The Real Thing Page 6

The woman grinned, her smile white and brighter than I’d expected.

  “Hi.” She repeated.

  Homeless?

  I know it’s not my best self that finds meeting homeless people, or really any person in need, uncomfortable. My heart goes out to them, I truly want to help and, frankly, have given clothes, food, and even money to charities, but I’ve never gone down to serve soup and bread at the shelter over in Nashville like Marta does. The one time I tried it, I broke out in a sweat when a homeless man held out his grimy hand, a soup bowl clutched between his filthy fingers. All I had to do was ladle soup, but when I saw that look, Momma’s look, in his eyes, I’d frozen. Marta had to wrench the ladle from my hand and give the poor man some soup. I am not proud of this fact, but it’s the truth, and if I’m not as good and brave as Marta, then at least I’m honest.

  I flinched now when this woman reached out to touch my arm.

  “Hi.” I felt the beginnings of a panic attack.

  There was something about the combination of how sorry I felt for that woman and how much I loathed being in this predicament that confused my senses. Dr. Phil might be able to dissect my feelings, tracing them back to some random scare I had when I was a child, or a deep sadness about being abandoned by my Momma, but all I know is that when I’m around someone like this poor woman, I get emotional and I want to run.

  The poor woman reached into the trash can and grabbed a semi clean napkin, held it out to me.

  “Here, honey.” She didn’t sound homeless.

  I waved it away. “I’m fine. Just so much dust around here. It’s in my eyes.”

  She nodded like she would understand. “In all the years I’ve been in rodeo,” she said. “I’ve never gotten used to the dust.” She held her hand out. “I’m Judy.”

  I gingerly shook it. She was skinny and definitely not as old as I first thought, but even though her words were sound, her eyes told me she wasn’t all present in the moment, either.

  A lot like Momma.

  “Nice to meet you, Judy.” I noticed she wore a silver western-style bracelet similar to the one I wore on my own wrist, a gift from Keith, and her nails were manicured and painted with a clear coat of polish. Kind of fancy for a homeless woman and I wondered if it was a special bracelet. Someone who loved her must have given it to her, same as with mine. She saw me staring and with a vague smile she touched the bracelet, rubbing her fingers across its stone. It made me smile, despite my awkwardness. Every girl deserves a good manicure and a beautiful bracelet, trust me. Not only did I have both, but both were popular at The Southern Pair. They always brought happiness.

  “I’m Manda,” I said. “Keith Black’s wife.” I didn’t know why I said that when she probably had no clue what I was talking about.

  Her eyes widened. She looked at the sky, started swaying from side to side. I noted her western boots, also newish, if not outdated. The look in her eyes reminded me of my mother when she would be right there, but leave us in her mind, sometimes for hours at a time. A wave of sorrow rushed past me, and I willed it to keep going.

  “Nice to meet you, Judy.” I turned to go.

  “That Black. He’s a champion,” Judy called out.

  I spun around. The lady stood there, smiling serenely as she fingered her bracelet.

  “You’ve heard of him?” I asked, surprised that someone like her would know one rodeo cowboy from another, but then I heard the announcer from the arena. Maybe she picked up easily on things she heard.

  “Cowboy Man. He’s a champion.” She started picking at her cuticles. “On the news.”

  I offered her a weak smile. This poor, poor woman.

  “Yes, he’s in the news a lot around here,” I said, backing away. I felt bad about leaving her alone, and yet I was about to be late. “Now, you have a good day.”

  “Everyone knows Cowboy Man’s name,” she muttered, and then she launched into a string of utterances I couldn’t understand. “Excuse me, what is that cowboy’s name again?”

  “Keith,” I said, realizing I probably shouldn’t even answer this woman’s questions, lest I confuse her, but she stood there with a lonely look on her face. I didn’t know how to help, but I felt sorry for her. At a total loss, I reached into my bag and grabbed a twenty, stuffed it into one of the travel coffee mugs, and handed it to her. She took it, her eyes filling with surprise.

  “For me?” Her eyes sparkled like a child’s.

  “That’s right. A present.” I nodded. “Nice to meet you, Judy.” She looked at the mug like it was a Christmas gift.

