Rodeo Daughter (Harlequin American Romance)

by Leigh Duncan

  Mitch rubbed his chin. Maybe there was more to Tom’s distance from his daughter than he’d thought. But it didn’t let the man off the hook for all the years he’d ignored his only child.

  “I know you and your wife were committed to your careers, but did you ever consider giving Amanda a real home? Letting her go to school like a normal kid?”

  “She had a home,” Tom retorted. “Saw a diff’rent part of the country ever’ week. Not many kids can say that. We taught her skills she can make a good livin’ off till she’s as old as I am. ’Sides, she done real good with them home-school books we got her. A might too good. Now, she don’t want nothin’ to do with the family business.”

  A throat-clearing cough signaled the end of Tom’s reminiscing. His chin rose. “Maybe we wasn’t perfect, but me an’ Roseanne, we done out best by that gal. But she don’t want nothin’ to do with me. I’ve tried. I can’t get anywhere with her.”

  Sensing a trap, Mitch crossed his arms over his chest and reminded himself to watch out for an ambush. “I’m not sure what you have in mind, Mr. Markette.”

  “Tom. Call me Tom.” With the honest expression of a snake oil salesman, Amanda’s father leaned forward. “Mandy, she’s got some fool notion she can walk away from the rodeo permanent-like. But it’s in her blood. Same as it’s in mine. She’ll never be happy with city life.”

  “I don’t know. She seems content to me.” The man really didn’t know his daughter. She’d left the rodeo scene so long ago the door had shut on her ever returning to it.

  “Not for long,” Tom countered. “She was practically born with reins in her hand and straw in her hair.” He leaned forward, his hand on the heavy plaster cast. “If this leg of mine don’t heal right, I’m gonna hang up my spurs. The Markette family business’ll be all hers then. She’ll need to keep it running, make enough to support us both. She can’t do that here.”

  Mitch fought to keep his mouth shut. The man was delusional if he thought Amanda would give up all she’d accomplished.

  But Tom wasn’t finished. “After that little rodeo ya’ll had, she took up ridin’ again. Mark my words.” He stabbed the air between them. “She’s gonna wake up one of these days and feel the itch to hit the road. I imagine she already has.” With a satisfied smirk, he eased back onto the cushions. He propped his broken leg up on the worn coffee table.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure, Mr. Markette.”

  For someone who planned to move on, Amanda had put down substantial roots. She’d bought a house and poured her savings into the law office, turning the once run-down building into a showcase. She’d worked hard to establish her practice.

  Was she as ready to settle down emotionally? Only time would provide the answer, but aware that Tom’s eyes were still on him, Mitch wrenched his thoughts away from the future and focused on the situation at hand.

  “Tell me, man to man. Is my girl any good at this legal stuff?”

  The question stirred an urge to boast about the woman he loved.

  “Amanda has a real gift for family law. She’s quite the proponent of children’s rights.”

  “That just goes to prove my point. No one’s ever gonna get rich representin’ kids.” Tom shook his head.

  Did the man honestly not understand that he was the reason for the choice Amanda had made?

  Much as he wanted to ask the question, Mitch held back. He wasn’t here to resolve Amanda’s long-term relationship with her father. No, that was up to her. But she’d asked him to make it crystal clear to her dad that she wouldn’t put up with any more of his shenanigans. Mission accomplished. Still, Mitch couldn’t resist giving the old man one final piece of advice.

  “Mr. Markette, I’m sure you want what you think is best for Amanda, but she’s a grown woman. The time when you or anyone else can tell her how to live her life is over. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to spend some time with my own daughter this afternoon.”

  With that, Mitch picked up Tom’s money and headed for the door, convinced he’d made as much headway as anyone could. Once outside the cramped trailer, though, he couldn’t deny that Tom and Amanda’s problems had made him think about his relationship with Hailey. Sooner than he liked, she’d start grade school. Before he knew it, she’d be graduating from high school and heading off to college. Someday she’d fall in love, marry, have kids of her own. He intended to be there for her every step of the way. Only to do that, he had to be a part of her life now.

