Читать книгу His Little Cowgirl - Brenda Minton - Страница 10

Bulls bellowed and snorted, the sound combining with the steady hum of the crowd and the banter of cowboys, medical staff and stock contractors. Cody leaned against the wall in a corner of the area that was almost quiet.

“What’s up with you?”

“Bradshaw, I didn’t know you were here.” Cody smiled at the guy who had been a friend for years. Rivalry had come between them a few times. And for a while Jason Bradshaw’s faith had driven a huge wedge between them.

Cody hadn’t known what to do when his friend “found religion” two years earlier. They had gone from being drinking buddies to strangers, both wanting different things out of life.

The rift had grown until the day seven months earlier when Cody had woken up in a hospital, unsure of who he was or where he was. Later he had watched tapes of the fall. The wreck of the season, they called it. He had been twisted in the bull rope, dangling from the side of a fifteen-hundred-pound animal. When Cody came loose, the bull twisted and the two butted heads with a force that had given him a huge concussion and some loss of memory.

Jason said it must have knocked some sense into him, because the Sunday after his release from the hospital Cody gave in to the urge to attend the church service the bull riders held each week. He had stood next to his friend, hearing a message his grandfather had tried to tell him when he had been too young to understand. Later on in life he had thought he didn’t need it.

That Sunday he knew he needed it. He knew that he needed to be forgiven. He needed the promise contained in those words, and he needed a fresh start.

He had never dreamed his second chance would lead him to Gibson, Missouri, and a little girl named Meg.

“You look like you got hit by a semitruck.” Jason nudged Cody’s side, gaining his attention.

“Something like that.”

“Did you see Bailey?”

Cody moved to the side to see why the crowd was roaring. He watched a young rider make it to eight seconds and then some. The kids on tour were going great guns with enthusiasm and bodies that weren’t being kept mobile with cortisone injections, Ace bandages and a diet of ibuprofen.

“Remember what that felt like?” Jason laughed and watched as the kid on the bull jumped off, landing on his feet and running out of the arena without a limp.

“Vaguely.” He remembered what yesterday felt like, when he knew who he was and that his life was all about winning the bull-riding championship and walking away with a seven-figure check. Now his goals were as scrambled as his insides.

“I found out today that I’m a dad. I have a five-year-old daughter named Meg.”

Jason took off his hat and ran a hand through short red hair, his eyes widening as he leaned back against the wall. His being speechless didn’t happen often. Cody was sort of glad his friend reacted with stunned silence. His surprise validated Cody’s own feelings of disbelief.

“Wow.”

“Is that all you have to say?”

Jason laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Congratulations?”

“Thanks. I think.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, if Bailey was seventeen and madly in love with me, I’d do the right thing and marry her. Right now she’s about twenty-eight, and I’m pretty sure she hates me. So that leaves the little girl. I might have a chance with her, but I’m not sure.”

His daughter, a sprite with her mother’s perky nose, heart-shaped face and flaxen hair. Cowgirls were hard to beat. They were tough as nails and soft as down. Until you made them mad. Bailey was definitely mad. She had a right to be, but that didn’t help Cody.

He had a daughter. It was still sinking in. Thinking back, he remembered the luminous look in Bailey’s eyes when she said she loved him, and then the tears when he teased her about cowgirls always thinking they were in love. Finally there were the frantic phone calls that lasted five or six months after she left Wyoming. It all made sense now.

He looked down, shaking his head at the tumble of thoughts rolling through his mind. He had missed out on five years. Without knowing it, he had become his own dad.

“Cody, don’t beat yourself up for something you didn’t know about.”

“If I had called her back, I would have known. Instead I went on my merry way, thinking she just wanted to cry and try to drag me back into her life.” He fastened the Kevlar vest that bull riders wore for protection and tried to concentrate on the ride about to take place. “I should have known Bailey better than to think that about her.”

“You know, I think you only ran because you were so stinking in love with her.” Jason laughed as he said the words, his loud outburst drawing the quick glances of a dozen men in the area.

“Do you think you could announce it to the whole world?”

