The meaty scent of charbroiled hamburgers and hot dogs wafted by as they passed food stands with lineups ten deep.
“Hank!” A burly, white-bearded man clapped Hank on the back hard enough to echo, but Hank seemed to barely feel it. He grinned and returned the favor.
“Walt, how’re you doing?”
“Fine. You going to introduce me to your lovely lady friends?”
“Sure,” Hank said. “This is Amy Graves who’s come to stay on the ranch for a few weeks, and her mother, Gladys.”
Walt shook Amy’s hand with a paw the texture of a pinecone.
Then he turned to Mother and removed his hat, revealing graying hair mashed flat against his skull. He took hold of her fingers between his. “Has anyone ever told you you look like this young lady’s sister ’stead of her mother?”
Mother blushed to the roots of her hair and smiled sweetly. “No,” she said in her gentle voice. “No one has ever mentioned that before.”
“I’ve often said the world is a crazy place.” He shook his head mournfully, then turned to Hank. “Did you enter the bull riding or the calf roping?”
“Both.”
Walt looked at Amy and Mother with a twinkle in his eye. “I don’t suppose Hank has told you he wins every year?”
“You do?” Amy asked.
“Rodeo is a hobby of mine. That’s all.” Amy saw the shadow of a smile hover on his lips. How like Hank to be modest even as he was proud.
“Where will y’all be sitting?” Walt asked.
Hank told him.
“I’ll drop by later, if that’s all right with you?” The question was directed toward Mother. She nodded shyly, then watched him walk away until the crowd swallowed the last sign of him.
Amy had never known Mother to react to a man showing her such marked attention. Amy wasn’t sure how to feel about that. She’d never seen her mother with a man other than Dad so many years ago.
Reaching the stands, Amy remained in the aisle as Hank seated Mother on a cushion he’d brought.
“Do you need anything before I leave, Gladys?” he asked. “Water? A sweater?”
“No, dear, I’m fine,” Mother answered, squeezing his hand.
Amy waited for Hank to brush by her so she could slip in and sit beside Mother. He smiled and doffed his hat, the gesture so second nature to him Amy doubted he even knew that he did it.
The man was a wonder. He treated everyone and everything as a gift, each and every day, and thought of life as a rare treasure.
Someone bumped Amy’s shoulder, then murmured an apology. It got her moving to join Mother, where she sat heavily on the hard bench, still mesmerized by Hank.
“He’s a good man, isn’t he?” Mother asked.
Amy stared at the hand Mother placed on her own. She blinked and nodded. Mother seemed to be able to read her mind these days. How? Was Amy becoming transparent? Was everything written on her face?
“Yes, he is a good man,” Amy murmured, thinking about what-might-have-beens. “The best.”
One thing became clear to Amy as she watched the different disciplines of the rodeo and the men and women who competed in those activities: half of the riders were very good and the rest were exceptional. The skill required of these people left Amy sorry she had ever mocked the rodeo or thought it a sport for crazy people.
A couple of old cowboys showed pretty well for their ages, but the rest were almost all young.
Jenny won in barrel racing, a fearless sprite with guts galore.
The announcer let the crowd know that Matthew Long had finished his bull ride and had stayed on for his full eight seconds. He’d finished in the lead with a score of 85.
“In the chute now is hometown favorite, Hank Shelter, of the Sheltering Arms ranch, riding Circle K’s Whirlwind,” the announcer intoned. The crowd went wild, but Amy sat with her arms crossed and her jaw tight. The irony of the bull’s name didn’t escape her.
How could a man Hank’s age hope to win against so much youth? Yet everyone they’d passed when walking in had intimated that he could, and she’d seen the trophies in the office at home.
Home…
Why had she called it that?
His home. Not hers.
“Look,” Mother said, grabbing Amy’s sleeve and tugging, the grin on her face barely dimmed by her large sun hat. “There he is.”
Straight across the arena, in the gate, Hank sat atop an enormous bull waiting for the prod Amy knew the animals got to propel them into the arena. She had a good mind to contact the SPCA.
