Handful of Sky (3 page)

“The first event this afternoon will be bareback riding,” the announcer began his stock commentary. “Most cowboys will tell you that riding these bareback broncs is the most physically demanding event in rodeo. All that holds the cowboy to that keg of dynamite under him is a leather rigging twenty-two inches long. He can use only one hand to hang on to that strip of leather. The rider must spur the horse in the point of the shoulders the first
jump from the chute and continue spurring throughout the eight-second ride . . .”

Shallie tuned out the announcer’s voice. She’d heard the same spiel hundreds of times at hundreds of rodeos. She looked over the men who would be trying to win money riding her horses. She knew that the nervous young cowboy in the red chaps would get nothing more than a short flying lesson for his entry fee. Next to him was an old veteran on the amateur rodeo circuit. Laughter, hard weather, flying hooves, and gouging horns had all left their mark on his wrinkle-pleated face. She remembered hearing that he’d tried making it on the professional circuit and had ended up with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion. The concussion had passed but the shoulder had never been strong enough again for him to try and take on the big boys. She guessed he’d make a solid, if unspectacular ride.

Her appraisal slipped to the next contestant. He was a short, stocky fellow who looked as if a horse might have put a hoof in his face at one time. He was buried beneath a mountain of angry concentration, like a man looking forward to taking his revenge. Shallie checked the horse he was to ride: Odin. That was a relief; he was one of her stoutest animals. He’d give the angry cowboy a run for his money.

The next contestant puzzled Shallie. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and the bottom half of his face was
hidden behind a bandanna. Either one would have set him apart from all the other contestants and most cowboys anywhere. But on top of that, he was wearing a tailored shirt of cream-colored challis tucked into a pair of jeans sporting a crease that only a laundry could put on denim. Her gaze traveled up to his face, unreadable behind the reflector lenses.

Shallie wondered why this mystery man was trying so hard to keep his identity a secret. Probably some city dude who wanted to play cowboy for a day. Whatever. As long as he paid his entry fee, he had the right to make as big a fool of himself as he liked.

Judging by the relaxed set of his broad shoulders, however, the dude didn’t even know enough to be scared. Shallie glanced down to the chute below him and shuddered inwardly. Of all the luck, the poor sucker had drawn her most powerful horse, Zeus. She cringed, thinking of his coming humiliation. He’s going to need all the help he can get, Shallie thought and began edging toward him.

But as she approached him, something began to bother her. The dude in the aviator sunglasses projected a quiet, sure intelligence unlike the usual braying jackass who thought that with one eight-second ride he could prove he was a man.

“Would you like me to hold on to your glasses while you ride?” Shallie asked.

The cowboy turned toward her. All she could see was
her own reflection in his lenses. “No, ma’am. Believe I’ll just wear them.” His answer, even muffled by the bandanna, had a calm, masculine strength.

Shallie knew only too well that rodeo had a way of magnifying the male ego and she’d learned to tread carefully around that volatile area. “Of course, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do,” she went on, trying to hide her dismay at the man’s foolishness. “But when you get thrown the glasses could be dangerous. And it wouldn’t be too safe for the other cowboys if you were to leave the arena littered with broken glass.”

“Who says I’m going to get thrown?” His question had more understated assurance than the kind of blowhard cockiness she usually encountered in onetime rodeoers. Still, she was tempted to abandon him to his fate. But there was the very real chance that he could be seriously hurt, so she tried again.

“Have you limbered up?” At least, Shallie thought, if his muscles are loose he’ll stand less of a chance of having them jerked out of his shoulder. When he didn’t respond, Shallie demonstrated to him how he should swing his arms in wide arcs like the cowboys.

“You mean like this?” He imitated Shallie’s propeller motions.

“Right.” In the dusty area below the catwalk she caught a glimpse of her two hired hands watching her with amused smirks on their faces. “Come on.” She
stopped the arm-flapping demonstration. “I’ll help you get rigged up.”

The dude stood back, obviously not knowing the first thing about setting a rigging.

“Here, hold it like this,” Shallie directed him when she had the rigging in place.

