Catching Calhoun (7 page)

Ignore him,
Olivia commanded herself.
Don’t look at the portrait, either.

But what mother couldn’t look at a portrait of her angels? She’d never had a portrait of her kids before. A few photographs were scattered about the motor home, but still…a portrait.

She sneaked another look.

Calhoun tipped his hat to her.

Minnie and Kenny slid into the seats next to Calhoun, oohing and aahing over their painting. Olivia couldn’t hear them, but the joy was clearly expressed in Minnie’s round mouth and wide eyes and in Kenny’s little shove to get a closer look.

Calhoun grinned at Olivia.

She turned away quickly, focusing on the act. Gypsy shifted underneath her, impatient to begin.

I very nearly missed my cue,
Olivia realized. That crazy cowboy was disrupting everything in her life!

And yet, the disruption had felt wonderful—for a moment.

“Nothing lasts, Gypsy,” she said. “Let’s go!”

They spun around the barrels at top speed, fringe flying and Gypsy’s mane bouncing. In and out, they traversed the barrels as the announcer called their names. Briefly, Barley appeared in the arena, bowing to the crowd, then he was gone.

If Olivia didn’t know the gag so well, even she wouldn’t know where he’d gone. She pulled on her mask with a flourish for the audience, patted Gypsy’s blinders and let the horse move forward.

The Star Barrel didn’t contain Grandpa, although Gypsy poked her nose in there, then shook her head at the audience, to their delight.

The Flame Barrel didn’t contain Grandpa, and Gypsy lifted her head, giving the crowd a big, wide-tooth grin. It was really a lips-pulled-back-from-teeth expression, but she could do it so well, it looked like a cartoon smile.

That left the Sparkly S barrel, and now Gypsy catered to the crowd, prancing up to it and giving it a knock-knock-knock with her hoof.

Grandpa cried, “Ow, ow, ow!”

Gypsy smiled at the crowd again, letting them in on her joke. She stuck her nose down in the barrel, letting out a loud, “Neeeeee!”

Then she cantered over to the other side of the arena, and Olivia took off her mask to pass apples to the kids from baskets that had been placed there as part of the act. Of course, it was Calhoun’s side of the audience, so both her children wanted apples,
and he reached for one, too, with a whispered, “I was playing, too,” while Olivia knew Grandpa was doing the barrel switch.

It was all going to plan except for Calhoun.

Darn his oh-too-sexy smile. It was guaranteed to lure a girl’s heart right out of her chest.

Gypsy took an apple in her mouth, walking it over to the Sparkly S barrel. She looked in the barrel, then stared at the crowd. She looked in the barrel again, then back at the crowd.

They called, “He’s in the Star Barrel!”

So Gypsy ate his apple, which made everyone laugh. Without missing her cue, she walked over, backed up to it and tipped the Star barrel over. Grandpa crawled out like a spider, running around the ring with great tosses of colored confetti. The children loved it, and Gypsy put one hoof on the Star barrel, posing in a winner’s stance.

Gypsy did a side-step routine while stand-in clowns passed apples out to the second side of the arena.

And then everything went eerily quiet. Gypsy stood still. Olivia wanted desperately to lift her mask, which she’d pulled down after the first apple gifting, but she was afraid to spoil the show. Gypsy always knew what to do. It was her act. She would have to rely on the horse to tell her what she needed to do.

Nothing happened for a few moments. The crowd began murmuring, and then gave a loud gasp before applause broke out. Olivia was dying to peek, but she didn’t dare. If she did, no one would ever believe that
the show was Gypsy’s; they would think Gypsy’s magic was led by human hands, when, in fact, it was Gypsy’s own.

Gypsy moved slightly forward. Olivia tensed, knowing something was wrong. She thought she heard a scuffle on the sawdust-cushioned floor. Maybe a child had thrown something into the audience. Occasionally, someone had a tough time getting all their children settled. But normally nothing rattled Gypsy.

At the final second, when Olivia didn’t think she could bear it another moment, Gypsy moved forward.

But she did it more slowly than usual. At the Star barrel, the horse took a longer look than before. She held her pose with pulled-back teeth a second longer at the Flame barrel, for the opposite side of the arena to see. And at the Sparkly S, she knock-knock-knocked with her hoof a bit more gently than normal.

Her explosive neigh was turned down a few decibels as she looked inside the barrel.

