Ride Me Cowboy (5 page)

He got a strange look on his face and I was sorry
I’d asked. Eventually he said, “I’m not the poster child for making a parent
proud.”

“He seems proud of your bull riding. He was excited
to go to the rodeo tomorrow.” Mark raised an eyebrow slightly and then he
smiled.

“Yeah.
I’m glad you and your mom are going, too. It will be fun.” There was something
there between him and his dad, but it was something he obviously didn’t want to
talk
about
.

“I think it will be, too,” I said, honestly looking
forward to it at this point. “Well, I think I’ll turn in,” I told him.

“Alright, Lexi,” he said, looking directly into my
eyes. “You have a good night.”

I shuddered and hoped that he would think it was
from the cold. “You too, Mark.”

CHAPTER
EIGHT

LEXI

I woke up the next day to the morning sun just
beginning to stream in through the curtains. There was a lot of noise going on
down below and when I was able to drag myself up out of the comfy bed, I went
over to the window and looked out. My eyes were treated to a sight that would
completely negate my need for coffee today. Mark was again unsaddling a horse…I
wondered if this guy ever slept. There were a couple of other guys with him.
One was older and the other younger. They were dressed in old jeans and boots
and hats, too. I’m going to assume they are the actual ranch hands, but I could
be wrong. Maybe they were brothers, too.

Mark was wearing his standard jeans, but today he
had on just a white A-line tank, the kind we called “wife-beaters.” His right
arm had a tattoo on it that looked like it started up at the shoulder and
worked its way down to his elbow. It was a cowboy, riding a bull. It was really
colorful and really, really hot. I had no idea that I liked tattoos so much. Oh
Jesus! I need a cold shower. I watched as he and the other two guys hitched up
a horse trailer to a big green pick-up. His biceps flexed and glistened in the
morning sun. My mouth was completely dry from hanging open and panting like a
dog in heat as I watched.
Making it all that much worse, I
was also hiding behind the curtain as I watched like a real pervert.
By
the time I pulled my brother-lusting self together, took my shower and dressed,
and got downstairs, the “family” was at the table having breakfast.

“Good morning, sweetie,” Mom said. “How did you
sleep?”

“Good. My bed is so comfortable, thanks, Mom.” I
gave her a kiss on the cheek and said good morning to Mark and Rob before I sat
down. Thank God Mark put on a regular shirt before breakfast; I’m not sure how
much more of his hotness I would be able to take. Another plus since I stalled
so long was that he was finishing up his breakfast and heading back out to
finish packing things up. It was amazing and almost frightening how the air in
the room seemed so much easier to breathe when he wasn’t in it.

We left the ranch around seven a.m. The drive took
just under three hours, but it went by fast. I was in the backseat of the truck
with Mark – who once again was sucking all of my oxygen, but I made conversation
with him to pass the time and try and keep my mind off the vision of him in
that tank top out of my head.

“So when did you get interested in riding bulls?” I
asked. I was genuinely interested. I really couldn’t imagine what would make
someone want to get on a wild animal’s back and wait to get bucked off.

“I stared mutton
bustin
’
when I was about eight, just for fun with some of the hands on the ranch.”

“Mutton…?” I think they’re sheep…but how do you bust
one?

He flashed that toothy grin at me. I wished he
wouldn’t do that. It took me an hour after I went to bed last night to finally
fall asleep with that image fresh in my mind. “Riding sheep,” he said.

With a picture of that in my head I asked, “You ride
sheep?
Really?
Aren’t they kind of small for that?”

He laughed. “I said when I was eight. I think you
missed that part. It’s one of the ‘cute’ events that rodeos and fairs and
community carnivals puts on. It’s also how a lot of bull riders start. I got
pretty good at it. I did it until I was about eleven, entering all the contests
I could find around here. My mom would take me or one of the ranch hands would.
They all got really into it and helped me out a lot.” I saw him glance at the
back or Rob’s head. His eyes looked sad. I wondered why Dad didn’t take him,
but I didn’t ask. That was way too personal at this point. “I won lots of trophies
and some of the bigger rodeos even paid cash for the mutton. I thought I was a
big deal.”

