Chapter 3
The nurse weighed the lady and showed her to a room, checked her blood pressure, and listened to the fetal heartbeat. “The baby is growing at a perfect rate. Any questions for the doctor this month?”
The lady shook her head.
“Dr. Joyce will be in shortly. We will begin seeing you every two weeks until the last month, and then it will be once a week that final four weeks if everything continues to progress so well.”
The lady nodded.
She sat on the end of an exam table and read a book that she pulled out of her purse. The baby kicked, but she didn’t put a hand on her rounded belly to feel it.
“Everything looks great,” Dr. Joyce said as she came into the room. “You still feeling good?”
The lady nodded again. “I feel fine. I just want this to be over with and finished. I’m tired of putting my life on hold.”
“You’ve got a while yet. You might change your mind.”
“I won’t,” the woman said.
***
The jingle of Gemma’s spurs as she climbed to the top of the chute sounded like church bells in her ears. She’d be glad when the whole tour was done because then she’d be back in her old comfortable rut. With the money from the final win, she’d buy a few acres, build a house, and start her own cattle herd. The ranching business flowed through her veins like red blood. That was what she had been born into, what she grew up knowing, and what she loved, and she was ready to settle into it. But before she could do that, she had to win enough to place in the semifinals and then the finals.
She’d drawn a wild bronc for the ride that night, new to the circuit and had not been ridden more than half a dozen times. She had no idea if he could buck or if he’d come out of the chute like a dud firecracker—all fizz and no pop. She hoped that he bucked like a possessed demon, and she racked up enough points to glue another shamrock on her paper horseshoe.
Trace was the first rider of the evening, and he had a high score of eighty-two points. The rider after him, a tall lanky cowboy she’d never heard about, got eighty, and Coby Taylor racked up seventy-nine. Competition got stiffer and stiffer with every rodeo.
She measured the reins, jammed her boots down into the stirrups, and prepared for the mark out. She cleared her mind, took a deep breath, and nodded. And that’s when she remembered that she hadn’t touched her lucky horseshoe hat pin. The chute opened before she could even think about putting a finger on the pin, and she found out that she was definitely not riding a dud. The horse was all over the place trying to throw her off his back. The next eight seconds lasted two eternities and somewhere in the middle she stiffened her neck for just a moment and got minor whiplash. She managed to stay on the big piebald critter, but when the buzzer sounded, she knew that she hadn’t come close to winning the round. Her body felt as if it had barely survived a car crash.
When she was on the ground, she could hear the announcer shouting into the microphone and the people in the stands were whooping and hollering for her. She removed her hat and did a graceful bow and that set off even louder catcalls and whoops.
“And that, ladies, and gentlemen, was the last ride of the night in the bronc busting category. Gemma O’Donnell brought in a great finale to the event. Let’s give it up for the lady! She came to us from Ringgold, Texas, and she’s whipping her way toward the finals. Judges’ scores are in, and Miss Gemma has just racked up eighty big points. Not enough to take the purse from Trace Coleman, but a good healthy second place here tonight. Next we have bull riding, and our first contestant is Landry Winters from Cheyenne, Wyoming. He’s going to be coming out of chute eight riding Old Devil Bones.”
Gemma waved at the crowd and threw out kisses as she made her way back to the chute to claim her saddle as soon as they got the bronc settled down enough to remove it. She might have lost the battle, but that didn’t mean she should hang up her spurs and go home.
Next up on the circuit was the rodeo in Colorado Springs, thirteen hundred miles of long, lonesome highway from St. Paul. At least she had five days between the two rodeos and didn’t have to drive night and day.
Even so, the next day was Independence Day, a really big family holiday at home in Ringgold. They had an enormous dinner, singing under the shade trees with everyone who could play an instrument participating, and their friends popping by throughout the whole day. At dark they’d all load up in pickup trucks and drive across the Red River to watch the fireworks over in Terral, Oklahoma. That had been the O’Donnell traditional holiday since she was a little girl.
She sighed as she sat down on a bale of hay.
Trace sat down beside her. “Do you always pout when you lose? Most people are excited to have a second-place win.”
“If you don’t know a pout from homesickness, then I don’t expect you’d understand how I feel.”
