Taming Rafe (23 page)

Kat pulled her hands away and folded them on her lap.

Cari sighed. “Okay, listen to me well, my friend. I know I’ve never been on his side, but Bradley was really worried about you when you were gone. Nearly frantic. I couldn’t believe he held that press conference, offering a reward for your safe return. And announcing that you were his fiancée. I thought you said he hadn’t proposed. I hate to admit it, but you have a good thing going with Bradley. Don’t mess it up.”

Bradley. Kat leaned back in her chair. She didn’t bother to correct Cari’s false assumption of being left in the dark about their engagement. It didn’t matter anymore. “He wants to elope to someplace exotic.”

“And you?”

What did she want? A big wedding with a dazzling gown, maybe a five-tiered cake and a thousand guests all crammed into the Breckenridge ballroom? Her throat tightened. “I want to two-step.”

“Oh, brother.” Cari got up, shaking her head. “I’m saying this for your own good. Rafe doesn’t want you. If he did, he’d be here or at least in the lobby. We both know he isn’t shy about making a grand appearance.”

Kat gave her a dark look, but Cari’s words silenced her. Rafe didn’t want her.

And Bradley did.

Yes, Rafe had been right—she wanted a man who made her feel alive and bold. And she probably spent too much time back in that magical night when he’d made her believe she’d won his heart. But
she also wanted a man whose world changed with her smile. Like her mother had done for her father. He’d practically ridden up on a white stallion to steal away the woman he loved.

Kat Breckenridge was not her mother, Felicia. Apparently, she didn’t have her mother’s powers, because Rafe certainly hadn’t followed her to New York and shown up on a white stallion, begging for a second chance.

Rafe may have changed her, but Kat hadn’t changed Rafe one iota. That had been clear in the way he’d kissed her. She’d simply been a game for a man who needed some entertainment in his life. He probably never even intended to help her raise a cent for her cause.

Kat massaged her temples, wishing her headache would ease.

“Head still hurt?” Cari got up, poured Kat a glass of water, and grabbed her prescription bottle. “I’m getting worried about you.”

Kat took the glass. “They’re worse than before. If it’s possible, the longer I sleep, the more exhausted I become. Bradley brought in a doctor a few days ago. He didn’t know what’s wrong.” She swallowed two pills. “And these Vicodin don’t seem to make a dent.”

“Go lie down. I’ll call you in time for the meeting.”

“No,” Kat said, picking up the folder. Because if she did, she’d only dream of the cowboy she’d let break her heart.

“John vanished, Piper. Just like that.
Poof!
” Lolly snapped her fingers, but the sound of dishes clanking in the kitchen behind her swallowed the effect. Still, she felt his disappearance right down to her heart.

No one had to know that she had finally driven to John’s place
last week to find his cattle gone, his house empty, and his hired hand packing his truck for his new job at the Lock-T in Billings. Or that she’d returned home and cried herself to sleep.

Or that she couldn’t bear to read the end of the book, because she just knew that Jonas would never show up. And even if he did, Mary had waited too long, had pushed him away and chosen the wrong man.

“I doubt he’s vanished, Lolly. I haven’t seen any crop circles lately or UFO sightings in the paper. And the earth hasn’t opened up, at least not between here and the Silver Buckle.”

“Then where did he go?”

Behind her, Cody dinged the bell, signaling order up, and Lolly retrieved Piper’s Caesar salad.

“I don’t know. Maybe on vacation.”

“With his cattle? his furniture? His place is up for sale. Why would he sell?”

Piper shrugged, but the question nagged at Lolly. She remembered the day John had shown up in his three-piece suit, looking like an usher at a funeral. Why hadn’t she joined him in Sheridan? Maybe then he would have trusted her enough to tell her the truth. About himself. About his intentions.

“Did you know he’s an author?”

Piper looked up from her salad. “No. Really?”

“Yeah. He wrote that book everyone is obsessed about—
Unshackled
.” Lolly stalked to the end of the counter to take Quint’s order.

“Coffee with sugar, please,” he said, his attention on the television screen. “Hey, look, it’s that Kitty who was here.”

