by Lilian Darcy
The crowd whooped and cheered, and so did Tegan. She was lightheaded with relief and pride and something else she didn’t have a name for. The place was full and the sun was out and she could smell hot salt and oil from the food concessions, as well as dust and animal, and it was amazing.
Just amazing.
And he wasn’t hurt. He rubbed at one strong shoulder with a hand that had touched her bare skin less than an hour ago, then he brushed the dirt off his thighs and walked out of the arena with rocking cowboy strides, loose and grinning.
Tegan wondered if Jamie’s mom and dad had made it into town to watch, but she couldn’t see them from her position down in the competitors’ area, near the rail. Jamie seemed to be scanning the crowd, also, and she thought he’d waved, on his way out. There were a lot of locals here, though. She heard someone say, “Hey, that was Jamie MacCreadie,” and someone else calling out trying to attract his attention.
She felt possessive about him, wanted to say, “Yes, that’s Jamie, and he’s mine.”
But the possessiveness scared her because she didn’t understand it and hadn’t been looking for it, so she told herself quite brutally that this was one weekend, this was a fling, she was leaving the country soon. None of this dreamy, knocked-off-course feeling.
And it was time to get warmed up for the barrels. Her name was sixth on the draw, and the start time for the event was listed as three o’clock. She thought they might be running a little late, but not much.
Shildara felt mellow after her gallop this morning. She was a little surprised to find a saddle going on her back for the second time today, after such a big ride. But she worked out what was happening pretty quick, and she pricked her ears forward and moved excitedly between Tegan’s legs, because she loved this, the way any top competition horse did. You wouldn’t get a good performance out of them if they didn’t.
Wyoming rider Keeley Styer skidded around the second barrel and almost fell, losing valuable time as she and the horse recovered their balance. She shook her head in disgust as she galloped past Tegan, and when her time went up it was as disappointing as she’d feared, at 19.53 seconds.
Jade Finemore did better with 17.12, but it was a time Tegan was pretty sure she could beat, because it looked like a fast surface and none of the earlier girls had done especially well. Kara was late in the draw and was still hanging out with Dean. She probably wouldn’t ride her best. She never did, when she was focused on a new guy.
Tegan was up next. The announcer did the usual “all the way from New South Wales, Australia” when he introduced her, and she and Shildara launched into the arena like a pistol shot. She took the right barrel, then the left, opposite to the direction of Keeley’s ride, and Shildara’s feet stayed firm on the dirt. Just as importantly, the barrels stayed upright.
At the top of the triangle, Tegan felt the toe of her boot ding against the third barrel and remembered she needed to be more careful with her feet, but she hadn’t kicked it hard enough to make it fall and Shildara was flying back to the finish.
15.95 seconds! Woo-hoo!
It always felt so good.
No guarantee that she’d win with that time, but it was a very, very good one and for now it was up there as the time to beat, and she should be in the money, no worries.
“You did great.” Jamie met her back at the trailer, picking her up and spinning her in his arms. He was so strong, muscles warm and solid and wonderful. Still exhilarated after the success of his own ride, he wanted to celebrate hers just as much. “You’ll make the finals for sure. I don’t think I’ve seen any other times below 16 seconds. It’s a fast course, though.”
“It is. You’ll make the finals, too, in the steers.”
“Dawson did a great job for me. But let’s see how the bronc pans out before we start celebrating.”
“So we’re celebrating if you’re still walking after the broncs, is that it?”
“Don’t you want to?”
“Depends what you have in mind.”
“Anything you like.”
“Bound to be a party happening somewhere,” she pointed out. “The whole town is pumping.”
“I don’t want a party.” He slipped an arm around her waist and squeezed.
“No?” She didn’t want one, either, but she hadn’t known if she should admit to that.
“I want to go somewhere with you. Somewhere dark. And quiet. Just the two of us. Where I can kiss you across the table. And run my hand all the way up the inside of your thigh. You in?”
“I’m in.”
