Taming Rafe (29 page)

“No, I’m clean.” Rafe looked away, hating the fact that he’d been the kind of guy who even had to say that. “In fact, I spent the morning at cowboy church.” He’d raised a few eyebrows from the regulars who knew that Manuel had been trying for years to get Rafe to the pre-event meetings.

“All right then. Let me see you set your spurs.”

Rafe drew up his knees and put his heels together. He clenched his teeth to keep out the moan.

“Okay, you’re good to go.” Doc helped him off the table. “Ride safe, Noble.”

Rafe hobbled out of the room toward the lockers. Already he could feel the adrenaline in the air, a tension that mounted every
minute until the event. GetRowdy had an explosive, roof-raising fireworks-and-country-music intro designed to deflate tension among the bull riders as much as to ignite the audience. Rafe could hear the sound guys rolling the videos for a sound check as he walked through the tunnels toward the staging area.

Last night GetRowdy’s bulls had been unloaded and put in pens on one end of the Garden floor. The earthy smell of their hides mingled with the dirt floor, adding a rough-and-ready aura to the scent of big city that embedded the cement walls and pervaded Madison Square Garden. Rafe could almost close his eyes and believe he was back on the Buckle, riding the mechanical. Almost. Except for the shallow murmur of excitement from the gathering fans that would grow as time for the event neared.

Usually, GetRowdy held their events in the evening, and Rafe had an entire day to manage his nerves, center himself, think through his ride millisecond by millisecond. Today he’d had about three hours, most of which had been consumed by Nick’s pep talk, Piper’s endless barrage of questions about bull riding, Stefanie’s worry over his leg and shoulder, and an hour of hymn singing and preaching.

Not a bad way to spend the morning. Especially when the preacher read from Psalm 40: “‘Please, Lord, rescue me! Come quickly, Lord, and help me.’”

God had been doing a lot of saving, of fighting with and for Rafe Noble over the past month, chipping away the man on the outside—the cowboy who lived to impress—to free the one on the inside. Rafe was beginning to like the man in the mirror.

As he’d walked out of the hotel on the way to the Garden, he kept his eye out for Kitty. Not that he expected to see her, especially after the glare she’d given him at the party.

Yeah, his fists had done a decent job of killing any hope that he might win her back with good behavior. So much for showing her the new Rafe. Obviously, Rafe, with God’s help, still had some more work to do.

He had to purge her from his thoughts if he hoped to have a prayer of not getting killed this afternoon.

Rafe entered the locker room, where Nick waited with his gear. He nodded to a couple of buddies and joined Nick. “All clear.”

“Did you bribe the doctor?” Nick asked.

“He told me I was aces to go, no bribery needed. I’m going to be fine.” Rafe pulled on a black snap-button shirt, rolling up the sleeve of his right arm to his elbow. Then he buckled on his chaps, a fancy pair of buckskin fringed in red and black, tipped with gold. He’d had them made two years ago for a photo shoot.

“Vest,” Nick said. “Don’t forget the vest.”

Rafe put on the protective vest, thumped it a couple times, and grinned at Nick. “Feels good to be back.”

Nick shook his head. “Dad would kill me.”

Rafe laughed. “Let’s go see what bulls I drew.” He put on his black hat, the one that matched his chaps, grabbed his bull rope, then exited into the hall.

A low hum rolled through the arena as the stands filled. With the noise, his adrenaline began to burn. He loved this part the most. The anticipation igniting inside him. The challenge that filled his veins. He blew out a hot, eager breath.

Okay, so maybe he
had
been born to ride bulls. He wouldn’t exactly call it a spiritual gift, but he could use it for good, right?

“You don’t have to be a bull rider to impress me.”
Kitty’s words dug into his brain.

He shook them away. This wasn’t about impressing anyone. Today was about being true to himself.

Nick searched for Rafe’s name on the sheets posted by the office. Usually Rafe knew his bulls days ahead of time and researched them until he knew their every move, their disposition, and their weaknesses. Kitty’s event had thrown him off his game.

“You sure you’re up for three rides?” Nick asked.

“Gotta be if I hope to win.”

“Will your points count toward the finals?”

Rafe nodded, not sure how he felt about the finals in Vegas. Especially if PeeWee would be there.

“First ride’s on a bull named Yellow Fever.”

“I know him. He’s a fighter, but I’ve stayed on him.”

“Second ride is a bull named Clean Break.”

