Chapter Fourteen
Three days later, Austin woke to the sound of someone pounding on the door of his Cheyenne motel room and realized he’d overslept. He’d stayed longer in Marietta than he’d originally planned, wanting one last evening with Kristen before hitting the road for Wyoming.
“Coming,” he called as he rolled out of bed and pulled on his jeans. Ten minutes later he and Kelly were on their way to a fast food breakfast.
After a jolt of coffee, he noticed that Kelly seemed to be more upbeat than usual, which was saying something.
“What gives?” Austin asked. “You’re almost cheerful.”
“Finally heard from Melissa this morning.” Kelly smiled a little as he said his wife’s name.
“Ah,” Austin said. He didn’t know much about Kelly’s time after he left Marietta, other than the fact that he hadn’t been able to hook up with his wife in Fort Collins, because she’d been visiting a sister in Nebraska.
“Yeah.” Kelly’s smile faded as he picked up his coffee, but he still looked like a different guy. More relaxed. More at peace. Maybe he’d have a happy ending after all. “She’s coming to Cheyenne so we can do some talking. We’ll drive to Pueblo together.”
“That sounds good.” Austin didn’t mind losing a travel partner who was working things out in his life.
“She wants to have a kid.”
Austin’s head came up at the announcement, but since he didn’t know what to say, he stayed silent.
“The problem is that she won’t get pregnant while I’m riding bulls and I can’t convince her that this is our best option for getting onto our feet financially.”
And let’s not forget that you love riding bulls.
Austin focused on his coffee, but couldn’t move past the question that pushed itself forward in his brain. “Did she know how much bull riding meant to you when you guys married?”
“I was riding full-time, so yeah. I’d say she had a hint.”
“Tough one,” Austin said, unwrapping a breakfast sandwich. He’d seen the situation Kelly described in more than one bull-riding relationship. Had seen it play out on a lesser level in his own life.
Kelly dug into his paper bag. “No easy solution, but we’ll work things out.”
“You think?” The words came out before he thought.
Kelly frowned at him, as if to say “why the fuck are you raining on my parade?” Before Austin could apologize, he said, “Yeah. I do. We love each other.”
Austin bit into the sandwich and chewed instead of letting more words fall out of his mouth. As Kelly had said, no easy solution, but Austin wished him the best. He didn’t envy him the shit he and his lady had been going through, but it was part of the game. Part of being involved in a difficult career full of uncertainties. A career that every bull rider he knew was grateful to have.
A career he was grateful to have.
Could it ever mesh with Kristen’s career?
That was the unusual part about being with Kristen these past few days. She’d seemed happy to just be with him, while he, Mr. Here and Now kept wondering about the future.
And he felt comfortable with her. Almost too comfortable.
Belong-together comfortable.
He had no idea how to handle it. No idea where their relationship was going. Kristen didn’t want to talk, and his guess was that it was because if they did talk, they’d have to confront hard issues. She wasn’t ready for that, probably because it meant facing facts…and it may mean saying goodbye for real instead of letting things get even more serious.
Neither of them were ready for that.
*
Bonnie Alexander pulled the teabag out of her cup before leveling a look at her eldest daughter. Things were still a touch stilted between them and Kristen got it. Truly she did. She, the perfect child, the child they never had to worry about, had gone off the rails. She had to rebuild trust, which was a slow process.
“You have no idea when you’ll hear for certain about the job?”
“After the other two candidates are interviewed and the committee meets again.” She sipped her tea. “But one thing I can promise you—if I go back to Reno, I won’t be keeping secrets.” No big ones anyway.
“Your life is your own, Kristen.” Her mom set down the cup and leaned her forearms on the table, looking like she had something important to say, so Kristen put down her cup, too. “When you told us about your job, I was stunned, because you’ve never kept anything from us…” Her mom smiled in a reminiscent way. “Well, nothing that someone else didn’t tell us.”
The joys of living in a small town.
“But after I got over the shock, I was kind of relieved.”
“About what?” Kristen asked, shocked.
“You’d finally broken a rule.”
Not even close to what she’d thought was coming. “I didn’t break a rule. I broke trust.”
Her mom smiled a little. “You did. But you also went a little renegade.”
