Cowboy, Take Me Away

Especially not one who regularly risked his fool neck bucking out rough stock. Skyler couldn’t breathe watching Trace tether himself to a snorting sorrel bronc and call for the gate, but she couldn’t close her eyes to the thrill of the horse’s first jump and the skill of the man in making the jump his own. Trace rode the action more than the animal. He leaned back and became less the rider than the ride itself. He defined going with the flow, and it was breathtaking.

When the buzzer sounded, he bailed off the hurricane deck and landed on his feet. He waved his hat to the cheering crowd and then turned to where he’d left her, standing behind a chin-high fence under a Wrangler Jeans sign adjacent to the bucking chutes. Hat back in place, he dodged the pickup man, who was herding the high-stepping bronc toward the exit gate. Trace scaled the fence and swung over the top, but rather than drop to the ground, he eased himself rail by rail—giving her time to notice how nicely the fringed chaps framed the cowboy ass, Skyler supposed.

He turned and reached for her, and she stepped under his extended arm, slid her arms around his waist and gave him the kiss he deserved. Somebody sitting atop the chutes shouted, “Woo-hoo,” and somebody else added, “Way to go, Trace!” He finished off the kiss with a little extra smooch and then gave the boys up top a wave with his free arm while he wheeled Skyler in the other direction, muttering something about his damn joints.

She tightened her hold on his side. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just my trick knee.” The smooth rowels on his spurs jingled as they rounded a fence corner and took refuge in an alley among the maze of stock pens. He flicked the chaps buckles loose at the back of his thighs, unbuckled the front and peeled them off.

“Can I help?”

“Thanks.” He handed her the chaps, grabbed a rail with one hand and his knee with the other and “Sheee—” Crack! “—zam!” He straightened slowly. “Gotta start letting the pickup man do his job.” He offered a sheepish grin. “Swear to God, that was my last flying dismount.”

“It was magnificent,” she enthused. “Can you walk?”

“Oh, yeah.” He laid his arm around her shoulder and favored his knee as they walked. “All in an eight-second day’s work.”

“Won’t it swell?”

“Not much. It’s prewrapped. Did you get any good pictures?”

“I … No, I didn’t. I forgot about the camera.” She lifted the chaps she’d been clutching against her side. Yes, she still had her shoulder bag. “Oh my God, I forgot about the camera.”

“You left it somewhere?”

“No, I have it. I was watching. I wasn’t thinking about anything else.” He relieved her of the chaps and she smiled. “Pretty amazing.”

“That watching can take your full attention?”

“That you can make a crazy ride like that look easy. The rest of those guys are working overtime, but you looked like you were quite comfortable. Like you were actually having fun.”

“It’s a helluvalot of fun when I’m on a roll. It’s been a good season. Haven’t broken anything in months.”

“Ninety is a wonderful score. Do you think you’ll win?”

“Can’t lose.” Grinning, he flipped the chaps over his shoulder. “It’s my birthday.”

“Let me take you out for dinner.”

“You’re on. I want a corn dog and a snow cone.”

“I want to take you someplace nice.”

“Exactly. The WYO Fair.” He gave her a playful squeeze. “It’s my birthday, woman! You take me to the corn-dog stand and I’ll take you up on the Ferris wheel.”

Skyler looked up. The wheel looked huge up close. The red seats rocked gently like the storied cradle in the treetops and the lights on the spokes were gaining on the dimming sky. She hadn’t faced one of these things since Mike had last dragged her to a line like the one she was standing in now and handed off two tickets. She remembered being surprised that the top of his cowboy hat reached her nose, and he was barely eight.

She lowered her gaze and watched the cars dip, drag and rise. A starry-eyed young couple. Mom with kids. Dad with kids. Kids with kids. Lots of kids. Beautiful, beautiful kids. They all looked fairly secure, pretty happy. Begging off would have her looking like a stick-in-the-mud. It wasn’t a roller coaster, after all. One Ferris wheel ride couldn’t hurt.

“You wanna eat first?”

Skyler looked up at the handsome face below the brim of the cowboy hat. “Why don’t we do this before we tackle the corn dogs?”

Going up was fine. Uploading. Uplifting. Upstanding. It was all good. At the top of the arc, she looked up at the sky, darkening from the top down as though an angel had bumped a bottle of blue ink. It washed over the remains of crimson and gold as the stars popped open one by one and hovered playfully just out of reach. Better than good, she thought.

“You won’t find any prettier country than this,” Trace said.

