Rodeo Nights

by Patricia McLinn

  As if to prove her point, two newly arrived cowboys sauntered up to the fence, off to her right, looking over the layout with practiced eyes and starting to easily stretch their legs and backs.

  Yes, everything was going fine. Including her and Walker.

  She missed him.

  She felt a little foolish making the admission, even in her own mind. After all, he was only gone for the day. He and Gulch had gone for a weekly visit to Jeff up in Billings. He—they—should be back anytime. In fact, she’d expected them by now. They could have gotten hung up in traffic from the daytime rodeo at a county fair midway between Park and Billings.

  The possibility of that rodeo cutting into their business had worried her for a while. Roberta, Walker and Gulch all said it wouldn’t work that way. But until she’d seen that they’d received more entries than usual—as cowboys took advantage of the proximity of the rodeos to pack in two competitions in one day—she hadn’t been convinced.

  But the figures she and Roberta had totaled before they closed up for the break didn’t lie. And bits of conversation drifting to her from these two new cowboys confirmed it. So she would let Walker say I-told-you-so...if he’d just get here. She wanted to share this with him.

  She wanted to share everything with him.

  The thought burned across her mind, and she shied away from it. She wanted to share everything about the rodeo. It was only natural, they’d worked so hard together. She’d experienced it in business: On an intense project, a sort of camaraderie developed, like with a military unit or a group on a tour. An esprit de corps built on reaching for the same goal, on seeing each other a dozen times a day, on laughing together.

  She and Walker did all that, and more. They made love. Sweet, passionate, consuming love.

  And she’d worked desperately hard during these days to not let herself think about what it meant.

  Oh, God, was she falling in love with Walker Riley all over again?

  Twisting around, she faced into the arena, lessening the chance anyone might notice her, might read emotions from her face.

  She latched on to the conversation of nearby cowboys like a lifeline sent to rescue her from her own thoughts.

  “Hell of a ride,” the cowboy in the blue shirt said.

  “Didn’t think he’d get much when I saw he’d drawn that chute-fighter Impact.”

  “Looked a little rusty to me,” answered the one in a red bandanna print.

  “If that’s rusty, coat me in iron and turn on the water.”

  ‘‘I just meant—’’

  “You just meant he whipped your butt today, Jack.”

  Bandanna-print grimaced. “Yeah, he did. Wish he’d retire.”

  Fingers of cold crept across Kalli’s skin even as Blue Shirt said, “There were rumors he might be, what with cutting his summer rides back like this.”

  “Yeah. What I don’t get is why a champion like him is picking some of these small places to ride and not taking advantage of being right here at his own rodeo.”

  She didn’t want to hear, but the cold flashing across her left her immobile.

  He was riding bulls. When she thought him safe, he wasn’t.

  He was risking his life, her heart.

  She’d been a fool to believe there could be something for her and Walker. Something beyond the purely physical. Even as she framed that thought, her heart and mind rejected it. It wasn’t just that between them; it would have been easier if it were. Because whatever they had, it wasn’t enough.

  They’d gotten past the hurts from the past, but that hadn’t changed the present.

  Unknowingly, Blue Shirt echoed part of her thoughts. “Whatever his reasons, it’s working, because he hasn’t changed from when I first went up against him six years ago. Riley still knows how to get the most out of a dud, and when he’s got a real rank one... Well, there’s nobody better at sticking to ’em like a burr.”

  “Speak of the devil,” murmured Bandanna-print.

  At some level, she heard the two move away from the fence, toward the parking lot, pausing to exchange greetings with a newcomer. And she knew that newcomer had to be Walker. But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Could barely breathe.

  “Hey, Kalli.”

  She didn’t turn, but she pushed the two syllables of his name from between numb lips. “Walker.”

  He came up beside her. “Mary and Jeff send their love.” He dropped his voice to a more intimate level. “I’d hoped to find you in a less public place. I wanted to say a proper hello. Along the lines of the good-morning we had in the shower. It’s been a long day since—”

  “Just long enough for you to get your fix of riding bulls in a rodeo, right, Walker?”

  Abrupt and absolute, his stillness seemed painful.

  “Kalli, I—”

  “Don’t bother. I already heard. You had a great ride.” Images of what could have happened to him in another kind of ride, the kind Cory had taken that last day, inundated her mind, sweeping away logic and reason, leaving only fear.

  “I didn’t—”

  “You won, I’m sure. And impressed a few more young boys like Matt Halderman with what a great hero you are. I suppose congratulations are in order, but I’m sure you got plenty of that from everyone else, so you won’t feel deprived if you don’t have mine.”

  “Kalli, listen to me—”

  She backed away from the fence and brushed her hands together, as if to rid them of dust, but really to try to get feeling back into them.

  “Did you even bother to go see Jeff, or was the whole day a lie?”

  His head snapped back as if she’d hit him, and that seemed to revive his ability to move. He grasped her shoulders in a tight squeeze.

  “All right, if you won’t listen, then talk to me. Get it all out.”

  “I have nothing more to say to you.”

