Rodeo Nights Read Online Free PDF Page B

blinked, turning to where Mary sat. But Walker had seen the sheen of tears.
    * * *
    “SO, YOU THINKING about putting your own stamp on the Park Rodeo, Walker?” Jasper Lodge asked.
    That sounded innocuous, especially as spoken around a hunk of roast beef sandwich. But, since he was committee chairman, all Lodge’s comments had significance. His approval or disapproval could be pivotal to the rodeo’s future.
    So when he’d called yesterday asking if he could come by “just to get reacquainted” with Walker and Kalli, of course they’d agreed.
    Roberta had said to make the meeting for lunch today, “because there’s no surer way to soften up Jasper Lodge than through his stomach.” This morning, she’d arrived with the makings for hefty sandwiches, homemade potato salad, green salad, fresh lemonade, double-chocolate brownies and watermelon.
    They’d set up some distance from the office, at a picnic table under four cottonwoods by a stream feeding into the Shoshone River. It was a pleasant spot. Only Coat, banished to the shade of a distant tree to prevent his soulful looks from interfering with the diners’ pleasure, didn’t seem to approve.
    “I’m looking at the operation of the rodeo, Mr. Lodge,” Kalli said before Walker could answer. “We’ve divided the responsibilities. Walker will focus on running the competition aspects.”
    She’d be better off calling him Jasper, Walker thought.
    “Mister” reinforced her position as an outsider. Walker considered joining the conversation. Then he flicked a look at her. What was that saying about discretion and valor? He opted for discretion, and potato salad.
    “That so?” Jasper Lodge aimed his question at Walker, but he couldn’t answer around a mouthful of potato, onions and celery.
    “Let me tell you what we have in mind, Jasper,” said Kalli.
    Against the red-and-white checks of the cloth Roberta had spread on the table, Kalli’s blue slacks and shirt topped by a tan blazer and a brightly patterned scarf created an image of cool competence that matched her tone of voice.
    Used to be a scratch would let loose her emotions from just beneath the surface—the fire, the love, the passions, Walker thought. Had they gone deeper underground or had they been smothered?
    Roberta replaced their empty dishes with a platter piled with brownies and wedges of watermelon so succulent they glistened with moisture.
    Watermelon.
The memory hit him, low and deep in his gut. Sitting on the steps of their old trailer, the open doorway behind them airing out a day’s accumulated heat. What rodeo had taken them to that spot? There’d been too many places too fast; he couldn’t remember. But he remembered late-summer softness, the warmth soon to be a memory with fall clearing its throat. The last watermelon of summer—the only summer she’d carried the name Kalli Riley.
    She picked up a wedge of watermelon now, in the bright midday sun. But he could also see a younger Kalli holding a slice of watermelon in the private darkness of night.
    He watched her bite into the sweet, unseeded tip.
    Smiling at something Roberta said, she glanced at the watermelon before putting it to her mouth a second time.
    God, please, let her just bite into the damn thing and be done with it. Don’t let her still have that old habit. Don’t let her...
    Her tongue flicked out, as accurate as a sharpshooter, and slid away one black oval seed from where she would bite next, then another. And a third.
    Memory stirred his body, brought sweat to his upper lip, under his arms, down his back.
    With the greed of youth, they’d each eaten a slice of watermelon that long-ago night, then set about sharing a third. Fascinated, he’d watched her delicate removal of the seeds with her tongue before she bit into the fruit. When his turn came, he’d taken a huge bite and a seed had caught at the corner of his mouth.
    The seed, slick and smooth against his skin. The juice a cool veneer on his lips. The