A Cowboy's Heart (2 page)

“Well, I know it was good honest work. I'm only saying that I missed you.”

Clint leaned and kissed her powdery soft cheek. “I missed you, too.”

“You go ride that bull. But be careful. We need you in one piece.”

Clint laughed as he walked away. He laughed because Miss Janie had always had a knack for drama. It was a strange trait for a sensible woman.

As he threaded his way through the men standing near the chutes where the first few bulls were penned up and ready for their rides, he caught sight of Willow. She stood near a small group of people, her gaze concentrating on their faces as she read their lips. She nodded at something one of the men said and then she shifted her attention, focusing on Clint. Like she'd felt him staring. And for that moment, he couldn't look away.

He nearly ran into one of the event judges. The guy grabbed his arm and shot him a look.

“Sorry about that,” Clint mumbled as he lifted his bull rope and continued moving through the crowd.

“You're up, Cameron.” One of the men motioned him forward.

The MC in the announcer's stand gave the name of the next bull and followed that with Clint's name and a little information on his career. Of course they just
had
to mention that he was thirty-one, a late bloomer for bull riding.

He'd been at the sport for as long as he could remember. He just hadn't had the time to invest into making it a career. That didn't interest the crowd. They wanted to think about the old guy, the newcomer. Even in bull riding the fans wanted a Cinderella story.

Clint slid onto the back of a big old bull, one that he'd come up against before. Part Brahma and part Angus, the bull had a mean streak a mile wide.

A warm night in May didn't make the bull any nicer. The animal slid to his knees and then back up again, leaning to the left and pushing Clint's leg against the side of the chute.

One of the other riders, a guy named Mike, pulled the bull rope and handed it to Clint. Clint rubbed rosin up and down the rope and then wrapped it around his gloved riding hand. The bull lurched forward and someone grabbed the back of Clint's shirt, keeping his head from bashing into the metal gate in front of him. The animal shook its head and flung white foam across Clint's face.

Clint leaned forward, the heaving, fifteen-hundred-pound animal moving beneath him. Fear in the guise of adrenaline shot through his veins, pumping his heart into overdrive. The bull calmed down for a brief moment, and Clint nodded.

The gate opened, and the bull made a spinning jump out of the chute, knocking his back end against the corner and sending Clint headfirst toward the animal's horns. With his free arm in the air, whipping back for control, Clint moved himself back to center.

Eight seconds, and he felt every twist, every jump, every
lurch. As the buzzer rang, Clint dived off for safety, not expecting the last-minute direction change that the bull added in for fun. Clint hit the ground, and the impact felt like hitting a truck. A loud pop echoed in his ears, and pain shot from his shoulder down his arm.

The bull turned and charged at him. He rolled away, but he couldn't escape the rampaging animal, its hot breath in Clint's face and the hammering of its hooves against solid-packed dirt.

That big old bull was face-to-face with him, pawing and twisting. Clint rolled away from the hooves and then felt a hard tug as someone jerked him backward, away from danger.

The bullfighter yelled at him to move. Clint did his best to oblige, but his left arm hung at his side, useless. The pop he'd heard when he hit the ground must have been his shoulder dislocating.

A blur of blue in front of him, and the bull changed direction to go after the bullfighter. Those guys were bodyguards and stuntmen, all in one package. Clint hurried to the side of the arena and the fence.

As he held on to the fence, watching the bullfighters play with the overzealous bull, he caught a flash of blond. He turned and saw Willow Michaels watching from the corner gate.

When he limped out of the arena, his eyes met hers for a split second and then she walked away. She wasn't the first princess to turn her back on him. She probably wouldn't be the last.

Telling himself it didn't matter didn't feel as good as it usually did. Fortunately he had the throbbing pain in his arm to keep his mind off the blow to his ego.

Medics were waiting for him as he walked out the gate. They offered help walking that he didn't need. He'd dislocated his shoulder before, so he knew the drill. He just didn't feel like talking about it.

“Want some help getting in?” One of the paramedics motioned inside the back of the vehicle.