  Jerking out of his hold—and knowing she’d succeeded only because he’d let her go—she spun around and headed down the path. Passing faces blurred; she gave automatic answers to greetings, and kept going.

  The office door seemed to promise sanctuary, if she could only get inside… If she could only be alone...

  But even before the door clicked shut behind her, she heard someone hailing her.

  “Hey, Kalli. Can you sign me up for tomorrow? Roberta’s on the phone and I’ve got to get into town.”

  “Sure, Matt.” How could a few words be so difficult to produce? “Just let me get some coffee.”

  Grateful that the telephone occupied at least some of Roberta’s too-perceptive attention, Kalli raised the hinged portion of the counter, then winced when her unsteady hand let it slip the last few inches with a slam.

  She poured half a cup, pulling in breaths she hoped might contain composure somewhere in their depths.

  Damn Walker Riley. Damn him, damn him, damn him !

  And damn herself for hoping he could change so fundamentally.

  A last breath and she turned to Matt, half-filled coffee cup in hand. She hoped he wouldn’t notice it trembling.

  “So, Matt, what can I—”

  The door imploded, its rubber-tipped stop encountering the wall with a sound like a muffled shot.

  Kalli jerked, sending a coffee wave to the lip of the cup.

  Roberta and Matt spun around, openmouthed at Walker’s entrance.

  She’d thought when he let her go, when he didn’t follow her, that that would be the end of it. Now she recognized he had simply been building up steam.

  Two long strides took him to the counter. He slapped the hinged portion up with enough force to shudder down the wooden length, and this time the liquid in Kalli’s cup slopped over the edge onto her hand, causing her to jump and send even more coffee across the counter.

  Her curse got swallowed by a spurt of voices.

  “What the—’’

  “Get out, Matt.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Kalli snapped, anger thawing any numbness. “Matt and I ha
ve business—”

  “Now.”

  She spun on Walker. “You have no right—”

  He ignored her. Didn’t even look at her. “Roberta.”

  The older woman had already hung up the phone and now calmly retrieved her purse from the desk drawer.

  “But...but—” Matt gawked from Walker to Kalli and back.

  “C’mon, Matt.” Roberta shepherded the young cowboy toward the door. “You give me the events you want to enter and I’ll add you to the list later. Then you go off to town like you planned.”

  “Lock the door, Roberta.”

  “Don’t you do any such thing, Roberta,” Kalli countermanded Walker’s order. “These are office hours and the office will remain open.”

  “Lock it,” he barked.

  Kalli heard the bolt click home from the outside, the sound cracking a silence that burned into her lungs and eyes like smoke.

  Walker had stopped four feet from her. As far as she knew, he hadn’t looked directly at her. After her first glance, she’d been disinclined to look at him, either.

  “You have no right to burst in here like this and close up the office during business hours. As hard as we’re working to keep this rodeo going, trying to build entries and ticket sales, this—”

  “Talk.”

  His single word cut across hers.

  The fear that she might meekly follow his order, might do anything Walker Riley asked her to do, drove her to action. Turning away, she opened the door to the tiny bathroom in search of paper towel to mop up the coffee on the counter.

  “You can’t—” The small space seemed to smother her words, so with her back still to Walker, she started again, louder. “You can’t come in here throwing orders around.” She snatched two paper towels from the holder next to the sink. “I don’t have to follow your—”

  She hadn’t heard him move, but Walker crowded her in the confined space of the bathroom, his grip hard on her right arm, anger charging the atmosphere.

  She was too angry to be frightened. Or maybe she recognized at some level that for all his fury, he never hurt her.

  “Leave me alone, Walker.” She pried herself away, then tried to get around the narrow opening between the sink and the open door. Maybe she’d be able to breathe if she could get back into the main office, where the essence of Walker wouldn’t be quite so concentrated. “Who do you think you—?”

  He blocked her escape. Slamming the door, he braced it shut with their combined weight. A hand to either side of her head caged her.

  “Don’t you ever walk away from me again, Kalli. Don’t you ever leave me without a word.”

  His face loomed so close she had nowhere to look except his eyes, and once she looked into them, she couldn’t look away.

  Desolation. Such desolation.

  She hadn’t known anyone could look so lonely, so lost.

  Except for the person she’d seen in the mirror at times.

  “Don’t you ever walk away like that again.”

  She saw it then, with the same shock and clarity that she’d finally recognized his grief and self-blame over Cory’s death. She saw how she had hurt him. How in her effort to protect herself by getting away as quickly as possible—a decade ago and minutes ago—she had hurt him so desperately.

  “Walker.”

  Fingertips trembling, she soothed the scar by his mouth, the one that had robbed him of his full smile.

  “We’re not going to waste ten years this time,” he swore. “We’re not going to regret not having it out and getting this clear. Not this time.”

  He’d been wrong to lie to her today, but she’d given him no chance to make it right. As, ten years ago, he’d been wrong to close her out, and she’d been wrong not to give them a chance to make that right, together.

  “I’m sorry, Walker. I shouldn’t have. I’m so—”

  Even as she spoke, she knew her words weren’t what he needed. His mouth crushed the words coming from hers, and asked for what he did need.

