Chapter Ten
Billings had been and gone. So had Missoula and three between and now it was Tucson’s turn to host the AEBR. Right now it was Rowan’s job to truck a load of Harper bulls to Arizona. They were only bringing the best of their best this far south. Local contractors could supply the rest, but that still meant eighteen bulls with a combined value of well over seven figures and four transport trucks on the road. Rowan was driving one of them and she was already a couple of hours behind the others. A crazy bladder and sporadic nausea meant she pulled into practically every rest stop on the way. Even the bulls in their individual travel stalls in the trailer knew she wasn’t tracking well.
She’d been making good on her promise to herself to create a new life stacked with everything she wanted in it. But there was trying new things on for size and seeing what fit and there was waking up pregnant.
Waking up pregnant wasn’t on her to-do list.
Pregnancy came with signs and Rowan had some of them but not all. She was on birth control, but it wasn’t infallible.
She had full, oversensitive breasts and needed to pee more often than usual. Both were signs of pregnancy and she’d had them for a while and they’d given her pause.
On the other hand, her menstrual cycles hadn’t stopped. Three weeks since the last, and, okay, it had been light. But still present! No pregnancy to worry about.
Right?
The nausea was new and was usually gone by lunchtime. Midafternoon at the most. Another vote for the you might be pregnant argument and a compelling one.
Who knew gas stations sold pregnancy test kits?
She bought two test kits and used one and sat in the truck for ten minutes afterward and stared at nothing but blue sky and clouds. She was pregnant, according to the test, and had no idea how far along. Possibly since Cheyenne, ten weeks ago. Possibly a couple of weeks along. She and Casey hadn’t exactly been frugal when it came to sex.
It happened every weekend as often as possible.
She had no idea what was going on with her body except that the test said yes and her gut said I told you so.
Pregnant, unmarried and Casey, well, Casey had plans that didn’t involve her.
At least she had a job, right?
A job she was having trouble doing.
Her phone rang and she looked at the screen. Her father, probably wanting to know where she was. She picked it up and listened to his gruff concern and then spoke.
“Yeah, I’ve picked up a bug or something. Too many toilet stops. No, it’ll be fine. I’ll just be slow.” She listened some more, to his concerns about getting the bulls where they were going in good order. It was the pointy end of the season and the bulls were traveling as hard as the cowboys, with as much rest built in as possible. “Yes, I’ll keep an eye on them. I know it’s not ideal, Dad. I’ll be there. Yep. Bye.”
She sat for ten more minutes fighting nausea and then went to the bathroom again before she started the engine and turned out onto the road. Bulls had to be housed and fed before events and kept in top condition both mentally and physically. Bulls got tired, stressed and burnt out the same way people did, and it was only good management and rest that kept them fresh.
Four more hours on the road and then they could all rest.
*
Rowan avoided Casey on the Friday night before the Tucson weekend. It wasn’t difficult. She wasn’t staying at the hotel, she was out in a bunkhouse on the ranch the bulls were being held at, and her father was there, and Mab and Jock Morgan too and a couple more ranch hands besides and it was easy to keep up with the pretense that she still wasn’t feeling well and wanted to turn in early. She sent Casey a text saying sorry, not well, no dinner required and then turned off her phone and the room light, shut the door and crawled into bed.
She’d been working harder than ever since her father had mentioned buying her out of the business. Proving her point, over and over again. Losing weight, not gaining it, and her hand crept to her stomach and the bony jut of her hips. How on earth could there be a baby in there? She could barely believe it.
She hadn’t been eating well, hadn’t been taking good care of herself let alone another. As for being a mother, her own mother had died in childbirth and wasn’t that a cheerful thought to take to sleep.
The test might have been wrong.
There might be something wrong. With her. With the pregnancy. A positive test and bleeding still. What was going on there?
At two in the morning Rowan got up and took the second pregnancy test to the bathroom with her.
This one was positive too, and either they were both wrong or she was well and truly screwed.
Around four a.m. she drifted into a restless sleep and at a ten to six her father banged on her door.
“Rise and shine,” he boomed, and thundered on Mab’s door too—this was equal opportunity torture. But she got up and showered and checked her phone for the draw for the weekend to see which cowboy was riding which bull. Casey had drawn two good Harper bulls in the prelim rounds, which should work to his advantage. Hammerfall, Eggs and Rocky were being held for the final round—no surprises there.