Hank furrowed his brow and flattened his mouth into a thin line of determination. Even at a distance, his utter concentration showed on his face.
The bell sounded. The gate flew open. The bull charged out. Hank held on to the rope with one gloved hand and let the other arm fly straight up in the air.
Amy adjusted her baseball cap so the visor would block the action. She couldn’t watch.
The crowd gasped and Amy peeked from under the cap with only one eye. Whirlwind bucked his hind legs perpendicular to the ground. Amy covered her mouth. Oh God. Hank. Hank leaned on the animal’s back as he strained to stay vertical. Muscles in his forearm strained and bulged as he gripped the rope.
Whirlwind, huge at two thousand pounds, arched his back, tossing Hank forward—a two-hundred-pound man thrown around like a piece of flotsam on a crashing wave, his face within a hairsbreadth of smashing into the bull’s head. Amy squealed. Mother grabbed her hand and held on. They both stood as the crowd surged to its feet.
Hank’s thigh muscles flexed. He seemed to read the animal’s mind, anticipating every move.
“Stubborn man,” Amy muttered, but she couldn’t contain the swell of admiration she felt.
The buzzer sounded. The longest eight seconds of Amy’s life over. Still Hank hung on, his face coming dangerously close to the bull’s head again.
“Get off,” Amy whispered.
Hank let go of the rope and jumped from the bull in one fluid motion. Thank God. He landed on his feet and ran to the side of the arena where she and Mother sat. He laughed, his exhilaration and triumph evident.
Mother leaned close and asked, “Isn’t he wonderful?”
“Hank Shelter takes home the jackpot today, folks,” the announcer yelled, “with a score of eight-eight point five.”
The crowd went wild.
“Eight-eight point five is good?” Amy asked. “But it isn’t that close to a hundred.”
“Oh, Amy.” Mother laughed. “No one gets a hundred. Hank’s score is excellent.”
“How do you know?”
“Hank told me.”
Amy sat heavily on the seat behind her. How did the man do it? How did he vanquish men ten and twelve years younger than himself?
“He’ll win big-time cash today.”
Amy looked at her mother. “Hank told you that, too?”
“Hank told me the bull riders make the biggest jackpots because it’s the riskiest sport on the circuit.”
Amy snorted. No fooling.
Then she noticed the crowd around her, still cheering for Hank, crazy about him, the excitement running through them a palpable thing. They hooted his name, turned it into a chant.
Hometown favorite, all right.
Members of the audience leaned over from the front row and crowded the stairs to reach Hank—to touch his shoulder or slap him on the back. Or to ask for autographs.
Autographs.
The man was a rural legend—worth his weight in gold to these rodeo attendees. Even if she didn’t fully appreciate the sport, she had to admire Hank’s tremendous skill and the popularity it sparked—
Amy stopped and backed up her thought process. Hank was worth his weight in gold. Worth his weight in gold. A smile spread across her face. Eureka. She was a genius. An honest-to-God genius. Could it work? Would it be enough to save the ranch for the children?
Hank’s rodeo skills were bankable.
Sheltering Arms r
anch was going to have its own rodeo—with Hank Shelter as the main attraction and with Amy Graves pulling the whole thing off and saving Hank’s bacon. She rubbed her hands together, anticipating the thrill of success.
Then she frowned. No bull riding, though, not even for the big jackpots. Roping and riding cattle and horses, but absolutely no bull riding.
“NO!” HANK EXPLODED. Lord, the man could be stubborn. “No way am I turning into a circus performer.” He spun her around on the dance floor that evening to an old country ballad.
Amy hadn’t counted on him balking. The idea was brilliant. All Hank had to do was star in his own rodeo once a year. People would come from miles around to support him. What was so wrong with that?
“Hank, I don’t really care whether or not you want to be a star. You already are one. These people love you.” She brushed her hand across his shoulder and smiled sweetly to convince him.
