Luke sat back in his chair. “I can’t picture my father being successful at either.”
“I’ll tell you more about it when you come home. I really should be leaving soon. I have an early shift in the morning.”
“Listen, Amber.” Luke sighed. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this but, truth be told, I’ve been avoiding going home. In that way, I’m a lot like my father. And sometimes I feel like I’ve lost both parents. So I threw myself into bull riding to forget everything.”
Amber made a move to put her hand over his, but clearly changed her mind at the last minute and took a sip of her ginger ale instead.
“I really should get going, Luke.”
“Thanks for making it a point to tell me everything. I really appreciate it. So will my brothers. If we lost the ranch, well...it’d be a tough blow. Let me walk you to your car.”
They walked to the lot near the arena in silence. “Here is mine.” She pointed. “The red Honda SUV.”
He waited as she opened the door. “Well, see you at home, Luke.”
“Give me a week after Billings. I’ll get right on a plane and will land at the auction.”
She smiled.
It didn’t seem like Amber smiled often; she was very serious. Then again, she’d had some very serious things to tell him.
He’d opened up to her and couldn’t figure out why. He’d never told anyone what he’d just told her.
But Amber had changed. In high school, she was quiet and had ten-foot walls around her that only the brave—or stupid—would approach. She hadn’t had many friends, mostly due to her family’s moonshining activities and rumors of them selling hot car parts. The fact that she lived in a fairly dilapidated house surrounded by a junkyard made her the brunt of even more hurtful comments.
He’d always quelled those kind of jokes, because he’d seen the sadness in her eyes, the tightness of her lips. He’d seen her hurry away for the protection of a dark corner, and then he’d seen her cry.
Why hadn’t he done more to stop the jokes? Instead, he’d only succeeded in his classmates not joking about her in front of him, but he knew that it still occurred.
He should have done more back then to help her, and now Amber had given him the biggest gift of his life by telling him about his ranch.
“See you at home, Luke.”
He took her hand and couldn’t decide whether to shake it or kiss the back of it. So he pulled her toward him in a hug and kissed her forehead.
He heard her slight gasp and he smiled.
She was smiling, too.
There was a little crack in that wall around her and he wondered if he could knock it down for good and get to know more of Deputy Sheriff Sergeant Amber Chapman.
“Six...seven...eight! He did it, ladies and gentlemen! He did it!”
The announcer’s voice echoed through the cavernous arena in Billings.
Luke did a flying dismount from his bull, Cowabunga. Then the animal pushed him with his huge nose across the arena dirt as if Luke was a rolling pin. Luke felt that the bull actually knew he’d beaten him. That was Cowabunga’s revenge.
Every bone in his body screamed and his teeth rattled in his head. He knew he had whacked his knee again. It took all the effort he could muster to get up, run to the chute gate and climb to safety until the bullfighters got the massive bull out of the arena and into his pen.
“The winner of the Iron Cowboy Showdown is none other than Luke Beaumont!” Dwight Frenza, the arena announcer, said enthusiastically.
Luke knew the drill. When Dwight said, “Everyone put your hands together for the winner...” it was Luke’s signal to stand in front of the Professional Bull Riders sign and be interviewed and presented with a gold buckle and maybe a new pair of boots.
The big check would come later.
Good. He needed it.
Behind the chutes, several monitors were set up and he stopped to see the updated stats. Between the slaps on his back and hearty handshakes from other riders and PBR personnel congratulating him, Luke noticed that his two brothers had dropped a couple places on the standings, but he had no doubt that his brothers would move up. Out of the top twenty-five professional riders, he was number one. Reed was now fourth and Jesse was fifth. Together they were known as the Beaumont Big Guns.
Speaking of Reed and Jesse, both came bounding out of the locker room. Reed had a bag of ice taped to his shoulder and a black eye. Jesse had a bandage around his right hand and wrist.
Reed pumped his hand. “Incredible ride, bro.”
Jesse gave him a fist bump with his good hand. “You did it again, Luke! Three wins in a row.”
“Everyone fairly okay?” Luke asked.
“Just a little nick from my last bull’s horns,” Reed said.
“Nothing worth mentioning.” Jesse shrugged. “But how are you doing, Luke? You took quite a rolling from Cowabunga.”
“I think I trashed my knee again. It hurts like hell. I’ll head to Sports Medicine. They’ll probably tape it and remind me again to get surgery.”
“Don’t forget the autographing, Luke. As usual, the fans will be lined up to see you,” Reed said.
Luke looked forward to signings because he loved talking to fans of the sport. Once in a while, someone from his past would go through his line and it was cool to get reacquainted.
Just like Amber Chapman. But they really hadn’t gotten reacquainted. She’d sternly pointed out that he’d better take care of the ranch and the town or both would disintegrate.
Amber had looked good. Her shoulder-length hair was various shades of blond and her green eyes had looked like new spring grass. He didn’t know why he was being poetic when he thought of Amber. He must have been bucked off too many times and smacked his head.
He’d thought about what Amber had told him for the entire week before the Billings event, but what he hadn’t done was talk to his brothers. He’d wanted to do that in person, and now was the time.
Their Oklahoma roots went back to about 1836 when their great-great-grandfather, Pierre Beaumont, rode from Gonzales, Texas, to fight for the Alamo and stayed to establish a town and a ranch on the outskirts of San Antonio that he called Beaumont.
Although there had been several Beaumonts who’d run the ranch, expanded it and cared for it like Pierre, Big Dan hadn’t given a hoot about anything since his lovely wife, Valerie Lynn O’Malley Beaumont, had died in his arms after being kicked in the head by a horse.
Big Dan had