“So how do you graduate from a sheep to a bull?”

“It’s the next logical step,” he said with a grin. God,
that grin was a killer. “I did broncos for a while, but it’s just not the same
thrill to me as a bull. The broncs are strong, powerful animals, but there’s
just nothing like being on the back of a two-thousand pound bull.”

“I would hope,” I said, sarcastically.

He laughed. “Being a bull rider
ain’t
something that you could ever explain to someone that hasn’t ever done it. It
swiftly becomes almost an addiction. It’s not just what you do after a while,
it’s who you are. The bulls become your nemesis, and you track them throughout
the year to see what kind of scores they’ve been pulling and when you find one
that
ain’t
never been rode…well, let’s just say there
ain’t
nothing that makes a cowboy’s mouth water more.
You develop a mutual respect for them after a while, too.” His eyes lit up when
he talked about it and they got a dreamy, far-away look in them. It was easy to
see that he was in love with the sport, and I was even more anxious to see him
in his element.

“Mutual respect?”
I asked, laughing. “How do you know it’s mutual? Are you the bull whisperer?”

He looked into my eyes then and when he had me
locked into his he said, “Some things you just know by looking into a pair of
eyes.” I shivered. Damn it!

We got to Woodlake around noon. We had pulled the
horse trailer up that the guys hooked up this morning with the big black horse
in it. I wasn’t sure why until Mark was saddling his up and I asked him. “What
do you need your horse for?”

“I help them out in the chutes when it’s not my
turn. We all do.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“Yeah, it’s more of a team sport than you might
think. That’s not to say I
ain’t
rooting for the
other guys to pull a bad bull or fall off in seven seconds.”

“It’s eight seconds that you have to ride, right?”

“Yep.”

“Do you usually make it?” He grinned broadly and
with a sexy, confident look he said, “I’m 6 and 0 so far this season. I heard Stacks
is here today, though. He’s a twenty-two hundred pound brahma that
ain’t
ever been ridden. I’d give
my right arm to ride him, but at the same time, I’d like to keep my record.”

“Then just stay on his back for eight seconds,” I
said. “How hard can it be?” He looked up at me and I grinned.

“Maybe one of these days you might like to try it
and find out for yourself,” he said with a laugh.

“I’m sure I could do it. It really doesn’t sound
that hard.” He laughed again and then swung up on the horse. My chest actually
physically hurt and all kinds of things were going on below my belt.

“I’ll just bet you could,” he said before riding
off. He left me standing there breathless and with my heart hammering against
my rib-cage. What an ass.

I was still looking after him when my mother’s voice
startled me. “You want to go look around in the booths until it starts? Rob
found a seat and I doubt I’ll get him out of it until it’s time to go.”

“Sure,” I said. “What do they have in the booths?”
Mom was leading me towards a long row of wooden kiosks. It looked like a street
fair almost. Kids were getting their faces painted and clowns were blowing up
balloons.

“A lot of handmade things,” she said. “Jewelry,
knick-knacks, you name it.” We went up to the first stand and it was a
collection of things leather. There were leather chaps and boots and vests. I
looked at the chaps and let my dirty mind picture Mark in a pair of them before
the shop keeper said, “You look like you could use a real pair of boots.” I
looked down at the ones on my feet and I saw the corner of Mom’s mouth quirk
up.

“What’s wrong with my boots?”

The shop keeper, a big, Native American man said,
“Nothing at all, Miss – if you’re in New York or L.A. They’re…shiny.”

I laughed at the look on his face. “Real boots
aren’t supposed to be shiny?”

“Ask this beautiful lady next to you,” he said about
my mom. “Look at her boots, perfect.” Mom laughed as I looked down at her feet.
Her boots were exactly the same as the pair he had on display.

