Rodeo Nights (14 page)

Coat came to the edge of the bed and surveyed her, as if assuring himself of her comfort, then headed out.

Walker issued one last command before pulling the hall door closed behind him. “Cover up.”

She did, pulling the quilt’s age-softened material around her chin. Its added warmth conspired with the heating pad, the pills, the quiet and, most of all, the permission to stop toughing it out, to bring relaxation to her cramping muscles and aching back. Her thoughts drifted.

Walker had been more awkward with her in the past few minutes than even in that first encounter in the rodeo office after a decade.

Could he be concerned about showing her his place? Clearly, he had a lot of himself invested in it. He seemed to be creating a haven here for himself. A place for tomorrow.

I don’t just live for today. I look to tomorrow. But I’ll be damned if I’ll break my back trying to prove it to you.

Was that why he hadn’t shown her this place before, the proof that he
had
looked to his future? Was that why he’d stopped himself when he’d been telling her his plans?

Had her skepticism, born of their past, left him so wary that he didn’t trust her enough to tell her of his future?

Or was it simpler? Did he just choose not to let her into this part of his life?

Then why the hell did he bring me up here
? she demanded belligerently of herself.

He could have taken her to the Jeffrieses’ or left her to fend for herself in the office, instead of bringing her to his home and tucking her away in his bed.

Her hand smoothed over the seams of the quilt, the rhythm of the ripples under her hand soothing her, driving out the worries and questions. And she let them go. Slower her hand moved, slower. For a little while, she would let the worries go...just for now.

A new rhythm took over as her hand stilled. A sliding kind of creak that never quite finished. A homey sound. Reassuring. Of course—the answer came without her searching for it—one of the rocking chairs on the porch. One of the chairs that looked out across the distance.

I thought I’d find myself a porch and a rockin’ chair with a view of the mountains and tell everybody who’ll listen ‘bout my great career riding the bulls.

Had Walker found his porch and rocking chair? Was he ready to give up the life he’d lived for so long, that he’d loved more than her? Something pulled at her comfort, something that wasn’t physical at all.

If he’d changed so much, what did that do to the careful assumptions she’d operated under this summer? How could she dismiss the physical attraction to him, how could she explain her feelings for him as passion somehow left over from the past, if he wasn’t the same man?

HE’D BROUGHT HER
here for the good of the rodeo, no other reason.

If she was too stubborn to see that she’d get more done long-term if she rested this afternoon than if she tried to push through the pain, then it was his responsibility to see she rested. She wouldn’t give the Park Rodeo her best, otherwise, and that’s all he wanted. The best for the rodeo.

He drained the last of the soft drink he’d stopped in the kitchen to pour and dropped into the rocker he always sat in, plunking his booted feet onto the rail and bending his knees just the bit needed to set the rocker moving.

He certainly hadn’t brought her here because he’d wanted her to see his place, because he had any sort of wild ideas about her liking the house or the view or his dreams. He didn’t have anything to prove to her.
He
knew he’d learned to look to the future. He had no need for her to know it.

And he certainly hadn’t brought her here with the sort of impulsive optimism that had led him to take her to view the sunset. Optimism bought with her smile, and paid for by a painful reminder that she wasn’t his Kalli anymore. Not even for this summer.

No, he’d taken a glance at her pale skin, trembly hands and known what was called for—and it sure as hell wasn’t sitting at that desk trying to pretend pain wasn’t pain. It was getting into bed with a heating pad and somebody around to see she didn’t try sneaking back to the office.

It was easier to do that here. That was the reason he’d brought her here. The only reason.

It certainly had nothing to do with a foolish desire to have her to himself, even for a few hours, even with her asleep on his bed and him out here.

He envisioned her head on his pillow, hair spread loose, quilt warming the curves that he’d felt heating and flowing against his body in a dressing room in Lodge’s store, that he’d felt pulsing and shivering under his mouth for a few precious moments out at Sunset Rock.

Creak...Thud.
He stopped the rocker and brought his feet back to earth.

