Ride Me Cowboy (6 page)

The announcer finally announced it was time for the
bull riding event. He had
said earlier the attendance today
was over eight-thousand
. The stands were packed, and when he announced
the event, there was a rumble through the crowd. Bull riding was obviously a
popular one. I looked over towards the chutes and watched as they got the bull
and the cowboy ready. I could see Mark on top of his horse, tying rope or
something as he bent over the chute. Even on a horse and covered in a light
sheen of sweat he was amazing to look at…who am I kidding?
Especially
on a horse and covered in a light sheen of sweat.
Jeez, this man was
going to be the death of me. How had I never known how much cowboys would turn
me on? I guess I’d never really been exposed to them before. I looked around at
all of the other cowboys. Of course, a lot of them were attractive – but no
tickle in the belly. Then my eyes would find Mark again and there it was. With
a sigh, I turned my attention back to the event and surprisingly I got even
more into it. The bull riding was definitely going to be my favorite.

As the announcer read out the names of the bulls and
their riders and the audience clapped and hollered and held up signs with not
the cowboy’s name but the bull’s, I found myself cheering right along with
them. He announced the first rider. He was a guy named “Tuck” Gardner. The
announcer said he’d been riding bulls for thirteen years and was ranked number
two on the circuit. He’d pulled a bull named Travis. I laughed at that. Travis?
Really?
I didn’t know any of Travis’s stats, but I
already preferred “Buttercup” just because she had a cooler name that didn’t
sound like she should be a jock instead of a bull. I thought about her being a
bull and realized that “she’s” probably a “he,” too…maybe it wasn’t such a cool
name. I mean, doesn’t “Buttercup” sound just a little bit feminine for a tough
guy bull?

The next bull was Mr. Doubtfire. I scoffed at the
name at first until I saw him dance in the ring. He threw his rider off in
under three seconds. The guys next to me said his average was four or less.
Like Stacks, he’d never been ridden. After he threw the rider off, he strutted
around, stopping occasionally at the fence to make eye contact with someone in
the stands. I started to understand what Mark meant about their eyes. You could
see in his that he wanted to convey what a stud he thought he was. It was as if
he was saying, “Ride me if you can.”

After seeing Mr. Doubtfire, I developed my own
respect for them, and I started rooting for the bulls almost as much as I did
for the cowboys. I actually think I rooted for them more, until Mark’s name was
announced overhead. He hadn’t drawn Stacks. I wondered if he was happy about
that or disappointed. He was on a bull named “Destructor.” I wondered if he was
as ominous as his name. I didn’t have to wonder long after the chute was pulled
open and the bull and his gorgeous rider emerged.

Destructor was a cream-colored bull with giant horns
that came out bucking all four legs off the ground at once and he did a spin
with his almost two-thousand pounds of bulk that most ballerinas would be
jealous of. As impressive as he was, I couldn’t help but find the cowboy
sitting on top of him even more impressive. He was wearing a vest now that
matched his chaps. I guessed it was the kind of vest that bull riders wear to
protect their internal organs, but on him it just looked hot. He had on one
black leather glove that he held onto the rope wrapped around the bull’s chest
with and as Destructor twisted and spun around, Mark’s body seemed to move
fluidly right along with him. It was like watching a beautifully choreographed
dance, and I was mesmerized. If a bomb had gone off in the stands during those
eight seconds, I don’t think I would have even noticed. When the buzzer rang, I
was on my feet with most of the rest of the attendees. Mom was right next to me.
Mark slid off the bull and picked up his hat that had flown off when he came
out. Destructor seemed angry and went after him. Mark had to jump up on the
fence to avoid the bull and then the rodeo clowns chased him around until they
got him back out of the ring and into his pen. Mark raised his hat once more
before he left the ring, and I could see that sexy confidence on his face and
in his posture. I hadn’t been able to take my eyes off of him and was kind of
relieved when he finally left the ring. I knew I was a little bit more excited
than I should be. My face was flushed and my heart was racing. I was truly
happy for Mark, which I guess is strange since I barely knew him. I looked over
at
Mom,
she still looked excited, too. Maybe it was an
adrenaline surge thing. Then I glanced at Rob who was still sitting stone faced
in his spot. I wondered what his excuse was for not seeming to be excited at
all.