Lolly watched a very pale and ungroomed Katherine being
led out of the Breckenridge hotel surrounded by . . . police? Lolly turned up the volume.

“. . . hospitalized after her recent disappearance. Sources close to Miss Breckenridge suggest an addiction to prescription medication, which raises questions about the recent loss of Breckenridge Funds. With rumors of the Breckenridge Foundation being dissolved, her lawyer and fiancé, Bradley Lymon, had this to say.”

The screen flashed over to Bradley, and Lolly’s stomach knotted.

“Katherine is overwrought with recent stock market losses that have damaged her charity fund, which led to her recent disappearance. With time, we expect a full recovery.” The interview ended, and the camera caught Bradley taking Katherine’s arm, helping her into a limousine.

“She’s sick?” Quint said.

Lolly barely restrained herself from throwing the sugar container at him.

“No.” Piper put down her fork. “Something’s not right here. Kat didn’t seem sick or depressed at all—”

“Of course she’s not.” Lolly felt as if someone had scooped her out from the inside, taking with it all her hopes and dreams. “She was wearing her red boots,” she said quietly.

“Yeah,” Piper said slowly. “She really liked those boots.”

Lolly stared at Piper and saw the wheels in her head turning. Almost before she could keep up, Piper’s gaze went to the picture hanging on the wall, the one taken on the day of Lolly’s grand opening, twenty years prior.

Lolly stood, hands folded over her chest, with one foot up on the steps to the dining car.

Wearing a pair of bright red cowboy boots.

Rafe sat in the wingback chair in the quietness of his father’s bedroom listening to memories. To his mother’s weak voice, quiet as she summoned him into the darkness of her room during the last days of her cancer, telling him what kind of man she hoped he’d be. He’d stood by her bed, held his mother’s hand wrapped in frail, broken skin, and believed her.

Rafe stood up, flicked on a light. He couldn’t sleep here. Not tonight. Not ever. He’d moved in here after Manny and Lucia’s arrival but managed to spend every night on the family room sofa. He grabbed a pillow and the bedspread and went downstairs.

The moonlight filtering in through the windows gave the room eerie angles, cutting across the leather sofa, over the coffee table, against the stone fireplace. Rafe threw the pillow down on the sofa, then followed it, curling up as he pulled the bedspread over him. He lay there in the darkness, listening to the old house creak. From the kitchen, the ancient faucet dripped into the porcelain sink. He got up, found a washcloth in the drawer by the silverware, and wadded it into the sink, then returned to the sofa.

The ceiling fan whirred above him, lifting the covers of the coffee-table magazines. He grabbed a hardcover book, flattening them to the surface. Upstairs, the toilet ran. Someone forgot to jiggle the handle again.

He closed his eyes. And just like that, as if tormenting him, Kitty returned. Her screams of fear, then of triumph as she rode Big Red. Her smell as she yielded in his arms. The hurt on her face as she’d slapped him.

Throwing off the bedspread, he sat up. He wore his track pants
and an old T-shirt, and despite the heat, a chill brushed through him. Yep, the woman was haunting him.

Rafe stood in the milky darkness. His gaze fell on the stack of books on his father’s reading table. He went over and dug through the pile, looking for one that might hold his attention. He found a Ralph Compton book, but he’d read that. He’d read the Elmer Kelton Western also.

Rafe slid into the chair, moving the Bible from the table where he’d left it nearly a month ago. He hesitated before he opened it to where he left off in the Psalms.
“O Lord, oppose those who oppose me. Fight those who fight against me.”

Yeah, he could use some old-fashioned, sword-wielding fighting right now. Against the Breckenridge family and Manny’s leukemia and even his own mistakes. Rafe didn’t follow his father’s cross-reference to Romans this time, not needing the self-condemnation.

Instead his gaze went to a passage on the opposite page, Psalm 32.
“Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the Lord.”

Rafe knew about sorrows, but he’d never considered himself particularly wicked. But maybe wicked didn’t mean what he thought. Maybe it simply meant someone who lived . . . the way he’d lived. For the moment. For the ride. And he certainly couldn’t put himself into the trusting God category.

“Remember, Rafe, you’re not out there alone.”