  And that meant sharing more time with his little girl than a few hours Sunday afternoons, didn’t it? The answer was a resounding yes. Vowing to make some changes, Mitch crossed the yard to Amanda’s back door.

  Inside, a curious mix of Spartan and cozy country furnishings made him wonder if Tom didn’t know Amanda better than either of them had given him credit for. Mitch passed through an austere kitchen to a dining room where law books and files littered the table. He followed a murmur of voices through a living room filled with creamy leather furniture surrounded by stark white walls. Two gunfighters squared off on the cover of a novel that lay facedown on a sturdy end table. Despite the book and a stack of pillows and neatly folded blankets at one end of the couch, the room had the slightly stale air of disuse.

  His feet in motion, he continued down a short hallway to the door standing open at the end. He lingered on the threshold, studying a room where walls the color of sunset on an open prairie made the perfect backdrop for posters from Amanda’s rodeo days. Shelves groaned under the weight of all her awards. The enormous gold buckle she’d won in Las Vegas rested in a display case along with more trophies of various colors and shapes than he could count. And in the center of the room, grinning happily, the woman who stirred thoughts of family dinners and cozy evenings at home sat on the floor beside a trunk overflowing with clothes.

  Clothes that had nothing to do with the staid, middle-class life of a prosecuting attorney.

  Unease built within him as Mitch watched Amanda plunge her hand to the bottom of the chest. Her fingers came up clutching an elaborately sequined shirt and matching leggings. She gave the wrinkled items a quick shake before holding them up.

  “Here we go.” She smiled at the little girl standing beside her. “I think these might fit. Want to try them on?”

  Hailey’s eyes grew wide as saucers. She clutched the clothes and spun in a circle.

  “Daddy!” She spotted him at the doorway and ran to his side. “Look, Daddy. They’re so sparkly!” She tugged his hand, drawing him to the center of a room filled with reminders of the life Amanda had once led, and which, according to her dad, was hers for the asking anytime she wanted.

  “Miss Amanda said I can wear them,” his daughter breathed. “Can I, Daddy. Can I?”

  Mitch wavered only a moment. At his nod, Hailey practically raced down the hall to the bathroom. As soon as she left, he turned to Amanda, bent and dropped his hands on her shoulders. Before they took another step, he had to know where things stood. Was her father right? Was she even now mentally packing her suitcases? If so, he needed to back off. Not only for his sake, but for Hailey’s.

  “Do you ever miss it?” he managed to ask despite the lump in his throat. “Being on the road, playing to the crowd?”

  Amanda sobered. She tipped her face toward his.

  “I walked away from all this for a reason.” She swept the room with one hand, taking in all the trophies and awards. “This was my dad’s dream, my mom’s. Not mine. It was a hard life. Always performing, always on the road, never having a place to call your own. One night you’re in Tulsa. The next, Pensacola. After a while, the name of the town doesn’t matter. It’s just one arena after another.”

  She scrambled to her feet, her eyes never leaving his. “More than anything, I wanted to go to bed every night knowing I’d wake up in the same city the next morning. And the morning after that.”

  Mitch’s heart pounded in his chest. She was saying all the right things. Hitting all the right buttons. But was
he part of the future she envisioned for herself? He had to know.

  “Any room for me in that life?”

  A smile flirted with her lips and she slipped her arms around his waist. “I’d like that,” she whispered.

  The moment definitely called for a kiss, but aware his daughter could burst in on them at any moment, Mitch barely let his lips brush Amanda’s. He wrapped her in his arms, letting his embrace say the words he couldn’t speak, promising the future they both wanted but dared not voice.

  All too soon, the squeak of a door and footfalls in the hall drove them apart, but Amanda stayed close, not straying from his side while Hailey marched about the room showing off her new clothes. Later, as he was strapping his child into her car seat, it hit him that Tom Markette was in for a surprise.

