Ride Me Cowboy #5 (The Cowboy Romance Series - Book #5) (7 page)

The funny thing to me was how genuine rodeo people
were as opposed to how plastic Las Vegas was on the surface. I thought it a
strange place to hold the finals, and I was looking forward to seeing how the
rodeo people connected with such a strange city. When our plane landed at the
McLaren International Airport, rodeo was already apparent. There were cowboys
and cowgirls everywhere. Mark had opted to leave
Sarge
behind this trip and take the plane. He said he wouldn’t have time to spend
with the horse and he didn’t want to leave him sitting in a pen all weekend.
But with or without a horse, most of the people milling around the airport
looked like they should be living in another world. A world of campfires and
cattle drives…one far removed from the bright neon lights I could already see
out the window.

In the cab ride on the way to the hotel, I saw them
again – cowboys, rodeo people, everywhere. It was like the old west under
giant, fake, neon palm trees. It was strange to see the wealth of the rodeo
crowd. It was something that Rob gave Mark such a hard time about, earning
money. But these people were playing slots and drinking in the bars and eating
in the restaurants. They wore boots and jeans, but other than that, they
weren’t much different from any of the other tourists on the strip. Even
Starbucks was overflowing with them.

That first night, we just ordered room service and
stayed in. Our plane arrived late and we were tired so we all turned in early.
The next day, we had a light breakfast and then we all went out to lunch at the
Hard Rock Café. After that, we walked through some of the massive hotels and
casinos on the strip and ended up at Mom’s hotel, buying tickets for a Cirque
de Soleil show. It was another place laden with rodeo folk. I’d never seen one
of their shows before. Mark told me I would love it, and he was right. It was
amazing. The other amazing thing was that here I was, thinking I was Miss Big
City, yet Mark was the one who knew where the good shows and the best
entertainment was here.

After the show, Mom wanted to do some gambling and
Mark and I checked out the strip. He’d been there more than several times, but
he said seeing it through my eyes was more fun than the first time he saw it
for himself. I guess I was a little bit over the top, but Las Vegas is an
incredible place. I’m not much of a gambler, but we stopped and put a few
dollars in a machine here and there. It was fun, even though we didn’t win
anything. Mark and I watched the indoor storm and then a fashion show at the
Bellagio hotel and then we took a cab to Circus
Circus
and caught a midway show. We saw the white tigers at the Mirage and rode the
roller coaster that goes through the New York New York hotel. I was like a kid
at Disneyland.

We met back up with Mom that evening for dinner at The
Venetian and after dinner we took a Gondola ride and a walk through Madame
Tussaud’s
wax museum. We got silly and took lots of
pictures with our favorite wax celebrities. We stopped for a drink at
Señor
Frogs and by the time we got back to our own hotel
that night, I was exhausted, but giddy. Mark ordered a bottle of champagne from
room service and we sat out on our hotel balcony and enjoyed the crisp night
air and toasted each other.

I finally had to ask him, “I have every faith in you,
but since we both know things happen…if you don’t win tomorrow, will you regret
that you’re giving it up?”

He looked like he was thinking about how to phrase it
and then he said, “Of course, I want to go out on top. With the life that you
and I have planned, the only thing that could make it better would be to have
the experience and the benefits of winning this.”

If Mark wins, the prize money is over a million
dollars. He says that we’re going to use it to build a house anywhere in the
world I wanted. I didn’t tell Mark yet, but I was thinking about how nice it
would be to raise our children in the country, maybe on a ranch surround by
horses and cattle and rolling green hills…

I nodded. “I just don’t ever want you to have any
regrets.” He took my hands in his and looked into my eyes.

I believed him with everything in me when he said, “I
will never regret anything I’ve done since the first day we met…to be with
you.”

