Wishing on a Rodeo Moon (Women of Character)

by Brannigan, Grace

  § Chapter Five §

  Later that afternoon Tye sat on the edge of a lounge chair beside the swimming pool. As she stared at the crystal clear depths she admitted to herself that she was a coward. She didn't dare hop into the pool with Jake somewhere close by.

  If she wanted to swim she would have to take off the leg. She didn’t want to do that with anyone around, especially Jake. He was a man, a good-looking man, and that seemed to matter in her mind. He had known her when she was young and whole. She'd be virtually trapped in the pool if he came out. Of course, she could hop on one leg and escape; she had become pretty proficient at that during therapy. But she wasn’t comfortable doing that in front of an audience.

  Tye pushed her dark glasses up on her nose and leaned back in the lounge chair. She was a fraud. She had told Jake she wanted to be friends. It was a ploy to protect herself, to hide. She was drawn to him and kept thinking about him, as if the time apart had never been.

  She had to snap out of the damnable lethargy that sapped her. She had to find another place to live. It felt like torture to be this close to Jake. God! She still loved him, and he felt nothing for her ― nothing more than concern for a fellow human being. He had made that so clear with his friendly indifference.

  If she allowed herself to get closer, to actually give in to the urge to kiss Jake, which was the way her thoughts were wandering, she’d lose her perspective. She was here to recover, to pick up the pieces of her life, not get involved. She couldn’t afford any more mistakes. They just kept piling up.

  Tye remembered Jake from way back when they were kids. He had been Ben's childhood friend. He had never called her a tomboy, like her brother's other friends had, but he’d told her once she was spoiled. For a brief moment Tye wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t left. Would she and Jake have a family by now? For the first time in her life, Tye began to question the reasons she had left Jake. It had been a highly emotional time, too much for a seventeen-year-old to handle. Tye clenched her fists. She had run away all those years ago. She, who declared she never ran from anything.

  With an exasperated sigh, she moved to stand beside the deck rail. Looking out over the flats, she watched the sun drop in the sky. Her first day at the ranch was almost over. Tye liked it here. That was strange, because she had never taken to solitude and tranquility. If the rodeo crowd could see her they would think she had gone loco. Who would believe Tye Jenkins craved quiet surroundings?

  Tye shook back her hair. There was no way her friends were going to see her until she could walk perfectly, with no hitch, no hesitation.

  "Hey, Tye, are you thinking about going for a swim?"

  Drawing a startled breath, Tye swung her head around. Jake stood on the opposite side of the pool, clad only in a pair of tight, faded jeans, his tanned wide shoulders sleekly muscled and brown. Tye sucked in a deep breath, her gaze tracing over him. This was what he hid under those business suits! The man looked amazing. The jeans hugged long legs and fit perfectly over every bit of him. Tye checked herself abruptly. To see him nearly naked like this just about did her in.

  "I-I thought you might have gone out," she muttered, tearing her eyes from his pectorals. Her brain seemed locked on his body. His size had always made her feel small and safe.

  "I decided to stay in tonight. How about you, Tye? Do you have any plans?"

  "No, I plan to forgo the nightlife for a while." She threw him a daring smile. "I’m sure the urge will come back in time. I have a reputation to uphold, you know ― number one party girl." The words tasted bitter. Tye shrugged at her own irreverence.

  Without her conscious permission, her gaze moved again over Jake. His chest hair was as dark as his head; at nineteen, he’d had only a smattering of it. The flesh covering his chest was more muscled now, yet Tye could see the hollow beneath each rib.

  She dropped her eyes to his bare feet. Swallowing past a tight lump in her throat, she watched him throw his towel onto a bench and unbutton his pants. Damn, the man's body was to die for. Tye wondered if he planned on skinny-dipping with her there. The thought made her mouth go dry, then she rejected the idea. Not Jake.

  He began to pull his pants down.

  "Whoa, Jake, what are you doing ― that is, I don't think I've ever seen you without your suit," she murmured weakly.

  He looked up, his gaze level. "I intend to cool off. Do you want to join me?"

  Cool off! Tye felt as if the heat of the day had caught up with her and pooled in her stomach. Didn’t he know his jeans were unsnapped and just kind of hanging open? She sure as heck did. She wished she wasn’t quite so conscious of it.

