She pushed up on her elbows to put her on a level with him.
“How do you figure that?”
“I would have been working out and competing more than I did—” He cut a look at her and pieces clicked together in her mind of Walker’s disappearing for chunks of afternoons, sometimes longer, often in Gulch’s company, occasionally returning with a slight gingerliness in his movements, always returning freshly showered. She should have guessed. “—if I could have told you.”
“Well, next time, damn it, tell me!”
The words were out before the implications of a next time hit her.
A next time of his riding a bull. A next time of her having any right to know what he did or where he went.
Next time edged them dangerously close to the uncharted expanse beyond this summer.
“I’ll tell you.” No fanfare, no oaths, but Walker had just made an unshakable pledge.
And had asked nothing in return.
But he needed something in return. Or perhaps she needed to give it.
“And I won’t ever walk away like that again, Walker.”
He looked at her a long moment, then nodded.
“Good.”
He twisted around, reaching for something.
She sat up straighter, half wanting to make him see what a step she’d taken with that promise, half afraid to.
“That’s all you have to say? Good?”
He straightened, the lopsided grin tugging at his mouth.
A slight sound drew her eyes to his hand and she saw another shiny packet.
“Thought I’d express myself another way,” he said.
In one motion, he lowered her back to the mattress and covered her body with his.
She opened to him, and he found his place in her.
* * *
“FOUR DAYS OF rain. My God, this is Wyoming—not Seattle, or Ireland or the Brazilian rain forest. What is going on?”
Neither Roberta nor Walker answered Kalli’s tirade. She didn’t expect them to. They’d done their share of griping about the weather the past four days. For the second time in four nights, they’d taken the rare step of calling off competition because the morass made it too dangerous for human or animal participants. The other two nights, the rain had made it too miserable for anybody but contestants’ relatives to come watch.
Kalli stared out the office window at the relentless rain.
“Go on ahead home, Roberta,” Walker said. “I cut Gulch free, too. No sense in you staying.”
For all its quiet, his voice deepened the uneasiness Kalli had felt since he’d walked in a few minutes ago. With the water still streaming off his hat, he’d stood in the doorway, looking at her. There’d been something in his eyes, something she hadn’t wanted to see. That’s when she went to the window.
She’d been very aware of his gaze on her, even as he’d told Roberta that he and Gulch had gotten all the stock back to the ranch and everything squared away for the night.
Another night without a rodeo.
Another night without selling a ticket.
“There’s no sense in any of us staying. Go on ahead home,” Walker repeated.
From the corner of her eye, Kalli caught Roberta’s glance in her direction, and Walker’s nod. Roberta gathered up her oversize purse, spare sweater and umbrella, leaving with brief good-nights.
The office was quiet except for the rain. Then she heard the sound of Walker’s boot heels on the wooden floor, coming to a stop behind her.
“It rains like this sometimes in the East, like it’s never going to quit,” she said. “But I don’t remember it ever happening before when I’ve been in Wyoming.”
He waited long enough for the sound of rain to fall between them again.
“I’m riding, Kalli.”
She kept her back to him, concentrating on keeping her head and shoulders up.
“We’re too close to not matching last year’s sales,” he said.
At that, she faced him. “We should make it, Walker. I told you that.”
“I’m not risking this rodeo on a ‘should.’ ”
She backed away at the harsh note in his voice. Without changing position, he reached for her, cupping one hand around her elbow. Touching her but not holding her.
“Kalli, if the figures are a little off, if it rains a couple more days, if a tour cancels, if any of a hundred things happen... If we fall short, we won’t have another chance. The rodeo’ll be gone, out of Jeff’s hands. For good. Neither of us wants that.”
The thought flashed through her mind that he expected her to keep backing away, to walk away. Deliberately, she took a small step closer to him, and thought she detected an easing of the lines around his eyes and mouth.
“But your riding won’t guarantee—”
“No, it won’t guarantee anything. But I’m a champion, Kalli. Folks don’t forget that in rodeo. They’ll come. Some because they cheered me on then, some because they want to see what all the fuss is about, some to remember, some to see if I’m washed up.”
“That’s awful. How can you let them use you—?”
“The same way we’re using them—to hold on to the rodeo. Having a champion riding will help sell tickets. It’s as simple as that. Besides, you said yourself that using me’s good PR. And you proved it. If my being in the arena sells ten, twenty extra tickets each of these last seventeen days, that’ll give us some—”
“Seventeen days! The championship is one thing, even the final weekend, but seventeen days—”
“Is what we need to give us some margin on the tickets. Besides—” The corner of his mouth lifted. “You were the one who pointed out last week that I’m not as young as I used to be. I need the rides to get in competition shape for the final. We’re planning some real rank stock for that show. I’ll need to be sharper than I am now. Seventeen days ought to about do it.”
Seventeen days. Seventeen days waiting for him to go out that night to pit himself against eighteen hundred pounds of bull that didn’t want him clinging to his back. Seventeen days…
“You said to tell you before I rode the next time. Not a week ago you said it.”
The rumble in his voice shuddered something through her body that went beyond the fear.
