Rodeo Nights Read online

  “So I’d seen her since she became a big New York City executive. Even discounting that Jeff and Mary were bragging on her, she’s doing mighty well for herself. ‘Course, she was always smart as a whip.”

  As he had with Tom, Walker sensed an underlying concern from Gulch: We know how you fell apart last time. We were there to pick up the pieces. Don’t leave yourself open for a second time. The pieces might be too small.

  And they were right.

  Gulch went on recounting Kalli’s accomplishments, but Walker only half took it in. Spectators filed in, some pausing on the catwalk to the Buzzards’ Roost to ooh and aah over the livestock penned below. To his right, gruff chatter and occasional raucous laughter punctuated the arrival of cowboys, preparing their rigging and their psyches for the competition. Cooling breezes mingled the smells of animal and human with coffee and popcorn from the concession stand.

  No wonder Kalli looked different. While this had remained his world, she’d left it to make another—and most would consider it a better—life for herself. A life he’d had no part of.

  It didn’t bother him she looked different. What bothered him was she still looked so damned good to him.

  * * *

  “NOW THAT EVENTS have started, there’ll be a lull,” Roberta announced. Kalli felt her mouth quirk. Woe to anyone who put the lie to that proclamation! “So why don’t you take those feet of yours outside and let ’em take you someplace instead of no place?”

  Kalli halted in mid-pace, the habit so automatic she hadn’t realized she’d been doing it. “Sorry. The pacing can be annoying, I know.”

  “As far as bad habits go, it’s better than chewing tobacco.”

  Kalli laughed. Even to her own ears, it sounded a bit ragged, but Roberta looked approving.

  “I promise you, Roberta, no matter how tough things get, I won’t put a pinch between my cheek and gum.”

  That earned a nod. “Good. How ’bout promising you’ll go out and walk around awhile, too?” Before Kalli could protest, she added, “Might as well get reacquainted with the layout. Some things might’ve changed. Fresh air’ll do you good, too. Besides, never hurts to let folks see you on the scene.”

  Kalli might have disputed the other points, but the last one was inarguable.

  “You’re right. I’ll take a look around.”

  She snagged her blazer from the back of a chair, pulling it on as she headed out. Decisiveness carried her around the corner and four strides down the side of the office before impressions and memories flooded in.

  An amplified voice announced a cowboy’s score, slipping in the information for the uninitiated that this was a very good performance, indeed. Thus exhorted, the crowd cheered. Ahead of her, floodlights pasted stars against the darkening sky. Grilling hot dogs overlaid the scents of horses, cattle, sweat and hay. In a pocket of silence, she heard a distant call, then the thunk of a chute opening, swallowed by the crowd’s roar.

  Twisting away, she leaned against the wall and looked out on the parking area. But the haphazard array of horse trailers, campers, pickups and every vehicular hybrid imaginable brought other memories—memories of hot, loving nights spent in just such a temporary home.

  A new sound slipped in. Low, a little pitiful, yet excited and...familiar. Her eyelids lifted.

  A dog was framed in the open passenger window of a camper-topped pickup, dusty red and well traveled, its right front fender primed an equally dusty black.

  “Coat?” The dog yipped excitedly, and Kalli found herself jerking open the pickup’s door, throwing her arms around the dog, tears flowing and her face being thoroughly licked between ecstatic barks. “Coat, is that really you, boy? Oh, Coat...Coat.”

  The slightly wiry texture of the dog’s multicolored coat was so familiar, but the puppy of memory was now gray-muzzled and moving with the gingerliness of age. That didn’t dim the unconditional joy of his greeting.

  “Kalli? Kalli, you okay?”

  She spun around to face Walker, standing just behind her, one hand half raised as if he’d considered touching her, then changed his mind.

  “It’s Coat,” she said, and knew instantly how stupid that sounded. Of course it was, and of course Walker knew it. This was the puppy they’d adopted not a week after their wedding, the one she’d named after the Dolly Parton song “Coat of Many Colors,” in honor of his varied tints and because she’d loved the sentiment of the song. This was the dog she’d left behind, with some muddled idea that Coat would look after Walker even if he wouldn’t let her.