CHAPTER
NINE

MARK

There is absolutely nothing like staying on the back
of a good bull for that full eight seconds. I jumped off of Destructor with the
help of the rodeo clowns and picked up my hat and then threw it up in the air.
The adrenaline rush was incredible and I was even happier for it when I saw
that Destructor thought we had unfinished business. I ran and jumped up on the
fence just as Curtis and Troy, our clowns, shooed him out of the ring. I raised
my hat again and took another round of applause before I finally headed for the
gate. I’d never been high on any kind of drug, but I couldn’t imagine that it
could even come close to this. When I glanced up in the stands and saw Lexi and
Lydia on their feet cheering for me, I got another shot of the rush. I told
myself it was because I’d never really had family in the stands cheering for me
– at least, not since my mother died. But mostly, if I was being honest, I had
to admit that when I looked up at Lexi, the rest of the people in the stadium
disappeared. I did notice my dad sitting firmly rooted to his spot. I don’t
think his hands even bothered to pretend to clap. Oh well, I didn’t care. It
was nice to have people here, and I was going to feed off of that for now.

When all was said and done, I ended up finishing
second, which thrilled the shit out of me. The guy who drew Stacks actually
rode him, so of course he won because of Stacks’ high rank. It was a little bit
disappointing to know that could have been me if I’d drawn him. It also could
have been me in the dirt on my ass though, too, so I should be happy for what I
did get.
Second qualified me to move on.
I was
confident that as long as I kept giving it 100%, one of these days the stars
would all line up just right and I’d be going down in history as one of the
greatest riders of all time like Lane Frost or Freckles Brown. I got my buckle
and my check and then I started breaking down and loading up my equipment. As I
was loading up my horse
Sarge
, my family found me.

“Mark! You were amazing!” Lydia said. She gave me a
hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Thank you,” I told her. Lexi was smiling at me.
God, she’s so pretty.

“You really were,” she said. “I never thought I’d
enjoy something like this, but I had a great time.”

“Good. Thank you both for being here.
You too, Dad.”
Dad made eye contact with me and gave me a
quick nod. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that I’d get any better than that.
Oh well, at least he was here, right? “Hey! Y’all want to go out to dinner and
celebrate? It’s on me.”

 
Lydia was
still smiling and she looked like she was going to say yes. My father had
different ideas, however, and he didn’t seem to be concerned at all with what
Lydia wanted to do. “No. We’re too damned old for all that. Sitting on this
damned hard bench all day was quite enough and now we have a three hour ride
home. Thanks, but no thanks.” Lydia looked irked, but she didn’t say anything.
I was used to Dad, so I expected it, but I was embarrassed when I saw the look
on Lexi’s face. She recovered it quickly, but the disapproval was there.

Dad drove home again and at least I got to have Lexi
to talk to in the backseat. She had all kinds of questions about the rodeo and
how bull riding is scored and she actually listened and acted
like
she cared about my answers.

When we got close to the house, she looked at the
time and said, “It’s early yet. I could stand going out for a celebratory drink
if you want.” For a second I considered the fact that she was my stepsister, then
I tried to decide whether or not she was just feeling bad for me because my dad
was an ass; then I decided I didn’t care about any of it, I wanted to go out
and have a drink with her.

“That sounds great,” I said. “I’ll just shower when
we get home so I don’t smell like a bull.”

“You don’t smell like a bull,” Dad said from the
front seat. “You smell like an ass.” He laughed heartily at his own joke. I
chuckled. Lexi and Lydia were smart enough to see it for what it was: a not so
subtle put down. Neither of them laughed.

