Free Taking the Bull by the Horns by MJ Fredrick Page B

wouldn't have changed his name. It wasn't personal.
    But nothing about this relationship was personal, was it?
    She shut off the computer, climbed into bed and cried herself to sleep.
    * * * *
    She busied herself with end of school activities—field day, field trips, kindergarten graduation. She didn't go back to the rodeo or the Blue Bug, but she did continue dance lessons with Roxie. She couldn't believe she'd tried to dance with a member of Crushin'.
    She didn't think of Taylor more than a dozen times a day.
    She was back in her life. This was where she belonged, not in a romance, in a relationship, in a cowboy's bed.
    But summer loomed. Empty. Scary. Lonely.
    Eleanor hadn't taken off yet, and finding her at the breakfast table was less of a surprise every morning. Lavender had to guard herself against complacency, because she knew that the moment she weakened and let her mother back into her heart—bam. As it was, Eleanor worked at becoming a part in their lives, wanting to run Gertrude on errands, but Lavender blocked her as often as possible. She saw her grandmother softening toward Eleanor and worried that Gertrude would be the one hurt this time.
    At least Eleanor had let Roxie fix those awful gray roots and even out the ends of her hair, though Eleanor protested the loss of the length. Gertrude bought her new sandals and blouses that didn't display her large breasts quite so much. Lavender's grandmother even paid to tune up the station wagon that would take Eleanor out of their lives again.
    Every day Lavender came home expecting to find Eleanor gone and Gertrude crying.
    Her heart lurched the last Friday before school was out when she pulled into the driveway to find the station wagon gone. She left her purse in the car and bolted into the house. Panic tightened her chest when she could find neither Gertrude nor Eleanor. She thundered up the stairs to Eleanor's room.
    Her things were still strewn about. Lavender allowed a small sigh of relief to escape and leaned against the door, trying to reason out where the women could be.
    Downstairs, a door slammed open.
    "Lavender, could you move your car from the driveway so we don't have to carry the groceries in from the street?” Eleanor called.
    Grocery shopping. That's where they'd been. Eleanor again, trying to worm her way back into Gertrude's good graces. Taking a deep breath, Lavender headed down the stairs, ready to lay into her mother.
    But Gertrude's smile brought her up short. Could she ask her grandmother not to enjoy her time with her daughter because of how it would hurt when Eleanor left? How much of a hypocrite would that make her? Gertrude deserved to be happy for the time she had with her daughter, didn't she?
    So she swallowed her arguments and marched out to the car to put it in the street.
    * * * *
    Taylor tightened his hands on the steering wheel as he pulled into the Wayback city limits. He hadn't been so anxious about seeing a woman again in—well, ever. He didn't come back to women.
    But he'd been counting the days before he came back to this one. He'd even come up two days early.
    He drove Angelina to the rodeo grounds, got her settled into the stall, and headed for the school.
    The parking lot was almost empty. He frowned. Hadn't she told him today was her last day of school? Where was everyone? Why hadn't he gotten her number and given her a call?
    But no, there was her Toyota, at the end of the lot. He pulled in next to it and waited.
    Even in the shade of the live oak, the cab of the truck heated up in the afternoon sun, so he got out of the truck and sat on the hood to wait.
    Just when he thought he'd have to go in after her, she walked out, paused on the steps to paw through her bag, pulled out her keys and started down the steps again.
    Then she saw him and stopped. Froze. He slid off the truck and waited for her to move again, to run into his arms. When she didn't, only approaching him slowly, well, he couldn't say why he was so