The Bull Rider’s Return

by Joan Kilby

  Andrew helped Cody remove the sling and ordered him to strip down to the waist. Then he examined the shoulder joint and tested the range of movement in Cody’s arm. “It’s healing nicely. The good news is, you don’t have to wear this sling anymore.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Cody said fervently. “When can I get back on the circuit?”

  “Ah, now we come to the bad news. Get dressed and we’ll talk.” Simmons went to his desk. When Cody still sat on the examining table, he looked up from writing his notes. “Do you need help?”

  “No.” Cody slowly put back on his shirt. Bad news? What could it be, and how bad? Getting rid of the tight strapping was a huge relief. Tentatively he moved his arm from side to side. Still a bit stiff but it worked. He could button his shirt all by himself. Gold star for Cody.

  He sat next to Andrew Simmons’s desk and waited until the doctor looked up. “Well?”

  “Your shoulder is healing but it’s been weakened by the injury. You’re going to need physical therapy and exercises to get it back into the sort of shape where you can compete in rodeos again.”

  Cody’s hands curled into fists on his thighs. “How long?”

  “Four months minimum,” Andrew said briskly. “Otherwise you risk dislocating your shoulder again and permanently damaging the joint. If that happens, you’ll be out for good.”

  The news was like a punch to the gut. Four months.

  He would miss national rodeo in December, the culmination of the year’s work. His win at Copper Mountain had made him a contender for top bull rider in Montana and had earned him a personal best in terms of points and prize money. Now, his goals and ambitions, along with his plans for the rest of the year, were in the toilet.

  If he’d thought he was down in the dumps right after the accident that was nothing compared to how he felt now. Somehow he’d been telling himself that he was special and it wouldn’t take him four months to heal like mere mortals. The stern talking-to from the doctor today had knocked him off that fantasy cloud.

  But never riding rodeo again was too awful to contemplate. He knew he would quit eventually but he wanted it to be when he decided to go, and on his own terms. He wasn’t ready for the next stage of his life, not by a long shot.

  Andrew Simmons removed his glasses and sat back in his chair. “Cody, I’ve known you since you were a boy. I know your tendency to take risks. God knows, I’ve patched you up enough times over the years. Mark my words, if you don’t follow my orders you’ll end up losing your beloved rodeo. I’m sure you don’t want that.”

  “No, I don’t.” Cody rose, still numb from the news. “Can I drive at least?”

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “Just don’t do anything to strain that joint. No heavy lifting, no hard pulls, nothing.”

  When Cody got to the parking lot Garret was waiting in his silver Toyota Hilux, the very truck that Cody wanted to buy.

  “How did it go?” Garret said, starting the engine.

  “I’ve got the sling off and the all clear to drive.”

  “Excellent,” Garret said. “In that case, would you mind if I didn’t go out to the ranch with you? You can take my truck. I need to do some things here in town to get ready for my next tour.”

  “No problem.”

  After a quick burger at the diner, Cody dropped Garret back at the travel agency where he rented a desk and a phone line and headed in the direction of Missoula and the ranch. That foreman’s job was starting to look pretty damn good, after all. He wouldn’t be up to full speed for a few weeks but as long as he didn’t ride any bulls he could give his shoulder a rest.

  Ben Johnson’s truck was outside the cow barn. Cody parked next to it and went into the dim interior where Ben was overseeing the scrub-out of the birthing stalls in preparation for the next round of calving. When he saw Cody in the open double doorway, he walked over. The two men went back outside.

  In a few terse sentences, Cody explained the situation with his shoulder. He didn’t mention the foreman’s job. After turning it down twice already, he would need to ease into saying he was ready to accept the position.

  “I’m glad it wasn’t worse,” Ben said. “I’ve seen cowboys break their collarbones in the same situation. Still, it’s a serious injury. You take some sick time and let your shoulder heal. Your job will be waiting for you.”

