The Cowboy’s Daughter

by Jamie K. Schmidt

  The boy joined him by the fence. “He looks mean.”

  “He is,” Trent said. “What’s your name?”

  “Michael.”

  “Nice to meet you, Michael. I’m Trent.”

  “I know who you are. You’re my dad.”

  “What?” Trent turned his back on the bull for that. He stared down at the boy, trying to find some resemblance. Was that his nose? His chin?

  A camera flashed and Trent looked up to see Lana taking a picture. He racked his brain trying to remember her, but he couldn’t. Sure, she looked familiar. “How old are you?”

  “Ten.”

  Ten years ago, he had been twenty-one. Squinting at Lana, he remembered his birthday party in Brazil. There was a reporter there. He had slept with her. Had it been Lana? He stared at her as she talked with Billy. Maybe. Probably. Let’s face it, if she’d been willing, he’d have done it. “I didn’t know,” Trent whispered. “Why didn’t your mother tell me?”

  “She said you didn’t want me.”

  Trent whipped his head back to the child. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lana raise her camera again, but Enrique waylaid her. Steering her by the arm toward the bull, Enrique turned her focus to Corazon del Diablo.

  “That’s not true,” Trent said.

  “I didn’t think so,” Michael said. “She told me not to say anything, but I knew she was wrong.”

  Trent clamped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I don’t know why I wasn’t told, but I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

  “I want to be a bull rider, like you. Will you teach me?”

  “Of course…son. Of course.” He racked his brain trying to remember that night. He must have used a condom. But what if he hadn’t? The private investigator Billy hired hadn’t mentioned a Lana Kirkland. He should get him on the case, but he was all thumbs as he fumbled to text.

  “Trent, get over here,” Enrique said.

  Fuck it. He’d do it later. He jammed his phone into his pocket and stalked over to Lana. “It’s nice to see you again, Trent,” she said.

  “It’s been a while,” he said guardedly. “Cancun?”

  “Rio de Janeiro.”

  Shit. He nodded. “Right.”

  There was an awkward pause and then Enrique butted in. “We don’t have all day. Here, Trent. Get in there and let’s get going.”

  “Get in there with him? Why? So he can chase me around?”

  “He could care less until you try and get him in the chute.”

  Trent eyeballed the bull and then his owner. “Uh-huh.”

  But in the end, he went in. He wanted a closer look at the bull that had taken him out. Without the crowd cheering and jeering and the activity of the bull riders, Corazon del Diablo was content to meander around the pen, not paying Trent a damn bit of attention. As he approached the bull, Trent wondered what he’d do if the son of a bitch decided to charge. He eyed the distance to the sides of the paddock and figured he’d have a decent chance to make it.

  Trent didn’t remember the details of the pictures. He posed with his archrival and felt only numbness. He was still reeling about Michael’s revelation. Trent had a son. And a daughter. How the hell was he going to support two kids when he wasn’t pulling in PBR money anymore?

  It was one thing to take a business risk when it was just him and Billy to worry about. Now, he had deeper responsibilities. Maybe even child support.

  “Okay,” Lana called. “Fold your arms and scowl at the bull.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Play along,” Billy called. “I like where she’s going with this.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath.

  The bull snorted as if to agree with him.

  “We’re both pretty much out to pasture, aren’t we?” Trent said to the bull. “At least you get to go out a winner.”

  Squinting back at Michael, who was leaning on the paddock, Trent wondered if Michael saw a washed-up cowboy. Alissa was too young to remember his career, but Michael had probably followed him for a bit, before it ended. Before this bull ended it.

  “Good,” Lana called.

  “We’re just actors on the stage,” Trent said, thinking back on the Shakespeare he’d practiced in rehab. “You have your part to play, and I have mine.” He looked down at the bull. “You don’t even know who I am. I bet you never even thought of me once you left the arena that night.” He risked putting his hand on the bull’s shoulder.

