She shook her head with a half-sad smile on her face. “Now you sound like my husband, and that’s…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to. I got it. I reminded her too much of the man she’d loved, who’d been taken from her too young. If even part of what I had read about Luke online was true, the guy had been a paragon, probably the perfect husband, too.
“I’m sorry to take my…emotions out on you,” she said, “but the thought of facing memories every day for the next month is daunting. I’ll try to do better.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, wishing I could make this easier for her, but knowing there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t change my face or who I was. I could change the conversation, though. “Hey, is the rodeo really such a risk for the town?” I had never considered the financial aspect of the rodeo. I spent most of my time at established, profitable events.
She sucked in a breath. “It is. And since I’m the one that argued for it, if it doesn’t go well, I’ll be in the hot seat.”
“You could lose your job?” I asked, realizing that she had a hell of a lot more riding on this than I did.
“Possibly. Worse than that, the town could lose a lot more and we still wouldn’t have a community center.” She hitched her shoulders up.
“So why take the chance?” I understood risk. Rodeo competitions always involved possible injury, but it was also how I earned my keep. What I didn’t see was why she’d taken the risk when there were other options to raise money.
“We’ve had a lot of smaller fundraisers already but the only attendees were locals. While they were great, at the rate we were going, it would take us more than five years to pull together enough money to start the process—to say nothing of how long we’d have to fundraise to complete it. We’ve done the math and talked it out. A rodeo is the best single fundraiser to realistically generate the money needed as quickly as possible.Ifit’s successful.”
The waitress came and put plates in front of us. Mine was the burger and fries while Amy had a half turkey sandwich and a salad. She picked up her fork and waved it at me. “Which is why we’re going to do whatever it takes to make the weekend such a success that it becomes a town tradition.”
I liked the determination I saw in her, and so I raised my Coke in a toast. “To a successful rodeo.”
She tapped her glass to mine and drank. “Thanks. And thanks for thinking on your feet quickly during the interview. Are you really retiring?”
“I plan to, but I’m not leaving the circuit completely,” I said, hesitating slightly. I hadn’t told many people this next part. “I’ve got an offer from Rodeo Sports Network to be a commentator.”
“You’re giving up competing?” She speared a forkful of lettuce and cucumber.
“Late last summer, I was riding a horse that was a bit on the temperamental side. Didn’t play well with others. My next ride was team roping and I was the header, while my partner was the heeler. Don’t know exactly what happened, but the steer got loose and rammed my ride. I ended up getting tossed. It’s a career hazard, but the older I get, the harder it is to get up off the ground. Working for the network is a good alternative.”
Or so I’d told myself when I’d agreed to a contract, a generous contract that would have me in a cushy booth and not risking my back and knees. I knew it was time to make the change, but I wasn’t as enthusiastic as I should be about the offer.
“You don’t want to do something else with your life?” she asked.
“The rodeo’s my home.” The only other career path I’d ever considered was opening a school to train kids for the rodeo, but that required staying in one place, and I didn’t do that.
She rolled her eyes, but a smile was on her face. I liked to see her happy, and I was forming a little plan to prevent another morning like the one we’d had. It was a risk, but what the heck.
“Suppose you tell me about Luke,” I suggested, “so I can try not to be too much like him.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s—” Her face had immediately blanked.
“Come on, give it a try,” I coaxed. It took another minute or two, but she finally gave in when she realized I was doing this to hopefully make things easier on her going forward.
“Well, he was the high school football star,” she said, “and went to college in LA on a football scholarship. That’s where I met him.”
“I’ve been all about horses and riding competitively my whole life. No football for me. Never touched one,” I said, earning a small smile from her. “What else?”
“Luke hated to cook,” she said it as though it were a confession, “even the simplest thing like eggs.”
“I gotta admit that I eat out more often than I eat in, but I don’t mind cooking. In fact, when I have a kitchen to use, I like to make the most of it. I’m no chef, but I’ve not sent anyone to the hospital either. Truthis, I like to eat, so I learned to cook well enough to actually enjoy what I could make for myself. No one wants to be around me when I’m hangry. That’s what they call it, right? Hangry?”
“That’s what it’s called. Although it surprises me that that would be a problem for you. You seem so level headed and calm.” She was teasing me, reminding me about my grouchiness from earlier. That was a good sign.
“See? The food is working.” I leaned closer and whispered. “I’m thinking of ordering a second burger, but I don’t want to look like a glutton.”
She laughed then, and I loved the sound. She had a beautiful laugh, which went with her beautiful smile, and her beautiful… I stopped myself from traveling too far down that path since she was my surprise half brother’s widow, which made her the definition of hands off. But it shouldn’t prevent us from having fun while we worked together.
“He loved sitcoms,” she said, returning to my challenge, “the more ridiculous the better. He’d watch them for hours.”
