Once a Champion

Damn, this had to be tough on the kid. The problem was that Matt’s place was well-kept. He had a cleaning lady and the guy who fed his livestock when he was on the road also did the maintenance.

“Yeah. I can use some help.” Or come up with something. “I’d pay you.”

Craig shook his head. “No. You’re giving me a roof and food.”

“Your mom paid for the food.” Or had tried to.

“A roof, then, and she didn’t pay for that.”

“We’ll negotiate later, okay? You want to watch TV now?”

“In the worst possible way,” Craig said. “Mom says I can’t watch someone else’s TV unless they invite me to.”

“Consider yourself invited,” Matt said. “For as long as you’re here, the TV is yours.”

“Thanks,” Craig said, gathering up his plate and heading for the dishwasher. Matt watched in surprise as the boy loaded his dinnerware, then added the dishes that had been soaking in the sink. A quick swipe of the dishcloth around the sink after he’d rinsed it, then Craig headed to the living room. Wow. Willa had taught her son well.

As soon as the television came on in the next room, Matt opened that beer and sat at the table drinking it. Talk about a strange day. Found his horse, got an unexpected roommate—with whom he had nothing to talk about.

Matt reached out and grabbed the newspaper off the sideboard where he’d stacked all the stuff that’d been on the table when he’d cleared it to feed Craig. He flipped it open with one hand and looked at his brother—make that his half brother’s—smiling face on the front page and almost closed it again. But he didn’t.

Ryan Madison. The darling of the Montana rodeo circuit, who’d just done a charity roping clinic for the local kids, and who was also within striking distance of qualifying for the NFR for the second time in a row.

Matt shoved the paper aside.

Not that he didn’t want Ryan to qualify. He enjoyed beating his brother. He wished he’d had a chance to beat him last year, except he hadn’t because of four hundred lousy dollars. Ryan had come in a respectable fourth, which wasn’t bad for his first NFR and considering he’d been on a borrowed horse.

It’d killed Matt to sit on the sidelines and watch.

He and Ryan had been roping rivals since they were ten or eleven, and by the time Matt was fifteen, the two of them had developed an animosity that bordered on legendary—they’d also had no idea they were related. As far as Matt knew, Ryan was still in the dark—which was just fine with him.

CHAPTER THREE

THOUGH SHE TOLD herself she wasn’t going to think about it, Liv tossed and turned that night, and when she finally did fall asleep, she dreamed about searching for Beckett. She found tracks and bits of mane and tail hair clinging to branches and fence wire, but no horse. She woke up with her heart pounding.

A dream.

Even so, she got out of bed and walked over to the window looking out over the pasture and felt a wave of relief when she saw Beckett grazing near the barn. Her horse was still there. Hers. She couldn’t imagine losing him, not after everything they’d gone through. He was the reason she’d been able to stay strong against Greg, stick up for herself, let her true feelings show even if they were at odds with the people around her. It had been so very hard in the beginning....

Liv slipped out of her pajamas, folded them and put them under her pillow before she pulled on jeans and a Montana State T-shirt. After that she straightened the covers and opened the curtains all the way.

If she hadn’t tried to buy the gelding, if Greg had succeeded in forbidding it, she might now be Mrs. Gregory Malcolm, bending over backward to do whatever her husband wanted her to do. Be who he wanted her to be. During their relationship she’d had moments when she showed some backbone and argued her position, but ultimately she’d always backed down, as she’d done for her entire life—as her mother had done for her entire life—and let him have his way. Because if you made waves, people might abandon you.

The thought made her shudder.

A clattering of cutlery greeted her as she walked into the kitchen. Tim was already there, dressed and standing straighter than he’d been the day before. He put a couple more knives into a drawer, then turned.

“Coffee’s on,” he said. “I’ll be in around noon if you don’t mind getting me some lunch then.”

“Where are you going?” Liv asked.

“To salvage what I can of the hay.”

“You’re feeling better,” she said flatly. He was standing taller, but his color was still off. “And you can spend a day on the tractor.”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” Initiating confrontation still did not come easily to her—even after months of post-Greg affirmations and years of practice with her patients, who often did not want to do what they had to do in order to heal—but she was so much better at it than she’d been before.

