But today, he hadn’t bothered to shave. He wore another black T-shirt, this one with Weather Guard stamped on the front, black cargo shorts, and the same dusty running shoes from that morning. Downright slovenly by Wyatt’s standards.
Rowdy’s gaze slid down to the crutches and the Aircast. “You take a shot at that school of yours?”
“Something like that.”
Rowdy made no move to step aside and let them in, his gaze moving to Melanie.
Wyatt waved an impatient hand. “Rowdy, this is Melanie Brookman, my…”
Melanie lifted an eyebrow, curious to see how he intended to define their relationship, but he seemed to be stymied.
She stuck out her hand to Rowdy. “Marketing consultant. I’m helping him get the bar up and running. Come down after work, and we’ll buy you a beer.”
“Nice to meet you.” His eyes made no secret of measuring up her assets, and his smile was a little more than friendly. “I’ll definitely take you up on that beer.”
Wyatt made a noise that was not encouraging, and his voice chilled several degrees. “We don’t want to keep you.”
“Yeah, I’d better get back to it. I’ve got a busted sprinkler head over on the Indian Village field. Shoot me a text when you leave, and I’ll come over and lock up behind you.” Then he jumped into his golf cart and zipped off.
Wyatt made a grand gesture toward the arena. “It’s all yours.”
Melanie took a few steps toward it, then paused. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be right there.” He pointed with one of his crutches at a square blue sign on the rail at the bottom of the grandstand.
The handicapped section. She couldn’t hold back a laugh. They strolled together to the arena fence, where he made a left into the seats and she…just stared.
Green, green grass stretched for what seemed like a mile, the only turf arena in professional rodeo. The grass was ringed by a wide, banked dirt track that the Roundup had used to include a variety of races over the years, most recently the Indian Relays. The roofs of the grandstands towered high above her head, enclosing three-fourths of the perimeter, the effect both intimate and intimidating. Since 1910. Over a hundred years of rodeos had happened right here.
“Go ahead.” Wyatt propped his crutches against the rail and settled onto the bottom sky-blue wooden bench. “Walk around.”
She drew a breath, unlatched the gate, and let herself in. A part of her was braced for someone to call her out for trespassing, but there was only the sound of traffic on the street behind them and the hiss of sprinklers from beyond the north grandstand. The dirt track was like pockmarked concrete, pounded hard by winter rain, and the grass was almost ankle-high. She paused at the edge, looking around, but nothing matched the blurred images in her head.
There was no knee-high white railing surrounding the grass, or rodeo queens who came flying in and jumped their horses over it. No portable fences to create the roping chutes on the west end, with cowboys sprawled in the grass or milling around on horseback.
Not even the bright, primary-colored chute gates, the background in the photo that still graced the mantel at their ranch—two-year-old Melanie in pink cowboy boots and high ponytails, perched in the front of the Hamley’s saddle her daddy had just won as the tie-down roping champion of the vaunted Pendleton Roundup.
A saddle that had gone up in flames along with the rest of his rodeo dreams.
“Where are the gates?” she asked, frowning at the blank white bucking chutes.
“They put them in storage to preserve the paint.”
She ran her gaze around the arena one last time, taking in the stretch of shiny, new covered grandstand where once there had only been metal bleachers, then turned away. This wasn’t the Roundup. It was simply concrete, wood, and empty space, in limbo until that one week of the year when it came to life.
“How old were you the last time you were here?” he asked.
“Six. It was the year before the fire.”
The wildfire had roared across the drought-stricken Panhandle, wiping entire ranches off the map…including the Brookmans’. “Daddy was fourth in the world standings at the end of the winter rodeos, the best year he’d ever had. Then the place burned up in April, and he stayed home most of the summer helping Granddad rebuild. Everything was gone. Fences, barns, corrals, the house.”
She refused to even mention the cattle. It had been too horrible. Her grandfather had only managed to save half the horses and half the herd—the ones that were too damn mean to let a fire get the best of them, her father said.