“You didn’t happen to buy those here, did you?” I
asked her.

She was smiling. “No…but I did buy them from his
shop in town.”

Shaking my head and suddenly self-conscious of my
five hundred dollar boots I said, “Fine, I’ll take a pair in a size
seven…non-shiny please.” The big Indian grinned and winked at my mom.

“Come on in this week, Mrs. Roberts, and I’ll take
care of that discount for you.”

“Why you little sneak. You get a discount for
steering customers this way.” She just laughed and then she completely negated
her own discount by paying for my boots. I tried to argue with her, but truth
be
told, the money all comes from the same place anyways: her.

We looked around a little more and bought a homemade
root beer and a funnel cake before we heard the event was about to begin. We
made our way back to the stands and Rob. I saw mom offer him a bite of her funnel
cake and he just wrinkled his nose at her. Rob didn’t look as happy today or
seem as good to my mom as he had last night. Come to think of it, I had barely
heard him say two words all the way up here. I hoped that he and Mom weren’t
having problems. She seemed happy and thrilled to be here, so I doubted that.
It must just be
his own
stuff.

“Have you seen him ride before?” I asked Mom.

“No. I’m really happy we came today. He talks about
it all the time…”

She wasn’t finished when Rob interrupted her by sarcastically
repeating, “All the time.” I didn’t like him being rude to my Mom, and I
wondered why he suddenly seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about his son.
Or was that there last night and I just didn’t see it?

Mom just furrowed her brow at him and went on to
say, “This is the first one we’ve had a chance to attend.”

The announcer came on then and welcomed everyone and
announced the opening ceremonies. Three pretty horses came out. One carried an
older man holding an American flag. The other two were pretty young girls in
brightly-colored cowboy hats and shirts. There was a circle of riders behind
them as well. We stood up and the national anthem was sung very prettily by one
of the girls. Mom told me afterwards that she was the rodeo queen and the
younger girl was her princess. I had no idea they had queens and princesses in
the rodeo. I guess I had a lot to learn.

After the opening ceremonies ended, the rodeo began.
The first event was mutton busting, so I got to see firsthand what Mark had been
talking
about
. The little ones wore helmets and vests
and the clowns worked overtime to get them out of the ring when they got thrown
off. He was right about it being really cute, but I’m not sure if it was my
child that I’d be able to sit and watch. It looked dangerous, even though the
clowns were keeping a really close eye on them. I looked at Rob and wondered if
he ever regretted not really coming to see his son when he was that age and
doing this. As much as it would make me nervous, if it
was
my kid, I don’t think I could stay away.

There were several other events before the bull riding,
like barrel racing which was really cool. The women were all dressed in rodeo
clothes, but they were bright, pretty feminine colors – even their boots and
hats. Their movements on the horses were so graceful, and as I watched them I
wondered again why Mark didn’t have a girlfriend. He was around all of these
pretty girls all the time and from what I’d seen of him so far, he wasn’t shy.
Maybe he did have a girl and I just didn’t know about it yet. It’s not
like
we’d had all that much time to talk.

The next events were calf roping and then team
roping. I felt a little sorry for the calf and for the first time that day I
saw Rob smile at me as he assured me they weren’t in any distress. I almost
asked him the “calf whisperer” question, but I decided that his sense of humor
didn’t seem as well-developed as his son’s was. I was surprised at how much I
was enjoying it overall. I would have never considered going to a rodeo before.

 
Every so
often I’d let my eyes wander over to where Mark was. He’d gathered with some of
the other riders and they were talking and I supposed getting ready. He was
wearing leather chaps and when I saw that, I felt a tickle deep in my belly.
The men were helping out with the different events, and I would see him swing
one of those long, leather clad legs over his saddle every so often and have to
catch my breath. I told myself to stop looking at him…but it was so damned
hard.