Once a Champion

by Jeannie Watt

  And for the first time since that fight, Ryan spoke directly to Matt. “I was just explaining to your father how much his recent phone call to my mom had upset her.”

  Matt’s blood pressure red-lined. Charles was still in contact with this woman?

  Ryan jutted his chin out at Matt, as if Matt were somehow responsible. “If it happens again, I’ll make a call of my own.”

  There was no mistaking his meaning. He’d call Matt’s mother, just as Charles had called his.

  “Do that,” Matt growled, “and I will beat the shit out of you.”

  “Or try?” Ryan turned his attention back to Charles before Matt could reply and said, “No more calls, you son of a bitch. Leave her alone.” With that he turned and strode back toward his thousand-dollar trailer with the forty-thousand-dollar horse tied to it.

  Charles face was now more white than red. “Are you still involved with her?” Matt demanded.

  “No!”

  “Just calling her for old time’s sake?” Matt asked with a sneer.

  “Calling her to tell her to keep her mouth shut.” Charles took on his defensive self-righteous stance. “She was the one who clued you in, right?”

  Matt just stared at him. “I clued me in. I’ve known since I was fifteen and she had nothing to do with it.” Charles’s jaw dropped. “Shit, Dad—”

  He needed to get out of there, before he gave in to impulse and punched his father in the teeth. He turned and abruptly started back toward the warm-up area. He was almost there, rounding the last trailer when he heard his name.

  Liv. Oh, man. Liv to front, his father to rear. Who knew where the hell his brother was? It was more than he could handle right now.

  “I can’t talk.”

  She reached a hand out toward him, touching his arm, but Matt shook it off and walked on. He had to. If he talked to Liv, he was going to lose it and he couldn’t afford that right now.

  All he wanted to do was to hole up, get his head on straight before his run. To bury himself in the heat of competition, which had saved him before and would hopefully save him again.

  * * *

  LIV WALKED STRAIGHT back to her trailer, climbed into the tack room and pulled the saddle pad and shiny red cover off the storage bar, stepping back down to the soggy grass just as Tim passed her going into the room to get the saddle.

  Matt had shut her down in a spectacular way and it hurt like hell. But what had she expected? A tearful reunion?

  No. But she hadn’t expected him to be so brutally cold.

  Numbly, she helped get Queso ready for the drill, exchanging greetings with her teammates as she worked, watching with a stab of envy as Pete patted Susie on the butt when she walked by in her shiny jeans.

  She put glitter on the horse’s rump while Tim did the same to all four hooves. She’d never thought she’d see the day. Probably neither did Margo, who was parked a couple spaces down, casting the occasional glance in Tim’s direction.

  Okay, Matt had every right to brush her off, but Liv was going to have her say. Get the closure she didn’t yet have.

  She looked up to see her father studying her. “I’m fine,” she said automatically.

  Tim just shook his head. Apparently, she was a bad liar.

  “Okay, I’m not fine. I screwed up with Matt.” Tim already knew that, so she may as well confess out loud.

  “Talk to him,” Tim said gruffly.

  I tried. “I will.”

  Tim’s eyes went to Margo’s trailer, even though she’d mounted and left a few minutes before. “Do that,” he said.

  * * *

  MATT HAD WONDERED if it was a mistake to ride Beckett competitively for the first time in this rodeo, the most important purse in his comeback attempt, but with his nerves still jangled after the encounter with his brother and his father, he was glad to have his old friend with him. A horse he could trust, because he was having one hell of a time focusing.

  Ryan had already made his run prior to the big confrontation. Matt had watched from the warm-up pen as his brother had made a perfect catch and tied in record time, wondering briefly if his father had stood up to cheer with the rest of the crowd.

  Now he had his answer. No, his father hadn’t been cheering. For some reason he’d called Ryan’s mother, thus pissing Ryan off. Why?

  Matt shoved the thought out of his head. Later.

  And Liv. What had she wanted? She’d looked so stressed, haunted almost.

  Later.

  But somehow the hyperfocus he’d always escaped into eluded him. Liv, Ryan, Charles.

  When they entered the box Matt felt Beckett’s energy through his legs. Ears forward, ready to go. Beckett was as anxious to do his job as Matt was to do his. A team, as always, which was the reason they were champions and would remain champions. For at least one more year. Maybe more.

  Matt exhaled, eyes straight ahead, rope in hand. Beckett practically vibrated beneath him. Matt nodded, the chute clanged open and as soon at the calf hit the advantage point, Beckett charged past the barrier, stretching out with his ears back as he sought his prey. He was on the calf in seconds, but just as Matt released his loop, the calf cut to the left, making a suicidal bound directly in front of the horse. Beckett automatically pulled up, skidding in the mud, and then all Matt was aware of was the odd sensation of the sky being in the wrong place followed by crushing pain as twelve hundred pounds of horse came down on him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  LIV PURPOSELY CHOSE not to watch Matt’s run, but she knew as soon as the collective gasp sounded from the stands, followed by silence, that something very, very bad had happened.

