Читать книгу Boot Scootin' Secret Baby - Natalie Patrick - Страница 9

Chapter One

Y‘all Come!

Summit County Rodeo Days Kickoff Celebration

Bar-B-Que

Yahoo Buckaroo Western Ranch and Rodeo

Museum

Home of legendary rodeo show people, Yip and

Dolly Cartwright

Cub Goodacre narrowed his eyes at the flyer taped in the grimy front window of the Summit City Feed and Grain. His gaze skimmed past the particulars of the event—he knew how to get to the ranch, knew the glorified “goat roast” raged from early afternoon until the big fireworks shebang just after dark. He also knew that the invitation, extended to any and all with a love of the rodeo and ten dollars to spare for a ticket, did not include him.

A fist seemed to grip at his heart and slowly it began to twist, tightening its searing hold with every beat For almost three years, he’d stayed clear of the Summit City Rodeo Days and the painful memories it evoked. Now fate and his long-left-empty dreams had dragged him right back here to the scene of his proudest triumph and greatest devastation.

He blew out a long puff of warm air through his nostrils. His gaze dropped to the caption below the photo in the center of the yellow paper.

“You bet your boots, I’ll be there, pardner!”

“Not me, kid,” he muttered to the pint-size cowboy wanna-be peeking from under a black hat. “So just keep your boo—”

He froze smack-dab in the middle of turning his back on his past and the invitation to ride hell-for-leather back into it.

My boots. His lips moved but no sound came. He leaned down to get a better look at the black leather and snakeskin boots they’d let some diaper desperado use as a plaything.

His boots. No doubt about it. He could tell they were his by the jagged notch in the right heel. He’d left those damaged boots behind the last time he’d left Summit City.

He set his jaw and clamped his hands on his hips. The cool fabric of his faded jeans chafed his legs as his senses pricked up. He inhaled the crisp fall air and glared at the boots until he almost expected to burn a hole in the paper.

This picture could be the work of only one person—the only person he’d trusted with his favorite boots, the same person he’d trusted with his heart. She’d kept both of them.

Her image flashed like heat lightning scoring through his thoughts. Despite the years and the world of hurt between them, he still pictured her as she looked on their first date. Her strawberry-blond hair, pulled back in a single thick braid, fell from the crown of her head to square between her shoulder blades. He could even see the faint freckles sprinkled over her blushing cheeks and the sincerity and adoration shining in her hazel eyes.

How quickly that adoration had hardened to accusation, he realized in one flickering moment. He hadn’t seen her face during their last, hateful argument, but he didn’t have to. He’d heard the depth of her disappointment with him, the anger he’d hoped to avoid by leaving as he did, coming full force through the telephone lines.

His blood pounded in his veins like the thundering hooves of a bull gone loco. Cub forced his gaze back to the taunting advertisement. His cheek ticked as he struggled to control any outward show of the wild rush of emotions spinning in his chest, fighting to kick free.

This poster, this picture, this personal hell of his were all the work of one woman—Alyssa Cartwright.

The fancy logo at the center bottom of the paper confirmed it. Crowder and Cartwright Western Management Company, with a local address.

This had to mean she still lived in Summit City—probably still lived under her parents’ roof, and under their thumb. And that meant she would probably show up at the rodeo.

I promise you this—I’m coming home to you, Alyssa Goodacre, coming home a success, worthy of a woman like you, or I ain’t comin‘ home at all. His own words jeered him from his callow past. He’d become a success by most men’s measure of the term, and now he’d finally come back to Alyssa’s home, but there was one thing he couldn’t claim. His time alone and a cruel trick of fate had taught him this: he was not now, nor could he likely ever be, worthy of the only woman he would ever ask to share his name. A man like him could only let her down and hurt her.

He hadn’t come back to Summit City to prove something to Alyssa, though that dream had died hard. He’d come here now to prove something to himself.

Cub thought of the two rides he had remaining before he walked away from the rodeo forever—provided he could still walk by then. He shifted his weight to his right hip, then winced at the lingering pain from his last punishing ride. Two rides, win or lose, stood between him and walking away from bull riding like a man. If he didn’t make those rides, he’d feel like a total failure. He’d failed as a son, as a protector, a champion, and a husband; he would not fail at the one thing he did right and that meant making those two rides.

