Ride Me Cowboy #3 (The Cowboy Romance Series - Book #3) (5 page)

“Aw, well that’s nice anyways for her. What about
your step-dad, how is he? Do you like him?”

I thought about Mark and what he said about Rob
kicking him
out
. I was still mad at Rob, although I
was mad at Mark. I think a lot of it was transference because of my own
situation.

“He seems nice. He’s a little moody, I guess…but
he’s been nice to me.”

“That’s good.
Any hot cowboys on
the ranch besides the brother?
Maybe you need to hook up! That always
makes me feel better.” she giggled.
If
she only knew, what would she think of me?
I couldn’t seem to quit thinking
about Mark.

“Um…no, not really.
The ranch hands are all older.
Nice, but way older.

“Lexi, you don’t sound good, girl. Maybe I should
come out there and visit with you for a while. I miss you too.”

Definitely not a good idea.
She would see right through
me and Mark
. Samantha and
I had been friends since we were little girls. “No thank you, Samantha. You
have work and all of that. I don’t want to disrupt your whole life because I’m
in a funk. Maybe next weekend I’ll come back to the city and we can see a movie
or have dinner or something. We’ll make a day or a night of it…whatever you
want.”

“Okay. Hang in there It’s only for the summer. Oh
hey! There’s a new club opening this next week…”

“I don’t know if I’m up for the club scene, but I’ll
keep in touch and we’ll do something, I promise.
Like
I said, it’s not all bad. I just miss home. Talking to you helped. It always
does. How are you and Lance doing?” That did the trick to get the subject
changed. She switched tracks quickly and started talking about Lance, her
boyfriend. She started dating him about three months ago. He’s some kind of
event promoter and I’ve always found him a little bit arrogant…but she likes
him and he makes her happy so I guess that’s what matters. I worry about her
because she usually picks the super good-looking or the super-smart or the
super-rich and somehow they leave her feeling less than what she is…wonderful.

She launched into a blow by blow account of their
trip to San Diego last weekend and how Lance can surf and he
can
water ski and he can…do everything! I’m sure that’s what he tells her anyways.
Poor Samantha has worse luck with men than I do. Mine are usually just clingy
and annoying. Some of hers have actually gotten abusive with her…mostly
verbally, but that’s still abuse. Right now was the honeymoon phase for them.
She hadn’t noticed anything bad about him yet. I would keep my fingers crossed
that this time there was nothing bad to see.

I zoned out as she went on and on and said, “Mm
hmm,” and “Uh huh,” at what I hoped were appropriate times…it was just nice to
hear a voice from home and to talk about familiar things.

After I hung up with Samantha, I had just lain back
down on the bed when there was a knock on the door. It was the hall door, so I
suspected it was Mom and not Mark
.
 
I sat up and swiped at my face. I still
hadn’t thought of any reason I’d been crying. “Come in!”

Mom came in, took one look at my face and said,
“What is it, honey?”

I smiled. She’s so sweet. “Nothing Mom, I’m fine.”

“You were upset when you came in from outside. I saw
tears in your eyes honey. Why don’t you want to talk to me? Did Mark do
something to upset you?”

“Mark?” I tried to sound like that was the furthest
thing from the truth. “No…not at all. I guess I’m just a little bit homesick. Being
away at the rodeo, I kept so busy I didn’t think about it. But coming back just
reminded me that I wasn’t at home. I called Samantha and that helped. She’s
crazy. We’re going to get together soon. That’s all I need, I think.”

She sat down on the bed next to me and put her arm
around me. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. You’re here to visit me and I’m letting
Mark do all of the entertaining. I’m sorry that you don’t like it here.”

“Mom!
Oh no, that’s not it. I love being here with you…”

“How about if I order us a pizza and we watch a
movie tonight…just you and me? And tomorrow, we can go get our toes done or
something.”

I smiled at her. “Okay, but please don’t apologize
for anything. I’m so happy to be here to see you. It’s just really different
out here. I’m the one who is sorry. I don’t mean to be a big baby about it. I
wasn’t going to say anything.”

