The Bull Rider Wears Pink (2 page)

“I have a past,” Caleb protested. “I've
lived on the edge,” he added as he leaned into the table. He glanced back at
Carrie. “But not too close.”

She smiled nervously.

“Your past is about being the oddball,”
Logan told him.

“What's wrong with quirky?” Caleb
demanded to know. “Can't a guy stay home with his baby without the world
thinking of him as some kind of wimp?” He shook his head. “House husband is an
honorable
profession.”

“And I love quirky,” Carrie, told
her husband quietly. She reached over and pushed the hair out of his eyes.
Caleb's face softened while Carrie touched him.

“You've reformed your life,”
Cassidy commented returning her attention to Logan. “And I'd like to do the same,” she
added while deciding that Caleb had married the very best woman for him. Good
God, Carrie was patient, understanding and adorable, plus super smart. Caleb
liked smart.

“But not on the back of Kevin,” Logan told Cassidy.

Why, oh why did Logan have to be so stubborn? “As I said,”
Cassidy continued to keep her voice even. There was only one person in the
world that made her as crazy as this—John Risk. But he was long gone, out of
her life to never, ever be seen again.

“It's not on Kevin's back,” Cassidy
clarified. “He's my son. I want to spend time with him.” Cassidy should have
hit the road a month ago, right after Caleb's baby was born. Then Rachel popped
little Storm out and Kevin wanted to spend time with his new cousins.
Understandable,
and Cassidy had delayed her plans. “I have a
right to be with him.” She stood up. “I'll have him back in time for school in
early September.”

Then she went out the back door.
She needed to find her son and start working on that relationship she wanted to
build. Maybe he would lend her a few DVDs
of Firefly. Cowboys in space, she'd never heard of such a thing.

* * * *

“So,” Cassidy started. She shoved
her hands in her pockets. After leaving the kitchen, she had found Kevin behind
the barn throwing a ball to the dogs. One was Buck, Caleb's old yellow lab and
the other was a new black lab named Lasso. Logan had rescued the animal dehydrated and
starving along a road in Arizona.
After a flea and tick bath plus lots of food, the dog was looking pretty good
in his new home.

“What do you think about all this?”
Cassidy asked her son. She wanted to reach over and touch him, but had a
feeling Kevin wouldn't like it. He was similar to Caleb in that way.

“About what?”
Kevin asked stiffly. He refused to look at her as he threw the ball again.

“About going on the road with me?”
she told him. “I plan on bull riding.” She wished she could see those green
eyes of his. But he wore his cowboy hat low, like Logan.

Then he stopped throwing the ball.
Told the dogs to sit and turned to his mother. “I get it,” he said flatly. “You've
got some creepy maternal fantasy to
fulfill
,” he
continued, “and you can't do it without involving me.” He turned away again.

Cassidy took a step back. His words
were like a slap to the face. “I, I want to spend time with you,” she
stammered. “I haven't been the best mother,” she acknowledged, “but I want to
try to do better if you'll give me a chance.” She put her hand over her heart,
something hurt in there.

Kevin folded his arms and stood
perfectly still for a moment staring at the mountains. “I'll consider going
along for the ride,” he finally announced as he tapped his toe on the grass, “if
I can bring my laptop, loaded with
Battlestar
Galactic and Firefly.” He turned back to the dogs, picked the ball up and threw
it. The dogs barked as they took off across the field. “And,” he continued to
negotiate, “I want pizza every night, plus potato chips whenever I feel like
it.” He shook his head wearily. “Rachel's making me eat healthy food and it
sucks.”

Wow, that was a lot of television
and junk food. The kid would have his nose against a computer screen and greasy
fingers the entire trip. “You know,” Cassidy countered, she was starting to
recover from that maternal fantasy comment. “A road trip is for experiencing
the road not watching people shoot each other in space and get fat,” she
argued.

“No,” he replied slowly. “A road
trip with your mother is like experiencing the seven gates of hell while
playing checkers on some geezer's front porch eating strawberry shortcake
without a fork.” He complimented himself for coming up with such a cleaver
analogy and pulled a note pad out of his pocket. It seemed Rachel had suggested
he write his ideas down when his laptop wasn’t around.

Cassidy wasn't so sure about that
suggestion. What did eating shortcake without a fork have to do with a road
trip and an old man? But she decided it was in her best interest to not
comment. Instead she pushed forward. “We'll drive by some beautiful scenery,
stop at a few quaint towns and experience America at its best. No
superhighway for this adventure.” She smiled tentatively not sure what was
going to come out of her son’s mouth next.

