by Hope Navarre
The trailer was hooked to the truck, which was idling in front of the barn, the scent of diesel exhaust heavy in the damp early-morning air. The lights went out in Ryan’s house as she stepped off the flagstones onto the gravel drive, and a few seconds later he came out carrying a cooler. He looked her over, then said, “You might want a more substantial coat.”
Ellie set the thermos on the front seat and headed back to the house. By the time she came back out, Ryan had turned the truck and trailer around and was waiting at the end of the walk.
“Have you ever been to a rodeo?” he asked after she’d stowed her coat and fastened the seat belt.
She shook her head. “Last night I watched some YouTube videos to get an idea as to what to expect, however, the rules escape me.”
He smiled a little. “I can explain a few things.”
“That’d be nice,” Ellie replied, without looking at him. The sun hadn’t yet topped the mountains and the rolling meadows were still a dark bluish-gray. They drove through the gate the calves had escaped through, down the road, past Walt’s place, past the Garcias’. Ellie sat stiffly in her seat, her head turned slightly away from Ryan as she stared at the scenery, telling herself it was just a two-hundred-mile drive followed by a day at the rodeo.
“Relax,” Ryan said.
“I’m relaxed,” Ellie replied, her clipped tone belying her words. She let out a breath. “All right. I’m nervous.”
“It’s just me. What’s to be nervous about?”
You. “I’m just kind of stressed,” she said, glad that she had a truthful reason for being tense—a reason besides her overwhelming awareness of him. “I had my first OB appointment, and the job search turned up practically no leads.”
Ryan kept his profile to her, but she could see his frown. “Did you apply for anything?”
“Several things.” Long shots every one. Most of the companies she had connections with were reducing forces, not hiring.
He nodded, his eyes still fixed on the road. “How long do you think it’ll take to hear?”
“There’s no telling. It’s not the best market.”
Ryan nodded, frowning slightly as he focused on the road. He was listening to her, but he was also deeply preoccupied.
So what’s up with you? She wanted very much to ask the question, to find out what had put that troubled expression on his face when he’d asked her to come with him yesterday, giving her the impression that he didn’t think he’d be able to stand his own company.
Instinct told her that now was not the time. Ryan was holding tight to whatever it was that was eating at him and she wouldn’t pry. It was his business...just as her problems were hers. He’d asked her along for company, so the least she could do was be decent company.
“Explain to me some things about the rodeo,” she finally said, choosing the safest subject she could think of. She pulled out her phone and settled deeper in her seat as she turned it on to see if she could stream any of the video that had made little sense to her the night before. “I’ll ask questions and you tell me what you know.”
He glanced over at her and a second later a half smile formed on his lips. “Sure. Fire away.”
* * *
RYAN PULLED HIS trailer into a space at the edge of a field filled with trucks, horse trailers, horses and cowboys. Lots and lots of cowboys—none of them as good-looking, or probably as patient, as the man who’d just spent most of the long drive going over the various events with her while she looked up video on her phone when the connection was available.
She opened the door, the smell of damp earth, crushed grass and fresh horse manure hitting her nostrils as she stepped out into the crisp air. Instantly she thought of the early-morning dressage lessons at boarding school. She hadn’t been as nuts about horses as Kate had been, but she’d grown fond of her mount and had enjoyed the discipline of dressage. Horses simply hadn’t been part of her big plan.
“Breakfast is that way,” Ryan said, pointing toward a food truck. “I’d go with you, but I have to check in.”
“Want anything?”
“No. I’ll meet you back here in ten or fifteen minutes.”
Ryan got back to the trailer at about the same time Ellie returned with the coffee and doughnuts. Many doughnuts.
“The line was brutal,” she said, setting her foam cup on the truck’s running board.
“Are you sure you got enough to eat?” he asked with a half smile, nodding at the bulging white bag she carried.
“I’m good for an hour or two.” What could she say? She liked doughnuts and living at the ranch had not allowed her to indulge herself. And she was eating for two. “I’ll share.”
“That’s all right, but thanks.” She stepped back as Ryan opened the rear trailer door and led his big black horse out. The animal stopped as soon as all four of his feet were on the ground, raised his head high and let out a long whinny that flared his nostrils and made his entire body vibrate. An answering whinny soon came back.
“He has lots of buddies he sees on weekends,” Ryan explained as he tied the horse to the trailer.
“I didn’t know horses made friends.”
“Herd animals,” Ryan said. “They hate to be alone.”
“You have a lot of horses. How do you decide which one to bring?”
“PJ here is my rodeo horse. Most of the other horses are for practice.”
“Don’t you have to practice on him, too?” Ellie asked.
“Only enough to keep him tuned up. I can’t afford for him to go sore or lame on me.” Ryan ran a hand over the horse’s neck, smiling a little as he said, “He likes what he does and I want to keep it that way.”
“Makes sense. The only time I’ve hated my job was when I had to do the same thing too often.”
“And the only time I’ve hated mine is when it’s forty below and I have to feed. But I like it again once I get inside.”
“I don’t know that I’d do well with forty below.”
“Nobody does well at those temps...except maybe Walt. He seems to be impervious to cold.”