  “You kept him.”

  Walker dropped his hand, and in the artificial light, the lines of his face seemed harsher. “Of course I kept him. You didn’t think I’d dump him because it wasn’t convenient anymore, did you?”

  Kalli straightened and brushed away her tears with the back of one hand, though the other remained in Coat’s fur.

  “Sorry I barged into your truck—this is your truck?” Pride steadied her voice. She caught the movement of his nod, but didn’t face him. “Coat recognized me, and in the excitement, I didn’t think about how inappropriate it was to get in someone else’s truck.”

  “I don’t give a damn about the truck. I heard Coat bark and thought... I thought I better check on him.”

  Something about his tone made her turn. “Is he all right? I know he’s getting old, but is he sick?”

  “No. He’s all right. Vet says he’s pretty healthy for his age, matter of fact. But he has arthritis and he can’t get around like he used to. And sometimes other dogs don’t respect his age, or horses get touchy, so…”

  So he kept an eye out for Coat, Kalli supplied silently. He kept a cushioned dog bed on the passenger seat of his truck and when he heard the dog’s bark, he wasted no time checking it out.

  She smiled a little as she looked at the dog and thought she saw agreement in Coat’s eyes: Walker Riley was still a soft touch for any creature weaker than himself.

  “He recognized me,” she said, hoping to share her pleasure with the man standing so close she could feel the heat of his body.

  “Dogs remember who lands a boot in their ribs, but they’re not wise enough to forget somebody who walks away from them.”

  A slap would have been less painful, but no more bracing. His quiet demeanor in the office had lulled her, had her thinking maybe they could work together without the bitter past welling up. She’d been a fool.

  “I’m going to take a look around.” Her words dismissed Walker and the conversation. But she couldn’t resist a last hug of the old dog. “I’ll see you later, Coat,” she whispered, then walked away without looking back.

  She ran into Gulch Miller sooner than she would have wished. His eyes were too darn sharp for her comfort. Within a network of wrinkles that had widened despite the shading of an ever-present cowboy hat, those eyes flicked from her face to over her shoulder toward Walker’s truck.

  To her relief, Gulch made no comment, instead introducing her to crew members in snatches between their duties. Before long, Gulch, too, was called away, and Kalli simply watched the activity.

  “Hi, you’re not from ’round here, are you?”

  Kalli blinked, bringing her focus to the young cowboy to her right. Old enough to vote, but yet to see his first presidential election. Attractive, and he knew it, but still enough of a boy not to be sure that other people knew it. Something about him tugged at her.

  “No, I’m not. And you?”

  “Just over the border,” he said with a nod north. Montana, she thought, not Canada. “Where’s your home?” he asked.

  Good question. “I live in New York City.”

  His eyebrows rose, but to her amusement he seemed less impressed than surprised at her lack of good sense.

  “You visiting here?”

  “Mmm. Sort of. Looks like I’ll be here all summer.”

  “Then you’ll have a chance to come to the rodeo a few more times.”

  “Very likely,” she murmured.<
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  To prevent his seeing the amusement in her eyes, she looked beyond his left shoulder and met Walker’s assessing stare. He stood ten yards away with a group of competitors, including a blond barrel racer with her hand tucked into Walker’s elbow and her side plastered to his.

  No chance now the young cowboy would think Kalli was amused.

  “Then you’ll see me,” he said, “because I’m going to be rodeoing here ’most every night. This is my summer to make the big push, make a name for myself.”

  And the resemblance hit her square in the heart—he was Walker, the summer her feelings had deepened and widened from hero worship to love. She’d been seventeen.

  “I’ve already made a start,” he was saying proudly. “I won tonight, plus I got two seconds earlier in the week.”

  “What event?” The question kept him talking and prevented her from looking back to Walker—either the flesh-and-blood one across the way or the one in her memory.

  “Bareback bronc. I got a real rank one. Why, she—”

  “Matt Halderman. Good ride tonight.”

