Rodeo Nights (27 page)

When she finally landed, it was at a time when everyone would be hip-deep in running the Friday-evening rodeo—the second-to-last of the season. She tried the ranch, but got no answer; they were probably all at the rodeo. She rented a car, ignoring a tiny, practical voice nagging about that extravagance for someone soon to be unemployed. If she waited a few hours, someone on the rodeo staff could pick her up.

She wasn’t waiting any more hours.

She wasn’t missing this rodeo.

Still, when she got to the rodeo grounds, events were in full swing.

She went straight to Walker’s camper.

It was empty.

She stood in the doorway, numbed for a moment. She’d been so sure she would find him here. She would explain what she’d realized these past few days, and then tell him she loved him, too. But he wasn’t here. Which probably meant he’d gone to the bull chutes to wait, among the other competitors, to ride. Not exactly the most romantic spot for telling a man you loved him and wanted to marry him—again.

The powerful arena lights streamed through the open door over her shoulder and glinted on something metallic on the bunk. Walker’s championship buckle. Left where she’d dropped it five nights ago.

Staring at it, her mind began to function again.

Maybe the bull chutes provided exactly the right spot for this declaration of love.

Smiling, she pulled off her belt and threaded the heavy leather of Walker’s championship belt through her jeans’ loops. The buckle felt cumbersome, but she could almost imagine a warmth emanating from the metal. Positioning the buckle at the front of her waist, she wrapped the leftover leather far to the side, well beyond the last hole.

After thirty seconds of rooting in a drawer in the kitchenette, she found a roll of tape. With an awkward but effective wrapping motion, she secured the leather and bit off the tape, tucking in the end.

Then she went in search of Walker Riley.

THE ROUTINE DIDN’T
offer solace or ease the pain, but it did provide the comfort of familiarity.

He’d taped up. Put on his chaps. Strapped up the bull he’d drawn. Checked his rig. Now he waited. Until the moment came when he would lower himself, working his glove into the strap, getting it just right, flexing his hand to check it, tightening his hold, retesting it. Then giving the signal to open the chute. To let two thousand pounds of bull free to try its damnedest to rid itself of his relatively inconsequential weight.

He could feel the adrenaline, familiar, welcome and necessary. But he could also feel the drag of his heart.

God, he loved her.

But she couldn’t love him, at least not this part of him, not when she let her fear stand between them. And though he knew—and accepted—that the moments like this were dwindling, it was still a part of him. It would never lose its hold on him. Even when he no longer competed.

A chute opened down the line, the crowd roared and a rider held on for dear life. One more to go before his turn.

He didn’t even try to still the thoughts, though he knew the danger of letting anything intrude between him and this moment. He couldn’t stop thinking of Kalli any more than he could have stopped loving her from the time she first smiled at him, all those years ago.

“Walker?”

Gulch’s voice sounded odd, is if he knew Walker’s mind wasn’t where it was supposed o be. Walker didn’t bother answering. Last thing he needed was a lecture.

“Walker!’’

He growled a curse without looking up from where he flexed his hand in the skintight glove. “What?”

Gulch punched his arm. “Lookit. Look over there, you sorry son-of-a-gun idiot.”

Walker did look up because it almost sounded as if Gulch was grinning.

He was. As wide and as bright as he could manage. Walker gaped at him but Gulch didn’t pay any attention; he was looking over Walker’s shoulder.

Walker started to turn in the same direction, but apparently not fast enough to suit Gulch, because the older man cuffed him on the shoulder to hurry up the process. “Lookit, will ya?”

Walker looked.

It was the prettiest sight he’d ever seen.

Kalli Evans was standing not four feet away. Smiling at him. A little tentatively and with a tear slipping down her right cheek, but smiling at him. And wearing his championship buckle.

The symbol of his rodeo success, also a symbol of their years apart.

Now she wore it, linking past and future.

He started toward her on an instinct bred as deep as the need to breathe, and the urge to ride, but Gulch caught his arm.

“You’re up next, boy. And by the looks of it, she’ll still be here when you’re done.”

Kalli must have heard, because she gave a nod and her eyes promised she would be there when his ride ended. This ride, and the last ride. She said something, but the only words he caught over the announcement of the preceding rider’s scores were “good ride.” Then she backed up a couple of paces, leaving him to do what he had to do.

He looked at her a moment longer. “I will. I love you, Kalli.”

He made no effort to make the words loud enough for her to hear over the noise of the crowd. They were words to be felt more than heard, anyhow. And by her eyes, he knew she’d felt them.

Then he turned all his attention to the bull.

Centering. Clearing. Setting. Nodding his head and giving the terse, “Ready.”

IN EIGHT SECONDS
and the time it took to sprint across the arena, he came over the fence grinning, looped his arms around her waist and spun her off her feet before she could react.

Then he kissed her, there in front of his fellow competitors, the inordinate number of employees who happened to find an errand in that vicinity right then, the spectators milling in front of the concession stand and anyone who happened to look over the rail from the Buzzards’ Roost.

He released her mouth, but didn’t loosen his arms. The light in his eyes had turned serious.

“Are you back to stay?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to help me take some of the load for Mary and Jeff next season?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to marry me?”

“Yes.”

The light in his eyes flared from serious to sensuous, asking another question that she let hers answer, also in the affirmative.

When the loudspeaker announced his score, he gave a disparaging smile. “Routine score for a routine ride.”

“Routine? I think I lost a couple of inches of enamel from gritting my teeth.” She hoped be couldn’t see her hands trembling.

“If that’s what it takes, I’ll love you toothless.”