As he bent near her, Shallie experienced an odd claustrophobic feeling as if his smell, his nearness, his gaze, all had a physical weight that was pressing down on her, driving the air from her lungs. It was a strange sensation. To hide her discomfiture, Shallie brusquely grabbed the latigo and cinched the rigging down tight on Zeus’s back. As she recoiled from the hurried motion, however, she was thrown into even closer contact with the stranger. Large, strong hands closed around her shoulders, steadying her.

“Whoa. There now, are you all right?”

“Fine, fine. Perfectly fine,” Shallie babbled, completely flustered. She stumbled quickly away, her thoughts scattered about like flushed quail. She forced herself to fix her thoughts on the announcer’s words.

“In chute number one we have Willie Poteen. Willie’s a local boy and he’s riding a horse called Mercury. As we go down the list today you will notice that a lot of the Double L bucking stock have the names of pagan gods and such like. Walter told me last year that his little niece, Shallie, picks them out.”

Shallie arched her brow in annoyance. Would she
ever be thought of as anything other than a “little lady” or a “little niece”?

“Looks like Willie is getting set.”

In the first chute Shallie watched the young cowboy in red chaps ease down onto his mount’s back. He jammed his hat down so hard on his head that his ears stuck out like the handles on a jug. With a jerky nod he signaled for the gate to be thrown open. Mercury bolted out with all the speed of his namesake and the chaps became a red blur hurtling through space. The embarrassed hometown cowboy landed right where the chaps didn’t cover.

“Ready on two?” Shallie asked the next contestant.

“I was born ready, ma’am,” the leathery old veteran shot back.

“Then let her rip.” Shallie laughed, turning her attention to the next contestant. Shallie didn’t watch the ride, she was too busy hurrying along the stumpy, muscle-bound cowboy who’d drawn Odin. Uncle Walter always prided himself on running a fast, well-paced show.

“You let too much time pass,” he always said, “and the people in the stands are going to start noticing how hot it is or how hard the seat is and next thing you know they’re asking themselves why in blazes they ever left their plasma TVs and their internets to come out to some old rodeo. Then you’ve lost a paying customer, and we’ve got too few of them as it is.”

“The judges have given J. T. Watkins a whopping big eighty-one for that last ride, folks.” The announcement brought a round of applause for the battered old veteran.

The dude, who was the fourth rider, after the angry cowboy had his turn on Odin, was standing back helplessly. The third contestant was almost ready to call for the gate. There wasn’t much time. If she didn’t baby him along he’d hold up the action.

“Okay, mister.” She eased alongside of him. “Step aboard.” She indicated Zeus’s back. The dude straddled the planks above the horse and settled gingerly down. In the next chute the third contestant nodded for the gate.

“Grab ahold of the rigging,” Shallie coached the dude. He gripped the rawhide handle with both hands as if he were picking up a heavy suitcase. Shallie sighed and shook her head. She hoped this town had a good emergency room.

Out in the arena the last rider picked himself up from where Odin had thrown him and beat the dust out of his hat, looking angrier than ever.

“Let’s hear a big round of applause for Elroy Stivers on Odin,” the announcer coaxed the crowd, “because your applause is all he’ll be taking home tonight.”

“Here, hang on to it like this.” Shallie demonstrated to the dude how he should slide just his right hand in underneath the grip with his palm pointed upward. Her
pupil shook his head in understanding and switched his handhold.

“Scoot up on your hand,” Shallie directed, holding her fist in front of her hips to demonstrate the position he needed to assume. Down by the gate Wade and Hoskins were elbowing one another and snickering at her impromptu bareback riding lesson. She was again about to give up the effort when she realized he wasn’t wearing a glove.

“Your riding glove. Where is it?” When the dude shrugged she turned and borrowed one from the nearest cowboy.

“Here, stick this on your riding hand.”

He held up his right hand. Shallie tugged on the leather glove. As she did, she noticed a mound of pink scar tissue. This was the cowboy she had been so entranced with as she’d watched him limbering up. She stepped back, a sick feeling gathering in her stomach. It spread as she watched the “dude” settle his firm buttocks down on Zeus’s back and scoot forward until he was nearly sitting on his gloved hand. Zeus kicked a hoof against the chute in protest. Then, in a low, commanding voice she heard:

“Turn him out, boys.”