  Walker’s low voice stiffened the backs of both his listeners, but Kalli suspected the cowboy’s reaction was pride.

  Walker extended his right hand for a shake and put his left hand on Matt’s shoulder for a congratulatory squeeze.

  “Thanks. Thanks, Walker.” A two-time national champion praising a youngster just trying to make a name for himself was cause for a severe lump in the throat. Kalli admired Matt Halderman’s poise.

  She also admired Walker’s adroit maneuver, even while it infuriated her. A slight pressure on Matt’s shoulder with his left hand, a subtle tug with his right hand, still in a handshake, and he had the younger man turned. Without a ripple, Walker stood between Kalli and Matt.

  “I see you’ve already met the brains of the operation while Jeff is laid up.”

  Matt’s startled brown eyes came to Kalli. “Uh, yeah.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Matt,” she said with a warm smile meant to ease any awkwardness, and extended her hand across the gap Walker had opened between them. “We haven’t made it official. I’m Kalli Evans—”

  “Riley.” Walker’s single word stepped on the heels of hers.

  “It’s Evans,” she said more harshly than she’d intended, shaking Matt’s hand, but glaring at Walker. The shadow of his hat brim hid his eyes; the bottom of his face was unreadable. “Kalli Evans,” she emphasized. “Call me Kalli.”

  “Sorry. Old habits die hard.” Walker’s tone was as neutral as what she could see of his face. “Say, Matt, how about we talk about that ride?”

  “That’s great, Walker. Thanks!” Matt touched the brim of his cowboy hat. “Nice meeting you, uh, Kalli.”

  “Nice meeting you, Matt. I look forward to your entering more rodeos.”

  * * *

  WALKER STOOD BESIDE the bed and looked at the man who’d taught him to ride—horses, bulls and the rough spots in life.

  The outside of Baldwin Jeffries had changed, dwindled since he’d started taking in his widowed sister’s only son every summer. But Walker knew the inside would always be the same. He held one inert hand between the roughened warmth of both of his.

  In his uncle’s eyes he saw frustration and bewilderment, but those feelings were relegated to a minor role. Concern dominated Jeff’s eyes, and Walker tried to answer that.

  “It’ll be all right, Jeff. I’ll keep the rodeo going. Hell, the way you organize, it’d probably run itself another century, but I’ll be here. Along for the ride.”

  And you ? the faded blue eyes asked.

  “I’m fine. No need to worry.”

  Walker? He knew what his uncle’s eyes demanded.

  “I saw her... It’ll be all right, Jeff. It’s been years.”

  The blue eyes regarded him steadily a moment longer, and in those eyes Walker saw the memory of his own disbelief giving way to dazed pain. He guessed Jeff was remembering when Walker had flirted too long and too seriously with the bottle and danger, the years of careful, unacknowledged scheduling so two people who loved Baldwin and Mary Jeffries wouldn’t cross paths.

  He wondered if Jeff could see as clearly into him. Could he see the longing Walker had felt to touch Kalli when he’d seen her with Coat? Could he see Walker had fought that longing by digging at the scars between them, scars better left untouched if they were going to work together? Could he see that when it came right down to it, instinct had pushed Walker into staking a claim to her that he knew damn well he had no right to? And over a kid barely weaned, for God’s sake.

  “It’ll be all right,” he repeated.

  His uncle blinked, turning to where Mary sat. But Walker had seen the sheen of tears.

  * * *

  “SO, YOU THINKING about putting your own stamp on the Park Rodeo, Walker?” Jasper Lodge asked.

  That sounded innocuous, especially as spoken around a hunk of roast beef sandwich. But, since he was committee chairman, all Lodge’s comments had significance. His approval or disapproval could be pivotal to the rodeo’s future.

  So when he’d called yesterday asking if he could come by “just to get reacquainted” with Walker and Kalli, of course they’d agreed.

  Roberta had said to make the meeting for lunch today, “because there’s no surer way to soften up Jasper Lodge than through his stomach.” This morning, she’d arrived with the makings for hefty sandwiches, homemade potato salad, green salad, fresh lemonade, double-chocolate brownies and watermelon.