  In response to his invitation she shook her head. One look at his perfectly proportioned body and there was no way she’d strip down and let him see the stub that was her leg.

  Tye’s mood suddenly went sour. A dry sob nearly choked her. Damn the wasted years! She cleared her throat and reached down to pick up her book. "Thanks, but I think I'll go inside. I've got some things to take care of."

  Biting her lips hard, Tye maneuvered her way around the pool, cursing her awkward steps. She had to escape into her apartment. The door was located right behind Jake. She moved too fast and the leather sole of one boot slipped off the pool edge. Tye fell toward the water. A startled yelp left her lips, then she quickly shut her mouth as water closed over her head. Automatically, she flailed her arms and pulled herself upward.

  As Tye broke the surface she felt herself being hauled against a hard chest, with arms banding around her back. She sputtered and cursed, her hair over her eyes and in her mouth.

  "Tye, are you okay?" Jake asked with concern.

  Pushing back the clinging strands of hair back, she met him eye-to-eye. "What a stupid thing to do," she hissed in disgust. "My foot slipped."

  He shook his head, a smile curving the lips so close to hers. "Glad you decided to join me, after all," he said softly, his eyes full of some cryptic emotion. Meeting his gaze Tye felt her insides twist. Slowly, so slowly that she could have pulled back, Jake’s mouth moved to touch hers. His tongue flicked out and traced her upper lip, then her lower lip. He lifted his head, his gaze locking with hers. Frozen, Tye stared at him. Confusion held her speechless. Desire made her wish he would do that again.

  "You taste like chlorine," he murmured.

  Tye felt herself softening under the influence of that masculine smile, the genuine enjoyment she read there. Her insides were all aflutter and felt like mush. The years melted away. She moved her legs to tread water and then frowned. Ten years.

  "This isn’t a good idea. I have to get out." She pushed away from him.

  Jake moved with her to the side of the pool. Before Tye could protest, he put his hands on her hips and lifted her as if she weighed nothing. He climbed easily from the pool and pulled a chaise longue toward her. Tye sat on it, her wet clothes weighing her down. She began to shiver, trying not to dwell on the kiss, but it consumed her thoughts. The heat, the fire inside should have warmed her, but she shivered again.

  Tye pulled a towel around her shoulders and huddled into its dry warmth. She looked down, alarm clutching at her. "My leg," she said quickly. "I don't know what affect water will have on it. For what it cost, I can't afford to have it ruined."

  Jake seemed to hesitate. "Take it off," he finally said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  Outraged Tye jerked her head up to meet his eyes. "What?"

  Jake’s expression bordered on exasperation. "It's not like I asked you to strip naked and dance."

  Tye felt heat flood into her face. A smart retort leaped to her lips, but she bit it back.

  "Wise girl," Jake said easily. "Don’t argue. Take it off so we can dry it out. Maybe the water won't hurt it."

  Calming herself, Tye realized he was suggesting the smartest thing to do at that moment. Yet she knew she couldn’t remove the prosthesis with him standing there. She couldn’t bear for anyone to see the ugliness of her scarred stump.
She felt paralyzed by her own indecision.

  "I-I…"

  "Relax," he said, moving closer. "Let me take a look."

  Tye drew a deep, shaky breath. Inconsequentially, she noticed the growing puddle his wet pants made on the stone. The jeans clung to him. She tried not to look at the zipper area of the fabric, but her eyes were drawn there nonetheless. She snapped her gaze back up.

  "Do you want to take up where we left off in the pool?" Jake asked huskily. Tye blinked hard, expecting to see him grinning. He looked dead serious.

  "No," she said shortly. "I’ve got to get this leg dry."

  Squatting in front of her, Jake pulled her left boot off, tipped it upside down and let the water run out.

  Tye stared at the boot. "My new boots," she wailed, abruptly overcome by impending tears. Why should a pair of wet boots cause such upset?

  "They'll dry," Jake said reassuringly.

