“Fine.” He tried to adjust his leg for comfort. There was none.
“You’ll have to stay off that leg for at least a week.” She bit the nail on another finger.
“What are you now? A doctor? A nurse?”
“Neither. Nor do I want to be. But I know that kind of injury and how long it takes to heal.”
Being a rancher and former rodeo rider herself, she would.
Marvin disappeared from the room, rummaged in the kitchen with something and returned with ice wrapped in a tea towel.
“Sit sideways along the sofa.”
Dusty followed Marvin’s orders. Marvin lifted Dusty’s leg and set the bundle onto the sofa cushion. When he put Dusty’s thigh onto it, Dusty flinched from the cold and then settled fully onto it.
Marvin went back to the kitchen and returned with another ice package, which he put on Dusty’s knee.
Dusty glanced at his watch to time ten minutes.
Max’s frown became more ferocious. “We don’t have time for this.”
Dusty prepared to blast her for her lack of sensitivity when he got a good look at the worry on her face and realized she didn’t blame him. She worried about the whole screwed-up situation when so much work had to be done.
He related to her frustration. It seared through him tenfold. He racked his brain for a solution. “I’ll call my mom. She likes nothing better than to fuss.”
“Really?” Max sounded dubious. “She’d come out here just because you pulled your hamstring and hurt your knee? Isn’t that excessive?”
“My knee is more than just hurt. It’s damaged.” God, he hated that word. He’d spent his young life being as healthy as healthy could be. He didn’t like being laid up. “It’s an injury that just got made worse than the first time around. We’re talking serious hurt here.”
Sweat beaded on his brow and his upper lip.
“You don’t know my mom,” he said. “She’ll come. You two go on about your business and I’ll give her a call.”
“How far away is she?”
“A two-hour drive.”
“Okay.” Max started to back out of the room as though she couldn’t wait to put distance between herself and Dusty’s problems. “You need anything while you’re waiting?”
“Marvin mentioned a first-aid kit. Do you have a compression bandage?” A laugh burst out of him. It was either laugh or cry. “On the other hand, my mom will probably show up with half a dozen of them.”
“It’d be best to get one on right away.” Marvin left the house, presumably to fetch one.
“What about organizing the rodeo?” Max held one fist inside of the other against her mouth.
Yes, the situation was exactly that screwed up.
“I can make calls from here,” he said, his anger abating not the least bit, but they had to move forward. The time constraints worried them both. “I need my notebook from the kitchen table.”
She retrieved it for him, passed him his cell phone and left the house so quickly she nearly set up a breeze.
“Mom, it’s me,” he said when she answered. He knew his voice didn’t sound normal and he knew his mom would hear that. “I need you.”
“What do you want?” Along with concern, he heard a whole lot of common sense. She wouldn’t panic. She’d raised her son to use his noggin. She would know that if it Dusty had hurt himself enough to be in a hospital, he would already be there and someone else would be calling her on his behalf.
He told her what had happened.
“I’ll get there in no time. Should I bring your father?”
That would just upset him. Where his mother was practical, his dad would turn into a mother hen if he were to come.
“Nah. Leave him at home to take care of business on the ranch. I’m sorry if this means you have to postpone the picnic.”
“Don’t you worry about that. See you soon.” She hung up. He envisioned her rushing about putting together her own first-aid kit and care package while tossing items into an overnight bag.
On the way, she would stop at a grocery store to stock up, if she didn’t remove a few casseroles from her freezer to bring with her.
Marvin showed up at the house with the compression bandage.
“I guess we need to ease these sweats back down.”
Marvin helped him do so and wrapped his thigh and knee. “That’ll hold you until the doc gets here. I already called him.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate your help.”
“Don’t worry about it. Do you want my cell number in case you need anything?”
“I’ll take it, but I won’t bother you. My mom will be here soon. She’ll set speed records.”
Marvin left and Dusty settled in to make his next few phone calls to beg cowboys to come to the unlikely polo match in Rodeo.
It was a hard slog, but he gained another two affirmatives, but one was for rodeo events only. No polo.
Even so, it was progress. If he kept at it, maybe they could pull this off, after all.
Without thinking, he changed position on the sofa and hissed on a wave of pain.
And maybe this thing would have to go off without his participation.
The doctor arrived and confirmed what Dusty already knew. He had pulled his hamstring and his loose knee had bumped out and back into position again. The ligaments hurt like hell.
He didn’t have any new advice for Dusty. Dusty already knew all that needed to be done.
The doctor prescribed pain medication.
Dusty didn’t take the stuff, except when he had to at night to sleep.
He phoned Marvin, who came and got the scrip, then drove to the small pharmacy in town to fill it.
When he returned, Dusty refused to take any right away. He needed his senses clear for the afternoon of work ahead of him.
Marvin left the bottle of pills on the coffee table with a glass of water.
An hour later, Dusty gave in and took a couple.
With pain messing with his thought processes, he couldn’t hold viable phone calls. It muddled his mind. He’d just had three people tell him no in a row.