  She dropped Queso’s reins and ran to the arena fence in time to see Beckett get to his feet and almost go down again as he touched his left front leg to the ground.

  But Matt...she couldn’t see Matt. Just the men surrounding the area where he lay and then the arena gate opened and the ambulance came in.

  A hand settled on her shoulder but she barely felt it, didn’t even turn to see who it was. It was only when she realized that she was repeating, “Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no,” that she made an effort to get hold of herself.

  “He moved.”

  Margo. It was Margo who was standing with her, and then a second later, Tim was on the other side. The three stood watching as Matt was strapped to a backboard, then loaded into the ambulance. Once the gate was closed, Tim nudged her and said, “Come on.”

  Liv didn’t ask where they were going or why. She simply followed him to the truck where Queso still stood even though he wasn’t tied. Tim unsaddled the horse and loaded him while Liv numbly stored the gear.

  “We’re going to the hospital, right?” Liv finally asked Tim. Because if he wasn’t, then she was going to find her own ride there.

  “Yes,” Tim said, holding the door open. “Get in.”

  Liv got into the truck then, without a word, scooted to the middle when Margo followed her in. Tim shot the older woman a quick look. A silent communication passed between them, and then Tim reached down to start the engine.

  Liv noted in a distant way that it seemed strange that after all these years they could communicate without speaking, but maybe that was the way it worked when people were in love.

  The man she loved had just been crushed by a falling horse. If she didn’t get that chance to tell him how stupid and blind she’d been, she didn’t know if she’d ever forgive herself.

  *
* *

  IT WASN’T THE first time Matt had broken a bone, or the first time he’d gone to the hospital in an ambulance. But it was the first time he’d known for a fact that his career was over.

  Before they’d loaded him into the ambulance, the paramedics had cut away his jeans and he’d gotten a great view of a compound femur fracture. Not pretty. And the fact that he hadn’t been able to feel anything from the fracture on down scared the hell out of him.

  All the decisions he’d put off making until after he finished his last year—or two—were now front and center. What was he going to do with his life? Would he be doing it one-legged?

  An hour after he’d been admitted to the hospital the doctors told him that the feeling would come back to his lower leg, the broken bones—as in more than one—had been set and he was a hell of a lucky guy. Beckett had crushed his left leg, but his pelvis and back hadn’t been severely injured. Merely bruised.

  Amazing how bad merely bruised could feel.

  Matt had clutched the pain pump during the visit with his parents. His mother fussed over him, her eyes red with unshed tears. His father had gruffly told him that if he needed anything, to just give a call. And then he left, taking the elephant in the room with him.

  Leaving Matt alone. In pain, mental and physical, clutching the pump and clicking it, hoping the dose was only a matter of seconds away. He just wanted to drift away to a place where he didn’t have to think.

  He was almost there when the door opened again. He raised his head as much as he could, then let it fall back to the pillow. Liv came closer, moving quietly, as if she were afraid he was sleeping.

  “It’s all right,” he said without looking at her. He’d seen this before, more than once. Estranged wives and girlfriends of his injured rodeo buddies showing up at the hospital. Helping them through the process and then, once everything was close to normal again, realizing that all the problems that had driven them apart were still there. All they’d done was prolong the inevitable.

  Not going to happen to him. Not while he had this lovely pain pump to help knock him out.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said.

  “How’s Beckett?” he asked without looking at her. If he looked at her, he would regret it. Maybe even do something stupid, like accept comfort.

  “Limping, but his leg isn’t broken or anything.”

  “Good,” Matt muttered. “I want you to keep him.”

  “I’ll take care of him for you.”

  “No,” he said roughly. “Keep him.”

  “All right,” she said slowly, coming to sit on the edge of the chair next to his bed. “I wanted to tell you something before I went home.”

  Matt closed his eyes. “Don’t, Liv.”

  “Don’t what?” she asked in a startled tone.

  “Don’t tell me you had a revelation when I got hurt. Okay? Just do me that favor.”

  She didn’t answer, but he could feel the tension radiating from her slim body. “I had it before you got hurt,” she finally said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  “Yeah. Well...sorry,” he said.

  “Sorry how?” she asked.

  “Sorry as in...sorry.” Finally, he looked at her. Painfully rolled his head so that he could see her pale, beautiful face, and for a moment his resolve faltered. But he was having none of this mercy-reunion shit. It never lasted and he had enough on his plate without letting Liv tie him up into even more knots, then cut him loose again. “I’m done,” he said.

  Her lips parted, then she firmly pressed them together.

  “Anything else?” he asked, hearing the rudeness in his tone, and thinking that was probably a good thing.