Mom hugged me and said, “I’ll go order the pizza…”

“They deliver pizza way out here?”

She laughed. “No, but it’ll just take me a half hour
to run into town and pick it up and get a movie. Do you want to go with me?”

“Yeah, I do. That sounds like fun.” It wasn’t going
into town that sounded fun, but I did need some time with my mother and I
missed my car too.

“Okay, I’ll meet you downstairs in a few minutes.”
She hugged me tight again before she left. I was feeling a little better
knowing I had Samantha and my mom that I knew beyond a doubt I could trust. I was
just going to have to get over Mark. Even before I saw him with “Taylor,” I
knew that was a bad idea. I cleaned up my face, brushed my hair and met Mom in
the parlor.

“Can we take the Camaro?” I missed driving my car a
lot. She was my baby.

“Sure,” she said with a smile. Mom bought her for
me, so she knew how much I loved her.

As we drove into town Mom said, “You’re sure that
Mark didn’t do something to upset you?”

“I’m sure,” I lied. “Why do you think it was Mark?”

“Oh, I don’t really. It’s just that I feel a little
out of the loop sometimes.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I can just tell that there’s a lot of
tension between Mark and Rob and neither of them will talk to me about it.
Then…there seems to be something wrong with my favorite daughter…I hate missing
things that are going on right underneath my nose.”

Aw, I felt bad again. I smiled at her. “I’m really
fine, Mom. I’m sorry we’ve all got you worried. I wouldn’t worry too much about
Rob and Mark. They’ve been doing this father and son thing on their own for a
lot of years…I’m sure whatever it is, they’ll figure it out.

The pizza parlor was in a cute little brick building
and aptly named, “Cowboy Pizza.” There was a picture on the lit up sign out
front of a tiny little cowboy with a lasso. Inside it was wood floors and
scarred up tables. The lights were low and country music was playing on the
jukebox. There were several young kids sitting around a table near the back.
They were probably middle school to high school age and I couldn’t help but
wonder how a teenage survived in this town. I thought about Mark again and his
rodeo passion. I suppose that’s how he survived.

Our pizza was ready and Mom paid for it. She got
two. I’m assuming that one was for Mark and Rob. We left there and went to the
tiny little video store in town. There was one row of each genre and movie
posters and cardboard cut-outs of characters from old movies. I can’t remember
the last time I was in a video store. In the city we have Red Box and we use
Net
Flix
and Hulu. Mom picked out a sappy love
story…Nicholas Sparks or something like that and I picked out a mindless comedy
because I’d had enough of that sappy stuff in real life lately.

I was happy that Mark didn’t seem to be around when
we got home. Rob still wasn’t around either
.
 
Mom left one of the pizzas in the
dining room and we took the movies and the other pizza into the front parlor
with a liter of Coke and two glasses. We watched her movie first while we ate.
We cried over it and then we watched mine and we laughed. It was nice and it
re-energized me to draw all of that love from her. She’s an amazing person and
I suddenly realized that was why she had adjusted so well here…it was just
like
she’d adjusted twenty-one years ago when she suddenly
had to put her life on hold and take care of me. She was the most unselfish
person in the world and I hoped someday to be just like her. I’d have to start
working on that.

CHAPTER
SIX

MARK

I sighed as I studied the sagging fence line. I’d
been out here for hours, avoiding the house like the plague. My dad had hardly
been there for the past two days, doing anything possible to avoid me…and I
think Lexi hates me. I saw her and Lydia on their way out yesterday morning.
They were laughing and chatting like two best friends. It’s nice that they have
that and I don’t begrudge it to them at all…but it makes me sad that I seem to
have nothing and no one these days. I climbed down off of
Sarge
and draped his reins over a fence post. I took my packs off of him, filled with
tools and wire…the fence was sagging in a lot of places and I was suddenly
wondering why my father wasn’t hiring more help. I wondered if that’s what’s
been wrong with his mood lately. Was he hurting for money? I know the drought
had put a lot of financial stress on everyone. Even though the ranch had its
own private lake…if there’s no rain or snow, there’s no water for the lake.
Maybe that’s what’s made him so crazy that he has the idea in his head his own
son would steal from him.