He certainly hadn’t brought her here to torment himself with thoughts like that.

KALLI’S WEARY BODY
won the battle over her uneasy mind, and she slept.

She woke once to find her way to the bathroom. The sound of a distant power tool had replaced that of the rocker, and she groggily wondered if Walker was adding to the corral.

The second time she woke, it was to quiet, and she realized the pain had gone. She shifted to her side and stretched, curving her back, then extending it, just for the pleasure of moving.

Then she saw the framed photograph propped against books on the top shelf next to the bed. She leveraged herself up against the pillows. The picture was in her hands before she was conscious of reaching for it. Her hands trembled a little.

A snapshot, grainy from being enlarged and faded from the years.

Walker looked down at her with that old smile, and she looked up at him with that old love. God, they’d been young. So young, and so damn naive.

And on her other side...Cory.

The smile as bright as sunlight on a champion’s gold buckle. The vitality so strong it reached out of a decade-old picture and stole her breath.

Clinically dead.

That’s what the doctors had told them. Not at first, when no one would tell them anything. But later, when Walker had threatened to tear the place apart if they didn’t tell him Cory’s condition, family or no family.

Clinically dead.

The shock, the grief. And the soul-leaching guilt for that one unguarded instant when she’d thanked God it wasn’t Walker.

Her head jerked up.

Walker stood inside the doorway, looking at her, his face expressionless. Why couldn’t she read him anymore? Why couldn’t she tell what he thought, felt?

“I, uh, saw this on the shelf.” She twisted away from his gaze, returning the framed picture to the exact spot where it had stood.

He didn’t answer, but he moved to the shelves and picked up the picture between his large hands, and staring down at it just as she had.

“Were you out working? What time is it? It must be getting late. We should get back to the rodeo grounds. Poor Roberta had the office alone all day. I’ve got to get back and give her a break.”

Pushing back the quilt, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, but before she could stand, he replaced the photo, turned and walked out.

She sat very still, as if moving might send the emotions welling up in her over some invisible edge.

Relief, that’s what she must be feeling. How could she possibly have wanted Walker to stay in the room and talk about that other time, that long-ago grief? How could she possibly be hurt that he had turned away from her? Again. How could she possibly want to put her arms around him and comfort him against the pain he’d never shown her?

Slowly, she rose and walked to the bathroom, not sure how long she’d sat on the bed. With great care, she washed her face, wiping away any trace of tears, and finger-combed her hair into some order.

She hung up the washcloth she’d used, straightened the bed, tucking the quilt in, then drew in a strengthening breath and headed out of the room.

Walker was not in the house. Nor on the porch. Using a hand to shield her eyes from the afternoon glare, she studied the nearly complete corral. Not there, either. That left only the barn.

She spotted him as soon as she walked past the wide-open double doors, and was glad he hadn’t heard her approach. He worked saddle soap into a strip of leather, sitting on a bale of hay by the narrower side door that opened into the corral, his back propped by the stall wall behind him. Coat sprawled at his feet. The horse in the nearby stall hung a companionable head over the half-door, contemplating Walker’s handiwork.

Diffused light surrounded him, picking out the glint of silver in his hair, casting the strong bones of his downcast face into a pen-and-ink drawing of pure line.

Kalli looked at him and let herself see the man he’d become. Stripped of the shadows and shades cast by their past.

A good man.

A man who lived by loyalty and honesty and responsibility. He had a way with animals—always had. These past weeks, she’d seen he also had a way with people. Because they recognized they could trust Walker Riley. He was a man of his word.

She almost smiled at that thought. It sounded so old-fashioned. Her friends back East, even the ones who lived by it, would shy away from articulating the code that way. But not Walker. He’d say it straight out, with no self-consciousness.

Yes, the boy she’d once loved with all her heart had become a good man. A man any woman would find sexy as hell. And a man filled with secrets.

“Walker, talk to me about Cory.”

His hands stilled, but he didn’t look up, and she wondered if he had already been aware of her presence.

“Walker...” She didn’t know how to ask this of him, or why it seemed so important now. “Please, Walker.”