  Amanda was here to stay.

  Certain that she’d made a home in Melbourne, Mitch asked if he was the kind of man Amanda deserved. A man who loved her for who she was, not someone he wanted her to become, or someone she once was.

  Was he that man?

  He wanted to be. He’d never quite fallen out of love with the girl he’d met so many years ago. Now that they’d been given a second chance, he determined to give it his best shot.

  Chapter Ten

  When the doorbell rang one evening, Mitch looked up from the legal brief spread across his desk. Anticipating his daughter’s laughter, he smiled. Reality struck when only silence answered a few dying echoes. He drew in a sharp breath.

  What had he been thinking?

  Nearly three months had passed since Hailey last giggled and raced him to the front door. He struggled, wincing as the truth whispered through him. He’d never appreciated those times half as much as he should have. Given the chance, he would not repeat that mistake.

  He glanced at the calendar, where red ink marked the date he and Karen would face off in Judge Dobson’s courtroom. That was the day he’d finally prove his innocence. The day the dark cloud over his name would evaporate. The day he could finally bring his daughter home and put his plan to spend more time with her into action.

  The attorney side of him told him not to count on regaining full custody. Dobson had already turned down his motion for an earlier hearing, refusing to consider the testimony that would have put an end to the supervised visitation. If it hadn’t meant spending more time with Amanda, Mitch might have railed against the decision. But now that he could prove Hailey’s injury had been an accident, it was just a matter of time before the judge acknowledged it, too.

  A sharp pounding pulled Mitch out of his reverie. Whoever was standing on his doorstep had clearly run out of patience. Shoving aside the concerns that were never far from his thoughts, he headed for the door.

  A glance through the foyer’s decorative window banished them completely. The day he’d discovered Amanda was representing his ex-wife, he wouldn’t have wasted two cents on a bet that they’d wind up together. Now she played a major role in every possible version of his future. Which made the court date next week doubly important. Once it was behind them, they could finally be together.

  Anticipation sent a shiver down his spine.

  He hurried to open the door, as surprised by the unexpected midweek visit as he was by his reaction. One good look at Amanda’s tearstained face, though, and all thoughts of the future were instantly replaced by concern. Certain he hadn’t said or done anything that would cause such angst, he swung the door wide.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She stalked into the house. “Unbelievable. The unmitigated gall of some people is just unbelievable.” She waved a handful of tattered papers in the air.

  A piece escaped and sailed to the floor at Mitch’s feet. Retrieving it, he stared at an advertisement for the county fair. Right away, he spotted the addition to an ad that was already prominently displayed in every store window. In huge bold letters, the flier announced a special appearance of the Markette Ropin’ Team to follow the beauty pageant on Saturday night.

  With none another than Mandy Markette as the star.

  A muscle in his jaw ticked. Despite Amanda’s assurances that she was wasn’t going anywhere, the idea that she had caved in to her father’s demands was far more plausible than Mitch cared to admit. But if she was upset…

  “It’s not true?” He held his breath, waiting for her answer.

  Amanda speared him with an incredulous glance. “Of course not.”

  Relief washed over him, and his jaw relaxed.

  “When you spoke with him Sunday, did he say anything about this?”

  Mitch hadn’t covered much more than the basics of that conversation. In the days that followed, Amanda had been so busy packing up her father’s mobile home and moving him to a trailer park out past Boots and Spurs that they’d hardly spoken.

  “He asked if I’d convince you to give up the foolish notion of being a lawyer. I told him you were smarter than that. I guess he didn’t listen.”

  “He’s had these plastered all over town.” Amanda swiped tears from her cheeks. “I’ve been taking them down as fast as I find them.” She drew a tissue from her hip pocket and wiped her nose. “I don’t think I got them all.”

  She tossed the fliers onto the table behind the couch. Turning, she stood, her hands on her hips. “I just don’t get it. All those years, he barely knew I was alive. Now he’s trying to run my life.”