“Yes.” She swallowed, trying to keep up her end.
“Maybe you can call some of those news people you know, give ’em a new angle on the story, a sort of update.”
“Yes. I could do that. It’s a good angle.” She would do it—for Jeff, and because Walker had offered a kind of gift by suggesting it—but she couldn’t think about it quite yet.
“There’s another aspect, you know,” he said.
“Oh?”
“At my age, I gotta stay limber, work on my moves, keep moving all the time. Even all night long.”
She looked into his eyes and saw desire and humor glinting in them, mixed with a pleasurable excitement at the prospect of two and a half weeks of steady competing. He didn’t try to hide it.
He slid his palm along her cheek until his fingers delved deep in her hair.
“I could use some assistance on that. Do I hear any volunteers?’’
She went into his arms, wrapping hers around him, holding him tight, trying to keep the fear at bay.
“Sure thing, cowboy.”
* * *
ANOTHER DAY PASSED before he could ride, as rain wiped out another night’s rodeo.
It was hard to wait. He hadn’t competed in front of his hometown crowd in a long time. And he hadn’t competed much at all this summer. Eagerness hummed through his system like high frequency through a wire.
It was hard to watch Kalli, too. All that next day, her uneasy glances bounced from him to the rain-peppered window and back.
Lying in bed, with her head tucked under his chin, her cheek on his chest, he considered that.
She hadn’t been nervous about his riding when they were kids, when they were first married. Not until Cory died, and
she suddenly demanded that Walker give up the rodeo. Immediately, and for good.
He’d been in too much pain to even really hear her at the time. And after she left, the new pain had kept him from seeing what her motives might have been—other than to get away from him.
She’d seen rodeo as a kid, but she hadn’t grown up with it, not the way he had, not from inside. She hadn’t felt the bumps and bruises, hadn’t taken the knocks and learned from them the danger was real. Until she’d learned—in one heartbreaking blow—that the danger could be deadly.
Was it a lesson she hadn’t recovered from?
With his free hand, he stroked her hair. Whatever the reasons, whatever her motives, he knew his riding put a strain on the fragile emotional bonds they’d re-formed these past months. But he couldn’t not ride.
It was in him, it was who he was, it was what he wanted. Just as he knew he couldn’t stop wanting Kalli beside him like this. That, too, was in him, was who he was, was what he wanted.
He’d always known he wanted Kalli back, but never as much as these past weeks, having her at his side. The nights he stayed with her or the nights she came to his bed—even when they didn’t make love, sleeping with her warm and soft against him—had left no doubt. He loved her.
Again or still? It didn’t much matter.
Maybe they could get past this. Maybe, if nothing else frayed at those bonds, maybe if they had no added strain to bear, maybe then Kalli would stay this time.
And he could dream a little longer of a future.
* * *
KALLI PICKED UP the sheet of paper from the seat of her chair—a perfect spot to make sure she didn’t miss it.
The paper had a clipping taped to it. The clipping stated an insurance company’s findings that statistically, driving qualified as more dangerous than competing in rodeo, even bull riding. Someone had underlined the last line.
Walker might have left it. Or possibly Gulch. But Kalli suspected Roberta.
It didn’t really matter, though.
She knew her fear was irrational. After all, Walker had been pursuing this occupation for years, with some injuries and scars, true, but no irreparable damage. None of that eased the hold that fear had on her. She couldn’t shake it.
She also couldn’t change his mind.
So, weren’t they back where they’d ended a decade ago?
Not quite.
Because this time, she couldn’t run. And while that bothered her, it also relieved her of trying to decide if she wanted to run. At least until the summer ended, she would continue to be with Walker—though she refused to watch him compete.
Each day, he did interviews or took care of the stock or whatever needed to be done for that night’s competition.
Each evening, he disappeared into the camper behind his pickup and changed into riding gear—tough jeans, crisp new shirt, fancier hat and the gleaming belt buckle that proclaimed him to be what everyone already knew he was, a national champion. He would put on the protective chaps and the special glove and spurs just before he entered the chute and lowered himself onto the bull’s heaving back, but he’d already made the transformation from rodeo producer to rodeo hand.
Each day, she ran the office with Roberta, worked on promotions and did whatever else needed doing.
Each evening, she stayed in the office, watching ticket sales gain steadily against last year’s total. Pretending she couldn’t hear the loudspeaker announcing that Walker Riley would be the next rider, blaring his scores and most often proclaiming him the winner.
And all the while, she tried not to visualize a ton of bull doing its damnedest to dislodge Walker.
The phone rang, and Kalli answered automatically.
“Park Rodeo.”
“Kalli? Kalli, that you? Kalli! How’re you doing? Still whooping it up out there in the Wild West?”
Her office. Again. Only this time, Jerry sounded as if he were pulling out all the stops. “I’m fine, Jerry. How are you?”
“Fine! Great! Everything’s great!”
Oh, she knew that tone. “What do you want, Jerry?”
“I call to ask how you are and this is what I get?”
“I told you, I’m fine. So what do you want, Jerry?”
