by Anne Carrole
Jesse stepped cautiously. “I’ll be here. Little tussle with some bull isn’t going to sideline me.” His face contorted and he let out a groan with each measured step as he moved toward the tent flap.
Clay removed his hat from his head and ran fingers through his tousled hair before settling it back on. “He’s going to be whining the whole trip.” With a light touch, he chucked her chin with his finger. “Are you going to be all right though? You went almost as pale as Jesse when I told you. I was afraid to leave you there for a minute.” There was warmth in his eyes. Too much warmth.
She nodded. “I’ll be fine. Just can’t stand to see someone hurt, is all.”
“You’ll be here next weekend?”
She wished she could say no. Staring into those gorgeous eyes, her heart was beating out a tattoo. She didn’t know if she’d be able to resist him if she saw him again. “I’ll be working.”
“Good. I’ll see you then.” He stared at her like he was waiting for her to say something.
“Clay, I don’t think… I mean we’re not… I’m not.”
“I am,” he gave her a wink.
“Clay, don’t be jawing all night now. You said we’ve got to go.” Jesse’s voice was strained. The man was clearly hurting.
Clay stepped around her. She watched him offer an arm to help his friend.
Next weekend. She felt like she was the one who’d just gotten gored by a bull.
Chapter Four
“What’s got you all tensed up, honey? Something happen at the rodeo?” Dusty’s mother dried her reddened hands on her well-worn apron and reached for a cup hanging on the holder atop the counter. With movements born of habit, Deirdre Morgan picked the tea bag from the tin and poured the hot water from the kettle into the cup. She dunked the bag up and down before setting the cup of tea on the table, next to the one she’d just fixed for herself, and pushed the flower-decorated sugar bowl and creamer toward Dusty.
“Tell your mother all about it,” she said before dropping her slight frame onto the chair alongside Dusty’s. Dressed casually in a pair of khaki pants and a white blouse, her blond hair was perfectly coiffed in a short, wavy cut.
Whitey, their little bichon frisé, sniffed at Dusty’s leg as if he, too, was trying to get her story. Her mother had gotten Whitey shortly after her father had passed, believing they both needed something to care for and cuddle. Whitey wasn’t the type of dog most people in these parts had, but her mother had spent a good deal of time researching the best companion dog and found a breeder up in Lubbock. Cute and pugnacious, sweet and loving, Whitey had made himself right at home.
“It’s nothing. What makes you think anything is wrong?” Dusty strove to keep any inflection out of her voice as she shifted to get comfortable on the flowered pad covering the kitchen chair.
Whitey sat with his head cocked to one side waiting for an invitation. One pat on her leg and he was settled in her lap. She pulled out the teabag, plopped two spoonfuls of sugar into the large cup, added a helping of milk, and stirred. A curl of steam wafted forth. She spared one sip before looking at her mother.
“Is it one of those cowboys?” Deidre arched a penciled brow.
How did her mother come to such a conclusion when she’d never mentioned any cowboys? As if she’d said her question out loud, her mother answered.
“I talked to Delia Parker today. Tara Lynn told her mama both of them were nice young men. Real gentlemen, she said.”
Somehow, she’d have to stop Tara Lynn. Tara Lynn told her own mother everything—because there wasn’t much to tell where Tara Lynn was concerned. Her life was progressing just as it should. Dusty’s was not.
“They’re rodeo riders. One rides saddle bronc and one’s a bull rider.” That said it all as far as Dusty was concerned. She took another sip of the hot liquid before petting Whitey. Thank goodness for air-conditioning. She’d have preferred some cold sweet tea given the temperature outside, but her mother always went for the hot stuff when there was likely to be a discussion. Something about it being a comfort drink.
“And that makes them what?” Deidre clasped her hands together on the table, as if getting ready to pray.
“It makes them looking for a good time and nothing more.”
“They’re not coming back then?” The disappointment in her mother’s voice caught her by surprise. Did she think her daughter was desperate? Dusty might have been torn up when Bradley had dumped her, but that was months ago. She was over Bradley. Wasn’t she?