She headed out into the common bunkhouse area and found her father and Jock already all over the draw and thought wistfully of the bed she’d left, thin and meager as it was. She took her own pillow and bedding with her these days—years of travel and rough sleeping had taught her the benefits of that and she’d passed her expertise to Mab, going so far as to take Mab shopping for the basics. Pillow, sheets and fluffy blankets had been her staples.
Mab’s version of comfort varied somewhat in that he’d make do with a sleeping bag, but his mother had sent him his pillow from home.
An ordinary pillow, lumpy and old.
From home.
Nausea hit hard as Mab handed her a plate full of pancakes and bacon, but she thanked him and took the plate outside and sat at the tiny table for two on the porch. Minutes later Mab set a cup of tea by her side, black and hot, and dumped a handful of sugar sachets beside it.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“Cause you look like shit.”
“Yay.” Good thing this place was blessedly free of mirrors.
“I can cover for you today if you want,” offered Mab the ever helpful. He was impossible to dislike, and she wanted to dislike him quite a lot.
She reached for a sugar.
“I’ve already put two in and stirred. That’s how you take it, right?”
“Right.” Utterly impossible to dislike, no matter how much others favored him over her. “Thanks.” She put the sugar down and reached for the tea, and it was weak and sweet and perfect. She took another tiny sip because slowly-slowly said her stomach. “I’ll let you know if I need help.” Mab was a good kid. Always willing to pitch in and surprisingly observant. Wasn’t his fault she was jealous of him.
Wasn’t his fault she was pregnant.
“There is something you can do for me right now.” She pushed her breakfast plate toward him. “It looks wonderful, but I can’t eat it.”
“You didn’t eat last night either.”
“Stomach bug. I’ve been fighting outright food revolt since yesterday, but thanks for the tea. The tea is good.” The tea was great. She could even keep it down.
Bonus.
Mab retreated with the food and she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the weatherboard wall. The bulls didn’t need to be at the arena until midafternoon. Rise and shine was all well and good but they only had a quarter of the bulls here that they usually had and surely they had enough hands here to see to them without adding hers.
On the other hand, someone usually checked in at the arena early to make sure everything was ready for them when they arrived—and that someone was usually her. She didn’t want to be here beneath her father’s watchful gaze, or anyone’s gaze. Not really.
Find Casey. Confess. Watch him whoop for joy.
Yeah, she couldn’t picture that either.
Find Casey, confess, and watch his respect for her fade and the joy they’d found in each other crumble?
Far more likely.
*
There was one fatal flaw in Rowan’s cunning plan to curl up somewhere at the arena and wait for her nausea to pass and that was that people here knew her habits and took note of unexpected behavior.
Apparently sitting in the stands with her knees up and her cap covering her face was enough to stop Troy Jensen in his tracks.
“Rowan?”
She pushed the brim of her cap up and stifled a sigh. “Hey, stranger. Good to see you back.” Troy had been riding in the lower grades for part of the season and had clawed his way back up.
“Good to be back,” he said and she smiled. She liked the suntanned Aussie, even if his reputation for playing fast and loose with women was utterly deserved.
“Casey about?” Troy asked next, and that was most unfair. Troy had been back on the circuit for approximately five minutes and already he knew that she and Casey were a thing?
“We’re not joined at the hip.”
If Casey had any sense he’d still be in bed. She hadn’t turned her phone on to see if he’d left any messages. Her current train of thought was imbecilic in the extreme but ran something along the lines of if Casey didn’t exist maybe her pregnancy wouldn’t exist either. “I’m waiting for a couple of the powers-that-be to get out of bed so I can talk bull business with them,” she offered. “You?”
“Just got in,” he said. “Coffee?”
He had coffee in hand and he held it toward her and in some other universe she might have applauded his generosity. As it was her stomach reeled, even as she sat up fast and put her hand out to turn it away.
“Guess not,” he murmured.
“I’ve gone off coffee,” she said weakly.
“Right.” He eyed her warily, and then seemed to come to some kind of a conclusion. “Don’t go anywhere.”
He headed back the way he’d come, one shoulder hitched slightly higher than the other, and returned minutes later with a cola in hand and no coffee in sight. “Try this.”
