Finders Keepers (16 page)

Sliding my hat on, I climbed the gate and managed to work
the bull strap back into position. God, I was an idiot. Bull riding might be an
individual sport, but it required a team of people to actually carry out.
Mainly because it took everything the rider had just to stay on. Forget about
throwing open the gate, prodding the bull out if it needed it, distracting it
when the cowboy flew off, and coaxing it down into the holding pen. I’d been
told more than once that I had the ego of ten men and the stupidity of twenty.
Let’s hope the ego was riding that night, not the stupidity.

Bluebell snorted as I crawled on. Once I had a good grip, I
grabbed the rope that opened the gate and got ready to pull it. Before I did
that, I cleared my head. It took a few seconds, long enough for Bluebell to let
out another series of snorts, but finally, my head was empty. No dreams,
thoughts, or memories of Josie. I was Josie free. Time to ride. I pulled the
gate at the same time I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw when they opened?
Josie. The second thing I saw? The floor of the arena.

I hit hard. Harder than the times before, and I’d barely
made it out of the gates. I’d gone from bad to being an insult to the sport.

“Holy shit! Please tell me you’re not dead!”

I wasn’t sure which was more comforting: knowing I hadn’t
conjured up some imaginary Josie or that I still had use of my legs. “Not dead.
Not yet.” I spit out more dirt as I sat up.

“Not paralyzed, mortally wounded, or internally bleeding
either?” Josie stood across the arena on the other side of the fence with a
look of horror on her face. She’d seen me ride plenty, but riding a bull was a
hell of a lot different than cartwheeling off of one.

“Now, Joze, why would you be so concerned about me being
paralyzed? Is there something of mine you might be interested in keeping in
good working order?” Even giving her a tilted grin hurt. Once I finally managed
to stay on that bull for eight seconds, I would eat Bluebell steak for a
straight year.

“I can tell you what I wouldn’t mind no longer being in such
fine working order,” she replied with a tight smile. “That part of you you
think is a sense of humor. It’s not funny. Or cute. Or even ironic. So give it
a rest.”

Josie and I’d been together for two weeks, or we’d been
together trying to figure out if we could make it work “together,” and as much
as she was a pain in my ass sometimes and I was a pain in her ass all the time,
I was glad that part of us hadn’t changed. Giving each other a hard time was
the only constant in our years of knowing each other. Well, I’d had one other
constant, but I wasn’t ready to share that with her just yet.

“Whatever you say, Joze.” Gritting my teeth, I got my knees
beneath me and struggled to a stand. For a notoriously tough son of a bitch, I
was sure taking a beating. I felt like one of my ribs might have been cracked,
but that was as frequent an occurrence as anyone else stubbing their big toe.
Josie must have seen the pain somewhere in my eyes or expression because in one
swift movement, she was climbing the fence and throwing her leg over.

“Hold it for one hot second!” I yelled, rushing toward her.
Cracked rib be damned. “Would you please think twice before leaping into an
enclosed area where the orneriest, meanest bull this side of Montana is
wandering around?” I glanced at Bluebell—who was just standing down a ways, not
in a hurry to go into the holding pen—staring at me with those black beady
eyes. I hated that bull. “Go on! Get going!” I clapped and took a few steps in
Bluebell’s direction, hoping to encourage him to get going. All he did was
stare before tilting his head. On top of being mean, bulls were stupid, too.
That’s why people ate those critters and didn’t keep them as pets. “Go! Come
on, get out of here!” I banged on the side of the fence, but it did a whole lot
of nothing.

Josie’s hand grabbed my shoulder, and she gave it a gentle
squeeze. I’m not sure if it had been her intention, but it silenced me. Looking
at Bluebell, Josie waved her hand. “Shoo.” One sweet word, one soft wave, and
that bull did a one-eighty. It jogged down the arena until it ended in the
holding pen.

Shaking my head, I headed down to close the holding pen
gate. “I didn’t know you were a bull whisperer.”

“You should have,” she replied.

“Why’s that?”

“You haven’t managed to run me off like you have everyone
else, have you?”

I double-checked the gate to make sure it was closed before
heading back to her. “And you’re saying that’s because of your bull-slash-Garth
whispering skills?”