The phone line went silent, but in the office the door creaked open. Kalli jammed the newspaper clipping into her top desk drawer just as Walker stepped in. He gave her a smile, then turned to the results clipboard on the far wall.
Did she imagine it, or did he move more stiffly today?
He’d certainly shown no sign of that last night.
Her sigh was masked by a gustier exhalation from New York. “So, when are you coming home, kid? We miss you.”
“I’ve told you.”
Kalli thought she’d keep her tone neutral, but Walker slowly turned and eyed her, with no hint of a smile.
“You’ve told me what? That you’re going to be gone all summer nursing this horse opera? That you’re going to stay out there maybe even longer? What does that mean?”
“As long as I’m needed, that’s what it means.”
“What, I don’t need you? The clients don’t need you?” She’d avoided using Jerry’s name, but from Walker’s expression it was a pointless subterfuge. He knew very well who was on the line. She turned away to speak into the phone.
“Jerry, I told you from the first day that I’ll stay here as long as I feel I’m needed. If you aren’t comfortable with that, if you feel you can’t wait until I’m satisfied that things are under control, you are certainly within your rights to terminate—”
“Terminate? Terminate? Who said anything about terminating? I call and ask how you’re doing and you start talking about terminating. What kind of talk is that after everything we’ve been through? Who took you in when you were still wet behind the ears?”
“Wet behind the ears? With two degrees, two internships to my credit and—if I say it myself—a good number of job offers,” she objected, with a stir of humor.
Jerry didn’t miss a beat. “And we’ve done good things together, haven’t we? That’s why I want you back here, so we can do more.”
“Jerry—”
“Just for a few days. That’s not so much to ask—”
“Jerry—”
“Not for me. For Lou Loben. He’s been working with us all summer on putting together the deal for that aluminum recycling business. We’re close. Real close. But you know how he is. He needs a little hand-holding. Now, it’s not that I can’t do it. But with everybody else off taking vacations and having babies and running rodeos... If it weren’t Lou Loben and if you hadn’t worked so well with him... Well, you know.”
She knew. She knew that even as Lou Loben admired Jerry’s business acumen, his habit of not listening to other people grated. Jerry was smart enough to assign Lou to her. “I can’t, Jerry,” she said with some regret. “There’s a situation here, and I need to be here.”
“Is this so much to ask? After all these years? And your working so well with Lou. Is that too much to ask?”
“No, it’s not too much to ask, but—”
“You going?”
She spun around to Walker’s voice. He leaned on the counter, making no bones about watching and listening.
“What?”
“What what?” Ignoring Jerry’s confused question, she tried to interpret the shifting shadows in Walker’s eyes.
“You want to go? Go.”
“I heard that,” Jerry said. “See? They’ll take care of those rodeo things. They can get by without you a couple days. And that’s all I need—a few days. Just long enough to get Lou fixed up. Five, six days. A week, tops.”
“Be quiet, Jerry.” He obeyed. She covered the mouthpiece. ‘What are you talking about, Walker?”
He repeated his earlier question. “You going?”
‘‘I don’t know.’’
“You want to go?”
What sort of question was that? She wanted to help Jerr
y. She wanted to get Lou Loben settled in the business she’d found for him. She wanted to do what she had trained to do, what she excelled at. But was that an answer?
“They need me,” she said, carefully neutral.
He nodded, and not only couldn’t she read his reaction, she couldn’t even make out her own.
Maybe, in addition to getting Lou over the hump, a few days away would help clarify her feelings.
She uncovered the mouthpiece, not taking her eyes off Walker’s. “I’ll give you two days, Jerry. Next week.”
“Well, two days—”
“Two days, Jerry.” She kept her voice steady and strong. If Jerry Salk heard any doubt, he’d attack it. But it was difficult with Walker turning away.
“That’s so close to when you said you were coming back, you might as well stay—”
“I’ll come to New York for two days, then I’m coming back to Wyoming, Jerry.”
“When you get back here, you might—”
“Jerry, listen very carefully to what I’m saying.” And she hoped the man heading out the door was also listening. “I am coming back to Wyoming.”
* * *
WALKER SLAPPED HIS hat against the coating of dust on the seat of his jeans. He didn’t mind ending up on his rear in the middle of the arena, not if that came after the eight seconds ended and after a wild ride sure to pile up points.
The clowns seemed to have the bull contained near the exit gate, but Walker kept a watchful eye in that direction as he headed toward the fence amid the crowd’s cheers.
Gulch, wearing a glare, met him as he came over the fence. But before the older man could say anything, they were joined by one of the veterans who’d stopped by Park for a few days when the word got out the rodeo could use some aid.
“What kind of hospitality is that, Riley? Makin’ it tough on the rest of us with a ride like that. Nice score.”
“Stupid ride, if you ask me,” Gulch muttered vehemently.
“Nobody did,” Walker snapped.
It didn’t stop Gulch. “Stupid and reckless. When’d you go back to thinking you got a duty to give the bull a good chance to stomp you? Thought you got over that a long time ago.”
Rodeo Nights Page 18