Trace sat down beside her. “Too far to drive?”
“You got it,” she said with a nod.
“Too much money to fly?” he asked.
“Congratulations,” she said.
“Because I came up with that profound observation?” Trace frowned.
“No, because you won,” she answered. “Groupies will be surrounding you at the dance after the rodeo.”
“That didn’t sound very heartfelt to me, and I don’t do the groupie scene, darlin’,” he told her.
“Life is what it is, and don’t call me darlin’ ,” she told him.
“Stings to be behind, don’t it?” he said with a slight grin. “Yesterday I was where you are tonight, remember? Might be there again after Colorado Springs. Save the congratulations until I win the title and money in Las Vegas.”
“Kudos will go to me in that final ride, cowboy, so I won’t have to congratulate you,” she said.
“Don’t be countin’ your chickens before they’re hatched, darlin’ . What are you doing for the holiday since you aren’t going home?” Trace asked.
She shot him her very best drop-dead-and-go-to-hell look. “I’m not your darlin’. I don’t count chickens before they’re hatched. That was a promise, not a threat, and I’m driving to Colorado Springs for the next rodeo. Are you going home?”
“No, ma’am. It’s too far and I’ve got to be in Colorado Springs in five days to whip you again,” he taunted.
She bristled. “Keep dreaming right up to the end, cowboy.”
“It’s the gospel truth, not a dream. Are you going to pout for days because you can’t be home for apple pie and fireworks?”
She stood up too quick, and the ground looked as if it was coming up to meet her. That’s what she got for not eating supper, but she’d been too nervous to eat. And that was another thing she’d done wrong that evening. In addition to not touching her hat pin, she hadn’t eaten a rodeo hamburger before she rode her bronc.
“You okay?” Trace asked.
“I’m fine!” she snapped.
“You looked a little pale there for a minute, and your eyes didn’t focus. I saw you stiffen up out there, and your neck didn’t roll with the punches. You sure you ain’t hurt?”
“I said I’m fine.” To prove it she took off in a fast walk toward her trailer. There was nothing wrong with her that a tall glass of orange juice and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich wouldn’t fix. She was not fragile, and she would whip his sorry butt at the next rodeo.
“Hey, would you walk a little slower, darlin’? I like the way those chaps frame that cute little butt,” Trace yelled.
She threw a go-to-hell look over her shoulder and kept going toward her trailer. Her chance at the ultimate bronc riding glory did not need to be complicated by a cowboy with a stupid pickup line like that. She slung the door open to her tiny trailer and then remembered that she hadn’t retrieved her saddle yet, and that made her mad all over again. She turned to go back and ran right into Trace. He dropped his saddle and grabbed her to stop the momentum that would have knocked both of them flat on their hind ends.
Her palms went to his broad, muscular chest. His hands landed at the chaps buckle near the small of her back. Her heart thumped in unison with his. She felt as if she’d been wrapped up in his arms for an hour, but it was only seconds before she pushed back and looked up into his dark eyes. For a moment she thought he might kiss her again, but he cleared his throat and stepped away from her.
“You trying to knock me down and break my arm to put me out of the competition? It won’t work, darlin’. I could whip you with one arm in a cast. Don’t be thinkin’ that because I let you win a couple to keep the crowds coming that I’ll let you win the big one,” he said.
“I wouldn’t think of harming a bone on your egotistical body, cowboy. I’ll beat you and there’ll be no doubt that I did it fair and square. I could do it with an arm tied behind my back and eating a hamburger with the other hand while I ride, so don’t be letting your quarter horse mouth get ahead of your stubborn mule ass. And you didn’t let me win! I whipped you and all those other cowboys fair and square.”
He chuckled, picked up his saddle, and headed toward his trailer. “I’ll see you at the KOA campground in Meridian tomorrow evening.”
“How did you know that’s where I planned to stop?” she stuttered.
“Hey, darlin’, I’ve got a laptop. I mapped out my route too. And that’s the best place to stop at the end of the first day.”
