But Poppy seemed to be taking Dutton's side. What was it she'd said? Somethin' about Cash sayin' the wrong words?
Hell, he'd be tickled to say the right ones if she'd like to tell him what they were! But all she did was give him a longer, almost pitying look, then deliberately turned back to Milly.
Shane frowned, then picked up his ginger ale and looked at Cash. "Why don't you?"
"Can't. Told you. Drew me a great bronc down in Houston. Deliverance." He said the horse's name reverently. "So I can't stay." He shrugged. "If she'd wait, I could be back on Tuesday…"
But she wouldn't wait. Cash knew that.
She'd go right ahead and marry ol' Dutton just because Cash wouldn't be there to stop her.
Both men glared at the table of women. Then Shane shook his head, disgusted. "Women," he muttered.
"'Bout ready to hit the road?" Dennis Cooper, one of Cash's traveling partners, clapped a hand on Cash's shoulder. He'd come in shortly after Cash had settled at the bar. He'd been ready to leave then, but Cash couldn't. He'd told Milly he would stay. He'd said he would wait until she came to her senses.
Now, more hours and more whiskey later than he wanted to think about, she'd done nothing of the kind. She was just about out of time.
Wordlessly Cash stared at the almost empty bottle, then at the woman whose stubbornness had made him drain it.
Denny glanced at his watch. "We better be makin' tracks if we're gonna get out ahead of the storm."
Cash frowned. "What storm?"
"Mark's been listenin' to the radio. Says there's a big one comin'. Blowin' in by morning, they say. So I say it's about time we headed south."
Cash considered that. He considered Milly.
She lifted her glass and toasted him with it. "To me." He saw her form the words. "To Mike."
Cash poured the last of the whiskey into his glass and swirled the liquid, staring into it. Then, "Guess so," he said. "Ain't nothin' left for me here."
He shut his eyes, tipped his head back and drained the glass. It didn't burn near as bad as the first glass had. Maybe he was getting anesthetized. He opened his eyes, blinked rapidly and shoved himself to his feet. "Let's go."
He gave Shane a soft jab to the upper arm. "Take it easy. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."
Shane grinned. "Leavin' the field wide open, aren'tcha?"
Cash managed a harsh laugh. "Damn straight."
Then he tugged his hat down tight on his head and squared his shoulders. Bow-legged, swivel-hipped, he followed Denny toward the door.
He wasn't going to look at Milly. But he couldn't help it.
He had to look, had to give her one last chance. So as he passed, he turned his head. It was no furtive glance, no quick look. He didn't even blink.
But Milly didn't even glance his way. She just lifted her glass and clinked it against Poppy's, and together they laughed at some toast Poppy was making.
Cash's jaw tightened. His fists clenched. He kept on walking. But he could still hear them. He heard them laugh again as he reached the door.
He put his hand on it, paused. Waited. Stop me, Milly. Stop me.
But she didn't.
She didn't even seem to notice when, shoulders hunched, head bent, Cash pushed his way out the door.
He left.
She finished her ginger ale. She thanked her friends for coming with her. "Now it's official," she assured them gaily. "I'm marrying Mike. No one at The Barrel swept me off my feet."
"Only because he could barely stand on them," Poppy said in a dry tone as they gathered their coats to leave.
"What are you talking about?" Milly said, keeping a smile pasted on her face. She tugged on her coat and began fumbling with the buttons.
"You know what I'm talking about. You know who I'm talking about."
Well, yes. But she debated lying about it. Poppy would know she was lying, though. Poppy knew about those sorts of things.
"I don't know why he came," Milly mumbled at last.
"Because he's in love with you." The answer was quick and unequivocal, as matter-of-fact as Poppy always was.
"He doesn't know what love is."
"Not grown-up love, I'll grant you that," Poppy said. "Here, let me button that. You'd think you were the one drinking the beer not the ginger ale." With deft fingers and complete concentration, she buttoned Milly's coat for her. "But he cares. He's just hopeless at saying so."
"It's too late for him to say so," Milly said firmly. "I'm marrying Mike."
