Chapter 25

Melanie woke in the middle of the afternoon, stiff, groggy, and starving.

She turned up her nose at the leftover scone from her stop at the coffee shop that morning. She needed real food, and she might as well buy some groceries and make herself officially at home.

She pulled on shorts and a tank top and grabbed her phone, which advised her that the nearest grocery store was ten blocks straight west. The weather couldn’t have been more perfect—the sky a bright, cloudless blue with a warm, dry breeze rustling the leaves of the tree at the end of the block as she strolled around to the parking lot behind the bar. At least a dozen cars passed before she could turn onto the one-way running west, a lot of traffic for a…

Huh. What day was it? Melanie counted it out with her fingers on the steering wheel. She’d arrived on Tuesday. Wednesday she’d made her uninvited guest appearance at the bullfighting clinic. She’d spent most of Thursday polishing her résumé and working on that stupid questionnaire before traipsing off to the mountains with Wyatt. Which made this Friday. And the first time in…well, hell, she couldn’t remember when she’d last lost track of the day of the week.

Summer vacation, before their senior year of college? Nope, that couldn’t be it. She and Shawnee had hit the regional rodeos and team ropings hard that year, so she’d known exactly when to load up and where they were due to rope next. She’d roll back into the ranch days later, at Lord only knew what time on a Sunday night, already craving the moment when she’d crawl behind the wheel to head for the next one.

In the beginning, she’d felt almost the same rush when she walked into her office on Monday morning, but no honeymoon lasted forever. Even on the rodeo trail there had been days, even weeks, that had been more like living the nightmare than the dream. Bad draws. Lousy loops. Flat tires and one blown transmission.

She wouldn’t trade a minute of it.

She’d always accepted that roping wouldn’t be her career. Unlike Shawnee, she wasn’t willing to scrape by training horses. The payoffs weren’t big enough to make a living on the regional circuit, and women’s roping events weren’t included in the pro rodeos, where the real money could be made.

Melanie’s first full-time job—assistant to the events coordinator at the fairgrounds in Amarillo—had seemed ideal until she discovered—duh!—that those events were primarily held on evenings and weekends, the same time as rodeos and practice sessions. Every step up the ladder—first to head events coordinator, then the jump to marketing director at Westwind—had meant more responsibility, longer hours, until she had to let something go.

Giving up her roping was one thing. Sacrificing her friendships, though? Losing track of her own brother? How had she become a person who couldn’t make the time to watch Hank fight bulls at his first major rodeo in Fort Worth? Who hadn’t made it to a single one of Beni’s Little League games this spring?

For what?

The question was wiped away by the sight of a huge bronze statue of a bronc rider on her right, in front of a set of wrought-iron gates and a towering, unmistakable grandstand.

The world-famous Pendleton Roundup grounds.

She hit the brakes. The car behind her honked, so she whipped into a driveway that circled the tree-shaded park adjacent to the rodeo arena and stopped her car at the curb to get out and gape. It was right here. Literally steps from the freaking grocery store.

Slamming the car door, she walked past the statue to the gates to wrap her hands around the iron bars and press her forehead between them, frustrated by her limited view. Through the gap beside the grandstand, she glimpsed a slice of the inside of the massive arena, but not the legendary grass surface.

There must be some way to get inside…

The distinctive rumble of the Camaro didn’t register until it was too late. She dropped her hands and spun around, but Wyatt had already pulled in behind her SUV, aviator glasses firmly in place and one tanned arm dangling out the open window.

He lowered the phone that had been pressed to his ear. “Paying your respects?”

“It is one of the sacred temples of my people.”

He nodded in acknowledgment and pushed open his door. The hum of a motor caught Melanie’s attention, and she turned to see a golf cart whizzing toward her on the broad, paved path that curved around the end of the arena, inside the fence. It lurched to stop at the gate, and the driver jumped out. He had the scrawny butt and toed-out gait of a bull rider, probably retired, since Melanie judged him to be near her age. His cap and T-shirt were splattered with water, his jeans soaked from the knees down.

He produced a set of keys, unlocked the gate, and opened it with a flourish and a smile. “Welcome to the Pendleton Roundup.”

Melanie goggled at him. Did they have some kind of electronic sensor on the front gate to detect tourists? “Uh, thanks?”

“I appreciate it, Rowdy.” Wyatt’s voice was once again so close behind her that she jumped. Even on the crutches, he’d managed to sneak up on her. And, duh. Of course the man hadn’t magically appeared. Wyatt had summoned him.

“No problem.” Rowdy eyed Wyatt, obviously unaccustomed to seeing him anything less than perfectly groomed.

But today, he hadn’t bothered to shave. He wore another black T-shirt, this one with Weather Guard stamped on the front, black cargo shorts, and the same dusty running shoes from that morning. Downright slovenly by Wyatt’s standards.

