Free Gambling On a Heart by Sara Walter Ellwood Page A

he was acting like a hormone happy fourteen-year-old!
    “Not particularly.” She raised a brow, and he realized she’d probably caught him ogling her chest. “So, Mandy, do you play any sports?”
    “Not really.” Mandy shrugged and shook her head. “Daddy’s teaching me to barrel race my pony. He won’t let me try on Holly, my horse– yet . He’s being a big stick in the mud. Says I’ll get hurt.” She punctuated the statement with a dramatically exasperated huff.
    A corner of Tracy’s lips twitched upward as she looked at Zack. “Really.”
    “I want to ride in the rodeo at the fair next summer.”
    “Imagine that. I’m sure you’ll do well.”
    Zack had to put a stop to where this was going, and fast. “I told you we’ll see about the rodeo.”
    Mandy’s eyes turned to his, and she lost some of the cheerfulness. “Just because Momma didn’t like you doing rodeo doesn’t mean she won’t like me to.”
    If Tracy noticed his tensing at the mention of his reason for quitting the rodeo, she ignored it. “Your daddy was a really good rodeo cowboy. I still remember the thrill he’d give when I watched him.”
    Mandy’s eyes got big as she looked from Tracy to Zack and back again. “You saw Daddy ride broncs?”
    “Yeah. Many times.”
    Zack couldn’t look away from Tracy’s gray eyes. He knew she’d seen him ride locally, but had she seen him ride professionally? “Miz Tracy and I went to high school together.”
    “Wow. That was a really long time ago.”
    “Oh, ages ago, for sure.” Tracy chuckled and broke the sudden spell Zack was under by looking at Mandy. “I saw him on TV a few times, too.”
    Mandy twisted around, incredulity beaming from her in glowing energy as volatile as a grenade. Tracy had pulled the pin with her words, and he could almost see the energy expanding within Mandy as she bounced up and down until she exploded. “You were on TV!”
    Several amused, and not so amused, folks turned and peered at the trio. Tracy laughed, and Zack scowled at her, muttering, “Thank you, oh, so very much.”
    But inside he couldn’t contain the flutter of excitement that Tracy had watched him.
    “She didn’t know?”
    “No.” He’d never told Amanda much about his rodeoing days. He had DVDs of the broadcasts he’d been in, but he’d never shown them to her. It was bad enough she’d conned him into teaching her how to race around barrels. Showing her the DVDs of him riding broncos and winning big silver belt buckles might put it in her little head that she should try it.
    “Daddy! You never told me you were on TV!” The aftershock of Mandy the Grenade had him wincing. Several of the onlookers laughed and there were even a few comments that Zack chose to ignore.
    “Sorry,” Tracy mouthed and then turned to Mandy. “Well, it’s not like he was on a TV show, Mandy.”
    Amanda looked crestfallen and confused all at once. “He wasn’t on a TV show? But you said he was on TV.”
    Tracy shook her head. “Have you ever seen rodeo on TV?”
    Mandy nodded, her attention rapt.
    Zack stared at his daughter. “Where did you see rodeo?”
    “Uncle Logan and Uncle Lance were watching it one day when I was over at Uncle Lance and Aunt Audrey’s when you were working,” she said. A local TV station often played broadcasts of some of the Central Texas events, but Zack never let Mandy watch them.
    “When was this?”
    Mandy shrugged and fidgeted again. “A while ago. I wanted to watch the barrel racers.” She puckered her brow. “I didn’t see much of the riders, though. They’re too fast.”
    “That’s how your daddy was on TV. When he competed in the National Finals Rodeo, they showed the events on ESPN. But he wasn’t on very long. Only a blip, really.” Tracy added a snap of her fingers to illustrate her meaning. Tracy smiled at Zack. “It could have been anybody being thrown off the bucking horse.”
    Several onlookers snickered. Tracy was lying through her teeth and