Three weeks after his first practice session, Gil stood on the back of those same chutes, contemplating the spot where he and Carma had used his chaps as a cushion against the prickly grass. They hadn’t fooled anyone—including Beni and Quint—but even Hank’s smirk couldn’t stand up to Carma’s total lack of embarrassment.
What? her dancing eyes asked. You’ve never gotten jumped behind the bucking chutes?
Gil had caught Miz Iris eyeing them, then shooting a grin at Steve that made his ears turn red, which made Gil have to wonder…
His mind shied away from the details, but those two had seen a lot of arenas and a lot of bucking chutes in almost forty years on the rodeo trail together.
Tonight, though, the air was charged with a different sort of energy. They’d been following the damn plan to the letter, which meant he’d been on more than twenty horses, handpicked by Steve and Delon to give him a little more of a challenge each time he nodded his head. Faster, more elevation, more drop of their head and shoulders as they came down, increasing the yank on his arm. Gil had matched them jump for jump, his confidence growing with each ride.
Now they were cranking up the power. There would be no margin for error tonight. These five-year-olds were the rising stars of Jacobs Livestock, brought home for some R&R after the winter rodeos so they’d be fresh and strong for the big summer run. They could carry a cowboy to the pay window if he made a good ride. But one mistake, one twist of the shoulders or slip of a spur, and they would hammer you.
The one he straddled now was Blue Anchor, a roan mare whose front end was as heavy as her namesake, each jump threatening to jack your shoulders forward and slam your face into her neck. And if you made it past those first two or three seconds…
Delon slapped Gil on the back. “Remember, she’s gonna want to throw some swoops at you.”
“I’ll be ready.” He gritted his teeth and said, “Let ’er out.”
Every tendon and ligament in his arm sang when she ejected from the chute, but he got his heels in her neck and was braced for the impact when her front feet drove into the ground. His gut clenched, fighting to hold his upper body tight as she launched again. He dragged his spurs up to the rigging, and barely snapped them back down to her shoulders before the next sledgehammer blow of hooves on dirt. Reach, drag, reach, drag…
And then her head disappeared.
He reached for her neck and found nothing but air, his foot swinging over her neck as she dropped her nose, ducked back to the left, and launched him ass over heels. Before he had time to react, his shoulder and the side of his head plowed into the dirt, rattling every bone and tooth. He’d forgotten the blunt trauma of slamming into the ground.
And the total fucking insult of getting bucked off.
Fury exploded in his chest, chasing the aftershocks from his body, but the stars were still dancing in front of his eyes as he lunged to his feet. He stomped toward the bucking chutes where the others stood, eyeing him with varying levels of concern.
“I thought you said you were ready for the swoop,” Delon said, smirking.
Gil bent, grabbed a dirt clod, and flung it at his brother’s fat head.
* * *
There was no wild sex that night. Or the night after. Or the next Thursday, when Gil staggered into his room shortly after five—which Quint suggested might be a record—and sprawled facedown on his bed. “Geezus. I forgot I could hurt in this many places.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Carma predicted, settling an ice pack onto his right shoulder.
She didn’t say over it. Bareback riders were like running backs in football. They took a pounding even on the good days. But once he worked through the worst of the initial soreness, it would settle back to a weird sort of normal, like Carma’s aches and pains back in her trick riding days. Quint walked in and handed Carma another ice pack for Gil’s elbow.
“Are you gonna be able to help out at the meet next week, or should I tell Coach you’re too busy?” He sounded vaguely hopeful.
“I’ll be there.”
“I can help, too,” Carma offered. “We’re all coming to watch you anyway.”
“Cool. Maybe you can keep Dad from starting another riot.” Quint’s departure was followed shortly by the sound of rummaging in the refrigerator and a muffled “We’re out of milk again.”
This was what their lives had become. Gil spent his days at the office, brainstorming—and bickering—with Delon and their mother. His evenings at the arena or in the gym, all the Sanchez men together—sweating, scheming, giving each other a raft of shit. Wednesdays Carma got up at five to get to the Patterson ranch in time for the first patients, spending the night to be sure she didn’t doze off on the road after the long day—in her van, not one of the cabins—and driving home early on Thursday.
And occasionally Gil found time to wander over to Carma’s van, after they got home from Quint’s track meet, or after Gil got back from his Tuesday night coffee date with Tamela, or after he and Delon finished another rodeo video marathon.
After. After. After.
