The Bull Rider. Helen DePrima

treat myself to a piece of real New York cheesecake after the last go-round. Want to join me?”

      She agreed, and he led her out a back exit just as the last cattle truck pulled away. A few fans had lingered; one teenage girl squealed and pointed. “Tom! Can we get a picture?”

      He shrugged an apology to Jo and put his arms around the shoulders of the two girls while a third took their photo.

      Jo tapped her arm. “Want to be in the picture?” She captured a shot of Cameron with all three and handed the phone back as a young couple with two boys asked for a photo, as well.

      Ten minutes later Cameron waved goodbye to the fans and rejoined Jo. “Sorry,” he said, “but I can’t just walk on by when folks wait out in the cold.”

      A few minutes later he ushered her into a booth at the Tick Tock Diner two blocks from the Garden. “Okay,” he said after they had ordered cheesecake and coffee. “What can I do for you?”

      Now that she had Tom Cameron seated across from her, she hesitated. He seemed so self-contained that her usual pitch to vanity seemed superficial. Because her father linked them in even a small way, she honored him with the truth, or most of the truth.

      “I’m a freelance journalist,” she said. “I grew up on the stock-car racing circuit, and I’m still trying to figure out what motivates competitors like my dad. He saw friends get killed—he knew it could happen to him. I’ve interviewed athletes in other high-risk sports and followed them around and written about what I learned. I’d been planning to do a profile on a mountaineer who climbs ice cliffs, but he broke his leg...” She grinned in spite of herself. “He fell off a ladder stringing Christmas lights on the roof.”

      “Ain’t that just the way,” he said. He touched the scar on his cheek. “Nothing to do with bull riding. I was mending fence a year back when a rock turned under my boot and the barbwire whipped me across the face.”

      He laid down his fork. “So your mountain climber got shot out from under you and now you want to dissect a bull rider instead.”

      She winced at his turn of phrase. “To explore bull riding from one cowboy’s perspective. A guided tour, so to speak. After watching today, there’s no question in my mind it’s the most dangerous competitive sport going. This was my first event, but if today was typical—”

      He laughed. “Actually, today was pretty tame. Cory Brennan—he’s the rider who got carried out—he’ll be good to ride next weekend. But why did you pick me?”

      “Two reasons.” She ticked off points on her fingers. “You’re leading in the current season after coming in second for the championship twice before—I figure that makes you hungry. Plus your brother’s being one of the bullfighters is a great angle. I saw him up close when you got bucked off. Are you twins?”

      “We get asked that a lot,” he said. “Luke’s just eleven months older than me.” He scraped up the last fragments of cheesecake. “Okay, send me a list of questions—”

      She shook her head. “I do in-depth research, more than just asking questions.” She took a manila envelope from her purse. “I’ve printed a couple of my features to give you an idea of how I work.” She leaned forward and gave him her best smile. “I promise I’m not planning a hatchet job on bull riding.”

      He frowned. “This doesn’t really sound like my kind of thing—”

      “Just think about it, okay?” She took a fresh card from her wallet and wrote on the back. “Here’s my personal email address and phone number. Please read what I’ve given you and then decide.”

CHAPTER TWO

      TOM STUFFED HIS carry-on into the overhead bin and eased into his aisle seat. He’d downplayed his wreck to Jo Dace, but the bruised back muscles would probably seize up during the long flight from New York to Albuquerque. With luck, he’d be able to loosen them up in the hotel’s hot tub before he and Luke drove north to Colorado the next morning.

      Luke stuck the in-flight magazine into the seat pocket. “Deke told me you left the Garden with a woman—you gotta be careful with these big-city girls.”

      Tom snorted. “You’re warning me? I saw the blonde with you in the elevator last night.”

      Luke grinned. “You got a dirty mind, little brother. She was a physical therapist kind enough to work on my sore shoulder after that bull ran all over me. So tell me about the bunny you took off with.”

      “You’re not going to believe this—she’s Joe Dace’s daughter.”

      “Our Joe Dace? Be-damn! What’s she want?”

      Some instinct kept Tom from repeating Jo’s proposal; he wanted time to turn it over in his mind before letting Luke track all over it. “She had some questions about bull riding. This was her first event.”

      After takeoff, once Luke had reclined his seat and tipped his hat over his eyes, Tom pulled out the pages Jo Dace had given him. He began with the feature on Chris Baker, the winningest jockey currently riding. The compelling writing plus his own insider knowledge of Thoroughbred racing immediately sucked him into the article. His uncle was a track vet in California. He and Luke had visited a few times, following Uncle Tony on his rounds at the track. Jo’s account brought back the sounds and smells of the stable area as if he were handing his uncle instruments from his mobile clinic or eating his lunch with the grooms and hot walkers seated outside the horses’ stalls.

      He put the first article down and began reading about the sailor who raced solo around the world. The ocean was a foreign element to Tom aside from a few trips to the beach with his aunt. Jo’s writing dropped him squarely onto the tilting deck of the sleek racing yacht; he could almost hear sea birds’ cries and wind whistling in the rigging.

      Tom laid the pages on his lap. The lady could write, but the strength of her work depended on digging deep into her subjects’ lives. She wouldn’t settle for a few interviews and seats above the chutes at a couple of events.

      Luke levered his seat upright. “What are you reading?” He grabbed the horse racing article and read silently for a few minutes. “Say, wouldn’t Shelby like this! I’ll bet she knows some of these people.”

      “She left the Thoroughbred scene a long while back, but yeah, she probably would enjoy it.” His stepmother had spent most of her childhood at Acadia Downs in Louisiana, following at her grandfather’s heels while he cared for the horses and working as an exercise rider when she was a teenager. “I’ll have her take a look when we get home.”

      “So now Joe Dace’s daughter is interested in bull riding?”

      “I guess.” Her reasons for asking him made good sense, but he could think of a dozen riders with stories just as compelling and with more colorful personalities.

      He reclined his seat with a soft groan, trying to ease his back, and closed his eyes.

      * * *

      ROLLING NORTH THROUGH New Mexico the next morning in Luke’s Explorer lifted Tom’s spirits; turning homeward always cleared his mind. He enjoyed New York City, a world removed from his natural habitat, but the gray winter skies and slushy sidewalks always made him homesick for the clean vistas of the Southwest. He sang “Thank God I’m a Country Boy” under his breath.

      Luke glanced at him from the driver’s seat. “What are you so happy about?”

      “Just glad to be heading home. Did your physical therapist get all the kinks out of your shoulder Saturday night?”

      Luke laughed. “Oh yeah—I was real loosey-goosey by the time she left.” He sobered. “I read that other article Jo Dace wrote, the one about the sailor. If that’s her formula, she’s not looking to write about bull riding. She wants to profile a cowboy—you, right?”

      Tom