by Fiona Starr
My sister grabs the knob and pulls it back open.
“Lou, no!” I shout and then stop myself and take a breath. I quiet my voice with effort. “Please. I need a minute.”
Her green eyes watch me through the crack in the door. She looks angry but I know it’s just her being my big sister. She lets go of the door and holds her hands up. “Fine.” Her face softens. “I’ll be out here if you need me.”
“Thanks.” I pull the door shut and lean against the shelf, my heart beating like a rabbit on the run. I can’t catch my breath. Is this what a panic attack feels like? I think about that for a moment before I shut that crap right down. My mom’s voice rings through my head. “Cassandra Wyatt, you go take five and collect yourself. Life gives us so much to get in a tizzy about; a boy should never be on that list.”
She’s right. I know she is. But I can’t help myself. It’s like my body has a mind of its own—a memory of its own, and when it heard that Hank Blaze was just added to the list of pros headlining the bull riding competition at the annual Cherry Festival right here in Paulson next week, well… all the feelings and hurt I had bottled up over the last fourteen months, one week, and three days came rising to the surface all at once.
I remember the last time I saw Hank like it’s etched on my heart—because it is. It was a year ago last May. He’d just won the bull riding competition at the Pro Rodeo Championship up in Great Falls, and it brought on all kinds of attention. Suddenly he was being offered contracts from all kinds of big sponsors and asked to do television and radio commercials too.
I was there for it all. Hank waved to me in the stands before he got in the chute each time and did the same when he was done. He rushed over to me after his big win, and lifted me in his arms, kissing me in front of all the cameras. “This is the dream, Cass,” he whispered. “It’s happening.”
I squeezed him as tight as I could. “I’m so happy for you, Hank. You’ve worked hard for this. I know how badly you’ve always wanted it.”
And he had. Ever since he was a kid, Hank was a natural for the rodeo. He never stopped training either. He worked hard and he didn’t take any of his good fortune for granted.
He put me back on my feet and held my hand as he turned to wave for the cameras. It was such an exciting time.
We didn’t see each other at all over the next week. Hank was busy meeting with lawyers and P.R. people working with his sponsors. He had meetings with his coach and his new manager and they got together all the time going over his schedule for when the pro circuit events started at the end of June. Everything was changing right before our eyes.
On his last night in Paulson, we took the horses for a ride out along the Flathead River. I packed a picnic and we found a spot to tie the horses and watch the sunset. We lay on the blanket as the evening grew cool and the meadow grass swayed in the wind.
“Seven weeks? It feels like such a long time.” I moved my hand over his, matching up our fingers and feeling the rough calluses on his palm.
He looked off into the distance as the sunset turned the sky golden bright. “It’s not so very long. It’ll go by in a flash. I’ll come back for weekends here and there.” He leaned in and kissed me and then slipped something onto my finger.
I pulled away and found a dainty pearl ring on my right hand. “Hank? What’s this?”
His face was serious as he held my hand. “It’s my promise to you, Cass. This ring was my grandmother’s. I can’t afford to get you a diamond just yet, but if you’ll wait for me, I’ll come back and do this right. I’ll get you a fancy diamond and put it on your other hand so the whole world will know that you’re my girl.” He kissed my fingers and made me feel like a princess.
I looked into his blue eyes and felt so full of love I might have burst into a zillion pieces right there. All the emotions pushed up into my eyes and the tears just kind of fell on their own. “I love you, Henry Blaze.”
He wiped my tears and leaned in, rubbing his nose against mine. Then he grazed his lips along my mouth before kissing me deeply. “I love you, Cassandra Wyatt. And I promise you, this is just the beginning.”
Well, seven weeks came and went, with no Hank, and no word. I left him a couple of voicemails and texted a couple of times, but he never responded.
It was impossible not to hear about his progress over the following months. In a town as small as Paulson—population 4,875—a local boy becoming a rodeo star was the big time. Everyone was invested in his success, and you couldn’t go anywhere in town without hearing about whatever Hank was up to in the news.
One of his sponsors, Freehand Apparel, has a huge media presence and they host lots of parties and press events at the competitions. Of course, Hank is always featured in their online marketing, and at the event photos, he’s always got all these beautiful girls hanging all over him.
I don’t know if I am jealous or what, but it’s hard to ignore his wide smiles, or the way his hand wraps around their hips in the photos. I don’t want to believe it, but with no word from him since he left, and after seeing all the pictures and watching the interviews… it’s right there for all the world to see: Hank Blaze has moved on.
I stopped wearing his promise ring months ago. Every time I looked at it I felt like a fool. A left-behind, discarded, small town fool.
And now, he’s coming back.
A knock on the closet door pulls me from my thoughts.
Lou cracks it open a little. “You all right?” She hands me a bottle of water.
I nod. “Yeah. I’m fine. Thank you.” I hate how small my voice sounds… how weak I feel.
“The mayor’s here looking for you. He wants to go over the schedule for the music stage for the festival. He’s waiting in the conference room.”
“Okay. I’ll be right there.”
She shuts the door and leaves me.