Big Brahman bull. “Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Haven’t ridden him, but he’s got a 90 percent buck-off rate.” Rafe made a face. “Good news is that he scores points if I can stay on him.”

“You’ll stay on him,” Nick said almost absently as he read the third name to himself. He paused.

“What?”

“Rafe, we can figure out another way to help Manny. I know you think this is a God thing, but it’s not too late to pull out. Besides, I have a feeling the doc would feel a whole lot better if you—”

“Who am I riding?”

“You drew PeeWee.” Nick’s expression was stony, as if holding back the emotions Rafe felt, not wanting to acknowledge their power.

Rafe went cold. The kind of cold he’d felt that night in the arena in Vegas. The kind of cold that should have made him hesitate, back down. That could have saved a life.

The cheers of the crowd filled the silence between them, and in it, Rafe felt the old Rafe—who just wanted to get it done and escape—trying to claw back to life.
Fight for me, O Lord.

“I’ll be all right,” he said without looking at Nick. “One ride at a time.”

Nick stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess I should go find our seats.” He wore an expression that Rafe hadn’t seen since . . . he’d been six-years-old. It looked a lot like fear.

It rattled Rafe so deeply that for a second his voice left him. He could only nod.

Nick nodded back. Then he grabbed his brother in a quick one-arm hug. “Good luck,” Nick said stiffly and walked away.

Rafe watched him go, his throat burning.

He could do this. He
would
do this. Heading out to the door of the arena, he looked up toward the seats reserved for family, to the right of the chutes. Stefanie and Piper sat with Nick’s empty seat between them. Lucia and Manny waved to him. Rafe gave a thumbs-up, breathing in the moment between now and when they all found out he was riding the bull that had killed his best friend. He wouldn’t look at them the rest of the night, not until it was over.

He tried to ignore the disappointment of not seeing Kitty. But what had he expected? That she’d show up to wish him well?

If he remembered correctly, last time she’d used kisses to talk him out of riding. Good grief. She was like a burr under his saddle, irritating. If he kept it up, he’d get himself killed.

Rafe headed to the stage as the music started, dredging up memories, feelings, nerves. He lined up behind the other bull riders as the organizers from GetRowdy motioned them toward the stage.

The riders would stand in full regalia, holding their bull ropes in darkness while the music accompanied video of their rides. Then in an explosion of triumph, fireworks would light up the stage, backlighting the riders.

In the past, Rafe devoured the moment, the thousands of screaming fans, the rush of his hot pulse on fire to ride, to go man to beast.

Now he stood there as the crowed erupted, and all he could do was pray.

CHAPTER 21

T
HIS COULD NOT
be happening. John leaned forward in the taxi, speaking to the driver through the opening in the plastic panel. “Can you drive any faster?” He wasn’t sure what his hurry might be—Lolly wasn’t waiting for him. But maybe he could find her before the words that had been building in his chest all night—as he’d taken the red-eye to LaGuardia—died in the glaring truth that he was too late.

Just wait until he got near Lincoln Cash—the makeup artists wouldn’t have to manufacture a shiner or a busted lip.

“We’re in a traffic jam,” the driver said.

John could see that. For once he longed for the five-block, one-stoplight simplicity of Phillips, where to find the woman he loved he just had to walk into the local diner. When had life gotten so complicated?

About the time he’d decided to hide his life instead of letting Lolly inside his secrets. He’d been so afraid she’d reject him—the Western romance writer—that he’d refused to risk. And without risk, there couldn’t be reward.

“Perfect love casteth out fear.”
John knew that. He wrote Jonas around that very thought. The only problem was he didn’t take the story home, into his heart. Up to now, loving Lolly had been about his needs, his fears. If he really loved her, he had to tell her, regardless of his fears of her laughing at him or running away again. If he loved her, her reaction couldn’t change that. He’d keep on loving her. Because true love didn’t back down. Didn’t give up. Didn’t move to Malibu.

“I’ll give you an extra twenty if you find a shortcut.”

The cabdriver shook his head, but he flipped on his blinker and moved into the left lane.

John’s cell phone rang. He’d never had one until last month, and for a second, he thought the Brad Paisley song might be playing on the radio. When the jingle cycled through to repeat, he knew it was his back pocket.

The caller ID listed
unknown
. He flipped it open. “Hello?”

“John? Lincoln here.”

Lincoln? Oh, how convenient.
“Lincoln, you’d better not be in—”

“I’m in the hospital.”

“What happened?”

“It’s not me. It’s Lolly.”

“Lolly? Is she okay?”

