Desert Heat (14 page)

Patience nodded. But her heart was hurting, her throat tight. She didn’t think she would get much sleep that night.

And she would feel even worse when he left her in the morning.

The following day, as they had planned, they parted ways at the airport, Patience heading back to Wyoming to meet up with Shari and Stormy, Dallas flying off to California for Salinas, one of the biggest rodeos of the year.

Dallas’s flight left half an hour earlier than hers. Patience walked him to the C terminal, down to his departure gate. She tried to be upbeat, tried not to think that their few brief days were over and now things would return to the way they were before.

She had told herself she was in lust, not love. She was a modern, independent woman—why shouldn’t she make love with a man she desired?

But she hadn’t counted on this hollow ache around her heart, hadn’t thought how she would feel when she watched him leave, knowing that in Salinas women would line up just to get a glimpse of him, that there was every chance he would go to bed with one of them.

The passengers were moving toward the gate, showing their boarding passes, and beginning to disappear down the ramp to the plane.

“We don’t have much time,” Dallas said. He’d been remote since the party last night. They hadn’t even made love this morning, though they’d awakened curled pretzel-like together and Dallas was fully aroused.

She pasted on the brightest smile she could muster. “Thanks for a terrific time. And for the…well, you know.”

His mouth barely curved. “Therapy?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t need therapy. Just a man who would take his time with you.” He looked down at the toes of his boots, then back into her face. “I guess I’ll see you in Cheyenne.”

She swallowed. “Right. Cheyenne.” She gave him her too-bright smile. “Good luck in Salinas.”

Dallas didn’t answer. For several long moments, he just stood there. Then he slid a hand around the nape of her neck and dragged her mouth up to his for a quick, hard kiss.

Patience kissed him back, desperately fighting back tears.

“Stay away from Wes,” he said gruffly.

“Bye,” she said, hating herself for caring so much, reminding herself it was lust, not love.

Knowing it was a lie.

Dallas’s eyes touched hers one last time. He tugged down the brim of his black hat, turned and walked briskly away.

Patience went into the ladies’ room and wiped away the wetness on her cheeks.

“Hey! Welcome back, partner.” Shari’s warm smile cut through some of the gloom Patience was feeling. The pickup idled at the curb out in front of the Casper airport. Patience tossed her luggage into the back and climbed into the passenger seat for the short ride to the rodeo grounds.

“How did it go? Did you two have a good time?”

Patience slumped down in the seat. “Terrific,” she said glumly.

“Uh-oh.”

“Actually, we were doing just fine until Dallas found out about my thesis. He doesn’t seem to think a cowboy and a professor go together very well. Neither do I.”

“You probably should have told him.”

“I suppose so. Twenty-twenty hindsight and all that.”

“He’ll get over it. Besides, I don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, the guy went to college himself.”

“Yes, but he didn’t finish.”

“He finished four years—graduated with honors. He just didn’t finish medical school.”

“Medical school?” Patience shot up in the seat. “What are you talking about?”

“I figured you knew. I mean, the way everybody’s always coming up to him and asking him for advice.”

She remembered Wes asking him to take a look at Hotshot. And the day she had fallen into the pen with the bulls, he had checked her over to be sure she didn’t have a concussion. Even the little girl with the broken leg had received a cursory exam.

“His father wanted him to follow in his footsteps,” Shari explained. “Dallas went along with him for a while, his mother being dead and all, but he hated every minute of med school. After his second year, he just flat quit. Said he wanted to go into ranching. He had no desire to be a doctor and never would. I guess his father went completely insane.”

“From what I could tell, Avery’s still mad about it.” A lightbulb went off in her head. “That’s what Dallas’s license plates mean. H P P Y N O W.
Happy Now.
He’s happy, now that he’s doing what he wants.”

Shari slowed the truck and flicked on her turn signal. “The man surely does love to rodeo—and he’s the best there is. He’s saving his money to buy that ranch he wants. He says he won’t stop until he gets it.”

They made the turn into the rodeo grounds, and livestock barns and rows of horse trailers passed by outside the window. Dallas had been in med school but he had quit. He hated college. He wanted to be a cowboy. Patience loved every minute of school, loved the learning, loved the books.

Just one more difference.

She sighed as Shari pulled the truck over to their little white RV and turned off the engine.

It was Sunday night. The Casper rodeo was over. Shari had placed in the barrel racing and Stormy had taken a second in the calf roping. To celebrate, Patience was cooking Sloppy Joes. Stormy and Shari would be there any minute.

Shari opened the door of the trailer just as Patience’s cell phone rang. She grabbed it up and pressed it against her ear, still stirring the sauce.

“Hello?” No answer. “Hello, is anyone there?”

“I miss you.”

Her stomach instantly knotted. Her face must have gone white because Shari started to frown.

“How did you get this number?”

“I’ve got friends in the computer department at B.U. It wasn’t all that hard. Do you really mind?”

“Of course I mind.” Her hand shook as she took the wooden spoon out of the pan and set it on the counter. “Listen, Tyler. You know the way I feel. It’s over between us. I don’t want to see you anymore. I want you to leave me alone.”

“I’ve started seeing someone.”

“Good for you. I’m happy for you.”

“I’d rather be with you.”

She closed her eyes. “We’ve been through all this a hundred times. If you call me again, I’ll get a new cell phone and it won’t be under my name.” She hung up and sank down on the bench in the dinette.

“Who was that?”

“Tyler Stanfield.” She had never mentioned Tyler to Shari. She didn’t want to think about him. But now that he had phoned, she thought her friend ought to know. “I dated him for a few weeks.” She told her about his pursuit, how he had dogged her every step, sent her postcards and letters, clogged her inbox with dozens of e-mails, and finally broken in to her apartment, come into her bedroom, and threatened her in the middle of the night. “I finally got a restraining order. I was hoping the problem was over.”

