Her Rodeo Rancher

by M. K. Stelmack

  Her phone sang. “Alyssa. I’ll let it go to voice mail.”

  Then Alyssa sent a text. OMG. Call me about the Will situation.

  “And it’s official,” Krista said, lowering Mara’s feet into the bath. “Alyssa knows we’ve broken up. Exactly what she wanted. Should hit the social media fan soon.”

  “Read it,” Bridget said. “What does it say?”

  “I don’t read texts when I’m with clients,” Krista said, “and that’s what we’re pretending you are.”

  “Pretend it’s an emergency text.”

  Krista couldn’t deny her curiosity—and dread. Better to absorb Alyssa’s snide commentary here and now with her sisters than with a client. I heard from Laura about you and Will. Could we work something out? Then in a new text, as if she needed a moment to compose herself: I am wondering if you two would be willing to continue the social media front until after the celebrity ride is over. Maybe by then Phillip will have backed off, too. I have not talked to Will yet about it. I want to hear from you first.

  “That sounds civil,” Bridget said.

  “It sounds that way because she will do anything to make sure the celebrity ride happens,” Krista snapped and lifted out Bridget’s feet quickly, water whooshing about. Not very relaxing. Get a grip. “Not that I blame her. She’s poured her heart into this cause. The money could save the lives of kids or at least make their days easier, so my little heartache doesn’t matter. I get that. It’s the way she goes about it. She said she hasn’t, but I bet she already talked to Will. Knowing him, he would’ve said that if I agree, he’ll go along with it.”

  “I don’t get it, Krista,” Bridget said. “That sounds reasonable. Why are you annoyed at him, for letting the choice be up to you?”

  “Because he believes that there’s no point being honest if it means someone’s feelings get hurt. He’s leaving me to do the dirty work. And dirty work—” she nailed Bridget with the secret anger she’d held since her breakup conversation with Will “—is apparently what I do in relationships.”

  She and Bridget had a stare-down that ended with her interfering sister shrugging her shoulders. “Prove me wrong.”

  Which meant she and Will would have to prolong their relationship by faking it for a few more weeks. Full circle. Except... Krista squirted lotion in her hand in preparation to massage Bridget’s feet. “I don’t want him to do the ride. It’ll ruin his shoulder, if his stupidity already hasn’t. I can’t stand being with someone who deliberately risks his health. And worse, he lied to me. He deliberately didn’t tell me the whole truth. And he knows how I feel about honesty and liars. I can’t trust him.”

  “Or,” Mara said slowly, “he’s the kind of guy not to burden others with his troubles.”

  “I was his girlfriend. He’s on the hunt for a wife. What kind of wife wants a guy who doesn’t tell her the truth?”

  “Krista, you two were dating for what? Six weeks, maybe?” Bridget said. “And you guys were doing it biweekly? I’m not sure he violated some sacred trust. He has a tendency to keep his troubles to himself, is all.” She nodded at Krista’s hands. “Any of that meant for me?”

  She’d rubbed the lotion into her hands instead of Bridget’s feet. Self-massage. She normally treated her hands daily before her first appointment, a routine she’d dropped this work week. Ignoring her hands, the source of her “talent.” She stretched out her fingers.

  “That’s the thing, I could’ve really helped him. These hands could’ve taken away some of his pain. I could’ve learned how to massage the area or helped him with his exercises or anything. He only let me help once, and that was because I caught him in the act of icing his shoulder. The rest of the time he tried to convert me into somebody I could never be in a million years.”

  “Are we the ones you should be telling this to?” Mara asked.

  Krista squirted out more lotion and this time applied it to Bridget’s feet. “It doesn’t matter. Once his shoulder heals, what then? There’s not much call for spas out on the farm. And horses, the ranch, that’s his passion.”

  “If it heals,” Mara said.

  Krista froze. Her fear voiced in Mara’s quiet, irrefutable tones. No. If her touch really was her gift to the world, then—Sorry, Will. No more hands-off.