“If I go,” he continued to bargain.
“I don't want to have to hang around with you.” Then he added. “This bull riding
thing of yours is mighty mortifying.”

Ouch, the boy didn't mince words,
but maybe Cassidy deserved it. After all she had left him with her brothers a
lot of the time. She was close to being a deadbeat mom and it would probably
hurt a lot if Kevin actually called her that which she was pretty sure he was
close to doing. “All right, you win,” she burst out. “I'll act like I don't
know you, I'll buy you crap to eat and you can bring your computer.”

She could be flexible with his
demands. After all, that parenting book she bought after leaving L.A. said
there were many different ways to build a relationship with a child. Except
that mortified comment of his did sting. Couldn't he just have used the word
embarrassed? Parents were used to being called embarrassing by their children.
But mortifying?

Kevin eyed her as the black dog
nipped at his pant leg. “And,” he continued to negotiate. The kid certainly had
moxie. “I want to be able to watch all my shows without interruption.” He
pushed the dog away with his foot. “I don't want to hear you telling me how
beautiful some stupid river is or how lovely a rock formation appears at
sunset. No making me lookup from my computer.”

“Okay, fine,” Cassidy conceded
again. Damn, if he was this tough at thirteen, she wondered what he would be
like at sixteen. Yes, she understood that some people, like John Risk, would
feel she was giving in too easily to Kevin's demands. But John wasn't around so
she could do what she wanted concerning her parenting style.

“I’ll think about it,” Kevin said,
“and give you an answer after dinner.”

“Good,” Cassidy replied. She
started to walk back to the house confident he was going to join her. Her plan
was to help Rachel with lunch and then start to pack Kevin’s stuff. But before
she took two steps she swung back to her son, something more needed to be said.
“When we're out on the road,” she told Kevin with a smile, “and we stop for
strawberry short cake, I'm not buying you any.”

He didn't react as he tossed the
ball back and forth in his hands, so she added. “I'm going to sit and lick my
plate clean while you watch and drool.” Yes, she was trying to get a rise out
of him and it was probably because she'd just given away the farm, plus the one
next door.

“Just like you licked guys in L.A.,” Kevin countered in
a low voice.

That was certainly a reaction. For
two seconds Cassidy debated how to respond. Slapping the kid was out of the
question—wasn't it? “I'm pretty sure you didn't just say what I thought I heard
you say,” Cassidy suggested taking a few steps back toward her son, fingers
fisted at her sides. “Because if you said that,” she told him, “it would
probably hurt my feelings a lot.” She sucked in a deep breath. Yes, the
parenting books had recommended a non-confrontational method.

“Maybe I did,” Kevin replied. “Maybe
I didn't.” He threw the ball again—hard. He almost hit one of the dogs.

“I want you to know.” Cassidy put
her hands on her hips. She could see her shadow on the ground.
Too much of a cop stance, she let her arms fall at her sides.
“I'm not like that,” she continued. “I've done some things that were not good
but I had a reason.” Yes, she sounded cryptic but she couldn't tell him. There
were still lives at risk.

“Well,” Kevin replied. “That's not
what I understood.” Attitude wrapped around every word he muttered.

She could feel her face getting red
and the need to slither away, but she didn’t. She had to set her son straight. “I
didn't sell myself for money,” she started. Then she looked at Kevin's scrawny
body and narrow shoulders. Did he even know what sex was? Cassidy hoped Logan had spoken with him,
but she wasn't sure. Maybe her brother was leaving the birds and bees talk for
her.

“Everyone says you did,” Kevin shot
back, “and we saw that picture.”

Crap, this was complicated. The
motorcycle gang liked to take scantily dressed pictures of their 'old ladies'
sprawled across their bikes. One of Cassidy straddling John's Harley had been
published on the web and made it back to her family.

“Sometimes,” she started. Every
last parenting book had advised against lying when a child asks an
uncomfortable question, but she didn't know what to do. “People have reasons
for doing things that they have to keep secret.” She could feel her face get
red again. “I've done some things,” she continued, “that I'm not proud of, but
my actions were for something better.” Yes, she was sticking with the same
obscure argument but she didn't have much else.

“Are you still doing those things?”
Kevin demanded to know. He threw the ball again. This time he hit poor, old
Buck. The dog yipped. Thank God Caleb wasn't around. He loved that dog.

“No,” Cassidy said. “When you come
on the road with me you can see for yourself,” she added. “All I want to do is
ride bulls.”

Kevin didn't reply.

