And Then You Dare (Crested Butte Cowboys Series Book 5) (20 page)

“Yes, ma’am.” Tristan hated
hearing the sarcasm in her own voice. Especially given Liv was only trying to
be a friend.

“Love and happiness aren’t
easy to come by. Don’t be so quick to spurn it.”

***

“Sorry bro.”

“Thanks for getting her home okay.”

“Not a problem. Wish I coulda’ talked some sense into her.”

“Don’t. And don’t take offense at what I’m about to say.”

“Okay.”

“Let us figure it out.”

“That’s about the most mature thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

Bullet agreed. He was feeling mature. He wasn’t sure why, but
somewhere deep inside him, he believed things would work out with Tristan. And
he wasn’t in a hurry. He knew he wanted to be with her, and no one else. Once
he acknowledged his feelings, the sense of urgency left him. It might not be
tomorrow, but someday he and Tristan would be together. He could be patient.
He’d still pursue her. He’d let her know he wanted her, and no one else, but he
wouldn’t push so hard.

It wasn’t as though he wouldn’t see her. It wouldn’t be as
often as he’d like, but he would be busy chasing his other dream. One day, both
would come true. He no longer cared a rip about the Lost Cowboy sponsorship.
Wanting it was about winning her over, but there was a bigger prize. If he won
her over,
she
would be his. That’s what he really wanted.

***

Liv was in the kitchen talking with Renie when Tristan came
upstairs. Their conversation appeared serious enough that she considered going back
downstairs.

“Good morning,” Liv waved her over. “Come join us.”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not. I think I might be in labor.”

Tristan’s eyes popped open at the casual way Renie stated her
condition.

“Her water hasn’t broken yet, but she’s experiencing some
cramping.”

“When are you due?” Tristan didn’t know much about pregnancy,
but that seemed like a logical question to ask.

“I’m a little early. So it could be Braxton Hicks.”

Tristan’s eyes popped open again. “What is that?”

“False labor basically. Sporadic uterine contractions.” Renie
rubbed her hands over her belly. “Until my water breaks, I’m not setting foot
in a hospital.”

“We’ll see—”

When Liv stood, Renie did too, and put her hand on her
mother’s arm. “Don’t even think about calling Billy.”

“But honey, he’s in Montana. He needs to get home.”

“He and Jace volunteered to drive the load of broncs down so
Bullet could get home earlier. They’re on their way. It isn’t as though he’s
going to leave Jace on his own with the trailer and catch a flight.”

Tristan was afraid to ask the question she knew she had to
ask. “Why did Bullet need to get home early?”

Liv hesitated, and Renie looked at her mother before
answering. Liv shrugged.

“Because you were here.”

Tristan was at a loss for words. She had to talk to Bullet and
set him straight. She was not a reason for him to come home early. Billy’s
pregnant wife was. Once again she found herself feeling so embarrassed she
wondered how she’d ever face these women again. If they weren’t her new
business partners, she would’ve considered asking her daddy to handle the
Flying R partnership so she could slip away quietly after apologizing for all
the trouble she was causing.

“Before you get worked up about this, you need to know it
wasn’t his idea.”

Tristan looked at Renie, doubting what she was telling her.

“Billy and Jace cooked it up. Billy called me, and Jace called
Bree, before they made the offer to Bullet. At first he resisted, but Billy and
Jace can be persistent, so they were able to talk him into it.”

“But why?”

Liv walked over and put her hand on Tristan’s shoulder.
“Honey, it’s plain as day to everyone but you.”

“I don’t want this,” she scowled. “Bullet and I aren’t worth
all this drama.”

Renie’s eyes opened as wide as Tristan’s had. “Uh oh, someone
has a
ginormous
inferiority complex. I think she’s
worse than me.”

“No Irene,” said Liv, using her daughter’s full name. “No one
is worse than you.”

They were smiling, which only irritated Tristan more. She
didn’t have an inferiority complex. That wasn’t it. She didn’t want everyone
getting spun up about something that was nothing.

Tristan had to make it clear to Bullet that she wasn’t
interested in a relationship with him. The extent of her attraction to him had
been physical. There wasn’t anything more she wanted from him.

***

“Sure. Uh, okay. Yeah, I’ll pick you up.” Pause. “Okay then.
I’ll see you shortly.”

“Who was that?” Lyric asked Bullet when he ended his phone
call.

“Tristan.”

“Oh lord. I wish the two of you would make up your damn
minds.”

“Please don’t wish for that.”

Lyric looked into her brother’s eyes. “Why not?” she
whispered.

“She’s walkin’ over, and I think she plans to keep walkin’
straight out of my life.”

“I’m sure you’re wrong.”

“No, Lyric. I’m not wrong. You know I’m not.”

