Chapter 17
“I’m not so sure I want you coming at me with scissors,” Trace said.
Gemma whipped a towel around his shoulders and picked up her scissors. “We are both fully clothed, and if you don’t get a haircut, your hair will fall in your eyes and then you’ll use that as an excuse for losing.”
“But I wanted you to be naked,” he said.
“You don’t get your haircut with me naked because you didn’t tell me we were going to meet your parents so I could be presentable,” she scolded him. “God Almighty, Trace, what were you thinking, or were you?”
“Evidently I wasn’t. My mother has already called and told me I was an idiot,” Trace said with a long sigh.
She held his hair up with one hand and styled it in a feathered back cut. “You could have told me earlier.”
“I was going to tell you, but I swear my brain went to mush when I saw you come out of that bathroom. And then you went to sleep. And besides, you looked fine to me.” Trace declared.
Snip. Snip. Snip. She hoped he was scared to death that she’d take off an ear. “I looked like Elly May Clampett after a hard night of hookin’.”
“Well, that’s sexy,” he argued.
“Sexy is not the first impression I wanted your folks to have about me,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Do you mean it? Really, really mean it?” she asked.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
“Okay then,” she said with a nod.
“You’ll stop bitchin’ at me?” Trace asked.
“Oh, honey, I’ll do more than that.”
She laid the scissors down and stripped out of her jeans and halter top, tossed her underpants in the corner, and removed her boots. “Now I’ll cut your hair naked.”
He stood up and unbuckled his belt. She put a hand on his shoulder.
“No! Just me. It’s part of your punishment. You have to keep your hands on your knees the whole time,” she told him. “Gemma, you really are killing me this time!” Trace groaned.
“I hope so. Keep your head still or there’ll be gaps as wide as the Red River in your hair.”
“But I can’t see you,” he groaned again.
“I know, darlin’,” she whispered softly in his ear.
“I want to touch you,” he said.
“We’ll take care of that later.”
“How much later?” he whispered.
“When I say so,” she answered.
“You are a witch, woman.”
“Remember that if you ever think about not telling me your mama is going to be in the same room with me again,” she told him.
***
Gemma looked over the top of the chute at Pretty Baby, muscles tensing and a look in his eyes that said his full name was probably Lucifer’s Pretty Baby. He had a solid reputation with the rodeo crew as being one tough horse to ride. His percentage of wrecks was somewhere around eighty, but Gemma was determined to lower his statistics in the next minute. She eased down into her saddle, jammed her bootheels into the stirrups, measured the reins, and touched her lucky horseshoe hat pin. She’d eaten a rodeo hamburger and forgiven Trace for not telling her about his parents. Nothing negative was sitting on her shoulders.
She inhaled deeply and nodded. The gate opened and Pretty Baby came out with gusto. The crowd roared somewhere in a tunnel that was way far away. The announcer was yelling into the microphone something about Gemma O’Donnell taming the wild bronc.
And then Pretty Baby did a dance step that she wasn’t expecting. It happened just as the buzzer sounded and she started to roll to one side. Another two seconds and she would have lasted the whole ride, but when the horse flipped so far to one side that he almost kissed his own butt, Gemma’s foot came loose.
Her left foot left the stirrup and the right one hung, leaving her shoulder to drag in the dirt as Pretty Baby spun her around the arena for a full five seconds before her bootheel dislodged and sent her skittering. Her mouth, nose, and eyes filled with arena sand, and she came up spitting and sputtering to a crowd screaming and yelling.
She stood up, bowed, and let a clown lead her back to the chutes where she dunked her head into a watering trough to get the dirt out of her eyes and ears. When she came up for air, the announcer was yelling, “And our next contestant is Trace Coleman from Goodnight, Texas. He’s riding Devil Dog tonight out of chute six. Our rodeo clown, Low Britches, just signaled that Gemma is all right, so while Trace is getting ready, let’s give it up for our little lady from Ringgold, Texas, who almost showed Pretty Baby who was boss tonight.”