Rowdy’s gaze slid down to the crutches and the Aircast. “You take a shot at that school of yours?”

“Something like that.”

Rowdy made no move to step aside and let them in, his gaze moving to Melanie.

Wyatt waved an impatient hand. “Rowdy, this is Melanie Brookman, my…”

Melanie lifted an eyebrow, curious to see how he intended to define their relationship, but he seemed to be stymied.

She stuck out her hand to Rowdy. “Marketing consultant. I’m helping him get the bar up and running. Come down after work, and we’ll buy you a beer.”

“Nice to meet you.” His eyes made no secret of measuring up her assets, and his smile was a little more than friendly. “I’ll definitely take you up on that beer.”

Wyatt made a noise that was not encouraging, and his voice chilled several degrees. “We don’t want to keep you.”

“Yeah, I’d better get back to it. I’ve got a busted sprinkler head over on the Indian Village field. Shoot me a text when you leave, and I’ll come over and lock up behind you.” Then he jumped into his golf cart and zipped off.

Wyatt made a grand gesture toward the arena. “It’s all yours.”

Melanie took a few steps toward it, then paused. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll be right there.” He pointed with one of his crutches at a square blue sign on the rail at the bottom of the grandstand.

The handicapped section. She couldn’t hold back a laugh. They strolled together to the arena fence, where he made a left into the seats and she…just stared.

Green, green grass stretched for what seemed like a mile, the only turf arena in professional rodeo. The grass was ringed by a wide, banked dirt track that the Roundup had used to include a variety of races over the years, most recently the Indian Relays. The roofs of the grandstands towered high above her head, enclosing three-fourths of the perimeter, the effect both intimate and intimidating. Since 1910. Over a hundred years of rodeos had happened right here.

“Go ahead.” Wyatt propped his crutches against the rail and settled onto the bottom sky-blue wooden bench. “Walk around.”

She drew a breath, unlatched the gate, and let herself in. A part of her was braced for someone to call her out for trespassing, but there was only the sound of traffic on the street behind them and the hiss of sprinklers from beyond the north grandstand. The dirt track was like pockmarked concrete, pounded hard by winter rain, and the grass was almost ankle-high. She paused at the edge, looking around, but nothing matched the blurred images in her head.

There was no knee-high white railing surrounding the grass, or rodeo queens who came flying in and jumped their horses over it. No portable fences to create the roping chutes on the west end, with cowboys sprawled in the grass or milling around on horseback.

Not even the bright, primary-colored chute gates, the background in the photo that still graced the mantel at their ranch—two-year-old Melanie in pink cowboy boots and high ponytails, perched in the front of the Hamley’s saddle her daddy had just won as the tie-down roping champion of the vaunted Pendleton Roundup.

A saddle that had gone up in flames along with the rest of his rodeo dreams.

“Where are the gates?” she asked, frowning at the blank white bucking chutes.

“They put them in storage to preserve the paint.”

She ran her gaze around the arena one last time, taking in the stretch of shiny, new covered grandstand where once there had only been metal bleachers, then turned away. This wasn’t the Roundup. It was simply concrete, wood, and empty space, in limbo until that one week of the year when it came to life.

“How old were you the last time you were here?” he asked.

“Six. It was the year before the fire.”

The wildfire had roared across the drought-stricken Panhandle, wiping entire ranches off the map…including the Brookmans’. “Daddy was fourth in the world standings at the end of the winter rodeos, the best year he’d ever had. Then the place burned up in April, and he stayed home most of the summer helping Granddad rebuild. Everything was gone. Fences, barns, corrals, the house.”

She refused to even mention the cattle. It had been too horrible. Her grandfather had only managed to save half the horses and half the herd—the ones that were too damn mean to let a fire get the best of them, her father said.

They’d also lost the mobile home that had contained all of her family’s worldly possessions other than what they’d had with them at the rodeo in Red Bluff. God bless Iris Jacobs, clicking away with her ever-present camera, or there would be no baby pictures of Melanie.

Or of her parents when they were still the couple she’d been born to.

She heaved a sigh. “By the time he could get away again, he was too far out of the running to have a chance at making the Finals, so he didn’t even bother to enter Pendleton.”

Or any of the other rodeos at the end of the season. Or the beginning of the next. Coming on the heels of her grandmother’s passing, the fire had broken her grandfather, emotionally and physically. A bad case of smoke inhalation combined with his pack-a-day habit had damaged his lungs, triggering progressive disease, and he could no longer put in the hard days required to maintain the ranch, let alone bring it back from near dead. Johnny Brookman had had no choice but to park his rodeo rig a dozen years earlier than he had planned, slogging through the ashes while his shot at qualifying for the National Finals slipped away.