  Krista picked up her phone. “I got your message,” Krista said, as soon as Alyssa picked up. “Sure, if Will agrees, I can continue with the act until after the celebrity ride. But I was wondering if we should push a new angle.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes, I was thinking we should play up Will’s shoulder injury. Build in the human drama of him risking himself by riding with an ongoing injury.”

  “I’m not sure Will would like that.”

  “We don’t have to go into all the details. Mention he’s doing therapy. Maybe a picture of him and me in the physiotherapist’s waiting room, or doing an exercise.”

  “I could ask—”

  “Alyssa, it’s a condition of me doing this.”

  She sighed. “Okay, let me know how it works out.”

  Krista shook her head. “Nope. You want this. You deal with the ornery celebrity.” Krista hung up before Alyssa could protest.

  “There. I proved you wrong, Bridget. Don’t you dare smirk.”

  But it was no use. For the rest of the session with her sister-clients, she had to put up with their sly suggestions for other social media poses she and Will could submit to.

  * * *

  SEATED BESIDE WILL in the waiting room, Krista opened her phone at the trill of an incoming text. “Ah good. My two o’clock confirmed she can switch to Thursday instead.”

  “You didn’t have to come, you know.” He meant it, would’ve preferred it. He would have said so except he was acutely aware of Alyssa sitting directly across from him. For the occasion, she’d brought a handheld camera and was recording.

  She smiled up at him as if he was her whole world. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.” A nice line—too bad Alyssa had written it.

  She had written lines for him, too, but that hadn’t gone well at the rodeo, so he decided to wing it here, as well. Besides, it would shake Krista out of her rut, knock some honesty out of her. “You might not want to be here, depending on what the doctor says.”

  The visit with the specialist was real. The X-rays and imaging results were in, and the doctor would not be faking the delivery of the results.

  Krista slipped her hand over his. “We’ll get through this.” A borrowed line but taking his hand wasn’t.

  He looked down at the curl of her hold over his, her gentle warmth seeping into him. He missed her touch on him. In the weeks they’d dated, he’d grown used to the glide of her fingers, the peppering of her quick kisses, the deliberate brush of her side against his. He’d come to crave it. She’d not done it for money or because a camera was rolling or because it was part of their arrangement, but because she’d wanted to. Now they were back to faking it.

  Only now that he’d had a taste of the “real” Krista, it was hard to separate the two. Her soft voice was pitched exactly like when she’d agreed not to give up on them after Phillip had started his campaign. Will made it “impossibly hard” she’d told him. Not impossible, as it turned out. He carefully squeezed her hand before releasing it.

  “Thanks, Krista. That means more than you’ll ever know.”

  “Cut!” Alyssa said. “Great, I can work with that.”

  Alyssa seemed to have gotten over him quickly enough. Gotten over her trouble with Krista, too. The two of them had orchestrated this “injured-Will” angle on their own. He could’ve refused, except it meant he could be close to Krista. He was that pathetic. But that was Krista’s pull. She made him breathe easier, took the duty out of living and made it a thing of pride and possibility. He only seemed to be a source of aggravation for her. Somebody she had
to deal with for a higher cause.

  The receptionist came out. “Will?”

  Will stood, Krista tight beside him. His fingers twitched and then he let himself indulge. He took her hand.

  “Wait!” Alyssa said, reaching for her camera. “Could you do that again?”

  They reenacted his dependency on Krista, which was getting increasingly easier to do. They walked, hands entwined, down the corridor, Alyssa ahead shooting, walking backward into the consulting room.

  “You aren’t going to film the actual delivery of the news, are you?” Krista said.

  “That’s what we agreed on,” Alyssa said. “Right, Will?”

  He had agreed, but faced now with the examination table and its white stream of paper, the doctor’s stark desk with its computer and the windowless, white walls, he didn’t want to be here, much less have hundreds, maybe thousands view his reaction to the results.