The crowd’s whoops and whistles were muffled as she stuck her head in the water again. That had been her worst wreck ever, and she would be sore the coming morning. There’d be bruises and aches in places she didn’t even know about. Thank God it was six days until the Lovington, New Mexico, ride so she could heal up. Where had she gone wrong, anyway? She’d done all the right things to keep her mojo going and hadn’t even thought about Trace except that one time to congratulate herself on forgiving him.
The announcer sounded like he was screaming into the microphone again, “And that was Trace Coleman, showing the rodeo world how it’s done! Trace just racked up eighty-one points to beat Coby by one point. Now that’s some close bronc busters, folks. Let’s hear it for all the contestants tonight before we go on to the bull riding with Landry Winters starting the competition right here in Dodge City!”
Gemma brushed her wet hair back from her face with her hands. The scrape down her jawline stung like wildfire, but it wasn’t bleeding too badly. Her left boot felt tight, which meant her ankle was swelling. She started toward her trailer to check the damage more carefully and fell to her knees with the first step.
Strong arms scooped her up and she looked up into Trace’s worried face.
“Hey, you,” she whined.
“How bad is it? Is it broken?” Trace asked. “My God, Gemma, I thought I’d die before I could get off that bronc and see about you. You were limping and your face was covered with dirt.”
He jogged toward her trailer. Chap fringe flared out in the hot night breeze. Spurs jingled. Bootheels sent up baby dust devils with every step.
“It’s a sprain. I’ve had them before. I’ll ice it and keep it propped up. My cheek is just a scrape. It was the dirt in my eyes that scared me. For a second there I wondered if we could train Sugar to be a seeing eye dog,” she said.
“Don’t even tease about that,” he growled.
He eased her down to stand on her right foot while she opened the trailer door, and then he carried her inside. When she was sitting on the side of her bed, he dropped to his knees and tugged at her boot.
“Ouch! Ouch! Let me do it,” she said.
He stood up and stuck his hand deep into his pocket. “You can’t. Your foot is swollen. It’s not coming off.”
“Hell, no! You will not cut my boot off, Trace! Not without a fight. These are my lucky boots. They’ve gone to every rodeo with me for the past ten years,” she said.
With his thumbnail he pulled a long sharp blade out of the knife.
“They are not your lucky boots!” He pointed toward the floor.
She looked down and moaned. That’s where she went wrong. She’d worn the wrong boots. Her lucky boots were standing beside her bed, and she’d shoved her feet right back down into the old boots that she’d worn on the flight from Ringgold to Dodge City. What in the devil had she been thinking?
He looked at her.
She nodded.
He carefully slit the boot leather down the inner seam. “If I do it this way, you can take them to the boot shop, and they might be able to repair them.”
He removed the boot and her sock and gasped. “It’s already turning purple. We need to get you into the shower, get all the dirt cleaned off you, and prop this thing up with ice. I’ll be surprised if you can even ride in Lovington.”
He removed her other boot and slipped his arms around her. “Hold on to me and stand on your right leg.”
She grimaced when she stood up and put weight on it, but she’d had sprains before, and she’d had a broken ankle once when she was a teenager. She knew the difference and he was right—it would be a miracle if she was able to ride in Lovington.
He removed her chaps, then the rest of her clothing, and carried her strip-stark naked to her tiny bathroom. He started the water and set her down under the shower.
“Get on out of here before you ruin those chaps and bitch about it until eternity dawns,” she said. “And shut the door. I can hold on to the wall and take a shower standing on one leg.”
“I’ll get out of these chaps and be right here when you get done, but I’m not closing the door all the way shut. You might need me,” he said.
Mud streamed down her body as the water washed away half a bushel of the arena dirt. When she was finally clean, she turned the faucet off and eased the door open. Trace was leaning against the doorjamb with a big white towel in his hands. He took one step forward, wrapped it around her, and swept her off her feet.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up another towel, and rubbed the water from her hair before he brushed the tangles out. After that he gently dried the water droplets from her shoulders and the rest of her body and dressed her in underpants and an oversized nightshirt. Then he propped her leg up and opened the refrigerator. He found the flexible ice pack in the freezer and molded it around her ankle.