Okay, the kid had a right to be
guarded but Cassidy was kind of hoping he'd show a little more enthusiasm for
this adventure. A road trip, didn't every thirteen year old want to go on a
road trip, Jack Kerouac style? She knew she did. Except Logan and Caleb always
got to go to the county fair and she had to stay home to take care of the
animals left behind.

“What does Logan say about all this?” Kevin asked
cautiously.

Again, she decided to be straight
with her son. It was hard but she knew in her gut the right path. “Your uncle
doesn't want you to go with me.” She took a deep breath, she was pretty sure
she'd be driving down that dirt road alone tomorrow morning. “He says they've
built a stable environment for you here and they'd like to continue to work on
that.” Cassidy shoved her hands in her pockets. “They feel if I take you away,
you could regress.” She shrugged. “They may be right.”

If she had been in Los Angles,
working with John Risk, he would have yelled at her. 'Too much information—put
a cork in it Cooper.' But she wasn't in L.A.
and it was time to stop taking advice from men with perilous names and
charismatic personalities. She needed to focus on her son.

Kevin smiled a little. It seemed he
was responding to Cassidy's honesty.
Kudos to sappy parenting
books.

“It's early June,” Cassidy told him.
“Come on the road with me for six weeks. I'll have you home by the beginning of
August to start school in September.”

Kevin shifted his pursed lips to
the right, then to the left. Cassidy thought for sure the word 'no' was going
to be rolling off his tongue. But then he moaned, scratched his armpit and
said, “Yes.”

“
Ahh
right,” Cassidy tried to high-five him but he wouldn't put his hand up. “You're
a good man, Kevin Cooper,” she said after giving him a light punch on the
shoulder. She wanted to hug him but didn't try. She'd take one step at a time
reestablishing
their relationship and her first goal was to
get past him being mortified by her.

In the spirit of that objective,
she turned and walked away. She just learned a valuable parenting lesson. 'Getting
in the last word' was not a good strategy with a thirteen year old. If she'd not
dropped that strawberry short cake comment and wasn’t looking to get a rise out
of him, things would have gone a lot smoother.

Chapter Two

“Yippee,” Cassidy shouted, “it's
great to be back at the rodeo.” With wide eyes that she was sure Kevin was ashamed
of, Cassidy ‘oohed and awed’ over the cowboys in their tight Levis and scuffed
boots. Bull ropes hung from their shoulders while worn Stetsons sat on their
heads. Even a buckle bunny, wearing a pink glittering wig and red cowboy boots,
made Cassidy smile.

When Kevin told her to tone it down
she impulsively tousled his hair. She was that happy to be at the rodeo.

“Hey,” he protested “What’d you do
that for?” He tried to smooth the pieces back into place.

Cassidy had made the tiniest of
progress with him when she stayed up until two in the morning last night and
watched five episodes of Firefly. The show was pretty good and she liked the
way that tall, lean, and dangerous space cowboy, Malcolm Reynolds, looked a lot
like the men standing before her. Except he had a space ship to get around in
while these guys drove dusty pickup trucks from rodeo to rodeo.

“
Goram
,
this line is too long,” Kevin moaned shaking his head. He was cussing like they
did on Firefly. A few days ago Cassidy had asked him to stop swearing. At the
time they agreed Firefly curse words were fine. With his laptop under his arm
and wearing a black
Battlestar
Galactic T-shirt he
looked like he should have been at Comic Con rather than in a registration line
at the Tulsa State Fair and Rodeo.

After muttering,
jung
chi duh go-se
dway
, which Cassidy had no idea of the meaning, Kevin
leaned into her. To another mother his dead weight might have been annoying, but
to Cassidy it was an opportunity to bond. Yes, he was still embarrassed by her
but during the three day drive south from
Montana
,
he seemed a little more willing to talk to her.

“Why do they only have one
registration person for the women's line?” he whined. “Look at the men they've
got a ton of people and iPads.”

After studying the men's line for a
moment Cassidy decided Kevin was right. Well, soon she would be standing in
that line. Her goal was to be the top woman rider by the Fourth of July. Then
she'd have nobody to compete against and they'd have to allow her into the
men's division.

“I hear we've got another Cooper at
the rodeo.” A very large man, with a very red face, announced as he came up
behind Cassidy. She turned sharply. She didn't like people sneaking up on her.
Instinctively she pushed Kevin behind her and held onto him.
Once
a cop, always a cop.

“Bret
Bodner
,”
the man said putting his hand out as he looked Cassidy up and down. “I was told
you were an actress not a bull rider.” He smiled a little, like he was in on
some sort of joke.

