“Oh, my God,” Eve said.
She gently placed her son in Gus’s arms. “If he’s not in the same exact shape when I get back,” she warned the old man, “I will personally tear you limb from limb. After I kill that knot-headed husband of mine!” she vowed, and began to run toward the arena.
“As most of you rodeo fans already know, Vortex and Travis are old rodeo buddies with a score to settle. The last time these two tough competitors met, it was bull, one, cowboy, nothing. Travis is going to try to even that up in our arena today. Keep m mind, folks, that Vortex has already throwed three cowboys today, sending one of them to the hospital with a broken collarbone. We wish Larry Nickels the best and hope he has a real speedy recovery.”
Eve was almost to the fence, elbows and feet flying as she pushed her way through the packed crowd. Just a few more steps and she’d be there. She grabbed on to the top rail and pulled herself up, ignoring the people who shouted at her to get down.
“Travis!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Travis, you fool!”
He couldn’t hear her over the noise of the crowd. He wouldn’t have heard her if it had been deathly silent. His head was down, the way it had been in the picture in Texas Men, his hat was pulled low over his forehead, hiding his eyes. His jaw was clamped tight with determination.
“Ladies-s-s and gentlemen-n-n, rodeo fans of all ages, now in the chute, contestant number 53, on Vortex-xx, the bull who can’t be rode!”
She saw him nod his head once, and raise his left arm, giving the signal that he was ready.
Man and beast exploded out of the chute and into the arena.
“Travis!” Eve screamed, but was drowned out by the thunderous roar of the crowd.
The next eight seconds were the longest in her life. The huge bull was a spinner, whirling and twirling as it bucked, jumping, tilting, twisting, throwing his flanks impossibly high, leaping into the air with all four hoofs off the ground, coming back down to earth with enough force to drive steel spikes into the hard-packed ground. Her husband was like a rag doll on the animal’s back, his right hand anchored under the bull rope, his left reaching for sky.
“Come on, come on,” Eve whispered, entreating the eight-second whistle to blow and end it. “Please come on.”
And then the whistle blew and the crowd went wild, screaming its approval. The bull who couldn’t be rode had been ridden.
Travis let go of the bull rope, swinging his leg over the Brahman’s hump, trying to dismount without getting gored by one of the animal’s long, lethal horns. He tilted, off balance, and slid into the well, his hand hung up in the bull rope so that he flopped around, attached to nearly two thousand pounds of enraged beef on the hoof.
Eve screamed and tried to scramble over the fence as the rodeo clowns rushed in to do their job, trying to get close enough to the madly whirling dervish to pull the rope loose and free Travis’s hand.
Someone grabbed Eve’s legs, keeping her from climbing into the arena. “Let me go. Let me go,” she said, kicking out blindly at whoever it was. “That’s my husband.”
And then the bull rope loosened suddenly and Travis was thrown free. He flew through the air, landing facedown and unmoving in the dust.
And now the bull was at his most dangerous. Vortex was known for going after downed riders. The crowd fell silent, watching as the massive animal swung his head from side-to-side, horns gleaming, spittle hanging from his mouth, trying to decide on a target. The clowns crept up on him from either side, taunting him, trying to distract him from the still, unconscious cowboy on the ground. Vortex bellowed a challenge and then turned, accepting the decoy, and chased a clown from the arena.
Eve kicked free of the cowboy who had hold of her leg and jumped over the fence, beating the medics to the man on the ground. She ran her hands over him, frantically, gently testing for injuries. “Travis,” she sobbed. “Oh, God, Travis. No, don’t move,” she said when she felt him stir. “Don’t move.”
“Eve?”
“I’m here, darling. I’m right here,” she said, scram bling around so he could see her without moving his head. “Don’t try to move, darling. Not yet. Let the medics make sure you’re all right first.”
“I’m okay, fellas, thanks,” he said, sitting up and waving away the medics who were trying to help him. His eyes never left the woman who was kneeling in the dust of the rodeo arena beside him, her red hair in a tangle around her head and tears on her face. “You called me darling.” He pulled off one of his gloves with his teeth and reached out, wiping the tears off her cheeks with his thumb. “You never called me darling before.”
“I’ll call you anything you want from now on,” she promised. “Darling,” she said, tilting her head to press her cheek into his hand. “Sweetheart.” She reached out and touched his face with a trembling hand. “My one and only love.”
Travis clamped his teeth together and blinked hard, trying to hold back the hot tears that sprang to his eyes. Rodeo champions didn’t cry; it set a bad example for the rest of the cowboys. “Does this mean we won?” he asked.
“Yes,” Eve said, knowing he didn’t mean the bull riding event. “Yes! We won!” She rose up onto her knees and threw herself into his arms. “I love you,” she whispered into his ear. “I love you so much.”
The crowd roared its approval as Travis Holt, heartthrob of Selina, Texas, four-time PRCA National Bull Riding Champion, best-looking, sweetest-talking, most-sought-after cowboy on the circuit, fell backward into the thick, powdery dust of the rodeo arena with his wife in his arms. “I love you, too, darlin’,” he said and passed out from the pain of a dislocated shoulder.
“Ladies-s-s and gentlemen-n-n, let’s have a nice round of applause for Travis Holt and the pretty little redhead.”