His thick black eyebrows came together. Tim was not used to being challenged. He was used to living life alone, his own way.

Tough.

“I wouldn’t be going out if I wasn’t sure. I have work to do.” He grabbed his battered cowboy hat off the table and jammed it onto his head before stalking out the back door.

Liv let out a breath and then poured herself a cup of coffee, her movements automatic, mindless. Confrontation or concern? Which had her stomach in a knot?

She heard the tractor fire up as she took her first sip from the heavy ceramic mug. She had five days at home before she started seeing patients. Five days to keep a full-time eye on her father to make sure that he really was recovering and not just blowing smoke.

* * *

MATT CALLED WILLA at 6:00 a.m. to see if she’d made it safely to her new job and to find out if she was okay with him leaving Craig alone for the day while he went to his doctor’s appointment in Bozeman. The connection was awful, cutting in and out, and Willa had been on her way out the door—in fact she was late—but no, she didn’t have a problem with Crag spending the day alone. She’d hung up before Matt could ask about what day the kid would be leaving so he could make some plans.

The drive to Bozeman took almost two hours, which gave Matt a goodly amount of time to stew about the issues in his life while his knee stiffened up. His mom had called right after Willa had hung up, inviting him to a family dinner that Sunday. Matt had said yes, even though he hated formal family dinners, and mentioned that he might be bringing a guest. His mom had instantly gone on alert, assuming he meant a woman, and he’d had to tell her no. It was a kid. He was babysitting.

There’d been a strangely awkward silence after that and Matt had quickly filled her in, wondering what had made her go so quiet. Perhaps the fear that he’d fathered a kid, just as her husband had?

Except that Matt was pretty damned certain that his mom knew nothing about Ryan. It was a total fluke that he’d found out, and only because he hadn’t been where he was supposed to be on that fateful trip to Butte fifteen years ago.

Whatever the deal was, he and Craig would be having Sunday dinner on the ranch. Craig seemed okay with it, but then the kid seemed okay—no, he seemed beyond okay—with just about everything thrown his way. Dishes, housework, living with a cousin he barely knew—nothing seemed to bother him.

Matt wished he possessed that ability, but that wasn’t how he was wired. He had issues that needed resolving and he wanted them resolved now. His knee, his career, his horse. He had goals to meet, rodeos to win.

After dealing with the doctor, he was going to have to make another move in the horse game. He’d consulted with his lawyer and legally he didn’t have a leg to stand on, but morally Liv was in no better shape.

Maybe she hadn’t been aware of what Trena had been doing when she bought Beckett, but now that she did know...well, if their positions were reversed, Matt would like to think that he’d sell the horse back to Liv.

His knee was throbbing by the time he got out of the truck in Bozeman. He idly rubbed the sore area along the side, wondering if he was going to be in a brace permanently, or only for a while. A brace would slow him down, but it beat blowing his knee out altogether. The guy he was seeing was supposed to be good and was replacing Matt’s former doctor, who’d recently retired. Matt had fully expected the new doctor to warn him against using his knee too much, as the old doctor had, but he hadn’t expected him to be so utterly adamant about it.

“If you plan to continue roping, then plan on getting another doctor.” Dr. Fletcher pulled his pen out of his pocket after examining the knee and clicked it.

“That’s a bit rash, wouldn’t you say?” Matt shifted a little, making the paper covering the examination table rip beneath him. Damn but he hated doctor’s offices.

“I just did say it,” the doctor said after making a few notes and then closing the folder. “And I meant it. If you put this knee under undue stress and strain, you risk destroying the joint.”

“What about physical therapy?”

“I’m prescribing PT, but that doesn’t mean your knee is going to ever get good enough to throw a calf.”

It wasn’t the answer Matt wanted. More than that, it wasn’t an answer he was going to accept.

“Listen to me,” the doctor said with a quiet intensity that broke into Matt’s stubborn thoughts. “I know this isn’t easy to swallow, but facts are facts. Your knee won’t last if you continue roping. You’re too young for a knee replacement, but if I did end up replacing the joint because of stupid behavior, you still won’t be able to rope because the joint won’t stand up to lateral pressure.