She stomped off one more time. She’d only gone a few steps when she remembered what he’d said about her chaps and looked back over her shoulder. He winked and she deliberately put an extra wiggle in her walk. Let him take that to bed with him tonight if he liked what chaps did for her butt. Let him have miserable dreams like she had been having, and hopefully it would throw him off his ride in Colorado Springs.
She found her saddle, lugged it back to the trailer, stowed it, and removed her chaps, spurs, vest, boots, and the rest of her riding outfit. Standing beside the sink, she downed a whole glass of orange juice and then made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The dust that had boiled up from the arena as the horse had kicked and bucked had found its way into the sweaty crevices in her neck. Her scalp tingled from a combination of dirt and sweat accumulating under the hatband. Even her toes felt gritty from the dirt that had filtered over the tops of her boots and inside her socks.
She couldn’t go to a rodeo dance in that shape, so she took a fast shower in her tiny bathroom, getting wet, turning off the water, soaping up, rinsing quickly, and turning it off again. If she wasn’t going to need to refill her water tank and dump the holding tank, she would have canceled her reservations in Meridian and parked in a Walmart parking lot instead. But other than campgrounds, it wasn’t easy to find a place to take care of the plumbing in a travel trailer.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, she dried her hair and ran a curling brush through the ends. The extension cord she’d run from the plug behind the microwave kept getting twisted so the job took longer than it would have if she’d been in her beauty shop at home. She propped up a round mirror between her feet and tilted her head from one side to the other. Makeup or no makeup? Dancing would sweat it all off, but she would look better for a little while if she did. She finally opted to leave off the foundation and apply a bit of red lipstick.
“Wonder how Trace would like it if I kissed all this lipstick off on his sexy lips?” she said to the reflection in the mirror. “Oh, no! Don’t even go there, Gemma O’Donnell!”
Kissing him again would tangle things up so badly that she’d never get them unraveled. But that didn’t stop her from yearning for him, dreaming about him, and wishing that he didn’t ride broncs.
Landry rode bulls. She would dance with him at the after-party that evening, but not Coby and definitely not Trace. Even that would mean she was playing with hot coals if she let Trace distract her.
“And that is a fact,” she declared.
She stood up, dropped the towel, and stepped into red lace bikinis and a matching bra. She tugged on jeans that hung low on her hips and pulled a rhinestone-studded belt though the loops. Before she zipped the jeans or buckled the belt she flipped through the hangers in the closet until she found a sleeveless red shirt with a lace yoke. She left the top two rhinestone buttons undone and then tucked it into her jeans. She zipped them up and buckled her belt. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed to put on socks and her bright-red boots. She shoved her jean legs down into the tops of her boots and checked her reflection in the full mirror on the back of the closet door.
“I’ll drink with the best of them and dance the leather off every old cowboy’s boots. I might pout because I can’t go home, but no one will ever know!” she declared.
She sprayed a mist of perfume on her wrists, on her neck, and a touch in her hair before settling a red cowboy hat with a rhinestone horseshoe on the upturned brim. She laid a palm on the horseshoe on her way out the door. A woman could never be too thin, too rich, or have too much luck.
Music was already blasting through the speakers when she reached the arena. Couples were out in the middle of the floor dancing to the band’s lead singer belting out Travis Tritt’s old song “T.R.O.U.B.L.E.” She stepped out of the shadows near the chutes, and suddenly a beer so cold that the outside of the bottle was sweating was thrust toward her. She took it, and a cowboy wearing all black grabbed the other hand and led her out to the middle of the arena.
“You looked like a hot-pink blaze tonight. Old Travis is right. Trouble just walked through the door when you got here tonight,” he whispered seductively in her ear as they danced. “I’d love to be your own personal trouble until daylight, sweetheart. Just say the word and I’ll be at your trailer door when the party is over.”
She had one hand on his shoulder and the other one wrapped around the cold beer. She brought it to her lips and downed a quarter of it before she came up for air. Landry Winter’s blue eyes danced as he flirted with her. He had blond hair, and he was all cowboy. He was definitely interested, at least for one night, and that could easily turn into several on the rodeo trip. It might even lead to a beautiful wedding when Landry won the bull riding event and she took home the bronc riding money and glory.