That night was spent just holding each other. I wanted
him to be well-rested, and I was really nervous myself. I’d recently made the
terrible mistake of reading an article about Lane Frost. He was a young cowboy
like Mark who achieved his dream of riding in the NFR. At that event, after he
had an almost perfect ride, he was gored to death by the bull. It’s hard to
imagine since I’d only known Mark for six months at this point, but I don’t
think I’d know how to go on without him.

The morning of the event, we got up early and Mom met
us at the restaurant downstairs. The whole place was filled with nervous and
excited cowboys and cowgirls. The energy in the place was electric and
contagious. Mark seemed to be confident and calm, and I was trying to convince
myself to be the same.

The coolest part of our trip to Vegas so far was that
somehow, probably because he was the number two cowboy at the event, Mark
scored us VIP backstage tour packages. He left us at the long tunnel with a
pretty blonde girl dressed from head to toe in cowboy garb. She introduced
herself as Brittney and said she’d be our guide. I watched Mark disappear
through the tunnel in front of us and when the other two people in our tour
group arrived, Brittney looked at us and said, “Y’all ready for this?” Mom and
I smiled and told her we were. The married couple whose son was riding broncs
today also said they were, too.

We followed Brittney down a dirt-packed tunnel. It was
kind of cool the way they turned this beautiful hotel into a giant, authentic
rodeo arena for ten days out of the year. Horses and their riders made their
way past us and we had to be careful not to step in the piles they left behind.
The air in the tunnel was warm and the walls pulsed slightly from the loud
music playing above us in the parking lot outside.

“The crowd is expected to be more than twenty-thousand
people,” Brittney said. I was in awe of that. Someone that I not only knew, but
was in a relationship with, would be performing his talent in front of twenty
thousand people tonight live and millions more on television. That was some
kind of pressure.

Brittney led us past determined-looking cowboys on
their giant, muscular horses and ones who walked by with a slightly hitched
gait that says they’ve been doing this way too long. They all wore gigantic
belt buckles and carried things like rope and saddles and vests and helmets.
The left side of the tunnel was a gigantic holding pen filled with steer that
don’t look overly happy to be here. The odor that emanated from them was less
offensive to me than it was exciting because it was authentic.

The atmosphere here was like it had been earlier in
the restaurant…cheerful with an electric energy that you couldn’t help but feel
and get excited about. When we came to the end of the tunnel, Brittney led us
out into a wide open room that was connected to about ten different hallways.
We went down one long one where most of the doors were opened into rooms where
trainers and masseuses worked with jean-clad cowboys.

“Oh, Allen B. in the flesh,” Brittany said, stopping
next to a middle-aged man wearing a pair of cut-off overalls, long socks, and a
shirt that had seen better days.

“Ladies and gentlemen this is Allen B. He is one of
the most famous rodeo clowns in history.” Allen B. was sans make-up, but
otherwise, I could see it. Mark told me that the “clowns” were actually
wranglers at heart. They were tough guys and so far, I’d watched them save
Mark’s butt more than once. The cowboys all had a lot of respect for them and
when you watched a rodeo, it was easy to see why.

“Y’all enjoy your rodeo,” he told us before continuing
on down the hall. From there, Brittney took us into a big area that looked like
an airline hangar. It was filled with men and women warming up their horses.

At that point, she asked us which event we were here
to watch. The older couple said the saddle broncs. Their son had been doing it
for eight years. This was his first trip to the NFR. Mom and I told her,
bull-riding. Brittney smiled and said, “Well then I hope you are all patient
people. It is a long, excruciating wait for both events. But of course the bull
riding always comes last. I know y’all are probably a little bit anxious about
your loved ones being out there, but try and enjoy the rest of it. There are
some amazing talents in all of the events.”

After an hour long tour, she left us at the entrance
of the grand arena. Mom and I walked in and looked around at the packed crowd.
Women were dressed in skin-tight jeans and knee-high cowboy boots. There were
lots of beaded shawls and hats. Turquoise was the most abundant stone and
glitter seemed to abound.