“Where’s something for that scrape?” he asked.
“In the kit beside my bed.” Every cowboy and cowgirl’s traveling kit contained an ice pack, a heat pad, aspirin, over-the-counter pain pills, antiseptic spray, antibiotic ointment, and ibuprofen.
He shook out a couple of pain pills and handed her a bottle of water from the fridge. “No beer or dancing tonight, lady.”
Then he squeezed ointment on his fingertip and applied it to the scrape on her jaw. When he finished, he settled her back against more pillows and stretched out beside her on the bed. He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed gently.
“Now what happened out there? You survived a bee, woman. Did some fool grease your saddle?” he asked gruffly.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “If I’d been drinking, I could call it a hangover. Last time I wrecked this bad was when I tried to ride a bronc after proving I could best my sister at shots.”
“But you weren’t drinking. You haven’t even had a beer since yesterday at lunch,” Trace said.
She giggled. “If it wasn’t a hangover, then it might be the result of a bangover! From now on, no sex on the night before or the day of a rodeo. And absolutely no naked haircuts, even though your hair does look sexy.”
“What about the night after a rodeo?” he asked.
“That is optional, but tonight ain’t an option,” she answered.
“Of course it’s not, but I’m going to carry you over to my place where the bed is bigger and more comfortable. I won’t leave you alone, Gemma. You ready?” he asked.
She yawned. “I’m not arguing.”
He sat straight up and ran his fingers over her entire head, carefully probing and searching. “You shouldn’t be sleepy this early, Gemma. Do you have a concussion? Look at me so I can see your pupils. Do you feel dizzy or bumfuzzled?”
She shook her head. “I got a mouthful of dirt, and it got in my eyes, so they are probably bloodshot, but I didn’t hit anything when I fell. The pills you gave me are making me sleepy. I’m very drug sensitive. Two pills knock me on my ass for ten or twelve hours. That’s probably why that drug in my beer hit me so hard.”
He rolled off the side of the bed and gathered her into his arms. “I’ll get you settled and come back to lock up.”
“Anything you say.” She was already drowsy.
He put her to bed, propped her ankle on a pillow, and wrapped the ice pack around it. “I’ll lock the door. Don’t move until I get back.”
“I promise,” she said.
Her eyes grew heavier while he went to claim their saddles and lock up her trailer. She was barely awake when he returned with his saddle, carefully stowed it away in the closet, and disappeared into the bathroom. When he got into bed with her, she snuggled up to his side and used his shoulder for a pillow.
Her neck was in a kink when she awoke the next morning, and the ice pack was a lukewarm lump next to her ankle. Trace’s eyes were wide open, and he reached over and touched the end of her nose.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he said.
“I’m so sure I’m beautiful with my hair all tangled and a scrape on my face, not to mention my foot,” she grumbled.
“Grumpy this morning, are we?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes, I am.”
“Does coffee tame the beast down?” He kissed her on the tip of her nose.
“It usually does.”
He pushed the sheet back and threw his legs over the side of the bed.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said.
He picked her up like he would a child and set her on the floor. “Use my arm like a crutch.”
“I can use the wall to hobble to the bathroom. If we were in a house or even a hotel room, I would use you for a crutch, but I can make it four feet to the bathroom,” she grumbled.
She shut the bathroom door. Sitting on the potty wasn’t a problem, but it took some maneuvering to get up.
“You going to be able to drive?” He raised his voice so she could hear through the closed door.
She opened the door, hopped to the edge of the bed, and sat down. “Of course, I can drive. It’s my left foot. I don’t use it to drive.”
“We could go halfway today and finish up tomorrow. We’ve got six days,” he suggested.
“Sounds good to me,” she said.
He started coffee and then opened the cabinet doors. “What do you want for breakfast?”
“Cereal is fine.”
“That’s not breakfast. That barely qualifies as food. We haven’t had time to shop so we’ll stop at the first IHOP. Then we can call it a day at lunchtime, and you can rest that foot all afternoon and night.”
She nodded. “Okay. And I could polish my saddle, readjust the stirrups, and get my boots ready for the rodeo while I rest the foot, right?”