Apparently the voice in his head wasn’t paying attention to his life, because sitting here in his parents’ home, afraid to sleep in the bed where his mother had died, the weight of Manny’s fears on his shoulders, and nursing what felt like the biggest hole he’d ever had in his chest, Rafe felt very, very alone.

“I believe in you.”
How he wanted to purge Kitty’s voice from his thoughts.

After two weeks away from her, he could admit that maybe she
had
been healing to his broken spirit. At least the time spent with her had kept him from letting his despair drown him. He supposed he should be thankful for her, sort of like the balm of Gilead—healing despite the pain. Being with her had made him believe that he could perhaps be the man his mother had hoped for. Be the man he thought he saw in Kitty’s eyes, however briefly.

“You’ve been your own worst enemy. I don’t know what you’re fighting, but you’re more than you think you are.”

As if remembering her hand touching him, he pressed his hand against his chest, felt only the beating of his heart.

Had Kitty been right? He picked up the Bible and followed his father’s scribbles to Romans.
“So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.”

The enemy inside told him that he couldn’t be forgiven. It told him that he had disappointed too many—his mother, Manuel, Lucia, even Kitty. The enemy screamed that he was just Bishop’s broken, feeble child. That he could never be a Noble. The enemy declared that if God got a good look at him, He would flinch.

The words written in the margin leaped at him:
Fight for me, O Lord.

Could it be that Rafe’s father struggled with his own voices, inadequacies, and even his fears of losing his youngest son?

What would it be like to have the God of the universe fighting for him and holding on, even when Rafe tried to break free? What might it be like to have the Almighty believe in him, as his mother had? As Kitty had?

He’d seen more in Kitty than just her sweet smile. In fact, he’d glimpsed the smile of God. And if Kitty hadn’t flinched at him, maybe God wouldn’t either.

Rafe closed the Bible, set it on the table, and rubbed his hand on it. “Fight for me, O Lord,” he whispered into the stillness of the night.

He stared at his hands, feeling something inside break. Behind it, the flow, fresh and whole, of something he hadn’t even known he thirsted for. “Fight for me, O Lord,” he repeated, this time in a voice that sounded strangely young, even desperate. His eyes burned, and he let them fill, let the tears run down onto his unshaven face.

He closed his eyes. “Fight for me, O Lord.”

CHAPTER 16

I
F HE EVER
had a kid of his own, Rafe hoped his expression matched the one Manny wore as the Buckle’s two hands unloaded Rafe’s mechanical practice bull into the barn.

“It looks like a giant saddle.” Manny came around the side, running his hands over the faux cowhide.

“This one is specially shaped like a bull—see the hump where the shoulders would be? And the handhold on it is like my bull rope. It’s a little old, but it works.” Rafe motioned for Quint and Andy to move it into the center of the barn as he retrieved the mattress pads. “I bought it used off a seasoned bull rider about five years ago, and it helped me train for my first championship when we couldn’t buck out some bulls because of bad weather. Good thing I didn’t sell it with the rest of my spread, huh?”

It was about the only thing left of his Texas ranch he hadn’t sold. As soon as Manny left, it would go up on the auction block too.

“Can I ride it?”

Rafe moved the red padded mattresses in place on the floor around the bull. “If you don’t tell your mother.”

Manny grinned and climbed aboard, holding on to the strap and lifting his left hand high. “I’m not supposed to touch the bull with my free hand, right?”

Rafe plugged the extension cord he’d run from the house into the control box. “First of all, you’re about fifty feet off your rope, which means when his head goes down it’ll be easy for you to go over his shoulders, and you’ll flip off the second after I turn this machine on.”

He walked over to Manny, then pushed his body up against his rope. “Second, you need a glove.” He pulled his own glove out from beneath his belt and handed it to him.

“It’s got your initials on it.”

“This is my lucky glove, Manny. So I got a good feeling about this ride.” It had also been the glove Kitty wore when she’d tamed her bull. But he didn’t add that.

Manny grinned, two gaps between his teeth showing as he pulled on the worn glove. He worked his hand back into the rope. “What about the rosin? Don’t you have to use that to get it all sticky?”