“Sorry, but I think they’re going to find out sooner or later.”

Cody pulled off his hat and ran shaking fingers through his hair. “I could use a…”

“Friend to pray with?” Jason smiled as he replaced the word with something that wouldn’t undo six months of sobriety.

“Yes, prayer.” His new way of dealing with stress. “I have a daughter, Jason. What in the world am I going to do with her?”

“Buy her a pony?”

“My dad bought me a pony.”

Jason slapped him on the back. “Go back to Gibson, Missouri, and get to know your daughter. You’ve got enough money in the bank to last more than a few years, and a good herd of cattle down in Oklahoma. Maybe it’s time to start using your nest egg to build a nest? You could even use that business degree of yours for something other than balancing a feed bill and tallying your earnings.”

“What if I can’t be a dad?” He didn’t know how to be something he’d never had. That’s why he’d run from girls looking for “forever.”

“No one really knows how. I think you just learn as you go. It’s probably a lot like bull riding, the more you work at it, the better you get.”

Someone shouted Cody’s name. He was up soon. He tipped his hat to Jason and told him he probably would lay off the tour after this event, at least for a few weeks, at least until he settled things with Bailey.

And he would give up ever being a world champion. His goal and his dream for more years than he could remember had been within his grasp, but one afternoon in Gibson, Missouri, had changed everything.

Five minutes later he was slipping onto the back of a bull named Outta Control. He hated that bull. It was part Mexican fighting bull and part insane. As he pulled his bull rope tight, wrapping it around his gloved hand, the bull jerked and snorted. The crazy animal obviously thought the eight seconds started before the gate opened.

Cody squeezed his knees against the animal’s heaving sides and hunched forward, preparing for the moment that the gate would open. Foam and slobber slung around his face as the bull bellowed and shook his mammoth head.

“This is crazy.” He muttered the words to no one in particular as he nodded his head and the gate flew open.

If he survived this ride, he was going back to Gibson, to his daughter and to Bailey. He would find a way to be a dad.

The fact that Cody’s RV was still in the drive the next morning meant nothing to Bailey. The problem was, his truck was there to. That meant he’d survived his ride and returned.

She didn’t know how to feel about Cody Jacobs keeping promises. Six years ago they’d been sitting around a campfire when he leaned over and whispered that he loved her. She had believed him. She had really thought they might have forever.

She wouldn’t be so quick to believe, not this time. This time she would protect her heart, and she would protect her daughter. Changed or not, Cody was a bull rider, and the lure of the world title would drag him back to the circuit, probably sooner than later.

“He got in at around midnight. He was walking straight but a little stooped.” Her dad had followed her to the porch. He pressed a cup of coffee into her hand.

“What were you doing up?”

“Praying, thinking and waiting to see if he’d come back.” Jerry Cross smiled.

“Nice, Dad. It sort of makes me feel like you’re plotting against me.”

“Not at all, cupcake.” He scooted past her and back to the kitchen. “Want me to feed this morning?”

“Nope, I’ll do it. I have to face him sooner or later.” She glanced over the rim of her cup and watched the dark RV. “You mind listening for Meg?”

“Honey, you know I don’t. And you know I don’t mind feeding.”

“It’s too hot. The humidity would…” Her heart ached with a word that used to be so easy.

“Don’t cry on me, pumpkin. And the humidity isn’t going to kill me.” He winked before he walked away.

Bailey prayed again, the silent prayer that had become constant. Please God, don’t take my dad. She knew what the doctors said, and she knew with her own eyes that he was failing fast. She didn’t know what she’d do without him in her life.

She drained her cup of coffee and walked out the back door. The RV in the drive was still dark and silent. The barn wasn’t. As she walked through the door, she heard music on the office radio and noises from the corral.

Cody turned and smiled when she walked out the open double doors on the far side of the barn. Her favorite mare was standing next to him, and he was running his hand over the animal’s bulging side.

That mare and the foal growing inside of her were the future hope of Bailey’s training and breeding program. If that little baby had half the class and durability of his daddy, the Rocking C would have a chance of surviving.

