“He’s alive,” Bing said, her voice firm. “And he’s in one piece. Is there someone with you?”
“Yes.” Carma sagged with relief, vaguely aware of Gil and Quint grabbing her by the arms and guiding her into a chair. “How bad is it?”
“They aren’t absolutely sure. Your parents got the call from one of his friends, not through the official channels, and the soldier didn’t know many details. A mortar round landed on the base, just outside the canteen. At least one person was killed and several injured. It sounds as if Eddie was far enough away that he was thrown clear. The guy who called said it looked like he was talking to the medics, and it didn’t look like he was bleeding other than some small cuts. They loaded everyone on a plane to the military hospital in Germany, and no one would tell him anything except that Eddie’s injuries didn’t appear to be life-threatening.”
Oh God. Oh, thank God. Carma’s hands were shaking so bad she could hardly hold the phone. Gil took it from her. “What do you want us to do?” he asked Bing.
“Bring her to me.”
* * *
They put her in the back seat of the Charger, and Quint held her hand the whole way out to the Brookman ranch. The scenery was a blur, her mind flooded with possibilities that varied from bad to worse. If she’d let him, Gil probably would have carried her into the house, but she forced her rubbery legs to walk from the car to Bing’s couch while Johnny hovered nearby, silent and helpless. The landline rang and Bing snatched it from the cradle, holding it so both she and Carma could hear.
“He’s gonna be fine,” Carma’s mother said, her voice breaking on a sob. “A concussion, broken ribs, and superficial burns.”
“Did you talk to him?” Carma choked out.
“No. They’ve got him under sedation for now. What he saw… It was bad.”
Carma couldn’t let those images into her head. Eddie was safe. That’s all she could think about. She collapsed onto the sofa, only half listening as her mother went on about Tony finding them a direct flight out of Calgary to JFK, and then on to Germany.
She closed her eyes as Bing hung up and relayed the information to Gil and Quint, and heard them both heave massive sighs of relief. Hands closed around Carma’s where they’d fallen limp in her lap, and Gil dropped to his knees in front of her. Something hard pressed into her palm, and she looked down to see him curling her fingers around the geode, his face stark.
“I shouldn’t have let you give me this. It was supposed to protect your brother.”
“And it did,” Bing said. “The shell missed him. Others weren’t so lucky.”
Carma closed her eyes. So close. She had come so very close to losing Eddie. And right now, some other family was hearing the worst possible news instead. Gil pressed the stone between their hands. “Just hold on, darlin’. I’ll be right here.”
Here? But it was Saturday. Diamond Cowboy day. He must already be late for that press conference. “You have to go,” she said.
“No, I don’t. You need me.”
She shook her head. “I’m with Bing.”
Gil pulled himself up and onto the couch next to her. “There must be something I can do to help.”
“Not unless you can magically transport me from here to Germany.” The sheer distance was crushing; the many, many steps it would take to get from here to there overwhelming. Carma was usually galvanized by a crisis. Why couldn’t she pull herself together now, when Eddie needed her to be strong? Had she given so much of herself to Gil that she didn’t have anything left for the other people she loved?
“Please,” she whispered, holding onto her composure by a thread. If Gil stayed, she’d have to think about the fight they’d been having, and whether Quint was mad at her for telling his dad about wanting to rope, and…everything. She’d have to admit that she’d picked a fight with Gil on one of the most important days of his life because he’d been focused on what he had to do instead of worrying about making her feel special, and what kind of person did that make her?
She pulled her hands free of his. “If you miss the rodeo, I’ll feel guilty, and I don’t think I can stand to feel one more thing right now.”
“But I should be here,” he insisted.
No, he shouldn’t. She was about three seconds away from screaming, or crying, or both, and she did not want him and Quint to witness her meltdown. What they’d already seen this morning was bad enough. All Gil had asked of her was one more day, and she couldn’t even give him that. She was too damn selfish to be a rodeo wife—and it was probably good that he’d seen it for himself.
So just this once why couldn’t he be like Jayden, and run away when she looked remotely like she might require emotional support?
“I should get online and find you a flight,” he said.
