He turned around, went into the bathroom, and left her there. Mulling over his words.
What reaction had he been expecting? Was he waiting for her to join him in the shower and tell him she loved him too? He could wait until the water ran cold. Unlike him, Tristan wasn’t a chicken shit. When she told him she loved him, it would be when they were in bed together. Maybe she’d tell him while they were making love. Maybe she’d tell him right after they finished making love. Whenever it was she decided to tell him, she wouldn’t blurt it out, and then get away from him as fast as she could.
Her phone was ringing. Bullet was still in the shower, or shaving, or doing something. Whatever it was, he hadn’t come out of the bathroom.
She found her bag where they’d dropped it, by the hotel room door, and pulled out her phone.
“Hi,” she answered quickly before it went to voicemail.
“Tristan, it’s Liv.”
“Hi, Liv, how are you?”
“I’m good. Uh, by any chance, are you with Bullet?”
“Why?”
“Well, there’s someone down here, looking for him, and it seems kind of important.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the lobby of the Thomas and Mack Center.”
Tristan told Liv they’d meet her there in a half hour. She was headed there too for the press conference Lyric had arranged.
When Bullet came out of the bathroom, Tristan was dressed.
“What’s goin’ on, darlin’?” He put his arm around her waist.
“Liv called. She said somebody’s at the arena, looking for you. And that it was important.”
“Ain’t nobody as important as you, right now, darlin’.”
Clearly, Bullet was feeling very amorous after his declaration of love, but the tone in Liv’s voice worried her.
“I think it’s serious, Bullet.”
“I doubt it, but if it’s botherin’ you, let’s get over there and see who it is.”
Liv was alone when Bullet and Tristan walked in the front door of the arena.
“Well,” he said. “I thought somebody was looking for me.”
Liv pointed in the direction of the hallway. “Do you know that man?”
“Never seen him before in my life.”
“I don’t think he knows you either, but he’s been asking everyone if they’ve seen you.”
“Huh. Well, only one way to find out.” Bullet walked over to the man who was on his cell phone. “Hey, mister.” He tapped the man on the shoulder. “I hear you been lookin’ for me.”
The man pressed a button on his phone and dropped it in the pocket of his jacket. “Are you Bullet Simmons?”
“The one and only.”
“Mr. Simmons, you’ve been served.” The man handed Bullet a folded piece of paper.
“What the hell?”
At the same time the man went out the door to the parking lot, Billy, Lyric, and King walked over to where Tristan and Liv waited.
“What’s with him?” Billy asked.
“Someone just served him papers.”
Bullet stood completely still, with a stunned look on his face. Billy walked over and took the paper out of Bullet’s hand.
“What the hell?” Billy repeated what Bullet had said moments earlier when he finished reading through the document.
“What is it?” asked Lyric.
“A subpoena,” Bullet answered.
“For what?”
Bullet turned and looked at Tristan, who hadn’t moved from where she stood when they walked in. His eyes met hers, as though he was trying to tell her something.
“My DNA.”
“For what?” she murmured.
“A paternity test. Wait,” she heard Bullet yell, but she was already through the door. She raised her hand to hail a cab. When it pulled up, she recognized the person getting out of it.
“Tristan? Are you okay?” asked Harris.
“I’m not.” She was too stunned to explain, too stunned to ignore him.
“Where are you going?”
“The hotel.”
When Tristan climbed in the back seat, Harris followed. “I’ll make sure she gets there okay,” he explained to the driver, who looked as though he really didn’t care.
“Let me see that.” Lyric pulled the subpoena out of Billy’s hand and started reading. “Do you know anything about this?”
“It’s gotta be wrong,” he told her.
“Why? I mean, how can you be sure?”
“Look at the date.” Bullet pointed to the section that said, “On or about…”
“Why do those dates sound familiar?”
“Pike Peak or Bust,” said King, who hadn’t spoken until that point.
“Then he’s right!” Lyric shouted. “He couldn’t have been with someone else. He was with us every night. And by us, I mean Tristan.”
“Not every night,” said Liv. “There was one night he wasn’t.”
Lyric first looked puzzled, then her expression changed. Instead of looking at Bullet, she looked at King. “You wanna tell me what the hell went on that night?”
“Lyric—”
“Stay out of this, Bullet,” she snarled at him, and then turned back to King. “You find some buckle bunnies to polish your spurs that night?”
The fact that King didn’t answer wasn’t helping Bullet’s cause. He had a hell of a lot to drink that night, and there were bits and pieces of it that he didn’t remember. He was damn sure he didn’t have sex with anyone, though. Not Tristan, and not anyone else.
1981
“It’s a boy,” said the doctor, handing the baby to a nurse who wrapped him in a blanket and took him to the other side of the room. “I’ll just get him cleaned up a little,” she told them.
Bill had witnessed heifers and horses giving birth, even a goat, but watching his own dear wife suffer through labor was almost more than he could bear. He’d held her hand, rubbed her back, and fetched her ice chips and a cool damp cloth to soothe her brow.
