“He probably had a bet going with the photographer over how many buttons they’d get me to unbutton before I said stop.” Suddenly remembering her state of undress, Suze pulled the front of the shirt closed with her fist.
“You know this?” Marta sounded shocked.
“No.” Suze stared down at her boot tips. “It’s probably not true.”
Somehow, her rage flew out with the words, and she was left feeling as unsteady and deflated as one of those waving balloon men they put in front of car dealerships. Those things waved their arms around, all riled up, but they flopped down dead if anybody turned the air compressor off. She felt as if her anger was the compressor, and if she gave way to the tears rising behind her eyes, she’d lose all the backbone she’d ever had and flop on the floor, utterly deflated.
“It’s not just about today.” She leaned into Marta’s warmth. The woman smelled like roses and powder—like a mother. “I fell for him when I was sixteen, but he wasn’t interested. And then, just when I started to get over him, he—we—you know.”
“You spent the night together.”
Marta didn’t seem the least bit shocked.
“I woke up the next morning and he was still there, sleeping with my dog. I mean, he was cuddling it, you know? It was the sweetest thing. I thought he was going to stay. It surprised me, but I thought he really cared, because he spent the night.”
“Why did that surprise you?” Marta asked. “Of course he cares. He would be lucky to have you.”
“Trust me, I’m not his type. And he proved it by running off the next morning, just as quick as he could.”
Suze thought back to that morning and remembered him standing in the doorway of the bathroom, hanging on to the door frame. What had he said? She couldn’t remember. But he’d been gone before she knew what had hit her.
“Why don’t you tell him how you feel?” Marta asked. “It could be a misunderstanding. My husband and I, we have learned to talk of hard things.”
Suze wanted to simultaneously giggle at Marta’s phrasing and sob at the news she was already married, but she simply shook her head. “It’s not a misunderstanding. I just need to get over it.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sat up straighter. “I have to stop wishing and hoping for things I can’t have, you know? Like him, and—and my mother.”
“Your mother?”
“She died.” Suze had gotten used to saying that to strangers over the years, but somehow it was hard to say it to Marta. Her throat ached and she felt like she might cry again.
“I’m so sorry,” Marta said. “How old were you?”
“Ten,” Suze said, swallowing the ache and clearing her throat.
“You have a lot of pain,” Marta said. “You’re young to carry so much here.” She patted her ample bosom, apparently to indicate her heart. “You love this cowboy?”
“No. Well, sometimes.” Suze stared down at her hands, knotted so tightly in her lap the skin whitened at the knuckles. “It doesn’t matter. Any chance of a relationship went belly up that morning in the trailer. He was so anxious to leave…”
“That must have been painful. But can’t you let bygones be dead?”
With her limited English, Marta had hit on the problem more precisely than if she’d been a trained psychologist.
“I guess I don’t want them to be dead. As long as I stay mad at him, I don’t have to face the real reason we’re not together.”
“And what is that?”
Suze shrugged. “He just doesn’t want me. He likes pretty girls—you know, the ones who dress up and go out to the bars after the rodeo.”
“He likes them now. But a man doesn’t marry those girls.” Marta’s smile bracketed her mouth in deep wrinkles. “My husband chased the girls too, but we knew each other from childhood. When he went looking for someone to settle down with, he chose me. We understood each other.”
“I don’t know. I think I need to get on with my life. The trouble is, he’s always there, somewhere in the background.” She smiled, remembering their first meeting. “He has this sort of rebel yell—a cowboy whoop that I swear only he can do. He did it the first time I met him, because I was riding fast.”
“And he thought you were beautiful.”
Suze thought back to that day.
Maybe Marta was right. Maybe Brady had thought she was beautiful.
She’d sure thought he was.
* * *
She’d been riding around her home arena that day, practicing lead changes on Sherman, a big, beautiful quarter horse with a heart the size of Wyoming. Unfortunately, Sherman’s brain was about the size of Rhode Island, so she was concentrating so hard on her horsemanship that she almost didn’t see the three boys climbing the fence on the far end of the arena.
Once she’d noticed them, she’d thought about pulling Sherman to a stop, but then she’d have to talk to them. Back then she never knew what to say to boys. Especially bad boys—boys with reputations, like Shane, Ridge, and Brady.
Pretending not to see them, Suze had urged Sherman into a lope. He was a high-spirited horse who needed to be loped long and often, but that wasn’t the real reason she gave him the gas. She’d known even then she was no beauty, but speed would blur her plain features, and with her long, blond braid streaming behind her, she made a pretty picture on horseback.
The first time she’d passed the boys, she’d snuck a look out of the corner of her eye. There was Shane, the tall dark one; Ridge, the quiet, muscular one; and Brady, the handsome, popular one. She had no idea what they were doing at the Carlyle ranch.
Normally she didn’t ask Sherman for top speed during practice. She saved her best riding for the weekends, and it was only fair to spare her horse too. But that day, on her second circuit of the arena, she’d waited until just before she passed the boys to bend over the horse’s neck and nudge his flanks with her heels, a move she thought of as lighting the afterburners.