While I showered, Lexi “cleaned up.” She looked
fresh to me, but I guess a woman who has sat on a wooden bench in a rodeo arena
was probably not feeling that way. I was waiting for her at the bottom of the
stairs a half an hour later and the woman that came down towards me could have
graced any billboard or magazine cover. She was so much better than those two
dimensional models, though. She was real fluid movement when she walked and
there was real humor in her laugh. She didn’t seem to know how beautiful she
was and I
couldn’t for the life of me figure
out why.
She’d put on a denim skirt that came to her ankles and wore a soft looking pair
of brown leather boots with it.

“Where’d you get the boots?”

She looked down at them and then she blushed as she
said, “The Native American guy that runs that leather kiosk told me mine
weren’t ‘real boots’ because they were ‘too shiny.’”

“Oh thank God,” I said with a grin. She reached her
hand out and punched me on the arm. See there, just like a real brother and
sister. We can do this. I was still sizing her up, though. I was thinking a bit
much for a sibling, even a step, but it really wasn’t my fault that she looked
so damned
good
. Her shirt was red and sleeveless and
made out of that cotton material with the little holes all over it. I’m sure
there’s a name for it, but damned if I knew what it was. All I knew was that
those tiny little peeks of her skin made my own feel
like
it was on fire. I swallowed, but there was nothing there. My mouth was as dry
as dirt.

“You look nice,” I said, trying hard to make it
sound like something a brother would say to his sister and trying to make up
for the boot crack. She’d looked good in her shiny boots, too. I bet she’d look
good in anything…or nothing…shit! I never had a sister, but I had a pretty good
idea that last thought shouldn’t be there.

“You look nice, too,” she smiled. “You ready?” Boy
was I. I was more ready than I hoped she’d ever find out. Or maybe I wanted her
to find out? Hell if I knew.

“Yep.”

We took my truck and went into town to this old
country bar that I’d practically grown up
in
. When I
was little, my mom used to sing there, so I knew the owners and usually most of
the patrons on any given night. I knew they were going to have about a million
questions about Lexi. It was one of the hazards of living in a small town. I
would just have to do my best to field them without really answering them. I
didn’t want to tell anyone she was my stepsister. I asked myself why that was
and the answer I came up with was that it just seemed weird to take your sister
to a bar. The really weird thing was the truth – and that was if there would
ever be any chance I had with this woman that had quickly gotten underneath my
skin, I didn’t want to answer those questions. I know it was crazy. Nothing
would or could ever happen between us, but my body wanted to keep arguing the
point.

When we walked in, I was glad to see that it wasn’t
too crowded. We took a seat at the old plywood bar that had been restrained but
never replaced about a hundred times since I was a kid. The bartender, a guy named
Wes that I used to team rope with, gave Lexi a head to toe inspection before he
came over. That was another reason I didn’t want to say I was her brother. I
was jealous of the kind of attention she would receive if I did that…disgusting
pervert or not, it was how I felt.

"Hey Mark!”

“Hi Wes.
How’s it going?”

“It’s going,” he said with another glance at Lexi.

“Um…Lexi, this is Wes. Lexi is my…she’s my friend
from out of town.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lexi. What can I get
you to drink?" he asked.

“Thank you, you too,” she said, looking a little
confused about why I said she was my friend. “Um…I don’t know. What are you
having?” she asked me.

“Beer,” I said.

She smiled.
“Of course.
You
know what? I’ll have a beer, too.
Whatever he’s having.”

“You got it,” Wes said. He gave her another glance
that made me want to punch him in the face.

“This place is cute,” she said, looking around.
“Cute” isn’t a word I would have used to describe it. It was just a little hole
in the wall. There was a tiny little stage in the corner where the singer of
the night sang and usually strummed a guitar. There was a dance floor in front
of that. It was only about eight feet long by eight feet wide. There was also
an old jukebox in the other corner for those nights when there wasn’t “live
entertainment” and a pool table and dart board towards the far back. Wes sat
our beer on the counter and asked Lexi if she needed a glass. “No, the bottle
is fine,” she said. I liked that she didn’t put on a bunch of city girl airs. I
was beginning to like a lot of things about her. Probably more than I should.