I blow out my breath and try to shake this anchor off my heart. “Damn you,” I whisper as I rub angry tears from my eyes. I unwrap a roll of paper towels from the shelf and tear off a sheet to dab my mascara. The last thing I need is to go back to my desk looking like I’ve been crying.
“Damn you, Hank Blaze.”
Chapter Two
HANK
Eight seconds. Eighty-six points. That’s all I need. Eight seconds and eighty-six points.
I climb into the chute and wrap my legs around Punisher, the toughest bull at today’s event. He’s feisty in the pen, and I know this is going to be a tough ride.
It’s hot inside my vest and helmet and it’s hard to talk with my mouth guard in, but there’s nothing that can beat the thrill of sitting on top of two-thousand pounds of angry bucking bull who wants nothing more than to throw me off.
I get my right hand into position and squeeze the grip. “Pull, Cody!” It’s noisy in the arena and my words are muffled through the mouth guard but we’ve done this for each other so many times, Cody, my best friend and fellow bull rider, knows what I need with a simple shake or nod.
“Pulling!” Cody foists the rope and we both work to adjust the strap around the bull a little more as I squeeze the rosin end in my hand.
“Okay.” I say, giving the signal for the final adjustment. Cody gives the rope another long tug and then helps me wrap it around and over my hand again. The feel of the pull rope tightening against my gloved hand gets my heart going.
I give Cody a nod.
He touches my shoulder and gives the signal for them to open the gate. “Here we go, boys! Here we go!”
Punisher explodes from the chute and we’re off. Time stretches and everything seems to slow down. I squeeze myself around the bull, making contact with every part of my legs. My spurs are in his side and he’s trying to throw me off, but so far, I’ve got his rhythm.
Then he stops and bucks again—he shifts gears—and offsets my balance before throwing me off. I sail through the air, over his horns, bracing to hit the ground, but then I am tugged back like a yo-yo. I slam against Punisher’s side.
My hand is hung up in the rope. I hang like a rag doll as the bull continues to buck and spin. I twist around as the bull jumps, and my shoulder goes hot. I know the bullfighters are working to distract the bull, but I can’t see anything and I’m trying like hell to let go. When I am finally free, I fall to the dirt and land on my side. I try to crawl to get out of the bull’s way, but my arm won’t hold my weight. I hit the dirt again and feel an explosion of pain as Punisher’s hoof comes down on my knee. The pain shoots through me like a white flash, and then it’s gone. I drop in the dirt, fighting to catch my breath.
The EMTs rush in. They help me take my helmet and my mouth guard off, moving real slow, though I can tell there’s nothing wrong with my neck. They scream questions at me over the roar of the crowd.
Cody’s face appears above me. He’s worried, but he tries to hide it behind a smile. “Hank! You’re going to be all right, brother! Hang in there.”
“My shoulder is killing me, man.”
“Punisher got you good. But look at the bright side, it’s a good thing you’re a lefty, eh?”
He grabs my left hand and pumps it once. I smile at him as they push him back away from me.
When they finally get me strapped to the stretcher, they lift me off the dirt and carry me out of the arena. The crowd goes wild, cheering and hollering at me as they take me away.
I raise my good arm and wave at them, though I can’t really move much else, and that simple gesture makes the rodeo fans cheer even louder.
They cut my jeans off in the ambulance and work on my knee. I can’t move my head from the brace they have me in, so I can’t see anything, though one of the guy’s hands are covered in blood.
“How bad is it?” I ask.
“Hank, we’re going to get you fixed right up. Just need you to relax.”
“Where’s Cody?” I can’t tell who is with me in the ambulance.
“Everyone’s going to meet you at the hospital. Just relax, now.”
I feel the poke of an IV in my hand and after that everything gets fuzzy.
Three days later, my arm is in a sling that’s strapped to my body to keep my shoulder from moving and my right leg’s in a brace that makes me look like a cyborg. The doctor’s words echo through the air as they wheel me out of the hospital.
One hundred percent tear of the rotator cuff on the right side. Total knee reconstruction.
It’s bad. I can tell by the looks on everyone’s faces—Cody and my mom especially. But I start physical therapy next week and they’ll see that no bull—not even Punisher—can take me down for long.
I can see the press waiting outside the hospital as they roll my chair toward the door. As soon as they spot me, they start crowding.
“Hank! Hank! How do you feel!”
“Hank! You’ve got some hairy injuries there, son. What are they saying about your recovery?”
“Hank! Hank!”
I wave the questions away and smile at the cameras. I know my sponsors wouldn’t want me to get into any specifics until I speak with them about what they like to call messaging. I see a media guy from one of the sports networks and I aim my statement in his direction. “Thanks everyone! Thanks for coming to see me. The doctors here are amazing and I’ll be back in no time. You’ll see.”
A reporter for the local news calls out, “You think you’ll be back in time for Houston?”
Her question startles me, but then I know they live in the world of making everything sensational and dramatic. I smile again and look thoughtful. “Houston’s seven months away, Libby. I think you’ll be seeing me well before then.”
“Well, good luck to you, Hank,” she says.
The questions keep coming, but now it’s time to leave.