When Lyric didn’t answer him, Bullet knew she was feeling the
same thing he was. He wanted to jump in his truck and get the hell out of there
before she arrived. If he avoided her, he wouldn’t have to hear the words he
was dreading.

Both he and Lyric shot up when they heard a rap on the back
door. “That was quick,” said Lyric.

Bullet opened the door. “Hey Slade. Sorry, but I’ve got some
other things to take care of this morning. You can head to the barn and see if
anyone else needs help.”

“I already did. And Bill told me to take the day off. Said
we’d be damn busy the next few weeks so I should enjoy today.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I’m not here for you Bullet, I’m here to see your sister.”

Lyric pushed Bullet out of the way, and invited Slade inside.
“Why didn’t you call?”

Slade waved his cell phone. “Didn’t get your number last
night.”

“Well let’s fix that right now.”

Bullet walked outside and closed the door behind him. He
didn’t want to hear his sister’s conversation with his soon-to-be traveling
partner. And he didn’t want to witness what was likely the start of a new
relationship, not when the one he wanted so badly was about to end.

He looked up the road, and could see Tristan getting closer.
Five minutes and she’d be standing in front of him. He needed to think hard if
he was going to come up with a way to change her mind by then.

***

Tristan could see Bullet standing near the house. She also saw
him walk in the opposite direction, toward the barn. He knew she was on her
way, was he really going to make her come and look for him? He had to have seen
her. How many people took a walk out here in the middle of nowhere?

***

1972

Bill was premature in asking Clancy to be his best man, but
four years later, it was finally happening. Tomorrow afternoon he and Dottie
would be man and wife.

Dottie insisted they wait to marry until after they both
graduated from college. As it turned out, they didn’t have much choice.

She started at Western State, even though Bill was going to school
in Colorado Springs. Two years later, Dottie was awarded a scholarship, and was
able to transfer to Colorado College, the prestigious liberal arts institution.
It wasn’t far from where Bill attended the Engineering School at University of
Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Unfortunately, Bill transferred to Colorado State College in
Fort Collins right before Dottie found out about her scholarship to Colorado
College.

He’d been approached by the school that was Clancy’s alma
mater. They offered him a spot in the College of Agricultural Sciences, and his
own scholarship, as a rider for the CSU College Rodeo Team. They competed from
March to May, which didn’t take much time away from his academics.

When he gave up rodeo after he graduated from high school, he
turned to the only other thing he knew and loved—ranching. Now he’d be
able to do both.

As part of his degree, Bill studied Agricultural Economics,
Animal Sciences, and Soil and Crop Sciences. With all he was learning, he and
Clancy could modernize the operation in Black Forest and work the land to it’s
maximum potential while at the same time preserving it’s natural resources.

Right before he and Dottie graduated, Clancy finished
construction on the three-story ranch house he designed for Jane and him to
live in. Bill’s younger sister had married her high school sweetheart the
previous summer, and the two made their home in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where he’d
gotten a job in management with what was known as the “Daddy of ’em All” in the
rodeo world, Cheyenne Frontier Days.

Clancy and Jane gave Bill and Dottie the original ranch house
that had belonged to Russ Snyder as a combined wedding and college graduation
gift.

The house didn’t look much like it had when Bill first saw it
all those years ago. Clancy had added a front porch that spanned the entire
front of the house, along with bricking over the original wood siding. “Gets
damn cold out here on the prairie,” he’d said when he talked to Bill’s mama
about it.

Over the course of the last four years, Clancy had either
remodeled or repainted every room of the house. Bill lived in the house and
helped with the work the first two years he was at UCCS. That was when the
major renovations were done. It didn’t have to be spoken between them, Bill
understood as well as Clancy did, that they were eradicating all signs of the
former owner.

Apart from what little Bill remembered of the time before his
daddy got ill, he’d never seen his mama as happy as she was with Clancy. He
remembered what Clancy told him years before, about women trying to tame him.
He didn’t seem much different now than he was then, just happier. And he didn’t
seem to miss the attention he got at the dude ranch from all the ladies. The
only lady he seemed to care about was Bill’s mama.

The day of Bill and Dottie’s wedding was what was known as a
“Bluebird Colorado Day”. The sun shone brightly, the sky was blue as a
bluebird, and the only clouds they saw were soft, white, billowy ones that
gently drifted across the sky.

Bill and Clancy had constructed a gazebo near the new house,
both of which had an unobstructed view of Pikes Peak, the
fourteen-thousand-foot mountain that defined the Colorado Springs area.

The backdrop of the majestic mountain, the wildflowers in the
meadows of the ten-square mile ranch, and the babbling stream that ran through
it, set the perfect tone for the wedding.

Dottie wore a simple white dress that her Aunt Sadie made, and
Bill wore a black suit, white dress shirt, and black cowboy hat. The bouquet
Dottie carried was made of a collection of the wildflowers found on the ranch,
held together by a thin, leather tie-down.

