Marry Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) (11 page)

Jamie didn’t care about his own poor performance nearly as much as he normally would, because it was such a buzz to be cheering for someone else - for the woman he’d had in his bed all night, to be exact about it, and that was a big part of the thrill.

She’s mine,
he wanted to say.
See that pretty hair? See that cute butt? See the way she’s glued in the saddle, what a pro she is? Mine!

For now, anyhow.

For another week or two, if they both wanted.

Because she was going home, half way around the world, putting a legal, official, unarguable end-date to what they’d started. How did he feel about that?

“Jamie,” said a male voice a few yards away in the crush of spectators.

It was Dad, with Mom holding tight onto his arm and looking a little overwhelmed and bewildered and not quite coping, as she always did in crowds.

“Hey, you came.” He clapped his father on the arms and gave his mom a big hug. She laughed like a girl as she hugged him back.

“Well, we were here yesterday, too,” Dad said. “But your mom needed to get home before we managed to speak to you. You did great.”

“Not doing so good today, so far,” he had to confess. “Steer got away from me, and left me with a twisted arm and a nice bruise brewing up.”

“Oh, we missed your ride, today?” Mom said.

“Not the saddle bronc. That’s still to come.”

“Well, we’re proud of you anyhow,” she said, and looked at Dad, as if afraid he might argue.

Which he well might.

Despite the money Jamie sent, Dad still thought he was wasting his time on the rodeo circuit, and had wondered out loud a couple of times if Jamie would still have a workable body to bring back to the ranch when he finally tossed his chaps and spurs and came home. “If you’ve gotten yourself too banged up to help with the heavy work, how useful is that going to be?” he’d said, and RJ thought the same.

Jamie had tried to talk to them about banged-up souls being worse than banged-up bodies, but they didn’t get it. Or wouldn’t admit it, if they did.

Dad didn’t argue today. “Looking forward to the broncs,” he said. “That was a real nice ride you had yesterday, and I’m not the only one who thought so.”

“Who says?”

“Your aunt. Quite a few people were talking about you. Saying good things.”

So Aunt Kate had put a few words in for him? She’d sacrificed a lot for Mom and Dad during their early years as parents, and Dad was grateful so he took notice of her opinion.

“How about the girl yesterday?” Mom said. “I forget her name. The Austrian girl.”

“Australian.”

“Australian.” Mom slapped the side of her head. “When will I learn?” She frowned and looked unhappy with herself for a moment.

“Don’t worry about it, Mom. Tegan, remember.”

“Tegan. Unusual.”

“More common in Australia, she says. You might just have caught her. She rode about ten minutes ago. She was the one in the purple plaid shirt.”

“Lilac,” Mom said. “It was lilac, not purple. It was a pretty shirt.”

“So you did see her?”

“She had a good ride? It was the one we saw?” Dad said, making sure he had it straight. Lilac and purple were all the same to him.

“Yes, she’s in the lead.” Jamie focused on the arena. “And that was the last girl now. Oh, and she’s only posted 16.87. Tegan’s won.”

Mom clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful!”

“I’d better go see her.”

“Bring her out to the ranch again,” Dad invited him gruffly. “She’s a good rider. And not bad at fixing fence, either.”

“Oh, no, bring her out? I don’t think so. She’s...”
We’re just friends. It’s just a fling. It’s come from left field, for both of us.
“I don’t think she’ll make it out there again,” he finally managed. “She’s flying back to Australia, after this.”

The thought of that suddenly kicked him in the guts. He wouldn’t have believed, a week ago, that he could be feeling so bad about it.

“Well, she wears pretty shirts,” Mom said, as if this was important. She was just like this, that was all. Artistic and creative. Or she would be, if she could ever stick to a project. She got lost in beauty and music, sometimes. “I’d like to tell her that the lilac was a beautiful color.”

“So come with me, then,” Jamie invited, “and you can.”

“She won’t think it’s an intrusion?” Mom asked. “I am so embarrassed about getting Australia and Austria mixed up.”

“It’s fine, Mom.”

“Well, all right, then.”

“Good girl,” Dad muttered to her, and gave her his arm once more. They followed Jamie, greeting a few people along the way.