“We have a boy,” Dottie beamed at him.
How could anyone look this beautiful, this happy, after what she’d just endured? Bill didn’t know. She’d been his hero since the day he met her, but today, Dottie was superwoman.
The nurse brought the little blanketed bundle back over and handed him to Dottie. “Look, Bill, isn’t he beautiful?”
Bill was looking at the two most beautiful people he’d ever seen in his life; his wife and his son.
“What should we name him?”
Tears ran down Bill’s cheeks, and he couldn’t speak. Dottie held the bundle with one hand and with the other, reached for Bill.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m okay. And the baby is perfect.”
Bill looked up at the nurse who nodded her head. “He’s perfect,” she concurred.
Bill closed his eyes and said a prayer. God had kept watch over his wife and his baby. They were both okay. Better than okay; they were perfect. He opened his eyes and looked up. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“I think we should name him William Flynn Patterson, Junior,” said Dottie.
“That’s a right beautiful name, sweetheart,” Bill answered.
He looked up again and closed his eyes. He’d never, ever forget his promise. And he’d never, ever compete in another rodeo.
22
“I understand, sweetheart,” her father said. “But you simply don’t have a choice.”
“If I were sick, I’d have a choice.”
Her father folded his arms. “You’re not sick.”
“Daddy, please. I can’t go.”
“I’ve said it once, twice, three times, and I won’t say it again after right now. You have commitments, Tristan. And you will honor them. I don’t care if there’s one or twenty cowboys you don’t want to see at the NFR. There are people counting on you to be there. And you will not let them down.”
They’d had this argument at least once a day for the last week. T
ristan tried everything she could think of to get out of going to Las Vegas for the PRCA National Finals Rodeo. Her father wouldn’t hear any of it.
It had been almost two months since she’d talked to anyone from Flying R Rough Stock other than Liv, who promised she’d let everyone know how hard Tristan was working to have more of the line ready to present in Las Vegas.
If Lyric or Bullet called, and they did often, she ignored the call. If it wasn’t from a number she knew, she ignored that call too.
She’d apologized to Liv twenty times or more about missing the press conference as well as her other commitments at the PBR Finals.
“We covered it,” she told her each time Tristan brought it up, and then told her to let it go and quit worrying about it. It was done and there was nothing they could do to go back and change it.
Liv didn’t realize it, but those words were like a knife in her belly. They couldn’t go back and change what Bullet had done either.
After Liv first explained what was in the subpoena, she never mentioned the paternity test, or anything else about Bullet again. The only thing she said was, “If you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
Every time the scene at the Thomas and Mack Center played over in her memory, her humiliation grew. What a fool she’d been. To think she’d been figuring out when to tell the lying, cheating bastard that she loved him.
Harris had ridden back to the hotel in the cab with her that day, but she hadn’t let him walk in with her. She’d told him she was picking up her bags and catching the next flight home.
“I told you there was something important about him you needed to know,” he’d said as she was getting out of the cab.
Those words stuck in her head. When had Harris said that to her the first time? Wasn’t it at Pikes Peak or Bust? From what Liv told her, the woman said she had sex with Bullet that week. But didn’t all the guys go out the day after Bullet fought with Harris behind the chutes?
It continued to nag at her, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t let go of it. Something wasn’t adding up. The problem was, in order to get to the bottom of it, she’d have to talk to Bullet, and that was something she wasn’t ready to do.
Need a ride from the airport? the text from Lyric said.
Catching a cab.
Need to talk.
I know.
Drink at 5. Hotel bar.
That worked. None of this was Lyric’s fault, and Tristan felt bad that she’d avoided her friend for the last two months. She needed to apologize, and hoped that Lyric understood why she’d been so distant.
Lyric was already at the bar, with a drink in front of her when Tristan walked up.
“Hi.”
Lyric jumped off the stool and threw her arms around her. “God, girl, I’ve been so damn worried about you. You look like shit, by the way.”
Tristan smiled. Only Lyric could get away with telling her she looked like shit.
“What’re you drinkin’?”
“I think I could use one of your five-ingredient cocktails, but that probably isn’t a good idea right now.”
Lyric motioned to the bartender. “Two shots of Makers,” she told him. He nodded and went to get the shot glasses. “Wait,” she added. “Better make that four.”
Tristan smiled. “What the hell, I don’t have any meetings tonight. Might as well get lit up.”
“It isn’t his,” Lyric said after they both downed their second shot.
“That really isn’t the point.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I can’t do this, Lyric. I can’t be with a man who randomly fathers children.”
“But it isn’t his.”
“Again, that isn’t the point. It could’ve been.”
“No, it couldn’t.”
How could Lyric be so sure? Was it because Bullet swore he didn’t have sex with anyone else that week? Or did King come to his defense and swear Bullet didn’t hook up with any women the night they all went out and got drunk? What about the rest of the Flying R partners, were they willing to vouch for Bullet too?
It didn’t matter if they all swore on a stack of Bibles. Tristan was done with Bullet. She couldn’t trust him, and she couldn’t be with someone she didn’t trust.