“I’d like to see you again in two weeks,” he said as he handed him the chart to take back to the reception desk where he’d settle his account.

“Right,” Matt said. But he didn’t plan on coming back. There were other doctors. Knee specialists. Alternative medicine. Doctors with more open minds.

Matt settled his hat on his head as he left the office ten minutes later and several hundred dollars poorer. He’d seen some of his rodeo compadres come back from rugged injuries not only to compete, but also to win.

He had every intention of doing the same.

Matt ran a few errands, then started the long drive home, keeping his thoughts as positive as possible. He was going to rope again. He was going to finish out the rodeo season. He was going to get his horse back.

The rodeo arena parking lot was full when he pulled off the freeway in Dillon and Matt slowed, then drove in. It’d been over a year since he’d stopped by the Tuesday night roping to talk with the guys he’d grown up with, rodeoed and partied with. He used to hit the roping every time he was in town, but when Trena had turned his life upside down, he’d stopped going. Then, when he’d failed to qualify for the finals for the first time in seven years...well, he just hadn’t felt like socializing after that. He’d stayed home and trained, then headed to Texas to start what had been a golden season right up until his foot had hung up in the stirrup in Austin.

He parked and felt a stir of anticipation as he watched a steer leave the chute at a dead run and the horses and riders charge after it a few seconds later. The pickups and trailers parked next to the fence blocked his view, but he could see the cowboys’ loops swinging.

Okay, maybe this had been a mistake. All it did was remind him of what he couldn’t yet do. Maybe in a week, two at the most, he’d be roping from horseback, but for right now he was stuck on the ground roping the dummy for hours on end.

He needed to get out of here. He’d meet up with his friends at another time, another place. Just before he turned the key in the ignition, he was startled by a knock on the passenger window. Wes Warner waved at him through the glass and Matt put the window down.

“Should you be here?” Wes asked with a smile that barely showed under his thick mustache.

“I was just discussing that with myself,” Matt said. Wes, a former bronc rider whose career had been cut short by a car accident, was no stranger to injury or the disappointment of losing a promising career.

“Want a beer while you carry on your conversation?”

“Sure.” Craig had assured him that all was well when he’d called the house half an hour ago so one beer wouldn’t hurt.

Wes gestured with his head and Matt got out of the pickup and followed him to the tailgate of his truck, which faced away from the arena.

“Did you find your horse?” Wes asked as he pulled a longneck out of the cooler and handed it to Matt. “I heard he was on the Bailey Ranch.”

“He is,” Matt said, twisting off the top.

“Why does Tim have a horse?” Wes opened his own bottle, which foamed over the top and onto his pants before he took a long pull.

“Not Tim. Liv.”

“Liv has your horse?” Wes wiped the back of his hand across his mustache, clearing it of foam. “Quiet Liv Bailey? I didn’t even know she rode.”

“She rides,” Matt muttered. Shae had once told him that Liv was actually an accomplished rider, but lacked the drive to be a real competitor. Funny words from a girl who was mainly interested in competing in the queen contests and not in the events.

Wes leaned back against the side of the truck. “How’d she end up with your animal? Isn’t she living in Billings?”

“She’s on the ranch right now, and I have no idea how she ended up with him.”

Wes scratched the side of his head. “She and Trena weren’t friends or anything, were they?”

Matt snorted. “As far as I know they weren’t.” Trena and Liv had traveled in different circles. Way different circles. Almost to the point of being on different planets.

Trena had moved to Dillon at the beginning of their senior year, a California transplant. Blonde. Beautiful. Not a rural bone in her body. She’d arrived with the kind of splash that would have sent shy Liv running for cover, instantly making the girls jealous and the guys pant. It’d taken her almost a nanosecond to hook up with the king of the football team, Russell Marshall.

Matt had been doing his damnedest to pass his classes and stay on the rodeo team, thus the tutoring sessions with Liv, and hadn’t made a play for her back then. He’d been more focused on his own kind—rodeo girls such as Liv’s stepsister, Shae—and that had remained his focus until his early twenties when he and Trena had run into each other again when he’d come back to Dillon during the hiatus after the NFR. They’d clicked in a big way, and the next thing he knew, they were married. Happily. For a while.