They walked out into the cold winter night and Milly felt a shiver run through her. She'd been shivering a lot lately. Feeling cold a lot. Wishing for warm arms around her, desperate for a warm body to hold her.
Mike's.
She wanted Mike.
"I'm surprised he showed up," Poppy went on after they said good-night to Bev and Tina and headed toward their cars.
Cash, she was talking about. Still. Always Cash. Milly didn't want to think about Cash.
"I'm marrying Mike," she said firmly.
"If that's what you want," Poppy said mildly.
"It's what I want! I don't want Cash!" Milly knew she was raising her voice. She knew she was making a fuss. She knew Poppy didn't believe a word she said. "I don't want Cash," she said plaintively again in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. "I don't!"
Poppy took Milly's hands in hers and rubbed them briskly. "I know," she soothed. "It'll be all right. It's just nerves."
"And Cash," Milly said wryly, unable to help it, bringing up his name herself.
"And Cash," Poppy agreed with a grin.
"I'll feel better when it's over," Milly said firmly.
"Of course you will."
"It's just the wait."
"Yes."
"We should have eloped."
"No," Poppy said at once. "You're doing it right. You wanted to do it in front of God and everyone. You said so. To show your commitment. To make a statement."
"Yes," Milly agreed. But it seemed like the statement was taking way too much out of her. She wanted it over—all of it: the waiting, the wedding, the promises. She wanted to be safely committed to Michael George Dutton, for ever and ever. Amen.
Poppy gave her hands a squeeze and then smiled an encouraging smile. "You made it. You got through tonight. Cash is gone. Stop worrying. The worst is over."
"Yes." It was. Of course it was. She'd seen him for the last time. He'd come. He'd seen. He hadn't conquered. Milly pasted on the bravest smile she could muster. "Yes," she said again. "It's over."
Later that night when she was lying alone in her bedroom she told herself that again. "It's over."
Sometimes, though, she thought that the love she and Cash Callahan had shared wasn't so much over as it was love that had never really begun. Not mutual love, anyway.
She'd loved.
Cash had … passed through.
Mike was a man for the long haul. He would be there through thick and thin. He had held her hand and kissed away her tears more often than she cared to remember.
Well, she swore to herself now, he wouldn't have to kiss away any more of her tears. She was done crying.
She was done with Cash. She was marrying Mike on Saturday. It was, she assured herself, the first day of the rest of her life.
She wondered why that didn't cheer her up.
* * *
Two
« ^ »
Denny was asleep in the passenger seat. Walt and Mark were sprawled out in the back. They'd stopped to pick up a rookie bronc rider just outside Cheyenne, and even the rookie—after what seemed like a thousand hours of eager bouncing off the walls of the van and a million and a half meaningless questions about how much farther it was to Houston and didn't they think ol' Hammerhead was a terrific draw, and how much did they reckon he'd win—had settled into a restless slumber. Cash drove on.
He'd tried to sleep when they left Livingston. Denny had driven then. But Cash's mind was too busy replaying the sight of
Milly laughing and smiling with her friends, then looking cold and unblinking at him. He couldn't sleep. He'd stared out the window, drummed his fingers on his knee, chewed his lower lip, tugged again and again at the brim of his hat. If he'd taken it off in the bar, he'd have wondered if he'd accidentally grabbed someone else's. His felt too damn tight.
"Sit still, for cryin' out loud," Denny said more than once. And finally he'd said, "I'll pull over if you've gotta pee."
"'M fine," Cash muttered.
But he wasn't fine. He wasn't fine at all.
He thought it would get better by the time it got light. But by the time it was light, it wasn't better. He thought it would get better by the time they got to Colorado Springs. But by the time they got to Colorado Springs, nothing had changed. He thought maybe he was rushing things, that maybe the Texas border would do the trick.
But they'd be in Texas in less than half an hour now, and things weren't looking up.
He missed Milly.
He wanted Milly.
He couldn't imagine a future without Milly.
But sure as shootin', if she married Mike that was the way the future was going to be.