“Oh, God, not him again.”
Tristan looked over to where Lyric motioned. There stood Harris Jones, and to her shock, he looked even worse than the last time she saw him.
“You keep turnin’ up, like a bad penny. Or shit on the bottom of my shoe,” Lyric said to him.
“I’m not here to see you.” Then he looked at Tristan. “Can we talk?”
“I’m sorry, Harris, but I don’t have anything to say to you.”
“You’re back with him? How could you be? You swore over and over again that you couldn’t forgive my infidelities, but he gets some whore pregnant and you just look the other way?”
Tristan didn’t know where Harris got the idea she was back with Bullet. Maybe because she was sitting at the bar with his sister. “This isn’t any of your business,” she told him.
“I can’t believe this. I never dreamed you’d forgive him.” He turned and walked away.
“Didn’t that strike you as odd?” Tristan asked Lyric who watched as Harris walked away.
“Yep.”
“No, not him. What he said. He never dreamed I’d forgive him. Isn’t that weird?”
“To be honest with you, I think the guy is as dirty as they come. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out someday that he set this whole thing up to get you away from Bullet. Problem is, there’s no proof.”
“What about the girl, Lyric? Why would a woman claim someone is the father of her child, if she knows he isn’t?”
“I don’t know, but I’m gonna make you a promise right here and now. By the time the last gold buckle is awarded this week, I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”
“He’s ridin’ great,” Bill told Buck. “But otherwise, it’s as though the light went out.”
“Damn mess.” Buck shook his head. “Has he found out anything yet?”
“Nope, but he said somethin’ about gettin’ the results in January.”
They thought he couldn’t hear them, but Bullet could. Their voices carried to where he sat on the back of the chute, waiting for his turn to get on the back of a bull. He rode by rote. No emotion. No excitement. His nerves were icy steel. Part of him hoped he’d buck off, because then, maybe he’d feel something.
He was loading broncs to bring them to Las Vegas, a couple of weeks ago, and cut his hand good on a sharp piece of metal on the trailer. He watched the blood pour from the wound, but couldn’t feel it.
Billy, Jace, even Ben tried to talk to him about the paternity test, but he didn’t have anything to say on the subject. He may have been drunk that night, but there’s no way he had sex with the woman accusing him.
It had been months since he had sex with anyone other than Tristan McCullough. A fella may be able to forget having sex when he was doing it with randoms every night of the week, but once you committed yourself to one woman, it wasn’t something you’d forget.
He rode. He didn’t buck off. He waited for his score. Robotically. Eighty-two points. He walked through the back of the arena to gather his gear and heard someone talking on a cell phone.
“It didn’t matter to her.” He recognized the voice and the man speaking. Harris Jones. He went back around the corner, out of sight, to listen to more of the conversation.
“You have to make sure the test comes back with him as the verified father.” Silence. “What’s it gonna cost me?” More silence. “You better make damn sure your cousin gets the samples switched.” Another long pause. “Yeah, well, as long as she don’t show up here, we’re all good.”
He had to find Lyric, tell her what he’d heard. If anyone could find out who this woman was and get her here, Lyric could. If she didn’t, Bullet was going to get slapped with a paternity suit that would seal the fate o
f the rest of his life. Tristan would never believe it was rigged and he wasn’t the child’s daddy.
Tristan rode the elevator alone from the twenty-second floor to the nineteenth, where it stopped. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. She opened them again when she didn’t hear anyone get on. She looked up, and Bullet stood in front of her.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. The elevator doors started to close, and both reached out to stop them.
“Get on the elevator, Bullet,” she told him, and then folded her arms.
“How are you?” he asked once the doors closed.
“I’m okay. How are you?”
“Okay. I guess.” Bullet reached over and hit the emergency-stop button. “That isn’t true, I’m not okay.”
“Bullet—”
“No, Tristan, I need to say this. You may not believe me, but I swear on Pearl and Grey’s lives that what I am about to tell you is the God’s honest truth.”
When he told her what he overheard in Harris’ conversation, she believed him. She might not have if she didn’t have her own suspicions. She didn’t admit it out loud though.
“I couldn’t have done it, Tristan. I know I didn’t handle it very well, but when I told you I love you, I meant it.”
“I know.” She sighed and looked at the floor.
Here she was, at her own crossroad. Bullet’s reputation was such that no one was surprised when he was served with the paternity subpoena. That reputation was borne from the way he’d lived his life.
Even with her, sex was the way their relationship had begun. From the first time she’d seen him, in Liv and Ben’s hot tub, she wanted him. Somewhere along the way, it had turned into more.
“Can we talk? I mean really talk?” Bullet pleaded.
Tristan reached forward and hit the emergency button again, and the elevator continued its descent. When it came to a stop in the lobby, she didn’t disembark, instead she pressed the number twenty-two.
“We can talk in my room.”
“But we need to talk, Tristan. Nothing else.”
She rolled her eyes and smirked at him. “Yes, Bullet, I’ll try my hardest to keep my hands off you.”
Win Me Over Page 24