“She was beaten up. From what I could get from the EMTs, she has a couple broken ribs, some internal bleeding. The cops said that she wasn’t raped, but whoever did it left her to die. She has strangle marks around her neck.”

John gripped the back of the seat, feeling dizzy.
Beaten up? Strangled?

“She’s in ICU at Mount Sinai Hospital. They won’t let me in
because I’m not family, but I figured you were the closest thing. You need to come to—”

“Yeah. I’m the closest thing. And I’m here in New York.” John leaned forward to the driver. “Mount Sinai Hospital as fast as you can.” As the driver wove through traffic, switching lanes, John asked, “How’d you find me?”

“I called Dex to get your number, and he said that you were headed to Montana.”

“When did it happen?”

“They don’t know. Probably late last night.”

“How’d you find her?” John asked, hating that Lincoln had been the first to be there for her.

“We had a meeting last night, but I couldn’t get ahold of her. I called again this morning, and she still didn’t answer, so I stopped by her room. When I knocked, I thought I heard a funny sound. I got the management, and we found Lolly beaten on the floor.”

“Stay with her. I’ll be right there.” John closed the phone. He leaned forward and said to the cabdriver, “Whatever it takes, just get me there—now.”

Kat thought she might be ill. The smells of popcorn and hot dogs only made her swimming stomach clench, and a layer of sweat prickled her forehead. Had Felicia endured the same gut-spilling fear every time Bobby got on a bull?

Kat rose from the box seats and walked to the railing, where she held on for dear life. On one of the big monitors, she watched Rafe in the chute, and everything inside her wanted to throw herself at his feet and beg him not to ride.

Instead, like some sort of gawker, her gaze stayed glued to his movements, the way he ran his gloved hand up the end of his bull rope to rosin it and how he wrapped the rope around the bull, then wedged his hand under it, pulling the end tight, hitting his fist so he could tighten his grip, wrapping the rope back across. She’d seen a previous rider get hung up, tossed about like a rag doll, and she’d gasped along with the crowd, her shoulder aching with each torturous second.

Rafe had dislocated his shoulder just over two months ago.
Please, please watch over him, God.

He hit his vest twice, then put his hand on the rail.

Kat held her breath.

Rafe looked straight at the camera. His expression stilled her. Before, in his videos and photos, she’d been mesmerized by his smirk and a wildness in his eyes that almost made the event into a game, a battle for his enjoyment. That was probably why he rode with such recklessness, a trait that had earned him every bit of his scoundrel image.

But this Rafe had a resoluteness around his mouth, a fierceness in his expression that made everything inside her thrum with power. Maybe Rafe
had
changed.

He nodded.

The bull exploded from the chute and jerked Rafe forward, throwing his head back. The dulled horns barely missed his face. Kat winced. The bull twisted his back end one way, his front another while Rafe moved with him in brilliant anticipation.

“Go, Rafe,” Kat breathed. Excitement roiled inside her.

The bull twisted in a new direction. Rafe pitched forward. Looked unseated.

Kat’s hand tightened on the rail.

But he hung on, his arm high, his heels tight on the bull’s neck.

The crowd roared.

The clock ticked past six seconds.

“C’mon, Rafe!” Kat screamed.

The bull took Rafe around twice more.

Kat glanced at the monitor close-up. Rafe wore his fight face, but she saw pain in his gritted teeth. She especially knew how well he could hide it, which meant he had to be in agony.

“Rafe,” she moaned, her hands to her mouth.

The eight-second buzzer sounded.

Kat jerked with the sound, then exploded in cheers as Rafe cleared the bull, rolling off the animal’s back and landing in the dirt. “Yes!
Yes!
”

The roar from the stadium drowned her voice as Rafe found his feet, took off his hat, and waved to his adoring audience. But Kat recognized the forced smile and the way he limped to the rail.

“He’s hurt!” Hot tears burned her eyes, and she whisked them away as she made her way out of the box. “I knew he’d get hurt!” She thundered into the hallway, furious, wanting to hit someone or grab Rafe by his vest and . . . and . . . Kat slammed her open palm against the cement wall. “That . . . bullheaded—”

“I’m so glad I found you.” Piper said. “Kat, are you okay?”

Kat wiped wetness from below her eyes. When was she going to learn not to cry over that man? “I’m fine.”

“Wasn’t Rafe incredible?” Piper grinned at her.

“Yeah, just great. He’s hurt, you know.”

“He looked okay to me.”

