****
The rodeo has officially started, and I hate it every bit as much as I thought I would. It’s hot enough that I’m sweating through my shorts and t-shirt and the air is thick with horse manure. There is also no real walking to be done at the rodeo, just moving in the tiniest of steps through the stifling crowd.
This aspect of the rodeo is especially annoying when you are trying to find your bronc-riding boyfriend’s event that starts in five minutes.
Not that Jesse’s my boyfriend, I think.
He’s called me his “girl” a few times and I don’t think the moniker of “boyfriend” would bother him. But it’ll just make things harder. Jesse’s not even staying through the whole rodeo. He’s leaving the morning after his last event, which is in four days.
I finally find where I’m supposed to be. I race into the stands and am able to snag a seat in the front row since I’m all by myself. Sherry and her family met Jesse and I for the pancake breakfast this morning (free pancakes: the one thing I do like about the rodeo), but they can’t cart their kids out for too long before it turns into a disaster.
Jesse is one of the first cowboys to ride. This is bareback bronc-riding, which looks as terrifying as it sounds. Horses buck around, trying to unhorse their riders. I’ve seen Jesse on a bronc already, out at the stables—his body was loose and fluid despite the insane animal jerking beneath him.
That’s not how he looks now, though; I notice immediately that Jesse looks stiff.
Loosen up, I think at him. It’s what he’s told me every time we’ve gone horseback riding together in the last few weeks. Why is he so tense?
He doesn’t heed my mental advice, and he falls off the horse as quickly as I fell off that mechanical bull the night we met. I stand and rush to the railing. Luckily, Jesse is able to get up and make his way out of the arena.
I rush out of the audience, ignoring the glares of the people whose laps I’m climbing over. I head over to what I can only think of as the “backstage” area—what’s that called in the rodeo? A cowboy-hatted man stops me. “You need a pass to come any farther, ma’am.”
I see Jesse talking to a few other cowboys and wave. He walks over, looking at the ground. “Hey, Annabelle.”
“Hi!” I greet him with forced brightness. “I’m pretty sure you deserve a beer. Let me buy you one.”
“I’m not really in the mood.”
This is a Jesse I don’t recognize—cold and distant. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” he says through gritted teeth. The cowboy/rodeo bouncer looks at us with interest. Jesse takes my arm and leads me to where there are less people, behind a hot dog cart.
“Are you really fine?” I ask. He doesn’t seem to be walking weird or anything.
“Physically, yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
He looks around us at the crowd. “You know what? I will take you up on that beer. Not here, though.”
Jesse drives us to Cowboy South, the bar where we met. If possible, it’s even gaudier during the day. There are a lot more day-drinkers than usual, but it’s still blissfully empty inside compared to the rodeo. We sit down and I order a beer while Jesse ends up ordering a double whiskey.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I ask. “I know losing is rough, but—”
“No, you don’t know,” he snaps. Then he takes a deep breath and his face softens. “This rodeo is worth a lot more than just winning or losing to me. You see … what you just saw wasn’t exactly unusual. I’ve been riding broncs and bulls since I was a kid. Made real good money at it too, for the first few years. But lately, things haven’t been going so well.”
“But I’ve seen you ride at the stables,” I say. “You’re incredible.”
“Out there with old Colt? Sure. But when I get in the arena, I freeze up.”
I reach out to take his hand. “What changed?”
He shrugs. “My mama passed on a few years back. That took my mind out of the game for a while. And once I fell enough times, I just couldn’t relax out there. The last few months have been better, but I still haven’t been winning enough money to get by. This rodeo has the biggest prizes out there. The rider who wins the bull-riding championship wins $100,000. If I even place, I should be able to get by for a while on that money.”
“And if you don’t?”
His face hardens. “Then I have to go work on my dad’s dairy farm back in Slocomb.”
“Well… milk is good, right?”
He doesn’t smile. “I hated it, Annabelle. My dad just ran me and my brothers ragged—he didn’t care what we wanted. I was up at dawn and working til sundown. He treats his cows like trash. He treated the horses even worse before he sold ‘em all off.”
“He sold Peanut?”
His eyes darken. “No. Peanut broke her leg, so he shot her instead of taking her to the vet.”
We sit in silence for a few moments. “Well, it sounds to me like you need to relax,” I finally say. I down the rest of my beer. “Do you think I might be able to… help out with that?”