Tegan hadn’t stayed to see the last few girls ride, but she must have known she’d done pretty well, and she was beaming as she unsaddled her mare. “Did you see?”

“I did,” Jamie told her. “Did you see the last two?”

“Oh, they beat me?”

“No, that’s the point. They didn’t. You won.”

She let out a whoop that startled her mare, and only then noticed that Jamie’s parents were standing there, too. “Hi, Rob and Melinda, sorry about the scream.”

“That’s okay, honey,” Mom said. “I love your pretty shirt.”

“Thanks.” She looked down at it, fingering the soft cotton for a moment. “You’ve come to see Jamie in the saddle bronc? That’s great.”

“See if he wins, first,” Dad joked in his gruff way.

“Oh, now, Rob...” Mom said. “Jamie, RJ is here somewhere, and Jess said this morning that she thought she might drive over, too.” In an aside to Tegan she added, “She’s in Bozeman.”

“Wow, half the family,” Jamie said.

“Everyone but Rose and Jodie, but they’re too far, you see.” It wasn’t clear who she was talking to.

“I know that, Mom,” Jamie told her, in case it was him.

“Could we have something to eat?” she asked almost shyly. “Seems like a long while since I’ve had rodeo food. Remember, Robbie, when we were dating?”

“Long time ago,” Dad said.

“I still remember, though. Sitting in the bleachers with those corn dogs. I was wearing that dress with the flowers, pink peonies, and I had a bracelet on, with the charm you gave me… We were so young, weren’t we?”

He smiled down at her. “Sure, we can get corn dogs, if you want.”

“Tegan, will you come?” Mom asked.

“If you can wait for me to take care of Shildara, first.”

“Of course, honey.”

It ended up so nice. They found Jess pulling out her phone to call them, and RJ heading toward the food concession area, and Dad introduced Jess to Tegan, and both siblings joined the family group. They all had corn dogs, standing where they could see the action, leaning forward so they didn’t spill anything down their fronts. Jamie almost missed his event. It was Tegan who pointed out the fact. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready, Jamie?”

“Hell, yeah, I should.”

He raced off, leaving her to watch with his family, liking the fact that they seemed to be getting along.

His ride was average. The horse not sluggish enough to warrant asking for a re-ride, but not impressive enough to allow him to post a high score, even though he’d stuck the eight seconds. Dawson O’Dell came in right after him and had the crowd whooping with his ride. He had an excellent chance at winning Best All Around Cowboy, now. He was a great guy and a good rider, trying his best in a difficult situation with his little daughter. He deserved it.

“Bad luck,” Dad said, when he got back to them. “You rode well.”

They were all still standing there, Mom smiling, Jess texting a friend to see if they could meet up, RJ looking at the pretty women passing by, when he thought no one was watching. He needed a girlfriend, but he had a lot of Mom’s shyness and some of Dad’s gruff impatience, and the right girl - the right
serious
girl - hadn’t come along yet.

“Best I could,” Jamie said in answer to Dad, “but not good enough.”

“Can’t get ‘em all.”

“If I could, I’d be Trevor Brazile.”

They separated shortly afterward, Jamie and Tegan heading back to the trailer parking lot, RJ ambling off on his own, Mom and Dad wandering away for a stroll around, and Jess standing where she’d arranged to meet her friend.

“That was nice,” Tegan said to Jamie.

“It was.” He felt a deep wash of relief about it. Nicest moments he’d had with his family in a long while. Well, since before he’d stuck to his rodeo plan against all opposition, he realized.

He’d always intended to have some kind of a confrontation about that, force his father... and maybe RJ, too... to concede that he hadn’t made such a mess of his life, after all.

But maybe it wasn’t necessary. Maybe if he forced the issue, it would only make things tense again. Dad wasn’t good at admitting he was wrong in straight-out words. He said it differently, with actions. He was indirect about it. The way Tegan had planned to be at four o’clock this morning, when she’d tried to reach her family… and had failed… and been relieved about it.

Today, for example. Probably as close as Dad would ever comfortably come to giving Jamie any support.

That was okay.

“You should go back,” he said to Tegan suddenly, without even stopping to think about it.

