And now Piper and Stefanie here in her penthouse, per Lolly’s instructions, barraging Kat with insane accusations about the man she loved. Or thought she loved.
Yes, of course loved.
She couldn’t be with a man who had to be leashed every time he went out in public. Besides, Rafe didn’t want her. If he did, he would be here fighting for her, wouldn’t he?
The last thing she wanted was to end up like her mother or . . . her aunt, living with broken dreams.
“Read the evidence for yourself.” Piper thrust the manila folder at her.
Kat looked at it as if it might contain anthrax. “No. I refuse to believe it. I know Bradley. My grandfather trusts him, and he wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You said yourself you felt better than you had in months when you were in Montana,” Piper said. “Could it be because the drugs were finally being flushed from your system?”
Kat put a hand to her head, rubbing at the faintest claw of a headache. “I was stressed before I went to Montana, and coming back hasn’t been a picnic.”
“Maybe you should have stayed.” Stefanie leaned against her dressing table.
“I couldn’t stay. I have a life here. Responsibilities,” Kat said. “Besides, Rafe doesn’t care for me.”
“That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Stefanie said. “Rafe is falling hard for you.”
“Oh yeah, I can tell by the way he’s sending me flowers and serenading me from the balcony.” Kat winced at the apparent hurt in her tone. “Rafe is back in his life, surrounded by fans, and I certainly don’t belong.”
“Listen,” Stefanie said. “I know my brother and he’s different. After you left, he—”
“Turned into a whiskey-drinking ladies’ man?” Kat shucked off her red boots, tossing them into the dressing room.
“No, that was before you met him. The new Rafe is different. Focused. And he’s all about helping Manny.”
“Manny?” Kat folded her arms and stared out the window, surprised at the bitterness in her voice. “Who is he, anyway? Rafe’s . . . son?”
Silence ensued in the wake of her words.
“Whatever he is, obviously there is a commitment between Rafe and Lucia, whom he loves oh, so very much.” Okay, now she sounded like she might be about thirteen and in the middle of a jealous crush. “It doesn’t matter—”
“It does matter,” Piper said softly. “Manny is Manuel’s son—Rafe’s friend who died.”
Oh.
“He has leukemia. And Rafe is trying to raise money for his expenses because he doesn’t have insurance and lives in some village in Mexico without decent medical care.”
Oh.
“Rafe’s just trying to give the kid hope. He’s going to ride in tomorrow’s invitational, hoping to earn the purse to pay Manny’s expenses.”
“He’s riding to help Manny?”
“Yep.”
Kat felt a hand on her shoulder and turned. Stefanie stood there, flanked by Piper. “The truth is that . . . okay, we don’t have any solid proof about Bradley.” She glanced at Piper, who apparently didn’t share that sentiment. “But something’s not right. And we’re worried about you. Even if we’re wrong, you don’t belong with Bradley.”
“Bradley is exactly my type.”
“Bet he doesn’t like your red boots, does he?” Stefanie said.
“No one is saying you don’t have a great life here,” Piper said. “But is it the life you’re supposed to live? Just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s right. We can surround ourselves with a million really good things and miss the one excellent thing we’re supposed to do with our lives.”
Kat rubbed her arms, turned back to the darkened skyline. “You know, all I really wanted to do was live a life that mattered and carry on where my mother left off.”
Piper joined her at the window, staring out at the night. “Maybe you should start where she did.”
Kat frowned at her.
“By loving a good man.”
The words hung in her mind as Piper and Stefanie took up residence in her guest rooms, like the cavalry to her rescue. A glance at the clock told her that Lolly was either still meeting with Lincoln or had decided to turn in. Kat lay on the bed, watching the lights of the city.
“Loving a good man.”
She sat up, pulled her scrapbook onto her lap, and ran her fingers over the eight-by-ten glossy of Bobby. Oh, he had been gorgeous. No wonder Felicia had fallen for him. She turned the pages until she found the photo booth snapshots. The one of Felicia laughing and looking gloriously happy.
