THE EIGHT SECOND WEDDING

by Anne McAllister

  Madeleine blinked, certain she hadn't heard him right. She looked at him more closely.

  "I thought only popes wrote bulls," she ventured after a moment.

  "Not write. Ride. I ride bulls. R-I-D-E. They never said? No, of course they didn't. They wouldn't." He gave a half sigh, half groan. "Damn them, anyway. I ride rough stock in rodeos. Bulls. I'm riding in a rodeo upstate tonight and at Madison Square garden tomorrow."

  Madeleine just looked at him, mind reeling.

  A rodeo cowboy.

  Channing Richardson – her mother's notion of her perfect mate – was a rodeo cowboy?

  Chan shifted from one foot to the other. "Look. I'm sorry if I startled you just popping up like this. I did tell 'em to warn you."

  "She didn't warn me," Madeleine said tightly.

  He nodded. "Figures. Your mother's probably as devious as mine."

  For an instant a current of rapport arced between them. Madeleine almost smiled at him. Then she remembered who he was, who her mother – and his – wanted him to be and she said firmly, "They're nuts, both of them."

  Channing Richardson bobbed his head. "They are."

  "Completely loony."

  "Yep."

  She looked at him cautiously. "We're agreed?"

  "You bet," he said fervently.

  "But even though we think they're out of their minds, we've respected them. We've done what they wanted – we've met, right?"

  "Right."

  "And we've discovered that a philosophy student and a rodeo cowboy have nothing in common."

  "Nothing."

  "So this is the end of it." It wasn't a question.

  They looked at each other. Madeleine thought she'd ever seen eyes so blue. She looked quickly away.

  "Good," she said briskly.

  And Chan took a deep breath. "Amen." He set his hat back on his head and tugged down the brim, then slanted a grin in her direction. His gaze flickered back to meet hers for just a second before he turned away. "So long," he said.

  Madeleine said, "Goodbye."

  She shut the door before he reached the steps, then stood quite still and felt a shudder run through her as she listened to his boots clatter down them.

  Finally, when she heard the outer door bang shut behind him, she tugged her sweater over her head and dropped it onto the floor. Then she tried to unsnap her jeans. Her fingers were trembling.

  So that was Channing Richardson.

  Not precisely what she would have expected, she thought, peeling the jeans down her hips. What in heaven's name had her mother and Julia been thinking of?

  Genetics, she answered herself at once. Good breeding. The good of the tribe. Bouncing, healthy grandchildren. Lots of them. All the things loony, over-educated mothers thought of.

  But without warning, a split-second vision of herself and Channing Richardson doing what needed to be done to make those bouncing, healthy children flashed across her mind.

  "Stop it. Don't even think it," she commanded herself. The last thing she needed to do was get tangled up with a cowboy, no matter how lovely their potential offspring would be. Besides, Chan Richardson obviously didn't like the notion any more than she did.

  "Like?" she could hear Antonia saying now scornfully. "What does like have to do with anything? Marriages have been built on far less than like."

  "Free will," Madeleine muttered desperately to herself, heading toward the bathroom. "Free blooming will. Just remember that."

  She didn't have to do what her mother wanted her to do. She didn't have to be the person her mother thought she should be. She took a deep steadying breath and let it out slowly, deliberately shutting out visions of Chan Richardson's remarkable blue eyes.

  Channing had come. Channing had gone. Channing hadn't conquered.

  It was done, over, weathered, survived. Nothing else could go wrong for the rest of the day.

  * * *

  He'd seen fence posts with more shape than Madeleine Decker. He'd seen lifelong Rastafarians with less hair.

  Granted she had milky white skin and big green eyes, but they weren't enough to redeem her. And he didn't care if she did have pert small breasts inside that lacy black bra that just begged to be cupped in his callused hands – that didn't mean he wanted to see her again!

  She didn't like him.

  He knew the way women looked at guys they liked, and Madeleine Decker had looked at him the way his mother would look at a cow pie on the kitchen floor.

  Well, fine. He hadn't exactly been overjoyed to meet her, either.

  Hell, it hadn't been his idea, he thought that evening as he strode into the rodeo grounds and made his way toward the back of the chutes. He'd have been just as happy to come to New York, ride the bulls and hit the road again without ever going near his mother's precious Professor Madeleine Decker.