Two rides. And Alyssa was going to be in the stands watching his next one.

How the hell was he supposed to concentrate with that on his mind and all these feelings he’d thought he’d buried churning up in his gut?

He couldn’t.

So, he had just ten days to either get that gal out of his system or buffalo her into avoiding the rodeo on the night he rode. That meant that one way or another he had to see his ex-wife—and he’d prefer to do it on his own terms. But how?

“Cub?”

The sound of his name shot through his cluttered thoughts, making him flinch. Jerking his head around, he found a young girl standing beside him on the sidewalk.

She smiled, cocking her head so that her stark yellow hair swung down to brush over her equally artificial-looking cleavage.

He racked his brain to think how he could know this pretty young thing. He’d had his wild days, for sure. His “every good ride deserves another” philosophy defined many a post-rodeo celebration. However, from the moment he’d laid eyes on Alyssa to this day he’d never done more than collect his winnings and drive on to the next rodeo—or back to see her, when they’d dated.

The brilliant sun warmed the broad back of his dark shirt. He searched his memory for any trace of this girl’s face but only one woman’s face had ever been etched in his being. Carved with a knife that cut so deep the scars would never heal, he thought, fighting down his gut response.

He forced his attention back to the breathless blonde. From the looks of her now, this girl couldn’t have been more than a teen in his own carousing days. And that was one line Cub didn’t cross.

On his own since he was sixteen, he knew how easily a young person, hungry for love and acceptance, might latch onto someone older, longing to connect for a week, a day, even an hour, just to pretend he belonged, that someone gave a damn about him. But the people hanging on the fringe of the rodeo cared only for themselves and the next good time; he had learned that the hard way himself with an older version of this gal.

He half winced at the anxious girl waiting so close that he could hear the rasp of her shirt against his sleeve with every heave of her breasts. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall meeting—”

“Oh, you don’t know me.” Her words rushed out like a brook undammed. “I’m a real big fan of yours. I recognized you by your hat.”

He touched his thumb and forefinger to the brim of his trademark hat. He’d spent his first prize money to have one like it custom-made in Austin, Texas—cattleman’s crown, Aussie brim—the kind that dipped down in front to always shade his eyes. He still had them made there, always in a deep smoked brown with a thin braided leather band, its ends hanging off the back just enough to whip in the air when he rode a killer bull.

“I was so excited when I heard you’d be riding here, especially since you haven’t ridden here in a while,” the girl gushed on. “But I knew you’d show up here to ride Diablo’s Heartbreak.”

At the mention of the bull he’d been dueling all season, Cub’s lips twitched into what passed for him as a smile. “Sounds like you are a fan.”

“How could I not be? I mean it’s so exciting how you and Diablo’s Heartbreak have been battling it out. One ride you show him who’s boss and the next he tosses you right on—”

“My assessment differs somewhat, ma’am. But I get your point.” He nodded his head, his jaw tight at the reminder that he had yet to really best the beast. “Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got unfinished business to attend to.”

“Oh.” She blinked as though she’d expected more. “Um, well, um, could you...could you sign this?”

He half expected her to offer her breast for his signature but when he glanced down he saw a flyer, just like the one in the window, and a pen thrust out toward him. He took the page and carefully lettered his name in his blocky penmanship that some cowboy once said looked like it had been spelled out with western cattle brands instead of written by a man.

“There.” He handed the flyer back to the woman, who clearly was not pleased.

Well, that was his lot in life—letting women down. He hadn’t been able to save his own mother from a life with an abusive no-account husband. He hadn’t saved his first lover from her self-destructive ways as a rodeo groupie. He’d meant to do better by Alyssa, thinking he’d spend his life sheltering and protecting her from the unpleasantness of the world, and he’d ended up letting her down, too.

The sun glared off the yellow paper as the woman dangled the flyer between them again. “I was thinking you could put the name of your hotel—”

He pointed at the flyer still snapping in the breeze. “Where did you get that?”

“They have stacks of them in the feed store.” She pointed with her thumb. “But, I thought maybe—”

“I know what you thought, darlin’ and I’m flattered,” he lied. In truth, he’d hardly heard a word she’d said and he didn’t give a damn anyway. Let her find some other cowboy’s buckle to polish. Or better yet... “Why don’t you find some local rancher to take care of you, darlin’, and not waste your time chasin’ after cowboys who won’t be here for you tomorrow?”