  It shook him off with a threatening toss of his head, but didn’t do anything more aggressive.

  “You’re not going to haunt me any longer.”

  Surprisingly enough, the bull didn’t give a damn about being photographed as Lana called out other shots that she wanted to take. And true to Enrique’s word, it was only when they wanted to put him in the chute that Corazon del Diablo started acting up. He had to jump away to avoid being kicked. “Back up,” he told Michael, making sure the boy was standing in the studio platform above the pen, looking down into it. He didn’t want Corazon del Diablo to think Michael was a rider about to hop on his back.

  “One million dollars,” Enrique called out. “You scared?”

  Lana was furiously writing everything down. She barely looked up from her notepad. She had a recorder going, too.

  “Your bull outweighs me by a good eighteen hundred pounds and bucks like the devil he’s named after. Only an idiot wouldn’t be cautious. But scared?” Trent shook his head, avoiding Billy and Enrique as they used ropes to get the bull into the chute. “I’m not eighteen anymore. My job isn’t to ride Corazon del Diablo. It’s to teach other riders how to stay on for eight seconds and get off without being hurt.”

  “Well, you know what they say,” Enrique quipped. “Those who can’t do, teach.”

  Trent resisted the urge to give him the finger. “Is that million dollars burning a hole in your pocket so badly that you’re trying to trash-talk me into riding your bull again?”

  “I’m dreaming of the money we’d make in Madison Square Garden.”

  “Well, keep dreaming,” Billy said. “My boy is retired.”

  One million dollars. That would pay a lot of child support. And let him get one more chance to end his career on a high note. On a winning note. When the bull wouldn’t settle down, they gave up and let him wander the pasture. They took the photo shoot inside, so Lana could get some interior shots of the school. He put Michael on the training machine and gave him a quick lesson.

  He had always wanted children, and now he had two of them. The timing was weird, though. Why hadn’t Lana told him about Michael years ago? She obviously knew how to find him. Billy must have scared her off as well. Trent sent off the text to the private investigator to see what he could turn up. It was probably going to have to come down to the DNA testing. “I’m thinking of hanging up Corazon del Diablo’s harness. It would be a nice last ride for both of you.”

  “It would have been,” Trent agreed, reluctantly. But he wasn’t eighteen anymore. Or even thirty. He ached when he walked and his leg would never be the same. He owed it to Alissa and Michael to be thankful he could still walk. Trent couldn’t run his school from a wheelchair. “I’ve got nothing but respect for your bull.” It was true, too. He shook Enrique’s hand.

  Kelly and Alissa walked in. “Is that who I think it is out in the paddock?”

  “Yes, and for God’s sake keep holding Alissa’s hand.” Oh hell, how was he going to tell Kelly about Michael? Would she hate him? Especially since he was going to ask for both children to have DNA tests. He didn’t want any surprises. However, he would believe that they were both his kids until proven otherwise by lab results.

  Billy’s head whipped up and his eyes narrowed on Kelly and Alissa. Kelly glared back, her distaste for him apparent in every line of her body.

  “I want to see the bull.” Alissa tugged on Kelly’s hand.

  “From outside the paddock. Far away,” Trent said.

  “I’ll make
sure they’re all right,” Billy said, walking toward them.

  “Billy,” Trent warned.

  “Thank you, Mr. King. That would be very nice of you,” Kelly said with a vicious sweetness in her voice. Trent shrugged. Billy deserved whatever was about to come down on his head.

  “Are we done with pictures, Miss Kirkland?” Enrique asked after Billy, Kelly, and Alissa had moved away.

  “Yes, sir. I’ll send them out to you as soon as I’ve gone over them.”

  “Excellent. Trent, if you change your mind, you know how to reach me. Give me a hand getting him back in the trailer?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Michael, why don’t you go help too?” Lana said.

  “Okay.” Michael scurried outside.

