by Anne Carrole
He’d let her tears get to him. He wished he could say he was immune to such feminine wiles, but he wasn’t. Even though his mother cried enough when she was on a bender, it hadn’t dulled the fierce protectiveness he felt when faced with any woman’s tears, much less Libby’s.
But her declaration she was getting engaged had brought him to his senses with a jolt. Chance shook his head at his own stupidity.
His lawyer said it would be prudent to sign the affidavit since Chance had no desire or incentive to protest the divorce decree. So be it.
He needed to put last night’s drama out of his mind and focus on his task at hand—riding his bronc to the eight-second finish. Eight seconds may not seem like a whole lot of time, but when seated on a whirling dervish, it was seven seconds too long. Once he rode today, he’d head out and not look back. He shouldn’t have come to Cheyenne—and he wouldn’t make that mistake again. They said you couldn’t come home again, and last night proved it.
“Lonnie, cut this tape for me,” Chance asked the slim-hipped cowboy next to him and held up his wrapped wrist.
He’d been friends with Lonnie Kasin since high school, and Lonnie was as good a traveling partner as he was ever likely to find, with a quiet focus on winning that Chance admired as well as a streak of mischief that kept the miles interesting. Lonnie finished buckling the last leg strap of his fringed leather chaps and grabbed the scissors from his bag that sat open on the floor.
“I expect to be paid in lots of beers tonight for my services—after you win your event,” the blond-haired cowboy said as he snipped the tape and pressed the end to Chance’s wrist.
“You’ll be buying beers for me more likely, given that bull you drew.” Lonnie was a skilled bull rider, and he’d drawn It’s Nasty out of Prescott Rodeo Company stock, a bull that had yet to be ridden for a score by any cowboy. So if Lonnie stayed on, he’d be guaranteed a high mark.
Lonnie gave a snort. “I’ve got to make it eight seconds.”
“Focus and you’ll do it.” Chance had taken up meditation at the urging of another bronc rider, and it had done wonders for his concentration. Lonnie wasn’t yet a believer.
“I’m focusing,” Lonnie said. “Trouble is, so is the bull.”
Chance set to wrapping his other wrist.
“Saw JT before,” Lonnie continued. “He said you introduced him to your wife. You see Libby last night?”
They’d covered thousands of miles together in the last five years, leaving lots of opportunity for conversation. Though Chance wasn’t one to discuss his private life with most people, Lonnie wasn’t most people. Lonnie had been a year ahead of Chance in high school, had known about Libby, the marriage, and the aftermath. Lonnie had been the one to push Chance toward the rodeo, which had literally saved his life. He could tell Lonnie anything. Only today he didn’t feel like talking about last night, and certainly not minutes before his event.
“She was at the Cattleman’s Club. We said hello—and good-bye. That’s all there was to it.”
Lonnie had looked up an old girlfriend and presumably spent the night at her place given he hadn’t come back to the hotel room, so he hadn’t accompanied Chance to the Cattleman’s Club.
“And you introduced her as your wife because…”
“Maybe I wanted to get JT’s goat.” Chance held out his other hand for Lonnie to cut the tape.
“I thought maybe you wanted to get Libby’s,” Lonnie said as he used the scissors.
“Don’t. Think, that is.” Chance patted down the tape and slapped on his black hat. “Focus. On that bull and not my love life.”
“Right now my bull is more interesting than your love life has been, up until now, that is. I’m just wondering why that is,” Lonnie said, chuckling as he walked away. “I’ll see you behind the chutes.”
Chance watched his friend leave. He needed to heed his own advice and focus on the horse he was going to ride and forget about his love life, or lack thereof.
* * *
Libby’s heart lodged in her windpipe as she waited for Chance to sit on the stocky black horse. The image of his long legs straddling the gate walls, hovering above the bronc, flickered on the big-screen TV in the expansive room anchored by the kitchen, which her father referred to as a den. More like a train station lobby given its size and the scattered arrangement of the overstuffed furniture. There was nothing den-like about it.
