Rodeo Nights Read Online Free Page B

preparing their rigging and their psyches for the competition. Cooling breezes mingled the smells of animal and human with coffee and popcorn from the concession stand.
    No wonder Kalli looked different. While this had remained his world, she’d left it to make another—and most would consider it a better—life for herself. A life he’d had no part of.
    It didn’t bother him she looked different. What bothered him was she still looked so damned good to him.
    * * *
    “NOW THAT EVENTS have started, there’ll be a lull,” Roberta announced. Kalli felt her mouth quirk. Woe to anyone who put the lie to that proclamation! “So why don’t you take those feet of yours outside and let ’em take you someplace instead of no place?”
    Kalli halted in mid-pace, the habit so automatic she hadn’t realized she’d been doing it. “Sorry. The pacing can be annoying, I know.”
    “As far as bad habits go, it’s better than chewing tobacco.”
    Kalli laughed. Even to her own ears, it sounded a bit ragged, but Roberta looked approving.
    “I promise you, Roberta, no matter how tough things get, I won’t put a pinch between my cheek and gum.”
    That earned a nod. “Good. How ’bout promising you’ll go out and walk around awhile, too?” Before Kalli could protest, she added, “Might as well get reacquainted with the layout. Some things might’ve changed. Fresh air’ll do you good, too. Besides, never hurts to let folks see you on the scene.”
    Kalli might have disputed the other points, but the last one was inarguable.
    “You’re right. I’ll take a look around.”
    She snagged her blazer from the back of a chair, pulling it on as she headed out. Decisiveness carried her around the corner and four strides down the side of the office before impressions and memories flooded in.
    An amplified voice announced a cowboy’s score, slipping in the information for the uninitiated that this was a very good performance, indeed. Thus exhorted, the crowd cheered. Ahead of her, floodlights pasted stars against the darkening sky. Grilling hot dogs overlaid the scents of horses, cattle, sweat and hay. In a pocket of silence, she heard a distant call, then the
thunk
of a chute opening, swallowed by the crowd’s roar.
    Twisting away, she leaned against the wall and looked out on the parking area. But the haphazard array of horse trailers, campers, pickups and every vehicular hybrid imaginable brought other memories—memories of hot, loving nights spent in just such a temporary home.
    A new sound slipped in. Low, a little pitiful, yet excited and...familiar. Her eyelids lifted.
    A dog was framed in the open passenger window of a camper-topped pickup, dusty red and well traveled, its right front fender primed an equally dusty black.
    “Coat?” The dog yipped excitedly, and Kalli found herself jerking open the pickup’s door, throwing her arms around the dog, tears flowing and her face being thoroughly licked between ecstatic barks. “Coat, is that really you, boy? Oh, Coat...Coat.”
    The slightly wiry texture of the dog’s multicolored coat was so familiar, but the puppy of memory was now gray-muzzled and moving with the gingerliness of age. That didn’t dim the unconditional joy of his greeting.
    “Kalli? Kalli, you okay?”
    She spun around to face Walker, standing just behind her, one hand half raised as if he’d considered touching her, then changed his mind.
    “It’s Coat,” she said, and knew instantly how stupid that sounded. Of course it was, and of course Walker knew it. This was the puppy they’d adopted not a week after their wedding, the one she’d named after the Dolly Parton song “Coat of Many Colors,” in honor of his varied tints and because she’d loved the sentiment of the song. This was the dog she’d left behind, with some muddled idea that Coat would look after Walker even if he wouldn’t let her.
    “You kept him.”
    Walker dropped his hand, and in the artificial light, the lines of his face