A Knight In Cowboy Boots (28 page)

The crowd cheered when the cowboy walked out of the arena, clutching his arm.

“And that’s what I don’t want,” Zach said. “A bull that goes after a downed rider.”

When the next bull left the chute, he said hello and goodbye to the cowboy on the first kick.

Their brother came up next.

The bull lunged out of the chute and started spinning and kicking. The first six and a half seconds looked as much like a cake walk as any bull ride could, then at seven and a quarter seconds, the bull changed directions, and Zach’s brother slid off into the vortex in the center of the bull’s spin, that dangerous place riders called the well.

“Damn,” Jake and Zach said in unison.

The bullfighters, who in Maddie’s childhood had simply been rodeo clowns, were there, distracting the bull, before Sol even hit the ground.

Maddie could almost hear Zach’s brother echo their sentiment as he slapped his cowboy hat against his chaps before walking out of the arena. All Maddie could really say about him was that he had the same lean build as his brothers, but she’d known a few bull riders in Wyoming. They were a tough breed with well-developed strength, coordination, and balance, and in her opinion, an insane need to test themselves against a two-thousand pound animal who’d just as happily stomp their head in as find a trough full of hay. In some worlds, that was called courage.

“When does Applejack come up?” Zach asked.

“A couple more bulls,” Jake answered.

The next two riders both made the eight second buzzer. After each ride, Zach ventured his opinion of what each go-around was worth. He came within two points of the judges’ score for each ride. Not bad on a one hundred point scale.

Zach leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees. His hands, one folded over the other, supported his chin. When Applejack burst out of the chute, Zach’s eyes focused on the bull to the exclusion of everything, even Maddie.

The rider did a good job, almost reclining on the bull when it kicked his hind legs. At about six seconds, the rider lost his center of balance and it became a race: would he fall off before the buzzer sounded?

When the buzzer sounded, he still had enough control of his situation to slide off the back. The bull kicked as he spun, his rear hooves arching over the rider’s head. The cowboy beat a hasty retreat to the arena fence as the bullfighters moved in.

“Eighty-three,” Zach said, still focused on the bull.

The judges scored the ride as eighty-four.

“Not a bad ride,” Jake said. “What do you think?”

“Well, since Sol’s so hot for him, I guess we could make an offer. If the PBR scout don’t pick him up, we just might have ourselves a bull.”

“You wanna find the owner tonight?”

“Tomorrow’s soon enough. He won’t want to deal ‘til he sees if the
PBR
scout looks interested.” He turned to Maddie. “You ready to go?”

“We’re not going to stay for the rest?” Maddie asked.

“I got more fun rides in mind,” Zach murmured into her ear.

“Zach!” She pulled away.

“Can I help it if you’re more fun than a merry-go-round?” He leaned close. “You can ride me if you want. I promise it’ll last more than eight seconds.”

*

Later, as they lay in bed, sated from the ride they’d taken together, Zach asked, “Am I a hypocrite, Maddie?”

She lifted her head from his chest to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“Wanting you like I do. Taking you any chance I get. Telling Daisy she can’t do the same.”

“No, you’re not a hypocrite.” Maddie laid her head back down. “Daisy’s a sixteen year old girl. She still believes happily-ever-after is inevitable.” She couldn’t help thinking of her sister and how she’d still believed that when she met Derek. “You can screw your life up pretty badly believing that.”

“I just don’t want her to get hurt.”

“I know.” Maddie curled a strand of Zach’s chest hair around her finger. “And someday she’ll understand that, too. Probably sooner than you think.”

“In the meantime, I’m just her mean, dunderheaded brother who’s trying to keep her from being happy.”

“If it’s any consolation, you make me happy.”

“Do I?”

She lifted her head again. His eyes seemed to be seeking something more than just a sop to his ego.

“What do you think?”

“I think I satisfy you. But is that enough to make you happy?”

Maddie’s heart twisted in her chest. Why did he have to ask this now? She wanted to tell him how safe and secure he made her feel, maybe even loved, but even if they’d had a shot at the future, she would have shied away from telling him that. She couldn’t say any of those things; when she left, he’d doubt anything she told him. She couldn’t damage him like that.