She felt faint. Head as light as a helium balloon. Knees like drunken sailors.
“Watch me ride?”
“’Course I will.”
“Where will you be?”
“I don’t know. The bleachers somewhere. The rail.”
“I want to know where to look for you afterward, if I stick the ride, you see,” he growled.
“Down by the rail, then?”
“Along with about twenty other blondes.”
“I’ll be the one in the pink satin shirt with the silver fringe.”
“I just bet you will.”
“Gotta admit, you’ll be able to spot me.”
He kissed her, a hot, smacking kiss that started clumsy and ended sweet and syrupy as a movie. Shoot, he was good at it. He made her melt on the spot, and, oh, she could have ripped their clothes off all over again. “You’d better let me unsaddle my horse,” she told him unsteadily, after too long.
“Didn’t realize I was stopping you.”
“Oh, you didn’t?”
“Well, maybe a slight distraction…”
Shildara didn’t understand why her rider suddenly had ten thumbs, and why Tegan kept leaning her forehead against the mare’s neck. When did Jamie MacCreadie get to be this hot, Shil? I’m not sure I’m getting enough oxygen.
She needed Shildara, the familiar and reassuring heat of that sleek neck with its smooth, strong muscle.
Shildara she could trust.
She wasn’t sure about all this new stuff.
She left the horse content in her yard with fresh water and hay, and a carrot for a treat, then changed into the pink and silver shirt and went to snaffle a good position by the rail. She saw Kara’s ride - 18.42 seconds, turn way too wide around the first barrel, and slow to accelerate to the finish. Just a couple more girls after her, and both of them posted good times, 16.14 and 16.09, but not quite good enough.
“You’re second,” Keeley Styer told her, gesturing at the scoreboard. “Did you see?”
Tegan took a look and saw her draw number and time. “Thought I must be up there. Who’s in first place, with that 15.89?”
“Lisa Mackie.” Keeley rolled her eyes, because neither of them liked Lisa much. “Less than two tenths of a second between first and fifth.” Even for barrel-racing, where times had to be measured in hundredths of a second, that was pretty tight.
The handlers had the first horse in the chute for the saddle bronc competition. Jamie would be the fourteenth to ride and he’d drawn a horse he didn’t know. The riders ahead of him had a series of spills and successes, but no one posted a really impressive score.
Tegan’s stomach churned even worse than before when Jamie climbed into the chute and into the saddle. In the steer wrestling, riders used their own horses and she trusted Faro. Saddle bronc was very different.
She’d watched this event so many times. She’d seen NFR champions and first-timers, friends and strangers, jerks and great guys. She’d seen Jamie probably twenty times, and she’d never been anything like this scared. The feeling made her stomach drop away and her hands sweat, and it was like standing on the edge of a cliff. Dizzying. Intense.
Just let him stay the eight seconds. Just let him stick the ride and not get hurt.
Were his parents watching? She still hadn’t seen them.
The chute clanged open and the horse danced sideways into the arena, bucking half-heartedly and seeming more
interested in doing a few advanced European dressage moves than in flipping his rider into the air, cowboy-style. He picked up in the second half of the ride, but when Jamie jumped off Tegan could see by his face that he was disgusted with what had happened. No hope of a decent score, and it wasn’t his fault, it was the horse.
Sure enough, when it was posted the crowd groaned and the announcer gave out some glib lines about the horse’s poor performance.
Re-ride, Tegan coached, give him a re-ride.
She could see Jamie talking to the judges, whose hats did a bobbing dance as they listened and nodded and consulted together. They awarded him a re-ride, and the crowd was happy.
But it was a risk, Tegan knew, because Jamie didn’t get to pick and choose. If he took the second ride, he forfeited the score he’d just posted, and might end up worse off, with no score at all. The suspense just might kill her, and Jamie probably wouldn’t enjoy the wait much, either.