Instead of going on a honeymoon, the couple wanted to spend
their first few days as a married couple in their new home. After being apart
so much of the previous four years, they wanted to spend their time walking the
ranch land, riding horses, and planning their future together.

Bill woke and saw the note from Dottie resting against her
pillow. She’d gone up to what they now called the main house, to pick up a few
ingredients she needed to make breakfast.

He didn’t know how long ago she left, so he decided to take a
shower before she got back. She’d shoo him away from the kitchen anyway, if she
was cooking something she wanted to be a surprise.

As he turned the water off, he heard the phone ringing. He
grabbed a towel, and walked down the hall and into the kitchen dripping water
as he went. He knew he better get it cleaned up before his wife got back, or
she wouldn’t be too happy with him.

The phone stopped ringing before he got to it. He was five
paces away, headed back to the bathroom to dry off, when it started ringing
again.

“Good morning, Patterson Ranch, this is—”

Before he could finish, his mama stopped him. “Bill get over
here quick. Something’s happened to Dottie. I called the ambulance, but Clancy
needs your help.”

Bill left the phone receiver dangling in the kitchen. He
grabbed his pants and boots, and flew out of the house. He was halfway across
the meadow by the time he pulled his shirt over his head. He could see Clancy
kneeling on the ground with a person that had to be Dottie.

Two days into their perfectly idyllic life, Bill feared it was
coming to a horrible end.

Tristan was within a few feet of him when Bullet walked out of
the barn leading two saddled horses. This was one thing they’d never done
together, and if this thing between them, whatever it was, was ending, he
wanted to carry the memory of them riding together with him for the rest of his
life.

“Bullet, we need to talk.”

“I know we do. On horseback.”

“No, I don’t have time for this.”

Bullet threw a leg over his horse and gave it a little kick,
pulling the reins to the right and away from where Tristan stood. “If you wanna
talk, it’s this way, or no way.”

***

Tristan huffed and grabbed the reins of the second horse
before it decided to follow the one Bullet was on. She quickly adjusted the
stirrups, threw a leg over, and followed in the direction Bullet had gone.

He was on the other side of the barn waiting when she came
around. As soon as he saw her, Bullet coaxed his horse into a gallop, and took
off again.

As much as Tristan didn’t want to enjoy this, she was. It had
been almost three weeks since she’d ridden and her body was feeling it. When
she was home she rode every day. There were few things she enjoyed as much as
this. Bullet probably knew, and planned it so she wouldn’t be mad at him.

She wasn’t mad though, she was done. She had to end this thing
with Bullet now, before the entire Flying R team started planning their
wedding.

Bullet stopped and tied the horse’s reins on the post of a
wood gazebo that sat close to a three-story, Colorado-style ranch house. The
house had log siding and a tin roof. Each of the three levels had decks where
baskets of colorful flowers hung from forest-green railings. From her vantage
point, Tristan could see two stone fireplaces. It looked as though there was
one on each side of the house.

“Who lives here?”

“This is Bill and Dottie’s place.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Isn’t it?” Bullet walked into the gazebo and sat on one of
the benches built into the structure. “They got married right here.”

Tristan ran her hand along the wood. “Romantic,” she murmured.

“They’re good people,” Bullet was looking in the direction of
the house and waved. Tristan turned to see Dottie had come out on the mid-level
deck and was watering the baskets of the flowers.

“She reminds me of my mother.” Tristan regretted the words as
soon as she spoke them. She didn’t want to get to know Bullet any better than
she already did, and she didn’t want him to know more about her either.

“Tell me about her.”

“Bullet, I shouldn’t have brought her up. And I’d rather not
talk about her.” She walked into the gazebo and sat on the bench across from
him.

“I don’t like you so far away.”

“I know,” she sighed. “But Bullet, I need to end this.”

“I know,” he sighed too. “I knew as soon as I heard your voice
this mornin’.”

“I’m sorry, this just isn’t…what I want.”

“
This isn’t,
or I’m not?”

***

She started to answer, but stopped. Bullet waited. Whatever
she was going to say next he knew was something he really wanted to hear. This
was what it all came down to. Was it their relationship the way it was now, or
was it him?

“I don’t know.”

Bullet let out the breath he’d been holding, but his shoulders
slumped. Of everything she could’ve said, that was the worst. It told him
nothing. He looked up at the house in time to see Bill walk up behind Dottie
and startle her. Her laugh echoed across the lawn, and stopped when Bill
covered her mouth in a kiss.

“That right there,” Bullet pointed toward the house, “is what
I want.”

Tristan looked where he pointed and smiled. “I do too.”

“You just don’t want it with me.”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

“Why not?”