Kristen frowned at her.
Her mom reached for her teacup. “Sometimes your perfectionism is over the top. Even for being your father’s daughter. It has to be exhausting.”
Kristen wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her that she wasn’t that much of a perfectionist…but she was. There was no way around that. “Kind of hard to fight one’s true nature.”
Her mother’s expression grew serious. “I know. And I’m not asking you to fight your true nature…I’m just asking you to give yourself a break.”
Kristen stared at her own cup, taking in the delicate yellow rose pattern she’d always loved. “I’m not that hard on myself.” The words felt like a lie—probably because they were.
She dropped her head back, her hands still on her teacup. Life was so much simpler when her deeply engrained strategies not only worked, but worked well, too. She was at the point now where she didn’t know what worked.
Coming up with new strategies was as exhausting as trying to make everything perfect.
Her mom touched her hand and Kristen let go of the teacup and squeezed her mother’s fingers. “I’m feeling my way along, Mom. Somewhere along the line, some of the rules changed…or maybe they were never there.” Maybe they were all in her head, the ‘rules’ that helped her conquer each new challenge.
“Tackling life is hard, because it is ever changing. Being rigid helps in some areas, not so much in others.”
“Excellent,” Kristen said dryly.
Her mother laughed. “I occasionally have this conversation with your father, too.”
“But not Whitney?”
Her mom gave a small snort. “No.”
Her sister wasn’t a perfectionist. She attacked life with more of a let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may attitude that Kristen couldn’t help but envy. “I am loosening up.”
The flat-out truth, however, she would not be sharing Austin’s role in the ‘loosening’ with her mother. Some things were best left unsaid.
“If you can find a middle ground, I think you’ll find life less stressful.”
Kristen gave a small laugh. “I’ll work on it?” She was working on it, but like rebuilding trust it was a slow process.
“Tell me about Austin.”
Kristen froze. She hadn’t kept the fact that she was keeping company with Austin a secret, but she hadn’t expected her mom to ask questions.
“He’s good for me,” she finally said. “He’s teaching me to bend some rules.”
Her mother laughed. “Good. Just…don’t go overboard. I want you to loosen up, but I don’t want two Whitneys on my hands.”
*
Austin felt good as he eased himself on board Muddy Boy, a shiny dark brown bull with fawn-colored legs and points. A beautiful animal who wanted to do him some serious harm. Nothing new there. Muddy Boy stomped and humped up when the bull rope was tightened. Someone grabbed Austin’s vest from behind, spotting him and keeping him in place while he finished his wraps. The bull blew snot, then settled and Austin gave his nod.
In less than a second he was in trouble, thrown off balance by an unexpected sharp twist, just before the spins started, sucking him down into the well. He fought gravity, muscles straining, teeth clenched, then came the rear and twisting buck and it was all over. He hit the ground hard, raised his head and found himself instinctively dodging a hoof. He didn’t dodge fast enough and it clipped him, knocking his helmet off. He rolled into a ball as hooves thudded around him, then it got quiet and he chanced a look. Muddy Boy bucked his way to the gate, ignoring the heap of tangled bull rider he’d left in the middle of the arena.
Austin got to his feet and took his helmet from the bull fighter who’d picked it up before he half-walked, half-limped to the gate. Something was running into his eyes and he put his hand to his forehead, felt the blood.
Shit.
Every now and then the bull had to win.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is two in a row.
He was pissed.
Instead of heading to the medical room to get the cut taken care of, he stopped to watch Kelly ride, blood flowing from between his fingers as he put pressure on the cut.
As promised, Kelly’s wife had shown up. She was even prettier in person than in the photos Kelly had shown him and she obviously loved her husband. They touched. A lot. Little touches, little strokes on the arm, the hands, the shoulders. Shared smiles. And a strained look on her face when Kelly was otherwise occupied.
She was making a decision. Austin was certain of it, and he could only hope that decision fell in favor of Kelly.
As Kelly mounted the chute where Left of Center was waiting for him, he looked like he could ride a cyclone. In a world where intense concentration was the norm, Kelly was a half-tick past everyone else.