  “Appreciate that,” Cody said. “I should be back in a couple of weeks. Driving’s not a problem. Just need to strengthen the muscles. Nothing like work to do that.” He paused, pressing damp palms against his jeans. “I’ve been thinking…”

  “This is Tod’s last week,” Ben said abruptly, referring to the foreman. He scanned the yard, not meeting Cody’s gaze. “I hired a guy from Colorado to fill the position. He has a lot of experience. Not as much as you but he came with great references.”

  So. It was all done and dusted.

  “Right. Well, I’m sure he’ll be great.” Cody released his breath, nodding. “I’d best be going. I’ll be in touch.”

  “You do that,” Ben said. “Take care now.”

  Served him right, Cody thought as he drove back to Sweetheart. Served him damn right. The saying was true: you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.

  “The good news is, I don’t have to wear the sling anymore.” Cody threw his hat on the kitchen counter when he got home an hour later. “And I can drive.”

  “That’s wonderful.” Kelly looked up from peeling potatoes. Her hair was caught in a messy bun on top of her head and curling blonde tendrils hung beside her cheeks—pink from the heat of the stove. “What’s the bad news?”

  “I’m off the circuit for the rest of the year.” The aroma of frying onions drew him closer. He kissed Kelly on the back of her neck. He enjoyed distracting her but even more than that, he needed to distract himself. He didn’t want to think about the hell his life was going to be in the coming months.

  At least he had Kelly and Ricky to cheer him up. Speaking of the kid… “Where’s Ricky?”

  “Upstairs, making cookies with your mother.” Kelly put the peeler down and turned to slide her arms around his waist as if knowing instinctively that he needed her. “When does rodeo start up again in the new year?”

  “April.” Grimly, he added, “Six whole months away.”

  Saying it aloud made it horribly real. The implications were slowly sinking in. Easing out of Kelly’s arms, he crossed the open-plan living area to stare out the window at the backyard. The leaves on the big maple were turning brown and already some of the branches were bare.

  Kelly came up beside him and rubbed his back. “The time will go fast.”

  “You think?” Already the days crawled at a snail’s pace.

  He tried to focus on the positives. He had a job he could go back to and he was grateful to Ben for not giving him the heave-ho. Without the sling to hamper him he could finish that rawhide bridle he’d been working on and help out more in the orchard. Take Ricky fishing. Do his share of the chores, including making meals. Although maybe not all. Kelly was a more adventurous cook, always making something new and delicious.

  Counting his blessings only got him so far. His mind kept slipping back to the negatives. He’d finally gotten to the point where he could live off his rodeo earnings. Now, for the foreseeable future he was no longer a rough rider on the rodeo circuit. He’d had the opportunity to get a better job and he’d thrown it away. On a more trivial but still significant note, his bad-boy persona had been blown wide open with public knowledge of his gift to Ricky.

  He didn’t know who he was anymore. And that made him feel like half a man.

  In the kitchen Kelly had put potatoes on to boil and was now frying thin strips of beef with the onions. Cody went to the fridge for a beer and offered her one. She shook her head. The silence felt oppressive, his mood bringing her down as well as himself.

  “I’m going to enroll Ricky in first grade,” Kelly said finally. “He’ll be starting a few weeks late but I ha
d a talk to the teacher and she thought it would be fine.”

  “Here in Sweetheart?” Cody asked. He didn’t know what he’d do if she said she was leaving town.

  Kelly nodded. “I’ll take a quick trip back to Reno to pick up my belongings. I’ve already called my landlord to give notice. The apartment there was furnished so I can fit everything into my car.”

  “Then your move here is permanent?” An unexpected flush of excitement ran through him.

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “Sure, it’s great.”

  She gave him a hard, searching look that he couldn’t figure out. “I had a chat with your father about apartment rentals. He came up with a list that I’ll look at tomorrow. It’s good timing. The end of the month is coming up and there are a couple of places still vacant. I could be out of your hair as early as next week.”

  “You’ve been busy.” Just as suddenly as he’d gotten excited, he deflated. She was leaving his home. She hadn’t talked any of this over with him before she’d gone ahead and made her decisions.

  Well, why would she? It wasn’t like he had a say in what she did. If they were married or living together that would be different. Marriage. The idea was so alien to his self-image he couldn’t even fathom it. What would Kelly want with a no-account rodeo rider who couldn’t even do his job?

