SMACK!

Cheek stinging, Stead James faced the spitting hellcat. “I deserved that, Sissy, sorry.”

SMACK!

“My name is Missy.”

If a look could do it, he’d explode like Texas-summer road-kill. “If you want an apology to come off as sincere, you need to get the name right.”

He gritted sand between his teeth and tried to ignore the stares of passing horses and rodeo contestants behind the bucking chutes. He should have apologized behind the horse trailers, where the lights didn’t reach. “Sorry. Again.” He ran his hand over the back of his sweaty neck. Who could have guessed that El Paso would be in the middle of a heat wave in April? Nine at night, and it had to be over a hundred degrees.

She tisked. “What else could I expect from an arrogant, horndog bull rider?” She pivoted on her turquoise and pink cowgirl boot and, blonde curls bouncing, stomped to the line of horses tied to the arena fence.

Patriotic music swelled from the speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, could you please stand and remove cover as we present our Nation’s flag.”

Making amends seemed easier when he read it in a book.

The hellcat mounted a flashy paint pony, took the flag offered by a cowboy and urged her horse to the gate. Her butt was tiny in the saddle, the crystals on her pockets flashed in the stadium lights.

Now he remembered. Missy—from the Tucson Days Rodeo. He may forget a name, but he’d never forget an ass like that. Hazy, stop-action pictures flashed in his mind. Her starry eyes and come-on smile after his win. In his lap in a smoky bar, head thrown back, her long white throat draining a beer. All that yellow hair, spread over his pillow . . .

“Dude.” Ace, his best friend and traveling partner, lifted his hat and wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “I’m not sure you’re going to survive this ‘apology tour’ of yours.”

Stead raised his hand to his cheek. It wasn’t the first slap he’d earned since he began the ‘tour’. “You may be right.”

“Forget about that.” Ace settled his hat. “We’ve got to stretch. Bull riding is coming up.”

With a heavy sigh, he followed Ace to the back of the chutes. Life was more fun before the apology tour. Irresponsible, but fun. He pulled his gear bag from the pile of others by the fence, and walked to a shadowed corner to stretch. Ace walked to the other corner to do the same. He knew he was lucky to score a spot at this local invitational, miles out in the desert outside El Paso. It’d be a great chance to test his recovery.

Stead didn’t remember driving to Vegas for the NFR finals last season. Didn’t remember drawing the points leader for bull-of-the-year, Dirt Nap, in the final round. Didn’t remember sliding up on his rope, nodding his head, getting out of shape, or the horn that came up to hit him in the temple.

The dirt nap part, that he got.

He put a boot heel up on the pole fence at waist level, and reached until he could wrap his hands around the toe. Then twisted, to stretch his groin.

He’d woken up, staring at hospital ceiling tiles. You’re a rough stock rider long enough, you learn to recognize them. But something seemed out of place. When they told him he’d been out for two hours with a skull fracture, Stead realized it was his brain. It took over a week, but he eventually rediscovered his ability to walk, talk and function.

But he was no longer himself. Always, no matter what town, after the rodeo, the party was wherever he was. The purses bought him beers, and his wins brought him willing buckle bunnies. He’d had a perfect life.

Had being the key word.

He lowered his foot, put his other foot on the fence and repeated the process.

Something happened while he was unconscious.

Drinking didn’t bring the old buzz. Neither did the one-night stands. Then the nightmares started. Hazy, disturbing and just out of reach of remembering, they bled into his days, tinting them the dirty gray of storm clouds.

He lowered his leg and bent to pull his elbow brace from his gear bag. It stuck to his sweaty forearm, and he had to wrestle it into place. Then he found his tape, and taped up his wrists and fingers on his riding hand.

Recuperating during the off season, he’d kicked around Banderas, faking his old bravado, but inside, he worried. It was as if the wreck had dislocated his brain along with his elbow. He talked to the doctors. They said it wasn’t surprising to see personality changes after traumatic brain injury. He should be grateful that he was up and walking.

Easy for them to say. If he wasn’t who he used to be, who the hell was he?

He tied his bull rope to the fence, retrieved his wire brush, and ran it up and down the rope, roughing it for a good hold, later.

He’d been walking by a used bookstore when bright yellow on a sidewalk sale rack caught his eye. He pulled it out and read the title—Zen for Dummies. After two minutes of skimming, he’d walked in and paid for it, then drove home, and read it straight through.