Austin tilted his head back as the gate swung open, working to control the flow of blood, and also ready to catch anything that Kelly might want to know about later. They made it a habit to critique each other’s rides, and he didn’t want a little blood to keep him from doing that.
The first few seconds went well. Kelly was glued to the center of the bull, anticipating every move. He leaned back into a high twisting buck, his free hand staying well within the plane, then leaned forward as the bull reared, kicking all four feet in the air just before he threw his head back, smacking Kelly square in the forehead.
Kelly’s limp body tumbled off the bull on the wrong side, his hand hanging up in the rigging so that his body flopped beside Left of Center as the bull continued to buck. The bull fighters converged on the animal, one attempting to lure him into a straight line, while the other fought with the rigging. The mounted safety man approached on the offside and managed to catch the flank strap and release it. Left of Center’s bucking slowed and the bull fighter managed to lift Kelly to the point that he could ease the weight on his hand, undo the bull rope.
Both bull fighter and bull rider collapsed in the dirt. Only one of them struggled to his feet.
Austin sat back down. Kelly was out cold. At least he hoped he was out cold, and not dead.
His wife is here and she might have just watched her husband die.
The thought made him sick.
The medics and gate personnel crowded around him, making it impossible to see. Then they fell back and Kelly stirred as two medics began moving him onto a backboard. The crowd was quiet as the big gate opened to let the ambulance in and a few long minutes later, it drove out again.
Austin got out of his chair. He needed to find Kelly’s wife. Needed to see if she had a way to get to the hospital, because this was not a time for her to drive alone.
*
Kristen was in lying in bed, wide awake and wondering about Austin’s ride, which would be televised the following evening, when her phone rang. She scooped it up fast, so it wouldn’t wake her sister. Austin. The moment she heard his voice, she knew he hadn’t called because he missed her. Something was wrong. Something major.
“Are you all right?” The question came choking out even as she told herself that if he was talking, he was okay.
“I’m fine. It’s Kelly.”
Kristen closed her eyes, pressing her palm to her forehead. “What happened?” She kept her voice low, so as not to disturb Whitney in the next room.
“Well, he’s going to make it.”
Austin went on to describe the wreck, and how he’d taken Kelly’s wife to the hospital even though he wasn’t supposed to leave the venue. Even though there were people who did that, he wouldn’t leave her alone.
And Kelly’s condition—major concussion, internal injuries, punctured lung, broken arm, dislocated shoulder. There was a laundry list, really, and Austin rattled it off as if those injuries were as familiar to him as items on a fast food menu.
Kristen swallowed hard when he was done and tried to find words. Any words. “I didn’t know whether to call you. I…didn’t want you to find out via the internet.”
“Why wouldn’t you call me?” Kristen asked.
“I don’t know.”
She did. Protective instinct was kicking in. Austin was a protector. It was the reason he wouldn’t sleep with her in the beginning.
She pulled in a long breath, swallowed again. “This is awful.” An inadequate description of her feelings, however, it was the best she could do. “How are you?”
“I’ve been here before.”
Which didn’t answer her question. “Austin…?”
“Yeah?” There was a cautious note to his voice, as if he expected her to voice a demand or ask for a promise.
“Maybe I could drive down to Pueblo. Before I get caught up in other things.” Other things being the job she still hadn’t heard on, although her contact had called to tell her one candidate was definitely out of the running.
“I…”
Her stomach tightened when his voice trailed off. She’d expected him to give her an instant yes.
“I think it would be better if I see you in Marietta after Pueblo.”
Her stomach tightened. “You don’t want me to come?”
“Not right now.”
“Why?” Because everything had been fine between them a few days ago. Better than fine. It’d felt…right.
“It’s a long way to drive. I’ll be back in a week.”
“All right.” Not the answer she’d wanted or expected, but she could live with it. He was upset. He’d almost lost a friend tonight. He needed time to come to grips with the situation. “I’ll let you know if I land the job.”
“I’ll see you in a week.”
There was something in his tone that she found unsettling.
“See you then.” She ended the call before he did and leaned back against the pillows. Closed her eyes. Tried to get a handle on what had just happened. He was upset. And he wanted to be alone while he dealt with matters. She, of all people, the queen of withdrawal, should understand that.