  They’d set up some distance from the office, at a picnic table under four cottonwoods by a stream feeding into the Shoshone River. It was a pleasant spot. Only Coat, banished to the shade of a distant tree to prevent his soulful looks from interfering with the diners’ pleasure, didn’t seem to approve.

  “I’m looking at the operation of the rodeo, Mr. Lodge,” Kalli said before Walker could answer. “We’ve divided the responsibilities. Walker will focus on running the competition aspects.”

  She’d be better off calling him Jasper, Walker thought.

  “Mister” reinforced her position as an outsider. Walker considered joining the conversation. Then he flicked a look at her. What was that saying about discretion and valor? He opted for discretion, and potato salad.

  “That so?” Jasper Lodge aimed his question at Walker, but he couldn’t answer around a mouthful of potato, onions and celery.

  “Let me tell you what we have in mind, Jasper,” said Kalli.

  Against the red-and-white checks of the cloth Roberta had spread on the table, Kalli’s blue slacks and shirt topped by a tan blazer and a brightly patterned scarf created an image of cool competence that matched her tone of voice.

  Used to be a scratch would let loose her emotions from just beneath the surface—the fire, the love, the passions, Walker thought. Had they gone deeper underground or had they been smothered?

  Roberta replaced their empty dishes with a platter piled with brownies and wedges of watermelon so succulent they glistened with moisture.

  Watermelon. The memory hit him, low and deep in his gut. Sitting on the steps of their old trailer, the open doorway behind them airing out a day’s accumulated heat. What rodeo had taken them to that spot? There’d been too many places too fast; he couldn’t remember. But he remembered late-summer softness, the warmth soon to be a memory with fall clearing its throat. The last watermelon of summer—the only summer she’d carried the name Kalli Riley.

  She picked up a wedge of watermelon now, in the bright midday sun. But he could also see a younger Kalli holding a slice of watermelon in the private darkness of night.

  He watched her bite into the sweet, unseeded tip.

  Smiling at something Roberta said, she glanced at the watermelon before putting it to her mouth a second time.

  God, please, let her just bite into the damn thing and be done with it. Don’t let her still have that old habit. Don’t let her...

  Her tongue flicked out, as accurate as
a sharpshooter, and slid away one black oval seed from where she would bite next, then another. And a third.

  Memory stirred his body, brought sweat to his upper lip, under his arms, down his back.

  With the greed of youth, they’d each eaten a slice of watermelon that long-ago night, then set about sharing a third. Fascinated, he’d watched her delicate removal of the seeds with her tongue before she bit into the fruit. When his turn came, he’d taken a huge bite and a seed had caught at the corner of his mouth.

  The seed, slick and smooth against his skin. The juice a cool veneer on his lips. The chuckle she gave as she stopped his hand from dislodging the seed. The soft, heated rub of her tongue as she slid the seed against his skin with excruciating slowness. The endless, aching moment as they stared at each other. The explosion of need.

  They hadn’t even made it all the way into the trailer, barely across the raised threshold onto the thin carpet. They hadn’t gotten all their clothes off. But, Lord, they had needed. They had loved.

  It was ten years ago. Ten damn years ago.

  The reminder did no good. His body recognized no divorce, no decade apart. It recognized only what it had known, and wanted to know again—Kalli.

  As she swallowed a bite of watermelon, her gaze brushed over him, halted and returned. He had an uneasy feeling that despite the curtaining of the tablecloth, she knew his jeans felt bindingly tight. With a slight frown, she glanced at the uneaten fruit before him, then back to his face. He saw the exact moment the memory hit her, and didn’t try to stem his fierce satisfaction at the stunned look in her eyes and the sweep of color in her cheeks.

  She looked away, dropped the watermelon rind as if it had burned her and wiped her hands hastily on her napkin.

  “Jasper, now that you’re done eating, would you like to come in and see our office setup?”

  “Sure would.”

  Walker stayed perfectly still, hoping his failure to join them would go unnoticed. Kalli didn’t so much as glance his way. But Lodge turned back.