“Actually they said they’d be back next weekend. Guess they need the money or something.”
“Or something? That something could be you.” Her blue eyes scraped over Dusty. Pity. That’s what Dusty saw there. Good God.
“I’m not interested in a hit and run.”
“Well maybe it could be more. Your father was a rodeo rider and a better man I never knew.”
“I know you loved him, Mom, but a rodeo man isn’t for me.” She stroked Whitey’s soft fur. He looked back at her, contentment in his black button eyes.
“Why? Some of the finest men I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing were involved with rodeo.”
“Dad was never here for you.” Or for me. “He was always off chasing a ride.”
Deidre’s brows converged over the bridge of her nose. “What do you mean? He was always here for me. Your father gave me what I needed most.” She sighed and sat back in her chair as if remembering. “I wish he’d been around more, is all. Lord, I wish he’d stayed on this earth longer. But while he was here, he gave me the two things I wanted most in my life.”
Her mother had always defended her father, always made excuses for him. But Dusty had never heard her speak about him as fervently as she was now. “What did he give you?”
“His love and you, of course.” She dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. Though her father had been gone almost ten years, Dusty knew there was still sorrow there. How had the conversation gotten on this topic?
“And he sacrificed everything for us,” she added with an uplifted chin as if daring Dusty to contradict her.
She was daring Dusty because it was just not true. Her mother was obviously building a fantasy to substitute for the reality. “How did he sacrifice anything for us? He did what he loved and left us to fend for ourselves.”
Deidre’s lips formed a thin, determined line. “Thank God he did love it. It takes a brave man to face those beasts and get on night after night and walk away. Lord, the bruises he’d come home with, the pain he’d suffer. But he’d get on those animals again the next day if it meant he had a chance to make ends meet. When some of the wells played out around here, there wasn’t as much call for drillers, honey. When you came along, my teacher’s salary wasn’t enough, and fixing cars or pumping gas wasn’t going to make it. Thank the Lord there is rodeo for strong, young men who don’t have many choices.”
“But you hated him leaving all the time. I remember you crying some nights.” She’d listened to the sounds of sorrow through the thin walls of her bedroom, angry at the father who’d hurt her mother so.
Her mother frowned. “Of course I cried. Of course I minded. I loved him. Do you think I could look at his battered body, at the disappointment when he came home empty-handed or worse, in debt to some generous cowboy, and watch him go out to face it all over again without feeling something? I never let him see though.” She held her tea cup to her lips and hesitated.
“I thought you were crying because you resented him for loving the rodeo more than us.”
She shook her head, her frown deepening in obvious surprise. She set the cup down. “I knew how much he loved us, how much he sacrificed for us. Of course, he did love riding, honey. He’d be doing it now. But I didn’t resent him for it. The only comfort I had was knowing he enjoyed it. It’s a hard way to make a living, and of course I worried. But I was blessed with you and a job that I loved and a man who loved me. You know, even if he wasn’t winning, I’d get a beaut
iful card in the mail from him to let me know he was thinking of me—meant more than just a phone call. And if he was winning, well, didn’t he used to send us little presents from the road. Heavens, he’d sent you so many of those darn beanie babies I thought we’d have to add a room on to keep them all.”
And she still had every one. Stuffed in a gray plastic tub in her closet. “I thought he was just trying to make up for not being here.”
“Suppose he was and it was a nice way to do it. Listen here, young lady.” She cocked her head and looked at Dusty from the corner of her eye. “Life isn’t always the stuff of a TV sitcom. Few of us are lucky enough to have a Brady Bunch life. Some husbands are off fighting in Iraq. Some men have sales jobs that cause them to be away from home weeks on end. What about the guys who pilot planes? Then there are some people who opt for those commuter marriages and make them work. What your father did wasn’t much different. That’s how he earned his living and he was darn good at it. He got to the NFR five times. Not many can say that even if he never won the gold buckle. Those years were good years for us.”
“But when he got hurt? The punctured lung…” She’d never forget the image of him lying still as the bull rammed him again and again.
