Last Chance Rodeo

by Kari Lynn Dell

  He stacked up the pillows and sleeping bag on the camp bed and sat down, using the bedding as a backrest so he could recline and stare up at the converging poles of the tipi above him, a tiny slice of jet-black sky visible through the smoke hole at the top. Fatigue pooled like lead in his muscles. Geezus, what a day. He closed his eyes, let his tired brain go blank to everything except the skitters, squeaks, and sighs of the night.

  He was on the verge of dozing when Mary’s front door opened and then closed. David’s pulse jumped. He hadn’t expected to see her again tonight. Or was it Kylan sneaking out? David listened intently but couldn’t hear footsteps. Whoever had come outside, they must be crossing the lawn, not the gravel driveway.

  The tipi flap rustled, and Mary poked her head in. “Oh. Hey. I guess I don’t have to tell you to make yourself at home.”

  “Hope you don’t mind.” He should sit up, but he felt like his bones had melted.

  “The least I can do is buy you a drink.” She stepped through the door, letting the flap fall behind her. “I just wanted to tell you that there’s an electrical outlet inside the door of the barn, if you want to plug your trailer in.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  She clasped and unclasped her hands, then cocked her head, eyeing him. “It’s weird, seeing you laid back. You are a very upright sort of person.”

  “I try to be.”

  “I noticed. You’ve swooped me up and out of danger twice now.” She fluttered one hand over her heart and faked a smile. “My hero.”

  He toasted her with the grape soda. “Dudley Do-Right, at your service.”

  Her eyebrows arched, questioning.

  “Like the movie.” Damn. Why did he bring that up? “Someone called me that once, because I’m so…upright.”

  Make that uptight. At least, that’s what the blond interviewer in Cody had implied when he’d turned down her offer. And he’d been so self-righteous, so smug because he was so much better than that and Emily deserved nothing but the best. Lucky for her, she’d found it. Too bad for David it wasn’t him.

  “The bravest of the Canadian Mounties and his trusty horse. I can see you playing that part.” Mary laughed softly. Because the humor chased some of the strain from her face, he didn’t mind that it was at his expense. She glanced around, as if deciding which of the chairs to take.

  He surprised both of them by patting the camp bed next to him. “Sit with me.”

  She eyed the spot like it might be booby-trapped. “Why?”

  “I like it when you’re close.” Crap. What was he saying? The tipi must be working some kind of weird voodoo on his brain, because he patted the space beside him again. “You look like you’re about to fall over. Trust me. Would Dudley lead you astray?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “How do I know you aren’t Snidely Whiplash in disguise?”

  “You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  She wavered, the doubts chasing across her face, one after another, as she pondered all the reasons she should stay the hell away from him. He didn’t suppose trust came easily for Mary at the best of times, and their whole situation was anything but. Air backed up in his lungs when she moved toward him like she was a wild fawn and he might frighten her away if he took a breath. She eased down on the camp bed, perched on the very edge, not exactly beside him but better than across the room. Or tipi, in this case.

  “How’d it go in there?” he asked, tilting his head toward the house.

  “The usual. He’s sorry. He never meant to scare me. He feels terrible.” She blew out a troubled sigh and then angled a questioning look at David. “He’s afraid you think he’s dumb and irresponsible, and you won’t let him help you shoe Frosty tomorrow like you said. Obviously, the two of you spent more time together today than I realized.”

  Wow. Was that just this morning? It seemed like a week had passed since Kylan’s impromptu shoeing lesson. “We’re still on.”

  She dipped her head, lacing and unlacing nervous fingers. “Thank you. Knowing how precious Muddy is to you…it meant a lot to Kylan that you trusted him to help. I guess that’s why he went along to Rusty’s. He felt like he owed you.”

  “That wasn’t why I let him help me.” David bristled, insulted by the implication. “Is it impossible for you to believe a person could do something without an ulterior motive?”