  Mitch hesitated. As much as he dreaded the possibility of losing Amanda, their relationship had to be built on honesty if it was to survive. That meant he had to tell her everything he knew.

  “When he and I talked, I got the impression your dad has regrets. He sees the family business as a way to forge a relationship with you. You saw the wad of cash he was carrying around. He says that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Mitch crushed the advertisement she’d handed him. “Sounds like he’s tired of waiting for you to decide on your own. This—” he aimed the ball toward the nearest trash can and let fly “—must be his way of pushing you in the direction he wants you to go.”

  Conflicting emotions warred across her features. Her fingers fluttered against her chest. With a soft “Oh!” she slowly sank onto his couch. “Okay, that makes sense now,” she said.

  Amanda passed a hand over her face before staring up at Mitch, her eyes filled with pain. “I went with him to the doctor’s the other day. The news wasn’t good. His prospects of ever riding again—at least to perform—are somewhere between slim and none.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “Yeah, it is.” She sighed. “After the rodeo, the Markette team became the most important thing in his life. I can see why he’d pull something like this if he thought it was the only way to keep the show going. To have me in his life. But I’m not that lonely little girl anymore. The one who’d do anything to get his attention. I’ve moved on. He should, too.”

  She stood and crossed to the farthest end of the room where she railed against her father for a minute or two before her head came up. Her jaw firmed. Determination deepened her voice. “He can find someone else to take over. Any number of performers would. Royce—you met him at the Saddle Up Stampede—he’d jump at the chance.”

  At last, she turned an imploring look his way. “He just makes me so angry. Why does he still get to me like this?”

  During his stint as a husband, Mitch’s advice or help had never been appreciated by his wife. But the woman in his living room was nothing like Karen. Amanda was strong and capable of making it on her own. It as one of the things he admired about her. Deciding that if they were going to have a life together, they had to share the good and the bad, he offered the lesson it had taken him a while to absorb after his marriage fell apart.

  “You can tell him how much it bothers you, but there’s not much else you can do. You can’t control him. Not him or anyone else, for that matter. Your reaction to him, that’s what you’re in charge of.”

  He waited, anxious to see whether or not he’d painted a target on his shirt
, or if Amanda would agree. The tightness in his chest eased as acceptance dawned in the prettiest green eyes he’d ever seen.

  “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.” The stiffness left her shoulders, her anger melting in waves. “I was planning to call the people in charge of the fair tomorrow, anyway. I’ll add this to my list. Let them know there’s been a mistake. Mandy Markette will not be in the show.” She shrugged. “I’ll talk to Dad, too. Like you said, the rest is up to him.”

  She paused, eyeing Mitch cautiously, her weight shifting from one foot to the other in a manner that told him something else was on her mind.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Did you know Karen entered Hailey in the Little Miss Cowgirl contest?”

  “She didn’t.” His stomach rolled at the idea of his daughter parading across a stage with makeup slathered on her face, her hair stiff and piled high.

  Amanda’s head tilted to one side. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?”

  “A beauty pageant for preschoolers?” Mitch couldn’t shake his head fast enough. “What on earth was Karen thinking?”

  “Oh, this isn’t anything like those programs you’ve seen on TV,” Amanda offered quickly. “It’s more like a talent contest. The kids dress up and perform, but the emphasis is on having fun. Karen sees it as a mother-daughter bonding thing more than anything else.”

  When she put it that way, Mitch could hardly object. Hailey didn’t talk about Karen often when he was around, but from the little she did say, he knew his daughter’s attitude toward her mother had changed. She no longer pitched a fit when it was time to go home after their Sunday afternoon visits. And several times, she’d mentioned a book Karen had read to her or a game they’d played. Though he would never in a million years choose this way for Hailey to get to know her mom, in the grand scheme of things, he had to admit it was a good idea that they’d grown closer.

  Imagining a parade of little girls, each butchering the latest Taylor Swift release, Mitch winced, but knew he’d smile and nod his way through it. “I suppose you’re lending her an outfit for the program?”