“Good horse,” she heard a man’s voice say. “I like my ladies a little louder, though.”

So Gypsy blasted away, before prancing over to the third side of the arena, her gait quite spry, as if she understood that everything was fine.

It was a joke, Olivia realized. Grandpa wasn’t in the barrel! “I like my ladies a little louder?” she repeated.

“Pardon?” a man in the audience said to her.

“Nothing,” she said hurriedly.

The kids in the audience were laughing. Olivia
didn’t dare look behind her, because that would destroy the fooled-you! part of the show. Grandpa should be switching barrels now…except the voice that had spoken to Gypsy had sounded suspiciously like…Calhoun.

Impossible.

“Never saw that other clown do handsprings before,” some kid said.

“Must be his replacement,” the father said.

His replacement! Olivia’s throat dried out.

“Look! Three clowns!” the children cried. “This is the best show ever!”

“Looks like a plain old cowboy to me,” the father said. “Maybe the clown had lots of friends to help him out. Nice of them to help him since he’s down and out.”

Down! Out! It took everything Olivia had not to rip off her mask and go running to her father.
The show,
she reminded herself.
Dad always said the show must go on. Show time is magic time.

Her hands trembled on the reins. But Gypsy, pro horse that she was, spun into the arena gaily, as if her routine hadn’t changed a bit. She went looking for the barrel containing a human, and when the children called out the secret, she backed up to the barrel and ever so carefully rolled it over.

She didn’t pose on it this time.

“Good Gypsy,” Calhoun said. “That was the part I was worried about. But your horsie-tushie knows how to treat a man right.”

Olivia whipped off her mask. “What are you doing?”

“Keep your composure, minx. Your father had a bit of a wayward moment and decided to take a break. He’ll be fine in a jiffy. In the meantime, I decided to see if I could save the show. I’m doing pretty good, aren’t I?” He gave her a cocky grin. “What a woman you are,” he told Gypsy. “Quite the star power in this group. The Mama of Drama, if you will.”

Gypsy gave him a grin.

“Your children think I’m pretty cool,” he told Olivia. “They’re clapping for
moi.
”

They were, Olivia saw, the little peddlers for attention. Still, credit had to be given where it was due. “Thank you,” she said. “My father wouldn’t have ever wanted a show to end on a bad note.”

“This one’s going to end on a best note,” Calhoun told her. “Watch me and this drama queen.”

He swung up in the saddle behind Olivia and closed his hands over hers on the reins. “Show time,” he murmured in her ear. “Lucky me, I’m in front of the home crowd, too. Gypsy, let’s go!”

And go that crazy show pony did, much to Olivia’s amazement. Flipping her mane like a tempestuous hoyden, Gypsy went around barrels, winding and dipping, though more slowly because of the extra weight. Giving in to her old training, she danced sideways and then ran another lap.

The audience couldn’t stop clapping.

“Stop,” Olivia told him.

“No way,” Calhoun told her as Gypsy began bowing to the four corners. “This may be the only time I have your fanny between my thighs, and I intend to enjoy every moment of the fantasy. Stop this? I say, let’s go, Gypsy!”

The horse began cantering around the ring. Now Olivia was aware of the proximity to Calhoun’s…well, his
manhood,
and all her modesty came rushing back.

“I’m getting down,” she said.

“You can’t leave now. We’re just getting started.”

“You cannot shanghai me in front of my children,” Olivia said stiffly. “Scoot back. You’re too close.”

“Ah. Only so much room on Gypsy. We’ll just have to live for the moment.”

Olivia ground her teeth as he squeezed her a little with his thighs. Darn if he wasn’t making her think about things she didn’t want to! “If I get one hand off these reins, I’m not going to use it to applaud you,” she told him.

“Now you’re talking my language,” Calhoun said, laughter in his voice. “I knew you’d be a foxy lady of pleasure.”

Olivia gasped. “I meant I’d slap you!”

“Hmm.” Gypsy returned to the center of the arena, posing one last time for the audience, and Calhoun slipped one hand around Olivia’s waist now that they’d slowed down. “I’ve heard slap-and-tickle is fun, but I much prefer to be gentle.”

Okay, so she wouldn’t slap him, but she was definitely getting away from this lunatic before she completely ruined her reputation, in front of her children, in front of an audience. Sliding down, she curtsied to the crowd.

She pointed to Gypsy, who did her version of a horse curtsy.