  “You stay clear of where I tell you,” Trent said. Just because he and the bull had come to their own peace while taking pictures, that didn’t mean he trusted the son of a bitch.

  One million dollars to do something he’d do for free.

  Trent shook his head. No. He had to be smart.

  One million dollars would pay for his kids’ college, and would probably cover any medical expenses he’d incur. One million dollars for eight seconds or less. That would set him up nicely. He might even be able to buy the Three Sisters Ranch outright with a large down payment. Kelly wouldn’t have to worry about her father tossing her out ever again.

  Corazon del Diablo trotted back up into the trailer, docile as a lamb—a two-thousand-pound lamb. Trent let out a breath when Enrique jumped up into the driver’s seat. He approached him while the others went back into the studio.

  “One million dollars if I agree to ride him again?” Trent asked as casually as he could.

  “One million dollars if you sit on top of him in the chute in front of the arena I book.”

  “What if I don’t stay on for the eight seconds?”

  “One million dollars.”

  “What if I do?”

  “One million dollars.”

  “One million dollars for getting on him. I want three million if I stay on him for eight seconds.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money.”

  Trent patted the truck’s door. “Take up a collection.”

  Squaring his shoulders, he walked back into the studio. Trent wasn’t sure what he should expect, but Billy had set up the kids watching television and he was in his office with the two women. Trent considered chasing after Enrique. Suddenly, riding Corazon del Diablo didn’t seem as daunting as walking into that office with the mothers of his two children.

  In the fell clutch of circumstance

  I have not winced nor cried aloud.

  Under the bludgeonings of chance

  My head is bloody, but unbowed.

  The wisp of poetry whispered across his brain.

  Trent walked in and closed the door to the office behind him, so the children couldn’t hear them. He could still see them watching television through the window, and a pang of longing went through him. Those were his kids. He had lost so much time. They had lost so much time, not knowing they each had a half sibling. He should have been more careful. This was all his fault.

  He should have expected his carousing ways to come back to bite him on the ass someday. But he never, in a million years, thought that kids’ lives would have been affected by it. He was damn sure going to make it up to them every day for the rest of his life. Riding Corazon del Diablo was just the start of what he was willing to do for them.

  “I’ve been having an interesting conversation with Miss Sullivan and Miss Kirkland,” Billy said.

  Trent looked down, but Kelly was refusing to look at him. Her fists were clenched and her jaw was tight. Lana was staring up at him fearfully. He sighed and hitched a hip on his desk. “Let me guess. You asked Kelly for a cheek swab from Alissa for a DNA paternity test and Lana overheard and said that Michael was my son.”

  “What?” Billy snapped.

  “What?” Kelly’s head whipped up.

  Oh shit.

  “What were you guys talking about?” he asked hoarsely.

  “That you were a damned fool if you were thinking of riding Corazon del Diablo again.”

  Fuck a duck.

  “Excuse me,” Kelly shot to her feet and bolted outside.

  “Son of a bitch,” he sighed, watching Kelly fetch Alissa. She almost had to drag the little girl out, kicking and screaming. He gave his daughter a wave.

  “Boy, you have all the tact of Mexican fighting bull,” Billy said.

  “Apparently.”

  Lana rose up on shaky legs. “You knew Michael was your son? All these years and you never said a word? I had given you the benefit of the doubt. I thought he stonewalled me and kept the information from you.” She pointed at Billy. “I figured, though, he did it under your orders. But there was a part of me that thought if you knew you had a son, you would have tried to see him once in ten years.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Michael told me an hour ago, as we were looking at the bull.”

  “Oh.” She sank back down into her chair. “Well, what do we do now?”

  “Before we do anything, we swab Michael’s cheek and Trent’s cheek and wait for the results,” Billy said. “We might as well do Alissa’s too, since you mentioned it. I’ll go get the kits if Miss Kirkland would be so kind as to drive me back to the Bluebonnet Inn.”

