A Wild Red Rose (7 page)

Gracie finished wolfing down her two dogs. “I’m thirsty.”

“Come on, Gracie, let’s get something to drink,” Clint said, ruffling the girl’s clipped dark hair. They walked off arm in arm.

“We had her tubes tied a couple of months ago. Both Tom and I thought it was for the best. She does have a boyfriend, and you know, sex just feels good, so they’re bound to try it. I talked to Tony’s parents. If the kids still feel the same in a few years, we’ll put up a little place for them on the ranch. Gracie knows how to clean, and she can heat up things in the microwave. I try to keep her away from the stove. Tom and I won’t live forever. It’s best they have someone and a place to be.”

“Tom?”

“Tom ‘Snuffy’ Jones, my one and only.”

“Like the old, sexy disco star way back when?”

“He always hated the comparison, but you just can’t call your husband Snuffy now, can you?”

“Would you know Clint’s middle name?”

“Can’t say as I do. Anything starting with an O has got to be bad.”

“Oliver, Ozzie, Otto, Olaf?” Renee guessed.

“Could be Obediah, Oscar, or Opie for all I know,” said Ruth Ann. “Whatever. If you’re looking to marry, you could do worse than Clint Beck.”

“But could I marry a man with the middle name of Omar?” Renee joked. What Ruth Ann didn’t know was that Clinton O. Beck couldn’t afford to keep a woman like Renee Hayes—in more ways than one—and there was no need to tell her.

The two women were still laughing when Clint and Gracie returned bearing sweating cans of soft drinks. Clint tossed a Diet Coke to Renee and popped the top on a Mountain Dew. Gracie gave her mom a root beer and opened an orange drink for herself. The four sat in the bleachers sipping their drinks with Gracie carrying on most of the conversation.

“This afternoon, I get to ride in the real barrel races, not the pretend ones they got for the little kids. My horse is named Pete.”

“What kind of horse is Pete?” Renee asked, doing her part.

“Brown,” said Gracie. “But my favorite kind of horse is a unicorn. They got big, golden horns. I’ve seen pictures of them.”

“Really? Clint, could I have the keys to the truck for a minute?”

“Snuffy has them. He’s using the Nelle for his act. Supposed to start in a few minutes.”

“What did you do with the stuff on the dashboard?”

“Put it all in a plastic sack in the trailer. Why?”

“I want to get something. Be back in a minute. Save my seat, Gracie.”

Renee went back to The Tin Can, found the sack of stuffed toys and rooted through it until she found the blue unicorn with the white yarn mane. She trotted back to where Gracie sat and held out the fuzzy animal like a grand prize.

“For me? I can add him to my herd. I know he’s a boy because he’s blue. I’ll call him Clint.” Gracie hugged the stuffed unicorn.

“Oh, you already have some.”

“Gracious, her room is full of them. Tom brings them home all the time.” Seeing the disappointment on Renee’s face, Ruth Ann added, “But each one is special. She’ll remember the lady with the red hair gave it to her.”

“Miss Renee gave him to me,” Gracie corrected. “She’s a nice lady.”

Suddenly it occurred to Renee Niles Bouchard Hayes that for a whole half a day, she’d been a nice lady—not a slutty gold digger, as Gerry’s family had called her, or Dr. Bouchard’s cheating trophy wife. Not a soul in Casper knew her bad reputation, and that felt good. She could be anything she wanted to be, and today, she was a nice lady.

An old truck, the Belly Nelle herself, careened into the arena, her bed loaded to bursting with retired rodeo clowns in full paint and regalia. The announcer called out for the truck to get out of the ring because the barrel racing was about to begin, but unfortunately, the old heap had broken down in the dead center of the oval. Clowns tumbled out, kicking tires, looking at the undercarriage. Snuffy Jones, the driver, got down and opened the hood. Black smoke billowed.

Renee gasped. Their ride to Arizona looked in pretty bad shape. Clint leaned over. “Don’t worry, just a little oil sprayed on the engine block. She’ll be fine in the morning.”

Snuffy announced grandly, “I’ve found the problem. There’s a hair in the engine.” He held up a black rabbit that Renee was fairly sure had been pulled out of his baggy pants—an old joke, but the kids laughed.

Snuffy tried to crank the engine again. No luck. A duck seemed to drop from a wheel well. A chicken flew out the window. Smoke pumped from the exhaust pipe and engulfed the truck. The tailgate dropped and inside the truck bed appeared a miniature donkey. That one had Renee stumped.