Her mouth gaped open in outrage. A sharp gasp expressed her fury with his suggestion.

He shrugged. “Well, do what you will. Like I said, I got unfinished business. Afternoon, ma’am.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode straight into the Feed and Grain to get himself one of the flyers that was going to be the undoing of Miss Alyssa Cartwright.

Ka-pow!

Gold, glittering sparks shimmered in the dusky sky. Alyssa tipped her head up, her lips rounded to join the crowd in one collective “Ooooh.”

It had been a great day, a perfect beginning to a terrific new life. She’d given out dozens of business cards and set up meetings with several potential clients. Through it all, she’d been charming, confident and professional, and had still gotten in some quality time with her daughter, who was now on the grandstand with her grandparents enjoying the show.

She shook back her hair, pleased with her new haircut and the way the glossy layers made her feel sassy and sexy for the first time since—

No. She’d promised herself she wasn’t going to think about Cub. This whole day had just gone too well for her to start dwelling on past failures, past mistakes.

A shrieking whistle pierced her stomach-clenching thoughts.

High, high up into the ever-darkening sky a rocket soared, casting a radiant yellow light on the upturned heads of the gathered guests. Across that sea of awestruck faces, someone was not focused on the sizzling light show overhead. Before the fiery blossom fizzled and sent spirals of white vapor plummeting downward, Alyssa caught a glimpse of movement. That one glimpse chilled her to her soul.

A hat, smoked brown, with a cattleman’s crown and Aussie brim—she’d swear she saw it. Her pulse thudded in her ears like a string of firecrackers exploding inside a metal drum. She strained to peer into the dimness, into the murmuring mass of people, but saw nothing. Had she imagined it?

She twisted one finger in her hair but the new cut refused to wind around and only lapped at her circling knuckle. With one deep breath, she squared her shoulders. Exhaling slowly, she patted her hands down her beige linen shortsuit as if needing a physical reminder that this was the new Alyssa Cartwright and she was totally in control.

Pheee-ueew! Another rocket whizzed skyward.

You’re imagining things, she told herself then trained her gaze on the brilliant red fireworks display. She gritted her teeth to keep from scanning the newly lit crowd once more in search of something logic told her she would not find. She tried to breathe steadily but the very air she dragged into her lungs felt the consistency of muddy water—and about as appealing. She tried to swallow. She tried to keep her eyes on the sky. Tried and failed.

“Aaahhh.” The crowd welcomed the next spate of flickering colors.

Alyssa turned and searched desperately for Cub Goodacre’s trademark hat with the anticipation of a shipwrecked sailor waiting for the shark’s fin to appear.

There. She saw it and then the outline of the wearer. It was Cub—and he was headed straight for her. In fact, he looked as if he would reach her any—

The light above faded, putting the whole scene in a blue-black shroud again.

Her pulse hammering, Alyssa turned on the heel of her ballerina flat. She had to get out of here. Yes, she had wanted him to come back, but not like this, just showing up. She needed more time. She needed to prepare herself. She needed to get out of there before he got to her.

“Excuse me,” she repeated again and again as she picked her way toward the house and safety.

Pop. Pop-pop. Pop-pop-pop.

Alyssa nearly leapt out of her skin with every earsplitting snap but she forged ahead. On the steps of the huge white house that looked a tacky tribute to Tara, Graceland, God and country, she relaxed enough to take one last glance back at the crowd.

No hat. No circling shark. She blinked.

A fountain of red and blue sparks shot upward, illuminating the view from the ground up.

No Cub Goodacre.

She exhaled and in doing so realized she’d held her breath so long and so hard, her chest actually ached to release it. How could she have let her mind play tricks on her like that?

Fear of failure, clear and simple, she decided. She had had her first taste of success today, known that this time she wasn’t going to crash and burn like she had in her last attempt to stand on her own. Then what should leap up and try to scare her into behaving like the old Alyssa? Only the image of her greatest failure as a daughter, a wife, and an independent woman—Cub Goodacre.

The very idea was laughable, really. Cub, here. On her parents’ ranch after three years without so much as a “Fare thee well or go to hell.”

She forced a chuckle through her dry throat, shook her head and turned to go inside.