Somehow Ellie wasn’t surprised.
Ryan tied the gelding to the trailer and Ellie perched on the trailer fender, sipping coffee as she watched him first brush then saddle his horse, his movements quick and automatic. Cowboys rode by, many of them nodding at him as they passed. Ryan nodded back and Ellie reflected on the fact that not many words were exchanged, but there was a sense of camaraderie one didn’t normally find in her line of work.
“I have to warm up,” Ryan said after stowing the brushes. “I rope in the last section, and then I can join you, but by that time the rodeo will be almost over.” He turned toward the rapidly filling stands and scanned the crowd with a slight frown. “I was hoping to find somebody you could sit with.”
“I’d rather sit alone,” Ellie said as she slid off the fender. She wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. She wanted to watch Ryan do his thing, to figure out the rodeo by herself.
“You sure?” He seemed surprised that she’d prefer to watch without company.
“I do a lot of things alone.” She’d thought that was fairly obvious.
“But do you like it that way?” he asked. “Alone?”
Ellie frowned at the unexpected question. “I’m okay with it,” she said, although truthfully sometimes she wasn’t so okay with it.
“If you’re sure.” Ryan mounted the black gelding as he spoke. He gathered the reins, then frowned as something behind her caught his attention. Ellie looked over her shoulder to follow his gaze, which was fixed on a couple standing near a trailer fifty feet away. The man was balanced on crutches, his leg in a blue cast that extended up to his hip. The woman, who was busily grooming a small bay horse, wore a dazzling pink-sequined shirt, making Ellie wonder if it was the wom
an or the man that had Ryan staring so intently.
“Someone you know?” she asked.
“You could say that,” Ryan said, tearing his gaze away. “You asked about Matt Montoya. That’s him.”
Ellie brushed the hair back from her face. “No longer your fiercest competitor, I see.”
“Not in the traditional sense,” Ryan agreed. He smiled tightly. “I’ll catch up to you later. In the stands.”
“All right.” Ellie tugged up the zipper of her sweatshirt against the breeze. “Good luck.”
“Thanks.” He trotted away and Ellie glanced back at the couple, noting from their body language that they were just that. A couple. And truth be told, even though it wasn’t in her future, Ellie felt a twinge of jealousy.
* * *
RYAN TROTTED PJ to the warm-up area, barely aware of his surroundings. Matt’s girlfriend was wearing a mounted-drill-team outfit, so that was probably why his brother was there. And he’d be okay with that if he hadn’t seen the Montoya Ranch pickup driving into the parking lot a few vehicles ahead of him when he’d turned off the highway.
It might not be his father. One of his ranch hands could have been driving the rig. It didn’t mean that Matt and Charles were meeting, plotting against him...although he could see where Matt would be in favor of Ryan being bought off. The payoff wasn’t worth what a third of the Montoya Ranch might be worth if he could challenge the will. And Matt was superprotective of his mother. Yeah. No doubt he was fully in favor of Ryan signing away all rights.
Damn.
Had he known he was going to run into these assholes, he wouldn’t have brought Ellie to the rodeo. But he had, and he was going to have to muscle through. Roping hadn’t felt all that important to him of late, what with worrying about Walt’s future and lawyers and shit like that, but today...today he felt his focus coming back. There was no way his father and brother were going to steal this win away from him.
“Hey, Madison.” Ryan glanced over at Tommy Walking Dog, who had urged his horse up to canter beside PJ as they circled the arena. “Buy me another coffee this morning? Seems to give me good luck when you do that.”
“You’re going to need more than luck today,” Ryan muttered.
Tommy laughed. “If you say so.”
“I know so.”
* * *
RYAN, AS IT turned out, didn’t need the luck Ellie had wished him. When the last section of roping began, just after the second section of saddle bronc, he came blazing out of the box on his black horse and to Ellie’s untrained eye, it appeared as if he was off his horse and running toward the calf almost before he’d finished throwing the rope. He tossed the animal onto the ground and after a few sweeps of his hands, three legs of the calf were tied and Ryan stood, hands in the air.
“Shee-it!” the guy seated in front of her in the crowded stands said. Ellie silently echoed his sentiments. So this was why Ryan practiced so much. To dominate. And somehow, seeing him do what he did so well made him seem even sexier.
Just what she needed.
Ellie shoved the thoughts aside as she stood and made her way through the crowd to the steps. By the time she approached the trailer, he was already there tying his horse. PJ’s chest was covered with glistening sweat, but Ryan was the picture of cool detachment. There was no air of victory about him, even though Ellie was certain he was going to win this event. None of the cowboys that had gone before him had even come close to his time. He patted the black gelding’s neck and started to unsaddle him, his expression oddly distant, as if he was going over things in his mind, and Ellie didn’t think it was roping.
“Hey,” she said softly when he didn’t seem to realize she was there. His gray gaze snapped up, met hers, making her breath catch with its intensity.
“You’re missing the rodeo.”
“I saw the best part,” she said.
Ryan smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. Didn’t come close. If anything he looked even more stressed than he’d been the day before.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked.
