Free Rodeo Nights by Patricia McLinn Page B

at each example.
    Roberta, however, was not diverted. “So, your entering a few roping events this spring didn’t mean you’re about ready to give up on riding those bulls like you were still eighteen?”
    An incredible surge of hope rushed through Kalli. What she’d overhead him tell that reporter, Jenny Belkin, ran back through her head. If he retired…
    Even if he wasn’t prepared to retire completely quite yet, perhaps he’d give up riding bulls. Nothing in rodeo came without risk, but in the roping events, at least there wouldn’t be nearly a ton of angry bull determined to get rid of him.
    “Nope. Doesn’t mean that at all.”
    And just that easily, hope washed away, leaving only a raw discomfort at acknowledging the strength of the brief emotion. Turning her back on the hope and its aftermath, refusing to analyze either, she also turned away from Walker and Roberta, finding a few final touches necessary on entries she’d previously considered complete.
    Still, she had the impression Walker spoke directly to her when he added, “I’m going to keep riding bulls until my body falls apart. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.”
    The sharp silence lasted past comfort before Roberta asked, “Then why were you in roping events, if it wasn’t because you wouldn’t be the lone one with gray hairs entering?”
    “I did most all the events as a kid, and worked roping now and again, all along. Way it turns out, it was good experience for doing this now, wasn’t it? Gives me an appreciation of what those cowboys go through, what they need in the way of stock and all.”
    Roberta made a scoffing sound, but nothing more. That restraint seemed to encourage Walker.
    “Like now,” he went on, and, although she kept her head down, Kalli could hear him moving behind her, going to the opening in the counter, coming around it and heading toward her. “It’ll help me sort out tonight’s stock. Soon as Kalli gives me that preliminary entry list.”
    He’d stopped immediately across from her, his hands resting on the counter between them.
    “The list’s right here.”
    When she’d first known him, his hands had seemed unwieldy, but he’d grown into them by his late teens. They’d always been nicked and callused. And so strong. Strong enough to hang on to a bull or a bronc. Strong enough to drive her wild. Yet gentle, too.
    Now they looked more than nicked and callused. They looked battered, with evidence of harsh demands made on them, of broken bones imperfectly healed, of dislocations ignored entirely.
    “Kalli?”
    “Oh. Yes. Here’s the list.”
    “Thanks. Soon as we get this stock sorted, Gulch and I are opening the arena so the newcomers can get accustomed to the setup. So if you need me, that’s where I’ll be.”
    * * *
    SO IF YOU
need me, that’s where I’ll be.
    Skittering away from other implications of Walker’s last statement, Kalli considered it in a practical light some time after he’d swallowed the last of his coffee and headed out.
    There was a significant amount of time here at the rodeo when she didn’t know where Walker was. Not that she needed him, of course.
    Most days, he and Gulch returned from picking up the day’s fresh stock from the Jeffries ranch around noon or early afternoon. Some days, she saw him before he headed out to get the stock. Sometimes not. The “nots” held a majority.
    He and Gulch would do a rough sorting of incoming stock depending on the early entries, leaving the final ordering of bulls and steers and calves and broncs into pens until a couple hours before the events. Afternoons he spent finishing any repairs around the grounds left over from the morning, or sometimes he and Gulch disappeared on unspecified duties. But they were always back for final preparations for the night’s rodeo and the actual running of it. Afterward, one or the other of them would organize the crew that returned the stock to the ranch, where the animals remained until Walker