Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) (4 page)

Jasmine had run the Chicken Fried Café in Ringgold up until the year before when she and Ace got married. And last month just before Gemma leased her beauty shop to Noreen and went on the rodeo rounds, Jasmine and Ace had announced that there was a baby on the way.

“That’s what happened! Dammit!” Gemma swore and slapped the steering wheel one more time. “She was reading Jasmine’s future, not mine. Jasmine got the blond-haired cowboy and now she’s getting the baby for Christmas. If that ain’t the luck? Where’s my Irish when I need it?”

The nurse weighed the lady and showed her to a room, checked her blood pressure, and listened to the fetal heartbeat. “The baby is growing at a perfect rate. Any questions for the doctor this month?”

The lady shook her head.

“Well, Dr. Joyce will be in shortly. We will begin seeing you every two weeks until the last month and then it will be once a week that final four weeks if everything continues to progress so well.”

The lady nodded.

She sat on the end of an exam table and read a book that she pulled out of her purse. The baby kicked, but she didn’t put a hand on her rounded belly to feel it.

“Well, everything looks great,” Dr. Joyce said as she came into the room. “You still feeling good?”

The lady nodded again. “I feel fine. I just want this to be over with and finished. I’m tired of putting my life on hold.”

“You’ve got a while yet. You might change your mind.”

“I won’t,” the woman said.

***

The jingle of Gemma’s spurs as she climbed to the top of the chute sounded like church bells in her ears. She’d be glad when the whole tour was done because then she’d be back into her old comfortable rut. With the money from the final win, she’d buy a few acres, build a house, and start her own cattle herd. Ranching was in her blood, was what she knew, and she was ready to settle into it. But before she could do that she had to win enough to place in the semifinals and then the finals.

She’d drawn a wild bronc, new to the circuit, that hadn’t been ridden more than half a dozen times. She had no idea if he could buck or if he’d come out of the chute like a dud firecracker, all fizz and no pop. She hoped he bucked like a possessed demon and she racked up enough points to glue another shamrock on her paper horseshoe.

Trace was the first rider of the evening and he had a high score of eighty-two points. The rider after him, a tall lanky cowboy she’d never heard about, got eighty, and Coby Taylor racked up seventy-nine. Competition got stiffer with every rodeo.

She measured the rein, jammed her boots down into the stirrups, and prepared for the mark out. She cleared her mind, lifted up on the rein, and nodded. And that’s when she remembered that she hadn’t touched her lucky horseshoe hat pin. The chute opened before she could even think about putting a finger on the pin, and she found out that she was definitely not riding a dud. The horse was all over the place trying to throw her off his back. The next eight seconds lasted two eternities and somewhere in the middle she stiffened her neck for just a moment and got a minor whiplash. She managed to stay on the big piebald critter, but when the buzzer sounded, she knew that she hadn’t come close to winning the round. Her body felt as if it had barely survived a car crash.

When she was on the ground she could hear the announcer shouting into the microphone and the people in the stands were whooping and hollering for her. She removed her hat and did a graceful bow and that set off even louder catcalls and whoops.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the last ride of the night in the bronc busting category. Gemma O’Donnell. Let’s give it up for the lady! She came to us from Ringgold, Texas, and she’s whipping her way toward the finals. Judges’ scores are in and Miss Gemma has just racked up eighty big points. Not enough to take the purse from Trace Coleman, but a good healthy second place here tonight. Next we have bull riding and our first contestant is Landry Winters from Cheyenne, Wyoming. He’s going to be coming out of chute eight riding Old Devil Bones.”

Gemma waved at the crowd and threw out kisses as she made her way back to the chute to claim her saddle as soon as they got the bronc settled down enough to remove it. She might have lost the battle, but that didn’t mean she should hang up her spurs and go home.

Next up on the circuit was the rodeo in Colorado Springs, thirteen hundred miles of long, lonesome highway from St. Paul. At least she had five days between the two rodeos and didn’t have to drive night and day.

Even so, the next day was Independence Day, a really big family holiday at home in Ringgold. They had an enormous dinner, singing under the shade trees with everyone who could play an instrument participating, and their friends in and out all day. At dark they’d all load up in pickup trucks and drive across the river to watch the fireworks over in Terral. That had been the O’Donnell traditional holiday since she was a little girl.

She sighed as she sat down on a bale of hay.