“He’s really hurt! Did you see him limp out of the arena? The fake smile he gave to the crowd? It’s probably his knee, but it could be his shoulder or his back. You know the doctor told him never to ride again, but no, does he listen to reason, to the smart people in his life?” Kat clenched her fists. “I just want to—”

“Oh, you do have it bad. Okay, this is good.” Piper grabbed her by the arm. “Come on. Sit with us.”

Kat yanked her arm from Piper’s grasp. “No. I’m not going to see him. It’ll just distract him, and frankly I don’t know what I’d do to him. I’m too angry.”

“That’s the Noble men for you. Make you angrier than you’ve ever been in your life. Which also makes you love them more than you’ve ever loved anyone in your life.”

Kat stared at Piper. It was true. She’d never been this angry at Bradley because she’d never loved Bradley to the point of feeling his dreams, his fears right in the center of her chest. “Piper, I’m so scared he’s going to get killed out there. I don’t know if I can take watching him again. I don’t think I can do this.”

“You can’t stop Rafe from doing what is in his heart. He’s going to ride or not ride, because God put that in him.” Piper began to walk. “When I met Nick, I hated him. I thought he’d done something . . . terrible. But the more I got to know him, the more I saw in him everything I needed: compassion, a sense of justice, a spirit of sacrifice that took my breath away.” She stopped and turned, and Kat saw tears in her eyes. “I thought I was going to lose him too, but I had to believe in him, in his heart. Ultimately, I had to trust that God would deliver him. Nick had been broken, sort of like Rafe. And the only thing that could heal him was doing what God had created him to do.”

“Like ride bulls?”

Piper lifted a shoulder. “Or something else. Come with me. There’s someone you have to meet.”

Kat followed her through the corridors, down two levels until they came to the section for family and special guests. She spotted Stefanie sitting beside Nick, cheering for the contestant now landing in the dirt and scrambling from the horns of a bull.

It struck her that knowing Rafe had given her something else she’d never had before. A family.

The Nobles, rooting for each other, hurting together. Wow, she wanted that more than she’d ever realized.

Kat stopped on the steps, watching the action in the arena. The bullfighters distracted the bull, then let it chase them back to the pen. They leaped onto the gate at the last second.

It never occurred to her that the bullfighters might be in more danger than the bull riders—and they did it without the glory.

Her conversation with Rafe under the balm of Gilead tree came back to her, the one about God using some people for big things—like riding bulls—and others for the so-called small things—like saving the lives of bull riders. She remembered her thought, and now it swept through her with a new breath:
It’s no small thing to have the Creator of this big sky at work in your life, on your side, giving your life purpose.

God had created Rafe to ride. She saw it on his face—in both the old Rafe and this new one. If she loved him, she’d have to love this loud, messy, dangerous life.

A life where every day with Rafe might be a day of grace.

“Kat, I want you to meet Manny and Lucia.” Piper’s voice cut through her thoughts, and she found herself standing at the end of
the row as Piper sat down next to Nick and put her arm around a young boy with short black hair and eyes alight with excitement.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” Kat said, holding out her hand.

“Are you Rafe’s friend?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered. At least she dearly hoped so.

Manny’s mother smiled at Kat. “I’m Lucia. Rafe speaks highly of you.”

He does? He did?
Something about Lucia’s sly smile, her dark eyes sprinkled with a friendly spark of mischief told Kat that Piper and Stefanie had shared a few of her secrets. And that she’d been wrong about Rafe and his relationship to Lucia.

“Nice to meet you,” Kat said, crouching on the steps. “Are you in town long?”

The stands erupted around them as another rider stayed on his bull. Kat glanced at the scoreboard. She didn’t know how to read the scores, but she saw Rafe’s name listed in the top three and holding.

“We’re leaving tomorrow. Our visas are about to expire, and we have to go back to Mexico,” Lucia said. Sadness touched her eyes.

Piper’s words about Manny’s disease throbbed in Kat’s thoughts. Manny’s green GetRowdy T-shirt did nothing to hide the bones in his shoulders, and Kat noticed his gaunt, flushed face and a scattering of bruises on his arms. “Where in Mexico do you live?”

Lucia spoke over the roar of the crowd as the announcer introduced the next rider. “About fifty kilometers from Guadalajara, in the foothills of the Sierra Madres.” She glanced at her son, and in that moment, her fears flashed across her face. “We had hoped to
stay here, but . . .” She forced a smile. “Rafe’s going to win for us today, isn’t he, buddy?”

Manny nodded as he clapped for the next rider.