Читать книгу A Cowboy's Pride - Pamela Britton - Страница 13

Chapter Four

He wanted to kill his mother.

Anderson men don’t shy away from anything.

Yeah, well, none of the Anderson men had ever been paralyzed from the waist down. Okay, okay...not entirely paralyzed. He still had partial feeling in his thighs. And some feeling in his lower extremities, too, but it was spotty at best, and it had spelled the end of his rodeo career.

Still, though he tried to banish the words, he found himself wondering how many times he’d heard them over the years. First when he was little and in the mutton-busting events, then later when he’d decided to try bull riding. He closed his eyes, his hands aching he held them so tightly clenched. Back then, he’d been scared. Hell, if you weren’t scared of riding a bull, you had no business riding them. His father used to tell him that, too.

When he opened his eyes, his mouth tightened into a mirthless smile.

And the bitch of it, the thing that should make him laugh right now, was that he hadn’t been maimed by a bull. No. He’d been ruined by a worthless piece of shit with four DUIs. A man who’d been so drunk, he’d walked away from the wreck without a scratch on him while he’d barely escaped with his life, and Dustin...

He closed his eyes again. Dear God, he didn’t want to think about Dustin.

“We have a mounting block for people with disabilities over there.”

His eyes sprang open. Alana stared down at him...and was it his imagination? Or had that pretty blue gaze softened? She caught a glimpse of his hands again, and Trent unclenched them instantly. The only limbs that still functioned without a problem: his hands and arms.

“I can help you mount,” she added. And, yes, her eyes had definitely lost their edge.

“I can do it myself.” He gritted his teeth.

“Okay.” She stepped back.

He jammed his cowboy hat down on his head in determination. But as he turned toward the ramp, he almost balked when he caught sight of the saddle again. It was ridiculous. Like a bar stool built into the back of a horse. It was even padded with red leather like a stupid stool.

He pushed his chair forward. What would they do? Strap him in as if he was some kind of felon?

Every inch he traveled, every second that passed, his wheels turned slower and slower until, at long last, he stopped at the base of the ramp, staring at the horse with mutiny in his heart.

“Are you sure you don’t want some help?” he heard the teenager ask. He bit back an immediate retort, words that he knew would be colored by irritation.

“No.”

The ramp didn’t concern him. It was getting on the horse. He’d be damned if he asked for any help, not with that woman watching his every move. Cabe had led the bay gelding between some parallel bars with a platform built up next to them, the bars holding the animal in place.

For special-needs people...like him.

The sickness returned, the same woozy feeling he’d gotten when he’d woken up in the hospital and tried to slip from the bed...only to find he couldn’t move his legs.

Anderson men don’t shy away from anything.

His chest expanded as he took increasingly deeper and deeper breaths. The ramp was grooved to allow for tire traction, and at such a gentle incline he doubted anyone would have issues. Still, he felt the muscles tighten in his arms, felt his breath begin to labor as he shoved his wheels forward. His heart pounded. His mouth had gone dry, too, but damned if he let that woman see how he struggled.

He made it to the top in seconds, expertly spinning his chair to face the horse and the ridiculous saddle. The deck was at the perfect level, the saddle sitting waist high. It should be a simple matter to pull up alongside the animal then lift himself on the horse’s back, just like he did getting into a chair.

Then why did it seem as if he were about to lift weights, his breath whistling past his lips, every muscle in his shoulders strung as tight as a guide wire?

Just lift and swing.

Onto a horse!

A terrified yell, that’s what the words sounded like in his skull, a litany of other words pounding between his ears.

You haven’t been on a horse since the accident. No horse is completely trustworthy. What if it moves? What if you fall?

This is a bad idea.

But he would not, under any circumstances, back away from the challenge his mother’s words had evoked. And so he rolled his chair as close to the saddle as he could, glancing at the bay gelding. The horse didn’t look one iota interested. In fact, it had its head down, its lower lip hanging...as if it were asleep.

See that, Trent, they put you on the old nag. A horse you wouldn’t be caught dead riding a year ago.

He trembled, yes, trembled in anger at the whole situation, at his life, at the fact he felt goaded into doing this, that he was even here, at this ranch, when all he wanted to do was be back home in Colorado. Still, he reached for the saddle, slowly testing his weight on the padded seat as he prepared to slip from his chair to the horse’s back.

The horse didn’t move.

Quickly, before he could think better of it, he shifted from his wheelchair to the saddle, sitting sideways for a moment before using his hands to lift his right leg and somehow managing to get it swung over the saddle’s horn, the limb, like his left leg, dropping like an anchor.

“Good job,” the girl cried.

He was on a horse, could actually feel the saddle beneath his butt. He tried clenching his thighs, but he only had marginal feeling in them. Still, it might be enough to hold on...if he clenched hard enough.

“Well done,” Cabe echoed.

On a horse for the first time in almost a year. On a horse that hadn’t moved an inch and that seemed to realize he was a damn useless human being. His breath hitched as he inhaled, his eyes suddenly burning hot.

Don’t you dare blubber.

He closed his eyes, waited a few breaths, then opened them again.