I focused my attention back on the fence. The posts
were weathered, but they would still work. The wire wasn’t snapped…at least not
in this area. It was just all sagging like an old lady’s…brassiere. I took the
fence stretcher and the wire cutter, the pry bar and the hammer out of the pack
with the tools in it. I already had my pocket full of nails. I’d been doing
this all morning. Dad would
be wanting
to flood this
pasture soon and release the young calves out into it. These fences needed to
be tight when you’re trying to keep the young curious ones inside. I’ve been
suggesting to him that he electrify the whole thing. He’s got the line that
runs against the road electrified, but he said it would take too much money to
do the whole thing. When I tried mentioning to him that the stock we were
losing because of the coyote’s getting to them were probably going to cost us
just
 
as much he had told me that if I
didn’t intend to run the ranch someday that I should keep my opinions to myself
.
 
That was back
before he thought I was stealing from him. Our relationship has never really
been anything to write home
about
.

I finished that section of the fence and I started
to climb back up on
Sarge
when I saw Cowboy Bob
coming my way. I waited until him and his old nag reached me. His horse was
almost ten years old and she was slower than
him walking
.
I’ve been giving him shit about her for years but he was fond of telling me
that she was “the only old nag” that ever stuck with him for more than a few
months.

“What are you doing out here alone, boy? Me or
Johnny would a come out and helped you.”

I shrugged. “I just needed an outlet more than
anything, Bob.”

He slid off the horse. “Things
ain’t
going so well with the girl?”

“I thought they were…we had some good times
together, but Taylor came around the other day…”

“Oh Lord. That little girl
ain’t
been
nothing
but trouble since she was fourteen.”

“Don’t I know it? It was just a couple years after
that she started getting me into trouble.”

“What did she do?”

“She kissed me and Lexi saw us and now she thinks I’m
lying to her when I tell her that I pushed her away. She walked out before that
happened.”

“Hmm….” I could tell by the look on his face he had
some wise words for me but he was hesitant to share them.

“Go ahead and say it, Bob. You know I’ve got thick skin.”

“I just reckon it’s early in the relationship for
her to be accusing you of things like lying. Maybe she’s got some issues of her
own with trust.”

“You mean maybe she was cheated on or something like
that?”

“Could be.
Could be a lot of things…but I’m
gonna
say it again,
if you really like her and you want her to be the one…you have to put out the
effort to show her you’re the man she needs to pick.”

“Hey Bob, when you were riding the circuit, were you
married already?”

“I was for a minute. She left me for an accountant.
She told me that she didn’t care if he was bald…he was at least home at night.”

“I have a feeling that’s another thing holding Lexi
back. She keeps saying she doesn’t think that’s any way to have a
relationship.”

“I know you love that rodeo boy… Don’t let this go
to your head…but I rode with some of the best in my time and probably in
another year…two at the most, you’ll be right up there with Lane Frost. You
stay close to your rope and a lot of guys can’t do that. Ninety percent of the
guys get bucked off because they don’t react quickly enough when the bull
turns. You react…I’ve seen you
.
 
You do it so well that you make it
look boring almost. Now, with that being said
there’s a
couple of things
you
gotta
consider. One of
them is that at some point in your life, you have to decide what you love more.
If it is the rodeo, then I say follow your heart. But don’t try and tell a
woman you love her more and then refuse to give it up. The other thing is that
even the greatest rider needs to have a plan for his “second life.” I know you
already got pins in your knee and you’ve had so many concussions you probably
lost count by now. What happens when the injury is too great for you to be able
to go on riding bulls? You
gotta
have a back-up plan,
especially if you’re planning on having a family one day.”