Boot Scootin' Secret Baby. Natalie Patrick
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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