But she didn’t feel a blasted thing. Not one little sizzle! Not even a tiny urge to kiss him. It wasn’t fair! He was giving her his best lines and his best smile, and she felt nada, nothing, zilch. He spun her out and brought her back to hug her close to him again.
“What do you say, sweetheart? I been watchin’ you ever since spring and I sure like what I’m seein’,” Landry whispered softly in her ear.
“Got a long way to go tomorrow so I’ll have to pass this time around,” Gemma answered. “But hey, congratulations on that win tonight. You really did well.”
The song ended, and he dipped her low. “My offer will still be good after the Colorado Springs rodeo. For you, Gemma O’Donnell, that offer will be good until hell freezes plumb over and the angels are ice-skating on it.”
“Now that’s an original line if I ever heard one.” She laughed.
“It’s the God’s gospel truth according to Landry Winters. And Landry would not lie to a pretty cowgirl like you, sweetheart,” Landry thanked her for the dance when the song ended, and then he disappeared in a sea of hungry women looking for a handsome cowboy. She scanned the arena to see if Trace was at the dance. She found him leaning against a chute, beer in hand, women gathered around him like piglets hugged up to a trough of fresh corn mash. Her green eyes locked with his and one of his eyelids slid shut in a sexy wink.
His mouth turned up into a roguish grin that sent delicious little warm waves from her lips to her toes. Why in the hell couldn’t she get that reaction with Landry? She tipped up the beer and finished it, tossed the bottle into the nearest trash can, and looked back at Trace. A brunette in tight Daisy Mae shorts, a top with only a bit more material than a Band-Aid, and hot-pink boots must’ve thought he was smiling at her because she ran her hand down his bicep and snuggled in close to his side.
The band kicked into the old Mel Street song “Don’t Be Angry,” and the redhead led Trace out into the middle of the arena.
“Dammit!” Gemma fussed at herself for being jealous.
There was no doubt in Gemma’s mind that the woman was a rodeo bunny, but maybe that’s what Trace really liked. And that song and dance he spouted off about not getting tangled up with groupies might have been one big, old, bald-faced lie!
“Hello, Miz Gemma O’Donnell,” a deep drawl said at her elbow. Half expecting to turn around and find Landry with another saddlebag full of pickup lines or maybe Coby with his own brand of get-the-lady-to-fall-over-backward lines, she was amazed to see an older cowboy. He handed her a longneck of Coors and nodded toward the center of the arena.
“Want to make this old man the envy of all the young bucks in this place?” he asked.
Gemma took a sip of the beer, set it on a bale of hay, and put her hand in his. He put one arm around her waist and the other clasped her hand. His movements were so smooth that she felt like she was dancing with her father back in Ringgold.
“You did right good tonight on that ride, little lady. Cash would be mighty proud of you. I called him and told him that you might not have won first place but that you sure did a damn fine job,” he said.
“Thank you. You know my daddy and mama?”
“Yes, I do. They raise some of the prettiest horses in the world. Me and Cash have stuck many a boot up on a rail at the rodeos. I watched you grow up. Guess you don’t recognize me, do you?”
She shook her head.
“I’m just an old bull rider who can’t seem to stay away from a rowdy rodeo, especially the dancin’ part. I was retired from ridin’ long before you was big enough to talk Cash into lettin’ you ride a bull or a bronc. Name is Chopper McBride,” he said.
Gemma stopped breathing. Chopper was the best bull rider ever to hit the rodeos. He had trophies that the young generation could only dream about and was a legend whose name was whispered in reverence. She stared, slack-jawed, like a teenager who’d just been kissed on the cheek by Justin Bieber. Words wouldn’t come out of her mouth, and she was amazed that she didn’t step all over Chopper’s toes. Her dad talked about him all the time, but she couldn’t ever remember actually meeting the man.
“I saw Trace Coleman doing some flirting from across the arena,” Chopper said.
“We’re both antagonizing each other in hopes that we make the other one mess up so bad that one of us will give up and go home,” she said.
She’d barely gotten the last word out when Trace’s arm brushed against hers as he twirled the brunette away in another direction. Her flesh tingled and a fresh flash of desire flared.
“You are both playing a dangerous game, honey. The vibes, as you young people call them, were dancin’ around like water on a hot grill when he breezed past us,” Chopper said.