They’d also lost the mobile home that had contained all of her family’s worldly possessions other than what they’d had with them at the rodeo in Red Bluff. God bless Iris Jacobs, clicking away with her ever-present camera, or there would be no baby pictures of Melanie.
Or of her parents when they were still the couple she’d been born to.
She heaved a sigh. “By the time he could get away again, he was too far out of the running to have a chance at making the Finals, so he didn’t even bother to enter Pendleton.”
Or any of the other rodeos at the end of the season. Or the beginning of the next. Coming on the heels of her grandmother’s passing, the fire had broken her grandfather, emotionally and physically. A bad case of smoke inhalation combined with his pack-a-day habit had damaged his lungs, triggering progressive disease, and he could no longer put in the hard days required to maintain the ranch, let alone bring it back from near dead. Johnny Brookman had had no choice but to park his rodeo rig a dozen years earlier than he had planned, slogging through the ashes while his shot at qualifying for the National Finals slipped away.
He had a right to some bitterness, but in her opinion, he’d used up his quota a long, long time ago. And her mother…
“Things have changed a lot since you were here last,” Wyatt said, thankfully veering away from the subject. “New grandstands, upgrades to the concessions and restrooms…”
“They needed it.”
He nodded, then gave his head a slight shake. “I liked it better before, when it wasn’t quite so huge. It was more personal.”
Another reference to that connection he seemed to crave. The one he hoped to make via the Bull Dancer. Their enforced proximity had accomplished that much. She knew what he wanted from the bar, and had a good idea why. The how would be another matter.
“Was this your first rodeo?” she asked.
“As a spectator? No. I went to the one in Heppner first. I was at loose ends, so I thought I’d take in some authentic western culture.” He hitched a shoulder. “By the end of the weekend, I was hooked.”
Literally, if you considered that he’d ended up as a bullfighter.
She wanted to hear more of that story, but her curiosity nudged her in a different direction. She looped one arm over the pipe railing that closed off the end of the grandstand, separating the two of them. “I thought you’d be busy entertaining your guests.”
His mouth tightened a fraction, but his shrug was offhand. “They left early.”
She studied him more closely, able to see behind his dark glasses from this angle. Violet was right to be worried. There was a near-constant tension about him, a guardedness that went beyond his innate reserve. He was strung together on nerves and Rolaids, only relaxing with visible effort. Melanie couldn’t put her finger directly on the problem, but after this morning, she suspected it had something to do with Laura.
And with herself.
Their night in the woods hadn’t helped. After all the years of treading so carefully, they’d crossed a line—and not just physically. Yes, the kiss had been exhilarating, unnerving, and most likely unforgettable. Worse, though, her brilliant questionnaire had pushed them treacherously close to what they’d never allowed themselves to be.
Friends.
She could feel him trying to retreat. If he’d known he would see her, he wouldn’t have left his preppy-boy armor at home. And it was armor. One more way he set himself apart, even as everything he said told her he craved closeness.
She’d have to give that some thought when she wasn’t so distracted by the view. This rough-edged version might not be as pretty, but it was harder to tear her eyes off him. His hair was slightly mussed, and that stubble would rasp against her palm. Or her—
“You rock the morning-after scruff pretty well for a blond.” She wasn’t making any secret of studying him, so she might as well just put it out there. “Maybe you should try going the full Jeremy Buhler.”
He gave a half laugh, rubbing a hand over his chin. “No one will ever fear this beard. And they definitely won’t mistake me for a world-champion team roper.”
“You don’t rope?”
“Not even a little bit.”
She blinked at him in amazement. There was an athletic endeavor Wyatt hadn’t conquered? “Have you tried?”
“Enough.” He shifted, stretching his arm along the back of the bench in one of those moves that appeared relaxed and confident, but signaled that he wasn’t thrilled with the direction of the conversation.
