Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(4)

And now she was going to lie to him.

“Say again?” Jake asked.

It would be funny if she didn’t feel so serious. She had stunned Jake Daniels into silence. Jake was the kind of man who wore in charge with all the ease of worn work boots. And she had effectively silenced him. Put him on the back foot.

In fact, right at the moment, her friend’s ridiculously handsome face was incredulous, even in the dim outdoor light.

That face had felled a thousand buckle bunnies, girly women who had the secrets to femininity stitched into the sequins on their jeans. But she doubted any of them had ever gotten him to make that face.

Her lips twitched. “Did you need me to get down on one knee, Daniels?”

“No,” he said slowly. “You can skip that. But you might want to give an explanation of some kind, Cal.”

Only he called her Cal.

Jake Daniels had been her best friend since she was sixteen years old, and she knew that most people wouldn’t get it. But that nickname was a piece of it. Cal. Like she was part of the rodeo, really and truly. A friend to her. Not just Callie Carson, daughter of the rodeo commissioner, Abraham Carson, but someone who mattered to him specifically. Someone with her own relationship to him. He’d been a mentor in many ways from the first moment they’d met, and there was something about his renegade recklessness that called to her. That reached down into something inside of her that she never accessed before and woke it up.

He made her feel brave.

He was a daredevil of the highest order. A bad boy who cut a swath through the buckle bunnies of the rodeo circuit, and even if she didn’t approve of that sort of behavior, what she appreciated about him was the commitment. To every single thing he did.

The complete and total lack of fear in his every action.

The way he didn’t care about what people thought.

She had tried her best to take on some of his attributes. Oh, not going after the buckle bunnies. That wasn’t really her thing.

No, as far as Callie was concerned the rodeo was all there was.

Ever since she’d first witnessed the spectacle of the rodeo when she was too little to walk, and had known her future was on the back of a horse. To when she’d learned to barrel race and had started competing in her teens. All the way to discovering that what she really wanted was to break new ground in saddle bronc, and become the first woman to compete in the event in this particular Pro Rodeo Association.

She’d been working toward it, and her dad hadn’t been thrilled with it, even in the beginning. But he’d fostered that tenacious spirit in her so he hadn’t stopped her, either.

Until the accident.

“Let’s go inside,” she said. “And I’ll explain.”

“I think you can explain just as well from out here.”

“I can’t,” she said. “Because I can’t see your face well enough.”

He paused. “And that has to do with...?”

“I need to know. What you think about all this.”

He shook his head. Then he walked over to her truck and opened the driver’s side door. He took out her duffel bag and retrieved her hat from the dashboard, then plunked it onto her head. Then he slung the bag over his shoulder. “Come on. Explain yourself.”

They made their way up the front steps of the surprisingly nice ranch house.

“Well, I didn’t expect this,” she said, looking around.

“What?”

“This place is clean, Jake.” She turned a half circle, looking around the place.

“I’m not an eighteen-year-old bachelor out on his own for the first time, Cal. I know how to keep my place clean.”

“And how is that?”

“I hired a maid.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “I should’ve figured.”

The whole inside of the house was immaculate, too. Nice. Her family ranch in the small Eastern Oregon town of Lone Rock was damn near palatial. So it wasn’t that she wasn’t used to nice. It was just that accommodations on the circuit were different. She had opted not to stay in the elaborate trailer that her father brought when they were traveling around to different locations, and she tended to camp, or crash in the horse trailer, or crash in a motel, whatever worked for the situation.

She’d heard her dad make comments over the years. About her mama needing a fancy-ass RV or a nice hotel if they were going to travel. Remarks about how the other cowgirls needed softer beds, nicer places to sleep.

He’d said it was why there were fewer women in the rodeo.

Her dad didn’t openly see women as less, or anything like that. Rather he was... Well, he acted like they were more breakable.

And Callie had determined she’d never show her weakness like that. She could handle uncomfortable beds, cramped conditions, whatever. If it was good enough for the boys, it was good enough for her.

Her anger bristled anew. She’d earned this. Every time she’d bunked in a horse trailer. Every time she’d gone camping and complained less than her brothers while it poured down rain on them. Every time she’d cut herself or bruised herself or fallen and gotten back up without so much as a whimper.

The trouble with breaking your arm was you didn’t get to stop and make a choice about whether or not you howled in pain and cried like a baby.

One moment of vulnerability. Just one.