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“Lyric—”
“Stay out of this, Bullet,” she snarled at him, and then turned back to King. “You find some buckle bunnies to polish your spurs that night?”
The fact that King didn’t answer wasn’t helping Bullet’s cause. He had a hell of a lot to drink that night, and there were bits and pieces of it that he didn’t remember. He was damn sure he didn’t have sex with anyone, though. Not Tristan, and not anyone else.
1981
“It’s a boy,” said the doctor, handing the baby to a nurse who wrapped him in a blanket and took him to the other side of the room. “I’ll just get him cleaned up a little,” she told them.
Bill had witnessed heifers and horses giving birth, even a goat, but watching his own dear wife suffer through labor was almost more than he could bear. He’d held her hand, rubbed her back, and fetched her ice chips and a cool damp cloth to soothe her brow.
“We have a boy,” Dottie beamed at him.
How could anyone look this beautiful, this happy, after what she’d just endured? Bill didn’t know. She’d been his hero since the day he met her, but today, Dottie was superwoman.
The nurse brought the little blanketed bundle back over and handed him to Dottie. “Look, Bill, isn’t he beautiful?”
Bill was looking at the two most beautiful people he’d ever seen in his life; his wife and his son.
“What should we name him?”
Tears ran down Bill’s cheeks, and he couldn’t speak. Dottie held the bundle with one hand and with the other, reached for Bill.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m okay. And the baby is perfect.”
Bill looked up at the nurse who nodded her head. “He’s perfect,” she concurred.
Bill closed his eyes and said a prayer. God had kept watch over his wife and his baby. They were both okay. Better than okay; they were perfect. He opened his eyes and looked up. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“I think we should name him William Flynn Patterson, Junior,” said Dottie.
“That’s a right beautiful name, sweetheart,” Bill answered.
He looked up again and closed his eyes. He’d never, ever forget his promise. And he’d never, ever compete in another rodeo.
22
“I understand, sweetheart,” her father said. “But you simply don’t have a choice.”
“If I were sick, I’d have a choice.”
Her father folded his arms. “You’re not sick.”
“Daddy, please. I can’t go.”
“I’ve said it once, twice, three times, and I won’t say it again after right now. You have commitments, Tristan. And you will honor them. I don’t care if there’s one or twenty cowboys you don’t want to see at the NFR. There are people counting on you t
o be there. And you will not let them down.”
They’d had this argument at least once a day for the last week. Tristan tried everything she could think of to get out of going to Las Vegas for the PRCA National Finals Rodeo. Her father wouldn’t hear any of it.
It had been almost two months since she’d talked to anyone from Flying R Rough Stock other than Liv, who promised she’d let everyone know how hard Tristan was working to have more of the line ready to present in Las Vegas.
If Lyric or Bullet called, and they did often, she ignored the call. If it wasn’t from a number she knew, she ignored that call too.
She’d apologized to Liv twenty times or more about missing the press conference as well as her other commitments at the PBR Finals.
“We covered it,” she told her each time Tristan brought it up, and then told her to let it go and quit worrying about it. It was done and there was nothing they could do to go back and change it.
