Rodeo Nights Read Online Free PDF Page A

seemed harsher. “Of course I kept him. You didn’t think I’d dump him because it wasn’t convenient anymore, did you?”
    Kalli straightened and brushed away her tears with the back of one hand, though the other remained in Coat’s fur.
    “Sorry I barged into your truck—this is your truck?” Pride steadied her voice. She caught the movement of his nod, but didn’t face him. “Coat recognized me, and in the excitement, I didn’t think about how inappropriate it was to get in someone else’s truck.”
    “I don’t give a damn about the truck. I heard Coat bark and thought... I thought I better check on him.”
    Something about his tone made her turn. “Is he all right? I know he’s getting old, but is he sick?”
    “No. He’s all right. Vet says he’s pretty healthy for his age, matter of fact. But he has arthritis and he can’t get around like he used to. And sometimes other dogs don’t respect his age, or horses get touchy, so…”
    So he kept an eye out for Coat, Kalli supplied silently. He kept a cushioned dog bed on the passenger seat of his truck and when he heard the dog’s bark, he wasted no time checking it out.
    She smiled a little as she looked at the dog and thought she saw agreement in Coat’s eyes: Walker Riley was still a soft touch for any creature weaker than himself.
    “He recognized me,” she said, hoping to share her pleasure with the man standing so close she could feel the heat of his body.
    “Dogs remember who lands a boot in their ribs, but they’re not wise enough to forget somebody who walks away from them.”
    A slap would have been less painful, but no more bracing. His quiet demeanor in the office had lulled her, had her thinking maybe they could work together without the bitter past welling up. She’d been a fool.
    “I’m going to take a look around.” Her words dismissed Walker and the conversation. But she couldn’t resist a last hug of the old dog. “I’ll see you later, Coat,” she whispered, then walked away without looking back.
    She ran into Gulch Miller sooner than she would have wished. His eyes were too darn sharp for her comfort. Within a network of wrinkles that had widened despite the shading of an ever-present cowboy hat, those eyes flicked from her face to over her shoulder toward Walker’s truck.
    To her relief, Gulch made no comment, instead introducing her to crew members in snatches between their duties. Before long, Gulch, too, was called away, and Kalli simply watched the activity.
    “Hi, you’re not from ’round here, are you?”
    Kalli blinked, bringing her focus to the young cowboy to her right. Old enough to vote, but yet to see his first presidential election. Attractive, and he knew it, but still enough of a boy not to be sure that other people knew it. Something about him tugged at her.
    “No, I’m not. And you?”
    “Just over the border,” he said with a nod north. Montana, she thought, not Canada. “Where’s your home?” he asked.
    Good question. “I live in New York City.”
    His eyebrows rose, but to her amusement he seemed less impressed than surprised at her lack of good sense.
    “You visiting here?”
    “Mmm. Sort of. Looks like I’ll be here all summer.”
    “Then you’ll have a chance to come to the rodeo a few more times.”
    “Very likely,” she murmured.
    To prevent his seeing the amusement in her eyes, she looked beyond his left shoulder and met Walker’s assessing stare. He stood ten yards away with a group of competitors, including a blond barrel racer with her hand tucked into Walker’s elbow and her side plastered to his.
    No chance now the young cowboy would think Kalli was amused.
    “Then you’ll see me,” he said, “because I’m going to be rodeoing here ’most every night. This is my summer to make the big push, make a name for myself.”
    And the resemblance hit her square in the heart—he was Walker, the summer her feelings had deepened and widened from hero worship to love. She’d