  And he'd tell his interfering parent so the next time he talked to her!

  But right now he couldn't think about Madeleine Decker any longer. Or what he'd like to tell his mother. Right now he had to get his mind fixed on what really mattered – the eighteen-hundred-pound, one-horned Brahma he was going to be riding in less than an hour – a dipping, twisting brindle sadist called Banana Split.

  "Hey, Chan." Wiley Nichols, one of his traveling partners, looked up from taping his ribs. "Me an' Gil an' Dev looked for you when we left the hotel. Where'd you go?"

  Chan dropped his rigging bag and hunkered down to open it. "Did a little sight-seeing."

  "Still?" Wiley grinned and shook his head. "You been here often enough I reckoned you'd seen everything by now."

  "Not everything." Madeleine Decker's near-naked body, for instance. He hadn't seen that before.

  And he needed to forget it now.

  Chan took out his rigging carefully, hanging it on the fence, checking it over thoroughly. It was habit, it was necessary. He smoothed his hand over the rope, then took out his knife and picked out bits of flaking rosin, loosening them, then tugged on the rope gently, testing it and his strength against it, feeling the tension, the give.

  Then he took it down and began to rosin it anew. When he had it rosined to his satisfaction, he did the same to his glove, slipping his fingers into it, working them around, flexing and stretching, taking his time, then getting the palm tacky, too. He clenched and unclenched his fist, making the leather more supple with the heat of his palm, feeling it grip and pull.

  "What d'you know about ol' Mr. Banana Split?" he asked.

  Wiley laughed. "Not much. Lasted about two seconds on him in Pendleton. Spins goin' out of the gate. Real tight and fast, man. Damn fast."

  "To the right?"

  "Nope. Left at first, but then he switched back, came right into my hand. Didn't want me to get too comfortable." Wiley grimaced.

  "He'll try to sucker you," Denny Bailey put in. "Did it to me back in Cheyenne. Ducks his head way down, too, then like to take your head right off. Feel like you're goin' right over the top, then wham."

  Chan knew what he meant.

  "He's a hell-raiser, that one. But you stay with him and you'll get some bucks – the dollar kind," Denny said, grinning at Chan while he taped his shoulder.

  Chan nodded. "Here's hoping." He shoved up his sleeve and started taping his wrist.

  They were up to the calf roping. He could hear the announcer commiserating with a guy who'd missed with his second loop. He finished his taping, pulled his cuff down and snapped it. He could hear them bringing the bulls in.

  He rubbed his palms down the sides of his jeans and closed his eyes, shutting out the announcer, shutting out Wiley, Denny, even Madeleine Decker's breasts.

  Now, in his mind's eye all he could see was the brindle Brahma. He could see the bull as clear as he would when he rode him, could feel himself settling down on the bull's back, felt the tension in those surging muscles, the restlessness, the waiting.

  He imagined his hand wrapping the rope, feeling the press of it against his palm as they tightened the slack. He c
ould feel himself shrugging forward, settling in, taking hold, wrapping that one last loop.

  He nodded his head.

  The gate would open and it would begin.

  With his whole body Chan felt the explosive power as he would feel it then. He anticipated the spins, the twists, the ducking head, the jumps. He thought the ride all the way through, his body shifting, adjusting, compensating as he envisioned it. Again. And again. And again. Right down to the moment when the buzzer would sound and he'd jump, landing clear and lifting his hands in triumph.

  "Let's go," Wiley said, "'s time."

  Wiley was up first. Then Denny. Then Gil Trabert. Chan could see his one-horned brindle bull being put into chute number 4. It went in easily enough, stood quietly. But that didn't mean much. Sometimes it meant the worst. It wasn't standing around that brought out the worst in a bull, it was having someone on his back.

  One of the later riders began to help Wiley pull up the slack. Chan moved onto his own bull, leaning over the top of the chute, studying him, watching the hump move, watching the big head turn, the eye glint and roll. He dropped his rope down alongside the bull. Gus Campbell, a bronc rider, fished it through and tossed it over. Chan threaded the rope through the loop so it fit snugly. He heard the roar when Wiley's chute opened, and the almost instant groan that meant he'd hit the dirt.