Trace sat down beside her. “Do you always pout when you lose? Most people are ready to celebrate at a second-place winning.”

“If you don’t know a pout from homesickness then I don’t expect you’d understand how I feel.”

Trace sat down beside her. “Too far to drive?”

“You got it.”

“Too much money to fly?”

“Congratulations,” she said.

“Because I came up with that profound observation?”

“No, because you won. Groupies will be surrounding you at the dance after the rodeo,” she said.

“That didn’t sound very heartfelt to me, and I don’t do the groupie scene, darlin’,” he said.

“Life is what it is, and don’t call me darlin’,” she told him.

“Stings to be behind, don’t it? I was where you are yesterday, remember? Might be there again after Colorado Springs. Save the congratulations until I win the title and money in Las Vegas,” he said.

“Kudos will go to me in that final ride, cowboy, so I won’t have to congratulate you,” she said.

“Don’t be countin’ your chickens before they’re hatched,
darlin’
. What are you doing for the holiday since you aren’t going home?”

She shot him her very best drop-dead-and-go-to-hell look. “I’m not your darlin’. I don’t count chickens before they’re hatched. That was a promise, not a threat, and I’m driving to Colorado Springs for the next rodeo. Are you going home?”

“No, ma’am. It’s too far and I’ve got to be in Colorado Springs in five days to whip you again,” he taunted.

She bristled. “Keep dreaming right up to the end, cowboy.”

“It’s the gospel truth, not a dream. You really are going to pout for days because you can’t be home for apple pie and fireworks, aren’t you?”

She stood up too quick and the ground looked as if it was coming up to meet her. That’s what she got for not eating supper, but hell’s bells, she’d been too nervous to eat. And that was another thing she’d done wrong that evening. In addition to not touching her hat pin, she hadn’t eaten a rodeo hamburger before she rode her bronc.

“You okay?” Trace asked.

“I’m fine!”

“You looked a little pale there for a minute and your eyes didn’t focus. I saw you stiffen up out there and your neck didn’t roll with the punches. You sure you ain’t hurt?”

“I said I’m fine.” To prove it she took off in a fast walk toward her trailer. There was nothing wrong with her that orange juice and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich wouldn’t fix. She was not fragile and she would whip his sorry butt at the next rodeo.

“Hey, would you walk a little slower, darlin’? I like the way those chaps frame that cute little butt,” Trace yelled.

She threw a go-to-hell look over her shoulder and kept going toward her trailer. Her chance at the ultimate bronc riding glory did not need to be complicated by a cowboy with a stupid pickup line like that. She slung the door open to her tiny trailer and then remembered that she hadn’t retrieved her saddle yet and that made her mad all over again. She turned to go back and ran right into Trace. He dropped his saddle and grabbed her to stop the momentum that would have knocked both of them flat on their hind ends.

Her palms went to his broad, muscular chest. His hands landed at the chaps buckle near the small of her back. Her heart thumped in unison with his. She felt as if she’d been wrapped up in his arms for an hour, but it was only seconds before she pushed back and looked up into his dark eyes. For a moment she thought he might kiss her again, but he cleared his throat and stepped away from her.

“You trying to knock me down and break my arm to put me out of the competition? It won’t work, darlin’. I could whip you with one arm in a cast. Don’t be thinkin’ because I let you win a couple to keep the crowds coming that I’ll let you win the big one,” he said.

“I wouldn’t think of harming a bone on your egotistical body, cowboy. I’ll beat you and there’ll be no doubt that I did it fair and square. I could do it with an arm tied behind my back and eating a hamburger with the other hand while I ride, so don’t be letting your quarter horse mouth get ahead of your stubborn mule ass. And you didn’t let me win jack shit! I whipped you and all those other cowboys fair and square.”

He chuckled, picked up his saddle, and headed toward his trailer. “I’ll see you at the KOA campground in Meridian tomorrow evening.”

“How did you know that’s where I planned to stop?” she stuttered.

“Hey, darlin’, I’ve got a laptop. I mapped out my route too. And that’s the best place to stop at the end of the first day.”

She stomped off one more time. She’d only gone a few steps when she remembered what he’d said about her chaps and looked back over her shoulder. He winked and she deliberately put an extra wiggle in her walk. Let him take that to bed with him tonight if he liked what chaps did for her butt. Let him have miserable dreams like she did and hopefully it would throw him off his ride in Colorado Springs.