She turned more pages and saw her baby photos, the ones with her and Felicia and with all three of them—Kat, Felicia, and Bobby—together. She carefully took out one of the pictures, hoping to find the date. She found an inscription instead: My darling Kitty on her first birthday.
Kat tightened her mouth. Her mother called her Kitty? She’d never heard anything but Katherine. She remembered Felicia showing up at Christmas when Kat was nine, a stuffed horse in hand. She had stayed for most of the afternoon, playing with Kat on her bedroom floor. And at her graduation, waving from the crowd, grinning. Right before Grandfather took her back home to Manhattan.
Kat continued turning pages until she came to Bobby’s obituary and the picture of him astride his final bull, before he fell off and they lost him to his profession. Rafe had a picture like this.
“So are you going back to bull riding?” Their conversation the day she’d found the arrowhead came back to her, and for a few seconds, she was caught in that moment, in the smells of the ranch, and in the smile of a guy who’d made her feel like his girl.
“No. I’m done.”
Oh no, he wasn’t. And she’d known it even then.
“Seems like a place to find peace, even some grace,” she’d said. “Maybe heal you enough to start over.”
Kat hadn’t known then that her words had been for her as well.
She had found peace, even grace, in Rafe’s world. She’d found a part of herself she didn’t know existed. Not her courage or even her ability to embrace the land . . . but her heritage. A heritage of courage and commitment. Felicia and Lolly, mothers who had been brave and strong and who had sacrificed for the child they loved.
She pressed her hand to her mouth as she felt her eyes burn. She’d been trying so hard to be like her parents, to measure up to their world. And why?
So she might believe she too deserved the happily ever after she saw for everyone else. Tears leaked out, and she let them fall. Lord, please tell me what to do.
Kat let the words from the verse she’d paraphrased to Rafe find her heart, her soul. Work out your salvation with deep reverence and fear, because God is at work in us, to give us the desire to obey Him and the power to please Him. God in her.
God, giving her the identity she so craved.
Maybe her entire trip to Phillips hadn’t been for Rafe . . . but for her, to show her that she wasn’t a Breckenridge or a Russell. But God’s girl, just like Angelina had said.
Perhaps the more Kat understood her identity as a child of God, that He created her and loved her, the more she could be free to be the person He’d created her to be. Without having to prove anything. To impress anyone.
“Stop trying so hard to change the world, and let God change the world through you. Be still, trust in His grace, and you will experience His peace.” Angelina, as always, the voice of truth in her life.
What if choosing the excellent thing wasn’t so much about her actions—always striving to be and do the best—but rather receiving the acts of grace and letting her life rest in Jesus’ hands?
“Every day she spent with Bobby was a day of grace from God,” Lolly had said about her mother.
Kat had to confront Bradley; she knew it. But she couldn’t truly believe that Bradley would ever hurt her. Not really. Earlier when Kat had read Piper’s “proof,” it just seemed a horrible coincidence. Even if it wasn’t true, the real
question hovered in her mind: did Kat count a day with Bradley a day of grace, a gift from the Lord?
She already knew the answer, hoping that maybe even wannabe cowgirls got a happy ending.
Sometimes Bradley had to believe that fate loved him. Yes, things had gotten more complicated, but he’d dealt with that last night. He’d spent the morning packing, envisioning the life that would be his as Katherine’s husband. How sad that soon after their nuptials, Katherine’s depression would overtake her.
Bradley pulled up in the limo and called the helicopter waiting on the roof, instructing the pilot to wait while he went upstairs to Katherine’s penthouse. He’d phoned thirty minutes earlier, wanting to surprise her, and Angelina informed him Katherine was packing. Now that was his good little Katherine.
He pressed the elevator button, then smoothed his tie. Soon he’d be living in a penthouse instead of a cramped one-bedroom apartment.
The doors opened to the top floor, and he used his key card to enter. “Katherine? Are you ready to go?”