“That’s one of the many reasons, yeah.” She finishing
crawling over the top of the fence and jumped down.

“And the others?”

“Too many to list,” she said, coming toward me with that
concerned look.

“I’m okay. Really,” I added when she didn’t look convinced.

“I guess this explains how you’ve been getting so banged
up.” Stopping in front of me, Josie investigated my face with a grimace.
Probably because it was coated with mud, blood, and sweat. “I was starting to
worry you’d found a woman to fulfill your sadomasochism fantasy. At least I can
put my mind at ease about the other woman part.”

“And the other part?”

She ran her eyes down me then back up. The rest of my body
matched my face. “The sadomasochism part is pretty obvious, but it’s just as
obvious the bull is taking it out on you, not some woman.” I threw a glare
toward Bluebell down in the pen. “What are you doing here, Garth? Why didn’t
you tell me?” Josie grabbed my hat and dusted if off before replacing it.

“You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t ask because I assumed you were working late at
Willow Springs. I was heading into town just now, and guess whose truck I saw
parked outside of Will Jones’s bull-training arena.”

“You seemed surprised. I’m a bull rider. I ride bulls. Why
is it so shocking that I’d be training at a bull-riding facility?” I wasn’t
upset by her questions, just as she wasn’t upset by my responses. We were
merely curious.

“I don’t know. I just thought with your dad dying, and what
happened to him bull riding”—she crossed her arms and shrugged—“I thought you
didn’t want the same kind of life.”

“What does my dad’s life and how he chose to live it have to
do with mine?” I grabbed her hand and led her toward the chute. I had to get my
things, and then I was out of there. I’d seen more than enough of that arena
for one night.

“Just that you’re twenty-one, riding bulls, and drink like a
fish.” I lifted my eyebrows, making her shake her head. “You
used
to
drink like a fish—all of two weeks ago. I mean, your dad and mom had you pretty
much just out of high school, right?”

I nodded before sliding out of my protective vest. They’d
been high school sweethearts, minus the sweet part. Well, and minus the heart
part, too. They’d been something, and their something had created me. I was a
preschooler by the time Clay could walk into a bar and order a beer.

“And Clay was close to your age when that bull busted his
leg up, right?”

I nodded once more, tugging off my gloves. I didn’t like
where she was going. I didn’t like being compared to Clay, and while I knew
Josie wasn’t doing it out of malice, that she was comparing us made me uneasy.
I never wanted to be compared to Clay, unless it was to say I was totally
opposite. That Josie, the person I cared about most in the world, was comparing
us made my stomach turn. “Yeah, you’ve got Clay Walker’s life story down. He
was born, he got his girlfriend knocked up, and I was the result. He was a high
school dropout at eighteen. A bull over in Bozeman came down so hard on his leg
it shattered, ending his bull riding career and, to him, his whole life. Fast
forward a couple of decades, and he died inside of a white-trash trailer
because he was so passed-out drunk the whole thing going up in flames around
him didn’t rouse him.” I’d managed to keep my voice calm, but I punched the metal
gate at the end. Too much emotion charging through me.

Josie grabbed the hand I’d just used to punch the gate and
sighed when she saw a couple of the knuckles open and bleeding. “How are you
doing with that? You haven’t said anything since Clay’s funeral. You do know
I’m here whenever you need to talk to someone? You know I want to be that
person you come to when you have to talk to someone, right?”

Josie dabbed the sleeve of her shirt against my knuckles
before I could pull it away. I didn’t want to ruin her nice clothes. “I
certainly don’t miss dodging whiskey bottles or fists, that’s for sure.”

Josie brought my fist to her mouth and kissed it. “But what
about the other things? Isn’t there something you miss?”

“There wasn’t anything else to miss.”

“Garth—”

I gave my head a swift shake. “No. You’ve known me for long
enough to know I’m not the person who likes to talk this kind of shit out. I
accept the hand I’ve been dealt, I deal with it, and I move on. I don’t miss
something or someone when they’re gone. I move on.”

The skin between her eyebrows came together. “What about me?
You wouldn’t miss me if I was gone?” Her voice was almost sad.