He slid a sideways look her way. “I had something else in mind.”
She wiggled her dark eyebrows. “Something that would produce a bangover, so I’ll wreck in New Mexico?”
He chuckled. “It sounds like fun, but no, ma’am. I will not have you saying that I was the reason that you failed. No sex until after the rodeo in New Mexico.”
She sucked air for a whole five seconds. “That’s six days, Trace!”
He laughed out loud. “Then no sex tonight and none the night before the Lovington Rodeo. That sound better?”
She figured up the nights in her head. None that night. None the night of the rodeo. That left three nights free.
“I can live with that.”
He carried a cup of steaming-hot black coffee to the bedside and put it in her hands, poured himself a cup, and sat down beside her.
“I wish I had my crutches from back home,” she said. “It would make getting around a lot easier.”
Trace opened a closet door and brought out a set of aluminum crutches. “We’ll have to adjust them, but there they are. I got a sprain last year and had to hobble around until I could buy them. Swore I’d never travel without them again.”
With a few swift movements, he had them adjusted to the right height and handed them to her. “You going to try to prove that you can beat me in New Mexico even with a busted ankle? I’m telling you right now, that is my win.”
“Spit in one hand and wish in the other, cowboy. We’ll see which one fills up fastest.”
“Oh, we’re back to the cowboy stuff, are we?”
“When it comes to bronc riding, you’ll always be ‘cowboy’ to me,” she smiled up at him.
“Well, then this cowboy is going to get everything ready to hit the road in fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll be ready,” she said.
***
They stopped at the Corral RV Park in Dalhart, Texas, at noon. The campground had wide pull-through lots with shade trees spaced just right to give the campers some relief from the blistering-hot August sun. Gemma unfastened her seat belt and opened the truck door. Cold air wasted no time rushing out. Hot air replaced it so fast that she was sweating before she swung her legs out and eased down on her right foot. She hobbled around to the pickup’s back door and grabbed her crutches.
“Hey, I was coming around to help you,” Trace yelled.
“I need to walk on this leg, or it’ll get lazy,” she said. “You reckon we could get pizza delivered out here?”
“Probably. I’ll see what I can do about getting a delivery when you are in my trailer. And we’re having spaghetti for supper. You, darlin’, are going to spend the day with that ankle propped on a pillow. We’ll ice it this afternoon and by tomorrow it should be better.”
She didn’t start to move. “Give me a minute to look around. We stayed right here every year when I was a little girl. Mama and Daddy would bring the big trailer and all five of us kids. It’s not until next week when we’ll be in Lovington. The whole town is probably gearing up this week for the XIT Rodeo and Reunion. Grandpa brought Mama when she was just a kid, and then Mama and Daddy always brought us kids.”
Trace slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I came with Uncle Teamer two years. When I was twelve and again when I was thirteen. I loved it and Mother threatened to ban me to my room and make me read Hemingway or Faulkner if I didn’t stop talking about the barbecue and the country music.”
“Did Teamer take you to see the Empty Saddle Monument?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah! I kept the framed picture of me standing in front of it in my dresser drawer. I was afraid Mother would burn it.” He chuckled.
“She hates ranchin’ that bad?” Gemma asked.
“No, she doesn’t hate it at all. She actually likes to go to Goodnight for a couple of days and relax. What she doesn’t like is me likin’ ranchin’. She wanted me to be a lawyer. Coleman and Coleman was her big dream. It was all right that I got a business degree, because afterward she’d see to it I got into prelaw. But I shattered her hopes when I moved to Goodnight. She hasn’t forgiven me yet.”
“She will,” Gemma said.
“What makes you so sure?” Trace asked.
“Because she loves you,” she said.
***
The next day they drove all the way into Lovington, New Mexico, and parked on the rodeo grounds. Gemma’s foot was looking better, and she still had three days before she needed it to be well enough to get her boot on and make it into the saddle. Even if it hurt, she vowed that she could endure it for eight seconds.