It quoted Buddha:

He had to admit, he hadn’t been reaping anything worth eating in a while. Maybe it was time to rotate the crops. This Karma thing might be total bull crap, but reading the book calmed him, soothing the chafed places on his brain. Now the book lived in the bottom of his clothes duffel, bent and dog-eared. He still picked it up and read a random passage almost every day. Most days, the passage seemed to relate to that day’s events.

The book was where he’d gotten the idea for the apology tour. And despite the results so far, he had hope things would get better. He had to, because hope was about all he had left.

Twenty minutes later, he threw a leg over the back of the chute and tapped the bull’s spine with his boot to let him know what was fixing to happen, then lowered himself onto its back. Habit took over as he completed his chute procedure: warming the rosin on his rope, pulling his glove tight while Ace pulled his rope. Taking his wraps.

The bull reared. Stead’s heart froze a beat, then slammed his chest hard as a mule’s kick. The bull went vertical. Ace grabbed the back of Stead’s vest, anchoring him. The bull teetered. If it went over, he’d be caught between an unforgiving metal wall and a ton of bull.

The bull fell back to all fours.

While Ace re-pulled the rope, a panicked rat did laps in Stead’s skull, freaking out. Sure, he’d been on practice bulls since the wreck, but this was his first rodeo. Flashes of old pain and bad wreck video streamed through his head. To shove the fear back, he replaced them with film footage with his greatest rides: his 90-point ride in Ruidoso, the finals two years ago, when he’d made the short-go the second night. The fear-rat was always with him in the chute, but it had grown monster-sized in the off-season. “Time to go to work,” he muttered, and jammed his hat down to his ears.

Ace had a good grip on the back of his vest. “Give ‘em hell, partner.”

Stead clamped down on his stomach, his mouthpiece and all his courage. And nodded. The gate swung.

The red-coated short-horn reared out of the gate, then his head disappeared as he duck-dove, twisting right. Into Stead’s hand.

Just the way he liked it.

The bull got into a spin, and Stead shifted his hips to stay with him. Every jump was just like the last, so he loosened up and spurred with his outside leg, showing off for the judges.

You’re safe, safe, safe. Stead’s grunts were louder than the crowd noise, and he blinked kicked-up dirt out of his eyes. The arena lights went ‘round and round like a strobe. Joy bubbled through him like a shook-up Dr. Pepper. Piece of ca-

The bull missed a step and stumbled. The buzzer went off.

Stead jerked his hand out of the rope as the bull went down. He just stepped off, landed on his feet and ran for the fence. The bull heaved to its feet, shook its head, then ambled for the out-gate.

Stead pulled his mouth guard, tucked it in his vest, launched himself onto the fence and raised his fists. The crowd roared.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, how’s that for shakin’ off the rust? Judges score it . . . seventy-six points!”

Stead waved his hat at the cheering crowd, jumped down and headed for the gate. Granted, not much of a bull, but for the first time his balance and reactions hadn’t failed him. He took his rope from the bullfighter, who pounded congratulations on Stead’s back.

He grinned. A ride hadn’t felt that good since last year. He slid the latch on the gate and walked through to the dirt road alongside the arena. Maybe this was a new beginning. Maybe his brain just needed time to heal, and from here on—

“You Stead James?”

A man with bowed legs and the gnarled ham-like hands of an ex-steer wrestler stood, blocking Stead’s way. “Yessir.”

Bam.

His butt hit the dirt. A firework display burst behind his eyelids, and a jackhammer in his jaw. “What the—”

“I’m Harper Taylor’s father.” He took a step in, looking like he wanted another shot.

He’d much rather deal with pissed-off buckle bunnies than their daddies. Avid-faced bystanders stood in a circle around them. “W-who?”

“Daddy?” A young woman elbowed through the crowd and grabbed the old man’s arm. “Daddy, what are you doing?”

It may be kinda dark, and he might forget a woman now and again, but not this one. He searched for a context for the name and came up blank. Not the fuzzy-can’t-remember, kind of blank. The sharp-edged, I-never-knew-it, kind.

But he remembered the important part. He shook his head to gather his scattered chickens, snatched up his hat and scrambled to his feet. “Sir. I apologize.” He fingered the brim of his hat. “I swear I didn’t know she was a virgin.”