Dens should be warm, cozy, wrapping around you. Nothing in the outsized ranch house, finished shortly after her mother died, was cozy or warm. It had been built by a man who hadn’t felt the least bit homey, a man grieving over the death of his wife, and filled by a family missing its core.
She pushed aside the papers her father had left. She’d decided not to think about Brennan Motors today. She still had one more day of freedom.
Cowboy was curled up next to her, his sleek, black-furred body warming her thigh. She squinted at the TV screen, trying to get a better sense of what Chance was feeling. But his head was down, and the brim of his black Stetson shadowed his face.
She’d been crazy to kiss him last night. Crazy for wanting to and crazy for giving in to that desire. It had stirred up a hornet’s nest of feelings. Some of those feelings stung. And some of those feelings were hot and intense. Beyond sexual, right into the realm of…no, she couldn’t go there.
She’d given up all rights to any feelings about Chance when she’d signed those papers that ended their marriage. And last night she’d realized what she should have known—he’d never forgive her for it. And that meant she’d never forgive herself. She’d always carry guilt for destroying the fantasy he’d created around her, around them. Thank God he’d been able to make something of himself. Unfortunately, it required him to risk his life every time he set foot in the arena, which was just about every night. She shuddered and turned her bleak thoughts back to the TV, back to the present, to reality.
“We’re going to see Chance win a bundle,” Libby told the cat. Cowboy didn’t seem interested.
Chance not only had the talent to win and win big but the confidence and determination, which were just as important.
“He’s on.” Libby glanced at Cowboy, whose narrowed eyes meant he was almost asleep. “You need to watch this,” she said, rubbing gently behind her cat’s ears. She couldn’t rub too long or Cowboy would nip at her fingers, his sure signal to stop. “You need to see what real cowboys can do.”
On the TV screen, Chance nodded his head, and the gates opened. He’d marked out, she noted, feeling a swell of pride for him.
Except he didn’t belong to her.
He had once, and that kiss last night proved it. His physical response to their kiss said he desired her body even if he wasn’t interested in the woman inside that body. Unfortunately, touching him, sensing his strength, his masculinity, the testosterone drumming through him, had brought her feelings to the surface in one huge volcanic-sized eruption that still rampaged inside.
Four seconds, five seconds, six seconds. The horse, one of the rankest, was twisting and turning and bucking, but Chance was making a difficult ride look easy. Eight seconds. The crowd was roaring, and Chance was still on the bronc.
And then he wasn’t.
He was down, a heap in the dust.
She jumped off the couch, sending Cowboy skittering out of the way. Her heart pounded in her throat. On the big screen she watched the horse’s hoof come down on Chance’s chest. Another hoof battered his foot.
NO!
She screamed the word—whether it was out loud or in her head, she couldn’t say.
NO. Get up. Get up, damn it.
Her legs suddenly weak, she sank to her knees.
But the heap crowned by a cowboy hat wasn’t moving. A tall man scrambled over to him. The camera zoomed in on Chance’s face, twisted in pain as his hand hugged his stomach. He wasn’t getting up, and they weren’t trying to get him up.
She felt sick.
The sight of him fallin
g, of hooves crushing his body, replayed on the screen again and again. Her stomach roiled, and the retching hollowness of nausea threatened. But she couldn’t look away. And then the camera mercifully switched to the next rider.
Where the hell was her cell phone? Doug was there. He would know. Surely he would know.
She sprinted to the kitchen, where her purse and much of its contents were sprawled across the counter. Grabbing the pink-rimmed object, she speed dialed three. It seemed to ring forever before she heard her brother’s voice.
“Don’t panic,” he said. “They’ve taken him to the hospital. I was behind the chutes when they brought him through. Doc thinks it’s his ribs. Had the wind knocked out of him.”
“Anything else?”
“Don’t know. Could be his leg too. He won though. That’s the first thing he asked.”
“I don’t care if he won!” She practically screamed the words into the phone.