No! He had to go before she gave in and attached herself to him like a leech. She scraped up some grit to put in her voice. “You should listen, instead of telling me what I need.”
He stiffened. “I am not—”
“Yeah. You are,” Bing drawled. “And she should know. She’s been doing it to other people all her life.”
For some bizarre reason, the snarky comment made Carma want to laugh. Hysteria, probably.
But even through the chaos of her own emotions, she felt Gil’s hurt and desperation. There was a problem, and he couldn’t fix it, and that must be driving him crazy. “I can’t just leave you like this,” he said.
“Yes, you can. And you should.” Carma sounded surprisingly firm. She forced herself to square her shoulders. “I told you…I’ve got Bing. And Eddie isn’t in immediate danger. I’ll be fine.”
He waffled for another endless minute. Finally, he kissed Carma on the forehead. “All right. If you’re sure that’s what you need. Call if you change your mind, or…anything.”
Bless him for stopping short of saying, If Eddie gets worse.
“I promise,” she said, just to get rid of him.
“Me too,” Bing said. “Now go. Give ’em hell. We’re rooting for you.”
He kissed Carma again. Then he stood and stalked out the door. Quint paused to give Carma an awkward pat on the shoulder before he followed. The engine revved and the tires on the Charger squealed as they hit the highway. Either he was in a hurry, or he was not happy about being told to go away. Carma would have to decide later. Right now…
She folded in half, pressing her face into her hands. Bing wrapped an arm around her shoulders and they let the tears fall.
* * *
Gil’s first inclination was to slam the gas pedal of the Charger to the floorboard, but he’d tried that the last time a woman had blown him off in her time of need and look how that turned out. Besides, he had Quint with him.
The silence inside the car stretched as taut as Gil’s nerves, so he felt the snap when Quint broke it.
“There really wasn’t anything you could do,” he said.
Gil gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles cracked. “That’s not the point.”
Quint nodded and fell silent again.
A few miles farther down the road, Gil said, “I guess I’m just not someone people lean on…or confide in.”
After a few beats, Quint said, “You mean me.”
Gil jerked a shoulder. Wasn’t it obvious? When the chips were down, he was the last one any of them turned to.
“It’s not your fault,” Quint said. “I’m like this with everybody.”
“Except Carma?”
“She’s different. You can’t help but tell her stuff.”
Yeah. Gil knew exactly what he meant. Like the way he’d been on the verge of telling her he loved her, and forget the stupid rodeo, he’d drive her to fucking Germany if he could. But she didn’t need him. She had Bing. Her family. Anyone but Gil.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I would’ve just ended up being the worst thing that happened to another woman.”
Quint let a couple of miles pass before he answered. “That’s not what Mom says.”
Gil’s head snapped around. “You asked her?”
Quint did an elaborately casual shrug. “I wanted to know why it didn’t work out with the two of you.”
Of course he did. The same as Gil and Delon had struggled to understand why their parents couldn’t be like Steve and Miz Iris. “I had a serious drinking problem,” he said, restating the obvious.
“I know.” Quint fiddled with his seat belt. “Mom said if there were any way to go back that wouldn’t mean not having Gwennie and Liz, she would, for your sake and for mine. She said her biggest regret is that she was spoiled and stupid, and she never gave you a chance to show her the man you turned out to be.”
All of the sudden the road went blurry, and Gil had to stop the car. He pulled onto the shoulder, put the Charger in park, and blinked hard a few times. He’d always thought… He’d assumed… “She actually said that?”
Quint rolled his eyes. “Nah. I just made it up because you were starting to get carried away with the pity party.”
“Brat.” Gil swatted him on the arm.
Quint shrugged. “Runs in the family.”
Along with the tendency to fall back on sarcasm when things got too sentimental. They sat for a while, gazing out at absolutely nothing on the flat plain. Then Gil sighed. “Team roping, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I suppose it could be worse. It’ll just take me a while to figure out how.”
Quint huffed out a laugh. “A kid my age won twenty-three grand at a roping last week in Guthrie, Oklahoma.”
Gil blinked. “No shit?”
“No shit. Find me a bareback rider who can top that.”