  But to back out was to show himself to be as weak as his shoulder. A coward.

  Krista hadn’t let go of his hand, even though this bit of drama wasn’t going public. “Maybe this is a little too raw for our viewers. They could be informed of the upshot. Will can do a little update afterward. We can even have the doctor explain to the viewers what’s going on.”

  Alyssa turned to Will. “What do you think?”

  Both sets of eyes swung to him, each wanting a different answer, but it was the one beside him with the blue eyes, the one he’d slow-danced with and even now held his hand, that he spoke to. “I like Krista’s idea.”

  The doctor knocked and entered, surprise registering at the crowded room. Alyssa moved to leave, holding the door open for Krista.

  Krista hesitated, and that was enough for him. “You could stay, if you want,” he said, not quite able to meet her eyes.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said, every bit as casually as him.

  “Are you willing to make a statement about Will’s condition afterward?” Alyssa said to the doctor.

  “Statement? I doubt it. Why would I ever do that?” He looked Alyssa up and down, his steely gaze fastening on her camera. His doctor scared Will a little. He wasn’t much older than him but he carried the authority of a surgeon general. Alyssa waggled her fingers. “No worries. I’ll arrange it with the front desk.”

  The doctor glared at the door after she left and then turned to Will. “This is my place of business, isn’t it?” He frowned at Krista.

  “This is Krista Montgomery,” Will said. “She’s—a friend.”

  “More than a friend,” Krista said.

  “We can be honest with him, I think,” Will said.

  “Well, then,” she said and withdrew her hand from his. The empty space felt like a cold draft.

  The doctor glanced between them and retreated to his file. “Right, this is where we’re at.”

  A year of surgeries had taught Will some of the terms that the doctor let fly, but there were new ones, as well. Ones that pointed to exactly how narrow his options were becoming. He’d overdone it with the rodeo and the farm work. Krista was scraping her lip with her teeth, her face scrunched with worry. She seemed to have forgotten she didn’t need to fake it.

  “Are you recommending surgery?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to go that route yet,” the doctor said. “The thing is, it’ll be a wait, anyway, and there’s lots that can be done that’s preventative.”

  “Should his arm be in a sling?”

  “There is that, especially while he’s watching videos or around the campfire or sitting on the deck.”

  “And what is the maximum weight he should lift?”

  “I’m right here,” Will informed her.

  “Good, then you shouldn’t have to be reminded what to do.”

  “I’ve got a list you can get from the front desk,” he said, “of dos and don’ts.” He looked sharply at Will. “Now be honest, how are you managing with the pain?”

  Even now, his shoulder felt on fire. “It’s sore most of the time,” he admitted.

  Krista stood. “I’m going to leave because I’ve seen the X-rays and there’s no way that’s the truth, Will. You never seem to tell the truth when you’re with me. At least be honest with your doctor.”

  “I double every bedtime dosage so I can sleep for a few hours,” he said quickly. “So, I’m managing it, but I could do with some different kind of help.”

  “That sounds about right for what the X-rays show,” his doctor said and tapped his mouth with his fist.

  Head bent, Will noticed Krista’s toes, pink like wild roses. They were curled and as he watched, they slowly relaxed. She resumed her seat and he breathed again.

  She must still have feelings for him, because in this room, she didn’t have to fake a thing. She’d admitted she cared for him when she broke things off, but he figured she’d said that to soften the blow. Gone was her anger because he hadn’t been honest about his shoulder. She could only be upset now because the doctor had nothing good to say. He opened his hand on his knee, palm upward. She sighed and laid hers on his. He quickly clamped his fingers around her hand. There, something real. The doctor was inputting Will’s prescription. “Careful you take this as directed because they are strong enough to knock out a horse.”

  “Speaking of which,” Krista said, “in your opinion, should Will in his present condition be participating in the bareback ride planned for three weeks from now?”

