Chapter 43

The saddle club was exactly as Melanie had expected. She eyed the collection of ropers, ranging from around ten years old to one silver-haired gent mounted on the inevitable pink-eyed, broom-tailed Appaloosa that couldn’t outrun its own fart. There was at least one in every crowd, along with the cranky part-Shetland that had all of Betsy’s attitude and none of her talent.

Several of the ropers fell into the same category.

She waved Grace over as a pair of dads chased calves into the chute and the rest of the riders formed a ragged line down the left side of the arena. “Tie your horse up,” she said, stepping off of Roy and wrapping the rein around a fence rail.

“But…” Grace glanced over at the others, waiting their turn.

“Trust me.” Melanie backed Roy’s cinch off a few notches, then strolled over to the roping chute.

The woman who’d accepted the check for her membership squinted at her from a narrow face, her skin fake-baked to years beyond her chronological age. “Aren’t you going to rope?”

“Where I come from, the newbie works the chutes,” Melanie said easily. “We’ll let the kids go first, then Grace and I will rope at the end.”

Donetta Jones frowned, not thrilled with this change in the routine. “There’s no need—”

But Melanie had already escaped toward the catch pens, signaling Grace to follow. She plucked the sorting stick out of the hand of the nearest dad. “You go help your daughter. We’ve got this.”

He hesitated, then flashed her a grateful smile and made himself scarce.

“You do realize that we’re paying for this?” Grace muttered, as Melanie prodded a potbellied Hereford into the narrow lane. “Including the chute help.”

“Who will sort off the best calves for their little darlings,” Melanie responded. “And leave us to rope all of the shitters. Besides, standing in line for five minutes between runs is a piss-poor way to practice. You need three or four in a row, minimum, for you and your horse to accomplish anything.”

Grace pondered that for a moment, then jerked her head toward the arena. “Donetta is not pleased.”

“Should I consider that a problem?”

“I don’t suppose it is for you. You’re not scared of anyone.”

“And you are?” Melanie shook her head. “If you let the parents and coaches push you around at the high school, everybody wouldn’t be singing your praises.”

Grace flushed. “That’s different.”

“No it isn’t. You’re just not used to sticking up for you. Next time, pretend it’s one of your athletes they’re messing with and…” Melanie swung the sorting stick like a baseball bat. “Pow! They’re outta here.”

Grace snickered, forgetting for the moment that she wasn’t supposed to enjoy Melanie’s company. As they loaded the rest of the calves, Melanie kept one eye on the action in the arena, making mental note of whether each calf was fast or slow, ducked to the right or left, so she could plan accordingly when her turn came. Unfortunately, it also meant she had to watch the ropers, which was downright painful. If she made it through this night without shooting off her mouth…

“Get your tip down!” Donetta screeched at a skinny girl. The Paint Horse was ducking left so bad when she tried to throw that it was a wonder the kid hadn’t been tossed in the dirt along with her loop. As the girl coiled her rope and rode back up the arena, Donetta stomped out to meet her. She jabbed a lethal fingernail into the girl’s thigh as she continued to rant. “How many times do I have to tell you? You have to follow through. I don’t know why you’re making this so difficult.”

Maybe because it wasn’t as easy as it looked. Breakaway roping seemed simple enough. Rope the calf. Pitch your slack. Stop your horse. In competition, the rope was tied to the saddle horn with a piece of string that broke when the calf hit the end of the rope, thus the name of the event.

The trick was you had to do it faster than anyone else—and at most rodeos that meant two or three seconds, max. The timing of horse, calf, and rope had to be flawless.

As Donetta continued her tirade, the girl’s shoulders slumped a little lower with every word, and her bottom lip starting to tremble.

Melanie clenched both hands. Shut up, shut up, shut up…

“But Mom…” the girl began.

“Stop whining.” Donetta planted her fists on bony hips. “Do you want to be a loser?”

Okay, that’s it. Melanie tossed her sorting stick aside and swung over the fence into the arena. “She seems to be having a little trouble with her horse. Maybe if you got on and straightened him out a little?”

Donetta’s eyes widened, and she glanced to either side as if she couldn’t believe Melanie was talking to her. “I don’t rope!”

“Oh. My mistake.” Melanie forcibly removed any hint of sarcasm from her voice. “The way you were talking, I assumed you must have a lot of experience.”

The leathery skin around the woman’s mouth drew into tight creases. “I have been to every clinic with her. I know what she’s supposed to be doing.”