“I'll just sit on the tailgate.” He had no desire to climb, with or without help.

“Suit yourself.”

He leaned back and just as he started to close his eyes, Janie was there. She wore that “mother hen” look that he remembered from his childhood.

It was a shame she'd never had kids of her own. But then he might have missed out on having her in his life.

“Is it dislocated?” She nearly pushed the paramedics aside.

“I imagine it is.” He managed a smile that he hoped wasn't too much of a grimace.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

“I think the paramedics can manage.”

Janie didn't look convinced. She was five-foot-nothing but a force to be reckoned with. Funny how she hadn't really aged.

Not like his dad. His dad was barely sixty-five, but already an old, old man. His liver was shot, and his mind was going. Janie would always have her wits about her.

“Don't let him sit there and suffer.” She stepped back, and motioned the paramedics forward.

She had no idea about suffering. The pain he had felt just sitting there was nothing compared to that moment when they yanked his arm and pushed it back into its socket. Working through it meant a serious “cowboy up” moment. He took a few deep breaths that didn't really help.

“There, nothing to it.” One paramedic smiled as he said the words.

“Yeah, nothing to it.” Clint shrugged to loosen the muscle, but the pain shot down his arm and across his back.

“It'll be sore, and I'm afraid there might be more damage than just the dislocation. Best get it checked out with the sports medicine team. Until then,” he held out a sling, “pain meds, and you might want to get a ride home tonight.”

A ride home? For the first time in a dozen years a “ride home” meant a ride to Grove, Oklahoma. And now it meant Willow Michaels living just down the road. He couldn't quite picture her as the “girl next door.”

I
n the midnight-black of the truck, lit only with the red-and-orange glow from the dash, Willow nudged at the cowboy sleeping in the seat next to her. They'd driven the two hours from Tulsa and were getting close to the ranch. Janie hadn't helped. She had fallen asleep shortly after they'd taken off.

“Wake up.” She nudged Clint again, careful to hit his ribs, not the arm held against his chest with a sling. “Do you have a key to get into this place?”

He stirred, brushed a hand through hair that wasn't long enough to get messy and then yawned. He blinked a few times and looked at her like he couldn't quite remember who she was.

“Willow Michaels, remember? We offered you a ride home?”

He nodded and then he shook his head. “I don't know.”

She didn't hear the rest because he yawned and covered his mouth. Moments like this were not easy for her, not in the dark cab of a truck, not with someone she didn't really know.

He said something else that she didn't catch. Willow sighed because it wasn't fair, and she didn't want to have this conversation with him.

This kind of insecurity belonged to a ten-year-old girl saying
goodbye to her parents and wondering why they no longer wanted her with them. And always assuming that it was because her hearing loss embarrassed them.

He said something else that she didn't catch.

“Clint, you have to talk more clearly. I can't see you, and I don't know what you're saying.”

There, it was said, and she'd survived. But it ached deep down, where her confidence should have been but wasn't.

He looked at her, his smile apologetic as he reached to turn on the overhead light. The dim glow undid her calm, because the look in his eyes touched something deep inside. Wow, she really wanted to believe in fairy tales.

S
ORRY
.

And when he signed the word, his hand a fist circling over his chest, she didn't know how to react. But she recognized what she felt—unnerved and taken by surprise. When was the last time a cowboy had taken her by surprise?

She cleared her throat and nodded. And then she answered, because he was waiting.

“It isn't your fault. It's dark, and you didn't know.”

How did he know sign language, and how did he know that it made hearing him so much easier? Even with hearing aids, being in the dark made understanding a muffled voice difficult—especially with the diesel engine of the truck.

“I know it isn't my fault, but I should have thought.” He shifted in the seat, turning to face her as he spoke. “I'm sorry, I'm not quite awake.”

“About the house?”

“I don't need a key to the house.”

“Aunt Janie, you should wake up now.” Willow downshifted as they drove through the small almost-town that they lived near. Grove was another fifteen miles farther down the road, but it was easier to say they were from Grove than to give the name of a
town with no population and no dot on the map. Dawson, population 10, on a good day. The town boasted a feed store and, well, nothing else.