The men had on big-brimmed cowboy hats and many faces
were adorned with big mustaches. They wore vests and neckerchiefs and jackets
with fringe. Some of the fancier guys wore the long dusters adorned with silver
Conchos. Mom and I had worn our jeans and boots, but somehow in this crowd, I
still felt very city.

We took our seats in the third row, center, just down
from the announcer’s booth. At precisely seven p.m. a huge explosion rocked the
arena and lights began to dance off the walls as fire shot up out of holes in
the dirt floor below us. Our seats are great ones. We’ll be able to see all of
the action, but the guy next to us had an umbrella that he said was “for the
dirt.” Apparently by the end of the night, we would be showered with it
according to him.

As the flames die down, cowboys gallop out and ride in
rings around the arena, holding flags from their respective states. Heavy metal
rock music screeched in the background then as a chute is pulled open and the
first bareback bronc rider and his horse, come flying out. I like the bareback
bronc riding. It’s like bull-riding, only somehow it seems even more savage to
me. The horses look like they’ve been shocked with a thousand volts of
electricity and their bodies buck and twist and catapult around the arena as
the cowboy lies nearly flat down on top of him. The have to hold on with only
one hand like the bull-riders and they also have to stay on for eight seconds.
You have to wonder how their backs don’t just break while they’re up there. The
other amazing part is that this is the first night of a ten day rodeo. How sore
would you have to be after ten days of that?

The steer wrestling came after the broncs. This event
is not one of my favorites. It’s a fast paced event where a steer is let out of
his shoot and a cowboy chases him on his horse and then hurls themselves down
onto it. They flip the steer on his back, if they’re lucky, and body slam him.
I hated that and I felt bad for the steer. I knew I could never do it, even
though the steer usually trots off looking unaffected by the whole thing. The
steer wrestling prize tonight for the best time is eighteen thousand plus
dollars. When I hear that, I think maybe I could do it just once….

In between each event, ladies in satin cowgirl outfits
gallop beautiful horses around the arena and hold up streamers with the names
of Las Vegas casinos on banners that float out behind them. After the steer
wrestling, we sat through the calf-roping, both individual and team. It’s
another event that I don’t care much for, but the packed crowd seemed to love
it. Then came the saddle bronc riding. I wonder if the older couple we had our
tour with are as nervous as I’m going to be when it’s Mark’s turn. Saddle bronc
riding seems almost like cheating to me after you watch the bareback, but who
am I to judge? Mom leaned in and said we should have asked the people what
their son’s name was so we could root for him. I guess that would have been the
polite thing to do, but this was all a little bit overwhelming.

After that came tie-down roping, and I had to take
that opportunity for a bathroom break. It hurts my heart to watch them tie down
those calves with the big, doe eyes. When I came back, Mom was having a
conversation with a handsome, suede hat-clad gentleman who was sitting in front
of us. I wiggled my eyebrows at her and she blushed.

There was an intermission right after that, I guess I
could have waited to pee… Then there came barrel racing. I tried not to be the
jealous type and look at all of the pretty girls on their horses and think
about Mark traveling from place to place with them. He loves me – that’s what’s
important. Besides, this will be his last rodeo. I watched as the girls came
flying into the arena at breakneck speed and maneuvering their horses in tight
turns around three barrels. Then they would spring out again at lightning
speed. After the winner of that event was announced, the rodeo clown we met
earlier came out. He was fully made-up now and he had a friend…or foe…in the
arena with him. It was a 2,000 pound bull named Mike. Mike didn’t look happy
and Allen B. had to chase him out of the arena with the help of another make-up
clad cowboy.

At last, it was the event we’d been waiting for: the
bull-riding. There were fifteen bull-riders. Mark was number seven. The first
guy was on a bull named Tigger. I wondered about the name, until I saw the way
he bounced across the dirt. The rider was on for less than five seconds when
one of Tigger’s bounces sent him pin-wheeling into the dirt.