Instead, she said, “Right now, in this minute, there’s nothing you could do that would make me happier than I already am.”

Zach wrapped his arms tight around her and hugged her close. When he eased the pressure, he kissed her. “Maddie, I think I’m—”

Maddie had a horrible premonition that he was going say he loved her. She put her fingers over his lips. “Shh. Not yet.”

Vince had loved her and he had died; she couldn’t let Zach say those words to her. Not ever.

*

Maddie blamed her dream of Vince on her fear of what Zach had almost said. As was so often the case, the dream story was nonlinear, but Maddie had had it several times since Zach had awakened her grief for Vince, so she knew, even in her dream state, that it culminated with Vince dying at Derek’s hands. This time, through some Hollywood B-movie effects, Vince and Zach morphed back and forth, terrifying Maddie more than usual.

Jesse saved her from the ending, waking her just as the sun was cresting the horizon. Attuned as she was to his morning cry, she had him out of the crib before he woke Zach.

Maddie threw on Zach’s discarded T-shirt, grateful for its length, and fed Jesse his breakfast. When he finished, she took him into their bed, but she was too afraid of the dream returning to doze off again. Instead, she played quietly with Jesse and contemplated its message.

She’d been selfish, delaying her departure. As safe as Zach made her feel, it was an illusion. Worse, it endangered him.

If Derek found her, she had no doubt he would kill her for trying to stand between him and his son. If Zach stood with her, Derek would kill him, too. As important as it was to save Jesse from his father, she couldn’t suck anyone else into her peril. Maddie had chosen the risk she ran, but she couldn’t make that choice for someone else. She hoped it wasn’t something she’d have cause to regret. She had to leave while the choice was still hers to make.

But she could spare a few more hours.

Her decision made, Maddie grew restless. She got up and picked up her and Zach’s clothes. She folded his and put them on the dresser. Her own she packed into the duffel bag. She left it in the corner of the open closet, satisfied it would be ready when she was. When Zach continued to sleep, she decided to go check on the car she’d left at the arena, maybe drive by the lot that had offered to buy the Lincoln to see when it opened, then bring back breakfast.

After dressing herself and Jesse, she grabbed Jesse’s travel bag and her purse and slipped out, closing the door quietly behind her.

Chapter Twenty-One

At first, Zach didn’t know what had awakened him, then he recognized the fading sound of the Lincoln.

He jumped out of bed and threw open the door, but the car was already pulling into the street. The cool air of the early morning brushed his skin, reminding him he was naked.

Inside the room, he reached for his cell phone with one hand as he tried to pull his jeans on with the other. Neither operation met with much success, and he finally sat on the bed with his jeans only up to his knees as he punched in his brother’s number. Crunching the phone between his ear and shoulder, listening to it ring, he finally got his pants up.

The moment he’d seen the taillights of her car, he’d flashed on the way she’d woken him in the middle of the night. She’d never done that before. Without a word, they’d made slow love in the darkness. He remembered thinking at the time that there’d been a despairing quality to the way she’d touched him. Afterward, she’d seemed sad as she clung to him, but he’d fallen asleep again, thinking he’d have time to evaluate those impressions in the morning. He swore under his breath, wishing he’d listened to his instincts.

Jake’s phone routed his call to voice mail. Zach disconnected. Trying to redial, he dropped the phone.

He’d taken terrible risks with Maddie, and if those risks bore fruit, he could have a child out there somewhere he wouldn’t even know about. He couldn’t let her just disappear.

Zach retrieved the phone and redialed, then pounded on the wall when Jake’s phone started ringing again. “Wake up, you lazy bastard!”

Jake picked up just before it would have gone to voicemail again. His voice was muzzy with sleep but still grumpy at being woken. “What!”

“She’s gone.”

“What? Who? Maddie?”

“Yes, Maddie,” Zach said impatiently. “She drove off just now.”

“Maybe she’s gone to get breakfast.”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” Zach drove a hand through his hair. “I want you to take the truck and see if you can catch up with her.”