He closed the door behind him, hearing the click but nothing else. He did see, however, two large bags by the front door. Frowning, he crossed to her bedroom, knocked on the door. “Katherine?”
No one in the dressing room.
“Hello?” Angelina said, entering the room. “Are you here for Katherine’s bags?”
“Where is she? We had a . . . date.”
“She went to the bull-riding event.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Okay. Thank you, Angelina.”
He strode to the window and stared out for a long, long time. He had worked long and hard for this.
Enough games, Katherine.
“I’m still not sure I should sign off on this, Rafe. You had surgery two months ago. And if you land wrong . . .” Doc Wilson strapped the knee brace on Rafe’s leg, checking one last time for fit.
“C’mon, Doc. You’ve seen me worse off than this.” Rafe forced a smile, hoping the doctor couldn’t see the pain pulsing in his brain, needling his common sense. He shared Doc Wilson’s concern, but short of hog-tying him, nothing could keep him from riding today. He planned on staying on for eight seconds and all three go-rounds and winning that purse. He hoped it would be enough to help Manny live to be a hundred and ten.
“You look like you’ve been in a fight.” Doc flashed a light into Rafe’s eyes, making him blink. “Up to your old tricks?”
Doc had been privy to a few of Rafe’s darkest moments—when he’d shown up at an event hungover or broken after he’d ridden one too many times, fighting to keep his demons away.
“No, I’m clean.” Rafe looked away, hating the fact that he’d been the kind of guy who even had to say that. “In fact, I spent the morning at cowboy church.” He’d raised a few eyebrows from the regulars who knew that Manuel had been trying for years to get Rafe to the pre-event meetings.
“All right then. Let me see you set your spurs.”
Rafe drew up his knees and put his heels together. He clenched his teeth to keep out the moan.
“Okay, you’re good to go.” Doc helped him off the table. “Ride safe, Noble.”
Rafe hobbled out of the room toward the lockers. Already he could feel the adrenaline in the air, a tension that mounted every minute until the event. GetRowdy had an explosive, roof-raising fireworks-and-country-music intro designed to deflate tension among the bull riders as much as to ignite the audience. Rafe could hear the sound guys rolling the videos for a sound check as he walked through the tunnels toward the staging area.
Last night GetRowdy’s bulls had been unloaded and put in pens on one end of the Garden floor. The earthy smell of their hides mingled with the dirt floor, adding a rough-and-ready aura to the scent of big city that embedded the cement walls and pervaded Madison Square Garden. Rafe could almost close his eyes and believe he was back on the Buckle, riding the mechanical. Almost. Except for the shallow murmur of excitement from the gathering fans that would grow as time for the event neared.
Usually, GetRowdy held their events in the evening, and Rafe had an entire day to manage his nerves, center himself, think through his ride millisecond by millisecond. Today he’d had about three hours, most of which had been consumed by Nick’s pep talk, Piper’s endless barrage of questions about bull riding, Stefanie’s worry over his leg and shoulder, and an hour of hymn singing and preaching.
Not a bad way to spend the morning. Especially when the preacher read from Psalm 40: “‘Please, Lord, rescue me! Come quickly, Lord, and help me.’”
God had been doing a lot of saving, of fighting with and for Rafe Noble over the past month, chipping away the man on the outside—the cowboy who lived to impress—to free the one on the inside. Rafe was beginning to like the man in the mirror.
As he’d walked out of the hotel on the way to the Garden, he kept his eye out for Kitty. Not that he expected to see her, especially after the glare she’d given him at the party.
Yeah, his fists had done a decent job of killing any hope that he might win her back with good behavior. So much for showing her the new Rafe. Obviously, Rafe, with God’s help, still had some more work to do.
He had to purge her from his thoughts if he hoped to have a prayer of not getting killed this afternoon.
Rafe entered the locker room, where Nick waited with his gear. He nodded to a couple of buddies and joined Nick. “All clear.”
“Did you bribe the doctor?” Nick asked.