The horse had stretched out his neck and lengthened his stride, his hooves digging into the soft dirt of the arena and tossing it behind him. The sheer excitement of speed felt so good, Suze had almost forgotten about the boys. As she passed them, two of them had simply stared, but Brady had let out an appreciative whoop so wild and heartfelt she would have tipped her hat if she could have done anything but ride—ride and try to still her hammering heart.
Her father stepped up to join the boys, along with their neighbor, Mr. Decker. Suze knew her dad wouldn’t appreciate the way she was riding. She prayed he wouldn’t embarrass her in front of the guys with a lecture on sparing her horse, or, worse yet, call her out for showing off.
“Cool him down,” was all he said.
Contrary to popular lore, horses couldn’t be “rode hard and put away wet.” They needed to be walked until their hearts slowed and the blood cooled in their veins, until the tendons stretched and any chance of muscle cramps was gone.
As she walked the horse around the arena, Suze’s mind was racing, struggling to come up with something to say to the boys when she finally had to stop.
Hello. Would you like something to drink?
Too formal.
Hi, how are you guys?
Too casual.
Hey. What’s it like being the hottest badasses ever to hit Grigsby High?
Totally inappropriate.
She let the reins drop over the horn of her saddle while she worked the problem through in her head. She found social etiquette far more challenging than algebra or trigonometry. Fortunately, Sherman was a good boy, and slow-witted enough to walk himself around the ring for hours if she didn’t tell him to stop.
She was startled out of her thoughts by a voice at her knee.
“Hey. What’s it like being able to ride like that?”
She nearly fell out of the saddle. Either her horse had gone all Mr.
Ed on her and learned to talk, or she was going to have a conversation with a boy.
She dared to look down.
Not just any boy. She was going to have to talk to Brady Caine. The handsome one. The one who’d let out that whoop.
She stared at him a little too long, and then she stared at him some more. Instead of his usual torn jeans and T-shirts, he was dressed top to toe in Western wear, all of it so new the creases were still in it from the store. Most guys looked like fools when they got all duded up, but Brady Caine wore his brand-new cowboy hat and Wranglers like he was born to be a cowboy.
Suze suddenly realized she was staring at him with her mouth hanging open. She looked as dim-witted as Sherman on his worst day, and no wonder. Every word in the English language had fled her brain like horses escaping a burning barn.
She swallowed, blinked, and finally said, “What happened to your clothes?”
Genius.
“I don’t know. Irene prob’ly threw ’em away. She’s Mr. Decker’s wife. My—mother, I guess.” He sounded like he was trying out the word, like he’d never had a mother before.
Maybe he hadn’t. Suze knew he was a foster kid, with some kind of troubled past.
“They adopted us,” he said. “The Deckers. Bill and Irene.”
What would it be like to suddenly have a mother after being an orphan? It seemed like it would be wonderful, but this boy seemed to have trouble even saying the word.
Suze wouldn’t. She’d be willing to call just about anybody Mother. Anyone who would help her navigate the confusing teenage world of relationships, makeup, clothes, and everything else the other girls seemed to understand without thinking.
“So this is my new look.” He stepped away from the horse and spread out his arms. “It’s what Mr. Decker says we should wear. What do you think?”
He looked great. Handsome. Manly, even—something none of the other boys in her school managed to pull off. But how could she tell him that? She struggled to find a response that wouldn’t make her sound like an idiot. Maybe she should just twitch her heels into Sherman’s ribs and pretend the horse was an intractable runaway.
“That bad, huh?”
“No.” She realized she’d been staring at him with that goofball look on her face again. Old Sherman was an honor student compared to her. “No, not at all. You look great. I mean, good. Fine, I guess.”
“Stop talking.” With a good-humored grin, he held up his hands to stop her. “You went from ‘great’ to ‘good,’ to ‘fine’ in three seconds. By the time you get done, I’ll be ugly as the ass end of that horse.”
She couldn’t help smiling, even though he’d sworn. He was so friendly, so funny, so…nice. And when she smiled back and her eyes met his, she could swear there was something there—a little zing of a thrill that actually felt mutual.
Ridiculous as it seemed in retrospect, that was all it took. From that time on, she’d been stuck on Brady Caine.
Now that she was older, she realized how foolish it was to think she’d ever mean anything to him. He saw her the way all the other guys saw her—as an athlete, one of the guys; as a girl who could ride, but couldn’t dance or flirt. Not a girl you’d take to the movies or the skating rink or the prom.
There were guys who wanted to date Suze, but they were all like her—awkward, serious types who respected her abilities more than they craved her touch. None of them could touch Brady when it came to looks, and none of them talked to her with that easy, bantering charm.
With one quick conversation, one wild rebel yell, and one admiring glance, Brady Caine had spoiled her for all the other boys.
Chapter 14
Marta handed Suze another tissue, jolting her from her reverie. Suze patted her face, surprised to find it wet with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cry all over you. I need to get over this stupid fixation on a guy who barely knows I’m alive.”
Marta patted her back gently. “You are very foolish.”