His efforts useless, he closed his eyes and cursed a blue streak.
Chapter 6
“Yoo-hoo. Hello? Anyone here?”
Pleasure suffused Dusty.
His mom had arrived.
“In here,” he called.
She entered the house with her arms full of grocery bags.
Spotting him in the living room, she stopped. “Dustin Lincoln, what have you done to yourself now?”
“Pulled a hamstring and an injury to the same knee.”
His mom would understand the import of that injury, and of how it would be affecting him mentally. He engaged in a dangerous business with the rodeo, with the possibility of injury always present.
She’d tended him a lot of times during his career.
“Thanks for coming, Mom.”
She put down her bags, came over and kissed his forehead. “A mother’s job is never done. Don’t you know that?”
Her hand on his shoulder reminded him of childhood and a world full of goodness. Along with the scent of roses, she brought with her comfort and an easing of his panic.
All would be well.
“Did you buy out the grocery store?”
“Yes, smart aleck. I also picked up a bunch of food from a fab little diner on Main Street.”
Dusty perked up. “Summertime Diner? What did you bring me? Vy’s lemon meringue pie?”
“Do bears poop in the woods?”
Dusty laughed. Mom could be so corny. It transported him back to childhood.
“I had a lovely conversation with Violet, the diner owner,” Mom went on. “She told me a lot about the town. I like it here.”
“Hold on. You drove from hom
e, went grocery shopping, stopped in at the diner, had a conversation with the diner owner and still made it here in two hours? Who drove you? Mario Andretti?”
She arched her eyebrows. “I might have sped a little.”
“Mo-o-om.” He sounded like Josh. “I’m not sick. You didn’t have to rush that much.”
She patted his cheek. “My son needed me. I’m here. Where’s the kitchen?”
“Just shy of the back of the house on the left. You can’t miss it.”
She left the room, taking her liveliness with her.
“Pie first,” Dusty said to her retreating back.
“Lunch first,” she called back.
He shrugged and mumbled, “It was worth a try.”
Her answering laugh reminded him that he didn’t see enough of his parents. In his drive for independence, and to escape his suffocating loving family, he didn’t go home often enough.
Through the haze of agony in his leg, he reveled in having a bit of home here in Rodeo.
* * *
Max returned from a ride out to check on a sick calf. Mother and son were doing well, thank goodness.
An unfamiliar vehicle sat in front of Marvin’s house. Dusty’s mother’s car, no doubt. She had gotten here quickly.
Honest enough to admit to a certain curiosity about the woman, Max planned to check her out.
She curried Wind and put her away for the day, then walked to Marvin’s house. When she knocked on the side of the screen door, a female voice called out from the direction of the kitchen. “Enter.”
The woman had a lively voice.
“Mom, it’s my house.” That came from Dusty in the living room. “At least for the next few weeks. I can speak for myself in my own house.”
“Yes, dear, I know, but you’re under the weather.”
Had there been a hint of...humor in the remark? Max thought so. At Dusty’s expense or at the woman’s indulgence of him? She got the feeling the woman coddled her son. Why else would she race down here?
Max stepped into the cool hall. Ignoring Dusty, she walked the length of the hallway to the kitchen.
Dusty’s mother surprised her. For some reason, she’d expected a little old apple-cheeked woman. Hadn’t Dusty mentioned at some point that he’d been a late-life baby? A miracle?
In her late sixties or early seventies, neither in dress nor in attitude did she say old.
A trim figure with just a bit of a stomach and hips filled out dark jeans. Her muscled, strong arms, displayed by a sleeveless blouse, might be old, but not flabby. This woman worked hard in her daily life.
Short silver-dusted gray hair framed an unlined face. A soft chin showed the only concessions to age besides a spray of small wrinkles at the outside corners of her eyes and around her lips.
Unless Max missed her guess the woman had taken care of her skin through the years, unlike Max herself, who most days forgot to put on any sort of skin cream, let alone sunscreen.
Violet despaired of her.
Dusty’s mother rushed over and wrapped her in a rose-scented hug.
Huh?
“You must be Maxine. I am so pleased to meet you. My Dusty has had only good things to say about you.”
Considering that Max had heard Dusty’s side of one of his phone conversations, his mother had uttered an outright lie.
“He must say those good things when I’m not within hearing range. All I’ve ever heard is that I’m a screwball and stubborn.” She raised her voice enough to make sure Dusty heard her in the other room. She tapped one finger against her lip, pretending to think. “Oh, yes. There was also highly emotional and nonsensical.”
She’d also heard him say that she was immune to his charms. Except she wasn’t immune. Deep down inside, where she was honest with herself late at night alone in her bed, she admitted that she found him attractive.
He’d turned out to be not all bad, not completely the cocky, self-absorbed man she’d assumed on their first meeting.
In many ways he had his head screwed on right.
She believed he wanted the rodeo and fair to be successful in spite of disagreeing with her plans for it. For that alone, she could forgive him for the many times they’d argued.