  To know that she was here, that they could still hold each other. That she wouldn’t walk away from him this time.

  She opened her mouth to him, and gave.

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  “KALLI...”

  He pressed against her, his face buried in her hair, as she held him.

  “I’m here, Walker. I’m not walking away.”

  Her fingers had barely freed the last button of his shirt before he dragged her hand lower, pressing it against himself. She made a sound deep in her throat at the imprint of that heat on her palm, and he echoed it, arching more deeply into her grasp.

  “Let me... Walker...”

  She had to fight to get her other hand between their bodies, to get enough room between them for her to manipulate the intricacies of belt buckle and fly.

  Even when he understood her intention, he made it no easier, drawing the fabric even tauter with his efforts to dig out a foil packet from his back pocket at the same time he scrambled her nervous system with soft bites and open-mouthed, dragging kisses along her throat, under her chin, into the valley between her breasts. Without hesitation, he bunched her short denim skirt around her waist and tore off her panties with one quick yank.

  The moment she freed him from the constriction of his jeans and cupped him in her hands, he held her briefly away to pull on the protection, then shifted to pull her close again. She gasped at the speed of his move, widening her eyes an instant, before closing them in the intensity of sensation. Holding her hips high, he dipped to get his legs between hers, spreading them as he straightened his legs and brought them into full contact.

  And there he held her.

  Breathing hurt from the fire in her lungs, so she stopped. She waited, suspended, for the final movement that would unite them. But it didn’t come.

  She gave in to her lungs’ demand with a released breath that did nothing to release the tension of being held just at the edge of fullness.

  She opened her eyes.

  His face stark, he held her look, unwavering, relentless, allowing no escape, as he came into her.

  She met him, not halfway, but beyond, somewhere so deep it was as if they melded. Slowly, deliberately, each withdrew to repeat the motion. And again. Still staring at each other. Almost like two combatants not taking their eyes off each other...or two people making a pledge.

  The end came fast, explosive, disorienting for Kalli.

  The world seemed to tip, spin, shatter. All that remained solid was his body. His shoulders that she clung to, his face above her, his hips driving against her.

  That was all she needed.

  “Kalli!”

  He arched, held stone-still an instant, then shuddered into release.

  She held him, pinned by the weight of his limp body against the door, his face pressed against her neck as she stroked his hair with short, feathery touches where the thick ends lapped the collar of his loosened shirt.

  She stroked him in silent assurance that she was here.

  She was here now, and she was his.

  * * *

  WHEN THEY REACHED the spot where Walker’s road forked off from the one to the Jeffries ranch, Kalli waited for him to flash his lights as always, a sign that he would park his truck, then come back to her. But the lights stayed steady.

  She made the turn, her gaze pinned to the rearview mirror, then twisted around to be sure the mirror hadn’t deceived her.

  He had definitely made the turn into the Jeffrieses’ road. Openly following her.

  When he pulled in, she stood by the truck, waiting. Not sure what she waited for, or what it might mean.

  There’d been no time to talk before the night’s rodeo; there’d barely been time to adjust their clothes and assume public masks that would get them through the evening. He’d said only that they would talk tonight and apologized rather formally for the damage to her underclothes.

  Now, leaving his truck running, he got out and stoo
d in front of her. He didn’t touch her but she felt tension in him. His first words came out short.

  “I was rough with you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.”

  He absorbed that in silence a moment. His stance didn’t change and his voice didn’t mellow, but it didn’t carry as much pain when he spoke again.

  “Come home with me, Kalli.”

  She felt a burn in her chest.

  “I—’’

  He cut off her answer before she could give it. “No sense pretending people aren’t going to know what’s going on between us after today. If it ever was a secret, it isn’t now.”

  “No, it isn’t.” She recalled the looks she’d gotten tonight in the office—interested, but not in the least surprised. It probably never had been a secret.

  “So come home with me.”

  “Okay.”

  That was it. He handed her up into his truck from the driver’s side, holding her next to him when she might have slid farther over, and he drove them to his place. To his home. To his bed.

  * * *

  “I TRIED TO TELL you, Kalli.”

  “Not very hard.”

  “No. Not very hard. I wasn’t looking forward to your walking away—just the way you did.”

  She turned to him in the thinning dark of predawn. They’d made love several times during the night, dozing between, never speaking of anything but their desire for each other and their pleasure. Until now. “You can’t blame this all on me, Walker Riley. You can’t—”

  “Not all. Half.”

  “Half? You sneak off and—”

  “Can’t hardly call it sneaking off when you’d known about the trip all week.”

  He rolled onto his side, then propped his head on his hand, looking at her. The move slid the sheet and quilt down to his bare hip and sent the excess into the valley between them.

  “You sneak off to go bull riding, acting as if you can just pick up riding after two months away from it like you were still nineteen instead of thirty-three. Risk your neck, and with it, this rodeo’s welfare and possibly Jeff’s recovery and it’s half my fault?”

  “Yes.”

  That’s all. No explanation, no defensiveness, just the statement.