Except she was working double hard not to withdraw, and she expected Austin to do the same.
*
Austin dropped an arm over his eyes after Kristen ended the call. He shouldn’t have phoned her tonight. He could have waited until morning, but he’d wanted to hear her voice. To know that she was all right.
Why? He’d made it through many a rough spot in his life without hearing Kristen Alexander’s voice. He could have called his brother. Or his father.
No. His dad would have been all over him for a poor ride.
But Ty had been an option. He’d chosen Kristen and had essentially dialed on autopilot as soon as he got back to his room after leaving Melissa Kincaid was with her parents at the hospital. His gut feeling was that after Kelly recovered, he wouldn’t be married for long. Melissa kept muttering, “I can’t do this,” and when her parents arrived from Fort Collins, she’d fallen into her mother’s arms, sobbing as if her lungs were going to turn inside out.
Could he do that to Kristen?
That answer to that was an easy ‘no’. He never wanted Kristen to go through what Melissa Kincaid was going through, and as he lay staring up through the semi-darkness, the stitches in his head throbbing, he realized why he had called close to midnight—he was hoping to bring her to her senses.
What a chickenshit thing to do. To put the matter in her hands instead of handling it himself. Just as she’d accused him of doing when he wouldn’t sleep with her.
Until tonight, he hadn’t given a lot of thought as to how his profession might affect the people he cared for, other than in a logistical how-can-our-schedules-mesh way. He’d grown up riding rough stock, as had his father and his brother. His mother had been stoic about injuries—maybe because she’d seen so many. But Melissa Kincaid and Kristen Alexander had not grown up in the business. Broken bones and punctured lungs were not the norm.
He rolled over, pulling the sheet with him, closed his eyes, pictured Melissa’s pale, tear-ravaged face.
Who was he to put Kristen in that kind of a position?
He wouldn’t do it. He cared for her too damned much.
*
Kristen had a week to think after her phone call with Austin. It wasn’t hard to deduce what was coming next. They’d known their relationship was temporary from the beginning and now it was waning.
Except that it damned well didn’t feel like it was waning—at least not on her end. Not when they were together.
So what now?
She didn’t know. It was difficult to prepare when one didn’t know what outcome they wanted. If Austin didn’t care for her, then yes. Things had to end. It would hurt. A lot. But if he did care…she didn’t know.
When Austin’s truck finally rolled to a stop in front of her house the day after the Pueblo event, she realized that she wasn’t ready to deal with whatever he was about to lay down. The icy calm she relied on to get her through situations like this was nowhere to be found. She felt raw. Naked.
Unable to hide her feelings.
And how terrifying was that? To let Austin see how deeply she’d come to care for him and how much his leaving was going to hurt?
She watched through the living room window as he got out of his truck and started up the walk, hugging her arms to herself. You played. Now you pay.
Right.
She moved toward the door, opened it. Gave her best attempt at a careless smile, which froze when she got a good look at him. Stitches across his forehead. Two black eyes.
Her mouth fell open. “I had no idea.”
“Part of the job.” He spoke coolly, dashing her last remaining hope that she might have read things wrong. He wasn’t there to connect. He was there to disconnect.
She swallowed as she took in his battered face.
You are strong.
Yes, she was. And she wasn’t going to address his injury. She knew how it happened; she simply hadn’t known the extent of the damage. He was on his feet, and that was all that mattered in that regard. His injuries were not why he was there.
“Are you here to end things?” It made sense to cut to the chase.
Austin seemed startled by the question, but he regrouped quickly. “It’s what I have to do.”
“Why?”
“I think you know the answer, Kristen. All parts of it.”
She dipped her chin. Seven days of analysis had given her a firm base upon which to build. His mouth flattened as he jammed a thumb into his front pocket. “I enjoyed our time together.”
Really, Austin? Could you sound any more distantly polite? That’s my gig.
“It’s ending rather abruptly.”
“It needs to. Before it goes too far.”
“Could it? Go too far?”
His expression blanked out in a way she hadn’t seen before. She wasn’t the only one with a protective barrier.
She stepped toward the window, giving herself some space as her mind worked. She looked back at him. “What is too far?”
