A Thousand Tomorrows & Just Beyond the Clouds Omnibus (10 page)

He stared at her for a few more heartbeats. Then he stood and walked a few feet away, his back to her. His outline was impressive in the shadows, the cowboy hat and jacket only adding to his image. He wasn’t going to stay, she could tell. Her honesty had frightened him. They probably wouldn’t talk again after this.

“Cody?”

He turned, hung his head for a moment, then straightened and returned to his chair. A long sigh left his lips as he looked at her again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She lowered her voice. If they weren’t careful her mother would wake up. “I’m doing what I love. How many people can say that?”

“Riding horses.” He lifted his hat and pushed his fingers up his forehead and into his short hair. His voice was tinged with pain and frustration. “That can’t be good for you.”

The breeze was picking up, the temperature dropping. “Anything that makes me feel that alive is good for me.” Ali eased her feet back to the ground. “I get sick once in a while, but the doctors know what to do for me.”

“That’s why you were gone a few weeks ago?” The reality of her situation was settling in. The shock was gone, and now his eyes held a helplessness, a futility.

“Yes. I spent a week in the hospital. Sort of a tune-up.” Ali turned toward him in her chair so she could see him better. “I wear a compression vest three times a day. Otherwise my lungs will get worse.”

“So that’s…” He swallowed, his eyes wide. “That’s why you go straight to your trailer.”

“Mm-hmm.” She felt utterly at peace. How wonderful to finally tell another competitor the truth, more wonderful than she could’ve imagined. Hiding her sickness had allowed her to compete like anyone else; but the journey hadn’t been easy. Everyone wondered about her; they guessed about what made her different from the others.

Now Cody knew.

She explained how she held her breath when she rode, how she took only a few inhalations in the tunnel to keep from breathing in too much dust, and how she’d kept the entire ordeal a secret. “I never wanted anyone to leak it to the press. I wanted people to know me for the way I run barrels, not my sickness.”

“Why me, Ali?” His eyes softened. “Why’d you trust me?”

“You asked.” She looked at the silhouette of the nearby mountains against the sky. Then she found his eyes again. “You’re a lot like me, Cody. All you need is the ride.”

“Yes.” Cody thought about that. “Can I do anything to help? Anything that would make it easier for you?”

She grinned. “Sure. Don’t talk to me in the tunnel.” She pointed toward a clearing a few yards away. “And could you ride your bulls out here so I could watch?”

His smile broke the tension of the moment. “If they’d let me, I’d do that every night. I hate the crowds. They’re not why I ride.”

Silence sat between them for a time.

“That brings us to you, Cody Gunner.” She lived with CF every day of her life. She was finished talking about it for now. “What makes you so mad? I watched you tonight, all that anger. It has to come from somewhere.” She waited. “What are you fighting out there?”

Cody studied her for a minute. “You should get in; you have goose bumps.”

“I’m okay.” She paused, wanting his answer.

“No. It’s late.” He reached out his hand to help her up. “I don’t want you getting a cold.”

The minute his fingers touched hers, she felt it. A current of something new and wild and exciting. Something that touched her heart and soul and body all at the same time. As soon as she was on her feet, she let go and the moment was over. Her cheeks were hot, and she was glad for the darkness.

“Okay.” She swallowed. Was he really worried about the cold air, or had her honesty scared him? Either way, he was right. She needed to get inside. “Maybe some other time.”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” Her heart soared.

“If it’s okay. I’ll meet you here, same time?”

“Okay.”

They stood, facing each other. For a long moment she searched beyond his eyes. She’d been wrong earlier. He
wasn’t afraid of her disease. They had found a friendship, and she was completely comfortable with that. He wouldn’t tell anyone her secret. Besides, it didn’t matter as much now. Dr. Cleary was right; her time on the tour was short.

Eventually everyone would know the truth about Ali Daniels.

“Thanks for talking.” He slid his hands into his pockets again. “Go in and get warm.”

He hesitated, and she wondered if he was going to hug her. But then he took two steps back and tipped his hat. “Good night, Ali.”

“Good night.”

She was inside before she acknowledged the subtle ache in her chest. She was breathless, flushed, the way she felt when she needed her inhaler. Only this time the feeling was different, and Ali knew why. She wasn’t breathless because of the night air or the long day or the battles she fought with cystic fibrosis.

She was breathless because of Cody Gunner.

A
LI DROVE HIM
in ways he didn’t dare tell her.

That first night was the beginning of many. Through summer and into fall, for the rest of the season, Cody was driven by a different set of feelings. He enjoyed the bulls more, embracing the adrenaline rush and smiling more often when he lasted eight seconds. After a good ride, he would raise his fists to the crowd and grin at their applause, or toss his hat at a bull that had given him a winning ride. For the
first time, Cody identified with the other cowboys on the tour. It was a rush, riding bulls, a rush Cody had missed too often in the years when every ride was consumed with thoughts of his father.

Now, when the familiar anger kicked in while he was lowering himself onto a bull, when it churned in his gut and made him grit his teeth during his final seconds in the chute, it was less about his father than something else, something new.

A lung disease called cystic fibrosis.

He and Ali talked about everything, and their talks became a lifeline, the difference Ali made in his life too big to measure. Because of her, he didn’t go through the day angry, he didn’t waste the nights putting out the embers of hatred with a six-pack. Rather he spent his days waiting for the one night each weekend when he and Ali could be together.

Always he’d known that if he fell for a girl, his riding days would be numbered. Because love was a light that wouldn’t allow darkness to reign in his soul. And without the darkness, what reason did he have to battle it? To get in the arena with a snorting beast and fight for his life? Without the rage? There would be no point.