My dad’s behind the wheel of my parents’ RV. The nurses help me into the back and onto the couch while my mom holds the door open for us. They file out and my mom steps inside, closing the door behind her.
It’s eerily quiet in the RV. I turn to look out the window and watch as the media people peel off and disperse back to their vehicles.
It’s so quiet.
“Where’s Cody at?” I ask.
My mom smiles back at me as she settles into the passenger seat. “He came by last night but you were sleeping and he didn’t want to wake you. The team is heading up to Bozeman. He said to ‘heal up and tell Lefty he’d see you soon.’”
I nod. The pro bull riding schedule is non-stop. Ever since leaving Paulson, it’s been one city after the next, with almost no down time. Between the media interviews, photo shoots for sponsors, parties that I am required to attend, and training and riding, there’s barely any time to eat. I get it. “Where are we heading?”
“Back home, son.” My dad glances at me in the rear-view mirror. “Ian and Jamie are both competing at the Cherry Festival this weekend. When they announced you’d been added to the event, everyone was really excited that you’d be competing at home. Finally.” He added that last bit under his breath. I know it’s been a point of contention that I left Paulson and haven’t been back. My manager did everything he could to keep me moving forward, not back.
“Small town is small time, Hank. And if you want to make it to the bigs, you’ve got to act like you’re already there.”
I used to argue with him about it. I am not ashamed of where I come from. But he insisted it was all about image and keeping the sponsors happy.
“It’s good to have you back, son,” my father says. I can see the pride in his eyes. It’s the same way he gets when he talks about any of us and our rodeo success.
My brother Ian rides bareback and Jamie’s following me up the bull riding ranks. My other two brothers, Leo and Kieran, were always more into ranching than riding, but it was cool that Ian and Jamie rode. The three of us heard the call of the cowboy looking to hang on for that sweet eight-second buzzer.
I haven’t seen any of my brothers since I left after going pro. It will be good to see them ride at the festival.
Thinking about Paulson and the Cherry Festival woke up thoughts about someone else I haven’t seen since then and thinking about her makes me want to turn this rig around and head in the opposite direction. “How long until we’re home?”
My mom tosses a bottle of water to me. “We drove through the night to get to you in Laramie, but now there’s no hurry getting back. We’ll see how we feel when we stop for supper. Decide then if we’re going to park overnight or drive on through.”
Laramie was almost thirteen hours from Paulson. I leaned back on the couch and closed my eyes, my thoughts on Cass.
Chapter Three
CASS
I catch a whisper of Hank’s name and end up lingering at the file cabinet, pretending to still be looking for something I found a moment ago.
“They say he’s a wild man on and off the bull.” Cindy giggles. “At least the bull didn’t hurt the parts that really matter, if you know what I mean.”
“You are so bad!” Bonnie chides her. “You know better than to talk like that. He used to date Cass. Have mercy.”
“What’s the big deal? It’s not like it’s top secret or anything. My friend Charity still goes to all the rodeos and exhibitions. You know as well as I do what goes on there when the riders aren’t busy on the bulls. It isn’t my fault they look to other girls when they’re alone on the road. I mean, can you really blame them?”
“Goodness, I had no idea you were a buckle bunny, Cindy.”
“I really hate being called that,” she says, the name clearly touching a nerve. “But that was before I met Travis. Now it’s just me and him.”
“Well, good for you then. You’re a bit younger, but I went to school with Hank and he never struck me as the type to pick up loose women. And I don’t want to hear another bit of gossip and innuendo about it, you hear me?”
“Fine. If you’re going to be like that. Not for nothing, but I was just saying.”
“Well, do yourself a favor and stick to just
saying about things you know to be true. All right?”
Word about Hank’s injuries has been all over the news and of course that means it’s also all over town. The video of his mishap riding Punisher is too brutal to watch. I had to turn it off after he got thrown but he couldn’t let go.
“You think he’s done with riding?” Bonnie whispers as if this is a taboo thing to utter aloud.
I shut the filing cabinet drawer noisily and walk around the low cubicle wall to the front desk. “All right, ladies. We have a ton of stuff to finish up before the festival gets going. Bonnie, have you updated the schedule on the website to include the changes we got this morning?”
“I have. And I spoke to Phyliss at the Gas and Go on my way in today and she said she’ll be sending over a new PDF of the entry form for the Pie Baking Contest as well. I told her it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“That’s fine. Has the sheriff come by yet today?”
Cindy lifts an envelope off the counter and hands it to me, looking innocent. “Yup. Here’s the updated schedule for the officers who will be directing traffic. He said he added a couple of shifts at the Holy Trinity Church lot and said the gates at the back of the fairgrounds have been secured.”
I smile. It’s nice when everything goes according to plan. “Perfect. Thanks.”
My sister appears from down the hall with a thick folder full of event permits in her hands. “Do either of you have a moment to go run these over to the fairgrounds? Millie needs these to be on the premises right away and I have to stay here to settle a dispute between roadies who all think they need a pass to park up in the VIP lot.” She rolls her eyes. “They can’t all be VIPs.”
“I’ll go,” I say. “I have to go meet up with the mayor for the stage lighting test in a bit. I can drop these on the way.”