“Too far is when someone can get hurt. Not breakup hurt, but life-altering hurt.”
Her brows pulled together. “I…don’t understand.”
“We could spend a lot of time debating this, but the bottom line is that our lives are different. Our goals are different. We are different.”
“And you’re falling in love with me.” Kristen had no idea where she’d gotten the strength to toss that out there, but there it lay, like a live bomb between them.
Austin’s blue gaze drilled into her. “Maybe that’s the biggest reason.” So much for the bomb. Dealt with and now what?
She wanted to reach out and take him by the front of the shirt. Shake some sense into him. If he loved her, then…
Nothing. Because it always came back to the same issue. Austin’s forte.
“Who are you protecting?”
“You.” The word came out of his mouth almost before her question was asked. “And that’s just the way it is.” The thumb hooked in his pocket dragged it down even more. “This isn’t easy for me, Kris. But it is realistic.”
Realistic. She disagreed. If it was realistic, she wouldn’t be fighting it so much. She was the realist of the two. She started to hug her arms around herself, then quickly dropped them to her sides, opening herself back up. She refused to look defensive. Or hurt. He knew she was hurt. No sense belaboring the point.
“This is for the best, Kristen.”
“Right. Got another platitude?”
His mouth tightened. They were four feet apart, but it felt like a mile. A gulf separated them that didn’t have to be there.
“When you left Marietta, things were good between us. What changed?”
“I guess I just came to my senses.”
She let out an exasperated breath. “You’re afraid that if you give me the real reason, that I’ll figure a way around it.”
The shift in his expression confirmed her suspicion. He wasn’t about to give her more ammo, which meant that he was worried about what she might do with it. “It doesn’t matter if you do, Kristen. We need to end things. Now.” Austin shifted his weight. “I should go.”
No. You should stay here and duke this out with me.
Was his sudden retreat tied to his injury? The stitches, the black eyes, the fractured leg?
Her gut told her no. It was connected to his friend’s injury—or maybe it was the result of a perfect storm of circumstances. The one thing she did know was that he believed he was doing the right thing, standing here, breaking her heart.
They would address that later, after she had time to think.
He started for the door and she realized that she couldn’t let him leave thinking that this was over.
“I’m tougher than you’re giving me credit for, Austin.”
He turned at the door, his intense blue gaze zeroing in on her. “And sometimes we’re not as tough as we think.” His mouth tightened. “That’s when we break.”
*
Smooth, Harding. Very smooth.
Austin felt like shit as he drove away from Kristen’s house, but he’d done the right thing. How could it not be the right thing if it saved Kristen grief in the end?
Maybe, you jerk, she would have just forgotten you after moving to Reno. Maybe circumstances would have gotten in the way and you guys would have drifted apart.
And maybe that was yet another chickenshit way to handle things.
This way there was no question about their relationship. It was over.
Austin ran his fingers over the stitches, testing the area for tenderness. A reminder of their different worlds. They weren’t even supposed to have a relationship. Kristen had wanted to break free of her self-imposed rules and regulations. He’d wanted to help her because he’d sensed there was someone he could like beneath her coolly defensive exterior.
Oh, he’d liked her all right. A little too much.
And she likes you.
Therein lay the problem, because how in the hell was she supposed to work her life around his? He couldn’t think of a way without her giving up something significant. Something she would regret giving up later. And there wasn’t a question of him giving up his life—he had nothing to fall back on. No plan. Which was starting to look like it might develop into an issue. It wasn’t like he could be Les Connor’s grunt on the Forty-Six Ranch forever. The guy worked him because he enjoyed working him, not because they were falling behind in upkeep and maintenance. Shelby and Ty kept the place up just fine. They didn’t need help.
If he was in Kelly’s shoes, what in the hell would he do in the long term?
Another tick in the ‘you did the right thing with Kristen’ column.
All the ticks were there. Once she cooled off, Kristen would realize that. She was logical. Sensible.
Intuitive, funny, supportive. Sexy.
Stop.
Austin turned onto the road leading to the Forty-Six. He’d grab his gear and take a nice slow drive to Omaha. He’d made plans to stop at a bull-riding practice pen owned by a friend in Rapid City and another in Sioux City. If he could find other pens along the way, he’d stop at them, too.