So of course she pursued it. “By not even a little bit you mean…”
“I can’t swing the loop.” His irritation came through loud and clear as he made a circling motion with his hand. “Whatever it is you do with your wrist to keep the rope from wrapping around your neck…”
“Really?” She cocked her head, honestly perplexed. “It’s not that hard.”
“Says a woman who’s been doing it since she could stand upright.”
True. But still… “Can you ride a horse?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t ride when you’re at the ranch with Joe.”
“I learned English style,” he said, as poker stiff as those hoity-toity types in their polished boots and stretchy pants. “I’m not comfortable in a western saddle.”
Yet another example of how he was not a cowboy. It obviously bothered him…so why didn’t he do something about it?
“I could teach you,” she blurted.
“To ride western?”
The image that flashed into her mind had nothing to do with horses. Yeah, darlin’, we could get western all right.
“To rope,” she clarified, for him and for her overactive imagination. When he continued to stare as if she’d suggested naked pig wrestling, she indicated his ankle. “I owe you something for that.”
He gave an even more offhand shrug. “In that case, you can teach my clinic while I rest up for the rodeo in Sisters.”
“Okay.”
His head snapped around. “I was just—”
“I know. You were kidding,” she cut in. “But I’ll do it. You talk, I’ll be your legs.”
“You can’t…”
He trailed off when she folded her arms and arched her brows at him in a silent Oh, can’t I? She knew she had him when he scowled and snatched up his crutches.
“Fine. Eight o’clock tomorrow at the practice arena.”
He hopped nimbly down the two stairs and swung off toward where they’d parked, moving so fast she almost had to break into a jog to keep up. She angled past him and out the gate as he waited in stony silence to slam it shut behind her. What was his problem? She was trying to help, and she’d made it through an entire conversation without snarking at him.
And they said women were moody.
Chapter 26
Wyatt didn’t drop by the Bull Dancer that evening.
He told himself he was resting his ankle, but the less-appealing truth was he had no desire to watch Rowdy drool on Melanie…and no doubt that the annoying little bastard would show up for the beer she’d offered. The way he’d looked at her that afternoon made Wyatt wish he’d let Joe kick the crap out of Rowdy that night in Redmond, back when he’d been a continual pain in their asses inside the arena.
Of course, Louie had made a point of calling to give him a detailed report. He was like a damn cat, always knowing exactly how to get under Wyatt’s skin and enjoying every minute. He went on about how Melanie had charmed Rowdy and the friend he’d brought along so much they’d stayed for a second round. Then Gordon had strolled in with a couple of his cronies, and she’d won their hearts by ordering out for fried chicken with the works.
“We’ve even got a table full of tourists who wandered in and stayed ’cuz everybody was havin’ such a good time. This is more people than have been in this place since you bought it.”
And Melanie wasn’t even trying yet. She was like Joe. All she had to do was show up.
Wyatt tamped down the surge of envy, declined the invitation to join the fun, and hobbled to bed before the sun fully set. Dealing with Laura on the heels of a sleepless night was bad enough, but then he’d had to not only explain the impromptu sleepover to Grace, but confess that Laura and Julianne had come to town without warning…and why.
He had to keep secrets about Grace, but he categorically refused to keep them from her.
She’d sat on his deck, staring down at the Roundup grounds ten blocks below. “I don’t trust them.”
“I don’t blame you.” He was pretty damn uneasy himself. Laura was impulsive, stubborn, and extremely good at conjuring up reasons why her needs should take precedence, and today he’d lost some of the faith he’d had in Julianne’s ability to resist her.
Grace’s fingers curled around the arms of her wicker chair. “Can I trust you?”
“When it comes to Laura?”
Grace’s shrug said, Among others.
“I made you a promise, Grace. I don’t break my promises.”
She stared for a few moments longer, then nodded and pushed to her feet. “She’s never been good for you, you know.”