He had a right to some bitterness, but in her opinion, he’d used up his quota a long, long time ago. And her mother…

“Things have changed a lot since you were here last,” Wyatt said, thankfully veering away from the subject. “New grandstands, upgrades to the concessions and restrooms…”

“They needed it.”

He nodded, then gave his head a slight shake. “I liked it better before, when it wasn’t quite so huge. It was more personal.”

Another reference to that connection he seemed to crave. The one he hoped to make via the Bull Dancer. Their enforced proximity had accomplished that much. She knew what he wanted from the bar, and had a good idea why. The how would be another matter.

“Was this your first rodeo?” she asked.

“As a spectator? No. I went to the one in Heppner first. I was at loose ends, so I thought I’d take in some authentic western culture.” He hitched a shoulder. “By the end of the weekend, I was hooked.”

Literally, if you considered that he’d ended up as a bullfighter.

She wanted to hear more of that story, but her curiosity nudged her in a different direction. She looped one arm over the pipe railing that closed off the end of the grandstand, separating the two of them. “I thought you’d be busy entertaining your guests.”

His mouth tightened a fraction, but his shrug was offhand. “They left early.”

She studied him more closely, able to see behind his dark glasses from this angle. Violet was right to be worried. There was a near-constant tension about him, a guardedness that went beyond his innate reserve. He was strung together on nerves and Rolaids, only relaxing with visible effort. Melanie couldn’t put her finger directly on the problem, but after this morning, she suspected it had something to do with Laura.

And with herself.

Their night in the woods hadn’t helped. After all the years of treading so carefully, they’d crossed a line—and not just physically. Yes, the kiss had been exhilarating, unnerving, and most likely unforgettable. Worse, though, her brilliant questionnaire had pushed them treacherously close to what they’d never allowed themselves to be.

Friends.

She could feel him trying to retreat. If he’d known he would see her, he wouldn’t have left his preppy-boy armor at home. And it was armor. One more way he set himself apart, even as everything he said told her he craved closeness.

She’d have to give that some thought when she wasn’t so distracted by the view. This rough-edged version might not be as pretty, but it was harder to tear her eyes off him. His hair was slightly mussed, and that stubble would rasp against her palm. Or her—

“You rock the morning-after scruff pretty well for a blond.” She wasn’t making any secret of studying him, so she might as well just put it out there. “Maybe you should try going the full Jeremy Buhler.”

He gave a half laugh, rubbing a hand over his chin. “No one will ever fear this beard. And they definitely won’t mistake me for a world-champion team roper.”

“You don’t rope?”

“Not even a little bit.”

She blinked at him in amazement. There was an athletic endeavor Wyatt hadn’t conquered? “Have you tried?”

“Enough.” He shifted, stretching his arm along the back of the bench in one of those moves that appeared relaxed and confident, but signaled that he wasn’t thrilled with the direction of the conversation.

So of course she pursued it. “By not even a little bit you mean…”

“I can’t swing the loop.” His irritation came through loud and clear as he made a circling motion with his hand. “Whatever it is you do with your wrist to keep the rope from wrapping around your neck…”

“Really?” She cocked her head, honestly perplexed. “It’s not that hard.”

“Says a woman who’s been doing it since she could stand upright.”

True. But still… “Can you ride a horse?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t ride when you’re at the ranch with Joe.”

“I learned English style,” he said, as poker stiff as those hoity-toity types in their polished boots and stretchy pants. “I’m not comfortable in a western saddle.”

Yet another example of how he was not a cowboy. It obviously bothered him…so why didn’t he do something about it?

“I could teach you,” she blurted.

“To ride western?”

The image that flashed into her mind had nothing to do with horses. Yeah, darlin’, we could get western all right.

“To rope,” she clarified, for him and for her overactive imagination. When he continued to stare as if she’d suggested naked pig wrestling, she indicated his ankle. “I owe you something for that.”

He gave an even more offhand shrug. “In that case, you can teach my clinic while I rest up for the rodeo in Sisters.”

“Okay.”

His head snapped around. “I was just—”

“I know. You were kidding,” she cut in. “But I’ll do it. You talk, I’ll be your legs.”

“You can’t…”

He trailed off when she folded her arms and arched her brows at him in a silent Oh, can’t I? She knew she had him when he scowled and snatched up his crutches.

“Fine. Eight o’clock tomorrow at the practice arena.”

He hopped nimbly down the two stairs and swung off toward where they’d parked, moving so fast she almost had to break into a jog to keep up. She angled past him and out the gate as he waited in stony silence to slam it shut behind her. What was his problem? She was trying to help, and she’d made it through an entire conversation without snarking at him.

And they said women were moody.