All the clowns took turns trying to remove the stubborn donkey. Finally, when Snuffy got down on his hands and knees and said, “Pretty, pretty, please”, the animal got up and jumped from the back of the truck—which still wouldn’t start. At last, the clowns tied the truck’s front bumper to the little donkey, put the Belly Nelle into low gear, and pushed the vehicle from the ring with all of them forming a long conga line at its rear.

The children cheered and clapped. Gracie said, “That’s my dad,” over and over.

Renee sat comfortably in the stands with her thigh pressed against Clint’s muscular leg. When the huggers were summoned for the stick-horse barrel races, she went without hesitation, took her place, and gave out embraces returned twofold.

Clint stayed long enough to watch Gracie ride a real horse around the barrels in the cloverleaf pattern. The pace wasn’t as swift or the corners as sharp as regular rodeo, but she made good time and held on to the lead throughout the competition. Renee cheered, jumping up and down, only mildly aware of the men who watched her breasts bob. She gave Gracie the biggest hug of all.

Clint went off to gear up for his bullfighting demonstration. Someone had hauled an old red-skinned, white-faced beef breeder of a bull to the event, and Clint’s biggest problem seemed to be getting the animal to do anything at all. He jumped it frontwards and sideways and finally backwards, ending up in the animal’s face, startling the beast enough to make it snort and paw. Clint darted away, waving the red handkerchief, and the arthritic bull lumbered after him, then paused to bunch up and drop a heap of steaming turds on the ground. The children giggled.

Clint shrugged and pretended to turn his back on the pathetic hamburger stud. The animal took the hint and charged. Clint heard him coming, dodged, and escaped easily to the safety of the rails. The crowd roared. He noticed Renee put her hand over her heart, flutter her fingers, and smile down on him.

The awards were given out with Gracie getting her first place in barrel racing. Gradually, the crowd dispersed. Loaded pickup trucks and horse trailers moved out in clouds of dust. When the dust settled, those that remained, mostly the old clowns, started a small blaze in a metal fire pit near The Tin Can and sat around eating leftover barbecued hamburgers and telling tales of their glory days in and out of the ring—their famous acts and the time one of them rode a goat through a department store when he’d had one too many. They passed a brown bottle. The stories grew more outrageous and further from the truth each time it made a round.

Renee listened as the stars came out in the pure black of the night sky. She and Clint sat in two bent aluminum chairs taken from the trailer and set up nearby under the striped awning with a gaping hole in the center that pulled out from the side of The Tin Can. They passed a single beer back and forth. As the group broke up to return to motorhomes or nearby motels, all of them better accommodations than The Tin Can, most of the clowns paused to say a goodnight to Clint.

One clown ogled Renee. “Little lady, if this guy disappoints, you can count on me. I may not satisfy, but I’ll always leave you laughing.”

“Yeah, in my day, we didn’t suit up in all that body armor he’s got. You want a real man, give me a call,” an elderly, bald trouper said, flexing a flabby muscle—or trying to. “Don’t know how you got Snuffy to let you have the Belly Nelle, but you be good to her. She’s a great old gal.” He made his exit into the dark.

“Clint, you said the Nelle was a gift from your dad when you were just a pup.”

“I lied.” At least, he could tell the truth about that. “I totaled my rig swervin’ to avoid a pronghorn, and Snuffy loaned her to me. The trailer, too. Didn’t want you to think I’m a bad driver, or you might not have come along.” And added another lie.

“Just don’t do it again. I’ve been lied to by enough men in my life. For that, you only get a cuddle tonight. Besides, those children really wore me out.”

“Yeah, kids can do that. A cuddle it is.”

“You aren’t going to try to talk me into anything else?”

“Nope. Let’s go to bed. And sleep.”

The idea was so novel to Renee when in bed with a man, she couldn’t seem to close her eyes, even when she had one leg thrown over Clint’s warm thigh and her head nestled against his chest. She listened to the steady thump of his heart and thought back over the day. She’d never given or received so many hugs.

“I’m not a person who hugs,” she announced to a half-asleep Clint.

“Well, you were today. Good job.”

“I think one of the boys groped me.”

“I’d grope you, too, if you were hugging me.”

“You are, sort of.”

Clint reached a hand down and squeezed her behind. “Grope, grope.”