“Coy.” He shot her a quelling look. “I hate that word and it doesn’t suit you to be that way.”
Amy scowled. “Oh, all right. I’m just trying to get you to agree with the most reasonable, exciting idea I’ve had for saving the ranch.” Hank whirled her around particularly fast. “That is the bottom line here. We have to do whatever we can to save the ranch. Right?”
Hank stopped dancing and refused to look at her.
She scooted around until her face was directly in front of his. “Right?”
He heaved an enormous sigh and his shoulders slumped. “Right.”
“Hank,” Amy said. “Please trust me. I will do the whole thing tastefully. I will not make a spectacle out of you. Okay?”
He studied her for a moment, the two occupying a private circle of silence in the middle of the crowded dance floor, until Hank smiled and said, “All right. Do you have any notion of how much work it is to put on a rodeo?” Hank grabbed her and whirled her again—straight into Matt Long.
“Can I cut in, Hank?” Matt asked.
Ever the gentleman, Hank agreed, completely missing Amy’s silent plea to stay. She wasn’t comfortable with Matt. She’d hurt his pride and he seemed to take it as a challenge to win her over.
Grabbing her hand, he wrapped his lean, hard arm behind her waist and danced her around the floor, with a sloppy grin on his face that she was fairly sure he thought was charming. He was usually more adept than he seemed tonight. She frowned when she smelled whiskey on his breath. Her heart sank into her stomach. She did not like drunk men. They had a habit of being demanding and unreasonable.
“You having a good time here tonight, darlin’?” Matt grinned again. Definitely sloppy. “I noticed you’ve only been dancing with Hank. D’you only like the winners?” His grin took on a hard edge and his face turned mean. “Hank’s left the rest of us eating his dust. Again.”
He stumbled, taking Amy with him. It was all she could do to keep them both on their feet. For a minute, she thought they were going down, but Matt found his balance and righted them both.
“I’ve been a winner lots of times. How come you don’t look at me like you look at Hank?”
What had she ever seen in Matt?
“Because Hank has character,” Amy said, “and backbone. He doesn’t have to rely on good looks or boasting to prop up his self-esteem.”
Matt stiffened and his look became mulish, belligerent.
“He has a good heart,” she continued.
Matt dropped her hand and raised his. She flinched. He stopped moving, his expression stunned. “What’d you think I was gonna do?” he slurred. “Hit you?” He shoved his fingers through his hair.
“I might not be St. Hank, but I don’t hurt women.” He loomed over her, but she sensed the truth in his words.
“I don’t know about Hank being a saint,” she said, “but I do know that he is a good man.”
The fight seemed to whoosh out of Matt like air from a punctured tire. “Yeah. I know. The problem with guys like Hank is they leave the rest of us with too much to live up to.”
He stepped away from her, looked like he would say something else, then grabbed her face between his two hands. He kissed her—hard and fast—then pulled back.
Amy darted a glance around the room for Hank, hoping he hadn’t seen, or if he had, that he would know the kissing was one-sided. To her relief, he was nowhere in sight.
She saw realization dawn in Matt’s blue eyes. “You love the guy, don’t you?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed as a doe caught in the headlights, and nodded.
Suddenly sober, Matt said, “Well, I guess I can’t fight that, can I?” He walked away with his hands in his pockets, a lonely cowboy in a crowded room.
Amy noticed someone else who looked lonely—and miserable—across the room watching Matt leave the building. Jenny. She had it bad for the handsome cowboy. Amy hoped that someday she’d either get the guy or move on, because she sure wasn’t happy as things stood.
Jenny caught Amy watching her, and Amy couldn’t hide the compassion she felt for the girl. Jenny’s face crumpled and she turned away, pushing through the washroom door behind her. Amy started to follow but realized she had nothing to say that Jenny would want to hear. In fact, Amy was probably the last person Jenny wanted to see.