Kalli wasn’t sure if he would ignore her plea.

The leather strip disappeared in his clenched fist for an instant, then his grip loosened and he smoothed the piece absently.

“I still miss him.” He spoke so low, she drew closer. His hands started moving on the leather again, broad fingers stroking and kneading the saddle soap into every pore and crevice. “Sometimes, heading to the next rodeo, driving late at night or trying to catch some sleep in some airport, I’ll think I can hear him talking to me. Just the way he used to.” He paused a beat. “Remember?”

“I remember.” Wedged securely between two sets of broad shoulders, driving through darkness sometimes cozy and sometimes magical, with nonsense or philosophy floating through the small pickup’s cab, The mood exultant or restrained depending on the previous stop, but always hopeful for the next one.

“Cory was half in love with you himself, you know.”

She smiled slightly. Cory had done everything Walker had, so that was no surprise. Though his love had been strictly—sweetly—platonic, while the love between Walker and her... “I knew. And I loved him the same way.”

“It was all a long time ago.”

He intended to close the door on their past. A chill ran through her, followed by a flame. No. No! She wouldn’t let him do that. It was all she had of him, and she wouldn’t let it go.

The thought left her slightly unsteady against the stall door, pretending a fumbling stroke at the horse’s soft nose, trying to regain her equilibrium, at least physically. Her emotional balance might never return.

“But there’s something I got to know, Kalli.”

She froze, waiting, dreading, but unable to stop what was to come.

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you
had
been pregnant? Do you ever think maybe then you would have stayed?”

“PREGNANT?” SHE WHISPERED
, not ready to face the second part of what he’d said.

“Carrying my baby,” he said roughly, still focused on the bit of leather in his hands. “That time you were late. The week before...”

The week before Cory Lloyd had been killed in the rodeo arena, riding bulls. Competing with his best friend in the world, Walker Riley.

She drew in a breath, hoping it would steady her. But it only allowed a muffled sob to escape, and Walker looked at her for the first time.

He was on his feet, before her in an instant. The leather slipped to the dusty floor of the barn, forgotten, as he swore under his breath, wiped his hands on his jeans, then took her face between his hands.

“God, Kalli, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Not ever.”

He wiped away the trail of moisture with the side of his thumb, the rough skin softened by the infinite gentleness in the touch.

“It’s okay, Walker. It’s okay. It’s just that I didn’t know... I didn’t know...”

“You didn’t know what, Kalli?”

Within his hold, she shook her head.

“I thought— I didn’t think you’d even remember that. It was just a few days. And...and you didn’t want a baby.”

“Didn’t want a baby,” he repeated woodenly.

“I thought you were glad when it turned out I wasn’t pregnant.”

He laughed, a grating sound that matched the harsh lines of his face. But his hands stayed gentle as he dropped them to her shoulders.

“Glad? Glad to see you crying because for those few days, you’d been dreaming and planning, talking up a storm about our baby, then found out there wasn’t one?”

“I’m sorry, Walker. I’m sorry. But you never said– You never told me.”

“I never told you a lot of things.” With the barest hint of pressure, his hands guided her to the bale of hay and induced her to sit. He dropped down beside her. His hands curved around her upper arms as they faced each other, knees bumping, but neither bothering to pull away. “Like I was scared spitless.”

“But, why would you—”

A jerk of his head stopped her question. “And if we’re being honest here, yeah, I got to admit that, mixed in with all the other feelings when we found out you weren’t pregnant, there was a sliver of relief that I wasn’t going to be revealed as a horse’s rear end quite so soon. Hell, I didn’t admit it to myself for a couple of years, but it’s the truth.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You were thrilled with the idea of being a mother, flying up there with the eagles. And you expected me to feel the same about being a father, but I didn’t know squat about it.” His hands dropped from her. He rested his forearms on his thighs as he stared straight ahead. “My own father’d been dead so long, I only had vague memories and some family stories. What did I know about being a father, having a family? A family! God, I was going to have a family to provide for and that scared me even more.”