“Janie, wake up.” Willow leaned to look at her aunt.

Janie snorted but then started to snore again. The vibration of Clint's laughter shook the seat. Willow shot him a look, and then she smiled. He had used sign language—that meant she had to give him a break.

She was still trying to wrap her mind around that fact. It had been a long time since someone had done something like that for her. Something unexpected.

“Where did you learn sign language?”

He shrugged. “I picked it up in college. I have a teaching degree, and I thought sign language would be a great second language. Everyone else was studying Spanish, French or German.”

He signed as he spoke, and Willow nodded. She reached to shift again as the speed limit decreased.

“I'm rusty, so you'll have to excuse me if I say the wrong thing.”

“You're fine.” And the sooner she dropped him off at the little house surrounded by weeds and rusted-out trucks, the sooner she could get back to her world and to thoughts that were less confusing.

The driveway to his place was barely discernable, just a dirt path mixed in with weeds and one broken reflector to show where it was safe to turn. She slowed, not sure what to do. The trailer hooked to her truck jolted a little as the vehicle decelerated and the bulls shifted, restless for home.

“Don't pull in. You won't be able to turn the truck.”

She agreed with him on that. She didn't have a desire to get stuck or to have a flat tire. Not with a load of homesick bulls in a stock trailer hooked to the back of her truck.

“But what are you going to do about tonight? Do you even have electricity?”

“I dropped off flashlights and a few other necessities this morning. Don't worry, I'll be fine.” In the light of the cab he had stopped signing, but he spoke facing her.

The snoring from the far side of the cab had stopped. Aunt Janie sat up, yawning. “Clint, don't tell me you plan on staying here tonight?”

“There isn't that much night left, Janie. I'll be fine. Take Willow home, and get some rest. She's got to be tired after the day you two put in.”

“You've had a long day, too.” Willow pushed aside something that felt like anger, but maybe came from leftover feelings of inadequacy.

It had more to do with the past than with the present. It had to do with Brad telling their limo driver to take her home while he went into town, to a party that would have been too stressful for her to attend.

Alone. She'd always been at home alone. And she'd been sent away when she failed to meet expectations. The past, she reminded herself. It was all in the past and God had restored her life, showing her that she didn't belong in a corner alone.

She mattered to God. He had given her an inner peace and the ability to believe in herself.

“You're right about that.” He stood in the open door, holding Janie's hand as she got back into the truck. “You two have a good night. See you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. When he would invade her life. Willow couldn't really thank him for that, not if he was going to be another person who found it easy to believe her hearing loss meant she couldn't take care of herself.

 

Clint woke up after a short few hours of sleep, stiff and sore, his arm throbbing against his chest. He rolled over on the sleeping bag and stared out the cobweb-covered window, so
dirty that it might as well have had a curtain covering it. His savings account had seemed more than enough until he got a good look at this place.

Six months since his last visit home and two years since he'd been in this house. It looked like the dust had been there since then, or before. Not to mention his dad's old truck, tires flat and the frame rusting, growing weeds at the side of the house.

His dad had moved to a house in town two years earlier, and then to the nursing home. It hadn't been easy, putting him there, knowing he needed full-time care.

Clint's phone rang, and he reached for it, dragging it to his ear as he flipped it open. His sister said a soft hello.

“You sound bad. Do you look bad?” She laughed when he groaned an answer.

“Other than a dislocated shoulder, I had a great night.”

“Sounds like fun. I'm sorry I missed it.”

“Wait until you come down for a visit. Janie is still Janie. And her niece is living here.”

“The one that used to visit in the summer?”

“The one and only.”

“Is she still beautiful?” She was determined to see him married off.

“If you like tall, blond and gorgeous, she's okay.” He rubbed his hand across his face, trying to rub the sleep away. “She isn't my type.”

“Have you ever found your type?”

“Nope. I'm happily single.”