  Chan barely noticed. He had problems of his own right now. Or opportunities. Three quarters of a ton of them twitching and quivering right below him. He slipped his fingers into the glove and flexed them, then bound the glove tightly around his wrist.

  "Do better'n I did," Wiley said, climbing up to lean over the fence. He wiped a smudge of dirt off his jaw.

  Chan flashed him a faint grin. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Denny's chute open. The crowd roared. He straddled the chute as the buzzer sounded again.

  "76," the announcer proclaimed. So Denny was now the man to beat.

  "Steady, ol' fella," Chan said quietly as he settled down onto the brindle's broad back. Gus pulled up the slack. The rope tautened against Chan's gloved hand. The bull's muscles quivered under his touch.

  "Tighter," he said and Gus pulled again, with Wiley helping.

  Suddenly the brindle lurched sideways, mashing Chan's knee against the rails, then kicking the gate hard, making it shudder and clank. Chan ignored it, rubbing his hand along the rosined rope, warming it, then taking another wrap around his hand. Nothing was going to shake that grip loose. Nothing at all.

  He sucked in his breath. He didn't hear the crowd, didn't see Gus or Wiley or anyone else. Saw only the patch at the top of the bull's hump.

  His muscles tightened, adrenaline flowed. Between his legs he could feel the warmth of the bull's hairy hide as he shifted and tensed. The power of the bull flowed up between the animal's back and his own legs, as if they were one.

  They needed to be one, he thought grimly, monkeying his rear end forward, wedging his body against his hand and laying his forearm into the curve where his torso met his thigh. Toes out, heels in, to get the most contact, he gripped the bull with his legs, settled himself, got centered, tightened his grip, tucked in his chin.

  "Ready?"

  Chan nodded.

  The gate swung open. The bull bunched, jumped, spun.

  Time was never more relative, Chan had realized years ago, than when you were riding a bull. Eight seconds was nothing; it was an eternity. The world was a blur and yet, if all was well, he was never more focused.

  Banana Split came out of the chute spinning. And Chan spun with him, let himself follow the line of the bull's spine, not fighting the tilt, going with it, yet prepared, ready for the snap back, ready for the duck, ready for anything.

  And he got it. The quick jerk. The lunge forward to try to unseat him, then the snap back of the bull's head. He clung. The bull sunfished, twisting so that he and Chan lay almost horizontal. An instant later the brindle snapped back, hooking his horn around, trying to lift Chan right off his broad back. He stuck right where he was.

  The bull twisted again, dropped his head and kicked out with his back feet. Twisted. Kicked again. Chan dug in his heels and gripped with his thighs to stop himself from being flung right over the bull's head. His hand slipped slightly and he clenched tighter. Not now. Not yet!

  And then he heard the buzzer.

  He opened his fist, felt the rope slip away, pushed off as the bull came back up again. That was what he wanted – a clean dismount, to land on his feet, to tip his hat to the crowd.

  He almost made it. It was that last little kick that did it. The hoof caught him in the ribs as he bailed out, knocking him sideways into the dirt. He hit and rolled, lost sight of the bull entirely. But he could feel the force of the hooves right through the dirt. He jerked his head around, caught a glimpse of the clowns and rolled away from them. Then, grabbing his hat, he scrambled to his feet and headed for the fence.

  "Give that man an 84," the loud speaker bellowed into the auditorium. "Richardson has an 84 and the lead!"

  Hanging on to the fence, just now beginning to feel the throb in his ribs from the bull's last kick and the pain in his knee where he'd hit the chute before the ride even began, Chan grinned.

  * * *

  He was still grinning when the phone rang in his hotel room in the city the next morning.

  "Well?" Julia's voice said into his ear.

  "84. I won."

  "Lovely," his mother said. "Very nice. What about Madeleine?"

  Chan, who'd managed to forget Madeleine Decker entirely in his pursuit of some fairly extravagant celebrating after last night's win, suddenly remembered her, breasts and all. His grin widened. "Saw her yesterday afternoon."

  "And?"

  He shrugged and felt his ribs protest. "And nothing. I met her. I said hello. I left. That's what I said I'd do."