They pulled their trailers into a couple of lots back behind the rodeo and fairgrounds. Vendors and the carnival crew were already setting up, and excitement was as thick as the dust. Lovington, New Mexico, wasn’t a lot different than Dalhart, Texas: cotton, cattle, oil wells, cowboys and cowgirls, and rodeo fever everywhere she looked.
Lovington, like Dalhart, wasn’t a big town. Nowhere near ten thousand people, it had a small-town feel to it. The rodeo with the carnival, the mutton bustin’, and the music for four whole days was the highlight of the whole summer, and everyone couldn’t wait for it to get started.
In just three days, everything would be in full swing. Then the excitement would turn into sheer frenzy as kids ran from one ride to another, one game booth to the next, and back and forth from snow cone stands to corn dog vendors. There would be more fancy cowboy hats and boots than anywhere short of a western-wear store. And cowboys would be everywhere, trying to win the favor of the cowgirls with tight-fitting jeans. It was rodeo time in Lovington, and life was good.
The rodeo motto was “Livin’ Life in Eight Seconds,” and Gemma couldn’t get that line out of her head. When she started the circuit, she would have agreed wholeheartedly. Now she wasn’t so sure. Those eight seconds were an important part of her life. Each one brought her closer and closer to her dream, but that wasn’t all there was to life. Even when the dream became reality, it wasn’t really, really life.
By the time she got the seat belt unfastened, Trace had opened the door and held out his hand to help her out of the truck. She put her hands on his shoulders and carefully slid out to land on one foot.
Slipping his hands under her arms, he picked her up and kissed her, letting his tongue tease her lips open and make promises for later that night.
When he set her down, he said, “I missed you today. I wanted to call several times, but you’ve got the foot problem and I was afraid for you to talk and drive. But it’s been the longest two hundred miles I’ve ever driven. I could stand right here and kiss you all afternoon.”
“Sounds good to me, but I would surely have energy to do more than kiss if we could find something to eat first,” she told him.
She reached for her crutches, but he beat her to them. “Here you go. Have I told you that you are beautiful with those cute little braids?”
She smiled up at him. “I look like Laura Ingalls with them, and honey, she was not beautiful.”
The hot dog and hamburger vendor was set up for business, so they ordered one of each and Trace carried them to the tables set up under an awning attached to the end of the wagon.
“Looks like it’s going to be an exciting one,” Trace said. “I hate to ride when the crowd is dull, don’t you?”
“I don’t ever know if they are happy or dull. I just block everything out and ride,” she answered.
“Hey, Trace Coleman,” a red-haired woman yelled from halfway across the grounds.
He waved and squinted. “Who is that? Is that your sister?”
The mention of her sister got Gemma’s attention immediately. “No, hair is too carrot red. Colleen’s is burgundy. But I’ve seen that woman before. She was one of that group who knocked on your door, who wanted to have a foursome with you, remember? She said that Ava had a surprise.”
“Oh, yeah,” Trace said. “I had forgotten about that night.”.
“Looks like she intends to try to seduce you again, as fast as she’s coming this way,” Gemma said.
“Hey, I’ve been on the lookout for you since yesterday. I thought that was your trailer when you drove onto the grounds, but I waited until I saw you get out of it to call Ava. There she is. I was just supposed to keep you busy until she got here so she wouldn’t have to hunt you down.” The woman waved at a shiny black car driving toward them and then headed off toward the funnel cake wagon.
“Holy smoke!” Trace said.
“Might as well get it over with,” Gemma told him.
The car came to a stop and a tall blond wearing a spaghetti-strapped flowing sundress in a bright splash of color, designer high heels, and a killer smile got out of the driver’s seat. She left the engine running and walked around the car.
“Hello, Trace,” she said. She didn’t have an accent at all. Not southern. Not northern. Her tone was as flat as the New Mexico landscape.
Gemma stood up.
“Don’t you dare leave,” Trace said.
She sat back down beside him.
He nodded toward the woman. “Hello, Ava. What brings you to Lovington? Last time I saw you, you said you’d had all the cowboys and rodeo business you ever wanted.”