“That helps when I use the bull rope. But for practice, it’s just you and your grip. Now, let me see you set your spurs.”

Manny leaned back, drew his heels together forward on the bull’s body.

“You don’t have to spur him, but it’ll help you stay on or regain your balance if you slip to one side or the other if you hold on with your legs.”

Manny nodded.

“Ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

Rafe bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling at Manny’s serious expression. He turned the speed to the lowest setting and flipped on the power switch. The bull body began to turn, gyrate, switching positions as it spun.

“Whoo-hoo!” Manny spun once, then added his free hand to the grip, holding on as his face whitened. He flew off, landing on his back on the mattress. He lay there, dazed, blinking.

Rafe turned off the machine, his breath stuck in his throat. “You okay?” He crouched beside Manny. “Just lie there for a second and catch your breath.”

Manny nodded, but a smile came over his face. He sat up. “That’s fun, isn’t it?”

Rafe pushed down his hat. “Yeah, it is.” Most of the time. Unless it costs lives. But watching Manny, he couldn’t shake from his memory Kitty astride Big Red, holding on with all she had. Would she still be holding on if he hadn’t shoved her out of his life?

Wait—she was the one agreeing to marry another man. Besides, she hadn’t loved the real Rafe, just the bull rider she saw on the outside.

Yeah, and if he said it enough, maybe even
he
would believe it.

He grabbed Manny’s hand, pulling him to his feet. “So, do you want to give it another go?”

“I want you to do it.”

Rafe stared at Manny’s shiny eyes, recognized a fan in his smile, and couldn’t say no. Just one ride . . .

“Let me show you how to work the switches.” He brought Manny to the box, dialed the knob up to medium high. “Hit this when I tell you to. When I get thrown, turn it off.”

“You won’t get thrown.”

Rafe laughed and patted the kid on the shoulder.

Although constructed of plastic and padding, the bull felt so familiar that a dormant adrenaline shot through Rafe, one he hadn’t felt in months. His knee wasn’t wrapped, so he put on his glove and pulled himself in tight, hoping his strength hadn’t sapped so much that he would fly right off. He lifted his left arm. The pain from his accident still made him wince. But he could do this. For Manny, he could do this.

“Hit it!”

The bull jerked, violent and rude. Rafe met it with oomph. He braced himself, finding his center seat. Sometimes he could sense the bull’s direction, anticipate the movements. But he’d set the machine to operate so the bucking came randomly, impossible to read. Thankfully, a mechanical bull didn’t have hooves or a head to butt against to give him a concussion. Still, he could just as easily get thrown and end up with a broken neck, back, or other bones.

“Go, Rafe!” Manny yelled.

Rafe zeroed in on keeping himself tucked in, using his free hand for balance, and staying on.

A timer sounded—the eight-second mark—and Manny turned off the ride. “You did it, Uncle Rafe! You stayed on!”

Rafe sat there, breathing hard, his pulse pounding. The muscles in his arm shook, and he couldn’t release his grip. Slowly, he opened his hand, letting the blood rush in.

“Good ride.” Nick leaned against the barn door.

Manny bounced toward Nick. “Wasn’t that cool?”

Nick narrowed his eyes at Rafe.

Rafe steeled himself. He didn’t really care what Nick thought.

“Yeah, that was cool.” Nick stepped into the darkness of the barn. “Manny, can you go into the house for a minute? I think Piper is trying a new cookie recipe.”

Manny vanished, and Rafe sat there on that giant fake bull, looking at Nick and wondering what he meant.

“You’re really going to do this?”

Rafe took a breath, looked at his tingling hand. “I’m just trying to encourage Manny.” He brought one leg over the front and slid off the bull. “I’m going to sell the machine after he leaves.”

Nick nodded and looked at his boots. “Okay, I gotta say something—”

“I know. My bull-riding days are over—”

“I want you to start riding again.”

Nick could have pushed him over with a wild iris. “What?”

“I’m tired of you being ornery, and if you getting back on a bull is going to snap you out of this, then . . . well, Stef and I are behind you.”

“I’m not ornery.”

“Oh, really? Wasn’t that you out in the yard late last night roping that dummy steer?”