  Now that he was out of the sling and his arm was getting better, there was no reason for her to be here. Other than they got along like a house on fire, had amazing sex, and supported each other. He liked her, dammit. She’d become a friend as well as a lover. But their arrangement was only ever intended to be temporary. They’d both agreed that was what they wanted. So why did he feel so…let down?

  “It all just kind of fell into place,” Kelly explained. “Your father dropped in to the diner the other afternoon for coffee and we got to talking. Skye mentioned her son was excited about starting second grade this year. That got me thinking. I’ve wanted to get out of Reno for a long time. I’ve got a job here. Why shouldn’t we stay and Ricky can start school?”

  “There’s no rush for you to move out,” Cody said casually. “With both of us paying rent here, two can live cheaper than one. Or three in our case.”

  She gave him another long, unreadable glance. He felt the back of his neck heat. Real romantic, Starr. If you don’t want her to go, just say so. But a big lump was clogging his throat and he couldn’t speak.

  If only he was Garret, who had a silver tongue; or Will, who managed the orchard and oversaw dozens of employees. Or even his half-brother Alex who’d been a big-shot marketing guy in Seattle before he settled in Sweetheart to marry their neighbor Emma and start his own business. They were men of substance with something to offer a woman. But no, he was Cody, the screw-up kid who always got into trouble, who didn’t have a normal career path. Who let people down when it was most important.

  If he’d known that the weekend in Marietta had been his peak he might have enjoyed the positive attention more. Now he was yesterday’s news.

  Ricky came bursting through the door like a mini-tornado, higher than a kite. The skin around his mouth was dotted with sugar crystals and he had cookie dough smeared on his T-shirt. “We made sugar cookies in the shape of dinosaurs. T. rex and brontosaurus and, and… Look!” He held up a bag of half a dozen cookies. “Linda gave me some to take home.”

  “That’s nice. Now give me those before you completely ruin your dinner.” Kelly took the bag from Ricky’s sticky hand. “Go wash up.”

  Cody threw Kelly an apologetic glance. He knew how she felt about Ricky eating healthily. “Mom’s frustrated because her other grandchildren are still too young to help bake cookies.” He blinked. “I meant, her grandchildren because of course Ricky’s not—”

  “I know what you meant.” Kelly put the cookies in the cupboard as Ricky ran out of the room. She was quiet for a moment as she put the finishing touches on the meal. Finally she spoke. “It’s best if Ricky and I found our own place.”

  She sounded final. The moment had passed when Cody could have objected, could have tried to change her mind and convinced her that he was worth staying for despite the cramped suite in his parents’ home, the limited income, the uncertain future.

  Dinner was a silent affair. Cody was lost in his own gloomy thoughts. Ricky had come down from his sugar high and was fractious. Kelly was thinking God knows what. The beef stroganoff she’d made was delicious and she’d even served it with mashed potatoes instead of noodles because she knew he preferred them. He complimented her on the meal and laughed at Ricky’s knock knock joke. But his laughter was hollow. He’d never been one to feel sorry for himself. He’d always found a way to make the best of a bad situation. But he couldn’t seem to snap out of his funk.

  “Okay, buster, into the bath with you,” Kelly said to Ricky right after dinner. “You’ve got school tomorrow.”

  Ricky jumped up and began running around. “I’m going to school. I’m going to school.”

  “So soon?” Cody asked, startled at the news. When she’d talked about it earlier he hadn’t realized she’d arranged for it to happen right away. “I thought I’d take Ricky out on the lake tomorrow.”

  “The sooner the better,” Kelly said, a touch exasperated. “He’s already missed the first three weeks.” She carried the dirty dishes to the sink and then went to check on Ricky.

  Cody doggedly rinsed and stacked the dishwasher then filled the sink and washed the pots. After Kelly had put Ricky to bed she put on the kettle for the herbal tea she drank in the evening. When it was steeped and the counters wiped down, she carried their cups to the sofa and patted the cushion next to her.