At fourteen? Not likely. Gil ran a few mental calculations. Huh. This might be a little easier to swallow than he’d thought.
“You know she’s crazy about you, right?” Quint asked.
Gil’s heart did a weird skitter. “Carma?”
“Duh.” Quint drenched the word with an impressive amount of mockery. “That’s why she made you leave. She could no more let you miss this rodeo on her account than she could sprout wings and fly. She’s almost as bad as you, taking care of everybody else first.”
For the second time, Gil was rocked back in his seat. That’s how Quint saw him? “I’m just bossy,” he argued out of reflex. “The control freak, remember?”
“Yeah. Whatever.” Kid-speak for You are also full of shit.
An insult that had never given Gil the warm fuzzies until now. He rubbed his chest, full to bursting with so many emotions—pride, love, nerves, worry about Carma and her brother, everything about Carma—that he felt like an overinflated tire. “I can’t stand not doing anything to help her.”
“Except go kick ass the way she told you to,” Quint suggested.
He could try. Gil dragged his mind back to the Diamond Cowboy, checking the clock. He was definitely not going to make the press conference. He smiled grimly. At least something good had come out of all this. Calling up Delon’s number on the hands-free system, he pulled back on to the road and drove back to the shop while he explained the situation. After a quick stop to change into rodeo attire and grab more coffee, they were on the road again.
Halfway to Amarillo, a thought struck him. “If you’re not interested in riding, why did you want my old chaps?”
“They’re cool. The Flamethrowers.” Quint ducked his head. “And you’re wearing them in the picture Mom gave me of the two of you right after you won San Antonio. Having them just makes it seem more…real.”
Hell. Why hadn’t he ever shared stories about back when he was riding, or the good times with Krista? At least Gil had some happy memories of his parents together. Quint had nothing but hostile politeness and tense cease-fires.
Gil could do better than that. He and Quint both could. And they needed to quit wasting time, because today had been a vivid reminder that tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed. Hell, in four very short years Quint would be graduating from high school and off to who knew where. They’d already missed too much.
Gil propped his wrist on the top of the steering wheel and rolled some of the tension out of his shoulders. “I’ll make you a deal. Every day I’ll tell you a story about me, if you’ll tell me one about you.”
“Like what?” Quint asked, ever suspicious.
“Anything you want. What happened at school. Something dumb you did that I never heard about.” He raised an eyebrow. “The girl who was following you around at the track meet.”
Quint made a classic Ew! face. “You have to go first.”
“Okay.” Gil considered his options. “Did your mom tell you how we met?”
“One of her sorority sisters at Oklahoma State was a barrel racer. Mom went with her to a college rodeo and you walked up and told her she was too gorgeous to be wandering around alone, so it’d be best if you stuck close and protected her from all those raunchy cowboys.”
Gil shook his head. God, he’d been full of himself. And so had she. The devil gave him a nudge. “Did she tell you about our second date?”
“No.”
Gil smiled with only a touch of evil pleasure. Hey, the kid should know what a badass his mother had been. “We were at a dance after the rodeo. Your mom went to the bathroom, and while she was gone, another girl plopped herself down on my knee, just joking around. Krista came back, gave her one look, and said, ‘You’ve got two seconds to get your ass off his lap or I’m gonna rip your face off. And next time there is no warning.’”
Quint goggled at him. “Mom said that?”
“Oh yeah. And she meant it.” Gil tossed him a grin. “Where do you think you got the ‘punch first, talk later’ attitude?”
Quint laughed in disbelief, then said, “Did she tell you about the time I decided to play buried pirate treasure with Grandad’s silver-dollar collection?”
“No! Geezus. He must’ve had a coronary.”
“Oh man. And then I hid the map, and they spent days going over the grounds with a metal detector…”
They filled the rest of the drive with talking, laughing, and slowly, finally getting to know each other. Carma would be very proud of them.
As he parked at the coliseum and hitched his gear bag over his shoulder, Gil made a silent vow. He would do his damnedest to keep making her proud. If Carma wanted him to ride, he would spur his guts out. But the second he was done, he was going straight back to her, wherever she might be by then.
And no one—not even Carma—was going to stop him.