Taming Rafe

by Susan May Warren

  The riders would stand in full regalia, holding their bull ropes in darkness while the music accompanied video of their rides. Then in an explosion of triumph, fireworks would light up the stage, backlighting the riders.

  In the past, Rafe devoured the moment, the thousands of screaming fans, the rush of his hot pulse on fire to ride, to go man to beast.

  Now he stood there as the crowed erupted, and all he could do was pray.

  CHAPTER 21

  THIS COULD NOT be happening. John leaned forward in the taxi, speaking to the driver through the opening in the plastic panel. “Can you drive any faster?” He wasn’t sure what his hurry might be—Lolly wasn’t waiting for him. But maybe he could find her before the words that had been building in his chest all night—as he’d taken the red-eye to LaGuardia—died in the glaring truth that he was too late.

  Just wait until he got near Lincoln Cash—the makeup artists wouldn’t have to manufacture a shiner or a busted lip.

  “We’re in a traffic jam,” the driver said.

  John could see that. For once he longed for the five-block, one-stoplight simplicity of Phillips, where to find the woman he loved he just had to walk into the local diner. When had life gotten so complicated?

  About the time he’d decided to hide his life instead of letting Lolly inside his secrets. He’d been so afraid she’d reject him—the Western romance writer—that he’d refused to risk. And without risk, there couldn’t be reward.

  “Perfect love casteth out fear.” John knew that. He wrote Jonas around that very thought. The only problem was he didn’t take the story home, into his heart. Up to now, loving Lolly had been about his needs, his fears. If he really loved her, he had to tell her, regardless of his fears of her laughing at him or running away again. If he loved her, her reaction couldn’t change that. He’d keep on loving her. Because true love didn’t back down. Didn’t give up. Didn’t move to Malibu.

  “I’ll give you an extra twenty if you find a shortcut.”

  The cabdriver shook his head, but he flipped on his blinker and moved into the left lane.

  John’s cell phone rang. He’d never had one until last month, and for a second, he thought the Brad Paisley song might be playing on the radio. When the jingle cycled through to repeat, he knew it was his back pocket.

  The caller ID listed unknown. He flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “John? Lincoln here.”

  Lincoln? Oh, how convenient. “Lincoln, you’d better not be in—”

  “I’m in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “It’s not me. It’s Lolly.”

  “Lolly? Is she okay?”

  “She was beaten up. From what I could get from the EMTs, she has a couple broken ribs, some internal bleeding. The cops said that she wasn’t raped, but whoever did it left her to die. She has strangle marks around her neck.”

  John gripped the back of the seat, feeling dizzy. Beaten up? Strangled?

  “She’s in ICU at Mount Sinai Hospital. They won’t let me in because I’m not family, but I figured you were the closest thing. You need to come to—”

  “Yeah. I’m the closest thing. And I’m here in New York.” John leaned forward to the driver. “Mount Sinai Hospital as fast as you can.” As the driver wove through traffic, switching lanes, John asked, “How’d you find me?”

  “I called Dex to get your number, and he said that you were headed to Montana.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “They don’t know. Probably late last night.”

  “How’d you find her?” John asked, hating that Lincoln had been the first to be there for her.

  “We had a meeting last night, but I couldn’t get ahold of her. I called again this morning, and she still didn’t answer, so I stopped by her room. When I knocked, I thought I heard a funny sound. I got the management, and we found Lolly beaten on the floor.”

  “Stay with her. I’ll be right there.” John closed the phone. He leaned forward and said to the cabdriver, “Whatever it takes, just get me there—now.”

  Kat thought she might be ill. The smells of popcorn and hot dogs only made her swimming stomach clench, and a layer of sweat prickled her forehead. Had Felicia endured the same gut-spilling fear every time Bobby got on a bull?

  Kat rose from the box seats and walked to the railing, where she held on for dear life. On one of the big monitors, she watched Rafe in the chute, and everything inside her wanted to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to ride.