“What happened that day was hard to witness, I’ll give you that. I knew it traumatized you at the time, but I’d have thought you’d have gotten through it. Honey, if he hadn’t gotten that punctured lung, they would have never found the cancer until it was over. Cigarettes did your father in, not the rodeo. In a strange way that punctured lung was a blessing. After he learned the truth, he gave up the rodeo and spent his remaining time, short as it was, with us. He might have never known until the very end.” She dabbed her eyes with the apron again, her mouth set in a tight line, as if trying to hold back the tears.
“Mama, I didn’t mean to make you cry by talking of it.” She felt the ache in her own heart.
“I still miss him. There is nothing like the love of a good man. Maybe that’s why I travel so much in the summer. Trying to find another one?” She gave a short laugh. “It hurts more to think you’ve been upset with him all these years for not being here when that was the one thing about his life he regretted. Especially when he knew about the cancer. You always think you’ll have time to make it all right. But time ran out for him.”
Dusty rubbed her hands over her face. The smell of beer was still on them. They hadn’t talked about her father in such a long time she hadn’t known how much she’d needed to. “I guess that’s why he tried to get me into barrel racing. After he died, I realized he knew he had cancer and I resented that he spent his last days trying to make me into a rodeo contestant.”
Her mother drummed her fingers on the table “You had talent. He was trying to pass on what he could to you before it was too late.” She leaned in to place her hand over Dusty’s. Her hand wasn’t smooth and soft. It was rough and dry and cold. Her hands told of a hard life—a life Dusty had never thought was a happy one. She’d been wrong. A knot pulled in her stomach.
“Dusty, your father never was much for book learning. He wasn’t a philosophical man. But he had a good heart and he knew horses. He said more than once that he couldn’t leave you much but he wanted to leave you with something from him. Something you’d carry with you. His knowledge about barrel racing and cutting horses was it. Afterward, I just assumed you didn’t pursue it because it brought back painful memories. Memories of him.”
Tears burned at the back of her eyes as the image of her father rose in her mind, thin and weak in those last weeks. She remembered the lessons and spending time together after years of being apart. Lessons about reining the horse, changing leads, getting close without clipping a barrel, and judging a horse’s willingness to win.
“That was the reason, Mama.” Her throat felt like it was closing up. “But instead of being grateful for the time, I guess I’ve been angry that he’d wanted me to pursue the one thing that had taken him away from me.”
She patted Dusty’s hand. “Oh, honey. You have to forgive him that. You were the dearest thing in his life. He did all of that rodeoing for you, not for himself. He was desperate to give you what the Parker girls had and the Murphys and all the other good people of Langley. But with just a high school education and not enough drill work, he went to something he could do and do well. And something he loved. I never thought that was terrible.”
Had she been the cause of his traveling? Tears trickled down Dusty’s face.
Her mother rubbed Dusty’s back the way she’d done countless times before to make things better. “You’ve got to forgive him, Dusty. He was a good man. He did the best he knew how. And he loved you so much.”
Dusty swiped at a tear with the back of her hand. “And I loved him. I think maybe if he hadn’t been such a good father when he was around, I wouldn’t have missed him so much. Wouldn’t have resented his going.”
Deidre’s hand traveled up and down Dusty’s arm, providing a trail of reassurance. “I never thought you had taken his being away so hard, honey. He loved you so much. He worried at the end that you’d forget him.”
Dusty buried her head in her mother’s chest as the tears came. She didn’t hold them back like she’d struggled to so many times before. She let them flow, hoping they’d take away the bitterness. Maybe it was time to accord her father what he deserved, the only things she wanted to feel for him. Love and admiration.
* * *
The knock startled her. Whitey jumped off her lap and raced toward the door, yipping at the top of his little lungs. It was Friday night and she’d had a long week. Besides the work at the Hanover’s Sweet Water ranch, she’d had her interview yesterday. It had gone reasonably well, but she was still recovering from it and the drive. With her mom gone on a long holiday with another schoolteacher to the Grand Canyon, she was looking forward to some welcome solitude. She just wanted to curl up with the new western romance she’d bought and forget about the rest of the world. Forget about two rodeo cowboys and read about the gunslingers of the Old West.
