Rodeo Nights (21 page)

Mary gave a nod that seemed to be directed solely at Walker, then looked over at Kalli and put a hand on hers. “I know you are. I know. And I’ll be praying that will be good enough.”

Then she stood and her tone altered, as if she’d just changed the subject.

“Now, don’t you worry about the rodeo. I’ll take care of telling Jeff, and soon, but he’ll agree that we know you’ll do everything you can. And if that’s not enough...” Her eyes glinted with a martial light. “Well, we still have a string or two we could pull with that committee.”

Back in the truck and headed to Park, with Walker driving this time, Kalli studied his profile.

“Did you have the sense Mary was talking about something beyond the rodeo?”

He looked out his side window at a passing car, watched it move safely into the lane in front of them, then glanced at her.

“Mary always did see the big picture.”

Kalli got nothing more out of him on the topic. Feeling dissatisfied and even slightly alienated, she stared out her window for a good ten minutes.

Then she felt Walker’s hand slide up her shoulder, under her hair and around the back of her neck. He released a long breath and said, “You have to sit way over there?”

He sounded like the loneliest man on earth, but when she looked over her shoulder at him, humor and mischief mixed in his eyes. Unable to resist the combination, she slid across the seat toward him.

After that, it was hard to feel dissatisfied or alienated with Walker’s arm around her shoulders, her hand resting lightly on his thigh and their sides pressed together.

KALLI LEANED AGAINST
the arena fence and indulged in a moment’s satisfaction.

True, they still lagged on ticket sales, but they were making up ground. Inch by painful inch. She studied the projections every day. With slightly more than three weeks left, today’s had indicated that if they kept at this pace, they would top last year’s figures by three tickets. Not much of a cushion if something—anything—went wrong, but considerably better than coming up several hundred short as her first projections had shown.

And everything else kept clicking along. The competitors’ lot held a hodgepodge of trailers, trucks and campers, with a good mix of out-of-state plates showing they were drawing entries from distances, which meant tougher fields, which meant better shows, which meant bigger crowds.

As if to prove her point, two newly arrived cowboys sauntered up to the fence, off to her right, looking over the layout with practiced eyes and starting to easily stretch their legs and backs.

Yes, everything was going fine. Including her and Walker.

She missed him.

She felt a little foolish making the admission, even in her own mind. After all, he was only gone for the day. He and Gulch had gone for a weekly visit to Jeff up in Billings. He—
they
—should be back anytime. In fact, she’d expected them by now. They could have gotten hung up in traffic from the daytime rodeo at a county fair midway between Park and Billings.

The possibility of that rodeo cutting into their business had worried her for a while. Roberta, Walker and Gulch all said it wouldn’t work that way. But until she’d seen that they’d received more entries than usual—as cowboys took advantage of the proximity of the rodeos to pack in two competitions in one day—she hadn’t been convinced.

But the figures she and Roberta had totaled before they closed up for the break didn’t lie. And bits of conversation drifting to her from these two new cowboys confirmed it. So she would let Walker say I-told-you-so...if he’d just get here. She wanted to share this with him.

She wanted to share everything with him.

The thought burned across her mind, and she shied away from it. She wanted to share everything about the rodeo. It was only natural, they’d worked so hard together. She’d experienced it in business: On an intense project, a sort of camaraderie developed, like with a military unit or a group on a tour. An esprit de corps built on reaching for the same goal, on seeing each other a dozen times a day, on laughing together.

She and Walker did all that, and more. They made love. Sweet, passionate, consuming love.

And she’d worked desperately hard during these days to not let herself think about what it meant.

Oh, God, was she falling in love with Walker Riley all over again?

Twisting around, she faced into the arena, lessening the chance anyone might notice her, might read emotions from her face.

She latched on to the conversation of nearby cowboys like a lifeline sent to rescue her from her own thoughts.

“Hell of a ride,” the cowboy in the blue shirt said.

“Didn’t think he’d get much when I saw he’d drawn that chute-fighter Impact.”