“Stop that. I mean hugging and cuddling is not something I do normally. I don’t like to be touched unless I’m in control of the situation. When I have sex, I can control men. That’s what my analyst said.”

“Okay,” Clint answered, afraid to go forward. “Guess you weren’t hugged enough as a child.”

“I was, way too much. Later after I went to Paris with my Uncle Dewey, I didn’t want to be touched anymore.”

Clint didn’t want to ask, but he had to. “He abused you?”

“He didn’t make it seem that way. He said in France, an uncle was supposed to train a niece in the ways of the world. He meant sex. He bought me sophisticated clothes, changed my hairstyle, made me a woman, he said.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

“Jesus H. Christ! Why didn’t you tell your parents?” Wide awake now, Clint held the woman in his arms a little tighter.

“He said he’d tell my father everything. That I’d given him blow jobs and all the positions we used. I loved my dad. I couldn’t face his knowing. I think my mom knew. I think he might have abused her, too, when she was a teenager, but she never said anything or tried to stop him. Today, Ruth Ann said parents are supposed to protect their children. Some don’t.”

Clint felt the dampness on his chest, his sweat or her tears, he couldn’t be sure because her story gave him the chills. Her eyelashes fluttered against his skin like a butterfly caught in a net, but she did not cry aloud. “How long did this go on, sweetheart?”

“Until I turned eighteen and moved away to college. He was married, had a daughter younger than me. His wife left him when my cousin turned twelve—and I think I know why—so he came over more often, on all the holidays. He tried to take my younger sister to Paris, too, but I insisted he take me instead. That’s the one thing I’ve done right in my whole life, Clint. I saved Cathy from Uncle Dewey.”

“There must have been other good things.”

“No. Mostly I’ve made trouble for men, used them for what Uncle Dewey did to me. Ask Bodey or my cousin, Rusty.”

“They know about Uncle Dewey?”

“No. Just that I’m bad, bad to the bone.”

“I don’t think that, Tiger.”

“Well, you’re wrong. Wait and see.”

Renee turned over, pushed his arm away when he tried to cuddle her again, and bunched her knees up under her chest. She stayed frozen in that position until certain Clint had drifted off and disturbed, he took a long time to doze. He left a little space between them because Renee insisted on it. When she heard his breathing fall into a strong, steady rhythm, she reached down to where her leather satchel leaned against the bed and took out the toy tiger. Tucking it under her pillow like a talisman to ward off evil, she finally rested.

Chapter Six

As if to prove her words, Renee turned sullen and demanding over the next few days. Her attitude made the long drive to southern Arizona through the high country—with its ponderosa pines, down to the lower elevations of the pinon forests, around impressive red rock formations, and across the cactus-studded desert—seem even farther.

She complained about his using the bacon grease in the eggs and would accept only toast, left half her food on her plate if they ate in a restaurant, and told the waitress she didn’t want a box. Rough and without tenderness, sex happened every night because Renee claimed she wanted it exactly that way. The aggressor, the initiator, she took him to the floor and clawed his chest bloody. Like being in the bullring without any defensive armor, he dodged and feinted until he dominated, and she purred under him like a great cat when he rammed himself inside her body. They both gained satisfaction big time. The trouble being, Clint thought, he had set out to tame her, and now he wanted to help her. She didn’t want or need his help or his pity and seemed intent on proving that. He’d only made Renee Hayes worse, not better.

They arrived in Glendale, right outside of Phoenix, for a Professional Bull Rider’s event called the Cheeseburger IslandStyle Restaurants Invitational held at the Jobing.com Arena. The big, comfortable venue kept the searing, dry heat of an Arizona summer outside and gave the riders the best of accommodations within, along with some top prize money.

“Cheeseburgers,” sneered Renee. “I guess that’s what happens to these bulls when they are all used up.”

“Hardly, babe,” Clint said refusing to snap back. “This is top rough stock. When they finish their bucking career, most of them will go on to be studs making more tough bulls for the rodeo.”

“And what about bull bait like you? What happens when you can’t outrun the bulls anymore?”

“Some of us raise cattle, some breed rough stock, some go back to the family business. We get by.”

“But you don’t get rich like the riders do.”

“Not generally. And speaking about being bull bait, I’d appreciate if you wouldn’t come on to my friends.” He’d introduced her to the other bullfighters and some of the riders. She’d flirted with them all, and a few had flirted back. Most gave her a wide berth. She was Clint Beck’s girl, and she had the potential to be more trouble than the next bull they had to take on.