Trena had sworn that she wouldn’t mind going on the road with him, but the reality, even with a state-of-the-art live-in trailer, had been too much for her. She’d wanted to rent motel rooms, eat out, fly everywhere. Spend money as fast as he made it. He made good money, too, but not enough to spend like that.

The next year she didn’t go on the road with him. That had spelled the beginning of the end, although Matt hadn’t known it at the time.

The gate banged shut behind them and a few seconds later a cowboy Matt didn’t know rode by. He nodded at Wes, who nodded back.

“There’s a get-together later tonight at the Lion’s Den,” Wes said. “We’re making some plans for the Fourth of July rodeo.”

“I have to get home,” Matt said. “I’m, uh, babysitting.”

Wes coughed. “You?”

“Me. For Willa’s kid.”

“Does he rope?”

“He loads the dishwasher.”

“That’s a handy talent,” Wes said.

“Even if I wasn’t taking care of the kid,” Matt said, “I’m not feeling all that social right now.” He set the bottle on the edge of the truck bed. “I thought I was, but...I shouldn’t have come down here yet.”

“So what are your plans?” Wes asked quietly. “Now that you’re back in the area.”

“My plans are to heal my knee in time for the Bitterroot Challenge.”

Wes sent him a dubious look. “Is that possible?”

A twist of the knife. “I won’t know unless I try.”

“That’s right,” Wes said. “You gotta try.”

“I’ve seen guys come back from worse injuries than this,” Matt said, not liking how defensive he sounded.

“Me, too.”

Matt swallowed the last of his beer and tossed the bottle into the trash can near the fence. “I’ve seen guys come back from broken backs and climb back up on a bull again.”

“You kinda gotta wonder if they got kicked in the head one too many times.”

“You’re missing the point,” Matt said.

Wes smiled from beneath his mustache and took another drink of his beer. “Other than healing, what are your plans?”

To rodeo for another five years. He was thirty, single and not ready to settle down. When he did settle down, it might not even be in Dillon. His mother would hate that, but sometimes he thought it would be best if he didn’t settle too close to his dad.

“And I mean other than rodeo.”

“I don’t know.”

“You could start a babysitting business.”

“I could punch you in the face,” Matt said conversationally and Wes smiled. “I don’t have any set plans,” he admitted. “Other than the one I just told you.”

“You might want to come up with one. Just a bit of advice from one injured rodeo man to another.”

Coming up with a backup plan felt like admitting defeat before he’d even started to fight the battle.

“You could go back to college. Here at Western.”

Matt made a dismissive gesture. He didn’t want to go back to college. Not at his age. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his future.

“I’ll come up with some kind of plan.” It’d probably involve raising hay and roping horses, which sounded pretty damned boring. He wasn’t ready to go that route yet.

“And the horse?”

“I’m getting the horse back,” Matt said. It was a matter of changing tactics.

He’d shown up on Liv’s ranch without warning and indicated he wanted Beckett back. Of course she’d felt threatened. But under normal circumstances, when she wasn’t pressed into defensive mode by a surprise attack, she was a nice person. A good person. Not a person who kept a guy’s horse.

He’d wait a couple days, then drop by and they’d talk again, under less stressful conditions.

* * *

NOT AGAIN.

Liv pressed a hand to her forehead as Matt Montoya’s distinctive two-tone silver-and-black Dodge pulled up under the elm tree and parked. Thank goodness Beckett was behind the barn where he couldn’t see him.

She moved back from the window as Matt got out of the truck and stood studying the house for a moment, as if gauging his best means of attack.

Plan all you want, Montoya. You aren’t getting my horse.

Finally he started toward the house, his gait uneven due to the brace he wore, and Liv quickly crossed the living room and opened the front door to step out onto the porch. This time, though, it wasn’t to keep Matt from waking her father. Tim was out on the baler, trying to salvage the hay. He looked like hell, but still insisted he felt better. Liv didn’t believe him, but was at a loss as to what to do. She was frustrated and more than willing to take it out on Matt. In fact, she was kind of looking forward to taking it out on him.