“Any day now.” Cody spoke softly, either to her or to the mare. She and the mare both knew that it would be any day.

“What are you doing here?”

He glanced up, his hat shading his eyes. “I told you I’d be back. I’m in it for the long haul, Bailey.”

“In what for the long haul?”

He shot her a disgusted look and sighed. “I’m a father. I might be coming into this a little late, but I want to be a part of Meg’s life.”

“So, you’ve gone from the guy who didn’t want to be tied down to the guy who is in fatherhood for the long haul?”

“When confronted with his mistakes, a guy can make a lot of changes.” He slid his hand down the mare’s misty-gray neck, but his gaze connected with Bailey’s. “I’m alive, and God gave me a second chance. I don’t take that lightly.”

“I see.” But she didn’t, not really.

Bailey walked back into the barn, knowing he followed. When she turned, she noticed that he wasn’t following at a very fast pace. The limp and slightly stooped posture said a lot.

“Take a fall last night?”

He grinned and shrugged muscular shoulders. “Not so much of a fall as a brush-off. This is what one might call ‘cowboy, meet gate—gate, meet cowboy.’ The bull did the introductions.”

“Anything broken?” Not that she cared.

“Just bruised.”

“Good, then you should be able to hitch that RV back to your truck and leave today.”

“Actually, no, I can’t. Funny, I’ve never really had a reason to stick before, but I like Missouri and so this isn’t such a bad thing. And the folks at the Hash-It-Out Diner all think you’re real pretty and a good catch.”

Bailey searched for something to throw at him, just about anything would work. She wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face. Especially when smug was accompanied by a wink and a dimpled smile.

“Cody, I don’t need this. You don’t understand what it’s like here and how long it took me to rebuild my reputation after that summer in Wyoming.”

He didn’t understand about going to church six months pregnant, knowing God forgave, but people weren’t as likely to let go of her mistake.

“I didn’t tell them who I am, or that I’m Meg’s dad.” He turned on the water hose as he spoke. “I think most of them have gotten over it, Bailey. Except maybe Hazel. Hazel has a daughter in Springfield who is a schoolteacher and a real good girl.”

Bailey groaned as she scooped out feed and emptied it into a bucket. Cody dragged the hose to the water trough just outside the back door. He left it and walked back inside.

“Yes, Maria is a good girl. I’ll introduce the two of you.” She managed a smile.

“Bailey, I was teasing.” Smelling like soap and coffee, he walked next to her. “This isn’t about us, or a relationship. This is about a child I didn’t know that I had. I’m not proposing marriage, and I’m not trying to move in. I want the chance to know my daughter.”

Bailey glanced in his direction before walking off with the bucket of grain and the scoop. She remembered that he had shown up for a purpose other than his daughter.

“Why did you come to apologize?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have thirty minutes before I need to leave for work.”

Cody took the bucket from her hand and started the job of dumping feed into the stalls. “You water, I’ll feed. And they told me you work three days a week at the Hash-It-Out.”

“Since Dad can’t work, we do what we can to make ends meet.” She didn’t tell him that the ends rarely met. “So, about you and this big apology.”

“Why can’t your dad work?”

“He has cancer.”

She couldn’t tell him that her dad had only months to live. Saying it made it too real. And she couldn’t make eye contact with Cody, not when she knew that his eyes would be soft with compassion.

“I’m sorry, Bailey.”

“We’re surviving.”

“It can’t be easy.”

Cody poured the last scoop of grain into the feed bucket of a horse she’d been working with for a few weeks.

“It isn’t easy.” She turned the water off and then finally looked at him. “But we’re doing our best.”

“Of course you are.” He sat down on an upturned bucket, absently rubbing his knee as he stared up at the wood plank ceiling overhead.

“Let’s talk about you, Cody. What happened?”

“Bailey, I’m an alcoholic. I started AA about seven months ago. I’ve been sober for six months.” He shrugged. “About five months ago I wrote out a list of people I had hurt, people that I needed to apologize to. You were at the top of the list.”

“I see. And how did this all start?”