“Well, Chance sure does. That’s a lot of money.”
And there it was. She’d never understand rodeo cowboy mentality—risking your life on what amounted to no more than luck, however skillful you might be. And bad luck just knocked Chance around.
If only he was all right. If only a rib bone hadn’t punctured a lung or something else.
“What hospital did they take him to?”
“Capital Medical. They won’t tell you anything if you call. You’re not family.”
“Call? I’m going there.” No way was she going to wait to read about it in the paper. “He was kicked in the chest and the leg. He could have internal bleeding. Wouldn’t his vest protect him?” she asked, grasping for hope that it had.
“Doc said the hoof got up under that vest when it kicked him.”
Maybe it spared him the worst of it, though. She’d pray for that little bit.
“I’ll meet you there. At the hospital,” Doug offered.
“That’s not necessary. I’m a big girl now. If I want to wait at the hospital, it’s my business.”
“Could be a long while.”
“I’ll deal. Thanks for the update. Phone me if you get anything more. Once in the hospital, though, I may not hear my cell.” She clicked off.
She’d be at the hospital in less than thirty minutes if traffic cooperated. She’d leave extra food out for Cowboy, take a good book, and settle in for the duration. She wasn’t family, so they might not tell her much, but there’d likely be no one there for Chance.
Unless he has another woman in his life. Her heart hitched as if it had gotten hung up on some hook. Of course, that was a real possibility. Chance was handsome, successful, and well off. And based on what she’d heard around, buckle bunnies were waiting to ensnare him at every rodeo.
She wouldn’t think about that now. And it should be irrelevant. Someone she cared about, still cared about more deeply than she’d been willing to admit, was hurting. And she needed to be with him, wanted to be with him, and help him in any way she could. She owed him at least that. Because reality was, given how she’d treated him five years ago, she owed him a whole lot more.
Chapter 5
Were his eyes playing cruel tricks? He’d just been dreaming about Libby, and there she was. Though edges of her were fuzzy in the glaring light, she looked just about as good as a woman could look to a man. Tousled blonde hair, concerned blue eyes, plump pink lips that she was nibbling on.
The pulsing ache of his body let him know something was real enough.
“Chance,” she said in a fragile voice that sounded like it was going to crack under the slightest pressure.
“What are you doing here?” His own voice bellowed out like it was coming from a tunnel in his head as the bright overhead light seared his eyes.
“Waiting for you to wake up.”
Was he awake now?
“Lonnie?” Where was his friend? He should be here.
“He just went to get another cup of coffee. He’ll be back.”
“I won.” Hadn’t he?
His thoughts were scattered. He was saying whatever was coming into his head. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. What the hell?
“Yes, you did.”
Did she sound irritated?
“How are you feeling?” She wrapped her arms around her waist as if bracing for the worst.
“Feeling?” He moved his arm. Then his leg. That pulsing ache turned to sharp pain, spearing him. His chest rose in a gasp. More pain, like big needles ramming through his flesh, his organs.
“Not good,” he rasped out.
“You broke some ribs and fractured your foot, but your leg is okay.”
“Good. Broken leg would be a bitch. Couldn’t rodeo for a while.”
“You won’t be rodeoing anytime soon.” Again there was irritation in her voice.
“Can’t keep a cowboy down,” he said through teeth gritted in pain. It was pulsing somewhere in his chest. Damn he felt weak. Helpless. Exhausted.
His eyes closed. Where the hell was Lonnie? He’d need a few days at the ranch and he’d be good as new.
* * *
“What do you mean you’re not starting today? You sure as hell are, young lady. It’s a done deal. You gave me your word.” Her father’s voice carried through the large kitchen, booming off the walls right through to the den.
All the way home from the hospital last night, all she could think about was what she had done to Chance. And how he’d thrived despite what must have been a devastating blow.