Kevin yelled, “Let go of me,” while
Cassidy decided she didn't appreciate this
Bodner
guy's attitude. She released her son and tentatively gave
Bodner
her hand. His name sounded familiar and he certainly had an air of pompousness
about him. There were guys like him in charge of the police station. One reason
among many for choosing undercover work was to avoid the self-important. Another,
she wanted to spend more time with John Risk.

Then she remembered
,
Bret
Bodner
was the President of
the Rodeo.
Also, Logan's nemesis.
And…the
man who had banned Rachel from the rodeo for life.

“I'm a bull rider now,” she
clarified. She added quietly, “Caleb and Logan are my brothers.” It seemed he
already knew that, and she couldn't believe she was
name
dropping, but Logan had a lot of respect among many of the bull riders and
Caleb was considered a hard ass even though he didn't win much.

“When the hell is Caleb coming
back?”
Bodner
demanded to know. “He's a real crowd
pleaser.” Caleb had fallen off his bull and hit his head in some pretty
creative ways and the fans enjoyed watching
him, that
was until he met Carrie Wang. She had been studying head injuries in bull
riders and Caleb became her research subject.

“Well,” Cassidy started. It wasn't
her place to talk about her brother's plans especially since all he wanted to
do was stay home and change Karis's diapers. He actually made baby food last
week from fresh berries he bought at the farmers’ market. Even though Karis was
too young to eat the stuff he divided it up into little containers and froze
it. But Cassidy had a feeling a man like
Bodner
wouldn't respect Caleb's choices. She carefully replied, “He's got the new baby
and she's been a little sick so he's staying home to help Carrie.”

“That Carrie Wang,”
Bodner
commented with a nod and a smile. “She's amazing.
I'm still getting reports from her about head injuries. So glad the little lady
is staying out West and not going back to New York.” He ran a big calloused hand
across his chin. “She needs a break from that mother of hers. Have you ever
heard the term tiger mom?” He chuckled as he rolled back on his heels. “I
didn't even know the phrase existed until I met Rose Wang. It's what you call a
woman who expects the highest of achievement from her children.”

Before Cassidy could comment, Bret
continued. “So,” he said smacking his lips together, “enough about Asian child
raising techniques are you here to ride or what?”

“Yes,” Cassidy replied. She was
glad he had changed the direction of the conversation. She loved Carrie's
mother's egg rolls and didn't want to talk behind the woman's back. Cassidy
started to say, “But I'm having a hard time
regist
—”

Bodner
ignored her gesture toward the line. “Our women’s competition has had crappy
attendance lately.” He hitched up his pants again. “All I need is one of you
gals to stay on the damn bull for eight seconds and I think things will turn
around.” He studied Cassidy intently. “Can you do that for me?” he asked.

“I'm going to try,” Cassidy
replied. She glanced at Kevin. He looked
skeptical
but she wouldn't hold that against him. She'd just prove to all of them it was
possible. For the last year she'd been practicing at John Risk's beach house.
In the sand she set up a mechanical bull she bought from a pawn shop.
Unfortunately, she left it behind along with a lot of other stuff when she
abandoned the biker life to be with her son. Yes, she and John had been living
and working together.

“I hope so,” Bret commented, “because
we need a bigger crowd for the women.” He looked around and gave a wave to a
cowboy in a black hat. The man nodded back. “Empty seats cost me money.”

“Maybe if you didn't have it at
nine o'clock
in the morning more
people would come,” Cassidy suggested. She glanced at Kevin. He frowned. She
honestly hoped he wasn't embarrassed by her making that suggestion.

“Maybe if one of you ladies rode in
a bikini that would help too,”
Bodner
countered. Then
when he saw Cassidy's eyebrows fold, he backtracked. “I don't mean that in a
sexual harassment sort of way.” He put his hands up. “It was just a joke.” He
pulled at his ring finger. “See, I'm married.” He muttered under his breath. “Where
is that sanctimonious Pastor John when I need him?”

Cassidy decided she was on Logan's side. She didn't
like Bret
Bodner
either. Even though much, much worse
things had been suggested to her in the last five years, she was done with all
that. But before she could address bathing suits and bull riding, she heard a
voice.

It sounded familiar and not in a
good way. Cassidy could feel her ears strain as she tried to listen. She was
positive she'd heard that soft tone before, particularly in her bed. She looked
through the crowd searching desperately for the person speaking, it couldn't be
John Risk. He didn't belong at the rodeo, he was still in L.A.