“Apologizing, or realizing that I needed to grow up and make changes in my life?”

He smiled a crooked, one-sided smile that exposed a dimple in his left cheek. Bailey hadn’t forgotten that grin. She saw it every time Meg smiled at her. It reminded her of how it had felt to be special to someone like him. He had picked her wildflowers and taken her swimming in mountain lakes.

That moment in the sun had happened when her dad had been healthy and the farm had been prosperous. Their horses had been selling all across the country, and they’d had a good herd of Angus. Now she had five cows, two mares, no stallion and a few horses to train.

“What made you go to AA?”

“I turned thirty and realized I didn’t have a home and that I had a lot of blank spots in my memory. I was getting on bulls drunk.” He shrugged and half laughed. “I realized when I got trampled into the dirt back in Houston last winter.”

“I saw you on TV the night it happened.” She closed her eyes as the admission slipped out and then quickly covered her tracks. “I’ve always watched bull riding. Dad and I watch it together.”

“Gotcha.” He leaned back against the wall. “I guess one of the big reasons for changing was that I didn’t want to waste the rest of my life.”

“I’m glad you’re doing better.” It was all she could give him. She was glad he was sober and glad he was safe. “We’ll work something out so that you can get to know Meg.”

“Get to know her? Bailey, she’s my daughter and I want more than moments to ‘get to know her.’ I want to be a part of her life.”

“You can, when you’re in the area.”

“I made a decision last night.” He didn’t smile as he said the words. “I’m not leaving.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m staying in Gibson, Missouri.”

Bailey’s heart pounded hard and she shoved her trembling hands into the front pockets of her jeans. Dust danced on beams of sun that shot through the open doors of the barn, and country music filtered from the office. She had been here so many times and yet never like this, never as unsure as she was at that moment.

“What about the tour? You’re closer than ever to winning a world title.”

She knew what that meant to him. She knew how hard it was for bull riders to walk away from the pursuit of that title.

“Some things are more important. And if I choose to go back, bull riding will always be there.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“I’m going to park my RV under that big oak tree by your garage, and I am most certainly going to stay.”

“This is my home, my property, and I beg to differ.”

“And that’s my little girl you’ve got in that house, so I think you’ll get over it.”

Bailey sat down on the bucket he’d vacated, her legs weak and trembling. She looked up, making eye contact with a man she didn’t really know. He wasn’t the guy she’d met in Wyoming, the one who’d said he didn’t plan on ever having a family or being tied down to anyone. Back then she had thought finding the right woman to love would change him. Now she didn’t want him changed and living on her farm.

She had to get control. “Fine you can stay for a week, and then we’ll work something out.”

“I’m not leaving, not until I decide to go.”

“Cody, I don’t have time to argue with you.”

He shrugged, casually, but obviously determined. His mouth remained in a straight line, not smiling and not revealing that good-natured dimple.

“I’ve lost five years of my daughter’s life, Bailey. I’m not losing another day. Don’t take this personally, because I’m not trying to make it personal, but I’m not letting you call the shots. You’re not going to keep my daughter from me.”

Did it look that way to him? She hadn’t meant for that to happen. She had really thought he didn’t care, or wouldn’t care. He was in this life for a good time. Those had been his words the day he walked away from her.

People did change. He wasn’t the only one who needed to apologize.

“I’m sorry. I never meant to keep her from you.” She glanced down at her watch and groaned. “I have to go to work.”

“I’ll be here when you get home.”

Would he? She didn’t know how to deal with that thought. Of him in her life, and in her daughter’s life.

She had learned to rely on God and the knowledge that He would get her through whatever came her way. If she closed her eyes, she could think of a long list of whatevers. At the top of the list was losing her dad; then came being a single mom, and then the pile of bills that were growing as large as Mount Rushmore. God could get her through those things.

Now she had to worry about Cody and what his staying would mean. Would he try to gain custody of Meg, or visitation? Would he stay only long enough to prove that he had rights?

How would it feel if he walked away? She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t be hurt. This time it would be different because now the person who would be hurt was Meg.

Bailey wouldn’t let that happen.