“I need the practice.” Rafe worked off his glove. “I’m just going through a rough patch.”

“You’ve been going through a rough patch for about ten years. It’s time you and I had a talk.” Nick pulled off his hat, ran his hand around the rim as if trying to find the words. “The truth is . . . I was always jealous of you. You were Dad’s favorite. He didn’t ride you like he did me. He didn’t make you feel like you let him down or that you weren’t good enough—”

“Were we in the same family? I distinctly remember Dad choosing
you to ride the fence with while I sat at home and helped feed the bums.”

“It depends on how you look at it. But this is the important part: when you started riding bulls, I was really angry at you.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I couldn’t. I tried once . . . and it wasn’t that I didn’t have the strength to stay on. I was too scared.”

Rafe stared at him. Nick stood two inches taller than him, with wider shoulders, stronger arms. He had Noble written all over him. Rafe had simply never caught up, in every way that mattered.

“Maybe I’m crazy,” Rafe said, finding a smile.

Nick didn’t match it. “No, you’re not crazy. You’re driven. Only, I never could figure out why. Until Kat said something—”

“I don’t want to talk about her—”

“For better or worse, she saw something in you I never saw. She said that she thought you rode because you have to. Because it’s in your blood.”

Rafe unplugged the electrical cord. “Not anymore.”

“I’d like to think that kind of courage is in my blood too.” Nick gave a wry smile. “I’d like to think I could face a one-ton bull or even my own fears like you do.” He paused, putting his hat back on. “Maybe I’m a fan.”

Rafe gave a disbelieving harrumph, coiling up the cord.

“I think you should start riding again. For all of us.”

Rafe’s chest screwed up into a tight fist. He couldn’t meet Nick’s eyes, so he dropped the cord and moved toward the door.

Nick stepped in front of him. “I’m sorry about Kat, Rafe. She reminded me a lot of Mom.”

Rafe stopped. “Yeah, she did, didn’t she?”

Silence passed between them.

“You know she’s in trouble, right? Piper said she saw on the news that she was hospitalized for depression. And that the Breckenridge Foundation was being dissolved.”

Kitty’s laughter, her easy smile as she’d followed him around the ranch and watched prairie dogs, drifted through his mind. “No, I don’t believe that.” Only, something had grabbed his chest and slowly begun to squeeze.

“I thought so.” Nick smiled, something very big brother in his expression.

Rafe glared at him, then brushed past him and strode toward the house.

With her disappearance, Katherine had played right into Bradley’s hands. Especially in the wake of her foundation’s financial plunge. He couldn’t ask for a better scenario. After all his sacrifices, his gambles, he would finally cash in.

But time hovered like a buzzard. It wouldn’t take long for her grandfather to round up his own list of specialists. Bradley had been forced to accelerate his agenda.

He opened a bottle of mineral water, grabbed Katherine’s orange bottle of prescription medicine, and knocked on her door. She’d been in seclusion since her psychiatric checkup last week—something he’d arranged through a friend who would sign off on Katherine’s unstability. Like mother, like daughter.

“Katherine?”

She lay with a sleep mask over her eyes. Beside her, an old scrapbook lay open.

“Honey, are you awake?”

She ripped the mask from her reddened eyes. Her brown hair hung in a stringy mess, and with the fatigue on her face, she looked about eighty.

He didn’t comment. “I have your medicine.”

She held out her hand, and he dropped in two pills. “Thank you.” She drank it down with the water he handed her.

Bradley sat on the bed. Put a hand on her leg. “Have you thought any more about getting away? We could even get married while we’re there. How about Bermuda?”

She gave him a small smile. “Sure. Whatever you want, Bradley.” Then she pulled the mask back over her eyes and rolled to her side.

See, it could be easy. He just had to keep it simple. Bradley kissed her hand, then let himself out the door.

Lincoln Cash made the best Jonas that John could ever imagine. He captured Jonas’s quiet frustration as he watched the woman he loved suffer, his patience as he prayed for her healing. John had originally written the book only from Mary’s point of view, but when the director suggested he write the screenplay from Jonas’s perspective too, the scene came alive.