  Instead, like some sort of gawker, her gaze stayed glued to his movements, the way he ran his gloved hand up the end of his bull rope to rosin it and how he wrapped the rope around the bull, then wedged his hand under it, pulling the end tight, hitting his fist so he could tighten his grip, wrapping the rope back across. She’d seen a previous rider get hung up, tossed about like a rag doll, and she’d gasped along with the crowd, her shoulder aching with each torturous second.

  Rafe had dislocated his shoulder just over two months ago. Please, please watch over him, God.

  He hit his vest twice, then put his hand on the rail.

  Kat held her breath.

  Rafe looked straight at the camera. His expression stilled her. Before, in his videos and photos, she’d been mesmerized by his smirk and a wildness in his eyes that almost made the event into a game, a battle for his enjoyment. That was probably why he rode with such recklessness, a trait that had earned him every bit of his scoundrel image.

  But this Rafe had a resoluteness around his mouth, a fierceness in his expression that made everything inside her thrum with power. Maybe Rafe had changed.

  He nodded.

  The bull exploded from the chute and jerked Rafe forward, throwing his head back. The dulled horns barely missed his face. Kat winced. The bull twisted his back end one way, his front another while Rafe moved with him in brilliant anticipation.

  “Go, Rafe,” Kat breathed. Excitement roiled inside her.

  The bull twisted in a new direction. Rafe pitched forward. Looked unseated.

  Kat’s hand tightened on the rail.

  But he hung on, his arm high, his heels tight on the bull’s neck.

  The crowd roared.

  The clock ticked past six seconds.

  “C’mon, Rafe!” Kat screamed.

  The bull took Rafe around twice more.

  Kat glanced at the monitor close-up. Rafe wore his fight face, but she saw pain in his gritted teeth. She especially knew how well he could hide it, which meant he had to be in agony.

  “Rafe,” she moaned, her hands to her mouth.

  The eight-second buzzer sounded.

  Kat jerked with the sound, then exploded in cheers as Rafe cleared the bull, rolling off the animal’s back and landing in the dirt. “Yes! Yes!”

  The roar from the stadium drowned her voice as Rafe found his feet, took off his hat, and waved to his adoring audience. But Kat recognized the forced smile and the way he limped to the rail.

  “He’s hurt!” Hot tears burned her eyes, and she whisked them away as she made her way out of the box. “I knew he’d get hurt!” She thundered into the hallway, furious, wanting to hit someone or grab Rafe by his vest and . . . and . . . Kat slammed her open palm against the cement wall. “That . . . bullheaded—”

  “I’m so glad I found you.” Piper said. “Kat, are you okay?”

  Kat wiped wetness from below her eyes. When was she going to learn not to cry over that man? “I’m fine.”

  “Wasn’t Rafe incredible?” Piper grinned at her.

  “Yeah, just great. He’s hurt, you know.”

  “He looked okay to me.”

  “He’s really hurt! Did you see him limp out of the arena? The fake smile he gave to the crowd? It’s probably his knee, but it could be his shoulder or his back. You know the doctor told him never to ride again, but no, does he listen to reason, to the smart people in his life?” Kat clenched her fists. “I just want to—”

  “Oh,
you do have it bad. Okay, this is good.” Piper grabbed her by the arm. “Come on. Sit with us.”

  Kat yanked her arm from Piper’s grasp. “No. I’m not going to see him. It’ll just distract him, and frankly I don’t know what I’d do to him. I’m too angry.”

  “That’s the Noble men for you. Make you angrier than you’ve ever been in your life. Which also makes you love them more than you’ve ever loved anyone in your life.”

  Kat stared at Piper. It was true. She’d never been this angry at Bradley because she’d never loved Bradley to the point of feeling his dreams, his fears right in the center of her chest. “Piper, I’m so scared he’s going to get killed out there. I don’t know if I can take watching him again. I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You can’t stop Rafe from doing what is in his heart. He’s going to ride or not ride, because God put that in him.” Piper began to walk. “When I met Nick, I hated him. I thought he’d done something . . . terrible. But the more I got to know him, the more I saw in him everything I needed: compassion, a sense of justice, a spirit of sacrifice that took my breath away.” She stopped and turned, and Kat saw tears in her eyes. “I thought I was going to lose him too, but I had to believe in him, in his heart. Ultimately, I had to trust that God would deliver him. Nick had been broken, sort of like Rafe. And the only thing that could heal him was doing what God had created him to do.”