He wasn’t useless. He would find something to do. Anything had to be better than staring at four walls.

Feeling sorry for yourself.

When he opened his eyes again, Cabe was staring up at him, but another person was by his side. Alana stood there, too, and she was smiling, her own eyes rimmed with tears.

“Congratulations,” she said softly. “You’re back on.”

If she’d been hoping to lift his spirits, her words had the opposite effect. “I might be back on, but I still can’t ride.”

His words came out like a death ray, melting her pretty little smile.

“Not yet.” She glanced at Cabe. “Not yet.” She appeared to take a deep breath. “We usually walk on either side of our guests when they ride for the first time. Did you need us to do that?”

Like he was some kind of toddler on a pony ride? “No.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

Alana mounted her own horse less than ten minutes later, but you’d have thought they had just secured Trent Anderson to a medieval torture device, so loudly did he protest. The man still grumbled under his breath.

“Okay, let’s go,” Cabe said, swinging up onto his own horse.

“This is ridiculous,” she heard Trent say. “I can hold on. You didn’t need to strap me into this thing.”

She risked glancing in his direction, although she sensed if he caught her staring, he wouldn’t be pleased. The man seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her. Well, the feeling was mutual, never mind how good-looking he was.

“It’s for your own safety,” Rana said. “Even though you might feel capable of balancing in the saddle, we can’t risk you falling off, especially since you don’t want us to spot you while you’re riding.” She grinned at him. “Try and use your leg to kick Baylor forward.”

“I’m a paraplegic,” Trent shouted right back. “How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

To give Rana credit, she didn’t let his words faze her. “You’re a partial paraplegic.”

Alana almost smiled. The girl sounded forty, not fourteen.

“Your horse responds to hip movement,” Rana added. “A portion of your thighs still work, so use them. Pretend you’re kicking. It’ll move your hips, which will cue Baylor forward.”

“No, it won’t.”

“Yes, it will. I know. I was once a paraplegic, too, a full paraplegic, so don’t tell me what you can and cannot do.”

Way to go, Rana, Alana thought. Don’t let him push you around. She shifted her gaze to Trent. The look on his face was priceless.

“You had a spinal injury?” he asked.

Cabe kicked his horse forward then. “Didn’t you know? That’s how we got into this gig.”

No, he hadn’t been told. Alana could see that. So what was the guy doing here? From what Cabe had told her, this was supposedly some kind of last resort, but he clearly didn’t want anything to do with therapy.

It was her turn to nudge her horse forward. “It’s time you rejoined the land of the living, Trent.” She met his gaze head on. “So either kick that horse forward, or get left behind.”

She gave Cabe and Rana a look, one that clearly said to follow her lead. They did.

“Hey,” she heard Trent call out.

Rana went so far as to kick her horse into a lope, Cabe following suit. Alana didn’t glance back.

“Hey!”

Keep riding, Alana.

“Don’t you dare leave me here.”

Reluctantly, she pulled on the reins, but only because she’d caught the edge of panic to his voice. But when she turned back, the man wasn’t even looking at her. Rage had him contorting atop that horse like a Jedi Knight trying to use the force. Alana almost laughed, although there was nothing funny about the situation.

“Use your hips,” she called out.

He could move them. Patients with an L2-S5 injury had movement through the pelvis. Some even had moderate to mild use of their limbs below the waist—like Trent. But the man acted as if he were a quadriplegic.

“Try pretending you’re scooting a chair forward.”

Miracle of miracles, the man finally listened, his hips thrusting so forcefully, it was a good thing they’d strapped him in. He’d have toppled forward otherwise.

The horse moved.

“There you go.”

He did it again. Baylor took another step. Alana turned her horse toward the pasture.

But when she caught up with everyone at the pasture gate, Alana turned back in time to watch Trent thrust his hips forward like he had a hula hoop around his legs and not a horse between them. Baylor ambled along, the animal’s head low to the ground, legs slowly moving in tune with Trent’s hips.

“Good thing we didn’t just rob a bank,” Alana quipped.

Cabe smiled at her. “You know, you were pretty hard on the man.”

She slouched in the saddle.

“That’s not like you.”

No. It wasn’t.

“Doesn’t have anything to do with how good-looking he is, does it?”

Alana glanced around quickly for Rana. She was out of hearing range, on the other side of the fence, holding open the gate for them all. “I’m not even going to answer that question.” She clucked her horse forward.

“I’ve heard the buckle bunnies talking,” Cabe said as he rode alongside her.

She had, too.

And that was exactly why she wanted no part of the man. He might be done with rodeo, but she had a feeling rodeo wouldn’t be done with him. Men in his position usually went to work for the Professional Rodeo Association in some capacity. He’d be on the road 24/7, not exactly boyfriend material. Besides, she would never leave Rana. Never. The girl had already lost enough people in her young life.

Boyfriend?

“I’m not interested in Trent Anderson,” she told Cabe. “So you can get that idea right out of your head.”

Cabe just shrugged. “If you say so.”

“I say so,” she firmly told him.

She just wished she believed her own words.