RODEO MAN

by Margaret Watson

  By the time they made their way to the field behind the fairgrounds, the first fireworks were shooting up into the night sky. Color exploded against the dark canvas above them, eliciting oohs and ahhs from the crowd.

  Cassie leaned against her side, and Becca could feel the weariness in her daughter's slumping body. As soon as the streamers from the last rocket had faded away, Becca touched Grady's arm.

  "We need to get started for home. Cassie's ready to crash."

  They walked with the crowds toward the street, and soon they were alone on the corner near Becca's house. When they stepped up onto the porch, Grady looked over at Becca, a question in his eyes.

  "Come on in while I get Cassie to bed," Becca said, holding the door open.

  He watched her for a moment, then nodded. Stepping into the house, he said, "Take your time."

  As they started up the stairs, Cassie turned to Grady and gave him a sleepy smile. "Thank you for 'splaining the rodeo to me, Mr. Farrell. I had fun."

  "I'm glad," Grady answered, then he hesitated. "Sleep well," he finally said, his voice gruff.

  Grady paced across the tiny living room as the sounds of a child preparing for bed drifted down the stairs. He wouldn't let himself think about those sounds, or what was happening at the top of the stairs. Bedtime rituals were none of his concern.

  In order to distract himself, he looked around the room. The bright floral print on the couch and two chairs was slightly faded, as if it had been rubbed away by too many trousers and skirts. The rug on the floor showed similar signs of wear, and the curtains on the windows were simple and clearly homemade. Childish drawings in frames hung on the walls, and as he wandered over to look at them he realized that each one had been signed by Cassie and carefully dated by Becca.

  His heart gave an odd little jump at the sign of Becca's devotion to her daughter. Every time Cassie saw these pictures, she would see how much her mother loved her. Staring at a picture that he decided must be a horse, he didn't realize Becca had walked into the room until he felt her beside him.

  "She was five when she drew that. It was what her future horse was going to look like."

  "I wondered if it was a horse."

  Becca smiled. "She's never going to be an artist, but she likes seeing her pictures on the wall. And so do I."

  He searched for the right words. "You're a good mother, Becca."

  "I try to be."

  He heard the weariness in her voice and longed to pull her into his arms and comfort her. Stepping away, he said, "I guess I should go."

  But before he could escape, she said, "Why does Sy Ames hate you so much?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I saw his face tonight I saw the look he gave you. He bates you, Grady. How come?"

  Grady shrugged. "Because I got the ranch from him, I guess."

  Becca watched him, her eyes shrewd. "There's more to the story than that, Grady."

  Sighing, he turned and sat down on her couch. "Yeah, there's more to it than that. I should have known I couldn't hide it from you."

  "What is it?"

  For a moment he considered not telling her the whole story. But remembering Sy's face that evening, he knew he couldn't withhold any information from her. It was likely that Sy was the person harassing her. "Remember that poker game I told you about?" he finally said. "The one where Sy bet more than he could cover?"

  "I remember."

  "He was cheating. One of the other players caught him red-handed. He was forced to forfeit the hand, and I won. So not only did I get his ranch, I witnessed his humiliation. Sy won't ever forget that."

  "I thought he'd left Cameron."

  "I think he's the one who's been stalking you." Grady stood up and paced around the room, anger coursing through him at the thought.

  "Sy is a bully who's always backed down when someone confronts him. Besides, he seems to be angry at you, not me," she argued. "How does that translate into stalking me?"

  "Use your head, Becca. By now most of the town probably knows that we grew up in the same town. Maybe he thinks that by attacking you he's hurting me."

  "That might be true if we were dating. But we're not, and no one in town knows about Cassie."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I haven't told a soul. Laura probably suspects, but no one besides my parents knows who her father is."

  "Anyone with eyes in their head could see that there's history between us."

  "Sy has never seen us together before tonight. So how could he see that?"

  He sighed. "I don't know. But he's my choice for stalker."