Bullet had a thousand things he wanted to say, to convince her
she could have what Bill and Dottie had, with him. But he couldn’t bring
himself to say a single one. Instead he waited for her answer. It took a long
time to come.

“I made the decision a while ago, that I wouldn’t get involved
with a bull rider. I may have let my resolve slip for a bit, but I know in my
heart, this won’t work for me.”

“Do you hear yourself?”

“Bullet—”

“No, listen to me for a minute. You’re letting what a man
does
determine whether he’s the right man for you? What about making that decision
based on
who
he is?”

“It’s the same thing. What
he does determines who he is.”

“What if I quit?”

She hadn’t looked at him
since she sat down, but she raised her eyes and looked into his. “You can’t.”

“Of course I can. There isn’t
any reason I can’t. It isn’t how I earn my living, it’s a hobby. You said
yourself that a man with a child had no business gettin’ on the back of a bull
anyway.”

“I couldn’t let you quit
Bullet. You’d end up resenting the hell out of me for it, and we’d both be
miserable.”

“What if I want you more?”

“You don’t. You’re just
saying it to convince me not to end things between us.”

“Okay, so what about this
scenario? You meet a man, and you fall head over heels in love with him. You
decide he’s the one for you. A couple months into it, he tells you he used to
be a bull rider, and wants to go back to it. You’re tellin’ me you would end
things with him because of it?”

“That isn’t a realistic
scenario Bullet. If I decided he was ‘the one,” I would’ve already known he was
a bull rider.”

“So you admit a bull rider
could, in fact, be ‘the one’?”

“No, you’re twisting my
words.” Tristan stood and walked out of the gazebo. “It doesn’t matter Bullet.
Nothing you can say will change my mind.”

“What about this?” He spun
her around and kissed her, hard. He felt her relax against him. She opened her
mouth to his, and twined her arms around his neck.

How could she deny the
feelings between them when her body responded to his this way?

***

Tristan’s traitorous body went against everything her brain
was screaming at it. What was wrong with her that she couldn’t resist him? She
leaned into the hard length of him, and deepened their kiss herself.

Bullet reached around and grabbed her bottom, hoisting her up
so her legs wrapped around his waist. He turned, so her back rested against the
post of the gazebo, and kissed her so hard it hurt.

“I can’t let you go,” he breathed. “Don’t make me let you go.”

Tristan unwrapped her legs from his waist, and sunk her boots
into the soft ground. “Please don’t do this,” she begged. “I don’t want this.”

“I don’t believe you.” To prove his point, he kissed her
again, as hard as he had before. There was no denying the passion between them,
but what she wanted, what she needed, transcended passion. She needed someone
she could believe in, trust in, rely on. Bullet had a life to live that was
very different than the one she wanted.

“No!”
she shouted and pushed away from him.
Bullet lowered his arms and stepped back.

“I’m sorry Tristan.”

“I know. But this has to stop. It doesn’t change anything. Do
you understand?”

He nodded his head and turned his back to her. She waited a
minute to see if he’d say anything. When he didn’t, she got back on her horse,
and rode away.

***

1972

Dottie had been in the hospital ten long days. She had four
broken ribs and a collapsed lung, but that wasn’t as bad as what the doctors
initially thought. The first thing they told him was they suspected her back
was broken, and she may never walk again.

She could walk, but it was very painful for her to do so.
There wasn’t a lot they could for broken ribs, they told him. They’d heal on
their own.

Clancy couldn’t say what spooked the horse Dottie rode over to
their house that morning, but he watched as she was thrown. He yelled for Jane
to call the ambulance as he ran out of the house.

“You saved her life,” Bill told him. He knew Clancy felt
terrible that there wasn’t more he could’ve done, but Dottie was alive, and
that was all that mattered to Bill.

The nurse told him the doctors were planning to release Dottie
from the hospital in the next couple days, but there was something important
they wanted to discuss with him before they did.

Bill sat in the private waiting area the next afternoon as a
doctor he hadn’t met before told him it was unlikely Dottie would be able to
have children.

“Does she know?” Bill asked.

“We thought it best if we told you first.”

“Do you want me to tell her?”

The doctor told him it was up to him. They could tell her,
with him present, or he could wait until she was home, and more comfortable.

“She broke some ribs, and her lung was hurt. Why would that
have anything to do with her ability to have children?”

“Your wife was pregnant at the time of the accident Mr.
Patterson.”

The timing was right. The first time he and Dottie made love
was over spring break. He convinced her that in just a few weeks, they’d be
married anyway. He told her he didn’t want to wait any longer.

If they had waited, if he hadn’t pushed, Dottie wouldn’t have
been pregnant, and she’d still be able to have children.

Bill was devastated. He had no idea how to tell the most
loving woman he’d ever known besides his own mama that she’d never be a mama
herself. And it was all his fault.