“What are you going to do?”

Zach looked around. Seeing Jesse’s bag was gone incited his panic. At first glance, the closet, too, looked empty. Then he saw the duffel in a shadowed corner. Already, he was convinced she’d left it behind to lull him into not worrying until it was too late.

“I’m going through the things she left to see if there’s any clue where she’s headed.”

*

An hour later, Maddie pulled back into the motel parking lot. When she saw Zach’s truck was gone, she hoped Jake hadn’t gone out to fetch breakfast.

She left the bear claws and coffee in the car, planning to return for them after depositing Jesse inside, but she stopped dead in the open door, her heart feeling like it had dropped to her toes.

Zach stood behind the bed, an accusatory expression on his face. In a pile in the middle of the hastily made bed were the bank-packaged stacks of bills from the duffel bag. Maddie couldn’t seem to lift her gaze to meet Zach’s.

“It took this to make me see how come I never pushed you harder for answers.” Zach’s voice was soft but harsh. “I was afraid I’d learn something I couldn’t ignore.”

Maddie looked up then. “Zach, I can explain—”

“Can you?” His voice rose, both in volume and pitch. “I’d love it if you could. God knows I’ve racked my brain, trying to find an answer that would let me keep believing you’re the person I thought you were. I can maybe find one for you having a kid that ain’t yours. I can even come up with one or two for you running from some guy you’ve admitted is the baby’s father. It’s a little harder to think of an excuse for you to be traveling with tens of thousands of dollars in cash, but I can just barely pull out an excuse for that. Problem is: none of the stories I’ve built in my head overlap. Except for ones I don’t want to believe.”

“So you think I’m a kidnapper and a thief.”

“Tell me it ain’t true. Then give me a reason to believe it. Tell me I can’t think of one myself coz I got a lousy imagination.”

Maddie suddenly realized she still stood in the open door. Any one walking past could hear their conversation. She kicked the door shut.

“You? A lousy imagination? With your visions of making a baby? You were so willing to take a risk on me you tried to get me pregnant. Now at the first little thing, you’re convinced I’m nothing but a felon. I guess it’s too much to ask that you have a little faith in me.”

“Faith?” Zach grabbed a stack of hundred dollar bills and threw it at her. The band broke before it reached her and the money fluttered to the floor. “I got about fifty thousand reasons to doubt.”

“Actually it’s thirty thousand and change.”

He looked at her as though she’d gone crazy.

“It looks like more because some of it’s in fifties and twenties.”

In spite of the yelling, Zach had been coldly calm. His chest rose and fell like he’d just run ten miles. “God, Maddie, please tell me there’s an explanation I ain’t gonna hate.”

Maddie struggled to restrain her temper. She’d planned on using an argument with Zach as an excuse to walk out, but she’d never thought it would be over this. He’d never let her just walk out with all these issues unresolved.

Her arms were growing numb under Jesse’s weight. She sat him on the bed next to the pile of money. His chubby fist closed on a packet of hundred dollar bills which headed straight for his mouth.

“You shouldn’t let him play with that,” Zach said.

“Why not?” She asked, her tone bitchy. “It’s his.”

Zach reached across the bed and pulled the money out of Jesse’s hand. “Bills pick up all sorts of germs and things from people handling it.”

Jesse’s lower lip protruded, but he just grabbed another stack. Zach started to reach for it, but Maddie’s glare stopped him.

“And what do you mean: ‘it’s his’?”

“Well, technically it’s mine. His mother named me beneficiary, so his father couldn’t get his hands on it, but it was always understood it was for him.”

Zach’s eyes narrowed. “Beneficiary of what?”

Maddie glared at him, challenging him to disbelieve her even as her throat threatened to close up with the emotions that came whenever she tried to talk about Laurel. “Her life insurance.”

A little of the tension went out of Zach. “So his mother’s dead.”

For a brief moment, Maddie thought she might cry. “Yes.”

“And his father’s a jerk.”

“And then some.”

“He’s still Jesse’s father.”