“Looked a little rusty to me,” answered the one in a red bandanna print.

“If that’s rusty, coat me in iron and turn on the water.”

‘‘I just meant—’’

“You just meant he whipped your butt today, Jack.”

Bandanna-print grimaced. “Yeah, he did. Wish he’d retire.”

Fingers of cold crept across Kalli’s skin even as Blue Shirt said, “There were rumors he might be, what with cutting his summer rides back like this.”

“Yeah. What I don’t get is why a champion like him is picking some of these small places to ride and not taking advantage of being right here at his own rodeo.”

She didn’t want to hear, but the cold flashing across her left her immobile.

He was riding bulls. When she thought him safe, he wasn’t.

He was risking his life, her heart.

She’d been a fool to believe there could be something for her and Walker. Something beyond the purely physical. Even as she framed that thought, her heart and mind rejected it. It wasn’t just that between them; it would have been easier if it were. Because whatever they had, it wasn’t enough.

They’d gotten past the hurts from the past, but that hadn’t changed the present.

Unknowingly, Blue Shirt echoed part of her thoughts. “Whatever his reasons, it’s working, because he hasn’t changed from when I first went up against him six years ago. Riley still knows how to get the most out of a dud, and when he’s got a real rank one... Well, there’s nobody better at sticking to ’em like a burr.”

“Speak of the devil,” murmured Bandanna-print.

At some level, she heard the two move away from the fence, toward the parking lot, pausing to exchange greetings with a newcomer. And she knew that newcomer had to be Walker. But she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Could barely breathe.

“Hey, Kalli.”

She didn’t turn, but she pushed the two syllables of his name from between numb lips. “Walker.”

He came up beside her. “Mary and Jeff send their love.” He dropped his voice to a more intimate level. “I’d hoped to find you in a less public place. I wanted to say a proper hello. Along the lines of the good-morning we had in the shower. It’s been a long day since—”

“Just long enough for you to get your fix of riding bulls in a rodeo, right, Walker?”

Abrupt and absolute, his stillness seemed painful.

“Kalli, I—”

“Don’t bother. I already heard. You had a great ride.” Images of what could have happened to him in another kind of ride, the kind Cory had taken that last day, inundated her mind, sweeping away logic and reason, leaving only fear.

“I didn’t—”

“You won, I’m sure. And impressed a few more young boys like Matt Halderman with what a great hero you are. I suppose congratulations are in order, but I’m sure you got plenty of that from everyone else, so you won’t feel deprived if you don’t have mine.”

“Kalli, listen to me—”

She backed away from the fence and brushed her hands together, as if to rid them of dust, but really to try to get feeling back into them.

“Did you even bother to go see Jeff, or was the whole day a lie?”

His head snapped back as if she’d hit him, and that seemed to revive his ability to move. He grasped her shoulders in a tight squeeze.

“All right, if you won’t listen, then talk to me. Get it all out.”

“I have nothing more to say to you.”

Jerking out of his hold—and knowing she’d succeeded only because he’d let her go—she spun around and headed down the path. Passing faces blurred; she gave automatic answers to greetings, and kept going.

The office door seemed to promise sanctuary, if she could only get inside… If she could only be alone...

But even before the door clicked shut behind her, she heard someone hailing her.

“Hey, Kalli. Can you sign me up for tomorrow? Roberta’s on the phone and I’ve got to get into town.”

“Sure, Matt.” How could a few words be so difficult to produce? “Just let me get some coffee.”

Grateful that the telephone occupied at least some of Roberta’s too-perceptive attention, Kalli raised the hinged portion of the counter, then winced when her unsteady hand let it slip the last few inches with a slam.

She poured half a cup, pulling in breaths she hoped might contain composure somewhere in their depths.

Damn Walker Riley. Damn him, damn him, damn him
!

And damn herself for hoping he could change so fundamentally.

A last breath and she turned to Matt, half-filled coffee cup in hand. She hoped he wouldn’t notice it trembling.

“So, Matt, what can I—”

The door imploded, its rubber-tipped stop encountering the wall with a sound like a muffled shot.

