she looked down into steely gray eyes in a lean face framed by thick, fair hair.
The cowboy sitting on the trailer hitch was braiding several pieces of rawhide in his strong fingers. They didn’t still, even when he spoke.
“I heard what you just said to that cowboy about Cherry Burke’s ride,” he said coldly. “Who the hell do you think you are to criticize a cowgirl in Cherry’s class?”
She lifted both eyebrows. He wasn’t a regular on the Texas circuit, either. She and her father had circled it for years. “I beg your pardon?”
“What are you, anyway, a model?” he chided. “You look like one of those blonde dress-up fashion dolls in that outfit,” he added as his eyes punctuated the contempt of his voice. “Are you shacking up with one of the riders or are you part of the entertainment?”
She hadn’t expected a verbal attack from a total stranger. She stared at him, too surprised to react.
“Are questions of more than one syllable too hard for you?” he persisted.
That got through the surprise. Her blue eyes glittered at him. “Funny, I’d have said they’re the only kind you’re capable of asking,” she said in her soft, cultured voice. She looked at his leg, still blocking her path. “Move it or I’ll break it, cowboy.”
“A cream puff like you?” he scoffed.
“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m no cream puff.” In his position on the hitch, he was precariously balanced. She reached over, grimacing because the movement hurt her back, caught his ankle and jerked it up. He went over backward with a harsh curse.
She dusted off her hands and kept walking, aware of a wide grin from two cowboys she passed on her way to the gate.
Tim Harley, her middle-aged ranch foreman, was waiting for her by the gate with Bracket, her palomino gelding. He held the horse for her, grimacing as he watched her slow, painful ascension into the saddle.
“You shouldn’t try this,” he said. “It’s too soon!”
“Dad would have done it,” she countered. “Jacobsville was his hometown, and it’s mine. I couldn’t refuse the invitation to accept the plaque for Dad. Today’s rodeo is dedicated to him.”
“You could have accepted the plaque on foot or in a buckboard,” he muttered.
She glared down at him. “Listen, I wasn’t always a cripple…!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!”
The sound of the band tuning up got her attention. She soothed her nervous horse, aware of angry footsteps coming along the aisle between the trailers and the arena. Fortunately, before the fair-haired cowboy got close, the other riders joined her at the gate and arranged themselves in a flanking pattern.
The youth competition marked the end of the evening’s entertainment. The money for top prizes had been announced and awarded. The band began to play “The Yellow Rose of Texas.” The gate opened. Jane coaxed Bracket into his elegant trot and bit down on her lower lip to contain the agony of the horse’s motion. He was smooth and gaited, but even so, the jarring was painful.
She didn’t know if she’d make it around that arena, but she was going to try. With a wan smile, she forced herself to look happy, to take off her white Stetson and wave to the cheering crowd. Most of these people had known her father, and a good many of them knew her. She’d been a legend in barrel racing before her forced retirement at the age of twenty-four. Her father often said that she was heaven on a horse. She tried not to think about her last sight of him. She wanted to remember him as he had been, in the time before…
“Isn’t she as pretty as a picture?” Bob Harris was saying from the press booth. “Miss Jane Parker, ladies and gentlemen, two-time world’s champion barrel-racer and best all around in last year’s women’s division. As you know, she’s retired from the ring now, but she’s still one magnificent sight on a horse!”
She drank in the cheers and managed not to fall off or cry out in pain when she got to the reviewing stand. It had been touch and go.
Bob Harris came out into the arena with a plaque and handed it up to her. “Don’t try to get down,” he said flatly, holding a hand over the microphone.
“Folks,” he continued loudly, “as you know, Oren Parker was killed earlier this year in a car crash. He was best all-around four years running in this rodeo, and world’s champion roper twice. I know you’ll all join with me in our condolences as I dedicate this rodeo to his memory and present Jane with this plaque in honor of her father’s matchless career as a top hand and a great rodeo cowboy. Miss Jane Parker, ladies and gentlemen!”
There were cheers and more applause. Jane waved the plaque and as Bob held the microphone up, she quickly thanked everyone for their kindness and for the plaque honoring her father. Then before she fell off the horse, she thanked Bob again and rode out of the arena.
She couldn’t get down. That was the first real surprise of the evening. The second was to find that same angry, fair-haired cowboy standing there waiting for her to come out of the ring.
He caught her bridle and held her horse in place while he glared up at her. “Well, you sure as hell don’t look the part,” he said mockingly. “You ride like a raw beginner, as stiff as a board in the saddle. How did a rider as bad as you ever even get to the finals? Did you do it on Daddy’s name?”
If she’d been hurting a little less, she was certain that she’d have put her boot right in his mouth. Sadly she was in too much pain to react.
“No spirit either, huh?” he persisted.
“Hold on, Jane, I’m coming!” came a gruff voice from behind her. “Damned fool stunt,” Tim growled as he came up beside her, his gray hair and unruly beard making him look even more wizened than normal. “Can’t get off, can you? Okay, Tim’s here. You just come down at your own pace.” He took the plaque from her.
“Does she always have to be lifted off a horse?” the stranger drawled. “I thought rodeo stars could mount and dismount all by themselves.”
He didn’t have a Texas accent. In fact, he didn’t have much of an accent at all. She wondered where he was from.
Tim glared at him. “You won’t last long on this circuit with that mouth,” he told the man. “And especially not using it on Jane.”
He turned back to her, holding his arms up. “Come on, pumpkin,” he coaxed, in the same tone he’d used when she was only six, instead of twenty-five as she was now. “Come on. It’s all right, I won’t let you fall.”
The new cowboy was watching with a scowl. It had suddenly occurred to him that her face was a pasty white and she was gritting her teeth as she tried to ease down. The wizened little cowboy was already straining. He was tiny, and she wasn’t big, but she was tall and certainly no lightweight.
He moved forward. “Let me,” he said, moving in front of Tim.
“Don’t let her fall,” Tim said quickly. “That back brace won’t save her if you do.”
“Back brace…” It certainly explained a lot. He felt it when he