  "Chan." She was using her disapproving mother voice.

  "You thought maybe I married her?" he teased.

  "Chan. Didn't you at least invite her to dinner?"

  "What for?"

  "To be polite. To get to know her."

  "I don't need to know her."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means she's not my type."

  "Chan," Julia began to protest.

  "She's not!" Regardless of how tempting those breasts were, regardless of those big green eyes. "Ma, she's a college professor, for God's sake."

  "She's a graduate student."

  "Same difference."

  "Yes, but—"

  "And she's a city girl."

  "She was raised in a rice paddy in Bali."

  "You know what I mean."

  "I'm beginning to," Julia said quietly.

  Her sudden acquiescence caught him off balance for a second. Then he said, "Well, then, you understand."

  "I do. And maybe you're right." Her voice sounded almost gentle now, consoling.

  "I am."

  "I really wouldn't have thought she was too much woman for you, but—"

  "What?"

  "I do understand. It's nothing to be ashamed of, Channing," she went on in the same mild tone, just as if he hadn't yelped so loudly he'd wakened the four other guys in the room.

  "I'm not ashamed!" he shouted.

  Wiley lifted his head off the pillow and squinted disapprovingly at him. Devlin Gray, another bull rider who sometimes traveled with them, looked over blearily.

  "Wha'dya do? Knock some girl up?" Kevin Skates, the rookie bull rider, wanted to know.

  Chan glared at him, hauled himself out of the bed, ignoring his aching ribs and bad knee, and dragged the phone into the bathroom where he could have some privacy. Gil was asleep in the tub.

  "And you have no need to be," Julia went on in that same damnably soothing voice.

  Chan shut his eyes and rubbed his hand against his forehead. "Ma—"

  "Just because you didn't finish college—"

  "Ma, it has nothing to do with college!"

  "Of course it does
n't," she said, which he knew was exactly the opposite of what she meant.

  "Wha'dya wanta go to college for?" Gil mumbled.

  Chan carried the phone back into the bedroom, tripping over somebody's duffel bag in the still-darkened room. He winced, hopping over to jerk open the drapes and let in the late-morning sunlight. He'd forgotten that all they had was a view of an airshaft. At high noon they got maybe fifteen minutes of sun. He left the drapes open, anyway.

  "And just because you feel self-conscious about being a country boy—"

  "I am not self-conscious!"

  Julia sighed. "It should have been Trevor. I knew it should have been Trevor. I should have stopped the wedding," she said sadly.

  "Don't be ridiculous," Chan snapped, furious. "Trev loves Marybeth."

  "Love isn't everything."

  "It's the only thing!"

  There was a pregnant pause during which Julia said nothing at all and Chan realized exactly what it was that he had said.

  "Oh, hell. Don't mind me," he muttered, raking a hand through his hair. "I'm half-asleep. I must be dreaming I'm Vince Lombardi."

  "Poor Chan," his mother commiserated.

  "Damn it! Stop that!"

  She made a tsking sound. "Don't swear, Channing. I just want you to know that I understand. Don't worry about it, dear. You tried."

  "I didn't—!"

  "You can't help it if she's too much for you. Go back to sleep, darling. You need your rest if you're going to ride well today." She hung up.

  She hung up! Chan stood there, apoplectic. How dare she hang up? He strangled the telephone, wishing it were his mother's neck.

  Damn her, anyway! How could she insinuate such a thing? How could she possibly think that some weedy, small-breasted, jade-eyed graduate student – his mind twisted the words with a vengeance – was too much woman for him?

  He said something as rude as it was succinct.

  "Shuddup," someone mumbled. "Can'tcha let a guy sleep?"

  * * *

  Madeline couldn't believe her luck. They'd spent the whole evening together, she and her mother, and Channing Richardson's name hadn't come up.

  Not once.

  Of course she'd had to do some pretty fancy conversational footwork to keep her mother occupied with other things. She'd dredged up more anecdotes about past birthdays and asked more scintillating, penetrating questions about Antonia's latest research than she ordinarily asked in a year. She even asked cogent questions about a book on south-sea island puberty rites that her mother was telling her she ought to read, although she didn't care about it in the least.