Amy walked off the dance floor wanting to think of more positive things than unrequited love. Something like the rodeo. The idea of putting it on gave her a thrill she hadn’t felt in a long time. She smiled. For the first time since she’d been diagnosed with cancer, she felt fired up by a challenge. She wanted to save this ranch for Hank, and by God, she would.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THERE WAS SO MUCH TO DO—sponsors to contact, events to organize, people to talk to and a million e-mails to answer. Amy had to get the ranch onto high-speed Internet so she wouldn’t spend the bulk of her days just uploading and downloading e-mails. She researched satellite systems and how to pay for another monthly bill.
Hank stepped into the office on Sunday afternoon and said, “You look like hell.”
“Thanks, Hank, I needed that little pep talk.”
He grinned. “I know exactly what you need. A heck of a lot more than a few words to perk you up.”
Amy glanced up from the paper she was reading. “What would that be?”
“Time outdoors.”
“Are you nuts? I have too much to do.” She tapped a pencil on the desk. “We’re going to start fund-raising. If you don’t have the stomach for it, I’ll do it.”
“Okay, but I think you need to get out for a while,” Hank said. “I won’t take you far. Maybe we can drive to the Hungry Hollow.”
The Hungry Hollow. Amy’s brain started working overtime. “Leila owns both the ranches, right?”
“Yeah.” Amy heard the familiar regret in his voice.
She got excited. “I have another idea that’s going to help us save this ranch.”
Amy jumped up out of her chair. “We’re going to have Leila give the Sheltering Arms to you.”
“What?” He looked as though he couldn’t believe his ears.
She twirled in a circle, then gave her forehead a soft smack. “Why on earth didn’t I think of this earlier?”
“Because you’re spending too much time indoors?”
“If Leila gives the ranch to you, you can continue to run Hungry Hollow for her, but you won’t claim any of their profit as you’re doing now.”
She made shooing motions with her hands. “I need to call Leila.”
Hank took a step toward her. “First, you’re going out for fresh air.”
“Hank, I—”
He wasn’t listening. He dragged her out of her chair, down the hall and out onto the veranda.
The sun highlighted the landscape, turning fields, trees, distant hills to gold.
“This is so beautiful.” The quiet wonder in her voice echoed her feelings. Somehow, when she wasn’t looking, she’d fallen in love with the ranch, the country, the town of Ordinary. The community.
She turne
d to tell Hank as much. Her breath caught in her throat at the look on his face. Reverence.
In relaxed reverie, his face settled into smoother planes. His looks had grown on her—had become so appealing, combined with his gorgeous personality and rock-solid character, that she’d fallen in love with him. She could no longer deny it. Amy Graves loved Hank Shelter with all her heart.
She shook her head. None of that nonsense. You don’t need a man in your life. But she did. She needed Hank. The longing to take him into her arms overwhelmed her.
What would he say if she told him about her flaw? Grabbed hold of her courage and just flat-out told him? Would he turn away?
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why do you look so sad all of a sudden?”
He stood in front of her like a sentinel, a big solid sphinx, protecting her from everyone and everything, leaning too close for comfort. He tempted her, even as she wanted to crawl away from telling him the truth about herself. She turned her head away so he wouldn’t see how far without hope she had fallen. The best man she’d ever met would know her secret shame.
“Don’t turn away, Amy,” Hank pleaded. “Look at me.”
She refused to, until she felt his rough palm on her chin.
“I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want anyone to ever find out about it, least of all you.”
“Find out about what?”
“Never mind,” she said.
“What do you mean, least of all me?” Hank asked.
Hope lit his face, brightening the dark concern of a moment ago. Amy knew she had to quash that tender expectation, for Hank’s own sake.
“Hank, I—” She hesitated. “I care about you. Deeply.”
“And I care about you.” He slid his hands onto her hips. Their warmth nearly undid her.
“We can’t do this. We can’t do anything.”
“Why not?” He bent his knees, so he could look directly into her eyes. “I gotta tell you, Amy, I’ve fallen for you so hard I’ll never be the same again.”
Why was he making this so difficult for her? “There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What?”
She swallowed hard. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago.”
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