“I don't think so, brother dear. I think you need a woman to soften your rough edges. You need someone who will take care of you, the way you've taken care of everyone else.”

“I don't have rough edges. So, what's up, Sis?”

He knew there was more to this call. He thought he might need to sit up, because the tone of her voice, even with the laughter,
hinted at bad news. Holding the phone with his ear, he pushed himself up with his right hand and then slid back against the box of supplies he left here yesterday.

“What's up, Jen?”

A long pause and he thought he heard her sob. He didn't hear the boys, his twin nephews, in the background. His stomach tightened.

“Time to put our Family Action Plan into place. I'm going to Iraq.”

Not that. He could have prepared himself for almost anything, but not the thought of his kid sister in Iraq. And the boys, just four years old, without a mom. He couldn't think about that, either. They had discussed it some. He had just convinced himself it wouldn't come to this—to her leaving and the boys in his care.

“Clint, I need for you to take the boys.”

“You know I will. But there has to be someone better for them than me, an uncle who rides bulls for a living and who's camping in a house without electricity.” For the moment.

“You're it. You're my only family, their only family. You knew this could happen.”

“I want to make sure this is the best thing for them, that I'm the best thing.”

“You were the best for me.”

He closed his eyes, wishing he had been the best for her, and that he'd been able to give her more. He'd done his best. They both knew that.

“When?”

“I have to leave for Texas in five days. I've known for a while, but I guess I was hoping that something would happen and I wouldn't have to leave them.” She sobbed into the phone. “Clint, they're my babies.”

“I know, Jen. And you know I'll take care of them.”

“If something happens…”

“We're not going to discuss that. But you know I love them and I'm going to take care of them until you get home.”

She was crying, hundreds of miles away at a base in Missouri. She was crying, and he couldn't make it better. Sleeping under this roof, in this room, he remembered the other nights she had cried, when they had been kids, and he'd sneaked in to comfort her, to promise he'd make it better.

He had prayed, and she had doubted God even existed.

“I can't make this better, Jen.”

“You do make it better.” She sniffled, her tears obviously over. “Clint, the Army has been good for me, you know that. And I'm ready to go. I know that I have to go.”

“But it won't be easy.”

“It's easier knowing that you'll have Timmy and David.”

“Do you want to bring them here, or should I come to you?”

A long pause, and he heard the sob she tried to swallow. “I want to see Dad before I go.”

He looked out the dirt-covered window at the tree branch scraping against the glass, forced into movement by the wind. “Yes, you should see him. And it would probably be better for them if you got them settled here.”

“I'll be down in two days,” she whispered, and he knew she was crying. And he felt a lot like he might cry, too.

How was he going to let his little sister go to war, and how was he going to take care of two four-year-old boys? And then there was Willow, added by Janie to the list of people who needed his help.

 

Covered with dust and bits of hay, Willow walked to the door of the barn to see what the dog, Bell, was barking at. Of course it was Clint Cameron walking down the drive, a tall figure in faded jeans and a blue-gray T-shirt. A baseball cap shaded his face and his arm was still in a sling. She shook her head. Cowboys.

She brushed her hands through her hair and shook the hem
of her shirt to rid herself of the hay that had dropped down her neck. Clint didn't spot her. As he walked up the steps to the house, Willow turned back into the barn.

She tossed a few more bales of hay into the back of her truck and cut the wires that held them together. A quick glance at the sky confirmed her suspicions that a spring storm was heading their way. The temperature had dropped ten degrees, dark clouds loomed on the horizon and the leaves of the trees had turned, exposing the underside. A sure sign of rain.

Before the rain hit, she needed to feed her animals. Cattle and horses were waiting and the bulls were bellowing from their pens because they knew it was breakfast time. She opened the feed-room door and stepped inside. The tabby cat that lived in the barn scooted inside and sniffed around in the corners of the room, looking for mice.

Willow grabbed a fifty-pound bag of grain off the pile and carried it out of the room. As she lifted, preparing to drop it into the back of the truck, Clint stepped through the open double doors of the barn and walked toward her.