Finally his turn came again. Another unfamiliar horse, from the local bucking stock contractor. Same routine as before. Jamie climbed over the metal rails into the chute and it opened wide. The horse shot out and Tegan’s heart hit her ribcage and made her sick to her stomach. The bucking movement went one way and Jamie went the other and it was a miracle that he came back down into the saddle.
The first three seconds felt more like thirty, and then the final five seconds of the ride was just beautiful, no other word for it. Huge bucks, Jamie’s body whipping in rhythm. The two of them looked like they’d practiced together for hours and were perfectly in tune, even though they’d never laid eyes on each other until half a minute ago. The buzzer went and Jamie dismounted like a circus acrobat and raised his arms to the crowd, looking around the rail until his eyes found Tegan’s wild pink shirt.
He grinned and brandished his hat in the air and she waved like a crazy person. Her poor old heart would be bruised, at this rate, first clanging against her ribs in fear, then bouncing upward, light as a feather.
She laughed out loud, wished she could just run to him, but he was doing a lurching cowboy walk out of the arena with the fringes on his chaps swinging, probably feeling a little sore right now, because those bumps back down into a western saddle weren’t comfortable. Neither of them needed to see the score, because they knew it would be good.
It was - 89 points.
She met up with him behind the yards a minute or two later. She was breathless and knew her eyes would be shining at him, telling him everything she felt, and she didn’t care. “Did you see your folks? Are they here yet? Were they watching?”
“No, I thought I saw them, but if it was, they’re gone now. Maybe tomorrow, now that I’ve made the finals in both events. I’ll call them. Might be enough to get Mom to come in to watch.”
“She doesn’t like to?”
“Nah, she’s shy, and so is RJ. Might have been them earlier, and then she got overwhelmed and Dad’s taken her home. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Well, anyhow, you were amazing. I’m so proud of you.”
“Yeah?” He looked at her and she couldn’t look away, and they almost kissed right there. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, and she just nodded.
CHAPTER NINE
They took care of the horses, then headed into town. The whole place was alive with people, the streets were bright with decorations and the sun was setting in a blaze of color, turning Copper Mountain almost the same color as its name. A couple of people came up to Jamie and said they’d seen his performance in the saddle bronc. “You here for long?”
“No, just for the rodeo.”
Jamie tried to keep his head down, tried to hide under his hat and stay unnoticed, but it didn’t always work. His shoulder bumped Tegan’s and he grabbed her. It was half apology for bumping her, and half because they both needed the touch as a promise for later.
We’re okay. We’re good. This is still happening. We’re seeing it the same way.
They went back to the same place where they’d had beer and onion rings last night, Grey’s Saloon, which was busy and packed and noisy in a way that offered a weird kind of privacy. They could sit in a corner booth and stay pretty quiet, the way they’d both wanted.
Jamie did as he’d said he would. He kissed her across the table and touched her under it, and they ate enormous plates of steak and salad and fries and drank a beer each, and Tegan noted that Jamie didn’t go for a second or third. He really had been faking it before, with Chet.
It was still early when they’d finished. “Wanna walk back the slow way?” Jamie said.
“Sure.”
So they took an indirect route through the busy streets, and he must have known exactly what he was doing because he stopped and said, “Wait here on this bench,” and disappeared around a corner. He came back a couple of minutes later with a gift-wrapped box in his hands, the paper the color and sheen of new copper, all pinky-gold and pretty and bright.
“What’s this?”
“Bought you some candy.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to.”
“Want me to open it now?”
“When we get back. It’s nothing. I just wanted to get something pretty and sweet for you. It’s, you know, a nice candy store. Copper Mountain Chocolates. Sage Carrigan runs it. Her family’s ranch is up past ours, I think I told you. Anyhow… here.” He handed her the package, seeming shy about it, and she had this gooey, smiley feeling inside. So he did know how to be romantic, in a funny sort of way. A moment or two later, around a corner, he’d stopped dead in front of another storefront. “This!”