There was no way he'd be stopping to see her every time he traveled through Livingston anymore. There was no way he'd call her on the phone at two in the morning just to say hi and see what she was doing.
"What'm I doing? I'm sleepin', Cash," she always said in that grumbly sleepy little voice he loved. That was why he called her up then. Didn't she know that?
Probably she did.
That's probably why the last time he'd called, she'd said flatly, "Talking to Mike," and she'd sounded very matter-of-fact and not sleepy at all.
Cash had almost slammed the phone down in his disgust. Talking to Mike? At two o'clock in the morning?
"Well, tell him to go home. He's there too damned late," he'd said in his own grumbly voice.
But Milly didn't say, "I know." She'd just said, "Goodbye, Cash," and then, damned if she hadn't hung up on him!
No, if she married Mike on Saturday, Cash wouldn't be calling her again. Ever.
She'd have to call him—to tell him what a mistake she'd made.
But somehow, deep down in his gut, he knew she never would.
Damn it. He pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed a hand across his forehead. The sign flashed past, welcoming them to Texas.
It looked big and wide and lonely as hell.
Exactly the way he felt.
"I'm goin' back."
Denny jerked in the seat next to him. "Wha'?" He squinted groggily at Cash.
"I'm goin' back." He said it again. Firmer. Louder. As much to convince himself as Denny. And the words sounded better this time, more positive. Right. "'M goin' back."
The third time Cash said it, Walt raised his head, too. "We forget somethin'?" he mumbled.
"No. I'm goin' back to Livingston."
Both Dennis and Walt sat up straight then. "The hell are you talkin' about?" Dennis demanded. "We're practically in Houston. We're goin' to Houston!"
"We gotta go to Houston. You gotta go to Houston!" Walt said. "You're riding Deliverance."
"No," Cash said. "I ain't."
When he said it, he almost expected the world to end, the cymbals to crash, the curtain to come whooshing down. He'd lived for rodeo his entire life—since he'd been no higher than his daddy's gold belt buckle—and had aimed to get him one, too.
Now he had a couple dozen. Oh, not the buckle, the one he'd always been after. He'd been to the National Finals Rodeo five times—but he'd never brought home the gold.
He was pretty sure now he never was going to bring home the gold. But he'd been going after it so long, he didn't know what else to do with himself.
It was what he did … in between visits to Milly.
And that, when he thought about it, was the unvarnished honest-to-God truth.
In the last couple of years or so—he wasn't exactly sure how long; Cash wasn't big on abstract analysis—it wasn't the rodeos that he'd measured time by, it was when he was next going to see Milly.
He'd been sort of gearing up to ask her… Well, maybe not exactly to ask her; he still shied away from the M word like a mustang from a hackamore. But if he hadn't exactly been ready to ask her yet, he was willing to hint that sometime he might be willing to make their arrangement a little more permanent.
And then what had she done?
She'd changed the locks on the doors!
She'd started dating another man!
She'd gone and got herself engaged to the jerk!
And now she was going to marry him!
Unless Cash stopped her.
They'd shared too much. Five years. Five unbelievable years. Christ, they'd been kids when they'd met that first time … when she'd jeered and he'd scowled, when she'd smiled and he'd winked … and—
God, he had to stop her!
He hadn't been going to stop at Wilsall for the rodeo.
It wasn't a big rodeo, didn't pay all that much. There were dozens of other rodeos he could have gone to that summer Saturday five years ago.
But they weren't going to be that far from Wilsall, he and his buddies—and one of them, Pete, had grown up nearby, so it made sense to stop, get a home-cooked meal, do a little laundry and hit the road again.
"We could make more in Greeley," Rod argued.
But Cash had sided with Pete. He was just as happy not to have to spend long hours in a car, anyway. He'd cracked his ribs in Ponca, Nebraska, two weeks before. He'd strained his shoulder in Window Rock. He still had stitches in his jaw from a flying hoof he'd come in contact with in Prescott. At least he thought it was in Prescott. He'd been so damn many places he couldn't quite remember where he'd done what anymore.