She shook her head. “I’ll learn to adjust to your riding the bulls before it comes to that point. At least I will as long as I can ask of you what you asked of me.”

“What’s that?”

“Come back to me.”

He tilted his head, seeing how much this meant to her. And he made a promise they both knew he couldn’t guarantee, no more than she could have guaranteed that there would be no delay in her return from New York. Or that there would be no accident, no natural disaster that would have kept her from ever coming back to him. “I will, Kalli. I’ll always come back to you.”

“And I’ll do the same.”

He tensed. “What do you mean? You’re leaving?”

“Sometimes,” she said gently. “I can make adjustments, and I won’t work out of New York, but I’ll need to be gone sometimes to keep doing what
I
love. Mary once told me that really loving someone means putting their wants and needs ahead of your wants and needs—and even your fears. I’m learning to do that with the rodeo, Walker. Because you love it, and I love you. Can you love me enough to let me go, Walker?”

How long? How often?
Greedily, he wanted the answers to ease his fear.

But he knew the only real way to deal with fear was to tighten your grip on the one thin rope that connected you to a force of nature, hold on for all you’re worth, and just take that ride.

“As long as you come back to me one more time than I let go.”

“That’s a deal, cowboy.” 

SPRING CAME TO
the calendar long before Wyoming could be persuaded to give up cold winds, freezing dawns and occasional ankle-deep snows. The fire in the Jeffries den drew the room’s four occupants for warmth as well as cheer.

“How can we plan for the summer’s rodeo when winter’s never going to let go?” Mary muttered.

“Don’t mind her,” Jeff advised, his smile only slightly lopsided these days. “Mary’s never been much for the benefits of a little bracing winter air.” Ignoring her disgusted “Bracing?” he went on, “Tell you what, I’ll take you to Florida next winter. Or Arizona—your choice. The whole winter, not just a month like this year.”

“You’ve promised me that for forty-three years, Jeff.”

The older man winked at his guests. “It’s kept her around. ‘Course, you two’ve been so busy, you probably haven’t noticed the chill in the air these past months.”

Turning, Kalli intercepted Walker’s smile at the gentle teasing. “We have been busy,” she agreed.

“Weddings have a way of doing that,” Mary said.

It wasn’t the wedding—which they’d kept small and simple because they both wanted to get remarried as soon as possible—it was all the celebrations after.

Her family had been protectively disapproving, until she and Walker flew to Connecticut for a long weekend and her relatives saw for themselves. Then they insisted on a belated reception at Thanksgiving for family and friends. There’d been a party thrown by the Park Rodeo employees, another by Jasper and Esther Lodge and, finally, one by Walker’s friends from the circuit at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas in December.

“Honeymoons, too,” Jeff said with his old chortle.

Kalli pretended to frown. “I meant, we’ve been busy because of my work...”

She had agreed to freelance for Jerry on projects on this side of the country during the rodeo’s off-season and was already building a reputation for a sharp eye for investment opportunities in the West. She’d made business trips, but kept them short—Walker hadn’t said anything, but she didn’t like being away long.

“...and everything Walker’s doing...”

He’d worked hard on the KW Ranch, named by twinning their first initials the way he finally admitted he’d thought about doing all along. He worked outside when weather permitted, in the house or barn when it didn’t. In addition, he’d been knee-deep in plans for a rodeo school for novices to start in May, a month before the rodeo opened, as a way to minimize risks for those just learning. Kalli thoroughly approved.

Her enthusiasm had been less wholehearted when he’d entered a string of winter indoor rodeos to “keep his hand in.”

But she’d gone with him—twice they’d worked it so she had a business to scout in the same city where he competed. She’d watched him ride. And she’d cheered him on. Because it was what he loved, and she loved him.

“Seems like you found time for some other doings,” Jeff commented slyly.

Walker broke into a big grin as he often did at the mention of her pregnancy, and laid a protective hand on her abdomen, at three months barely showing any change. Though he checked every day, with kisses and caresses.

“Winter’s got its benefits. Long nights,” Walker murmured.

Kalli had never known the fierce peace she felt in those hours when he talked of their future, their family.

“I’ve had to keep him busy with the ranch and rodeos and school as self-protection,” Kalli said as lightly as she could around a lump in her throat, “so he doesn’t coddle me right into the insane asylum. You’d think anyone who rides bulls wouldn’t blanch at the concept that he’ll be busy changing diapers before Halloween.”

“Hey, this having a baby is a sight more complicated than hanging on to a rope and keeping your balance,” Walker objected.

While Jeff and Mary laughed at his mock indignation, Kalli gave him a warm, reassuring smile. He still had doubts about being a father and sometimes she wondered what on earth made her think she could be a mother, but they agreed that, together, they’d do fine.

“Look, cowboy, you’ve got the easier end of this bargain. You’re worrying about me coping with an eight pound baby, but I’m wondering if you’re going to escape an eighteen-hundred-pound bull.”

“Maybe you’ve got the weight advantage, but how about time? I’m on the bull eight seconds. This pregnancy is a nine-month ride.”

The dual laughter from Jeff and Mary brought their heads around.

“Nine months?” asked Mary, smiling lovingly and knowingly as she looked from one to the other of them. “Try a lifetime. A lifetime of fretting and loving and wondering and joy. That’s the deal when kids enter your life.”

Kalli felt Walker’s hand move gently against her abdomen. When she looked up, she met the blue, blue eyes of the man she loved, and knew he was thinking the same thing.

A lifetime would do just fine.

-The End-

If you enjoyed
Rodeo Nights,
be sure to check out 
Not a Family Man
, the 
Bardville, Wyoming Trilogy
and the
Wyoming Wildflowers Trilogy
.