“I meant it. I’m not staying for the rodeo. I flew down here, rented a car, and came to see you. May I sit down?” she asked in a smooth-as-silk voice.
“Of course,” Trace motioned toward a bench and then swung his hand over toward Gemma. “This is Gemma O’Donnell.”
“I know who she is,” Ava said. “I’ve kept up with your every move these past months. Hello, Gemma. I’m Ava.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Gemma said.
Ava sat down gracefully and put her arms on the table. “We have a problem, Trace. Do you want to discuss it in front of Gemma?”
“Gemma is my friend,” he answered. “We can discuss anything in front of her.”
Ava laughed. It had a crackling, humorless sound to it as if it came from her throat and not her heart. “I expect you are more than friends, but that’s your business, and none of mine. Okay, here goes. When we had our fling, I was engaged to an archaeologist doing research in Africa. We’d had an argument and I was very angry. Why or what about isn’t important. You just need to know that before I go on.”
“Okay,” Trace said.
“He’d been gone two months. So, when I fell into the point one percent of women that get pregnant on the pill, I knew the baby wasn’t his. And you were the only man I’d been with other than him. So, we decided I’d have the baby and put it up for adoption.”
All the color drained from Trace’s face.
Gemma reached across the space and laced her fingers into his.
Ava went on. “Then I found out that since I knew who the father was and even named you on the birth certificate that you had to sign the papers for me to adopt the baby out. I brought the papers for you to sign.”
“But—” Trace started.
Ava held up a hand. “I also brought the baby. It’s your choice. Keep her or take her to the nearest hospital with all the legal documents and tell them to find her a suitable family. It certainly doesn’t matter to me. I carried her. I gave birth to her. But I do not want children, now or ever.”
“Where is she?” Gemma asked.
“She’s sleeping in the back seat of the car in her car seat. That’s why I left the engine running. She was born two weeks ago. Please take her out for me. I’m not supposed to lift anything that heavy yet. The papers are in a folder beside her, and there’s a diaper bag with formula and diapers. The nanny I hired has a notebook among the papers that tells what she has done for the baby on a daily basis the past two weeks. I had her by cesarean birth and I wasn’t allowed to travel for two weeks.”
Trace didn’t move.
Ava tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I signed the documents giving up all my rights, so you won’t have any trouble when you give her up for adoption.”
“I can’t,” Trace said.
“I don’t expect you to. Never did. I don’t want her either,” Ava said.
“I did not say that,” Trace enunciated slowly in a growl. “I could never give up my child.”
Ava shrugged. “It’s up to you. I did what I had to. Now you can do whatever you want to. Anything else you want to know before I go?”
Gemma was stunned. “How can you do that? Carry a baby nine months and then just give her away?”
“I demanded that they take the baby by C-section, so that I could think of it as a surgery. If you had a gallbladder removed, would you want to hold it and cuddle it up next to you? I hired a lady to take care of her, so I didn’t have to touch her. That same nanny traveled with me on the plane and will go home with me this afternoon. She put her into the rental car, and I haven’t even looked at her any more than absolutely necessary. Like I said, I don’t want kids. Never did. I won’t ever look back on this and get all warm and fuzzy.”
“What if you change your mind in ten years? What makes it fair that you know all about Trace and he knows nothing about you?” Gemma asked.
“Life is not fair. Goodbye, Gemma, and rest assured I will not come back in ten years for that child. The heart does not grieve what the eyes do not see,” Ava said with a hand wave.
Trace stood up slowly and headed for the car. He opened the back door, and when he turned around to face Gemma, he had a baby seat in one hand, a diaper bag over his shoulder, and a folder full of papers tucked under his arm.
Ava stood up just as slowly and got into the car. “I went ahead and named her, but it can be changed if you want to amend the birth certificate. I remembered looking at your driver’s license and seeing that your name is Joseph Trace. There was snow on the holly bushes the day I found out I was pregnant. So, I named her Holly Jo.”
Gemma’s ears rang with Liz’s voice when she had told her fortune in the spring: “You will definitely have a cowboy of your very own and a baby by this Christmas.”
She had not said a cowboy of your very own and you two will have a baby together .