She looked down at her sweats and fingered her messy hair. If Tara Lynn was here to take her to the Beehive, she’d be disappointed. Dusty padded to the front door in bare feet. Whitey was in full voice, jumping up and down to beat the band.
“Quiet,” she said not forcefully enough to deter the dog from what he clearly felt was his duty. She scooped him up and he kept barking. Though Whitey was mainly a companion dog, she was grateful for his protective nature when she was alone in the house. She peered out the side window. Her heart took an extra beat, sending a wave of heat careening through her belly.
Standing there, with a grin the size of a Pecos canyon, stood Clay. Whitey barked and squirmed in her arms. Heaven help her. She wasn’t fit for any company much less the handsome cowboy on the other side of the door. She set Whitey down for a minute and began to finger comb her hair as she bit down on her lip to give it some color. Damn.
“Dusty, it’s me. Clay.”
“I’ll be right with you, Clay.” She side-stepped to the mirror near the door and prayed he wouldn’t peek in. Why hadn’t she kept her trim appointment at the Classy and Sassy Hair Salon yesterday? She looked like the bride of Frankenstein. A brush? She pulled one from her large leather purse sitting on the nearby table. He always commented on her hair.
Her cell phone chirped from the bottom of her bag. Someone had called. It wouldn’t have been Clay. She hadn’t given him her number. She pinched her cheeks for color and fumbled for a lipstick while Whitey attempted to bring down the house with his barking.
“Are you going to answer the door?” Clay yelled over the noise.
She swiped on the lipstick and smoothed out her sweats. They were so big on her it looked like they’d swallowed her whole. It couldn’t be helped. Maybe he’d get so turned off by the sight of her, he’d give up. And why she cared, she wouldn’t examine.
Picking up the dog again, she opened the door to the sultry heat of a West Tex
as summer day. Six feet of gorgeous cowboy greeted her. Those blue eyes of his glimmered in the sunlight like the water of the Mediterranean Sea. He wasn’t wearing his hat. Thick and shiny, a lock of wavy brown hair fell over one brow giving him a bad-boy look. He’d braced a well-muscled arm against the side of the doorway stretching his white T-shirt over his chest to reveal every plane, curve, and crevice. His denims hugged thighs used to clinging to a horse and his bedroom eyes looked her over from head to toe. Her insides turned the consistency of oatmeal. Whitey quieted, as if he was too interested in the sight before him to worry about protecting anyone.
“Cute puppy,” Clay said, nodding toward the dog. Recognizing he was the center of attention, Whitey started barking again, but this time the yips were half-hearted.
Clay held out a hand for the dog to sniff. Whitey obliged and gave Clay’s hand a quick lick with his tiny pink tongue. Some protector.
“He’s not a puppy. Whitey’s almost ten.”
“You mean that’s as big as he gets?”
“Yep.” Like me.
Clay gave Whitey’s head a gentle pat and rubbed his ears to her dog’s evident delight. “Friendly little thing.”
“Sometimes. What are you doing here, Clay?” And how did you find me? She held Whitey closer to her chest and waited for his answer.
He graced her with a lopsided smile. “I’ve a favor to ask of you. Can I come in?”
Letting a strange man into her house hardly seemed the smart thing to do, but her gut wasn’t sending her any negative signals. Besides she was curious what he was doing here. At her house. On a Friday night.
“Tara Lynn said she’d call ahead,” Clay prompted.
That explained her beeping cell phone. Why hadn’t Tara Lynn just called the house? Because she wanted Dusty to be surprised? Sometimes Tara Lynn tested their friendship something awful.
“She must have tried my cell phone. Come on in.” Dusty moved aside as Whitey wriggled to get down. Probably wanted to sniff Clay all over. Dusty couldn’t blame him. Scents of sandalwood and leather greeted her as she moved aside and set Whitey on the floor. Clay stepped in and true to form the dog began sniffing at the man’s black crocodile boots.