“Does he know where you are?”

“He knows I’m following the rodeo circuit. He doesn’t have the slightest idea where I am.”

“He isn’t dangerous, is he?”

“I don’t think so, but you never know with a guy like that. I’m not taking any chances. If he shows up, I’m calling the police.”

“I don’t blame you. Does Dallas know?”

“I told him I hadn’t heard from Tyler in months.”

“Dallas isn’t going to like this.”

The trailer stairs rattled just then. “It’s me,” Stormy said, pulling the narrow door open. He ducked his head, made his way over to the small dinette, and squeezed himself in next to Shari. He looked from one serious face to the other. “All right, what’s going on?”

While Shari filled him in on the phone call and told him about Tyler Stanfield, Patience returned to stirring the Sloppy Joe sauce boiling on the little propane stove.

“So you think this guy might be a problem?” Stormy asked Patience.

She started stirring the sauce again. “I hope not.”

Stormy looked over at Shari. “Dallas isn’t gonna like this.”

Patience almost smiled. Dallas was protective of his friends. No matter how things turned out between them, she supposed they could call themselves that.

“As a matter of fact, he just called,” Stormy said. “He’s flying into Casper instead of Cheyenne. He wants me to pick him up at the airport in an hour.”

The spoon in her hand stopped moving. Dallas was coming back.

“I wonder why he changed his plans,” Shari said.

Patience couldn’t imagine. She just kept thinking,
Oh, God, Dallas is coming back.

A knot tightened in her stomach. She knew the kind of life he led. He had never made any secret of it. But she wasn’t the sort to share a man, and if Dallas thought he could just waltz in and expect her to hop back into bed, he had a big surprise coming.

In the week he’d been gone, she’d had plenty of time to think and most of it wasn’t good. It was one thing to have a brief fling with America’s top cowboy, another thing entirely to be counted among his numerous female admirers.

“I don’t want you to worry about this Stanfield fella,” Stormy was saying. “I’ll put the word out. Anyone comes around asking questions, we’ll tell him we never heard of you.”

“Thanks, Stormy.”

He tossed his hat on the bunk, and ran a hand through his sandy brown hair. “I’m starved. Boy, that sure smells good.”

“Nothing too tough about making Sloppy Joes,” she said, trying to sound cheerful as she filled them each a paper plate loaded with the tomato-hamburger concoction poured over a toasted bun.

Everyone dug in, falling silent as they enjoyed the meal. They washed the food down with Diet Cokes, eating hurriedly so Stormy could get to the airport in time for Dallas’s flight.

There wasn’t much clean-up, just disposing of the paper plates and washing the saucepan. As soon as they finished, Shari left to work with Button while Patience stayed behind and tried not to think of Dallas, with very little success.

What would he say? Why had he come back to Casper instead of meeting them in Cheyenne? Though he knew her cell number, he hadn’t called from Salinas, and she hadn’t really expected him to. Dallas had never made her any promises. In truth, it was her suggestion that they make love.

Had she really believed it would help them get over their unwanted attraction to each other?

Well, it might have worked for Dallas. It sure hadn’t worked for her.

The minutes crawled past. She had to do something to keep her mind occupied. Glancing around, her gaze lit on her grandmother’s journal. She picked it up, sat down in the dinette and opened it to where she’d left off. It didn’t take long to become absorbed in the pages.

Patience smiled. The more things changed the more they stayed the same, her father always said. There were loose pages after that, some out of sequence, Addie writing about earlier shows. Then a yellowed, tattered page caught her eye.

The entry was dated August 7. No pages seemed to be missing, but there wasn’t another entry until August 15.

A little chill slid down Patience’s spine. Though she really didn’t want to, she thumbed ahead in the journal. A couple more passages mentioned Lucky, but Addie never saw her again and no one ever found out what had happened to her.

Patience set the book away, feeling oddly depressed. She couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection to the man who had been following the rodeo circuit and the disappearance of her grandmother’s friend. It made her think of Tyler Stanfield, made her wonder how far his obsession would push him and if she were in any sort of danger.

With a sigh, she got up from the dinette and started for the door. Dusk had settled over the prairie, the sun a bright orange ball sinking behind a row of distant hills. Streaks of orange and pink fanned out through a fading blue sky and she thought that no matter what happened, she was glad she had come on this, her great adventure.

As she walked toward the rear of the trailer, she caught a glimpse of Dallas’s big black Dodge. The men would have been back for at least an hour, but he hadn’t made an effort to see her. It probably hadn’t occurred to him. Dallas wasn’t interested in a relationship with a woman. He had made that clear from the start. She told herself it was better this way, better that they’d ended the affair that morning at the airport in Houston. Apparently Dallas felt the same.

The crunch of boots on gravel alerted her. She turned to see a tall shadow walking toward her, knew it was Dallas by the long, purposeful strides and the width of his shoulders. He was wearing his usual jeans, boots, and hat, and he looked so good her heart turned over.

She took a deep breath to calm the pounding in her chest, then remembered the passage Addie had written about Sam—
he’s nothing but trouble
.

“Hello.” The soft drawl stirred a longing deep inside her.

Patience ignored it. “Hello.”

“I…um…decided to come back and drive down to Cheyenne with Stormy.”

“That’s what he said. How was Salinas?”

In the fading light, his features subtly tightened. “Not so good.”

“What happened?”

“I got bucked off. I needed to make some extra earnings so I entered both bronc riding events. Bareback is tough. You lean way back. Puts a lot of pressure on your spine. If you screw up, it’s kind of like you’ve been in a car accident.”