Pshhheeeuw! Boom. Bang. Bang. A blaze of colors bloomed like enormous flaming parachutes opening against the star-strewn sky, bathing the scene below in a red and yellow glow.

Pppt...Pppt...Pppt...

“Hello, Alyssa.”

Pow!

“Cub!”

Alyssa shut her eyes, half hoping the mirage would fade.

Red shone against her lids with another burst above her. Even so, she could still see the image of a man in faded jeans so perfectly snug they could have grown over his lean thighs and tight calves instead of being bought from a rack. She saw in tantalizing detail the denim shirt, tailored to fit against the rock-hard torso tapering upward to shoulders so broad they made a woman lose herself in sweet dreams of safety and security—and lovemaking as wild as any bull ride.

She could even see the scar that trailed along his jaw to just under his chin. An old rodeo injury had given him that little souvenir, the damage leaving his voice perpetually husky, so that even when he asked someone to pass the sugar, it sounded like an indecent proposal.

She laid her palm across the open V above her breasts. Her skin felt damp. Her head swirled. No mere mirage could make her feel this way.

Slowly, she opened her eyes. He loomed real and dangerously sexy before her. Cub Goodacre was here in the flesh.

Glistening golden and tinged with red light, he stood on her doorstep. He pulled his hat from his head and pushed his long, blunt fingers through his closely cropped black hair. “Looks like a perfect night for a few fireworks, wouldn’t you say?”

After three years, he’d hardly changed at all. His body still looked as hard and exquisite as any marble statue, his face rough-hewn as any jagged piece of South Dakota Badlands. The glittering sparks reflected in the depths of his ice-blue eyes, made them seem bottomless and cold—yet lit by some distant incandescent fire.

She didn’t need to look long into those eyes to know that he was angry. Good, she thought, she was angry, too. She had three years of anger and disappointment and pain in her. If he expected to let her have it for what she’d done to him, well, he’d get as good as he gave—and then some.

This wasn’t the old Alyssa he was dealing with now. This was Alyssa the strong independent thinker. Alyssa the savvy, charming businesswoman. Alyssa the mother.

Her stomach lurched. Jaycie. She whipped her head around to make sure the baby remained in Yip Cartwright’s capable grasp before she turned to Cub again. The best defense is a good offense, she told herself, going on attack.

“You have some nerve showing up here, Goodacre.” She planted her hands on her hips, hoping her moist palms would not stain her linen outfit and give her nervousness away. “I’d ask you what you wanted but that might give you the impression I give a damn.”

He had no answer for that. Clearly, he hadn’t reckoned on meeting up with anything but the docile, doting girl she had once been. He studied her from beneath the sharp angles of his dark eyebrows.

Taking advantage of his hesitation, she decided to make a hasty retreat. Yes, she would have to see him sometime, and she would have to find a way to tell him about their child, but not here, not now. She lunged for the door but as her hand closed over the big brass door handle, Cub closed in on her.

The heat of his body pressed down over her. Her racing heart stilled as a shudder crept up her spine. The fervor of the crowd and the rumblings of the fireworks faded in her ears; her entire world narrowed to just this moment, just this man.

“Whoa there, Alyssa Cartwright.”

She tensed at the name, his veiled accusation of her betrayal in proclaiming their marriage a fraud. His callused palm closed over the soft skin of her hand, stopping her from opening the door.

“I didn’t come out here to be treated to a view of your backside.” Cub’s chest rose and fell. The scent of her hair, her skin, her nearness filled his lungs and his very being. He held it trapped inside him as he fought to keep his cool exterior. He clenched his jaw and lowered his voice to a rasping, bedroom growl. “Not that I don’t thoroughly enjoy the view.”

It was no lie. The sight of Alyssa again startled his senses in ways he hadn’t thought possible. Her hair, her eyes, her willowy body aged into womanhood with a fullness and rounding like ripe fruit about to burst from its skin, all tempted him. He had no way to prepare himself for the reality of seeing her again, of being so close neither of them could move or even breathe without the other feeling it.

He had no way of preparing himself for the woman he now saw, full of grit and a grace under pressure he hadn’t suspected lurked beneath the blushing sweetness of her innocence. A woman who, it seemed, had no other response to him but scorn.