  I hoped she would be okay, but I didn’t know what else to do. I walked away, which was something Marta would have jumped all over me for. In some ways, Marta and I were very different. She loved helping anyone and everyone. I did, too, but I preferred distance. Maybe it made me a bad person, but I didn’t like being reminded of Momma.

  I rushed off.

  “You better hurry!” The woman called out. She had no idea I only wanted to get away from her.

  I flashed my badge to the guard and headed to the seats right behind the chutes. Amazingly, one was still empty.

  The stands were filled to the brim with spectators, waving cheap fans bearing advertisements for new trucks, eating chili cheese dogs, and wearing cheery straw hats that looked like they’d been stomped by a horse. Everywhere I turned, people wore smiles and their eyes were filled with excitement, seemingly unaware of the sweat beading above their eyebrows. I sat behind the chutes right in front of a group of obsessed rodeo fans even though I could’ve sat by the other wives and families in the tent down on the ground. This was right where I’d sat the first time I ever saw Keith. Just like then, the fans were cheering and hooting, excited from the adrenaline, and, no doubt, from the beer that was being sold by vendors walking through the stands.

  “Go, Black!” The roar of the crowd going wild was almost deafening.

  A rattling of iron gates down in the chutes sent a vibration up into the bleachers. My heart leapt in my chest like the horse Keith was about to mount. The horses waiting to be ridden were always frisky. Well, more than frisky. They were mad. They wanted out, and as they snorted and pressed their sides up against the chutes, seeing Keith lower himself onto the back of one made my heart leap, and I do mean in a bad way this time.

  In an attempt to calm my nerves, I rubbed the surface of my own western bracelet that Keith had given to me when we were dating. Peyton had one a lot like it, also a gift from Keith, and it made me feel like we were somehow connected when I wore the intricate silver band, even though I knew she didn’t think so.

  I smiled down at the bracelet, thinking it would’ve been fun to bring Peyton with me, but the forceful rattle of the gate below drew my attention. All I wanted at the moment was for the next eight seconds to be over. I didn’t want Keith on that horse.

  Like I said before, I was a terrible cowgirl.

  When I first met Peyton, she looked me up and down and snorted, a little bit like the horse she’d just been trotting around the circle of the corral. My bejeweled jeans and blue t-shirt with the western swirly designs and rhinestones across the front didn’t fool her. When her gaze rested on my bracelet, her eyes had widened.

  “Where’d you get that bracelet?”

  “Your dad.” I smiled.

  She’d reached down to touch her own bracelet, and it was the first time I knew that like mine, hers was a smooth circle with an engraving of a rose, but I’d mistakenly thought she’d think it special. I wanted to apologize to Peyton for encroaching on the special gift her daddy had gotten her, but she was jabbing a finger at my boots.

  “Where’d you get those?” Peyton demanded.

  “Also your dad.” I popped out the pointy-toed boot and turned to show her the four-inch-heel.

  “Well, I don’t think he meant them for riding, but whatever.”

  Feeling chastened, I’d followed her into the barn like she was the parent and I was the child.

  “Okay,” she s
aid, after walking me through the barn and into a large circle pen. “Say hello to Lizzie.”

  I slowly approached a beautiful—and enormous—black beast that I couldn’t ever imagine sitting on. As I stood there, watching her flanks shiver from the bugs, chills went through me. My most recent experience on a horse was fresh in my mind. My backside hurt just thinking about how I’d landed in the dirt on the other side of the pen.

  “That’s good,” Peyton said. “She likes you. Now, you need to get to know her a little better. Let her know you’re in charge.”

  I trudged behind her walking through the soft dirt beside the huge horse, sad that my boots were getting dirty. I accepted the long stick with the slender leather strap hanging from it.

  “A whip? I am not hitting her.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” Peyton said. “That’s not what it’s for.”

  Deciding to ignore her huffiness, I turned my attention back to Lizzie. She was gentle while Peyton showed me how to exercise her. Riding her couldn’t be too bad, could it? I decided to go for it, but the first time I planted my cute boot into the stirrup and tried to swing my other leg over Lizzie’s back, I promptly fell off the other side. Lizzie, bless her heart, stood still. I love that horse. I really do, but that day, it just wasn’t working between us.