  "There are other people who are possibilities, you know." She looked down at the floor, as if she'd just discovered something immensely interesting in the cracks between the boards.

  "I still think you're crazy to suspect Ron Perkins."

  "Then we're going to have to agree to disagree." She stood up. "This is a pointless discussion right now, Grady. It's not going to solve anything. Ben Jackson will tell the sheriff about seeing Sy, and they'll keep their eyes open for him. I'm too tired to worry about it."

  Grady stood up, too. "I can take a polite hint, Becca. Thanks for going to the rodeo with me."

  Her face softened. "Thank you for taking us." She hesitated. "It meant the world to Cassie. I haven't been real understanding about her love of the rodeo, but I'm glad you can share that with her."

  "There aren't likely to be any more rodeos in Cameron for a long time," he said, unable to suppress the pang of longing. "One day hardly makes for a permanent bond."

  "You're going to teach her how to ride a horse. That's a far stronger bond than watching the occasional rodeo together."

  He scowled. "She'll probably hate me before we're finished. I intend to make sure she learns properly."

  She smiled at him. "She's not going to hate you, Grady. Can't you see she already thinks you're wonderful?"

  "Just because I could once ride a bull without falling off. That's a far cry from being a father." His words came out sounding more vehement than he intended.

  "Give it some time." She tried to smile, but Grady could see the effort it took.

  "I'll call you about the riding lessons," he muttered.

  "Fine." She walked with him to the front door. Even after the long day, her elusive fragrance curled around him as she moved. It tugged at something inside him, something that wanted to reach out and pull her close, to hold her tightly.

  "Good night," he said, his voice too gruff.

  She looked up at him, and he saw painful understanding in her eyes. "Good night, Grady. And thanks again for today."

  Did she understand that today might be as much as he could ever give Cassie? He suspected she did. The pain in her eyes was too real, too raw. He didn't want to walk away like this. He didn't want to think about her locking the door behind him, the sadness still in her eyes.

  "Don't, Becca," he said, smoothing one hand over her face. His fingers tingled with the contact. "Don't look like that. Things will work out."

  "Will they, Grady?" She didn't take her gaze off his, and she didn't move away from his touch. "I thought things would work out nine years ago, but they didn't. I stopped hoping for miracles a long time ago. Now I try to tell myself that everything happens for a reason."

  "Like my showing up in Cameron?"

  "Whatever happens, you at least know that Cassie is your daughter. I should have told you long ago and I accept the responsibility for that. But now the ball is in your court. What happens next is up to you."

  And she was afraid he was going to fumble the pass. Hell, so was he. "Good night, Becca."

  "Good night." The door closed behind him with a quiet, final click.

  Grady stood in front of the porch for a long moment, listening to the sounds of Becca closing up her house for the night. Windows slid down and the locks clicked into place. Then the lights winked out, and seconds later a light went on in a second-floor room. Her bedroom.

  He spun around and f
led, taking refuge in his truck. He'd enjoyed the day far too much, he thought grimly. Turning the key with a vicious crank, he backed out of Becca's driveway and waited until he was at the end of her block before gunning the engine. If he wasn't careful, he'd start thinking about Cassie far too often, and that wouldn't be fair to her. She deserved far more than a washed-out rodeo bum for a father. Especially a rodeo bum who had no idea how to be a father.

  But as he drove down the dark road to the Flying W, he found his thoughts straying repeatedly to the rodeo. Instead of lingering on the pain he'd felt, however, what he remembered was the joy on Cassie's face.

  * * *

  When Becca picked up the cellular phone in her truck a few days later and heard Stella telling her she had a call at the Flying W ranch, she couldn't stop the hum of anticipation that raced through her veins. She hadn't seen Grady or talked to him since the night of the rodeo, but she knew that everyone at the Flying W was busy branding and castrating calves. It was the season in Cameron when the calves born in the spring were identified as part of the herd and most of the ranches in the area took turns helping each other out. From the grapevine she'd heard that the past couple of days had been the Flying W's turn.