“What, Jamie?” She was still smiling, trying not to let him see, in case he wanted to know why. She didn’t know why, herself. What was this called, what she felt? Didn’t seem to be a word. Not one she trusted herself enough to use, anyhow. Meanwhile, he was such a cowboy, planting his feet on the ground and shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. What was he on about?
“Forget that stupid western shirt you had on last week in Nevada when the wedding didn’t happen, you should have worn something like this.” He was looking at the wedding gown in the window of a pretty boutique. It was strapless and full skirted, with a gauzy overskirt embroidered with flowers, an intricate folded bodice and a V of lace at the neckline.
It was beautiful.
But what did it remind her of? Gauze overskirt and lace…
For a moment she couldn’t think, and then it came to her. Her mother’s wedding gown. Not her birth mother, the Mummy she almost didn’t remember, but the Mum she’d grown up with – the mother whose wedding pictures showed Tegan herself as a three-year-old flower-girl, in a tiny, high-waisted and full-skirted version of the bridal gown. She still had that dress, somewhere.
Mum had asked her about it, actually, when she and Dad had been packing for the move into town. “I’ve found your flower-girl dress, Te-Te.” A nick-name she hardly ever used, because she knew Tegan didn’t like it. She knew Tegan wasn’t a dress kind of girl, too. “Dad says not to keep it, but… what do you think?” She’d sounded tentative, Tegan remembered.
And she remembered her own prickly response. “Put it with my stuff.” She knew there were some boxes they were keeping for her. Maybe in storage, or high in a closet, she wasn’t sure. “I want to make my own decisions on everything.”
“Put it with your stuff,” Mum had repeated. “Okay.” She’d sounded relieved and, weirdly, disappointed at the same time, and Tegan had been swamped with another wave of loss about the farm so she’d ended the call quickly and hadn’t thought anything about the conversation since.
So the tiny flower-girl dress was presumably “with her stuff”, wherever that was, and here was a gown that made her think of it, and she loved this one on sight. It made her feel wistful and warm and girly, and what did that mean?
Her breath caught, but she tried not to let Jamie see. If he knew she was emotional because of the association with the other dress, she would feel
vulnerable and exposed, and if he knew she could picture herself wearing this one, he would laugh at her.
Tegan Ash, tough Aussie barrel-racer, brought almost to tears by a wedding gown?
No, brought almost to tears by standing next to a man, with his fingers laced in hers, looking at a wedding gown, and thinking all sorts of complicated things about love and forgiveness and loss and the past and the future.
Shoot, what had happened to her?
She said, trying to tease, “Would anything have played out different, last week, if I’d been wearing this? I don’t think so!”
“You’d look great in it, that’s all.” He sounded stubborn and gruff and surly, the way he always used to, but she wasn’t buying his act anymore. He was a tough cowboy with a marshmallow for a heart. Who knew?
Who knew I’d like the marshmallow part so much?
“It’s pretty. It’s gorgeous,” she said truthfully. Maybe she could tell him…? “But it reminds me of - ”
No. Don’t say it. Just don’t.
It scared her that she’d told him so much already, and that she wanted to tell him more. Those first few words had brought her to the cliff edge, and now, suddenly, she scrabbled to get back. She grabbed for a shred of the old prickly pride. “ - of the fact that I don’t like dresses.”
“For a wedding, you should like dresses.” He looked at her, blue eyes daring her to disagree. “And pink roses. For a bouquet.”
“You’re my style consultant now?”
He insisted, “You love pink.”
Well, she’d always known he was stubborn. “Okay, yeah, I do.”
“Good.” He wrapped his arms around her. “Suits you.”
He kissed her with the wedding gown as chaperone, until a group of people came out of the café a couple of doors down and brought the moment to an end.
They wandered back and went to Jamie’s trailer, barely taking in the evening’s entertainment on the way. Tegan sat on the lower bunk and opened the candy. It looked rich and dark, the shapes unusual and clever. “You say you know the woman who makes this? It looks amazing. Hand-made.”