faltering, Arnie. Just aching,” Reed clarified. “If I faltered, I could never ride.”
Maybe he should just get the darn surgery and get rid of the crutches and stop wasting time.
So far, in his career, he’d managed to escape surgery. Oh, he’d had broken bones that had needed to be set and shoulders that had needed to be jammed back to where they belonged and petty stuff like that, but he’d never had real hospital surgery.
The saying went, “When you’re a bull rider, it’s when—and not if—you’ll get hurt.” He’d had his share of problems, but a lot of riders had had it a lot worse.
Chef Marty now had him grating Colby cheese.
“Do you have cilantro?” asked the chef.
“I’ll look in Inez’s garden,” Reed said.
“Can’t you send your secretary out there to get the stuff?” asked Arnie.
Reed raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Callie is not my secretary—she’s an administrative assistant and a very successful businesswoman, and I think she’s done enough to help us out here. I’ll get the cilantro, and Chef Marty can keep chopping.”
“No!” whined Arnie. “You have to do the chopping, bull rider dude.”
“Reed.”
Arnie looked around. “What’s that?”
“That’s my name,” Reed said. ”I am not a dude. Well, I am a dude, but that’s not my name.”
“Oh. Yeah. I know, dude... I mean Reed. My secretary, uh...um—my administrative assistant—” He snapped his fingers. “Louella. Louella will get it.”
Callie must have heard her name earlier because she walked into the kitchen with a handful of cilantro.
“I thought it would speed things up if I got the cilantro,” she whispered to Reed as she handed the greenery to the chef.
“That means I owe you two nights out,” Reed said.
Callie motioned with her head for him to follow her, and she picked a quiet spot away from the TV people. “That means that when everyone leaves, I can have some quiet time to work.”
Reed raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to go out with me? How about tonight?”
“Reed, thanks for asking, but I don’t have time. Tonight I have to go to my brothers’ baseball game, and I have some housework to do. Besides, I have other clients to handle other than the Beaumonts. So, no. I can’t go out with you. Thank you, anyway.”
“I’ll take you to your brothers’ game.” Callie was just about to say no when Reed added, “They’re open to the public, right?”
“You know they are.”
“Meet you there.”
“But you can’t drive, Reed.”
“Oh. That’s right.” He rubbed his chin. “If it’s not too much trouble, would you pick me up?”
“You’re... You...you are incorrigible!” She stared at him without blinking. “And this will not, I repeat not, be a date.”
Her constant rejection would have made any other man give up on her, but there was a reason for it, and he didn’t think that it all had to do with him.
When the occasion presented itself, he was going to find out what had made her so vehemently against dating him.
While the others were huddled around a monitor of some sort, Reed went into the study to retrieve his wallet. At the same time, Callie’s cell phone, which she’d left on Big Dan’s desk, rang and she hurried to answer it.
“Hi, Mom. I was just going to call you. How are you feeling?...Uh-huh. Feeling well enough to go to the twins’ baseball game?” She paused. “Okay, great! I’ll meet you at the high school then...Yes, save an extra seat...Yes, um, it’s for Reed Beaumont...No, Mom, it’s nothing like that. He just wanted to go...I don’t know why—he just does—so just save another seat if you get there before I do.”
Callie clicked her cell phone off and slipped it into her purse.
“Callie, I couldn’t help but overhearing... Is your mother doing okay?”
She took a deep breath and then let it out.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry, but it sounded like you were worried. I know the feeling. My father has me worried most of the time.”
He gave a half-hearted smile. “I remember your mother from when she was our school nurse in grammar school. I remember how she was always making sure that everyone had all their shots, and she always sent get-well cards when we had to stay home with one of those childhood diseases. I got them all—measles, mumps and chicken pox—and I received several more cards from her.”
“Mom has breast cancer again. She’s doing chemo. Doc Lansing feels that she’ll beat it this time, too. But I’m scared, Reed. The chemo is hitting her hard this time. She always hates to lose her hair, so she has a bunch of wigs. She’d have to be really bad before she missed one of the twins’ games. She went to all of them—football, baseball and basketball—unless she was horribly ill. Mom and I were so grateful when they got football scholarships. I couldn’t afford to send them to college.” She took a deep breath and looked at Reed. “What is it about you that makes me just spill my guts? I usually keep my life to myself.”
“Maybe I’m a good listener.”
“I think that’s probably true.”
Reed reached out to take Callie’s hand but then changed his mind. He thought that she wouldn’t welcome the contact. “Or maybe you’re just feeling overwhelmed. I mean, just look at this mess. I feel like I should help you more, not only just answering my fan mail.”
“I hired on for this job, Reed. It means everything to me. With the Beaumont account, I’ll be in more demand and I can provide for my family more.
“Good for you.” Reed knew how she felt, being able to help her family, and admired her to no end. He’d had the same feelings when he was able to help save his family’s ranch from both the auction block and Hurricane Daphne. Well, actually, the Daphne work continued.
“Hey! Hey, bull rider, Reed! Are you ready to begin again?” Arnie’s usually thin voice was exceptionally loud. “Let’s get going, please.”
Callie smiled. “Cowboy up, Reed. The cooking show must go on.”
He was reluctant to leave her when they’d had a good conversation going. “I’m making grilled ham and cheese on a tortilla with fresh salsa. If I don’t burn everything, we can eat what I make. So, how about dining with me before the game?”
Callie looked like she knew when she was beat. “Okay, cowboy. I’ll dine with you.”
Finally!
Reed chuckled. “Can we call it a date?”
“No!”
“I’m going to keep asking you, Callie. From what I can tell, you seem to need a little fun in your life.”
Her usually lush lips transformed into a thin white line. “And you’re just the cowboy to provide the fun, huh?”
“I can try.”
“You can try, but you won’t get far.”
Reed winked. “We’ll see about that.”
* * *
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, just when she was getting into designing a spreadsheet, Callie’s cell phone rang. She saw that it was Big Dan’s probation officer, Matty Matthews. Matty had been two years ahead of her in high school and was coached her brothers in basketball.
“Matty