  To make matters worse, Peyton started laughing, and when I stood and dusted the dirt off my jeans, the first thing I saw was Keith home from work and sitting up on the fence, a big smile on his face. Needless to say, that was the last time I planned to ride Lizzie. After that, my job at the ranch was grooming the horses.

  Eventually, I fell in love with all of Keith’s horses, but those horses weren’t anything like the ones in the saddle bronc bucking contests at rodeos. Nothing. The horses they use in rodeo bronc riding are beautiful, sleek, and powerful, not afraid to use that power to let you know who is in charge. And when they first jump out of the chute, they’re pretty sure it’s them. It takes a tough cowboy to turn that attitude around, one like my husband.

  The chutes rattled as the cowboy, my husband, leaned over the horse preparing for his ride. I have to admit that before Keith, watching cowboys buck on the backs of horses was exciting. The cowboys themselves seemed powerful and strong, and yes, I admit it, sexy! I’d be lying if I said the out-and-out masculinity of it wasn’t something that attracted me to Keith. Of course, I never thought I’d actually get the chance to talk to him, let alone become his wife. And like so many things in my life, I owe it all to my sister.

  Marta and I used to sit with all the other fans hooting and hollering for the cowboys to stay on for their eight seconds. We were single and a bit wild, but always ladies. I didn’t chase cowboys, but if I was in the right place at the right time, they were welcome to chase me. That first time I saw Keith ride, I knew he was doing it right, even though I hardly knew anything about how the cowboys were judged or the precision and strength it took to stay on. I’ve learned since that there’s lots more to saddle bronc riding than just getting on and staying on for eight seconds. The cowboy’s form matters. Even how the horse bucks counts, which I think is kind of unfair, but Keith says that’s how it’s supposed to be.

  Another rattle from the chutes jarred me. Horses snorting, cowboys waiting for their cue to swing the gate open—a dangerous job if you asked me. Beyond them, cowboys with ropes sat on the backs of horses poised and ready. I love those guys, now that I know they’re not mere cowboys who look like they just stepped off a rodeo poster. They’re the ‘pick up men’ who snatch the cowboys off the horse after their eight seconds are up, assuming they stay on that long.

  The bucking horse in this case was brown dappled with white. Beautiful, but mean looking, nostrils flaring. Keith’s nostrils were flaring, too! Every time I saw him ride, I was amazed that my gentle man could be so transformed.

  The horse shivered, a lot like Lizzie back at the ranch when I groomed her, but it wasn’t to get the flies off its back. This horse only wanted to get the cowboy off its back and it did its best to send Keith flying, even before the gate was flung open.

  Come on, already. Open the gate.

  The announcer was busy filling the crowd in about Keith, getting them riled up for the ride. Then he roared over the loud speaker into the arena.

  “Friends, let’s give a big welcome to three-time world champion, Keith Black. Come on now, let’s show ’em some love!”

  And as they say, the crowd went wild as the rock music blared over the loud speaker.

  I know. The rock music always surprises me, too. The first time I ever saw bronco riding, I was expecting to hear a little Toby Keith, instead of Guns and Roses. And speaking of guns, a gunshot sounded and the men who’d been holding the gate were now pulling on the ropes and swinging it wide open. The horse reared its front legs high, its mane flaring like a flame, its body flexed and full of power and the energy of a freight train. My husband, hanging on for his life, literally it seemed, wasn’t just a man anymore, but a cowboy, and I hated it.

  Hated it. Loved it. I was so proud! So scared. Amazed. Worried. In real time, it’s only eight seconds, right? But in a wife’s time, it’s all in slow motion. Every time the horse’s hooves hit the dirt, my heart burst open just a little more.

  Keith’s legs, encased in flapping black-fringed chaps, held tight in the saddle and his hand was gripped tightly to the hack rein. He was straight up in the saddle, boots locked in the stirrups, rocking with the rhythm of the bucking horse. Hooves hit the dirt with a mighty force as the horse’s body jerked into a rocking back-and-forth-up-and-down, motion. The horse was really ticked off and it made my heart slam around in my chest with each rock and roll of that beautiful beast.

  And oh, let’s face it, that man! My man.