But last night in Butte, he'd pulled the shoulder again. It hurt like sin, and he wasn't even sure if he should ride. Actually he was damned sure he shouldn't ride, but he wasn't letting that stop him. He needed the money. He had barely enough to buy gas, let alone food.
He was going to ride in Wilsall. And have one of Pete's mother's home-cooked meals. And do his laundry, if she'd let him. And maybe—just maybe—sleep in a bed for a change instead of on a pile of saddle blankets in the back of Rod's truck.
At least that was the plan.
Some of it worked. The laundry, for instance. Pete's mother, apparently having been deprived of opportunities for maternal doting for a long time, actually volunteered to do laundry for all of them while they caught forty winks. Pete, of course, because it was his home, got his bed. Rod took the other one while Cash was still bringing his laundry bag in from the truck.
"I'm afraid you'll have to make do with the sofa." Pete's mother apologized to him.
Cash didn't care. The sofa was a heck of a lot more comfortable than the saddle blankets. Smelled better, too, he decided once he'd had a shower.
He felt a damn sight better, too, once he got outside Pete's mother's home-cooked meal. It was the best steak he could ever remember. He couldn't even recall the last time he'd put his belly around that big a meal. It almost hurt to move when he got up from the table. In fact, it did hurt, but that was owing more to his cracked ribs and strained shoulder than to Mrs. Reed's cooking.
"Sure do want to thank you, ma'am," he said to her as he carried his dishes to the sink.
"My pleasure," she assured him. "You stop by anytime."
"Yes, ma'am." Cash nodded in agreement, but he knew he wouldn't. He barely ever traveled the same roads twice. Not often, anyway. It just wasn't a part of his life-style.
"It isn't civilized, the way you boys live," his own mother had said more than once.
Cash agreed, but he didn't really care. It was fun, it was occasionally lucrative, and since he'd turned twenty-one three years ago, it was pretty much legal. Besides, he'd never put much stock in the value of civilization.
Still, he felt more civilized than he usually did when they finally got to the rodeo that evening. He tho
ught he probably looked almost civilized, too, dressed in his spanking clean Wranglers and his fresh-pressed bright red shirt. The girls he passed on the way back behind the chutes seemed pretty impressed, though he figured it was probably more on account of the contestant's number the rodeo secretary had slapped on his back than because he was a prime example of American manhood on the hoof.
Whatever reason they were looking at him for, though, Cash didn't mind!
He gave them a smile to go with his swagger, and those who batted their lashes at him got an even wider smile and a conspiratorial wink to go with it.
He and Rod and Pete wouldn't be leaving town until tomorrow morning. He'd spend the night on Pete's mother's sofa bed if he had to—and be glad for it—but a fellow ought to try to better himself if he could.
That's what his daddy had always said, and about this, at least, Cash believed him.
Cash was all for short-term goals. A nice soft wide bed and a pretty lady to go with it sounded like a damn fine goal for this evening.
First, though, there was the little matter of a bronc to be ridden—eight seconds on a roan gelding called Roscoe's Revenge. Cash had never heard of Roscoe's Revenge. Wilsall wasn't a big rodeo. Roscoe's Revenge wasn't even a very big horse. How hard could it be? he thought, when he settled himself over the horse's back and wrapped the rein around his hand.
Harder than it looked.
Harder than he thought.
But not as hard as the ground he landed on a full two seconds shy of the necessary eight.
Damn, his ribs hurt! Damn, his shoulder hurt! Damn, his butt hurt!
And scrambling to his feet amid the smattering of "hard-luck cowboy" applause didn't do a lot for his pride, either.
Cash slapped his hat angrily against his leg as he hobbled toward the fence. "Give 'im a little more," the announcer urged the crowd. "You know it's all the poor boy's gonna take home with him tonight."
"Damn it to hell," Cash muttered as he flung himself over the fence rail.
There was a sudden audible inhalation of breath, and his gaze jerked up. He found himself staring into wide, astonished green eyes—big, beautiful female eyes—the most beautiful eyes he'd ever seen. They belonged to a girl sitting in the front row right next to the chutes.
THE COWBOY CRASHES A WEDDING Page 2