“What?” he asked on a note of surprise, dragging the bridle off the gelding’s head, expertly catching the bit with one hand as it slipped out of the horse’s mouth. Ellie barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Why did guys always think they were so inscrutable?
“Whatever’s on your mind?” He frowned more deeply and she abandoned her mission. “Never mind.” She wasn’t going to push. She didn’t like it when people did it to her and she wasn’t going to do it to him.
* * *
RYAN REGARDED ELLIE for a long moment before buckling the halter and tying PJ to the trailer. A slight frown pulled her eyebrows together, as if she was seriously trying to read his mind, and maybe she was. He hadn’t realized he’d been so transparent. He’d figured she’d be busy with her own problems and wouldn’t notice that he wasn’t quite himself that day. Hell, he’d hoped having her along would make him feel more like himself.
Ryan leaned his shoulder against the trailer. What could he say after she’d shared her situation?
Nothing. He hoped she could understand that.
“Okay, I do have a few things on my mind, but the truth is...there are confidences involved.” He hated answering like that, but didn’t know what else he could say. “I really can’t talk about it.”
Ellie considered his answer for a moment, her green eyes narrowing slightly. “So you asked me to come along with you as a distraction from...whatever?”
Ryan let out a soft snort. “Sounds kind of crummy put that way.”
“I don’t think so. In fact, I totally understand.”
He smiled slowly, and for the first time all day, it felt genuine. And a moment later Ellie smiled back. They hadn’t shared one damned confidence, but somehow it felt as if they had. And he was grateful that she could let the matter alone.
“You want to grab something to eat before we head home?” he asked. “There’s a steakhouse at the edge of town where we can grab a late lunch. Or we could stay for the rest of the rodeo.”
“Let’s get out of here.” He wanted to leave and she saw no reason to stay. But she really, really wanted to know what was eating at him.... She hoped it wasn’t a certain old man back at the ranch, because she had a very bad feeling about his future.
* * *
WHILE THEY WERE at the restaurant, Ryan was able to do the impossible and push his father and his brother to the back of his mind and focus on Ellie.
“You’re kidding,” she said, grimacing at the menu after he’d explained that Rocky Mountain oysters were not freshwater shellfish. “Testicles?”
“An acquired taste,” he said.
“Do you like them?”
He considered the question and then said, “I don’t think I’ll answer that.”
“You do like them,” she said, pointing her finger at him. “What do they taste like?”
“Chicken?” he said, and Ellie laughed. “Order them. Find out.”
“I don’t think so,” she said primly as the server approached. She smiled up at the kid, dressed in Wrangler jeans and a checked shirt. “What do you recommend?”
The kid stared at Ellie for a moment, seemingly lost in her rather dazzling smile...as was Ryan. “Uh...” Ryan knew it was coming, had experienced the phenomenon himself, and sure enough, the kid’s voice broke as he answered. “The, uh, chicken-fry steak is really good and so is the, uh, pork-chop sandwich.”
Ellie raised her eyebrows at Ryan over the menu. “I’ll have the chicken fry. Half portion.”
“You can take the rest home,” Ryan pointed out.
“Full portion,” she amended. “With salad. Blue cheese dressing.”
The kid wrote furiously, apparently spelling out each word in its entirety. “And for you, sir?”
Rocky Mountain oysters? Ellie mouthed silently.
Ryan smirked at her before saying, “I’ll have the same as the lady.”
“I don’t know about you Westerners,” she said as the kid walked away. “Testicles on the menu?”
“No worse than heart, liver or brains. The organ meats have their own special charm.”
“If you say so.” Ellie grimaced before she smiled at him again.
Ryan noticed that since arriving in Montana, she’d developed a few freckles across her nose, making him wonder how much time she’d spent indoors in her old life...the life she was going back to.
“Speaking of charm, when is our boy George showing up?” he asked.
“Within a week. His contract got extended at his previous job.”
“Once he got extended for a year, I hear.”
Ellie’s eyebrows rose. “Really? That must have been lucrative.”
Ryan lifted his beer. “George is industrious...and he likes to fire people.”
“So you’ve said.”
Ryan debated about continuing, then figured he had to do what he could when he could. “I’m worried about Walt. It would kill him to get fired, and you could do something about that.”
The look that crossed Ellie’s face told him that she’d expected him to mention Walt once George’s name came up. So she’d been thinking about the old man, too. And apparently not in a hopeful way, judging from her expression. She shook her head. “I can’t. And neither can you. It’s up to Walt.”
“He’s an old man. All he wants to do is to die on his property someday.”
“It’s not his property, Ryan.”
His mouth tightened. There was no logical argument he could make, but the fact was that in Walt’s mind it was still his and it would destroy him to have to leave.
“Is there any chance you can be merciful to an old man?”
“It has nothing to do with mercy, Ryan. It has to do with reality.”
Ryan set his beer down. Way to destroy a mood, Madison.... Not that the mood was important. It wasn’t as though it was going anywhere. He met Ellie’s eyes and she smiled that cool smile that told him fun and games were over. She was a woman who’d made decisions about hiring and firing for a living—she wasn’t one to be swayed by sentiment, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.