It was cold, crisp and perfect. She didn’t guzzle it but she definitely wasn’t giving it back.
“Only thing my mother could keep down some mornings,” he said and there was an undercurrent of something in his voice that she couldn’t quite place. “Just remember there’s bugger all nutrition in that crap. It doesn’t replace good calories and if the pain persists see your doctor,” he said with a twist of his lips.
“Okay,” she said. “Thank you. You feeling good about being back?”
He smiled all slow and lazy and there was a world of words behind a smile like that but he didn’t offer any and she didn’t push. “Take care of yourself, Rowan. Yell if you need a hand.”
Bemused, she watched him swagger away. Troy had never offered to help her do her job before. The bull riders left the handling of the bulls to the people who owned them—this was a hard and fast AEBR tour rule, and breaking that rule had consequences. Was she oozing help me I’m pregnant pheromones she didn’t know about?
Because she could have sworn that man had taken one long look at her and knew.
*
Avoiding Casey later in the day was easy provided Rowan stayed busy. He rarely interrupted her when she was working, and she made sure to sidle up and say hello and lean into his shoulder as she traded greetings with Paulo. Nothing to see here, nothing wrong. The man had bulls to ride and winning to concentrate on. He’d risen to third place in the standings overall—a combination of several wins and solid riding all the way through. He was on track for Vegas and taking enough prize money to see him through the study he wanted to do, and after that, who knew?
She doubted babies featured in his plans anytime soon.
She didn’t know how to tell him. She’d barely come to terms with it herself other than there would have to be changes made when it came to her work and that her father was going to want to get rid of her even more now. She tried not to dwell on it as she swung up behind chute four and got ready to tie the flank strap on the Harper bull Paulo had drawn.
Casey was in place to help Paulo get set to ride, nothing unusual about that, and then two bulls later Paulo would be doing the same for Casey. Those two had a no-nonsense, lightning-fast chute system in place and Rowan was happy to play her part. They both liked the flank strap tightened later rather than earlier, preferably as they finished securing their hand. A nod from her toward whoever was standing the bull and he’d pat the rider on the vest and remove his hand and then it was up to the rider when to go.
As a system it was one of the fastest on the circuit, adrenaline rich and effective, requiring split-second timing from all players involved, and Rowan was happy to play her part.
This bull bucked better when the flank strap was further forward than usual, which meant setting it in place beneath and then climbing the rail and leaning over to work it into place on the bull’s back. She’d done it a million times before, but never while dizzy, never when her vision was a rapidly closing tunnel.
She waited, counting off the seconds while Paulo got his bull rope in place and Casey pulled it tight and waited for Paulo to resin up before handing the rope back for the wrap. She could see parts of the process on a normal day given that she was behind them both but she could see barely any of it today with the tunnel vision.
She took her cue from the way they moved rather than the little things, and tightened the flank strap and tied off on it by memory rather than vision. Her small size meant that she hooked one leg over the rail to do her job and set her back foot on the rail second from the top. It was a secure position, well out of harm’s way, only today not so much as she swayed forward and then there was an arm like a band around her waist and she looked back and it was Troy.
Troy with the coffee and the cola and the all-seeing eyes.
“You right?” he asked, and Casey was looking at them and she nodded and gave Casey the thumbs-up. He thumped Paulo’s vest once and took his hand away, and Paulo nodded and was gone like clockwork.
At least she hadn’t stuffed that up, except that she was sagging against Troy and still balanced precariously on the rail and the world was spinning too damn fast for her to catch hold of.
“Let go of the rail,” Troy murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Hell, no. That rail was the only thing that wasn’t pitching forward.
“Casey, come get her,” Troy said next, but Casey was already there and maybe she could let go now, and she was tilting sideways and smacking her head against his chest and clutching at his arms. They were warmer and larger than the railing and she couldn’t get her hands around his biceps, so she tried to fist her hands in his shirt but that wasn’t working either because he was wearing his vest and that sucker was clench proof and horn proof and made out of new-age ballistic material. The hell with Kevlar. Kevlar was old.
“I’m all right,” she said. Where was the floor? It was metal and shaped like little leaves but it was solid enough. “Let me sit awhile.”
“Yeah, not here,” he said, and she closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his vest and breathed his familiar scent and let go. He was there. And that was all.