And it would be bad manners to ignore the man who’d saved their show. Staring at him rebelliously, she pointed at him in thanks.

The crowd went wild. Calhoun grinned, and in a moment she would never forgive him for, he galloped across the arena, whisked Kenny and Minnie up into the saddle with him and tore around the ring in a victory lap.

He might as well have taken over her whole world, Olivia thought. The crowd
loved
him.

And darn him, she was falling for him fast.

His reward was applause and her children’s smiles. Her heart raced in a frightened tattoo. Someone should arrest this man before he lassoed her heart!

The victory lap complete, Calhoun brought Gypsy to stand beside Olivia. He slid down from the horse’s back and dipped Olivia backward in a completely showy, unnecessary gesture. When he pulled her back up to him she was spitting mad and bristly like a cat, but Calhoun went ahead and gave Olivia a kiss on the mouth that beat all the other kisses he’d given her so far.

Then he had the nerve to bow to the audience.

She was going to kill him.

“I’
M GOING TO KILL HIM
,” Barley said to Archer and Bandera Jefferson as he lay on his back on a stretcher. “I am going to kill your brother if I have to use the last breath I have on this earth.”

“Easy, Daddy-O,” Archer told him. “Don’t heat your ticker up more than it already is.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Barley snapped. “Except your brother.”

Bandera pulled a deck of cards from his pocket. “So, you like cards, Mr. Peppermint?”

“My name’s Barley,” the clown interrupted. “And you’d best remember it.”

“I have a faulty memory. But I do remember Mr. Peppermint,” Bandera said fondly. “I loved his little worm friend. What was the name of that worm? You may not have seen Mr. Peppermint since it was a local show.” He shuffled the cards on Barley’s blanket-covered stomach. “Now, come on, I do believe you’re a twenty-one kind of man. When you’re feeling better, we’ll challenge you at rummy. Not a man alive can beat me at rummy.”

“You look like a card player, though not a betting man,” Archer said. “Am I right?”

Barley glared at him.

“Well,” Archer said, “you’ve made your feelings about Calhoun plain in the last thirty minutes he’s been saving your show.”

“Preening popinjay. I know what he’s really after. I’d like to snatch him down off my horse and give him a thrashing.”

“But you won’t,” Bandera said, “because you’re too grateful to us three Jefferson boys—or did you call us something relating to recently birthed dogs?—for saving your final night in Lonely Hearts Station. And we told the audience afterward that you’d merely had a dizzy moment from some bad huevos rancheros.”

“Dizzy moment!” Barley cried with indignation.

“Well, I said you just needed to fart and then you’d feel better,” Archer confessed. “That was our father’s favorite remedy for everything. And cold water. You remember, Bandera? Dad said cold water was the best medicine on earth for a headache and plenty of other stuff, and if that didn’t cure ya, a good f—”

“Now, look here,” Barley said, ignoring the fact that he’d been dealt a perfect twenty-one. “I know who y’all are. I know who your family is. I know everything about y’all, because Marvella told me.”

“And it’s a good thing you’ve been warned,” Archer said with a cocked eyebrow. “Marvella’s gossip is as good as those cranky old phones with party lines. Be careful what you overhear.”

“I’d trust her more than I’d trust you whelps. Your brother’s what gave me heartburn.”

“Fart,” Archer recommended. “But not until we leave.”

“We can’t leave yet,” Bandera said, reshuffling.
“Not until we tell you how it’s gonna be.” He put his deck away. “Now see, we’re inclined to be reasonable, because we, very strangely, could be looking at having a rodeo clown in the family.”

Barley gasped. “Not while I’m alive!”

“Well, but see, you are alive,” Archer said. “And you’re going to stay that way, because it would matter to Calhoun. Fact is, it’s not like Calhoun to hang around a woman. We were so shocked we decided to head over here to check out the scene. Much to our amazement, we find your daughter quite desirable.”

“What?”
Flame shot from Barley’s eyes.

“Settle down, Daddy-O,” Archer said, pushing him back down and pulling the sheet tight across him. “Tell the good doctor her patient is ready for his trip to the ward, Bandera. And try not to kiss her. Though she is the hottest doc on the planet,” Archer told Barley conversationally. “None of us can even raise her blood pressure, though. We’ve admired her medical ethics, and we admired her legs. Though Calhoun admires her breasts, as he does every woman’s—”