  Stella told her only that a calf was sick. Becca finished the paperwork from her last ranch visit, then stuffed the folder into the plastic file case she kept with her and pulled out the folder for the Flying W, laying it on the seat next to her as she headed for the ranch.

  When she arrived at the Flying W, she first saw several dusty pickup trucks parked in the driveway. As she swung out of her truck, no one came to greet her, so she wandered toward the corral behind the barn.

  A swirling, bawling group of young calves stirred up the dust as they huddled together, waiting for their turn to go through the chute. Several cowboys circled them on horse-back, keeping them together, while another fed them through a chute one at a time. At the other end of the chute they were castrated if they were males, then branded and finally released back into the pasture to be reunited with their anxious, calling mothers.

  It looked like a scene of total confusion, with the dust, the bawling, milling animals and the cowboys swarming around the corral. Instead, it was a tightly choreographed production, efficient and well organized. Becca rested her elbows on the fence and waited for a break in the action.

  Tucker noticed her first. She saw him call over to Grady, who was wrestling with a struggling calf. Grady glanced over at her, then nodded to Tucker. When he let the calf go after branding him, he called to someone else to take his place, then hurried over to her.

  "Thanks for coming out right away," he said, wiping the sweat and dust off his face with his arm. The dust left a dark red smear behind on his forehead, but his eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he looked back at the corral behind him. Becca tried not to let her gaze linger on his face. She wondered if he even realized how much he was enjoying what he was doing.

  "It wasn't a problem," she answered easily. "I wasn't far away and my next call wasn't expecting me for a while, anyway."

  "We've got a calf that's limping on one rear leg. He's not using it at all, and I was afraid he might have broken it. Some of the calves struggle more than others."

  "Let's go take a look."

  Becca picked up her bag and followed Grady into the relative peace of the barn. She could still hear the cries of the calves, but the animals in the barn didn't seem to notice. Grady led her to a large stall at the end of the barn closest to the pasture. Through the open door she saw an Angus cow hovering anxiously near the fence. The calf stood at the door of the stall, balancing on three legs. He held the other leg off the ground.

  Slipping into the stall, she laid her hand on the calf's head, then slowly worked her way down his body. She didn't want to startle him, and she needed to see how he would react to her touch. A lot of calves were born on the range, and the branding ordeal was their first human contact.

  The calf shied away, but she was able to trap him between her body and the wall of the stall. Once she had him pinned, he stood docilely while she ran her hand down his leg, probing the swollen hock area.

  After a few minutes she stood up. "There's nothing broken there, but he does have a nasty sprain. I'm going to wrap it and give him some anti-inflammatory drugs, and he should be fine after a few days. But I'd keep him and his mother in the barn until the leg is healed. You don't want to take the chance of having him step in a hole and hurting it more. If he twisted it again, he could cause some real damage."

  Grady nodded. "Thanks, Becca. Ron thought it was just a sprain, but I wanted to be sure." He hesitated. "I don't think he wanted to bother you about something this small. I didn't think about it before I called, but I hope we didn't disrupt your schedule too much."

  "Not at all." She'd just bet Ron didn't want her at the ranch. The more time she spent with Grady, the greater the chance Ron's actions nine years ago would be revealed. And she was darn sure Ron Perkins didn't want that to happen.

  Grady glanced out toward the pasture, where another batch of calves had been released to find their mothers. "Go ahead and get back to work," she said, interpreting his look. "I'm only going to write down what I did here. There's no reason for you to have to stay."

  He turned to look at her. "I'm actually enjoying this, Becca," he said. She smiled at the surprise in his voice.

  "I'm glad," she said simply. Grady would have to make his own peace with his past and his loss of the rodeo. But enjoying the work he was doing was a first step.

  "I never thought I would, you know. I only agreed to buy this ranch from Sy because I didn't have anything better to do, and I was getting tired of drifting. I figured that I'd stick around until I got bored, then sell it and move on to something else."