  “Sure.” Lana stood up again. “I actually would like to interview you about the school, Trent. But it can wait.” She opened the office door. “Michael, come on. We’re leaving.”

  “Trent is going to teach me how to ride,” he said, smiling wide.

  “That’s great.” She glanced back at Trent and lowered her voice. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t how I planned it to go.”

  “How did you plan it?”

  “Over time. The interview would take several sessions where you could see him and get to know him and then, at the last one, he’d be with my mother and I would have told you that you were his father.”

  “I wish you’d told me ten years ago.”

  “I tried.”

  Trent nodded. “Billy didn’t make it easy for anyone to get close to me, but you had my number, didn’t you?”

  She shook her head. “We didn’t get that far. It wasn’t meant to last more than one crazy night in Rio.”

  “Has he been…has he had a good life, growing up without a father?” Trent asked the question that he feared the answer to the most.

  “The best,” Lana said. “He’s been smothered with love since the day he was born.”

  Trent blinked back the emotion flooding through him. “Good. That’s good.”

  She touched his arm. “I’ve always told him the truth about you. He knew about your accident and when he found out you were making an appearance in Last Stand’s rodeo, he begged me to go. I should have known he would find a way to tell you before I did.”

  “Mom, come on,” Michael called from the doorway.

  Laughing shakily, Lana nodded and tossed Michael the keys. “I’ll be right there. Get in the car and turn on the air conditioner.”

  “What do you want from me?” Trent asked.

  “Nothing you’re not willing to give. But if you don’t want anything to do with Michael, please let him down easy.”

  “If he is my son, I want to be a part of his life.”

  “Are you married?” she asked.

  “Girlfriend. Kelly. The one who ran out of here.”

  Lana winced. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was my big mouth that caused this. I’ll find a way to smooth it over. Somehow,” he said, bleakly.

  “Let me know if I can do anything to help.” Lana stood up on her tiptoes and gave him a quick kiss. “And stay off that damned bull.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The paternity test results hadn’t come back yet, but Kelly wasn’t worried. Not about Alissa anyway. She was worried about Lana and Michael. Each time she went to see Trent, he was out
somewhere.

  Sure, he asked Kelly to stay while Lana continued with the alleged interview she was doing. Lana was giving Trent what he wanted—time with his child. It was what Kelly should have been doing. Luckily, she had more than enough work to do to keep her occupied.

  Her baby sister, Emily, had finally breezed in one morning during breakfast and was currently the focus of her father’s attention, thankfully. Emily had another idea to help put the farm into the black. Her newest obsession was wind turbines and she was pressuring him to buy ten of them. According to her, that could bring in eighty thousand dollars a year for the next thirty-five years. Her father was skeptical, but Emily was going to drown him in case studies until he capitulated. Of course, it wasn’t that simple. They had to find a developer to come in and see if they even had the wind speeds coming through the land to make it a viable option. But when Emily was on fire, you either went with it or waited until something else caught her attention.

  Kelly and Janice were out in the southern part of the ranch every day with the Sykes Construction crew, building the retreat cabin and formulating plans. The crew had even been nice enough to put her cheap gazebo and pavilion together.

  Today, Emily had joined them in painting the gazebo and pavilion white. Aunt Candace’s bride was flying in at the end of the week on her private jet to take a look at the place. Kelly wanted everything set up and ready to impress her.

  Emily wanted to finish the job quickly so they could ride around the ranch in the truck, looking for possible areas to start a wind farm. Kelly didn’t know how she thought they could afford the turbines, but maybe her time with the Peace Corps had given her some contacts with environmental grants.

  While they worked, Kelly decided that now was as good a time as any to tell them about Trent. She wasn’t sure how to start, but luckily Janice asked one of her nosy questions.

  “Why haven’t we seen Trent around lately? Did you two have a fight?”

  “Not exactly.” Kelly put down her brush. “I’ve wanted to tell you guys this for a long time, but I just couldn’t. Now that we’re all here, I’m telling you two first.”