“At the moment, what she’s doing isn’t the problem. Her horse isn’t giving her a chance.”

Donetta’s mouth pinched tighter. “Who the hell are you to tell my kid how to rope?”

“She’s Melanie Brookman,” Grace piped up, in a tone that suggested any idiot should recognize her. “She and her daddy have trained some of the best horses in the state of Texas. If you know what’s good for Katelyn, you’ll listen to her.”

The man Melanie had relieved of calf-pushing duty cleared his throat. “Grace is right, honey. Why don’t you go on over and sit down while we run this next pen?”

Donetta glared at him, stunned. “You think you know better? Fine. See what you can do with this kid.”

She turned on her heel and marched straight out of the arena gate to her pickup. The last they saw of her was the rooster tail of dust as she squealed out onto the highway.

* * *

Well, hell.

Melanie’s stomach jumped as she tightened Roy’s cinches, acutely aware of curious eyes watching her every move. She’d hoped if she and Grace waited until the others were done, everyone else would leave before she backed in the box for the first time in seven years. But no. After her altercation with Donetta, they were lining the fences to watch.

At least she had helped Katelyn make a couple of good runs. That would make it slightly less humiliating if Melanie’s own roping was a total wash.

She drew a long, steadying breath and swung aboard Roy. “I’ve never roped on this horse before,” she declared, loud enough for all to hear. “I’m going to just track those four big, black calves. Grace can run the others.”

She checked to be sure her rope was tied securely to the saddle horn and adjusted the breakaway hondo that would pop loose when the rope came tight around a calf’s neck…if she managed to catch anything. Roy ambled into the box as if they were on another trail ride, but as soon as she turned him around, his ears perked and his muscles bunched, ready to launch. Since Shawnee had only roped steers on him for the past few years, he would need a little adjusting.

Melanie tucked her rope under her arm, tightened the reins, and nodded her head. She didn’t bother swinging her rope, concentrating on her horse’s position. Roy broke wide but moved over easily, tracking the calf as it swerved first right, then left, then back to the right again. Twenty yards off the back of the big arena, she set the horse in a neat, smooth stop and let the calf run on out the exit gate.

She repeated the process on the second, but this time picked her loop up and took a few swings before stopping. By the third run, Roy was back in the groove, arrowing straight out of the corner directly to the calf’s hip. She took several swings and threw, amazed when it settled over the calf’s head. Roy slid to a stop, and the rope snapped loose.

The sound made her tingle all over. And Roy…wow. No wonder he was the only man Shawnee had kept around until Cole.

The next calf faded to the left and dropped his head so low that Melanie’s loop spun around his ears and off. She coiled up her rope, patted Roy on the neck, and rode back, prepared to dismount.

“You take this one,” Grace said. “Then it’ll be an even split, five for you, five for me.”

The calf in the chute was the potbellied Hereford that loped out, straight and slow. No need to chase this one very far. Melanie dragged in air as she built her loop, her mind and body settling into the familiar routine as she rode into the box, cocked her arm back, and nodded.

Swing, swing, throw, snap!

Roy planted his butt a stride from the front of the chute as the rope popped free. The whole thing took maybe two seconds. There was an instant of stunned silence. Then someone whistled, somebody else clapped, and a murmur rippled through the little crowd.

Donetta’s husband stepped up and patted Roy’s neck, shaking his head in amazement. “That was incredible. I can’t believe this horse has never been roped on before.”

“What?” Melanie blinked at him, still riding the high of a sizzling-fast run. “I said I’d never—”

Then she clamped her mouth shut. What the hell? Let them think she’d trained a horse in five runs. She could make it work for her. “It’s all about giving them a good foundation. If you stop by the Bull Dancer during our open house a week from Sunday, I’ll show you some roping videos that I think would really help with your daughter’s horse.”

“Oh, well, I’ll have to see—”

One of the other men clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, Howie. You’ve got the ol’ gal on the run. Don’t weaken now.”

Howie looked like he might be sick.

“I hope you can make it,” Melanie said. If your wife doesn’t murder you.

As they all bustled off to re-pen the calves, she coiled her rope and sat back in the saddle, soaking it all in.

Grace rode up next to her. “How’d that feel?”

Melanie grinned. “Like Roy and I better find us a rodeo and enter up.”

And like she’d come home…even though she was half a country away from the Panhandle.