“I know.” Suze folded the tissue and gave her nose a final, undignified honk before tossing it in the trash. “It is stupid. Foolish. And mostly, I’m over him. It’s just that he still lets out that yell once in a while, after somebody rides a rank bronc or gets away from a mean bull. I hear it all the way across the arena, and it brings me back, you know? To that day and how I felt—oh, never mind.”
“You are not foolish to care for him,” Marta said. “It sounds like you are alike.” She stood and led Suze over to the makeup chair, spinning it so Suze could see herself in the mirror.
Oh God. She’d made a mess of her makeup—again. This woman seemed to have infinite patience, but it was embarrassing to be such a screwup.
Still, she couldn’t resist pursuing the conversation, even though she knew it was unprofessional to get so personal with the makeup lady.
“I’m nothing like Brady,” she said.
Marta lifted Suze’s hair off the back of her neck and let it fall in graceful waves over her shoulders. “It sounds to my heart like you are the same,” she said. “He has the whoop, you ride fast—you are alike.”
Suze turned to look at the woman, amazed. She’d thought the exact same thing the first time she’d heard that wild shout from Brady. It was as if the wildness in him called to the wildness deep inside her. Every time she heard that yell, it reminded her of the kinship between them.
“You know, I think there is something in common between us, deep down,” she said. “Maybe that’s why I can’t let go. I always felt like he could release my real self, you know? He did—just that once. He made me stop worrying about what other people were thinking and really live.”
“Maybe you have to do that on your own,” Marta said.
Suze nodded. “Maybe he’s become an excuse. I don’t know. But I need to get past it, that’s for sure.”
“You think about this,” Marta said. “You race the horses, am I right?”
“Just one horse,” Suze said, smiling.
“But you compete. You have to be first. Faster than everyone.”
Suze nodded.
“It is your job to compare yourself to others when you ride,” Marta said. “But in life, that is not a healthy way to think. In life, you can only do your best.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Suze said.
“In sport, you compete,” Marta said. “In life, you live. And living is enough.”
“Thank you.” Suze did her best to drink the words in, make them part of herself. Marta was right, although she didn’t know that Suze’s competitive nature had its roots in her childhood. Her father had always compared her—to other racers, to her mother—and she’d always come up short.
Marta began bustling around, gathering up her makeup supplies.
“What are you doing?” Suze asked.
“Getting ready.” Marta opened what looked like a fishing tackle box and began to lay an assortment of brushes and sponges on the counter. “You’re going back out there, correct?”
“Are you kidding?” Suze spun the chair to face Marta and made a scary face, making the woman laugh. “I went and ruined your makeup again. I look like one of those women who stays too late at the beer tent and ends up drunk, with their mascara all streaked.”
“We can fix that,” Marta said. “I can fix anything.”
“I couldn’t ask you to. I’ve given you enough trouble already.”
“Pooh.” Marta dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “Sit down, Suzanne. Let me fix you.”
Suze sat down and closed her eyes while Marta ministered to her face for the third time that day.
If only it was that easy. If only Marta really could fix her.
But the makeup lady was right.
She was going to have to do it herself.
* * *
Once
you gave yourself over to Marta for a makeup session, you were hers until she declared you complete. So Suze was a helpless victim, trapped in the spinning chair like a fly in a spiderweb when someone tapped on the door a moment later.
“Come in,” Marta sang.
The door was behind Suze, but she could see it in the mirror as it opened.
Brady.
She wanted to hide her face or crawl under the table, but Marta had her trapped, so she was forced to stare straight at his image in the mirror while her lashes were curled. She couldn’t even close her eyes.
“Hey,” he said, smiling ruefully. “I did it again, didn’t I?”
“Did what?” Suze couldn’t believe how her heart longed for him, even now. When he smiled like that, she wanted to believe everything was all right.
“I messed up. I do it every time I see you.” He came over and rested his very fine ass on the counter, folding his arms over his chest. “The good news is, I had a witness this time, so I know what I did wrong. The last couple times, I was too dumb to figure it out, but Stan caught the whole thing. So at least I know what to apologize for.”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for.” As Marta released her lashes, Suze started to shake her head but stopped when a mascara brush loomed large in her field of vision.
“She says you kicked her,” Marta said, her voice steeped in motherly disapproval. “Misanthropically.”
“Um…metaphorically, yeah.” Brady looked down at the floor and bit his lips. Maybe he was smarter than he looked. Suze might be in love with the man, but she hadn’t figured he knew any six-syllable words.
Maybe she didn’t know as much about Brady as she thought.
“But, Suze, I swear to God, that wasn’t what I meant.” His eyes hardened, and his lips narrowed to a thin, grim line. “I hate the way Lariat does these ads, with the girls kneeling and all. I hate it, and I didn’t want you to have to do it.”
“Close your eyes,” Marta demanded, and Suze obeyed. She felt a soft brush skimming over her face, over the nose, the cheekbones, the chin. She should feel self-conscious, letting Brady watch this, but she was never self-conscious around Brady. Lord knew he was never self-conscious around her.
How to Kiss a Cowboy Page 9