“Melanie?”
“Laura.” For the first time since the conversation began, Grace looked directly at him with a tired, sad little smile. “Thanks to me, Melanie is impossible.”
* * *
If anything, he was in even worse shape on Saturday morning. His ankle had stiffened up overnight, and his red-rimmed eyes bore testament to a shitty night’s sleep despite his exhaustion. He scooped handfuls of cold water and splashed them over his face and hair, which was standing on end, thanks to the stupid natural curl. That, at least, would be taken care of next Tuesday with his regularly scheduled appointment with his stylist.
He picked up a razor, weighed it in his hand, then tossed it down again. He was worn so thin that it would be like dragging the blade over fresh road rash. Maybe the beard would help disguise that fact that he looked like hell, felt worse, and couldn’t work up an ounce of give-a-shit. And if he didn’t get his butt in gear, he was going to be late for his own class.
He grabbed a pair of jeans from the drawer reserved for work clothes and the black T-shirt from the day before off a chair. A glance in the hall mirror had him grabbing a Cubs cap off a hook in the mudroom and mashing it down over the hair that had sprung right back up again.
Despite his lack of grooming, Wyatt was the last to arrive at the practice arena, parking between Melanie’s SUV and the crappy minivan he’d bought for students who didn’t own a vehicle. The horses had been fed, and Melanie had set out a hay bale and was roping one end as if it were a calf’s head. Scotty and Philip lounged in the shade, watching.
When Wyatt emerged from his car, cap tugged low over mirrored sunglasses, and fished out his crutches, Scotty gave a low whistle. “Holy shit, man. What happened to you?”
“I fell in a hole.” He ignored Melanie’s snort as he looked around. “Where’s Dante?”
Scotty hitched a shoulder. “Some of his Pasco buddies stopped by last night, and he took off with them.”
Oh hell. Wyatt knew exac
tly what kind of buddies Dante had in Pasco. “Did he take his stuff?”
“No.”
Wyatt inclined his head. “Grab a couple of boxes, pack what’s left, and give it to Louie. Dante can stop by the bar to pick it up.”
Scotty and Philip exchanged a quick glance before nodding.
Melanie stopped in the middle of coiling her rope to gape at him. “That’s it? One mistake and he’s out? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think?”
“No.” Even though it tore at his gut, knowing how fast and hard Dante could fall when Wyatt cut him loose.
She shook her head, her mouth tightening. “I always thought you were bluffing when you told Hank you’d blackball him if he screwed up again.”
Always? Even when she’d raged at him and about him? His heart bumped, and if he’d had more than one good leg, he would have kicked himself. Geezus, he was dense where she was concerned. With Hank seemingly on a mission to get himself fired, Wyatt had set himself up as a target for Melanie’s wrath, to deflect it away from Joe and the Jacobs family. Did he really think she wasn’t smart enough to see what he was doing?
Or willing to use him as a sacrificial goat if it saved her relationship with the others?
And now Scotty and Philip were eyeing him, their ever-present distrust rising to the surface. Had they misjudged him? Would he give them the ax for the slightest misstep?
“Dante isn’t Hank.” Wyatt gestured toward the arena. “When Wild Woman got you down, Scotty and Philip jumped in without thinking twice. Dante stood and watched.”
Understanding dawned, clearing her face. “You would’ve had to chain Hank to the fence to hold him back.”
“Exactly.”
She cocked her head, studying him for a beat, then nodded as if something had been settled to her satisfaction. With a few expert flips of her wrist, she finished coiling the rope and tossed it on the bale. “So what’s the plan today, boss?”
With Grace off at a rodeo and Wyatt waddling around on crutches, he went back to the wheelbarrow dummy to avoid any injuries. Today, though, he dialed it up a notch, having Melanie and the two men take turns working as pairs, learning to coordinate their movements so they would be in the best possible position to rescue not only the rider, but each other.
Fearless in Texas Page 19