Skyler nodded. Her stomach signaled the shift from ascent to descent and her smile stiffened. She gripped the lap bar.

“You see that?” He laughed. “Guy just flew off the mechanical bull, landed on his head. Back to the bucking barrel for you, boy.” He lifted his arm over her head and laid it across the back of the seat, glanced at her and then did a double take. “You okay?”

She nodded again. “Taller than I thought.”

“Who, me?”

“The thing. The wheel. We’re really high.”

“Both of us? I was afraid it was just me. Gettin’ hooked on a …” He paused, gave a look of concern and a blessed break. “Heights bother you?”

“A little.”

“If you want me to, I can give the operator a distress signal when we hit bottom.”

She shook her head. “No distress. Felt funny just because it was the first time around.” She offered a tight smile. “You?”

“Yeah, a little.” He snugged her up and she scooted a little closer as they slid across home plate and started back up. “Okay?”

“Talk to me. I don’t want to be a wimp.” But that was home. Total ground control. Wimp city was a secure no-fly zone. “My head says I’m fine, but some of my parts see it differently. I mean, my eyes are in my head, right? So how do my legs know how high up we are? And what’s with my stomach?”

“It’s probably talking to your legs, saying get us off this thing. How serious is it? What does your gut tell you? Because if it’s saying—”

“It isn’t. No rebellion in the making. It’s just acting silly.” She was looking up and out and feeling some improvement. But then came the lurch and the slow rocking, and she buried her face in his shirt. “Oh my God, we’re stopping.”

“Somebody’s ride is over. We get down, yours will be, too.”

“No, no, I have to do this.” Head up, shoulders back. Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. “I have to make the whistle.”

“Nobody’s scoring you, honey. You should’ve told me you don’t like—”

“But I do. I mean, I want to. There’s so much to see from here. I like this spot right here. As long as I keep my chin up, there’s only up. Right?”

“Right. You want a score? Lean back, hang on to me. But not with this arm.” He took her right hand from his shoulder and lifted it toward the sky. “That’s your free arm. Can’t touch this with that arm.”

“Can’t touch what?”

“Any of this.” He referred to himself, hat to boots, with a sweep of his free hand. “You gotta control yourself in the face of the uncontrollable.”

“Is this a twelve-step challenge?”

“Cowboy two-step, honey. We don’t count much higher than that. Lean back and hang on.”

She laughed.

“Not that we can’t, but why bother? It doesn’t get any better than two.”

“Yes, it does. Two is just a start. Three is holy.”

“Four is sacred.”

“Seven is lucky.”

“You are beautiful.” He touched her chin and she tipped her head to receive his kiss. A cool breeze lifted her hair while his warm kiss turned her sinking feeling into a rising one. “Feels like we’re moving,” she whispered against his lips.

“It does.” He brushed her nose with his. “But we’re not.”

“Let’s try again.” She paid his kiss back, thinking to improve on it with his help. His fingers teasing her nape helped. His distracting tongue, his soothing breath, the pleasured sound coming from deep in his throat. “You’re right,” she said at last. “Two is just a start.”

“If we count down from ten, I think we’ll get liftoff.” Another mechanical groan set the wheels in motion. She stiffened. He cuddled her close. “Hold me, Skyler.”

“You’ll deduct points.”

“New rule,” he said. “The more you touch, the better your score.”

She laughed. “You’ll get liftoff, and I’ll be left hanging.”

“I’m not goin’ anywhere without you. Damn. We’re moving.”

“Distract me again.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. They kissed like teenagers who’d held off until the third date. She didn’t care about numbers anymore—how many times around, how many birthdays, how many seconds, points, days, dollars or debts—she was deliriously distracted, disappointed when the ride slowed down and started unloading passengers.

“Mmm,” she crooned. “I think we made it.”

“Not even close.” He winked at her as they came to their final stop. “But we will.”

The ride operator—a clean-cut kid who might have been earning tuition money—grinned as Trace lifted his loop over Skyler’s head. “I was about to apologize for the delay, but looks like you did okay with it.”

“What delay?” she asked.

“Right after you guys got on we had to stop for a puking rider. You were probably stuck up top for a while, huh?”

Skyler looked at Trace. “Were we?”

He shrugged dramatically.

“You can keep going if you want. Otherwise—” the kid offered tickets “—next ride’s on me.”

“Thanks, but we’re good. We’re heading for the carousel.” Trace waved the offer off. “We’re horse people.”

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