Best of all, he’d taken care of Josh that night when her son had run away from home.
“Yes,” she repeated, “I’ve heard him say plenty about me and it wasn’t good.”
Instead of looking chagrined or embarrassed, Dusty’s mother burst out laughing.
“Dusty has his funny opinions, that’s for sure.”
They both heard Dusty’s groan all the way from the living room. “Do you have to talk about me as if I’m not here?”
“Yes!” they both called back at the same time, then stared at each other with wide eyes. They burst into laughter together.
Max liked this woman. She made fun of herself and she made fun of her son. Max liked her a lot.
“I’m just making lunch,” Dusty’s mother said. “Will you join us?”
“I’m not sure Dusty would want me to join you.”
“Dusty isn’t asking,” she said firmly. “I am.”
So...interesting. Maybe she didn’t indulge Dustin as much as Max had assumed.
His mother stuck out her hand. “I’m Charlene Lincoln. Most people call me Charlie.”
Max shook her hand, in harmony with another woman whose nickname was that of a man.
“Dusty might have thought he’d been hired by a man,” Max said.
“Instead, he was lucky enough to get you.” She turned away and stirred something in a pot.
What a nice thing to say.
The kitchen smelled good.
Max’s stomach grumbled. “What’s for lunch?” she asked, tone wistful. Sick to death of grilled cheese sandwiches on pillow bread, tinned soups and boxed macaroni and cheese, which Marvin and Josh had eaten earlier, her body craved more.
For her son’s sake, she should learn to cook, but when? At one in the morning? Her full schedule had plenty of household chores falling through the cracks.
“I’m just throwing together a quick minestrone.” Charlie bustled around the kitchen as though she’d lived here forever. Max envied her the ability to be comfortable anywhere. To be comfortable in her own skin.
Each of Max’s friends on the revival committee had suffered a lot in life, but they’d come out on the other side confident in themselves.
One by one, Max had watched them find their own definitions of happiness and make it happen in their lives.
All except Max. She lived in the past with judgments about herself made by others that had defined her at too young an age.
She didn’t know how to break out of the cycle.
“Not too much of this soup is from scratch, I’m afraid,” Charlie said. “I’m using tinned beans and tomatoes.”
“You mean sometimes you don’t use tinned?”
“Most times I don’t, but I need to get food onto the table quickly today.”
“Before your son expires from hunger?”
“That’s right.” She laughed again and Max fell a little bit in love with Dusty’s irreverent, fun mother.
A few minutes later, Charlie asked, “Do you have TV trays, by any chance? I’d like to sit here at the table for lunch, but Dustin shouldn’t walk or put weight on that leg today. We’ll eat out there with him.”
“Give me a minute,” Max said. “I’ll run over to the main house.”
Max left, ready to do anything Charlie asked of her. Her own mother had died when she was only ten, leaving Max alone to be raised by her stepfather.
Throughout her teen years she would have walked through fire to have her mother back with her.
She still missed her.
Did Dusty have any idea of his good fortune to
have a mother still alive?
* * *
“Mom, what are you up to?” Dusty asked, when she came into the room to set him up for lunch with plenty of pillows at his back. “Why did you invite Max to lunch?”
“What do you mean?” Hmm. She might appear to be innocent enough, but he didn’t trust her. “She looked hungry. And, to be honest, I think she’s lonely. I couldn’t not ask her.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Well, okay. For a horrifying few minutes, he’d thought she was matchmaking him with Max, a woman so far from his ideal of who he eventually wanted to marry, years from now, that he’d recoiled.
But, nah. It couldn’t be that.
Max couldn’t possibly be anything like the woman his mom would have picked out for him. Mom wore nail polish.
On the thin side—he already knew Max put her own needs dead last—Max might appear to a stranger like she needed a good meal. Mom seemed sincere. Maybe Dusty read too much into her intentions.
Lunch turned out to be a lively affair with Mom presiding. Life with her had always been entertaining.
When a kid, Dusty’s friends had envied him his great mom. She’d been a decade older than their mothers, but she hadn’t behaved that way.
Mom had spent most of her waking hours back then crawling around on the floor with her toddler son. The second Dusty grew old enough for the saddle, though, he’d become his father’s child. From sunup until sundown, he spent his days learning mutton busting, roping, riding and just about anything his dad would show him.
A decent rodeo performer in his day, his dad fed every scrap of knowledge he owned to his son, who soaked it up like a miniature cowboy sponge.
To this day, Dusty credited his parents for his successes in life. Yeah, he worked hard, but they had taught him how to do that and love doing it.
He noticed Max watching his mother from across the table, wide-eyed and wondering. It left Dusty trying to understand why. What did Max see when she looked at Charlie? What had her childhood been like? Good? Bad? What had happened to her parents?
He would have to ask. But no. Why would he? He’d be here for only three more weeks. After he finished the job, he’d head on out to his next adventure with Maxine Porter nothing more than a footnote in his life.
Home on the Ranch: Montana Rodeo Star Page 10