“I don’t care. He’s not getting Jesse.”

“That ain’t right. If someone tried to keep me from—”

“
Not right
?” Maddie screamed, suddenly furious. Deep inside she knew Zach wasn’t the real source of her anger, but he was there, telling her she was wrong, and she had nothing to lose from going ballistic on him. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!
Not right
is that son of a bitch killing two people!” Hot tears of anger and grief suddenly overflowed. “
Not right
is him skating out of murder charges because his father pulled in every political favor in the known universe!
Not right
is Jesse growing up without his mother!”

She couldn’t see the look on Zach’s face through the tears, but after a stunned pause, his blurred form moved and his arms folded around her. He murmured apologies and consolations into her hair.

They came too late. Wound up in grief and fear tighter than she’d been since she’d left Wyoming, she hit his chest with her fist, but she didn’t try to pull away.

*

Zach held her tight against him. Her breaths came in noisy, staccato gasps between her sobs. She struck his chest with her fist about every third bawl. His chest vibrated with the force of the early blows, but they quickly lost vigor as her angry tears turned to heartbroken weeping. Slowly, he eased her onto the bed. Jesse crawled around her and tried to climb into her lap. She pulled him into their embrace.

“Maddie, I’m sorry,” he said when at last she was quiet. “You read about things like this, but I never thought—I never imagined it would touch anyone I cared about.” But it had touched him through Vince’s death. Stuff like this was so common anymore that it didn’t even make the papers unless there was a local connection. “You’re right. I lost faith too easily.”

“You need to let me go.” Maddie’s emotionless voice made him want to tighten his grip. Instead, he eased his hold on her.

“No. I mean I have to go.”

“Where?”

Maddie pulled away. She took Jesse around to the crib. Leaving him standing all wobble-kneed inside it, holding onto the rail, she started packing the money back into the duffel.

Zach stood, facing her across the bed, feeling as though he’d accomplished nothing. She was about to walk out of his life, and there was nothing he could do to stop her.

“I have to go someplace where Jesse’s father can’t find us.”

Zach’s heart bumped against his ribs. “Is he in Galveston? Jake said there was someone—”

“He was checking into the hotel when we left. I don’t know what started him looking for us here, but he did. If we go back … ” She shook her head, “I can’t go back.”

“You’ll come to the ranch with me,” Zach said.

“I can’t.”

Her refusal, without even considering it, caught Zach by the throat. “Why not?”

“Because it’s too great a risk.”

“Did I mention I have eight brothers? At least four of which are old enough and big enough to defend you.

“I’m more worried about the danger I’d be to you.”

“I’m willing to take the risk.”

She stopped, a hand inside the duffel, to throw him a hard look. “You just don’t get it. Derek killed my sister—”

Zach felt like he’d been hit with another shock wave. She’d mentioned that her sister had died, but he hadn’t had a chance to match up all the information he had yet.

“—because she wouldn’t give him custody of his son. If I hadn’t been watching him that day while she painted her kitchen—”

She bit her lower lip, plainly fighting more tears. Her voice was low when she continued, as though she could dismiss the tears if she didn’t speak too loudly. “My boyfriend—the guy I was living with—he was a good man. He went over to help Laurel.” She took a couple of slow, stabilizing breaths before continuing. “Derek killed him, too.”

She started stuffing money into the bag again, her eyes on her hands. “He had to know I had Jesse, but I’d taken him shopping. That’s what saved me. By the time I got home, they’d arrested him.”

“But they let him go?”

“Oh, there was an inquest, and he was charged, but it never went to trial.” Her voice was sharply bitter and she paused for a couple of heartbeats, as though emotionally regrouping, then continued packing the money, her movements rougher.

“Please don’t take this wrong, Maddie, but … are you sure they didn’t find some reason to exonerate him?”

She kept shoving packets of money into the bag. “He admitted he did it. He claimed it was self defense. That my sister came at him with a kitchen knife. That she got stabbed in the struggle.”

“And your boyfriend?”

“He supposedly walked in, saw my sister on the floor, and went crazy.”