Epilogue
Two years later
“DAMMIT, EVE,” Travis complained. “I don’t think Amanda’s old enough to be going out on dates yet.”
“She’s fourteen and it’s just a school dance,” Eve said, reaching out to pat his jeans-clad thigh. “So stop worrying.”
“Well, what do we know about this boy she’s going out with?”
“It’s Tallie Sweet’s oldest boy, Bobby Ray. You’ve known him all his life.”
“He’s a nice boy, that Bobby Ray,” Gus put in, looking up from the rope he was braiding to add his two cents to the discussion. “Been a big help to his mama what with her divorce an’ all.”
“I think Bobby Ray’s really cute,” Laura said from her seat on the porch where she sat grooming one of the lop-eared rabbits she was raising for her 4-H project. “Really, really cute.”
“Is he the one with shifty eyes?” Travis asked suspiciously.
“He does not have shifty eyes,” Eve chided with a laugh. “And you know it. He’s a perfectly nice boy.”
“There are no perfectly nice sixteen-year-old boys,” he grumbled, and slid lower down on the porch swing, his long legs stretched out in front of him, booted ankles crossed, lazily keeping the swing in motion with one heel. “They’re all walking hormones at that age.”
Eve sent her husband a sly, sideways glance. “At any age,” she murmured teasingly, playfully slapping his hand as he reached over to caress her breast and, thereby, prove her point. “Gracie, sweetie,” she called, raising her voice to be heard by the two children playing in the sprinklers watering the lush front lawn. “Help Tim. Slik’s about to steal his cookie.”
Her son was a hale and healthy three-year-old. Except for the scar down the middle of his chest, no one would have guessed he’d ever had a heart problem. He squealed loudly and bopped the greedy pig on his snout, saving his own cookie.
“That’s the way, pardner,” Travis hollered lazily. “Give’em hell.”
“Hell,” Tim repeated instantly, turning to grin at the man he’d called Daddy since the day he’d uttered his first word.
Travis had formally adopted the little boy two years ago, but the paperwork had been just that—a
formality. Travis had been Timothy’s father since the day he married the boy’s mother. He reached toward his wife, curving his hand over the child that mounded the front of her blue maternity blouse. Actually, it was one of his chambray work shirts, worn loose over a pair of white maternity shorts. But, on her, it looked good. “How’s she doing in there?”
“Anxious to come out and meet everybody,” Eve said, arching into his hand.
“Back hurt?” he asked sympathetically.
“A little.”
“I’ll rub it for you tonight,” he promised, and leaned over to kiss her ear. He lingered a moment, taking the time to kiss her cheek and her lips, nibbling at her mouth until Bear heaved himself to his feet and started to bark.
Travis turned his head and glanced down the long dirt road leading out to the highway. A plume of dust billowed into the air. “Looks like Romeo’s on his way,” he said, and got to his feet. “Amanda,” he hollered, pok ing his head inside the screen door to summon his oldest niece. “Bobby Ray’s here.”
“Does everybody in this whole family have to be out here, right this very minute?” Amanda said as she came out of the house. “Can’t a person have any privacy?”
“Nope,” her uncle said, and grinned at her.
“Aunt Eve,” she said plaintively. “Don’t let him embarrass me in front of Bobby Ray. Please.”
“You behave yourself,” Eve warned her husband, taking his hand to pull him back down beside her on the swing.
“You look real pretty,” he said to his niece as Bobby Ray pulled to a stop in front of the house and got out of his shiny blue pickup. “Just like a fluffy little calico kitten. Just like a blue ribbon heifer at the county fair. Just like—”
“Aunt Eve, make him stop!” Amanda pleaded.
“Whad’I say?” Travis protested innocently.
“No woman likes to be compared to a heifer,” Eve said, and curled her fingers over the top of his thigh, keeping him from getting up. “Evenin’, Bobby Ray,” she said, smiling at the young man who stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“Ma’am,” he said politely. “Sir,” he added, nodding nervously at Travis.
“Amanda’s curfew is eleven o’clock. No drinking, no speeding, no parking,” Travis said. “And if I find out you’ve been doing any of those things with my niece in your truck, I’ll hunt you down like a rabid dog. Is that understood?”
The boy’s ears turned red. “Yes, sir.”
“Then go on and have a good time.”
“Yes, sir,” the young man said again.
“You enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Eve said, laughing at her husband as they watched the two young people get into the truck and drive away. “Scaring that poor boy half to death and embarrassing Amanda.”
“Oh, yeah,” Travis said, and reached for her hand.
He enjoyed everything about his life. His sweet, beautiful, loving wife. His healthy children. His friends. Sitting on the porch on a soft Saturday eve ning, watching the sun go down over land that he owned.
The luck of the draw was a curious thing, he thought as he lifted his wife’s fingers to his lips. A cowboy never knew how far it would take him unless he took a chance.
eISBN 978-14592-7844-8
LUCK OF THE DRAW
Copyright © 1996 by Candace Schuler.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part In any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter Invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any Information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the wntten permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterpnses Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario. Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters In this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure Invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
Printed In U.S.A.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Title Page
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Epilogue
Copyright
Luck Of The Draw Page 16