  “Sit down,” she said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  “Do you have to ask?” he replied, hearing the bitterness in his voice and hating that he was imposing his troubles on her.

  “You’re only missing a few months of the circuit,” she said calmly. “By the time rodeo resumes next year you’ll be fighting fit.”

  “It’s more than just missing a few rodeos. It’s points and prize money and…” He sat down and leaned forward, elbows on knees, fingers knotted together. “Talking to the doctor today made it sink in that my rodeo days might be over a lot sooner than I expected.”

  “Might is the key word in that sentence,” she said. “Get your strength back and be careful and you could have a long career.”

  “You can only be so careful in rough riding,” he said. “The doc said that my shoulder will be more prone to being dislocated in the future. A fall that wouldn’t have hurt me in the past might now be enough to pop it out again.”

  “I see.” She thought about that. “You need a Plan B.”

  Cody leaned back. “I can think up Plan B, C and D till the cows come home. But they would all be second best. I don’t have a lot going for me. I dropped out of high school. I don’t have a trade qualification. I lost the shot at the foreman’s job, which I didn’t even want until it was out of reach. My brothers are light years ahead of me in accomplishments—”

  “Whoa! Enough with the pity party.” Kelly swiveled to face him. “Is that what this is about, keeping up with your older brothers?”

  “No,” he said automatically. Then he saw by her expression that he’d replied too quickly. She was on to him.

  “Do you think they give a damn what you do for a living?” she demanded. “You’re lucky you’ve got siblings. I’m an only child. I’d give anything to have the family that you have.”

  “I’m the black sheep.”

  “You’re the doted-on youngest child.”

  “I’m the screw-up.”

  “You’re the cutie who gets away with murder because he’s so charming. I bet your brothers are jealous of you.”

  Cody laughed. “Yeah, right.”

  “Yes, right,” she insisted. “I’ve sat around your dinner table. When you open your mouth everyone stops talking to listen. Your mother adores you, your father is indulgent and
your brothers are protective even though you need protection like a rattlesnake needs a handgun. You act tougher than the others but at the same time, you’re more vulnerable. That’s why they all rally round you.”

  “You haven’t met my grandfather, Nate, yet. He’s the patriarch of the family. He doesn’t approve of a Starr doing rodeo or dropping out of school or having minor brushes with the law.”

  “Is that why you do what you do, to rebel?”

  Cody was silent. She’d hit close to the bone, he had to admit. If he couldn’t live up to family expectations he might as well enjoy the high life. But it didn’t make him feel good about himself. “I like doing what I do,” he blustered. “If I could do it over, I’d have stayed in school but everything else, it’s fine.”

  “You say that but I think you do have a problem.”

  “What’s that?” he asked, warily. What else was she going to say about him? Aside from the rebel thing, so far he hadn’t been overwhelmed by the accuracy of her assessment of his character.

  “You’re too hard on yourself. You need to lighten up.” She paused. “If you’re still beating yourself up over your high school sweetheart then you should call her and talk about it.”

  Cody jutted out his jaw and stubbornly said nothing. Tegan was in the past. He just wanted to forget and move on.

  “Are you afraid?” Kelly demanded.

  “Cowboys aren’t afraid of anything,” he scoffed, although he didn’t feel especially brave in the face of her relentless questioning.

  “Don’t give me that. Everybody’s afraid of something.”

  “What are you afraid of?” he demanded, to get the spotlight off of himself.

  Something flickered in her eyes and then it vanished. “We’re talking about you, not me.” She tapped a finger on his knee. “If you don’t address your issues with Tegan they’ll haunt you forever.”

  “You’re wrong.” Cody got to his feet. “Sure I feel bad about what happened but I’m getting on with my life.” His words were possibly more heated than was warranted but he couldn’t stop. “Yes, I’ve been down this afternoon because the prognosis has been a shock. I’ll get back to rodeo and do even better than before. Meantime I’ve got my rawhiding and I’ll go back to work at the ranch. And…and… It’s not like I’m sitting around, paralyzed and unable to act. If anything, I’m fired up, ready to prove to the world that this shoulder isn’t going to keep me down.”