“Who?”
Jack shot him a pitying look. “The promoter for the Challenger circuit. The bigs, man. Stand up and tuck your shirt in.”
Whoa. Ian moved fast. He got his shirt straightened and his hat on his head as Mort came around the corner with a smaller man in a very large hat.
Ian recognized the promoter—he’d been at the rodeo where June had been called up to the bigs. That’d been the rodeo where Ian had realized that bullfighting was a perfect fit for his skill set.
Mark was in charge. And he was heading straight for Ian and Jack.
“Jack,” Mark said, offering his hand. Black Jack shook it. “Good to see you back in the game. How’s the leg holding up?”
“Real good, Mr. Soleus.” Jack sounded nervous, which made Ian nervous.
Please, Ian thought. He needed to get to Vegas. He wanted to see his son.
“This is my partner, Ian Tall Chief,” Jack said.
Mark looked him up and down as he might judge a prizefighter. “June Spotted Elk’s cousin, right?”
“That’s right,” Ian said, giving the man his best handshake even though it rankled him to be June’s cousin first. Still, he wasn’t about to say anything that might screw up his chances of making the TCB this year. “Good to meet you.”
Mark nodded and Jack nodded and Mort, feeling left out, nodded extra hard.
“I’m going to get the bad news out of the way first,” Mark began. “Unless someone gets injured, you guys aren’t going to make the Challenger Finals this year.”
Damn, Ian thought.
“Damn,” Jack said.
“But,” Mark went on, “the Future All-Stars night that runs before the Finals has been a big hit with our target demographics of younger viewers and women.” He eyed Ian when he said this. “And June herself continues to be a big draw. So, even though it’s still four months off, we’re offering you two the job of working the Future show, if you’re agreeable.”
Jack looked at Ian, who finally took his chance to nod. “I think we’ll take that,” Jack said. “We sure do appreciate you considering us for the job.”
“Jack, you know the drill. We’ll have some PR lined up—especially for Ian. You and June should anticipate doing interviews together...” He waved his hands in the air as if he was looking at a theater marquee. “The first family of bull riding!” He looked to Ian for approval but Ian must have been giving him a hell of a look. “Or something. We’ll have marketing work on it. It’s part of the deal.”
“Understood. Absolutely not a problem.” If that was what it took to get to Vegas, to be in the middle of a big arena where Eliot and his family could watch from the stands, then that was what it took.
“My assistant will forward the contracts,” Mark said. They all shook hands and nodded some more before Mort and Mark Soleus left them.
“Not bad, right?” Jack said. “It’s a good step. Hell, back when I was starting out, you were either in or out—wasn’t much in between.”
“Yeah, it’s good. Remind me to thank June when I see her.”
It didn’t matter if Ian was getting to Vegas exclusively on the merit of his talent in the arena or if it was only because he was June’s cousin. Hell, at this point, if someone said he was only getting in because injured ex-football players were trending on Twitter, he’d still take it.
He could buy tickets for Eliot and his parents, have them waiting at Will Call. He could ask them to come down behind the chutes after the show.
He might finally get to meet his son.
He wanted Lacy by his side when he did.
Now he had to make all that happen.
* * *
AFTER A WEEKEND of hanging out with Mitch and Paulo, Lacy was ready to load her bulls up for the hour-long drive home to the Straight Arrow. They were good guys, just as Ian had promised—Mitch talked too much, and Paulo didn’t talk at all—but they weren’t Ian.
Working together, they’d gotten the bulls in the trailer when the promoter, a guy named Jim, who had worked with her father for years, approached them. Jim had even been at the funeral. “Evans,” he said in a gruff voice.
“Yeah?”
Jim took off his hat and rubbed a hand through his gray hair. “Slim’s denying everything, but the head office isn’t waiting around. They’ve canceled his stock contracts.”
“That’s good.”
“There’s no proof that he or Salzberg were involved in the incident in—” he looked down at his notepad “—Oklahoma?”
“Yeah, Clinton.”
“Anyway, without proof—like the pictures your friends took—the head office won’t be able to chip in on that bull’s expenses.”
“Okay...” She looked at Mitch and Paulo, as if they would know what was going on. Paulo stood there, but Mitch shrugged in confusion. “I figured that.”
“Slim had a couple of bulls he provided for the TCB. To make up the loss of your bull and to fulfill Slim’s contracts, I’m authorized to tell you that Rattler will fill one of the slots left vacant, starting next week. Can you be in Moline?”
She blinked at Jim, unable to decide if he was serious or if this was part of Fate’s extended practical joke. “Moline? As in, Illinois?” When Jim nodded, she looked at Chicken. “What about my other bulls, Chicken Run and Peachy Keen? I can’t be in two places at once.”
As Jim flipped back through his notepad, Lacy began to panic. This was good—great, even. Rattler moving up to the next level was a bigger paycheck. Bulls at that level got branding and marketing. She could work toward plush Rattlers that kids would buy.
But Rattler wouldn’t start out earning enough to make up the shortfall for the other two bulls—or the loss of Wreck. She’d still be struggling.
