A Cowboy's Heart

He nearly ran into one of the event judges. The guy grabbed his arm and shot him a look.

“Sorry about that,” Clint mumbled as he lifted his bull rope and continued moving through the crowd.

“You’re up, Cameron.” One of the men motioned him forward.

The MC in the announcer’s stand gave the name of the next bull and followed that with Clint’s name and a little information on his career. Of course they just had to mention that he was thirty-one, a late bloomer for bull riding.

He’d been at the sport for as long as he could remember. He just hadn’t had the time to invest into making it a career. That didn’t interest the crowd. They wanted to think about the old guy, the newcomer. Even in bull riding the fans wanted a Cinderella story.

Clint slid onto the back of a big old bull, one that he’d come up against before. Part Brahma and part Angus, the bull had a mean streak a mile wide.

A warm night in May didn’t make the bull any nicer. The animal slid to his knees and then back up again, leaning to the left and pushing Clint’s leg against the side of the chute.

One of the other riders, a guy named Mike, pulled the bull rope and handed it to Clint. Clint rubbed rosin up and down the rope and then wrapped it around his gloved riding hand. The bull lurched forward and someone grabbed the back of Clint’s shirt, keeping his head from bashing into the metal gate in front of him. The animal shook its head and flung white foam across Clint’s face.

Clint leaned forward, the heaving, fifteen-hundred-pound animal moving beneath him. Fear in the guise of adrenaline shot through his veins, pumping his heart into overdrive. The bull calmed down for a brief moment, and Clint nodded.

The gate opened, and the bull made a spinning jump out of the chute, knocking his back end against the corner and sending Clint headfirst toward the animal’s horns. With his free arm in the air, whipping back for control, Clint moved himself back to center.

Eight seconds, and he felt every twist, every jump, every lurch. As the buzzer rang, Clint dived off for safety, not expecting the last-minute direction change that the bull added in for fun. Clint hit the ground, and the impact felt like hitting a truck. A loud pop echoed in his ears, and pain shot from his shoulder down his arm.

The bull turned and charged at him. He rolled away, but he couldn’t escape the rampaging animal, its hot breath in Clint’s face and the hammering of its hooves against solid-packed dirt.

That big old bull was face-to-face with him, pawing and twisting. Clint rolled away from the hooves and then felt a hard tug as someone jerked him backward, away from danger.

The bullfighter yelled at him to move. Clint did his best to oblige, but his left arm hung at his side, useless. The pop he’d heard when he hit the ground must have been his shoulder dislocating.

A blur of blue in front of him, and the bull changed direction to go after the bullfighter. Those guys were bodyguards and stuntmen, all in one package. Clint hurried to the side of the arena and the fence.

As he held on to the fence, watching the bullfighters play with the overzealous bull, he caught a flash of blond. He turned and saw Willow Michaels watching from the corner gate.

When he limped out of the arena, his eyes met hers for a split second and then she walked away. She wasn’t the first princess to turn her back on him. She probably wouldn’t be the last.

Telling himself it didn’t matter didn’t feel as good as it usually did. Fortunately he had the throbbing pain in his arm to keep his mind off the blow to his ego.

Medics were waiting for him as he walked out the gate. They offered help walking that he didn’t need. He’d dislocated his shoulder before, so he knew the drill. He just didn’t feel like talking about it.

“Want some help getting in?” One of the paramedics motioned inside the back of the vehicle.

“I’ll just sit on the tailgate.” He had no desire to climb, with or without help.

“Suit yourself.”

He leaned back and just as he started to close his eyes, Janie was there. She wore that “mother hen” look that he remembered from his childhood.

It was a shame she’d never had kids of her own. But then he might have missed out on having her in his life.

“Is it dislocated?” She nearly pushed the paramedics aside.

“I imagine it is.” He managed a smile that he hoped wasn’t too much of a grimace.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“I think the paramedics can manage.”

Janie didn’t look convinced. She was five-foot-nothing but a force to be reckoned with. Funny how she hadn’t really aged.

Not like his dad. His dad was barely sixty-five, but already an old, old man. His liver was shot, and his mind was going. Janie would always have her wits about her.

“Don’t let him sit there and suffer.” She stepped back, and motioned the paramedics forward.

She had no idea about suffering. The pain he had felt just sitting there was nothing compared to that moment when they yanked his arm and pushed it back into its socket. Working through it meant a serious “cowboy up” moment. He took a few deep breaths that didn’t really help.

“There, nothing to it.” One paramedic smiled as he said the words.

“Yeah, nothing to it.” Clint shrugged to loosen the muscle, but the pain shot down his arm and across his back.

“It’ll be sore, and I’m afraid there might be more damage than just the dislocation. Best get it checked out with the sports medicine team. Until then,” he held out a sling, “pain meds, and you might want to get a ride home tonight.”

A ride home? For the first time in a dozen years a “ride home” meant a ride to Grove, Oklahoma. And now it meant Willow Michaels living just down the road. He couldn’t quite picture her as the “girl next door.”

Chapter Two

In the midnight-black of the truck, lit only with the red-and-orange glow from the dash, Willow nudged at the cowboy sleeping in the seat next to her. They’d driven the two hours from Tulsa and were getting close to the ranch. Janie hadn’t helped. She had fallen asleep shortly after they’d taken off.

“Wake up.” She nudged Clint again, careful to hit his ribs, not the arm held against his chest with a sling. “Do you have a key to get into this place?”

He stirred, brushed a hand through hair that wasn’t long enough to get messy and then yawned. He blinked a few times and looked at her like he couldn’t quite remember who she was.

“Willow Michaels, remember? We offered you a ride home?”

He nodded and then he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

She didn’t hear the rest because he yawned and covered his mouth. Moments like this were not easy for her, not in the dark cab of a truck, not with someone she didn’t really know.

He said something else that she didn’t catch. Willow sighed because it wasn’t fair, and she didn’t want to have this conversation with him.

This kind of insecurity belonged to a ten-year-old girl saying goodbye to her parents and wondering why they no longer wanted her with them. And always assuming that it was because her hearing loss embarrassed them.

He said something else that she didn’t catch.

“Clint, you have to talk more clearly. I can’t see you, and I don’t know what you’re saying.”

There, it was said, and she’d survived. But it ached deep down, where her confidence should have been but wasn’t.

He looked at her, his smile apologetic as he reached to turn on the overhead light. The dim glow undid her calm, because the look in his eyes touched something deep inside. Wow, she really wanted to believe in fairy tales.

SORRY.