It had become Carma’s mantra. After the Diamond Cowboy is over…
And when Gil did show up, he was still only half there, his mind occupied with thoughts he rarely shared. There were nights he was so wired he could light up a Times Square billboard, but when she asked if he wanted a massage for the headache she saw throbbing behind his eyes, or offered to share one of the Native star legends from the book she’d bought after he’d asked her, or to sing him a sunset song while he just lay back and relaxed, he nearly always said he was fine.
Nearly. But the exceptions were enough to keep her believing.
The rest of the time…he deflected by making love to her. And it was wonderful—sweet and slow, explosively fast, anywhere in between—he gave her the kind of pleasure a woman dreamed of. But he never gave her any of the thousand pieces he doled out to others.
Tamela got the lion’s share of Gil’s confessions including—Carma assumed—how he felt about her. She was way beyond the point where she could trust her own readings where their relationship was concerned. As for the rest…
Delon got all the planning and analyzing and wondering whether Gil would be ready in time for the Diamond Cowboy, or if he was delusional for even trying at this late stage. Rochelle got most of his concerns related to the business. Quint got to be in the thick of things with his dad and Beni and Delon every minute that he wasn’t at school or track. And now the college term had ended, Jeremiah got most of Gil’s attention at work as he tried to put into words and notes all the hundred and one things he did at Sanchez Trucking.
And Carma? She got great sex…and funny GIFs that doubled as their only real communication more days than not.
Three more weeks…
She sat beside him on the bed, and he mumbled his gratitude into the bedspread as she stroked the stiff muscles of his neck, a simple massage. The other kind of touch, where she felt as if she could reach inside and connect with him, required a combined focus and pooling of energy, and he seemed determined not to ask that of her. She supposed he considered this pain a rite of passage, his price of admittance back into the club. Carma understood.
Carma always understood, even when she didn’t want to.
He hummed his appreciation as she kneaded the wire-tight muscles of his back. “If you want a piece of me tonight, you’re gonna have to roll me over and take it yourself.”
She laughed, making a concerted effort to stop brooding. He’d warned her it wasn’t going to be a joyride, and she’d jumped on this runaway train anyway. She could hardly complain now.
She adjusted one of the ice packs. “You’ve got almost two hours to chill before we meet everyone at the Lone Steer.”
For what would be their first actual date. And a slab of the prime rib everyone bragged about, promising Carma it was the best she’d ever eat. As if she wasn’t from Montana, for crying out loud.
What was that saying? You can always tell a Texan…
Gil groaned. “Is that tonight?”
Carma stiffened, already knowing what he was going to say. “You can’t make it,” she said.
“I screwed up.” He rolled over, wincing when he tilted his head to meet her gaze. “I told Jeremiah he could have the night off, so he went to Canyon to see his girlfriend.”
“But Analise has to leave at six to pick Cruz up at the airport.” A twenty-four-hour layover between his last rodeo in Florida and the next one in Oregon.
“I know. I completely forgot about Bing’s birthday dinner, and I just…” Gil squeezed his head between his hands. “I couldn’t take any more questions. Jeremiah is gonna be great, but right now, he’s wearing me out.”
Carma got it. She did. Gil’s attention was being pulled in so many different directions, it was amazing that he didn’t lose track more often.
“It’s okay,” she said stiffly. “I understand.”
“Carma…”
“No, really.” She squared her shoulders and sucked in the bottom lip that wanted to pout. “I’ll have plenty of company, and you can have a little alone time. Just you and a couple dozen drivers.”
“I am really sorry.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it. “I promise, I’ll make it up to you…”
Yeah. Sure. When the Diamond Cowboy was over.
But that evening as she pasted on a smile and explained to yet another person why Gil couldn’t make it to dinner, Carma couldn’t help feeling a powerful sense of déjà vu. How many times had she sat beside an empty chair and told friends or family or nosy strangers how Jayden’s practice session had run late, or he’d stayed in Billings a couple extra days to try out a new horse, or he was too tired from driving through the night after a rodeo north of Edmonton.
All valid excuses. All priorities that had meant more to him than Carma.
Now here she was again. And how would she know if she crossed the line from being patient and understanding to a starry-eyed fool who believed that all would magically become right at the stroke of midnight on the last Saturday in May?
Gil sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her—unless there was a GIF for that. Right on cue, her phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was not a GIF.
Slow night. Waiting for a call, then locking up. See you in forty-five, max.
He was coming. For her. Carma hugged the phone and mentally took back every doubt she’d had.