  Tye tried to stand, but Jake pushed her gently back on the chair and proceeded to roll up her wet right pant leg. "What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

  While she watched in horror, Jake eased the boot off the artificial leg and tipped it upside down. Tye stared at the metal components of the prosthesis, then at the top of Jake’s head as he knelt before her.

  "I’m helping," Jake said shortly. "Don't be so defensive. I'm only going to unhook the leg and see if we can dry it out."

  "What? Unhook it?" Tye did stand up then. "You darned well are not, Jake Miller! I can do that myself." Panic struck. Tye knew he must not see her stump. No one had seen it except the nurses and doctors in the hospital and rehabilitation. Even her family hadn’t seen it.

  Jake, still kneeling, caught her by the arm. Dread escalated as Tye looked down into light blue eyes framed by water-spiked black lashes. Fear rioted through her, then desire tried to curl around her insides. Fear won. Frantically, she licked her lips, but words didn't come. Inconsequentially, she noticed the black hair on his chest still dripped with water.

  "If it bothers you, I won't look," he said calmly. "You can cover it with a towel. I used to help my mother with my dad."

  Slowly, Tye sat, her fingers gripping the armrests as Jake finished rolling up her pant leg. Why did his fingers feel so hot against her water-cooled flesh? She looked at the metal limb exposed so starkly between them. She felt like she was living through a scene out of a science fiction movie, and she was the monster.

  True to his promise, Jake kept his eyes on her face, no doubt seeing the apprehension that raged, the coward inside that couldn't bear for him to see her leg. If he saw her residual limb, Tye knew he would be repelled. How could he not be? She remembered her first reaction to seeing the stump. She didn't think she could bear to see disgust in his eyes. She didn't care that he had helped with his father. This was her body, her scars. Her body no longer felt whole. And besides, Jake used to know her as a whole woman. Quickly, she dropped the towel over her thigh.

  Tye held her breath as a deep hurt echoed through her. She didn't know why it would bother her to see a reaction of disgust from Jake, she just knew she couldn't chance it.

  In the next moment he stood and walked across the pool area, her prosthesis in his hand. He picked up the towel he had earlier discarded and carefully dried the artificial limb.

  Wide-eyed, Tye watched him. Jake acted as if he were drying off a plate, or a pan, she thought hysterically. He had her leg in his hands, for God’s sake!

  "I can do that," she managed to protest, surreptitiously tugging down the rolled-up jean to cover the atrophied stump.

  Jake moved closer, but not close enough for her to reach the leg. "Believe it or not, there's no ulterior motive in my helping you. It's help, plain and simple, so stop looking for something that isn't there. We're supposed to be friends, right? My dad had both his legs amputated."

  "I-I know that, of course I know that. It’s just that I could have done it myself," Tye said quickly. Needing something to do with her hands, she pushed her wet hair behind her ears, then pulled it forward again.

  "I know you can do it yourself," he said impatiently. "I also know you could've gotten out of the pool by yourself. Nobody's saying you can't do anything and everything on your own. It’s just that there’s nothing wrong with accepting a helping hand."

  "Help isn't going to do me any good when I'm alone," she retorted bitterly. "If I start depending on people, pretty soon I won't be able to do anything."

  Jake gave a short laugh.

  Incredulous, Tye jerked her head up. "Are you laughing at me?"

  "Yes," he said, shaking his head with amusement. "I can’t imagine you not being able to fend for yourself. You’re the most independent woman I know. It’s laughable."

  "Now you’re saying I’m a joke?" Tye demanded, unable to keep the hurt from her voice.

  "Tye, come on, get over it. You know that’s not what I’m implying. You have never been helpless in your life. Your grit and determination will never allow you to be helpless. You’ll always be able to climb out of any pit ― that’s the way you are. It’s what I admire about you. If you cool off a minute and think about it, you’ll know I’m speaking the truth."

  If Jake wanted to strike her speechless, he’d done so.

  "Anyway," he demanded, "who says you have to be alone?"

  Tye narrowed her eyes, anger bursting inside as her temper took over. "I do, dammit! Who wants to look at this leg every day? I certainly don't. It makes me sick."

  "Your anger is understandable, but you’ve got to accept the leg is gone and nothing’s going to change that."