  “I wouldn’t recommend he do anything that risks further injury to his shoulder,” the doctor said.

  Krista looked in triumph at Will.

  “Having said that,” the doctor said, “I’d also have to recommend he avoid stairs because that would increase his risk of further injury, too.”

  “So you are suggesting that he take reasonable risks? Will, are you listening?”

  He had been listening. To his doctor, to his physiotherapist, his mother, Alyssa—and Krista. Listening because they all cared about his health, and who was he to override that? He’d stayed quiet and that had caused confusion and distrust among those he loved. Time to come clean and say what he’d only come to accept in these last few days when he’d lost the one person he wanted most by his side.

  “This is the thing, Krista. This ride is about more than me keeping my word, and it’s more than about the kids. Both mean a lot to me, and I’d do it for either one of those reasons. But I’m doing it because it’ll be my last ride. I’ll never get on a bronc again. I don’t want my last ride to be one where I ended up injured. Defeated. I want one more chance to do it right. I want one more chance where I can make myself proud.”

  Krista chewed her lip and stared down at her pink toes. He jiggled their held hands. “Because the heart wants, right?”

  She flashed him an annoyed look.

  His doctor handed Will the prescription. “Good luck.” It wasn’t the most reassuring thing for a doctor to say to his patient.

  They were halfway out the door when the doctor said, “So what do I tell the camera?”

  Will considered how much of his medical condition was fair game. “Hold nothing back.”

  “After all,” Krista added, “Will isn’t.”

  Will wanted to believe that beneath the irritation and irony, there was the tiniest thread of faith in his determination to leave the arena on his own two feet and his head high.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  AS KRISTA WAS about to close for the day, Alyssa came in. She breathed deeply and flopped onto Krista’s sofa. No appointment, no invitation. She held up her phone.

  “I’m taking out your ex.”

  It was yet another meme. The dolls sat on the fence. Krista-doll said, “I could give those kids a speed spa. That’s all they need.” Will-doll’s thought balloon read, “About as useful as this ride of mine.”

  Krista handed back the phone as s
he took a seat beside Alyssa. It was nasty but—“Hey, Alyssa. It’s just a joke. Maybe you shouldn’t take it so seriously.” Krista deliberately used Alyssa’s exact words from their earlier blowup with Laura before her wedding. The incident that had fractured Alyssa’s friendship with Laura. The two were talking again, though Laura had confided that it was only because Alyssa was respecting Krista.

  Alyssa’s head bobbed sideways, like a dashboard toy, absorbing Krista’s poke. “I hear you,” she said softly, and then her voice rose again, “but this—this is more than personal. It’s about children. It’s...cruel.”

  It was.

  “I’m sure you’d love for this guy to get taken down, too,” Alyssa said.

  “Maybe for the sake of others, but he’s now more like a rock in the shoe for me,” Krista said. She had enough clients now, repeat clients who knew her for who she was. If her conflict with Phillip came up, the reaction was sympathy or a comparable story of their own.

  “A rock I intend to grind into powder,” Alyssa said. “What dirt do you have on him?”

  Back in the winter, Krista had come up with all kinds of malicious scenarios to crush Phillip. But nothing was more satisfying than the sweet revenge of success. “I’m not sure that’s the route to take. It’s important that he’s convinced it was his idea to stop so he can keep face.”

  “This ex must’ve been totally head over heels with you. He’s obsessed.” She sighed sharply. “You really are trouble. The worst kind because you don’t ever mean to be.”

  Was Alyssa handing her a compliment? Krista proceeded with caution. “You sound like Bridget when she had to pick me up from the principal’s office after I got punched in the face from a fight I was trying to break up.”

  “A fight over you, remember?”

  “Yeah,” Krista said. “Those days are over.”

  Alyssa held up the screen of her phone with the dolls. “Really? They’re still fighting.”

  “Phillip but not Will.”

  “Put them in the same arena and see what happens.”