“Go back?”

“Home. Australia.”

“Well, I don’t have much choice, do I?” Her old prickliness and aggression was back. “I am going back.”

“You should go back because you want to, not because you have to.”

She glared at him. “But I do have to, Jamie.”

He ignored her snippy response. “Just spend some time with them. Forget the phone calls. That little thread of connection you get on a phone-line is so thin, no wonder it snaps sometimes. Probably wouldn’t have helped if you’d gotten through to them this morning. Might easily have made everything worse. It needs to be face to face. Go see your dad and step-mom and... Ben, is it?”

“Ben, my brother, yes. Half-brother.”

“Maybe it won’t seem so bad when you’re actually with them. Maybe they’ll have more to say about what happened with the farm. Or maybe they won’t, but you’ll just remember...” Shoot this was so sappy. “... why you love each other. Or something.”

She looked away. “Yeah, maybe. S’pose I’ll find out, one way or the other. Whether I do love them, or whether I’m too angry.”

“Don’t look at it that way.”

“No?”

“Just... try not to.”

“Thanks for the wisdom, Jamie.” The sarcasm dripped thick.

But he knew her enough now to understand the prickliness. “Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I get it. I’m over-stepping.”

“So you’re going to stop over-stepping now?”

“Sure, if you want.”

He was about done with the family psychology. He was probably wrong, anyhow. He didn’t know her folks. Didn’t have the right to claim much insight, just because of a couple of talks and a little session on the step of her trailer under the stars. Shouldn’t have said anything.

She was still glaring at him. He reached out and pinched her nose. She tried to bite his fingers. He locked her chin in place with his grip so she couldn’t move. She laughed, finally. “We are sooo mature.”

“Yeah, we have a combined maturity IQ of about six hundred and five.”

“Higher.”

So it ended up okay.

And later that night, way better than okay. Hot and liquid and perfect and strong. She stayed with him again, and her body seemed to catch fire in his arms, seemed to belong there, made him tremble with need and release.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Maybe the second night was a mistake. You had to know when to quit, and maybe Tegan didn’t.

Lying beside Jamie in his bunk, feeling his warm, bare body against hers and his breathing going gently up and down, she didn’t want morning to come, because something told her that everything would be different then. All these new, churned up feelings that she didn’t fully understand would have nowhere to go.

The rodeo was over. She’d collected her prize money for winning the barrels. Colton Thorpe had wowed the whole crowd with his speech at the end. The trash cans were filled. The food concessions had run out of hot dogs and coffee. The organizers had announced excitedly how much they’d raised for local causes. The parked rows of trucks and trailers had already thinned out, and in the morning the last of them would leave, and she would have to talk to Kara properly about the future, and make decisions.

She’d barely seen Kara all weekend, and hoped the thing with Dean wouldn’t add yet another complication. What if Kara didn’t want to buy out her half of the trailer and pickup? What if she wanted to sell up, too, and partner with Dean?

She shouldn’t have stayed in Jamie’s bed tonight, Tegan decided. She should have gone back to her own trailer, because it was too hard to think properly when she was lying in a man’s arms.

A man she’d sincerely thought she couldn’t stand, until a day and a half ago.

What changed, Jamie?

Well, the third point of the triangle, aka Chet Wyndham, had a life-changing moment and then went missing, that was a big part of it. She’d already worked this out. She saw another side to Jamie, in the way he’d handled everything, and it impressed her, so she stopped being so prickly, and Jamie saw another side to her, as well. Was this all? Was this the trigger?

No, the trigger is because I’m leaving.

It suddenly struck her. She was leaving the country, and Jamie seemed almost eager about that, telling her it was a good thing to reconnect with her family, that maybe she’d feel different about things if she went home. She realized, in a cold rush, that he hadn’t shown the remotest interest in getting her into bed until he’d known there was a very firm end-date to their fling.

Was that part of the attraction?

Was that
all
of the attraction?

She would be flying halfway around the world within the next few weeks, with no concrete plan to come back, and if a man was looking for a complication-free arrangement, what could be better than that? Australia was an awful long way away.

No risk of awkward meetings after it was over.

No chance that she’d get clingy and want more.