  “Not impossible. But not exactly easy, either.”

  “Why is that?”

  She clasped her hands and pushed her thumbs up to form a steeple. “I have a mother who only calls when she needs someone to listen to her problems, a sister who’d trade me and her son for a dime bag of anything with a decent kick, and the army…” She wrinkled her nose. “If you have any illusions about humanity before you enlist, you can bet they’ll be gone by the end of your first overseas deployment.”

  David frowned, studying her profile. “Why do you stay here? With your credentials, you could go almost anywhere, get Kylan away from people like Weasel.”

  “I’d also be taking him away from Galen and Cissy. JoJo.” She rubbed one thumb against the other, up and down, eyes focused on the motion. “There are bad people everywhere, and they seem to gravitate toward Kylan. Or he gravitates toward them. Either way, at least here I know who they are.”

  “The devil you know?”

  “Yeah.” She rubbed one thumb across a smear of dirt on the knee of her jeans where she’d fallen when Kylan pushed her. “There are plenty of good people around here. We take care of each other. Everybody keeps an eye out for the kids.”

  A whole network of spies to help her keep track of Kylan. But the watchdogs couldn’t be on guard every single minute. Look at tonight. At some point, somehow, Kylan had to learn to handle himself. If he didn’t…

  David would rather not think about the alternative. “Did you live with Galen and his wife, the way Kylan lives with you?”

  “Yes.” A fond smile came and went, the sadness creeping back into her eyes. “After my brothers died.”

  “What about your mother?”

  “She was a mess. She could barely take care of herself.”

  “Does Galen have kids of his own?”

  “Yep.” She held up four fingers. “The last daughter had just graduated from high school and left for college, and along I came to foul up their empty nest.”

  “I bet they didn’t think of it that way.”

  “You might lose that bet.” She shook her head. “I was a handful before the accident, let alone after.”

  “Really? I would’ve figured you for the straight-A student.”

  “I was. Didn’t mean I wasn’t a wreck lookin’ for a place to happen.” The expression in her eyes was so bleak that David had to work at keeping both hands on his soda can and off her.

  “The accident was bound to have some effect.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Her mouth twisted. “Didn’t teach us a damn thing. The day of their funeral, we all went out and got drunk in their honor. Like it couldn’t happen to us. Probably would’ve, if it hadn’t been for Cissy. I stayed out all night, came stumbling in expecting her to chew my ass, but she just looked at me and said, ‘Please don’t make me have to bury you beside your brothers. I don’t think I could stand it.’”

  Mary shivered, rubbing her hands up and down her arms as if to chase away a chill. “I actually saw myself in the coffin. And it finally hit me that I could die, and I really didn’t want to.” She wrapped her arms around her waist, staring into the cold fire pit as if she could see the scene playing out there.

  “Can we light the fire?” David asked.

  She started and then frowned. “It’s late.”

  “You said you wouldn’t be able to sleep for a while.” He ran his gaze around the inside of the tipi. “Artificial light doesn’t do this justice.”

  She shru
gged. “Go ahead. I could use warming up.”

  David refrained from offering his body as a ready and willing source of heat, peeling himself off the bed instead. Much safer to keep the flames inside the fire pit.

  Chapter 25

  David knelt beside the fire ring, struck a match from the box Mary had found for him, and held the flame to a cluster of tiny, dry pine branches. It took hold with a greedy crackle.

  “I suppose you were a Boy Scout, too,” Mary said.

  “Nah, I was an ag nerd. I showed a steer every year at the county fair until I was fourteen, then I got too busy with the junior rodeos.”

  “You started early.”

  He fed a slightly larger twig into the fire, watched the flame lick around it. “My uncle gave me a rope for my second birthday, and I slept with it instead of a teddy bear.”

  “You must’ve had to work pretty hard to get so good.”

  David nudged another twig into the growing fire. “When you love what you’re doing, it doesn’t seem like work.”