“Sorry,” Jim said. “That’s the best I can do. Neither of your other bulls are close to the ranking level for the Challenger. Let me know what you decide.”
Lacy couldn’t do anything but stare at Jim as he walked away. “What—what am I going to do?” she heard herself mumble. “I only have the one trailer...”
Mitch and Paulo shared a look. “We’ve got a trailer. We’ll help you next week, but you should ask Ian.”
“But he doesn’t go to all the same rodeos I’m contracted for,” she protested. As she said it, she really began to panic.
Part of the reason Ian was coming home with her was because they could ride to the rodeos together at least some of the time.
If she and Rattler were up at the TCB level all the time, Lacy and Ian would never ride together. Sure, he’d gotten the Future All-Stars, but he wouldn’t be making the jump to the TCB this year.
He’d have no reason to come home to her, to stay with her. She was healing up. He might decide that, since she was better, he’d absolved himself of his guilt in breaking her rib in the first place. She wouldn’t blame him.
“Honey,” Mitch said, “ask him. Ian is the kind of guy who takes care of his own. You should realize that by now.”
She wasn’t his own—was she? They’d barely decided to be dating. That did not make her his responsibility. As much as she needed the help, asking for more felt like another layer of failure. “But we’re just—”
Mitch cut her off. “People like to say that rodeo is one big family, but if you don’t fit into the family the way you’re supposed to, it’s like they take it personally. That’s why it’s important to find people you can count on. Sometimes we have to make our own families.”
Mitch’s words settled around her in a strangely comforting way. For the first time in a long time, she thought about family. Not the one that had died on the highway, and not the one she’d probably never know. But a family of her choosing.
Something more. That’s what Ian had said, even after she’d come apart completely. She was
the hottest of hot messes but he stood by her. Was this what he was talking about? A family of sorts?
She wasn’t the same Lacy Evans she’d always been. She was someone new, someone who had a semi-live-in boyfriend and a complicated past.
Did she have a new kind of family, too?
Only one way to find out.
* * *
LACY WAS WAITING for Ian when he got to the Straight Arrow Sunday. There was something about seeing his truck driving from a long way off, the plume of dust kicking up as he got closer.
He was coming back to her. She didn’t know how much longer this would last, them playing house together. She wanted to hold on to it, to him—to a little slice of normal. She wanted to fall asleep in his arms and know he’d be there in the morning.
She wanted him to stay. And she didn’t see how it was going to happen.
“Hey, babe,” he said as he got out of the truck. “How was the rest of your weekend?”
Lacy waited until he’d gotten to the porch, until he’d dropped his duffel and pulled her into his arms, until he’d kissed her before she said, “Rattler got called up to the bigs. They canceled Slim’s contracts. Rattler gets to fill one of his slots.”
“Really? That’s great!” He picked her up and spun her around before kissing her again. It was so tempting to get lost in his touch, his body. A few nights without him and she already needed him more, again.
“You’ll be in Vegas—we’ll go together.” He set her down and grinned at her, smoothing her hair back from her face. “Vegas, baby. You can meet my family. June and Travis will be there and—”
“But it’s not great,” Lacy interrupted. The truth was going to hurt. She steeled herself for another bracing dose of reality. She pulled herself out of the warmth of his arms and stepped around him. It’d be easier to get this out if she wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t touching him.
“Don’t you see? I have to go with Rattler to Moline next weekend. You’re going to be in Bismarck and Peachy and Chicken are supposed to be in Boise. I can’t afford to get another trailer or the hired help to get Peachy and Chicken to where they need to be and I can’t afford to not take Rattler and...” She forced herself to breathe, but that wasn’t the best idea. The air got caught in her throat and her eyes began to water. “And I can’t ride with you anymore. We’ll never be going to the same place, not for the rest of the season. I know I can’t keep asking you to work the Straight Arrow for nothing, especially not since I’m healing up. You’ve worked off the vet bill from Rattler and whatever debt you think you owe me for the rib.”
“I see,” he said in a voice that made it pretty clear he didn’t. “Anything else?”
“It was supposed to be no-strings,” she whispered. “This is why. Fun while it lasted. It just...didn’t last as long as I wanted it to.”
Ian came and stood next to her. He didn’t touch her, which made everything worse. But if he was going to throw his duffel right back into his truck and drive off into the sunset, she wouldn’t cry until he was gone. She promised herself that.
“What do you want me to do here, Lacy?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, blinking rapidly.
“Do you want me to go?”
“No. But I can’t ask you to stay.”
Ian turned to her. She wasn’t looking at him, but she could see his body pivot. “Why not?”
“It’s not fair to you. You’ve got stuff you’ve got to do. That’s what you said, back at the beginning.”
“Last time I checked, life wasn’t fair.” Was he laughing? At her?
She turned to see that, yes, he did have a smile on his face. It made her mad—and the anger felt good. It was something she could hold on to without coming apart at the seams. “I know that. The last year of my life has been one reminder after another. But I’m not your pity case. You don’t have to put your entire life on hold to take care of me. The rib is healing. Slim was busted and cut out of the circuit. I’m not in danger anymore. Why is that so hard to understand?”