Having married the man she loved, she’d hoped she’d be seen as an adult, only it had felt more like playing house. When they returned to a ramshackle trailer home some guy had lent Chance for the night, reality had set in, and come morning, that reality was packed with danger signs. She didn’t have any skills to earn money. She didn’t know how to cook or take care of a house. Just eighteen and in her first year at Laramie Community College, she began to panic. And that’s when Sam Brennan had banged on the door so hard, she thought he was going to bring it down.
Caught between a reality that scared her and one that was familiar, she chose the familiar and left with her father, crying the whole way.
In retrospect, she wasn’t ready for marriage. She would have been an albatross around Chance’s neck. But she should have worked it out with Chance. She shouldn’t have allowed the outcome to be dictated by her raging father.
Not being ready for marriage did not mean she hadn’t loved him. If she could just get him to understand that, then maybe this hollow feeling would go away. She didn’t know how she would make it up to him, but seeing him so battered and bruised and in need of help, she knew she had to try.
Last night she realized sometimes you didn’t get to choose your fate. When you did have a choice, you needed to seize the moment. This morning she’d received a call from the Western Stock Show asking for an interview. She took it as a sign.
“This have anything to do with you spending all of yesterday and half the night at the hospital troubling yourself about that good-for-nothing cowboy?” His eyes flashed with anger, like sparks off flint. “Don’t you tell me he’s turned your head in two days, Libby. He was a bum then—he’s just a richer bum now. He came from bums, and he’ll never be anything but a bum.”
It was similar to the litany he’d recited all the way home in the car that fateful day. She’d been terrified then. Of her father’s anger, of his influence, of his power. She wasn’t terrified anymore.
“This is about me.” She took a deep breath. “I need to work at something I want to do. You found something you liked. I need to find something I like.”
He snorted. “My family hadn’t a pot to piss in. I didn’t have the luxury of finding something I liked, Libby. I’ve worked since I was twelve. Worked two jobs once I graduated high school until I found something better, and that was selling cars. I didn’t sell cars because I liked it. I sold because I could make money at it. And I found a path to my own dealership. Now I have three. And the whole damn thing i
s going down the drain due to bankers gambling with billions of dollars, some of which was my hard-earned money. And if that wasn’t enough of a kick in the pants, my only daughter kicks me again by walking out when I need her most. You are ungrateful, Libby.” He ran his large hand through his graying hair.
“I know you had it rough. Maybe I need to have it rough, too.”
“You need to understand loyalty. Family loyalty.” He shook a cigar-like finger at her. “This better have nothing to do with Chance Cochran, or I swear—”
“This has to do with me. I was at the hospital with Chance because he has no one else.”
“That’s not what I hear. I hear he’s got so many women he doesn’t know what to do with them.”
“There was no one there but his friend Lonnie Kasin. I was married to Chance, after all.”
“Married for a day doesn’t mean shit. In some states that wouldn’t have even qualified as a marriage. You’re divorced. I saw to that.”
Yes, he’d seen to ending her marriage. Paying this one and that one. Her young age and the short duration of the marriage had lent credibility to her father’s claims of duress and coercion, resulting in a filing for irreconcilable differences, and the no-fault divorce had been granted.
She’d signed those papers even as the pen shook in her hands, even as she felt the bile in the back of her throat. She’d signed those papers and dutifully gone off to continue her education, but back East. Back East where she wouldn’t have to face Chance after what she’d done to him. She’d run away. A coward.
Seeing him had brought all that back and amplified the guilt she’d been carrying around. What if he hadn’t been strong enough to handle the blow she’d given him? What if, instead of turning to the rodeo, he’d turned to alcohol like his mother had, or drugs, or…the bad choices were limitless.
She’d been young, scared, and immature. And she’d been carrying the guilt around with her for over five years. She was through running from her own bad behavior. She needed to make amends. She’d start by helping him in any way he needed. Running errands or running interference. She’d make herself useful. It was a small gesture, but it was a beginning, and if he let her in, just a little, maybe she could get him to forgive, if not forget. Maybe if he understood who she was rather than who he’d thought she was, he’d be relieved their marriage hadn’t worked out.