Most likely it wasn't him, because
the only man she could attach to the voice was a cowboy in white jeans pulled
up too high, a tan cowboy hat pulled down too low and an embarrassingly loud
red fringed shirt. No, this man wasn't the man she loved and risked her life
for.
Couldn't be.
John Risk was still infiltrating
gangs in Southern California while trying to
avoid any type of meaningful relationship with another human being.
Even his damn cat.

Then the dorky cowboy turned and
Cassidy's heart skipped a beat or maybe it just stopped beating all together.
Cassidy put her palm over her chest and pressed because under that tan hat she
recognized a pair of blue eyes she had loved. On his chin she could see a
dimple she adored. And those lips, she had kissed many times, were turning up
into a smirk she knew very well.

No, no, no, Cassidy wanted to cry.
But too many years of training prevented her from even changing the expression
on her face. She stared at the man who had gotten shot when she tried to save a
sixteen year old girl from being forced into appearing in a pornographic movie.
John didn't agree with what she had done and Cassidy couldn't get him to
understand why she did it. So she left L.A.
and hadn't seen him since.

The only indication that John
recognized her was the movement of his Adam's apple. It rested above his
buttoned up collar.
And...that
collar wasn't just any
old collar. It was a clerical collar.

With a goofy smile painted on his
face he came over to Bret. “Is this the new competitor for the ladies division?”
he asked the president. A down home folksy accent came out of his mouth. Then
he looked at Cassidy like he'd never seen her in this life or even planned on
seeing her in the next.

“She's a Cooper,” Bret replied. “I've
got high hopes for this girl.”

“A Cooper,” John repeated while
hitting his thigh. “You may be too pretty to be a Cooper and a bull rider at
the same time.” So different from the gritty words he spoke while running guns
for the motorcycle club. “Now, don't you go butting heads with the bull and
break something important like your chin.” Before Cassidy could reply he kept
right on talking, “You wear a helmet you hear.” She’d never heard the man speak
with so much concern before. “We'd be mighty worried about you if you didn't.”
He wrapped all those kind words up with a beguiling smile.

Unnerved could be one way to
describe Cassidy's reaction to John. Falling in stupid, stupid love all over
again could be another. The man wore his brown hair in a ponytail which looked
really cute in an Orlando Bloom sort of way and those penetrating blue eyes of
his were still penetrating. Plus, that dimple on his chin. What more could she
say about the dimple?

“Pastor John, meet Cassidy Cooper,”
Bret told the man.

Pastor?
Did Bret
Bodner
just call John Risk a minister?
Cassidy couldn't imagine John's undercover skills were that accomplished. The
man always posed as someone shady or deranged or just plain cold hearted, not a
pillar of the community. They had a cop named Peter Goodman, who looked like
Tom Hanks the early
years,
they used to infiltrate the
churches. Plus, Oklahoma
was out of the LAPD's jurisdiction. But maybe John was working for the Feds
now.

Cassidy didn't know and she knew
she didn't want to know. Yes, there were two sources of stress in their
relationship. John's continued undercover work and Cassidy’s need to quit.
Their five years with the Highwaymen disguised as a married couple had at first
been exciting, then trying, followed by plain old scary.

As John played with the fringes on
his shirt and stared at Cassidy,
Bodner
continued
speaking. “Hopefully Cassidy can stay on a bull for eight seconds.” He shook
his head. “I've got to have one girl who can do the job or I'm going to
eliminate the women’s competition.” He looped his thumbs into his belt. “Nobody
pays to see bull riders fall off.” Then he amended his words. “Yes, the fans
like a good wreck or two but not the entire competition.”

Cassidy really wished
Bodner
would stop talking. She also wished John Risk would
stop looking at her mouth. No, she wasn't going to blow his cover. She shook
her head slightly, hoping that would reassure him, but it didn't. Those blue
eyes were still glued to the lower half of her face. Talk about
unsettling,
now Kevin truly had a reason to be embarrassed by
her.

And through all this, Bret
Bodner
was still talking. “You know a man tries to create
equity for the women.” He shook his chin and his neck waddled. “Title
Nine
and all that. But if they can't stay on the bull and
they won't wear bikinis I don't know what I'm supposed to do because I've got
to make money.” He scratched his head. “I'm sure someone from the government
will come along and tell me to let the women compete with the men. Damn
government.”

Instead of letting
Bodner’s
words about his employer bother him, John smiled
at Cassidy. The way he pulled his lips back was completely different from the
man she used to know who wore a leather jacket and a big knife attached to his
belt in L.A. A
year ago Cassidy had been under the impression the muscles in the corners of
John's mouth didn't work but now she could see they did. “I'm sure this is your
woman,” John told
Bodner
. Then he reached for
Cassidy's arm.