Something primal in him wanted to make her pay for that—not to hurt her, but to put things on equal footing between them.

“Listen, Goodacre.” She tossed back her hair, keeping her face forward. “One scream from me and you’re off this ranch on the next skyrocket.”

“Ain’t scared of that,” he murmured into the thick warmth of her hair. “I’ve ridden hotter things. Ridden ’em hard and fast, till I reckoned we’d both of us burn up from the heat and fury.”

He heard her pulling in a long, soft gasp and he smiled.

“Remember, Alyssa?”

Her spine went rigid. She turned her profile to him, her voice as dry as sparks when a knife scrapes flint, her words sharpened by her strangled emotion. “I remember, Cub. I also remember thinking I’d nearly drown in my own tears when I realized that for all its fire, that passion had only been a convenient lie.”

He should have seen that one coming, but he hadn’t. He knew she’d used his going back on the circuit to get herself an annulment—marriage under false pretenses, she said. But until this moment, he hadn’t understood that she thought that meant nothing they’d shared had been true or valid. The realization stuck low in his gut and sent searing pain through his entire body. A lie—that’s how she summed up what, for him, had been the pivotal experience of his life.

“I...I can’t have this discussion with you now,” she said.

The pleading in her tone, joined with the stark devastation he felt at learning how the woman who held his heart saw him, made him step back.

A liar. He’d been called worse but it had never sliced into his soul as Alyssa’s accusation did.

The lever of the door handle clicked quietly.

Somewhere behind them a band blared to accompany the frenzied finale to the fireworks show.

She pushed the door open. “Call the house tomorrow and maybe we can set up a time to talk.”

“No.”

“What?” For the first time, she turned to face him.

He forced his gaze to lock with hers. Don’t back down now, he told himself. He’d come here for a reason, to purge her from his system or at least ensure she wouldn’t be there to jinx his all-important next ride. Despite the pain just standing here caused him, he wasn’t about to go with that mission left unaccomplished. “We both know a busted-up bull rider like me ain’t good enough to be husband nor lover to a woman like you. No reason to pretend otherwise.”

Something flickered in the liquid pools of her hazel eyes. Her gaze denied his words but her lips did not.

He nodded and glanced down at his hat in his hand. “But I won’t be dismissed by you Alyssa. Not this time.”

“I never dismissed you.”

“No, you just had me annulled.”

Her straight white teeth sank into the glistening flesh of her lower lip. He kind of got the notion she wanted to say something, but didn’t have the courage.

Guess that meant she did need him, after all; she needed him to keep her from saying something her eyes told him she might regret. “You recall the last words you said to me, darlin’?”

She tilted her chin up but said nothing.

“You said, ‘If you can’t accept my help to support a ranch, then we aren’t partners. If we aren’t partners, then in my eyes we aren’t married and we never were. From this day out, you are not my husband, Cub Goodacre.”’

Alyssa’s gaze never faltered, though her voice did tremble as she said, “And do you recall your last words to me?”

“You know I do,” he forced the words hard through his teeth.

“You said you’d come home to me when you’d proved yourself worthy.” Moisture shimmered in her eyes but not a single tear fell, as if she willed them not to betray her. “If that’s why you’re here now, Cub, I have to tell you, too much has happened since you left. It’s too late.”

That’s exactly what he had wanted to hear. Why, then, did it rip at his heart so? His mind unable to settle on any one response, he pressed his fingers to the crown of his hat. The paper tucked inside crackled, drawing him back to his purpose and providing him something to focus on.

“I came because of this, Alyssa.” He reached inside the inner brim of his hat and withdrew the yellow paper he’d taken from the feed store. He pushed his hat down on his head, glad to have the brim dipped over his eyes again. He didn’t want to accidentally reveal anything to a woman who thought so little of him.

Slowly, he began to unfold the single page.

Alyssa’s peaches-and-cream face went pale. She studied the flyer as though she’d never seen it before—or maybe as if she had seen it and it somehow contained her greatest secret come back to haunt her.

He gave the flyer one firm shake, playing it up big for her sake. One corner of the page lifted and Cub shook it again to put the picture side to her instead of the blank side.

He shifted his hips, using the pain that movement caused to add substance to his voice when he thrust the photo of his boots in her face and said, “I came because when I saw this I realized that you have something that belongs to me.”