  “Like ride bulls?”

  Piper lifted a shoulder. “Or something else. Come with me. There’s someone you have to meet.”

  Kat followed her through the corridors, down two levels until they came to the section for family and special guests. She spotted Stefanie sitting beside Nick, cheering for the contestant now landing in the dirt and scrambling from the horns of a bull.

  It struck her that knowing Rafe had given her something else she’d never had before. A family.

  The Nobles, rooting for each other, hurting together. Wow, she wanted that more than she’d ever realized.

  Kat stopped on the steps, watching the action in the arena. The bullfighters distracted the bull, then let it chase them back to the pen. They leaped onto the gate at the last second.

  It never occurred to her that the bullfighters might be in more danger than the bull riders—and they did it without the glory.

  Her conversation with Rafe under the balm of Gilead tree came back to her, the one about God using some people for big things—like riding bulls—and others for the so-called small things—like saving the lives of bull riders. She remembered her thought, and now it swept through her with a new breath: It’s no small thing to have the Creator of this big sky at work in your life, on your side, giving your life purpose.

  God had created Rafe to ride. She saw it on his face—in both the old Rafe and this new one. If she loved him, she’d have to love this loud, messy, dangerous life.

  A life where every day with Rafe might be a day of grace.

  “Kat, I want you to meet Manny and Lucia.” Piper’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she found herself standing at the end of the row as Piper sat down next to Nick and put her arm around a young boy with short black hair and eyes alight with excitement.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi,” Kat said, holding out her hand.

  “Are you Rafe’s friend?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered. At least she dearly hoped so.

  Manny’s mother smiled at Kat. “I’m Lucia. Rafe speaks highly of you.”

  He does? He did? Something about Lucia’s sly smile, her dark eyes sprinkled with a friendly spark of mischief told Kat that Piper and Stefanie had shared a few of her secrets. And that she’d been wrong about Rafe and his relationship to Lucia.

  “Nice to meet you,” Kat said, crouching on the steps. “Are you in town long?”

  The stands erupted around them as another rider stayed on his bull. Kat glanced at the scoreboard. She didn’t know how to read the scores, but she saw Rafe’s name listed in the top three and holding.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow. Our visas are about to expire, and we have to go back to Mexico,” Lucia said. Sadness touched her eyes.

  Piper’s words about Manny’s disease throbbed in Kat’s thoughts. Manny’s green GetRowdy T-shirt did nothing to hide the bones in his shoulders, and Kat noticed his gaunt, flushed face and a scattering of bruises on his arms. “Where in Mexico do you live?”

  Lucia spoke over the roar of the crowd as the announcer introduced the next rider. “About fifty kilometers from Guadalajara, in the foothills of the Sierra Madres.” She glanced at her son, and in that moment, her fears flashed across her face. “We had hoped to stay here, but . . .” She forced a smile. “Rafe’s going to win for us today, isn’t he, buddy?”

  Manny nodded as he clapped for the next rider.

  Kat didn’t have the heart to suggest that even if by some miracle Rafe won the event, the cost of Manny’s medical care would far exceed the purse. But maybe . . .

  “Have you ever heard of Mercy Doctors? They travel to villages and have a grant program in partnership with St. Jude’s to bring kids to America for treatment.” She didn’t add that because of her recent turn of events, the Mercy Doctors clinic that might have been able to help Manny might have to close its doors.

  Before Lucia could answer, Kat heard Rafe’s name over the loudspeaker.

  “He’s up again!” Manny said, pointing to Rafe as he settled in on his bull in the chute.

  “This one’s named Clean Break,” Nick said. “He’s never ridden him.”

  Kat sat on the stairs, her chest on fire. It hurt every cell inside to watch him climb aboard, but a new exhilaration had replaced the fear. If anyone could hang on, Rafe Noble could. He knew what he was doing. He was born to be a modern-day gladiator.