The gate rattled as it sprung open. Shallie swung back around. She witnessed exactly what she was afraid she might see—a freeze-action picture of perfect bareback
riding form: The “dude’s” free hand was held high, and both his dull spurs were planted high in the horse’s shoulders. Zeus seemed to be suspended in midair, all four hooves off the ground and his body bowed into a shuddering arc. It was the image of a prize-winning champion, not the first-time novice he’d fooled Shallie into believing he was.

Zeus landed hard on his forelegs with a shock which almost always unseated whatever pesky human was attempting to stay on his back. The sunglassed cowboy absorbed the shock effortlessly, his right arm seemingly welded to the leather rigging. His timing was so perfect that he and Zeus appeared to have choreographed their moves. For eight seconds this unknown cowboy epitomized the best in rodeo, the mastery that was much more fluid grace than brute strength. Shallie became so caught up in it that she forgot the anger which had surged through her when she realized she’d been made a fool of.

The crowd was absolutely silent as Zeus bucked into two more high, wild jumps that didn’t even jiggle the cowboy’s sunglasses. The horn blared out, signaling the end of the eight seconds, and the rider, timing his moves perfectly, let Zeus loft him up into the air so that he landed on his feet. The stunned crowd broke into bleacher-pounding applause. As the cowboy retreated to the back of the chutes, he stopped directly
in front of Shallie. With exaggerated chivalry, he swept his silver-gray hat from his head, unloosing a thick headful of dark, sweat-dampened hair, and bowed toward her.

Embarrassment and anger heated Shallie’s cheeks. Cahill and Hoskins weren’t merely snickering anymore, they were laughing openly, delighted by the humiliating trick that had been played on the boss woman by the obviously experienced rider.

“Pecos,” she barked. “Get up here and finish running the bareback. Wade, get the calves ready for the roping.”

Shallie’s boot heels pounded a furious tattoo on the planks of the catwalk, then down the metal steps at the end of the chutes. She looked over her shoulder and saw the bronc rider coming after her. The soft earth slowed her escape, but she plowed forward determined that he was not going to enjoy any more cruel sport at her expense. The ecstatic cheering rang in Shallie’s mind like one long jeer.

His hands broke through the nimbus of rage whirling about her and gripped her shoulders. The full length of his taut, muscular body pressed against her back, the rider held her the same way he’d ridden the bronc; with a pressure that was both firm and masterfully light. Again Shallie felt the inexplicable, smothering claustrophobia. She could smell the freshly laundered scent of his shirt combined with a mild tang from the
sweat he’d worked up riding Zeus. As his body slid next to hers she could feel its warmth envelop her, penetrating the thin material of her blouse. His thumbs pressed against the taut muscles at the back of her neck. His hands spanned her shoulders, his fingers plunging over her collarbone. Their size made Shallie feel as if her shoulders—well-developed from years of riding and ranch work—were tiny, delicate as a bird’s wing beneath his palms. She knew her heart was beating rapidly as a trapped bird’s too and wondered if he could feel it. She was infuriated by everything, by the joke he’d played on her, by her own gullibility, but most maddeningly of all by his effect on her.

“Look, I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I wasn’t intending to make a fool of you.”

“Well, then I congratulate you.” Shallie heard her words come out tight and angrier than she really felt at that moment. “Because you succeeded in doing exactly that without even trying.” Whether to add emphasis to her words or to make herself believe them, Shallie folded her arms in a furious barricade across her chest.

The instant she did, though, she realized she’d made a mistake because the action pushed her breasts upward until their plump tops lay beneath his fingertips. She felt the four points of his fingers on the swell of each breast as eight separate sensations. The effect was breathtaking. She spun from his grasp.

“Do you get your kicks from ruining people’s reputations?” she demanded. “You obviously know something about rodeo so you know that it’s a sport where reputation is everything. That little trick you didn’t intend to play might just have cost me mine.”

“Hold on a minute.” Shallie had difficulty concentrating on his words; the mouth forming them had claimed her attention. “You work for Walt Larkin, right?”

“I’m his niece and we work together. I’m half owner of the Double L.”

“So you’re John Larkin’s daughter.”