  "You can talk till you're blue in the face, Jake Miller, but you haven't got a clue what it's like to go your own way and one day it's all gone. To wake up and discover your mother gave them the okay to hack off a leg."

  "Your mother would never okay that unless it was absolutely, medically necessary."

  Jake’s voice sounded cold. So cold Tye shivered with self disgust.

  She put her head down, misery a tangible pain inside. "Oh God! I know you’re right. I-I was unconscious for three days. Mama had to make the decision."

  She darted Jake a glance. His face looked white, maybe with anger and disgust, but he didn’t say anything.

  "Everything went down the tubes. My life, my career. Everything." The damning tears ran down her cheeks. Tye wiped ineffectively at them with her wet shirtsleeve. She felt embarrassed, ashamed by her outburst, hardly able to believe the resentment she had been harboring.

  "I do know what it’s like," Jake said into the silence that followed her outburst. His voice was stark and he sounded fed up with her.

  Tye looked at him. "I’m sorry, Jake. I’m insensitive. Of course you do. You gave up everything to take care of your family. Everything was pulled out from under you." She dropped her voice to a whisper. "Even I abandoned you."

  "Drop it, it’s in the past."

  Tye wanted to say more, but the dark look on Jake’s face stopped her. She drew a shaky breath instead. "You’re right, it’s the past, old history." She tossed her hair back, feeling a shiver work its way across her shoulders. "Everything was fine until you started using amateur psychology on me."

  Jake put the towel and limb under his arm and squatted beside Tye. "You weren't doing fine. You were pretending and running scared. We all do it from time to time. You're so afraid of being vulnerable, you step away from anything even remotely related to help. But you can't be strong every minute." His palm reached out to cradle her jaw. For a moment Tye let herself go weak and lean into that touch. Right now she did not want to be strong. She wanted to be enfolded in Jake’s arms. She wanted him to kiss her again, but longer and deeper. Tye pulled herself back from temptation with difficulty.

  "You're damn fool crazy," she retorted. His words made sense but Tye didn't want to admit it. She was afraid it would give him some kind of power over her. She wasn’t that same young girl who had adored him.

  "Am I, Tye? When you arrived yesterday the first th
ing on your mind was bolting. I know I remind you of the accident, and that's got to be damned hard, hard enough that it pulls at your gut, but maybe in a way it'll help the healing process."

  Tye bit the inside of her cheek and didn't answer. Jake had pretty much hit the nail on the head. She could never let him know about the acute, wrenching disappointment she had felt. It caused a strange mixture of emotions learning that the man whose image she had clung to had in actual fact been a real, fallible human. A man who hadn’t believed in her enough to continue loving a mixed-up teenager. Why, Jake, she cried inside, why didn’t you come after me all those years ago? Tye held her breath, afraid for a moment she had said the words aloud.

  "Tye, I'm sorry you got hurt. Sorry if it bothers you that I was there that day. At some point you'll have to come to terms with your life, and all that it can be. Not what it used to be." Jake stood up, an almost stern expression on his face. "Despite what's happened, your life isn't over. You must realize that."

  "I know that! I'm going to get better, then I'm going back to my old life," she said defiantly, crossing her arms.

  Jake lifted a brow. "You don't have to convince me. You always had more determination than two people. I'm sure you’ll do it if that's what you want."

  "Of course it is." Tye clenched her jaw, her eyes fixed on the water. "Rodeo is my life."

  "What if what you're wishing for might not be what you want in the end?"

  Tye snapped her gaze up to meet Jake's. "Rodeo is what I've always wanted. There's never been any doubt." Except for the brief period she had thought she wanted kids and Jake as a husband. Tye dismissed that memory. It had been long ago. Instead, she focused on her daddy’s words. Tylie girl, you can have the world at your feet.

  She needed to win, and win big. Somehow, the thought didn’t soothe her.

  "You're a survivor, Tye, but there's no rule book that says survivors have to go it alone."

  "What are you suggesting ― that I shack up with you?" she asked sarcastically. "That would be convenient. We could share the electric bill, the newspaper and toothpaste, wedded life ad nauseam." Even as she spoke, Tye felt a sick, twisting ache inside. She wanted to stop the terrible words, but they spilled from her lips, a wealth of bitterness she’d kept stored.