Whatever I was feeling made sad look like a newborn lamb. I
lifted my hand to her cheek. It was the only clean part of me thanks to my
gloves. “I’ve been saving up all my missing for you.”

“Planning on leaving me after all, aren’t you?” That she
didn’t sound or look surprised broke my heart.

“No, I’m certainly not planning on it. But no matter what
happens, no matter how long or how far we take this thing, one day we’re going
to be separated. Whether that’s because I did what I do best and screwed things
up. Or whether another guy came riding in and stole you away. Or whether death
separates us. One day, it’ll happen . . . and because I know that day is
coming, I’m glad I’ve saved up all my missing for you. Because I’m going to
need every last ounce of it when you’re gone, Joze. Every last ounce.” I smiled
at her, feeling like a damn fool for saying what I just had. It was true, but I
wasn’t the kind of guy who said that kind of truth.

Josie stepped closer and removed my hat. Lifting her other
sleeve to my face, she wiped the muck and blood from it, one swipe at a time.
It felt so nice having someone . . . take
care
of me that I didn’t step
back to save her shirt. “You do realize bull riding is something that only
accelerates death separating us?”

My smile went higher. I listed a handful of reasons Josie
and I could be separated one day, and the one she picked was death. It was the
option I’d take too, but we had a lot of life and living before that day. With
my record, going a month without screwing up royally would be considered a
miracle—forget about a lifetime. “Bull riding isn’t going to kill me.”

“No? Because you’re about two and a half bruises away from
death, from the looks of it, Black.”

Whenever she called me Black, I knew she was upset but
trying to mask it with cynicism. She’d started calling me Black in eighth grade
when she found me making out with one of her friends in the janitor’s closet.
“Bull riding won’t kill me. If it could have, it already would have.” Lord
knows it had beat me within an inch of my life lately, but that was an inch I
wasn’t letting go of.

“How does that saying go when it comes to bull riding?”
Josie tapped her chin. “It isn’t a matter of if you get hurt, it’s a matter of
when
you get hurt.”

“That’s the one. Did you miss the part where it mentions
hurt, not dead?” I unbuckled and worked off my chaps.

“No, but given your ego, that saying applies to you
differently.” She leaned into the chute fence and crossed her arms.

“Believe me, if I didn’t have an ego bordering on insanely
unhealthy, you wouldn’t want me on top of a bull. A guy with self-confidence
issues who still wets the bed won’t last a second.”

“How long were you on that bull just now?” She bit the
inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.

“I’m going through a dry spell; give me a break. I’ve spent
so much time on the back of a bull I’ve probably logged as many hours as a
pilot a few years from retirement.” I settled my hands on my hips. “And by
bed-wetter-low-confidence boy not lasting a second out there, I meant his
life—not an actual second on a bull.”

Josie was still chewing her cheek. Obviously she found what
I was saying rather funny. “Okay, point taken. As much fun as this is, I didn’t
come here to argue with you.”

“What did you come here for then?” I lowered my voice and
stepped toward her.

Josie’s eyes rolled. “Not that. A roll in the mud and cow
shit is hardly my idea of romance, but nice try.”

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath.

“I came here to tell you that you don’t need to keep this
secret from me anymore. I’m not asking you to change for me. All I’m asking is
that you be the best Garth Black you can be.”

“Oh, that’s all. No big deal.”

She continued, not letting my commentary stall her. “Bull
riding is a part of you. I get that. It might scare the shit out of me, and
when I actually watch you ride, I feel like I’m about to vomit, but I
get
it.
I don’t have to like you doing it in order to support you riding on the back of
a two thousand-pound beast that would prefer to stomp you to death than have
you on its back”— it was my turn to chew on my cheek to keep from smiling—“I
guess.”

“Now that right there, Joze, those words were the stuff of
romance in my book.”

“You have a book of romance?” Her eyes twinkled. “It sure
doesn’t show.” That time, she couldn’t keep from smiling.

“Oh, it doesn’t, does it?” I teased, pinching her sides
until she was laughing. “I can be romantic. I can’t believe you’d say that I’m
incapable of it.”

Josie was still laughing, but she managed to get out some
words. “Your idea of romance is buying a girl a cheap beer before jumping into
bed with her.”