Falling For A Cowboy (10 page)

And she still had every one.
Stuffed in a gray plastic tub in her closet.
“
I thought he was just trying to make up for not being here.
”

“
Suppose he was and it was a nice way to do it. Listen here
,
young lady
.
”
She
cocked her head and looked at Dusty from the corner of her eye
.
“
L
ife isn
’
t always the stuff of a TV sitcom
.
Few of us are lucky
enough
to have a Brady Bunch life
.
Some
husbands
are off fighting in Iraq
.
Some men have sales jobs that cause them to be away from home weeks on end
.
What about the guys who pilot planes?
Then there are some people who opt for those commuter marriages and make them work
.
What your father did wasn
’
t much different
.
That
’
s how he earned his living and he was darn good at it
.
He got to the NFR five times. Not many can say that even if he never won the gold buckle
.
Those years were good years for us.
”

“
But
when he got hurt?
T
h
e
punctured lung
…
”
She
’
d never
for
get th
e
image
of him lying
still as the bull rammed him again and again.

“
What happened that day
was hard to witness, I
’
ll give you that
.
I knew it traumatized you at the time
,
but I
’
d have
thought you
’
d
have
gotten through it. Honey, if he hadn
’
t gotten that punctured lung, they would have never found the cancer
until it was over
.
Cigarettes did your father
in
, not the rodeo
.
In a strange way that punctured lung was a blessing
.
After he learned the truth, he gave up the rodeo and spent his remaining time, short as it was, with us. He
might
have never known until
the very end
.
”
She dabbed
her eyes with
the apron again
, her mouth set in a tight line,
as if
trying to hold back the tears.

“
Mama, I didn
’
t mean to make you cry by talking of it.
”
She felt the ache in her own heart.

“
I still miss him
.
There is nothing like the love of a good man
.
Maybe that
’
s why I travel so much in the summer
.
Trying to find
another
one?
”
S
he gave a short laugh.
“
It hurts more to think you
’
ve
been upset with
him all these years for not being here when that was the one thing about his life he regretted
.
Especially when he knew about the cancer
.
You always think you
’
ll have time to make it all right
.
But time ran out for him.
”

Dusty
rubbed her
hands over her face.
T
he smell of beer was still on them
.
They hadn
’
t talked about her father in such a long time she hadn
’
t
known
how much she
’
d
needed to
.
“
I
guess that
’
s why he tried to get me into barrel racing
.
After he died, I realized he knew
he had cancer
and I
resented that
he spent his last days trying to make me into a rodeo
contestant
.
”

Her mother drummed her fingers on the table
“
You had talent
.
He was trying to pass on what he could to you before it was too late.
”
She leaned
in to
place her hand over
Dusty
’
s
.
Her hand
wasn
’
t smooth and soft
.
It was rough and
dry
and cold
.
Her hands told of a hard life
—a
life Dusty had never thought was a happy one.
She
’
d been wrong.
A knot pulled in her stomach.

“
Dusty,
your father
never was much for book learning. He wasn
’
t a philosophical man
.
But he had a good heart and he knew horses
.
He said more than once
that
he couldn
’
t leave you much but he wanted to leave you with something from him.
Something you
’
d carry with you.
His knowledge about b
arrel racing and cutting horses was it. Afterward, I just assumed you didn
’
t pursue it because it brought back painful memories
.
Memories of him.
”

Tears burned at the back of her eyes as the image of her father
rose in her mind
, t
hin and weak
in those last weeks
.
She remembered the lessons
and
spending time together after years of being apart
.
Lessons
about
reining the horse,
changing
lead
s
, getting
close without clipping a barrel
,
and
judging a horse
’
s willingness to win.

“
That was the reason
, Mama
.
”
Her throat felt like it was closing up.
“
But instead of being
grateful for the time, I guess I
’
ve been angry that he
’
d wanted me to pursue the one thing that had taken him away from me.
”

She
patted
Dusty
’
s
hand
.
“
Oh
,
honey
.
You have to forgive him
that
.
You were the dearest thing in his life
.
He did all of that
rodeoing
for you, not for himself
.
He was desperate to give you what the
Parker
girls had and the
Murphys
and all the other good people of
Langley
.
But with just a high school education and no
t enough
drill work, he went to something he could do and do well
.
And something he loved. I never thought that was terrible
.
”

Had she been the cause of his traveling?
T
ears trickle
d
down
Dusty
’
s
face.

Her mother rub
bed
Dusty
’
s
back the way she
’
d done countless times before to make things better.
“
You
’
ve got to forgive him,
Dusty
.
He was a good man
.
He did the best he knew how
.
And he loved you so much.
”

Dusty
swiped at a tear
with the back of her hand
.
“
And I loved him
.
I think maybe if he hadn
’
t been such a good father when he was around
,
I wouldn
’
t have missed him so much
.
Wouldn
’
t have resented his going.
”

Deidre
’
s
hand traveled
up
and down
Dusty
’
s
arm
, providing a trail of reassurance
.
“
I never thought you had taken his being away so hard, honey
.
He loved you so much. He worried at the end that you
’
d forget him.
”

Dusty buried her head in her mother
’
s chest
as the tears came
.
She didn
’
t hold them back like she
’
d struggled to
so many times before
. She let them flow,
hoping they
’
d t
ake away the bitterness. Maybe
it was time to
a
ccord her father what he deserved
,
the only things she wanted to feel for him
.
L
ove and admiration.

* * *

The knock startled her
.
Whitey
jumped off her lap and raced
toward the door
, yipping at the top of his little lungs
.
It
w
as Friday night and she
’
d had
a
long week
.
Besides the work at the
Hanover
’
s Sweet Water
ranch
,
she
’
d had her interview yesterday
.
It had gone reasonably well
,
but she was still recovering from it and the drive
.
With her
mom
gone on a
long holiday
with another schoolteacher to the Grand Canyon, she was looking forward to some welcome solitude.
She just wanted to curl up with
the new western romance she
’
d
bought
and forget about the rest of the world. Forget about two
rodeo
cowboys
and read about the
gunslingers
of the Old West
.

She looked down at her sweats and
fingered
her messy hair.
If
Tara
Lynn
was here
to
take her to
the B
eehive
, she
’
d be disappointed
. Dusty
padded to the front door
in bare feet
.
Whitey was in full voice, jumping up and down to beat the band.

“
Quiet,
”
she said not forcefully enough to deter the dog from what he clearly felt was his duty
.
She scooped
him
up
and he
kept barking.
Though Whitey was
mainly
a companion dog, she was grateful for his protective nature when she was
alone
in the house
.
She peered out the side window
.
H
er heart took an extra beat
,
sending a wave
of
heat careening through her belly.