Kalli jerked, sending a coffee wave to the lip of the cup.

Roberta and Matt spun around, openmouthed at Walker’s entrance.

She’d thought when he let her go, when he didn’t follow her, that that would be the end of it. Now she recognized he had simply been building up steam.

Two long strides took him to the counter. He slapped the hinged portion up with enough force to shudder down the wooden length, and this time the liquid in Kalli’s cup slopped over the edge onto her hand, causing her to jump and send even more coffee across the counter.

Her curse got swallowed by a spurt of voices.

“What the—’’

“Get out, Matt.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kalli snapped, anger thawing any numbness. “Matt and I have business—”

“Now.”

She spun on Walker. “You have no right—”

He ignored her. Didn’t even look at her. “Roberta.”

The older woman had already hung up the phone and now calmly retrieved her purse from the desk drawer.

“But...but—” Matt gawked from Walker to Kalli and back.

“C’mon, Matt.” Roberta shepherded the young cowboy toward the door. “You give me the events you want to enter and I’ll add you to the list later. Then you go off to town like you planned.”

“Lock the door, Roberta.”

“Don’t you do any such thing, Roberta,” Kalli countermanded Walker’s order. “These are office hours and the office will remain open.”

“Lock it,” he barked.

Kalli heard the bolt click home from the outside, the sound cracking a silence that burned into her lungs and eyes like smoke.

Walker had stopped four feet from her. As far as she knew, he hadn’t looked directly at her. After her first glance, she’d been disinclined to look at him, either.

“You have no right to burst in here like this and close up the office during business hours. As hard as we’re working to keep this rodeo going, trying to build entries and ticket sales, this—”

“Talk.”

His single word cut across hers.

The fear that she might meekly follow his order, might do anything Walker Riley asked her to do, drove her to action. Turning away, she opened the door to the tiny bathroom in search of paper towel to mop up the coffee on the counter.

“You can’t—” The small space seemed to smother her words, so with her back still to Walker, she started again, louder. “You can’t come in here throwing orders around.” She snatched two paper towels from the holder next to the sink. “I don’t have to follow your—”

She hadn’t heard him move, but Walker crowded her in the confined space of the bathroom, his grip hard on her right arm, anger charging the atmosphere.

She was too angry to be frightened. Or maybe she recognized at some level that for all his fury, he never hurt her.

“Leave me alone, Walker.” She pried herself away, then tried to get around the narrow opening between the sink and the open door. Maybe she’d be able to breathe if she could get back into the main office, where the essence of Walker wouldn’t be quite so concentrated. “Who do you think you—?”

He blocked her escape. Slamming the door, he braced it shut with their combined weight. A hand to either side of her head caged her.

“Don’t you ever walk away from me again, Kalli. Don’t you ever leave me without a word.”

His face loomed so close she had nowhere to look except his eyes, and once she looked into them, she couldn’t look away.

Desolation.
Such desolation.

She hadn’t known anyone could look so lonely, so lost.

Except for the person she’d seen in the mirror at times.

“Don’t you ever walk away like that again.”

She saw it then, with the same shock and clarity that she’d finally recognized his grief and self-blame over Cory’s death. She saw how she had hurt him. How in her effort to protect herself by getting away as quickly as possible—a decade ago and minutes ago—she had hurt him so desperately.

“Walker.”

Fingertips trembling, she soothed the scar by his mouth, the one that had robbed him of his full smile.

“We’re not going to waste ten years this time,” he swore. “We’re not going to regret not having it out and getting this clear. Not this time.”

He’d been wrong to lie to her today, but she’d given him no chance to make it right. As, ten years ago, he’d been wrong to close her out, and she’d been wrong not to give them a chance to make that right, together.

“I’m sorry, Walker. I shouldn’t have. I’m so—”

Even as she spoke, she knew her words weren’t what he needed. His mouth crushed the words coming from hers, and asked for what he did need.

To know that she was here, that they could still hold each other. That she wouldn’t walk away from him this time.