And maybe he should give thought to his post bull-riding career while he had some time alone on the road—although focusing on the future might just mess with his present. Mess with his focus. He was a bull rider. And when he wasn’t, he wasn’t.
The future would be there no matter what he did now.
One thing was for certain, though—he was going to face that future alone until he had something worthy to share.
*
The call from Reno came ten days after Austin had disappeared from Kristen’s life. Ten hellish days in which she’d weighed pros versus cons, sensible decisions versus impulsive decisions. Reality versus fantasy.
Reality got a foothold when she was told she had the job.
She let out a long breath, overwhelmed by a feeling of sheer relief. Security was only a couple signatures away. She’d be leaving Marietta, picking up her life in Reno. Continuing on her chosen path, wiser in the ways of the corporate world, and no longer naïve enough to believe that hard work guaranteed success.
They needed an answer by Monday, which gave her the weekend. She could say yes right now. Give a verbal, settle the matter.
She wasn’t ready to do that, and the fact that she hesitated gave her pause. Was fantasy winning?
Or did she not want to look too damned desperate?
Kristen didn’t know, and the fact that she hadn’t given an instant verbal told her that she had a lot to think about. “Thank you. I’ll get back to you on Monday. Do I call you personally?”
“Yes. You have my extension, right?”
“Right. I’ll talk to you then.”
After hanging up the phone, Kristen did not do a happy dance. She idly rubbed her upper arms as she paced through the war room. Why hadn’t she jumped immediately?
What was the reason?
Her parents and sister and Marietta came to mind, but the real reason was nearly a thousand miles away, going about his business, riding bulls and putting his life on the line.
Protecting her.
Who was protecting him?
Sometimes we aren’t as tough as we think we are. That’s when we break.
Break, indeed.
*
Kelly Kincaid would never again ride bulls, and he was also on the road to divorce. Double whammy. Austin told himself that it wasn’t his business, but Kelly’s situation ate at him. The guy had been so in love. And Melissa had appeared to love him, too.
But maybe not enough.
“Or maybe too much,” Shelby pointed out when she and Ty stopped in Omaha to watch him ride while on their way to Tennessee and he filled them in about his friend. “And you don’t know what went on with them. Sometimes guys aren’t good at reading the signs. And sometimes they ignore the signs.”
Well, he wasn’t guilty of that. He’d read the signs and deduced that he wasn’t going to put Kristen through hell. A little pain now was better than a lot of pain later. From what he’d been able to glean from the Marietta grapevine, she’d landed her job in Reno. Once there, she’d slide back into her old life, hook up with some guy who didn’t regularly flirt with death and all would be well.
For both of them.
He had to remember that, but sometimes it was hard when he was dealing with a hole in his gut that wasn’t diminishing with time.
You’re doing the right thing—doing what you have to do.
He couldn’t offer Kristen the security she needed, couldn’t even guarantee that he’d have a job in a year, a month, a week. If he got hurt tomorrow, if he found himself in Kelly Kincaid’s shoes, he had no backup plan, other than holing up on the Forty-Six until he figured out his plan.
Whatever that might be. The practice pens he’d visited had been inspiring, but he’d need a partner to set one up. And a clientele. And a location. Even if he had all those things, the reality was that he’d probably still need a day job to make ends meet. That meant luck or training.
He missed the days when he hadn’t thought about the future.
Missed them a lot.
He did his best to focus on his upcoming ride as he traveled north on Highway 93. It was late afternoon when Missoula came into view, the city spreading out in the valley beneath the mountains that had once held a deep glacial lake. He’d always liked Missoula. He’d had some good times there. He planned to have more good times.
While he could.
Austin’s face tightened. He had to stop thinking like that. It wasn’t doing his rides any good. He’d finished okay in Omaha, okay in Deadwood, okay in Billings. But he’d dropped a couple places in the standings and needed to ramp up his focus. Regain lost ground.
Missoula was where he was going to do that. If nothing else, he’d do it for Kelly, the guy who’d helped him see that no matter how much you might want something, that didn’t mean you were going to get it.