But with Ali it was different.

What he felt for her was more pure and honest, more intense. And it made everything about riding bulls more intense, too. It wasn’t love, not in the conventional sense. His feelings for Ali were deeper, stronger, the same sort of emotions he felt for Carl Joseph. He would’ve protected Ali
Daniels if it meant jumping in front of a train or taking a bullet in the chest.

Feelings that strong.

As the season played out, the two of them stayed near the top of the leaderboards. Since talk on the tour flowed like cheap wine, Cody kept his distance during the day. Neither of them wanted their names linked for any reason other than the obvious—they were both among the best in the business.

But at night, after the championship buckles had been handed out and the crowds had gone home, Ali and Cody would sneak out and take their places in the familiar chairs in front of her trailer. There they opened themselves to a world neither of them had ever known before.

The world of friendship.

He told her the story of his childhood, how his father had left, and how there would always be the struggle to forgive the man. Some of the more private details he kept to himself, sparing her the part about Carl Joseph’s handicap and running after his father’s cab and how he felt no connection with his mother.

Still, what he did share was more than he’d ever told anyone.

No matter how late they stayed up, whispering in the moonlight, they never ran out of things to talk about. Once in a while a comfortable silence would fall between them and Ali would smile at him, her eyes dancing.

“You aren’t chasing me, right?”

He would raise his eyebrows in mock surprise. “Chase
you?
” His chin would lift a few inches. “Come on, Ali. I don’t chase girls. You know that.”

“Good.” She’d pull her feet up, her voice full of teasing. “I don’t want to be caught, remember?”

“Yes, Ali, I remember.” He’d hold his hands up in surrender. “You’re safe with me; I don’t want to be caught either.”

Ali Daniels was the most serious girl he’d ever known. But after a few weeks, he found ways to make her laugh. Before turning in for the night they’d sometimes be in tears from trying to stifle their bouts of laughter, keeping quiet so they wouldn’t wake her mother.

By the end of the season they both qualified for the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas. Usually after a long year, Cody was anxious to get to the NFR, ready to take a shot at the title and head home. But this year he had no home to go back to. His father had moved in, and from what his mother said he was sleeping in Cody’s bedroom. There was even talk that the two of them might get remarried. Apparently, Carl Joseph was thrilled.

Cody wanted nothing to do with any of them.

So instead of looking forward to the season finale, he was dreading it. Ali was coughing harder, looking tired more often. She wanted a national championship in the worst way, but her times had been a whole second or two slower in the past weeks. They would compete like crazy and when the final buzzer sounded he had no idea what he was going to do.

But that wasn’t why he was dreading the final. He dreaded it because after the finals he wouldn’t see Ali again until late January in Denver. The truth was something he recognized. He could barely last a week without her.

How was he going to survive two months?

Chapter Nine

F
or Ali Daniels, there was no worse place to compete than Las Vegas.

A constant wind blew across the desert floor, stirring up dirt and pushing the smog from one side of the valley to the other. The National Finals Rodeo was held at the Thomas and Mack Center, a huge indoor arena that sat more than fifteen thousand fans. Not only would the dirt be softer, more likely to fill the air, but NFR organizers used indoor fireworks before each day’s events.

And the NFR didn’t happen in a weekend like other rodeos throughout the year. It ran ten days straight. Ten days of racing barrels through dust and fireworks smoke and the stuffy confines of one of the biggest indoor arenas of the year. Even the locker rooms were worse, because officials at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas covered the tunnel and locker room floors with plastic. That meant the dirt wasn’t packed down the way it was in most arenas.

No wonder she hadn’t done well at her first two NFR showings.

This year, though, she had a plan. She would wear the compression vest ninety minutes, three times a day. The longer she spent in the vest, the more relief she felt, and the longer that relief lasted.

It was the first day.

She and her mother had found a nice spot at Sam’s Town for their trailer, an oversized space with trees along one side. Ali liked that; it would give her and Cody privacy for their late-night talks. Cody had a room at the hotel next door, so after the rodeo each night, they wouldn’t have trouble meeting up.

Ali slipped on her vest and zipped it up. She and her mother had spent the past two weeks at home, the first three days in the hospital. The doctor’s warnings were just as strong as before, but he stopped short of badgering her. When the season was over, when she had her national championship in hand, then she could think about quitting.

Not until then.

She flipped on the compression switch and felt the vest fill up. At the same time, the door opened and her mother walked in, a bag of groceries in her arms.

“Again?” She set the bag down and began unloading it. “Didn’t you get an hour earlier?”

“Ninety minutes. I’m going longer for the next ten days.”

Her mother was quiet, unusually so. She finished putting away the food and took the chair opposite Ali. “Honey, we need to talk.”

Ali felt her heart skip a beat. Her mother was easy. Whatever hardships being on the Pro Rodeo Tour caused, however difficult it was being away from home, her mother never let on. She wanted Ali to be happy. It was the reason she’d agreed to travel with her in the first place. But the concern written into her expression now was something Ali almost never saw.

“What’s wrong, Mama?”

A tired breath made its way from her. “I was in line at the store, and two bull riders were in front of me.”

Two bull riders? Ali wasn’t sure what to say. She waited for her mother to continue.

“They were talking about Cody Gunner. One of them laughed about how tame he was these days, none of the partying and loose women he used to associate with.”

Ali had a feeling about what was coming. But how could anyone have known? They hadn’t so much as shared a conversation in front of the other riders. She swallowed. “Okay… I guess that’s good, right?”