  “Even when it’s not going so well?”

  “Even then.” He flashed her a wry smile. “You know what they say, the worst day roping is better than the best day of honest work.”

  “You treat it like a real job.”

  “I have to. Otherwise, I’d be pretty skinny by now.” He carefully crossed a pair of larger chunks of kindling over the hungry fire, thinking of how patient and connected she’d been with her students the day before. “I bet you feel the same way about what you do.”

  She smiled, her face going soft. “Yeah. Some days it’s so frustrating you wonder if you’re accomplishing anything, but when I get up in the morning, there’s nothing I’d rather do.”

  “Exactly.”

  Their eyes met, and this time the ping of connection was different. Deeper. Soul to kindred soul.

  Mary looked down at her hands, lacing her fingers together again. “Are you over her? The one who left you?”

  “Yes.” His response was abrupt enough to raise Mary’s eyebrows. David poked at the fire with a stick and then threw it onto the flames. “I wouldn’t take her back if she showed up on my doorstep tomorrow.”

  “That’s not the same as being over what she did.”

  He shrugged. “Some lessons can’t be unlearned.”

  Mary was quiet, staring into the fire. Then she sighed. “It would be nice, wouldn’t it? If you could just wipe the slate clean, start over?”

  For himself, David would have said no. He didn’t want to be that stupid, that vulnerable, all over again. For Mary…knowing the memories that haunted her, if he could clear the shadows from her eyes for even an hour, a day, he’d do it. He stacked a couple more logs on the fire and then switched off the lantern, leaving the firelight to dance over the creatures that ambled around the walls. “Nice drawings. Do them yourself?”

  She shook her head with another of those soft smiles. “I took the canvas into my classroom and turned the kids loose on it.”

  “That explains the purple dinosaur. I didn’t think they were a big part of Native American culture.”

  She laughed. “They were a big part of Crystal Little Bear’s culture at the time.”

  He stood, brushed the wood shavings from his jeans and sat down beside Mary, close enough to feel her tense. Every inch of skin on that side of his body tingled, as if the very molecules were straining to reach out and touch her.

  “What are you doing, David?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know, but I can’t seem to stop.” He angled a glance at her, but she turned her face away. “If it doesn’t feel right to you, I’ll back off.”

  “Doing something because it feels good has never worked out very well for me.”

  “Maybe you were doing it with the wrong guy.”

  She looked at him, caution and humor fighting for the upper hand. “Are you the right guy, Dudley?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.”

  She went still, her eyes locked on his as he reached up to cup her face. He rested his little finger against the fluttering pulse in the curve of her throat as he lowered his head and brushed his mouth over hers. Just a taste. A test. When she didn’t pull away, he went back for more, gentle, coaxing kisses that she returned in kind. They eased into each other, feeling their way, lips, then tongues, touching, tasting, but not taking more than was offered.

  He felt her smile against his mouth and pulled back to look at her. “What?”

  “The first boy I ever kissed tasted like grape soda.”

  He touched a fingertip to a freckle on her nose. “I hope it’s a good memory.”

  “It was very sweet.” Her eyes twinkled with mischief. “And not just because of the grape soda.”

  “Then I’d best be sure I match it,” he said and kissed her again.

  This time he gave himself more rein, asked for the same in return. She leaned in to him, sliding her hands inside the open front of his jacket to press her palms to his chest. The contact set his blood pounding. He ached to haul her hard against him, press her into the softness of the bed and find the release his body craved. He settled for working his fingers beneath the bottom band of her pullover, peeling up the clingy cotton shirt underneath until he found bare flesh.

  She breathed a sigh into his mouth as he spread his fingers over warm, silky skin, able to span the width of her lower back with one hand. The muscle beneath was firm, her body petite but not fragile. A spine of steel, like her name.

  And if he kissed her much longer, he was gonna have a permanent kink in his back from bending in half.

