A Cowboy's Plan

Someone slapped him on the back. Angus Kinsey.

“Hey, Angus,” C.J. said. Angus was a great guy. Like Hank, he was generous with his property, his horses and his broncs, and had let C.J. practice on his ranch as much as he’d wanted when C.J. had worked there part-time as a teenager.

“How’re things?” Angus asked. “You sold that candy store yet?”

The way Angus said candy store left no doubt what he thought of C.J. owning one. C.J. shook his head and laughed. Raging cowboy testosterone. “Not yet.”

“You need to get rid of it and start ranching, boy.”

“Amen,” C.J. answered.

This was what he wanted. A life of hard labor on a ranch with other cowboys. With camaraderie and sharing the highs and the lows of cattle ranching, with earning a living with his hands and body then falling into bed at night exhausted from a day of good solid work, and teaching his son how to ranch. His greatest desire? To give his son a future.

His own future did not include candy-making.

When he glanced along the bodies lining the white fence, arms and elbows resting along the top of it, his sights zoomed in on Janey before any other individual, and that bothered him.

She stood on a lower rung watching someone in the corral. When she leaned forward, her dress hiked up the backs of her legs, well above her knees.

Lord, for a petite woman, she had great thighs.

He inserted himself among the spectators. He felt Janey watching him and looked her way. The black lipstick she’d had on earlier was gone. Her own natural pink shone on her full lips. They looked soft and moist and pretty. Damn.

“Hey, C.J.!” Hank picked himself up from the dusty ground inside the corral, where the bronc had just dropped him, and grinned. “You want to go a round on Dusty here?”

“Sure,” C.J. called, but his pulse suddenly raced. Do it. Just get in there and do it.

He felt her eyes on him when he climbed over the fence.

He hadn’t done this in four years, since the day Davey died.

“Davey,” he whispered beneath his breath as he approached Dusty, “help me.”

The bronc shied away from him.

Kelly Cooper caught Dusty and held him still. C.J. climbed on and settled himself in the saddle, grinning at Kelly as though there weren’t ten devils dancing in his chest. God.

The second Kelly let the bronc loose, the animal bucked.

The bronc’s first buck slammed through C.J., made his teeth snap together, nearly threw him out of the saddle. He curled his fist around the rope, ignored that it cut off circulation.

He tightened his knees against the horse, used his uncanny sense of balance to stay astride.

Each kick and landing thudded through his back, his arms, legs and butt. His blood pounded. Dust flew into his eyes.

Yelling and cheering swirled around him.

His right arm ached, his fist wrapped in the rigging burned, and every particle of his spine felt as if it was being permanently twisted. But he hung on, breathed hard and felt the buzz, the high that had always trumped everything else. Common sense had never, ever stood a chance.

He jumped from the bronc, ran away from those dangerous hooves and laughed. And laughed. Taking off his cowboy hat, he waved it in the air and shouted, “Whooooohooooo.”

The applause of the audience coursed through his body like the beat of his blood. He jumped over the fence and accepted the handshakes and slaps on his shoulders.

“It’s good to have you back,” Angus said, and C.J. knew what he meant. It had been too long since his last rodeo. Four long years filled with bitterness and anger.

He banged his hat against his leg and a puff of dust rose from his jeans. He laughed again for the pure pleasure of it.

C.J. got up on a bronc three times during the evening, each time more thrilling than the last and, at the end, headed to his truck in the hush of dusk, willing his heart rate to slow and his body to relax, to come down from the high he hadn’t experienced in so long.

From behind him, Shane MacGraw tapped C.J.’s hat forward over his face. “Hey, glad you got over whatever kept you away from rodeo, man.”

C.J. caught his hat, shoved it back onto his head and grinned. “Thanks, Shane.”

He slipped into the driver’s side of his Jeep and sat still for a moment. He knew what Shane had assumed, what they had all thought—that after Davey’s death he’d been afraid to get back on a bronc or a bull. That he was afraid he, too, would get killed. That he hadn’t overcome his fear tonight to ride again.

Let them think that. The truth was far worse for him. It was eating him alive. He hadn’t feared the broncs or the bulls or that he might not like riding anymore, or performing.

He feared that he’d like those seductive sensations too much—of his blood whipping through his body, of excitement buzzing in his head, and of the adoration of the crowd. That he’d crave it even more than he used to in the old days, like a demon that had sunk in its claws and C.J. couldn’t shake free. He didn’t want that demon dogging him again. What if he couldn’t control it this time?

Who would take care of Liam then? Liam deserved someone whole and responsible.

C.J. had hoped he was over that wildness that reminded him too much of his pretty impetuous mother and of his own crazy period after Davey died, of his life in the city and a dangerous flirtation with drugs and booze. He had to force himself to be done with all of that shit.

By the time he pulled into the driveway of the Hanging W and stopped in the yard, he had himself under control and the demons of his past put to bed for the night. He could control them.

One arm resting on the open window, he drummed his fingers on the door and studied the small house. The place was dark. Gramps must be in the back room watching TV, as usual.

There hadn’t been a female in the Wright family in too many years. And it showed in the details—the house was clean, but didn’t sparkle. No flowers graced the dirt around the foundation. The furniture was only serviceable, the decorations nonexistent.

C.J. stepped out of the car and up onto the veranda, avoiding the third step that looked to fall apart any day now.

He walked into the house and called, “Gramps?”

“Back here,” came the muffled response.

Gramps sat in the closed-in back porch, watching a small TV propped on a rickety table. Dancing with the Stars blared. He slurped tea from a heavy china mug.

Moths beat against the screens of the open windows.

Liam sprawled on the sofa beside Gramps asleep, one leg hanging over the edge, his small hands curled into fists.

C.J. bent over and kissed his sweaty head. How come kid sweat smelled so much better than man sweat?

“How long has he been asleep?” C.J. asked.

“’Bout an hour.” Gramps patted the boy’s leg with one gnarled hand.

C.J. picked up his son. Liam rested boneless in his arms, as trusting as a newborn kitten. C.J. would do anything to have Liam trust him half as much when he was awake.