Just once, she wanted to be mad at him and have him get mad back. Because that lopsided grin? It made her madder. This must be what wet hens felt like, she figured.
He put his hands on his hips and shook his head slowly. Finally, she thought. Finally he would see sense.
He looked up at her and damned if that smile wasn’t still firmly in place. “You are, hands down, the most stubborn, infuriating, maddening woman I’ve ever fallen for,” he said.
All the air felt as if it whooshed out of her chest. “What?”
“I’d thought,” he went on, completely ignoring that whole “fallen for” comment, “we’d gotten this settled last week. I seem to recall telling you I wanted something more like a relationship with you and—correct me if I’m wrong—I seem to recall you agreeing. Enthusiastically.”
“Well, yeah—but that was before things changed.”
“What’s changed? Okay, sure—I’m going to Vegas, and so are you. Rattler got called up. Slim got busted. So?”
“So? Everything’s changed.”
“No,” he said, stepping into her. “This hasn’t.”
And then? Then he kissed her. He pulled her into his arms and pressed his lips against hers and swept his tongue into her mouth and—and—
Lacy forgot everything else. The rest of the world might keep on spinning, but she stood rooted to the spot as Ian kissed her. This was what she wasn’t ready to be done with yet. She didn’t know if she’d ever want to be done with it—with him.
When the kiss ended, she wavered in his arms. He brushed a curl away from her face and said, “Circumstances have changed. But that doesn’t change what’s happening between us. I’m not going to walk away from you because I can’t catch a ride to a rodeo. I don’t know that I could walk away if I tried. You want to hear something?”
“Okay,” she said weakly, letting him hold her up.
“I missed you this weekend.”
She blinked up at him. That was not the declaration of love she might have been expecting. “Oh?”
“I don’t miss people, Lacy. Growing up, I wanted out. I was—not a good boyfriend, back then. I never cared enough about someone to miss them before. But I missed you.” He sighed, as if admitting this were harder than he expected it to be. “It’s a hell of a thing, caring for you.”
“Even when I’m infuriating and stubborn?”
“Even then. So. You tell me what you want. Not what you think is best or right or fair—what you want. Do you want me to go?”
“I want you to stay,” she whispered. “But I don’t know how to make it work.”
“If I can get you a trailer and some hired hands, will that help you see that I want to stay with you?”
“I can’t afford it. Maybe in a couple of months...”
“I didn’t ask if you could afford it. I asked if that would help.”
She nodded, a strange new feeling taking hold of her. This was hope, she realized. For the first time in a long time, she was hopeful that something was going to work out.
Ian smiled down at her, his face strong and handsome. He was too good for her, really. She should tell him that, but she couldn’t. She was too selfish. She wanted him too damn much. “Good. I have a couple of favors to call in.”
* * *
IAN’S IDEA OF “calling in favors” turned out to be calling his dad, Dave Tall Chief. In less than a week it was settled. A couple of hands from the Real Pride Ranch were to show up every Thursday morning and load up Peachy and Chicken and take them to the Ranger rodeo they were contracted for. A cousin of Ian’s, Tony, would be one of the hands. The hands would also help Lacy load Rattler, but she insisted on being the only one to take her bull to the Challenger rodeos. For this, Ian’s friends and family agreed to take a small cut
of Rattler’s take-home checks from the Challenger rodeos for the duration of the time they helped. Lacy didn’t have to pay up front for the hired help or for the use of the trailer.
And that, basically, was how Lacy got to know Ian’s family. His dad, Dave, came out the first week to meet with Murph and discuss the arrangements. If Dave Tall Chief didn’t approve of his son shacking up with her, he gave no sign. Instead, he told embarrassing stories of Ian as an ornery little kid.
Then there was June Spotted Elk. She was riding in the Challenger circuit, and she was waiting for Lacy at Moline. “I’m June,” she said before Lacy had even gotten out of the truck. “Are you seriously dating Ian?”
“I’m Lacy,” she said, trying not to feel starstruck. “Yeah, I am.”
“He’s not a total jerk about it?”
Lacy gave June a tight smile and said, “He’s not a jerk about it at all.”
June gave her a hard look that bordered on making Lacy’s skin crawl. But she stood her ground.
“And you actually like him?” June said it as if it was the most alien thing she’d ever heard of. In other words, she sounded exactly the way Lacy had always imagined a sister sounding.
“Yeah. Is this going to be a problem?”
At that, June smiled—almost the same smile Ian had when he was amused by Lacy’s smart mouth. “Never thought I’d see the day...”
Lacy decided to change the subject. “Did you really ride a wild buffalo once?”
“He told you that, huh?”
Lacy nodded. Behind her, Rattler stamped in the trailer. He wanted out—and Lacy couldn’t blame him. Moline was a hell of a long way from Laramie.
But June wasn’t budging. She braced herself for some sort of sisterly threat—don’t break my cousin’s heart or something like that.
Instead, June said, “Mitch said you were good for Ian. But don’t let him jerk you around.”
Lacy tried not to scowl. There was a touching sentiment somewhere in there. She’d clearly gotten the Friends-and-Family-Seal-of-Approval.
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 48