  Still, she held her breath as Rafe rosined his bull rope, heating it with the friction of his glove for a better hold. Then he wrapped it into his grip, clenching his fist into a tight ball. He blew out, pounded his vest, and gripped the rail. Kat thought she saw his lips move. Then he looked straight into the camera, straight into her heart, and nodded.

  The bull erupted from the chute. Clean Break arched his back and hit the ground in a bone-jarring, four-footed landing.

  Kat clasped her hands together on her lap as Piper, Nick, and Stefanie cheered.

  Clean Break bucked again, twisting his back legs to one side, his head to the other. Rafe wrenched back. He braced his arm, his face stony and tight.

  “C’mon, Rafe!”

  The bull landed, threw his weight forward, his head back. The horns skimmed a breath away from Rafe’s head.

  The crowd gasped.

  Kat’s hands burned.

  Clean Break went airborne again, all four hooves leaving the ground. The landing shook Rafe’s hold.

  Kat’s back teeth ached.

  The bull twisted again. Rafe lost his seat, flipped out over the back end.

  Kat covered her mouth, holding in her scream.

  He landed inches from Clean Break’s hooves.

  “Get up!” Kat yelled in tandem with about ten thousand other people.

  Rafe lay there, curled, paralyzed as the bull rounded on him.

  “Get up, Rafe,” Nick growled loud enough for Kat to go cold.

  The bull took a bead on Rafe, lowered his horns.

  A bullfighter took the horns on his padded shorts as a couple of cowboys rushed in. Rafe leaned on them hard as they dragged him out.

  The animal trotted into the chute, as if satisfied with a job well done.

  Kat sat in horrified silence. On the monitors, the camera caught Rafe sitting down, his face tightening in pain. He touched his knee, then leaned back, blowing out hard, covering his eyes with his gloved hand.

  Beside Kat, the Nobles barely breathed.

  Rafe tore off his hat and threw it. His expression scared her as he pushed himself up from the stool, shoved away the EMT trying to help him, and turned toward the cameras. He smiled and waved t
o his adoring fans, his eyes full of danger.

  As Kat watched him, as the crowd cheered, she felt something breaking inside. She knew this Rafe Noble all too well, had seen those eyes before. The day Rafe Noble, at the end of his rope, had driven into the hotel and fallen at her feet. Broken. Defeated.

  “How badly do you think he’s hurt?” Stefanie said, her tone matching the fear deep inside Kat.

  “I don’t know.” Nick took off his hat, ran his hand through his dark hair, and looked at Kat.

  A look, it seemed, that contained everything. The hope that she’d somehow change Rafe’s life. The fear that he’d lose his brother to something beyond his control. And even, somehow, Rafe’s desire to do something powerful and good with his riding.

  “I’ll go check on him.” Kat stood, and it hit her. “Where’s Lolly?”

  Nick frowned. “She’s not with you?”

  “She mentioned having a meeting this morning,” Piper said, “although I don’t know with whom.”

  “Maybe she’s with Lincoln,” Kat said, remembering Lolly’s almost angry explanation of his job offer.

  “Who?” Piper asked.

  “Lincoln Cash. She’s moving out to Hollywood to cook for him.”

  If Kat had sprinted out to the middle of the ring and jumped on a bull, whooping in the air, it would have had less effect than these words. Stefanie looked like she’d been slapped.

  Piper shook her head. “No way would she move away from Phillips to be with Lincoln. She loves John.”

  “Everyone knows she loves John,” Stefanie added, as if Piper needed confirming.

  “John loves her too,” Nick said, shrugging when his wife looked at him.

  “Then why did he leave?”

  Nick held up his hands in surrender.

  Piper got up. “Where’s Bradley?”

  Kat gave her a look. “He’s been calling me on my cell all morning.” She didn’t add that she hadn’t picked up one of his calls, not sure how to tell him that they weren’t leaving together. Now or ever.

  Piper pushed past Nick and Stefanie, came out to stand on the steps near Kat. “I’m assuming you could probably track down Lincoln Cash’s cell number.”