She found her saddle, lugged it back to the trailer, stowed it, and removed her chaps, spurs, vest, boots, and the rest of her riding outfit. Standing beside the sink, she downed a whole glass of orange juice and then made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The dust that had boiled up from the arena as the horse had kicked and bucked had settled into the sweaty crevices in her neck. Her scalp tingled from a combination of dirt and sweat accumulating under the hatband. Even her toes felt gritty from the dirt that had filtered over the tops of her boots and inside her socks.

She couldn’t go to a rodeo dance in that shape, so she took a fast shower in her tiny bathroom, getting wet, turning off the water, soaping up, rinsing quickly, and turning it off again. If she didn’t need to refill her water tank and dump the holding tank, she would cancel her reservations in Meridian and stay in a Walmart parking lot. But other than campgrounds, it wasn’t easy to find a place to take care of the plumbing in a travel trailer.

Sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, she dried her hair and ran a curling brush through the ends. The extension cord she’d run from the plug behind the microwave kept getting twisted so the job took longer than it would have if she’d been in her beauty shop at home. She propped up a round mirror between her feet and tilted her head from one side to the other. Makeup or no makeup? Dancing would sweat it all off, but she would look better for a little while if she did. She finally opted to leave off the foundation and only do her eyes and apply a bit of red lipstick.

“Wonder how Trace would like it if I kissed all this lipstick off on his sexy lips?” she said to the reflection in the mirror.

“Oh, no! Don’t even go there, Gemma O’Donnell,” she fussed at herself.

Kissing him again would tangle things up so badly that she’d never get them unraveled. But that didn’t stop her from yearning for him, dreaming about him, and wishing to hell he didn’t ride broncs.

Landry rode bulls. She could flirt with him at the dance, but not Coby and definitely not Trace. Even that would mean she was playing with hot coals if she let him distract her. But an attraction to another bronc rider? Lord, that could cause an emotional wreck that would be far worse than anything she’d get on the back of a bronc.

“And that is a fact,” she declared.

She stood up, dropped the towel, and stepped into red lace bikinis and a matching bra. She tugged on jeans that hung low on her hips and pulled a rhinestone-studded belt though the loops. Before she zipped the jeans or buckled the belt she flipped through the hangers in the closet until she found a sleeveless red shirt with a lace yoke and rhinestone buttons and put it on. Once she had it tucked into her jeans, she zipped and buckled up and sat down on the edge of the bed to put on socks and her bright red boots. She shoved her jean legs down into the tops of her boots and checked her reflection in the full mirror on the back of the closet door.

“I’ll drink with the best of them and dance the leather off every old cowboy’s boots. Pout because I can’t go home, my ass!” she exclaimed.

She sprayed a mist of perfume on her wrists, on her neck, and a touch in her hair before settling a red cowboy hat with a rhinestone horseshoe on the upturned brim. She laid a palm on the horseshoe on her way out the door. A woman could never be too thin, too rich, or have too damn much luck.

Music was already blasting through the speakers when she reached the arena. Couples were out in the middle of the floor dancing to the band’s lead singer belting out Travis Tritt’s old song “T.R.O.U.B.L.E.” She stepped out of the shadows near the chutes and suddenly a beer so cold that the outside of the bottle was sweating was thrust toward her. She took it, and a cowboy wearing all black grabbed the other hand and led her out to the middle of the arena.

“You looked like a hot pink blaze tonight. Old Travis is right. Trouble just walked through the door when you got here tonight,” he whispered seductively in her ear as they danced. “I’d love to be your own personal trouble until daylight, darlin’. Just say the word and I’ll be at your trailer door when the party is over.”

She had one hand on his shoulder and the other one wrapped around the cold beer. She brought it to her lips and downed a quarter of it before she came up for air. Landry Winter’s blue eyes danced as he flirted with her. He had blond hair and he was all cowboy. He was definitely interested, at least for one night, and that could easily turn into several on the rodeo trip. It might even lead to a beautiful wedding when Landry won the bull riding event and she took home the bronc riding money and glory.

But she didn’t feel a blasted thing. Not one little sizzle! Hell, not even a tiny urge to kiss him. It wasn’t fair! He was giving her his best lines and his best smile and she felt nada, nothing, zilch. He spun her out and brought her back to hug her close to him again. “What do you say, darlin’? I been watchin’ you ever since spring and I sure like what I’m seein’.”