“He told me I was aces to go, no bribery needed. I’m going to be fine.” Rafe pulled on a black snap-button shirt, rolling up the sleeve of his right arm to his elbow. Then he buckled on his chaps, a fancy pair of buckskin fringed in red and black, tipped with gold. He’d had them made two years ago for a photo shoot.
“Vest,” Nick said. “Don’t forget the vest.”
Rafe put on the protective vest, thumped it a couple times, and grinned at Nick. “Feels good to be back.”
Nick shook his head. “Dad would kill me.”
Rafe laughed. “Let’s go see what bulls I drew.” He put on his black hat, the one that matched his chaps, grabbed his bull rope, then exited into the hall.
A low hum rolled through the arena as the stands filled. With the noise, his adrenaline began to burn. He loved this part the most. The anticipation igniting inside him. The challenge that filled his veins. He blew out a hot, eager breath.
Okay, so maybe he had been born to ride bulls. He wouldn’t exactly call it a spiritual gift, but he could use it for good, right?
“You don’t have to be a bull rider to impress me.” Kitty’s words dug into his brain.
He shook them away. This wasn’t about impressing anyone. Today was about being true to himself.
Nick searched for Rafe’s name on the sheets posted by the office. Usually Rafe knew his bulls days ahead of time and researched them until he knew their every move, their disposition, and their weaknesses. Kitty’s event had thrown him off his game.
“You sure you’re up for three rides?” Nick asked.
“Gotta be if I hope to win.”
“Will your points count toward the finals?”
Rafe nodded, not sure how he felt about the finals in Vegas. Especially if PeeWee would be there.
“First ride’s on a bull named Yellow Fever.”
“I know him. He’s a fighter, but I’ve stayed on him.”
“Second ride is a bull named Clean Break.”
Big Brahman bull. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Haven’t ridden him, but he’s got a 90 percent buck-off rate.” Rafe made a face. “Good news is that he scores points if I can stay on him.”
“You’ll stay on him,” Nick said almost absently as he read the third name to himself. He paused.
“What?”
“Rafe, we can figure out another way to help Manny. I know you think this is a God thing, but it’s not too late to pull out. Besides, I have a feeling the doc would feel a whole lot better if you—”
“Who am I riding?�
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“You drew PeeWee.” Nick’s expression was stony, as if holding back the emotions Rafe felt, not wanting to acknowledge their power.
Rafe went cold. The kind of cold he’d felt that night in the arena in Vegas. The kind of cold that should have made him hesitate, back down. That could have saved a life.
The cheers of the crowd filled the silence between them, and in it, Rafe felt the old Rafe—who just wanted to get it done and escape—trying to claw back to life. Fight for me, O Lord.
“I’ll be all right,” he said without looking at Nick. “One ride at a time.”
Nick stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess I should go find our seats.” He wore an expression that Rafe hadn’t seen since . . . he’d been six-years-old. It looked a lot like fear.
It rattled Rafe so deeply that for a second his voice left him. He could only nod.
Nick nodded back. Then he grabbed his brother in a quick one-arm hug. “Good luck,” Nick said stiffly and walked away.
Rafe watched him go, his throat burning.
He could do this. He would do this. Heading out to the door of the arena, he looked up toward the seats reserved for family, to the right of the chutes. Stefanie and Piper sat with Nick’s empty seat between them. Lucia and Manny waved to him. Rafe gave a thumbs-up, breathing in the moment between now and when they all found out he was riding the bull that had killed his best friend. He wouldn’t look at them the rest of the night, not until it was over.
He tried to ignore the disappointment of not seeing Kitty. But what had he expected? That she’d show up to wish him well?
If he remembered correctly, last time she’d used kisses to talk him out of riding. Good grief. She was like a burr under his saddle, irritating. If he kept it up, he’d get himself killed.
Rafe headed to the stage as the music started, dredging up memories, feelings, nerves. He lined up behind the other bull riders as the organizers from GetRowdy motioned them toward the stage.
Taming Rafe Page 27