Time slowed. Stead saw just when his words sunk in. The old man’s jaw dropped, then snapped shut. The onlookers’ remained open as they drew a long, communal breath and held it.

“Whaaat?”

Stead woke to someone yelling. He was lying in the dirt again, but this time his head was in the redhead’s lap.

“Are you out of your mind, Daddy? You don’t hit a man who’s had head trauma.”

“Surprised he doesn’t have it more often.” The man turned, and the crowd backed up enough for him to stomp off.

“Are you all right?” She looked down at him, her auburn hair falling around his face. Her green eyes had turned the color of a storm-stirred sea. Freckles stood out against her dark blush.

He’d have been happy to lie there until dawn, but they had an audience. “No big deal.” He struggled to his feet then offered her a hand up. He glared at the semicircle around them. “Don’t ya’ll have somewhere to be?” Their personal peanut gallery broke up and moved on, but many threw glances over their shoulders as they left.

“Come on, I’ve got ice for your jaw.”

“Ah, it’s no big deal.” He scrubbed a hand over the lump, holding in the wince.

She clamped her fingers around his elbow and dug in with her nails. “Do you really want to argue with me right now?”

If the sound of her teeth grinding hadn’t convinced him, the look on her puce-tinged face would have. “No ma’am, I don’t.”

He allowed himself to be towed after her, thinking hard. She’d never given him her name; he was sure of it. But she’d given him a lot more. She’d given him her body. For the first time. He’d been awed. No one had ever given him a gift that big. He’d tried his best, the next morning, to show her his gratitude. But why had she done it? She didn’t know him.

And why was it that he was only wondering about that now? Damn, he was an ass.

She led him to a barbeque trailer with a sign, ‘Taylor-Made Catering’, that was doing a brisk business. At the back, she pulled a razor-creased red bandana from the back pocket of her jeans, shook it out, then bent to retrieve some ice from a white plastic bucket that, in a former life, held paint. “You’ll have to forgive my daddy. I’m his only child, and he tends to be upset when my heart gets broken.” She twisted the top of the cloth and handed it to him.

“But, I saw his face . . . he didn’t know—”

“Not that, you idiot.” She shoved a fist into her hip. “Rodeo for the Rez. Ring any bells?”

A guilt-bomb went off in his chest. ‘Oh shit’ must have facial ramifications, because she nodded. “You said you were going to help me set up a benefit rodeo for my students. I never heard from you again.”

“But a couple weeks after that, I was in that wreck . . .” No. That was the old Stead. He wasn’t going to lie. Karma didn’t come in shades of gray. “Nah, that’s an excuse. I forgot.”

“But I called. I texted. I emailed.”

He squirmed inside. He could hold her gaze. But only just. “When I woke up, I figured my old life was gone. I was depressed. I wiped my email account.”

She crossed her arms over her small, but if memory served, perfect breasts. “I take it you still own a phone?” One eyebrow disappeared in her bangs.

“Um.” He studied the toe of his filthy boot. “When I left a town, I never returned women’s calls.”

“I didn’t think anything could make me feel worse than my daddy finding out that I’m not a virgin in front of the entire town, but you just did it.”

Her soul-weary sigh cracked through the Paper Mache wall of tough he’d built to line the inside of his chest. “Past tense. I’m not like that anymore.” He made himself look up.

He didn’t know a snort could sound sad. “Yeah, probably.”

He set down the makeshift ice bag. “If it helps, I’m paying, too.” His jaw had stopped throbbing, but he could feel a goose-egg coming on.

She just glared.

It dawned on him that a bruised jaw didn’t hardly measure up to a woman’s reputation. He shook his head. “Jeez, I am still an ass.”

“Now there’s a statement I can get behind.”

“Look. I’m really sorry. Let me make it up to you.” He dumped the ice, and handed her back her soggy bandana. “Why don’t I get in touch with a bunch of my buds, and we’ll put on a rodeo like this town has never seen.”

“Hmm. Seems to me I’ve heard that before. Only last time, we were in a different position.”

He wasn’t about to forget. The first time had been awkward. But in the morning . . .

“Don’t you bother your busy, big-man, bull rider self.” She spun and strode away.

A fading whisper of ‘asshole’ came from of the shadows.