“Dangerous?” Gemma asked seriously.
“Take it from an old wise man. When a butterfly flits too close to the flame, there’s bound to be some smoke damage on its little wings. You’re playin’ with fire when it comes to Trace, and he’s doin’ the same thing. There’s a spark there that any fool could see even with his eyes closed. You are two strong people full of spit and vinegar. You remind me of two wildfires comin’ at each other. Know what happens when they collide?” Chopper asked.
“They hit with a force and burn each other out,” she said.
“That’s right. You think about that, darlin’. And that’s enough advice from an old bull rider. You just be careful and tell Cash and Maddie hello for me,” he said when the song ended.
He blended into the shadows before Gemma could tell him that she wasn’t a butterfly. She was a tough woman, and she knew what she was doing. She scanned the dance area for Trace. He caught her eye, pulled away from the group of women surrounding him, and started toward Gemma. Before he’d gone three steps, a blond wrapped her arms around his neck and plastered herself against his body as the singer belted out “All Over Me” by Blake Shelton.
The woman was definitely working the song for all it was worth as she wiggled and squirmed right up next to Trace. Her visible panting probably had little to do with dancing and everything to do with all that sexy talk she was putting into his ear.
Gemma picked up the beer she’d set on the hay bale and finished it off while Trace danced with the blond. Chopper was right. She was playing with red-hot fire and yet she couldn’t help herself. Trace caught her eye again and rolled his eyes. She imagined resting her cheek on his broad chest, and another blistering bout of heat dried up her mouth and made her wish for another beer.
When she looked at him again he mouthed, “ Help me .”
She shook her head. He’d gotten himself into the virtual vertical sex; he could get himself out of it without her help.
The singer went right into “She Doesn’t Know She’s Got It,” a faster, spicier song, also by Blake.
Gemma started dancing and was soon joined by a bunch of other girls. She kept an eye on Trace the whole time. The woman said something, and he shook his head, so she blew him a kiss and went on to Landry. When the next woman approached, Trace shook his head again, sipped his beer, and leaned against a chute.
Gemma slipped in seductive moves to torment him, but it worked in reverse because every time she looked at him, it was as if he took off another item of clothing with his eyes. She figured if he could melt the dust around her with his eyes, then she’d give him a dose of his own medicine. She put her hands over her head and clapped them together, swaying her hips to the beat of the drum. She shut her eyes and let the music, especially the fiddle, become a part of her as Blake sang about a girl who didn’t know what she had or how badly he wanted it.
Did Trace really want what she had?
Suddenly the whole arena was blurring and swaying. The stars in the sky were blending together and the moon was getting smaller and smaller. Good Lord, she’d never gotten drunk on two beers in her entire life. And she wasn’t even drinking on an empty stomach. The song finished, and Trace made his way through the people to her side. His jeans bunched up over the toes of black dusty boots. His plaid shirt stuck to his body like glue, and the night breeze carried the scent of his shaving lotion ahead of him. She rolled her neck. Maybe she had gotten whiplash and it was bearing down on a nerve supplying oxygen to her brain.
“May I have this dance, ma’am?” Trace asked.
She took a step forward and the world did a forty-five-degree tilt to one side. She’d read about swooning in romance books, but there’d never been a cowboy in her past who’d given her a dose of the vapors. The band geared up for a Billy Currington song, one of Gemma’s favorites because he said that beer was good, God was great, and people were crazy. Those three things were a given no matter where she was, whether it was at a big family gathering in Ringgold, Texas, or dancing with a tall dark-haired cowboy at a rodeo dance in Colorado.
She wrapped both arms around Trace’s neck and laid her cheek on his chest. His heart pounded louder than the drums on the stage. She could not focus on anything but the beating of his heart. She’d been drunk before and suffered from hangovers. She’d cried in her beer, she’d giggled in her whiskey, but she’d never felt like she was floating.
She looked up at Trace and his eyes began to blur. His lips looked so delicious and his dark hair so soft. And then everything started slipping away. She opened her eyes wide and tried to get her legs to support her, but nothing worked. Everything went black and she sank into a deep black hole.