Ride Me Cowboy #5 (The Cowboy Romance Series - Book #5) (5 page)

Lexi and I were in Florida as the end of August loomed
near. The night before my rodeo in Tallahassee, she told me that the next day
she would need to get headed for home.

“Tomorrow? Already?”

“Baby, school starts in two weeks. This has been
amazing and I’m going to miss you like crazy, but I have to go home and get
ready. I have to get my things moved out of Samantha’s place and into my mom’s
and I have to go buy my books and…”

“I’ll go with you.” I just blurted that out. I hadn’t
thought it through, but I didn’t want to be away from her.

She looked confused. “What?”

“I’ll go home with you.”

“No, you will not. You’ll move on to Mississippi
tomorrow and from there back to Arizona and then Utah. In October when things
are slow, then you’ll come home.” She knew as much about the rodeo schedule now
as I did. She constantly amazed me. “We’ll have a grand reunion,” she said with
a silly face.

She was trying to make light of it and make it easier,
but the bottom line was that I was very much attached to her. “I don’t want to
go on without you.”

“Mark, we agreed I was going back to school.”

“I’m not trying to stop you from doing that. You’re so
smart. I’m so proud of you. That’s why I said I’ll go with you. You traveled
with me all summer, now it’s my turn to follow you.”

“Right now, you’re following your dream. I’m going to
miss you like crazy, but you wouldn’t be whole if you came home with me now.
Remember that missing someone gets easier every day if you know you’ll be
seeing them again someday. Each minute I miss you is going to bring me one
minute closer to seeing you again. Please, baby, stay and accomplish your
goals. I’ll talk to you every day on the phone. We can Skype. It’ll go by so
fast.” I felt like an insolent child whose mother was leaving him to go to
work. I wanted to have a fit and see if that would make her stay. Instead, I
just held onto her all night and by the time I woke up the next morning, I knew
that this season was going to be it for me. I didn’t want to be a broken down
old lonely cowboy someday. I wanted Lexi…I wanted a life with her. She had been
right all along. Being away from the people you love is no kind of life.

I struggled through taking Lexi to the train station
and saying goodbye. As we stood on the wooden deck holding each other,
listening to the last call for her train, her eyes filled with tears. “You know
how much I love you?” she asked.

“Almost as much as I love you,” I told her, forcing a
smile. They called for her train again and she grabbed and hugged me tightly
before turning and jumping on. I watched her pass the windows and find a seat
and then I waved at her until she was out of sight. I felt lonely as soon as
she was gone. I went back to the hotel and got my things and then to the rodeo
grounds to pick up
Sarge
. I don’t know if it was my
imagination or not, but even he seemed to be sad when he was put into the
trailer and realized that Lexi wasn’t with us any longer.

I was about to get back on the road when my phone
rang. I looked down at the face of it, hoping it was Lexi. For a second, I
hoped that she had changed her mind about leaving me or letting me quit, either
way I’d be with her. It was my dad, instead. I hadn’t talked to him since that
night he’d said all of those terrible things and kicked me out. I wondered what
he could possibly want with me and I debated not answering it at all.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I pressed accept,
put the phone to my ear, and said, “Hi, Dad.”

“Mark. I was just calling to see where you were and
make sure that you’re still amongst the living.” Was I supposed to take this to
mean that he does care for me, at least a little bit? Or maybe he was just
worried he would have to cover the funeral expenses.

“I’m in Florida. I’m headed to Mississippi. I’ll be on
the road for a couple of days and then I have a rodeo on Saturday.”

“Is Lexi with you?”

I didn’t see any reason to get into this with him so I
simply said, “Not right now.”

“Have you seen Lydia?”

“Not since Fourth of July. Dad, I don’t want to be
rude, but I need to get on the road. What is all of this about?”

“Nothing, like I said…I wanted to make sure you were
alive. Bye, Mark.”

“Bye, Dad.” After I disconnected the call, I sat there
staring at the phone for a while. What was that about? Was he really trying to
reach out to me? I was more confused than ever. Maybe he does have a conscience
after all, and it was gnawing at him.

The ride in Mississippi went good. I walked away with
an eighty-five and eight thousand dollars. I was on the road again after that
for another two days to Arizona. I did talk to Lexi every day and we Skyped
when we had time, but I missed her and my mind wasn’t completely where it
should be. That was never more apparent
then
when
that chute opened in Tucson.

As soon as we came out, the bull I was riding, an
eighteen hundred pound brute by the name of Tornado, began to kick and rear. It
was the first time since my injury that I tried using my right hand. My hand
started to slip and I clamped down tighter. I didn’t know then how long I had
stayed on – I found out later it was only five seconds. He tossed me over his
head into the metal bars of the arena and then he came at me with his hooves. I
tried to make myself as small as I could as I saw them coming at me. When they
made contact with my side, all I could think was that this was it – my career
is over. He reared up again and my angels in clown make-up were there to save
me. They got him distracted and out of the arena before he could finish me off.
I was left with some sore, bruised ribs and an even more bruised ego, but I
knew that I had to get my head straight or I wouldn’t be able to finish out
this tour. I’d been mulling something over in my head for days now. I needed to
just do it. I called Lydia to ask for her help.

“Hello, Mark. Are you okay?” That was how she answered
the phone. She was the most genuinely nice person I knew. It was no wonder that
she had raised such an amazing daughter.

“I’m okay, Lydia. How are you?”

“I’m doing well. Lexi’s not here right now.”

“I know. I wanted to talk to you. I wondered if you
could do me a favor…well, favors.”

“Of course, if I can. What do you need?”

“Can you make dinner tomorrow night and make sure that
Lexi can be there?”