  What a picture! I wished Peyton was there with a camera. All I had was my phone camera and I didn’t have time for any of that. The horse was bucking just like you want it to. Even a rookie rodeo observer could see that this – my husband! – was how a cowboy should look on a bucking bronco, everything in crazy, fast motion from the waist down, and yet every muscle in Keith’s upper body taut and in control, his jaw tight, face determined.

  Oh, heavens to Betsy. Be strong, baby.

  You don’t even have to be a rodeo fan to know that a wild, bucking horse is unpredictable and that Keith could go swinging off into the dirt at any moment. At that point, he could be trampled and broken, even killed.

  Eight seconds was all he needed. The horn sounded. The radio announcer’s voice came over the speaker.

  “Now that’s how a saddle bronc rider does it. Let’s give that cowboy a hand!”

  “Whooooooo!” I yelled with the roaring crowd, but I stayed seated for now. “Way to go, baby!!!”

  When the pick-up man helped Keith slide off the horse and he landed in the dirt, perfectly unscathed, I stood. Keith walked across the arena, plucked his cowboy hat off the ground, adjusted it on that beautiful head of hair, and punched his fist in the air. Even as scared as I’d been eight seconds before, I was now yelling with joy and relief. I waved at him, waiting to see if he would remember what he’d always done, back when we were dating.

  He remembered, not even breaking his stride as he blew a kiss to me. Several hats swiveled in my direction, but I didn’t acknowledge them. I was too busy watching my hunk of a husband walk out of the arena.

  “Well, I’ll be darned,” said the announcer. “What a cowboy. What. A. Cow. Boy.”

  Oh, be still my heart. If a rodeo wife has to put up with her husband putting his life on the line, she might as well enjoy the rest of the cowboy, right? And all those rodeo fan girls are right. There’s just something about a cowboy that makes a woman weak in the knees.

  “Ladies and gentleman, if Black keeps riding like that, he just might win the whole purse.” I cheered.

  The crowd was still going crazy when I yelled, “Go baby!” I turned to the bewildered fan beside me and said, “That’s my husband!”

  She sm
iled. “Lucky girl.”

  But then I heard the announcer say something I knew Keith wouldn’t like. Not. At. All.

  “Folks, at thirty-seven-years-old, Keith Black has still got it! He’s gonna be sore tomorrow, and all you folks over thirty know what I’m talkin’ about, but Black’s still got it.”

  I hurried out of the stands to meet him coming out of the chutes. Behind me I heard a familiar voice.

  “He’s a champion, isn’t he? Everyone knows that cowboy’s name.”

  Surprised she was still there, I turned to see Judy standing beneath the bleachers, the mug still in her hand. She was waving at me. I smiled and kept my eye on her until a man walked up and offered her the crook of his arm. He wore a lime green t-shirt with a white logo I couldn’t read from where I stood. Maybe someone from the homeless shelter she came from was there to help her out. I wasn’t sure how that all worked, but it was obvious she was in safe hands. When Keith called my name, I turned away.

  He held his arms open and I fell into them. Now isn’t that just like in the movies? Only the movies never accurately depict what a cowboy who just got swung around by a wild horse would really smell like. Of course, I didn’t care.

  “You watched?” His grey eyes stared at me from a dirty, sweaty, but beautiful face.

  I nodded and his smile was priceless. I kissed his cheek, then wiped my mouth. This made Keith roar with laughter. I laughed, too, but thought of Judy and how I’d flinched when she touched me. I could have sworn I heard her voice again saying, “That cowboy’s a champion.” I turned to look for her, and sure enough, there she still was with her friend, eating a hot dog and waving at us.

  Keith raised his hand and she giggled, whispering something in her friend’s ear. He didn’t smile as he turned her away from us in a protective gesture.

  “Who was that?”

  “Judy,” I said. “Sadly, I think she’s homeless or maybe from some kind of institution.”

  “You talked to her?” He put a heavy emphasis on the word ‘you,’ reminding me that he knew I didn’t feel comfortable around people with, um, problems so to speak. I just shrugged, not telling him that she thought she knew him, maybe even had a little crush on that cowboy from the news. He got tired of the obsessed fans quickly, even though he was always gracious and kind, and this one wasn’t even in her right mind, it seemed. I thought of the dirty napkin she’d pulled out of the trash can for me and shuddered.