She closed the screen door behind her and drew herself up as Matt approached, looking like a cowgirl’s wet dream. Her seventeen-year-old self would have never believed that the guy could have looked hotter than he had back then, but she would have been wrong. Matt was taller, his shoulders broader, and he had a sensuality about him that he hadn’t had back then.

Looks fade. Integrity lasts.

As far as she was concerned, Matt had no integrity. He’d shown that when he’d used her to get his grades up and then never spoken to her again, and he’d shown it when he’d misused Beckett.

Her eyebrows rose slightly as he stopped on the bottom step.

She very much wanted to say, “No,” before he started speaking, but figured that wouldn’t get her what she wanted—his carcass off her property.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” he said with rather convincing sincerity.

“What part?”

He looked surprised at her comment. “All of it. I mean obviously you had no idea of the truth, and I just kind of sprung it on you.”

“I know the truth, Matt. The truth is that I bought that horse fair and square. I’ve had him for over a year and I love him.”

“I happen to be fond of him myself.”

Yeah? Then why was he in the condition he was in?

But Liv wasn’t going there. It would only prolong the conversation. “You must have dozens of horses.”

“Practice horses. I only have one other rodeo horse and he’s not as good as Beckett.”

“That didn’t seem to slow you down when you won the World.”

“My times could have been better.”

“It’s all about the time?” Obviously it was all about time. And him. Not about the horse or his wife.

“Some of it is about Trena selling my horse behind my back and some of it is that I happen to like that horse—my horse—and I’d like him back.” He spoke calmly, reasonably. The picture of the charming cowboy who’d been done wrong and the fact that he could stand here and pretend he cared about the horse that he’d hurt through lack of care...well, it was all she could do not to walk down the three steps that separated them and smack him a good one. For Beckett.

Liv folded her arms over her chest. “There’s something you need to understand, Matt. You might be able to charm yourself out of a multitude of situations, but you aren’t charming me. Sometimes, despite charisma and good looks, the answer is no. And that’s what it’s going to stay. No.”

He bit down on one corner of his lip before saying, “Aren’t you going to threaten me with your father again?”

“Dad’s busy cutting hay.”

“About time.”

“He’s been sick.”

“Sorry to hear that.” He didn’t sound one bit sorry and he made his lack of sympathy clear when he said, “This isn’t over, Liv. I’ll hire a lawyer.”

“Andie’s dad already advised me and he said he’ll give me all the help I need to keep Beckett.”

“He’s my horse.”

“Not according to the State of Montana.” Liv lifted her chin. “This is the last time we’re having this conversation.”

“Or?”

“I’ll call the sheriff and tell him you’re trespassing.”

“Really.” He said the word flatly, telling her he wasn’t buying in to her bluff—which meant it may not be a bluff much longer. Liv no longer allowed people like him to walk over her.

“Yes. Really. Now please leave.” Before Beckett steps out from behind that barn.

Matt’s face became cold and blank. “This isn’t over, Liv.”

“Yeah, it is. Come back again and I will call the sheriff.”

Matt turned and walked back to his truck without another word. Liv held her breath until he fired up the engine and swung the truck in Reverse.

Round two to her. She truly hoped there wouldn’t be a third round.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE SHOULD HAVE waited longer before talking to Liv, because all he’d succeeded in doing was to put her on the defensive. Again. Now he was worse off than before, and the thing that killed him was that he wasn’t by nature impulsive. He’d simply thought that she’d had time to think about the situation, what was fair, what wasn’t. Liv had always been reasonable—until now.

Stupid move.

But, as he’d told her, this wasn’t over.

When he pulled into his driveway Matt realized that his jaw was aching because his teeth were clamped so tightly together, but he made no effort to relax the taut muscles. Let his jaw ache. Maybe it would distract him from the ever present pain in his knee.

He parked the truck next to the barn then crossed the driveway to the back door, his knee throbbing with each step. Through the clear glass storm door he could see Craig sitting on the sofa, reading.

It was so damned strange to come home to someone in the house after so many solitary months. He pulled the storm door open and took all of two steps inside before he slowed to a halt, noting the evenly spaced striations across his very clean carpet.