  "We all change," she said, watching him.

  "Those are the last words I thought I'd ever say," Grady admitted, looking out at the pasture. "I never wanted to be tied down to anything, let alone a piece of land. I saw what my father was like, and I swore I would never be anything like him."

  "You're not like your father," she said gently. "You never have been."

  When he turned to look at her again, his eyes were bleak. "I'm more like him than you know. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, after all."

  Becca longed to wrap her arms around him, to offer him comfort, to assure him that he wasn't anything like his cold, demanding, loveless father. But she didn't. After that kiss at the rodeo the other night, she'd vowed to stay as far away from Grady as she could. She didn't want to cloud the issues between them with a passion she knew she couldn't resist. And she didn't want to substitute desire for a solution to those problems.

  So instead of stepping closer to Grady, instead of comforting him, she took a step backward. "Everyone has to find their own way. You'll find yours, Grady."

  "We'll see." He stared out at the pasture for a while, then turned to face her. "Go ahead and get your paperwork done. I'll talk to you later. We still have to set up a schedule for Cassie's riding lessons."

  "I figured you'd want to wait at least until the branding is finished."

  "It would be easier," he admitted. "But I know Cassie is anxious to get started."

  She couldn't help the glow of pleasure that he'd been thinking about Cassie. But she didn't point it out to him. She wasn't sure he was ready to hear it. "Thanks for thinking of that, but she can wait a while longer."

  "We should be done here in a couple of days. As soon as we are, I'll get Cassie out here."

  "Thank you, Grady."

  She watched as he hurried out the door and turned to go back to the corral. As she finished writing in her records, she listened to the animal sounds and relished the peace and quiet of the barn. Just as she closed her folder and stood up, a shadow fell across her.

  "What are you doing here?"

  She looked up to see Ron Perkins scowling down at her. Straightening her back, she lifted her chin and struggled to remain calm in the f
ace of his angry stare.

  "I was checking on this calf that sprained his leg. Grady called and asked me to come take a look at it."

  "There was nothing wrong with that calf that a few days' rest wouldn't have cured."

  "I agree with you, but Grady wanted to be sure. And it is his calf."

  Ron's face darkened. "And I suppose you're hoping that pretty soon it'll be your calf, too?"

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "Everyone in town saw you together at the rodeo the other day. I'll bet you're just dying to get your hooks into him again," he sneered.

  Becca curled her hands into the folder to stop them from trembling. "What are you implying?"

  Ron stared at her with a cold expression on his face, but beneath the scorn she could see his fear. "Grady is too smart to fall for your tricks."

  "And which tricks would those be?"

  His eyes glittered with anger. "I won't let Grady be trapped into anything," he warned. "He's had too many tough breaks, and since he got hurt he hasn't been interested in anything until this ranch came along. I won't stand by and watch you destroy him."

  "Destroying Grady is the last thing I would want to do, Ron." Becca softened her voice, because behind Ron's irrational anger, she could see that he truly cared about Grady. "And what do you mean, 'since he got hurt'?"

  Ron immediately shuttered his face. "Never mind," he muttered. "Just stay away from Grady."

  "What Grady and I do is none of your business," Becca retorted. She hesitated, then added, "And you'd better keep it that way."

  "Are you threatening me?" he demanded.

  "No more than you're threatening me." She watched in satisfaction as Ron was unable to hold her gaze. "Stay away from me, Ron. I'm not a nineteen-year-old child anymore, and I won't be bullied by you or anyone else."

  She watched as the ranch manager spun around and headed out of the barn. Waiting until he was out of sight, she finally left the barn and climbed into her truck. As she stashed the records back in their box, she watched the activity at the corral.

  Grady was in the middle of it, taking his turn wrestling with the calves and rounding them up. Ron was right about one thing, she thought, smiling as she watched him. Grady was enjoying this ranch, and there was nothing she would do to destroy that pleasure. He needed something to call his own, even if it was only a satisfying job.