“I can do that. Are you going to tell me why?”

“I will be in town by five tomorrow evening. I have
something I need to ask your daughter.”

Lydia was silent for a few seconds and then I heard
her suck in a breath and say, “Oh, Mark! Yes, of course. I’ll make sure she’s
here.”

“Thank you.” Lydia and I discussed the details, and
she was practically giddy when we hung up. She made me smile and feel more
confident about what I planned on doing. I put the phone away, tightened the
abdominal binder I was wearing for the pain, and left my hotel room…I had some
shopping to do.

CHAPTER
SEVEN

LEXI

I sat on the bed in my room while I had my Skype
session with Mark. He seemed really happy, yet he told me he had a terrible
ride at the rodeo in Tucson. I thought that was weird and I wondered if he’d
hit his head or something and forgot how important this all was to him.

“So why was it so terrible?”

“I got thrown over his head into the metal gate. He
decided then that he wanted to crush me with his hooves.”

“Oh my goodness! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. My ribs and ego are a little bit bruised,
but otherwise okay.”

“Did he get you? Did he step on you? Did you go get an
x-ray?” My heart instantly began to race.

“No, baby, he didn’t step on me. I’m just sore from
hitting the gate. I had the trainer feel them, they’re not broken. I’m fine.”

“They could be fractured. You should have had an
x-ray. Are you sure he didn’t step on you? You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

“Never!” he grinned. Even through the computer, I
melted. I still wasn’t sure he was telling the absolute truth, but at least I
could see that he still had his handsome head on his shoulders. “Guess what?”
he said, suddenly.

“What?”

“My dad called me this morning.”

“He did? What did he say?”

“It was weird. He said he was calling to make sure I
was still alive. Then he asked if you were with me and if I’d seen Lydia. When
I asked him what he’d actually called for he just re-iterated that he wanted to
find out if I was alive and pretty much hung up.”

“It sounds like the regrets are starting to eat at
him. What are you going to do?”

“Nothing at this point,” he said. “I think after all
the years I spent trying to please him, at the very least, he should give me an
apology for the way he treated us. When he does that, then maybe I’ll be ready
to talk.”

I nodded. “I agree. He owes you a huge apology.”

“And you and Lydia…”

“True, but I don’t think Mom really wants his apology
and I could totally do without it myself. I have what I want…you.”

He smiled again and said, “Thank you, baby. Just
promise me that you’ll forgive me in advance if I lose my mind someday and
reach out to him, okay? I’m not thinking about it now, but I did answer and I
didn’t hang up when he called, so who knows?”

“I know the feeling, remember?” It’s something we all
do, or at least think about, I guess. All of us with crappy parents, anyways.
“I’m sure you will reach out to him, eventually. You have a good heart.”

“I don’t want to talk about him anymore right now,” he
said. “Let’s talk about my favorite subject: you. How was your first week of
school?”

“It was hectic. I had to sit in on a few classes to
get them and scramble to find the right books, but I talked to a counselor and
I did decide on a major.”

“Cool, what did you decide on?”

“Sports medicine,” I answered. I had watched so many
cowboys get injured and admired the medical staff at the rodeos so much, that I
thought it might be interesting and fun to be one of them. It would also give
me a reason to travel the rodeo circuit, too, if Mark decided to keep going.
There would be a lot of other things I could do, as well, if I decided not to
do that. I could be a trainer for just about any sport, team or otherwise.

“Wow, that’s awesome!” He was so genuinely supportive,
it’s no wonder I love him.

“I think so,” I said with a smile. “I’m happy to
finally decide on something. I’ll have to add another semester on at the end.
But, I think in the long run it will be worth it.”

“As long as you’re doing something that makes you
happy,” Mark said.

“I’ve had a shining example of that,” I told him with
a grin. “So give me some good news. When will you be home?”

“Soon. I will see you soon.” That was a little
evasive. Before I could ask him about it he said, “I have to get going now,
babe, and get on the road to Utah. I’ll call you as soon as I can. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Weird.

The next day, my mother was acting really strange,
too. I actually wondered if Rob called her like he had Mark. She asked me four
times that morning if I would be home for dinner. Each time I told her I would,
she would say, “Good. I’m making all your favorites, so please make sure you
get here.”

“Okay, what’s the occasion?”

“No occasion. Can’t a mother make her daughter’s
favorites without there being an occasion?”

“Of course. I just don’t want you going out of your
way for me. I can just as easily eat on campus before I come home…”

“Don’t you
dare!
Please
promise me you won’t eat and you’ll be home by five.”

“I promise, but you’re being weird.”

“Can’t a mother be weird?” I laughed.

“Mine sure can,” I told her. She laughed, too, but I
was pretty sure she was up to something. “Mom, did Rob call you?”

She furrowed her brow. “No. Why? Did he call you?”

“No, thank goodness. I don’t think I’m his favorite
person any longer. He called Mark yesterday.”

“He did? What did he have to say for himself? Did he
apologize at least?”

“No. Mark thinks maybe the guilt is getting to him a
little. He said he wanted to make sure Mark was still ‘amongst the living.’”

“Maybe he has a conscience, after all,” Mom said.

“I suppose anything is possible,” I told her with a
grin. “I have to get going. I love you.”

School that day was long. I had two classes in the
morning and two labs in the afternoon. The time seemed to drag by in my
afternoon classes, even though we were so busy that I was going to take most of
my homework with me. I was go glad when my last class finally ended at
four-thirty – I was wiped out. Samantha texted earlier in the day to see if I
wanted to go out tonight, but I’d turned her down because I’d promised Mom I’d
be home. Now I was glad I’d had Mom as an excuse, I don’t think I could do the
club scene tonight.