  He moved his hand down, cupped her butt, the curve of it fitting his palm exactly the way he’d known it would. He eased back onto the pillows, lifting her so she sprawled across his chest, her thigh between his. David groaned at the rub of denim on denim, over the hard and ready flesh beneath.

  She nibbled at the corner of his mouth, her tongue playing hide-and-seek with his as she trailed her hand down, along his side to the hem of his shirt. The muscles in his stomach tensed in anticipation. A reflex, dammit; he was not sucking in his gut. But man, was he glad he’d ditched the spare tire. It was worth every drop he’d sweated to hear that hum of appreciation low in Mary’s throat when her fingers trailed across his navel, then back to his chest, combing through the hair she found there.

  He cupped the back of her head with one palm, capturing her teasing mouth while his other hand reluctantly gave up possession of her butt and went exploring under her shirt, tracing the curve of her spine. She arched into him, made him groan again, and then laughed at his pain. He slid his palm higher, thumb and pinkie finger skimming the delicate angles of her shoulder blades, the impossibly soft skin between.

  Completely bare skin. His hand froze, and he broke free of the kiss to blink up at her. “You’re not wearing a bra.”

  Her smile raised his internal temperature another ten degrees. “It’s not like I need one.”

  Holy. Crap. She was naked under there. He lost his breath, his lungs flattened by a tidal wave of lust. All he had to do was slide his hand around to the front, and he’d be holding a piece of heaven. Even better, he could push her shirt up and taste it…

  No. He couldn’t.

  He pulled his hand from under her shirt, smoothed both layers into place, willing his heart to stop thundering. She tipped her head back to give him a puzzled frown, dropping her wandering hand to his waist.

  “What? You don’t approve?”

  His laugh was three-parts groan. “Hell, yes, I approve, but I don’t want to take advantage.”

  “Of me? You’re a little late for that.” But her words were slightly blurred around the edges, her eyes a tiny bit glassy. He guessed it was from more than lust. He ran his hand up her spine—on the outside of her pullover, unfortunately—and kneaded gently.

/>   “You’ve been put through the wringer twice today. You’re exhausted…and I’m betting you popped another migraine pill.”

  Her gaze dropped to his chest, and her bottom lip poked out. “Only half.”

  “Enough.” And he’d bet she’d needed it. If she’d had a killer headache before dinner, it must feel like she’d been whacked with a sledgehammer now. “How often do you have flashbacks?”

  She extracted her hand from his shirt, avoiding his gaze. “Not since high school. I thought I was over them.”

  “Did you get professional help?”

  “Sure. Sad to say, our school district has a lot of experience in grief counseling, so they’ve got all the resources in place.”

  He massaged a slow circle at the base of her neck. “The counting… Is that something they taught you?”

  “Was I counting?” Her forehead puckered as she tried to remember. “It’s a coping mechanism. A way to try to stay grounded in reality. But tonight it came on so fast, I couldn’t hold it off.”

  David stared at her, confounded. How could she go through something like that and choose to enlist? “I can’t believe they let you in the military.”

  “They didn’t know. I was a minor when my brothers died. My mental health records are sealed.”

  “Weren’t you worried you might have a flashback in the middle of a mission or something?”

  “I cruised through basic training without any problems, so I figured I’d be okay. And I was…until tonight.” She blew out a long stream of air. “It was damn near inevitable, I suppose. Same place, same stupid shit.”

  Same man, at least inside her head? He hesitated, but he couldn’t resist asking. “Who did you think I was when I carried you out of there?”

  “I don’t know. His name, I mean.” She twisted one of the buttons on his shirt, the friction setting off little explosions of desire in spite of the depressing turn in the conversation. “After the accident, I went into shock. I freaked out when they tried to put me on a stretcher. One of the EMTs carried me to the ambulance and held me on his lap all the way to the hospital.” She smoothed a hand over David’s chest. “He was big, solid, like you.”