutes and out a side door.
“He isn’t hurt. He’s mad because he didn’t make the eight seconds. He’s mad at his body for letting him down.”
Alyson tried to get it, but it was a world far removed from the one she’d always lived in.
Clint was standing in the arena, talking to the kids who had showed up for their first day of riding real steers. The kids—all teenagers—were leaning forward, catching every word, bouncing with excitement.
“I’ll be back.” Alyson stood up and Jenna let her go. She walked down metal steps that vibrated with each movement.
With every step she questioned why she was doing this. He had friends. These people understood him. They knew when he needed to be left alone.
But maybe he’d convinced them that alone was where he belonged.
What did she know about the life of a bull rider? Or the life of a cowboy? She looked down, at the boots that were starting to look a little worn. She was breaking in her country self, feeling more like Alyson Forester.
Jason was in the stable, pulling a saddle out of the tack room. He turned when she walked up. His smile spread easily across his face, but it didn’t reach his eyes, didn’t leave the crinkles at the corners that she was so used to.
“That was pretty amazing.” She leaned against the wall, relieved that he couldn’t see the way her insides shook.
“Yeah, amazing. At least I remember your name.” He winked and picked up the saddle. She followed him to a stall that held a pretty black horse.
“That’s good to know.” She reached to pet the nose of the horse. “Are you okay?”
He turned, still smiling. “Of course I am.”
“Okay.” But she knew he wasn’t. Of course he wasn’t. He smiled. He made jokes. He deflected. “Are you going for a ride, now? I mean, aren’t you going to stay and teach the kids to ride the steers?”
He put the saddle down. “I don’t know.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t even believe I’m here, teaching kids at a camp.”
“Did it ever occur to you that we’re supposed to be here?” She took a step closer, liking that he smelled like soap and peppermint. “I’m here because my life fell apart. You’re here because your career got put on hold. But we both needed to be here.”
He shook his head and then smiled, reaching out, but he didn’t take her hand. And she had wanted him to. Instead, he shoved his hand into his pocket.
“Thank you.” He leaned, his hands still in his pocket, and he dropped a kiss on her cheek. “You’re right.”
“But that doesn’t make it any easier.”
He laughed. “Not really, but it was sweet. Let’s go teach some boys to ride bulls.”
> He hooked his finger through her belt loop and his first step tugged her back. She glanced to the side, catching the grimace of pain.
“Do you think you need to go…?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. Let’s get this camp over, and then I’ll get it taken care of.”
“Right.”
They walked back into the arena and Alyson walked up the steps to where Jenna was still sitting. Jason joined the guys. They had a steer in a chute and an older teen, not from the camp, standing on the platform, about to climb on the back of the animal. The steer, red-coated and thrashing his head back and forth, started bucking inside the chute, before the boy could get settled on his back.
Jason hauled the kid out by the back of his shirt.
“I’m not sure if I can watch.” Alyson covered her face, but she peeked through her fingers.
Jenna’s laughter was soft. “You get used to it. You have to understand that these guys know what they’re doing. And the guys in the arena, they’re tops at keeping a rider safe. They’ll jump between the bull and the bull rider. That’s the job of a bull fighter.”
“They don’t really fight the bull?”
“No, they distract him. They’re in there to keep that cowboy safe. They’ll pull him loose if his hand gets hung up in the rope. They’ll jerk him off the ground and give him a shove if he needs it. I’ve seen them cover a fallen bull rider with their own bodies to keep the guy safe from those hooves.”
“That’s pretty amazing. And the kids from the camp are wearing helmets?”
Jenna nodded. “Helmets and Kevlar vests. Bull riders started wearing the bulletproof vest after Lane Frost got killed. A lot of cowboys have been saved by that vest.”
Alyson let out a breath and told herself to relax. But her gaze kept going to Jason Bradshaw. She kept thinking of him on the back of that bull.
And she realized she would have jumped in there and saved him.
It felt as if he had already rescued her.
Jenna and Alyson left before Jason finished up with the kids. He had walked out of the arena and they were gone. From the distance he heard the piano in the chapel and he thought she might be there.
The Cowboy's Courtship Page 14