  “I made mistakes,” she said with that same stubborn note in her voice that she’d had whenever she told him they would never be a couple.

  “Me, too. But I came to my senses. Anything else?”

  “No, Matt. Nothing.”

  She got up from the chair, her back soldier-straight, and left the room without a backward glance. Matt closed his eyes, gave the pump a click. Maybe now he could start to recover. On many fronts.

  When the door opened again, he was afraid it was Liv, back for round two, and also very afraid that he didn’t have the strength to stand up to her. But the person that walked into the room was not Liv, was not anyone he’d ever expected to see alone in close quarters—especially not in his hospital room.

  Ryan Madison pulled his hat off as he quietly closed the door behind him.

  “Congratulations,” Matt muttered. He clicked the pump. Nothing. “You won, right?”

  “Yeah.” Ryan turned the hat in his hands and for a moment Matt studied his brother’s face. “I heard that the news isn’t good.”

  “For me. Probably works out fine for you.”

  Ryan gave his head a weary shake. “I guess.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Probably not the time for this, but I may never get you pinned down again.”

  “One can hope.”

  “How long have you known?”

  Although he was distracted by pain the likes of which he’d never before experienced, Matt knew exactly what Ryan meant. “Since before that fight in the john.”

  Ryan nodded, turning the hat again. “I kind of thought that, but your old man called my mother out of the blue a few days ago and accused her of telling you. It really upset her because she’s trying so damned hard to do the right thing.”

  “Like I said. I knew long before.” But his father hadn’t known he’d known until recently.

  “I think he threatened her,” Ryan continued in a grim voice. “She won’t tell me everything.” Matt exhaled, tried to come up with an answer. “Not that it’s any of your concern,” Ryan continued before Matt could say anything. “I just wanted some answers so I know how to proceed.”

  “Do not,” Matt said, his voice slurred with pain, “do not call my mother. None of this is her fault.”

  “I hated you for a long time, you know.”

  Matt shrugged, clicked the pump again. Nothing.

  “You had everything I wanted. Excellent horses. A practice arena, roping camp.” He pulled in a long breath. “A father.”

  Matt’s eyes narrowed at the last words.

  “Or maybe I should say a father that acknowledged me.”

  Click. Ahhh. Finally.

  “I don’t have a lot to say about fathers one way or the other,” Matt said.

  Ryan regarded him with a deep frown. Apparently, Matt’s answers weren’t what he expected. The medication was starting to work and he was beginning to regret clicking the plunger so soon. He wanted to get a promise out of Madison—a promise that he’d keep the secret.

  “Don’t...” Matt’s eyelids started to droop as the medication began to have its way with him.

  “I won’t,” Ryan said softly.

  Matt forced his eyelids open, trying to make certain he’d heard right, but they started back down again.

  “Well...get better.”

  “You, too,” Matt murmured, realizing even as he said it that the words made no sense at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  THREE DAYS AFTER Matt had been released from the hospital, Craig and Willa showed up out of the blue. Willa knocked, but apparently knowing how hard it was for him to move, opened the door before he could struggle to his feet.

  “Don’t get up,” she said. Craig came in behind her, grinning widely.
r />   “Are you out of work?” Matt asked.

  Willa laughed. “Not at all. But I thought you might need an extra pair of hands for a week or two until school starts.”

  Matt smiled, maybe for the first time since the injury. “I honestly could.” And some company, too.

  “I had a dentist appointment in Butte, and then Craig laid his plan out to me and—” she shrugged “—I figured we may as well stop by and see if you were game.”

  “Totally,” Matt said without hesitation, “although I don’t think I can do my share of the cooking for a while.”

  “That’s okay,” Craig said. “I can feed the animals, feed the people.”

  “Welcome aboard,” Matt said.

  Willa left after making some coffee and chatting about her job for a while and then Craig commenced tidying up the house as he prattled on about his new life on the dude ranch. He was teaching some of the clients the basics of dummy roping and the boss had started giving him a stipend, which pleased the kid to no end. School was starting soon and he’d already made a couple of friends. All in all, life was good for Craig and Matt sincerely hoped it continued that way.

  Finally, the kid ran out of steam and headed back to his room to unpack and then settle into a TV show. Matt expected the gut-wrenching uncertainty that filled his days to return once Craig left the room, but somehow, having the kid there had shoved his problems further into the back of his mind.

  Matt was half-asleep when a knock startled him awake. He leaned over to look out the window from where he sat on the sofa, his leg propped up, then frowned when he recognized the Bailey ranch rig. Liv? He wasn’t ready.

  He struggled to his feet as the knock came again.

  “Come in,” he finally yelled after dropping his crutch.

  The door pushed open and Tim, not Liv, walked in. Relief flooded through him. Tim he could deal with.

  And then it struck him. Had something happened to Liv? Or Beckett? Was that why he was here?