Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(8)

She jerked her hand away, and the only spark in her eye was anger.

The spark on his skin was something else.

“I can do it,” she said. “I don’t have to be as strong as you to be able to do this.”

“I’m just saying,” he said. “Don’t go acting like you have no idea why there might not be as many women competing in saddle bronc. Why your father has a concern.”

For whatever reason, Callie was hell-bent on this, and he could understand it. She was from a rodeo family, and rodeo was what they did. But this seemed deeper than that. And to not get why her dad might not be thrilled with her competing in a man’s sport...

She was too smart for that.

“Right. But why are you acting like an overbearing hen?”

She looked up at him, the sparks in her dark eyes shooting through him. This was the problem. He’d befriended Cal back when she was sixteen years old, scrappy and determined and bound to get injured if somebody didn’t take all that energy in hand. She’d reminded him of... Well, of him. Heedless and daring, but she had a joy to her that he just didn’t. Her father had been happy enough letting her compete in barrel racing events but she’d wanted to learn more.

They’d practiced tie down roping and raced each other all over the place. Most other people were scared of her dad getting the wrong idea if they hung around her too much. Jake had never cared.

Childhood was a time of hope, if all went well. But being one of the unlucky kids who’d experienced inalterable shattering of hope in an age that should have been full of innocence had broken something in him.

How well he’d learned that the promise of fresh beginnings meant nothing.

That when things looked brightest you could be on the verge of being plunged into darkness. And that there was no damn guarantee at all that it would be darkest before any sort of dawn.

Sometimes it was just dark.

No light on the horizon.

There were no such things as gut feelings, signs, wonders or miracles. The idea that you could sense whether something would be good or bad. That there was something bright out there waiting for you...

He knew better.

That life was always waiting to yank the rug right out from under you, and all the better if you thought that things were going fine.

And anyone who felt secure... Well, they were living in an illusion.

He’d been disillusioned completely at seventeen.

Other than the horrendous grief and loss, it had served him well.

“Fine. If that’s what it takes. You can train me. Whatever. As long as you agree to the marriage thing.”

“Yeah. Fine with me.”

Cal took her white hat off, and set it on the counter. Her brown braid had grown scraggly around the edges, and he could see a slight dirt band around her head. She’d come straight here from riding or working. Which was just like her. She was the least feminine female of his acquaintance, and the least fussy about things like fixing up. Which made it all the more insane that he had such an attachment to her.

An attachment that he’d spent a hell of a long time playing off, pushing off.

She was a woman, and he wasn’t blind to that, so the occasional moment when she bent over and her jeans had displayed her ass and he noticed... He hadn’t thought much of it.

But when she’d been bucked off her horse a few months ago, and had lain on the ground motionless, knocked completely unconscious...

That was when he realized that all his thoughts about fate didn’t apply to everything. Not to everyone. Because when he’d seen her lying on the ground like that, he’d seen his whole life flash before his eyes like he was the one who could’ve died. He didn’t mind the occasional moment of checking out her rack while she was wearing a tight tank top.

He had minded the clutching terror in his chest when she’d been thrown from that horse. Yeah. That he’d minded a whole lot.

It was that dread. That dread that he’d only before ever experienced here. In the house at Hope Springs, in this town. Dread tied to loss. The loss of people he cared for.

It had followed him to the rodeo.

To her.

And it was why he’d left.

But she had followed him here.

And what was he going to do? Turn her down now?

He couldn’t have her going into competition unprepared. In both cases, he was her safest bet. He would die to protect her.

And for a man who prided himself on holding on to nothing all that tight... It was a strange realization.

She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead, and he thought again about the fact that she’d clearly driven here without a shower.

“You want to grab a shower?” The words felt heavy on his tongue and something in his body reacted like he’d given an invitation of some kind that he absolutely hadn’t.

God bless Cal, she didn’t notice.

“Oh,” she said, turning her head and sniffing the front of her top. “Sure. Thanks.”

That ought to cool him off. It didn’t.

“No problem.”

He did his best not to imagine her standing underneath the spray of water. Slick and naked.

He didn’t know why he was so unable to keep himself from fantasizing about her when she was around. He had all the women he could possibly want, when he wanted them. And his taste ran a lot more toward girly girls than women like Callie. But maybe that was the thing. There was something unknown about her. Untamed. She was serious and private, and he didn’t really know what she did with that part of her life.