Rider’s Block

5. Chapter Five

Chapter five

"I'm in a Hurry to Get Things Done," Alabama Band

D espite my vehement and rather lengthy protest, Nancy arranges for Dean and Eric to escort me to town to get my tire taken care of.

I tried, I really did, but Nancy is a force to be reckoned with. I’m quick to realize when I’m fighting a losing battle, and I can’t think of a scenario where I’ll come out the victor of any argument with Nancy, so best to go along with it.

The first night in my little cottage was…peaceful. The level of quiet is something I’m going to have to get used to. My home in California isn’t loud by normal standards but compared to being surrounded by hundreds of acres of open plains, I could hear myself thinking a little too much. But the stars… those are worth it. I stepped out on my patio for a bit, and I’ve never seen so many in my life. With no light pollution for miles, I could finally see all of those constellations people go on and on about. Like the vastness of the ocean or the plains, a sky so open makes you feel small. Unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

I stayed out there for only a few minutes before the chill set in and I went inside to work on my book. I can spend more time appreciating the stars later, but work needs to be done. Being in Colorado for less than twenty-four hours makes my book already feel off.

This morning I’m paying for my late-night work session. If I were going into town by myself , I would saunter in around the respectable hour of 9 a.m. to grab some coffee, explore the area for enough time to kill before grabbing lunch and heading back. Nancy informed me—in no uncertain terms—that I’m to report for dinner every night with the rest of the crew while I’m here.

But since I’m not going by myself and on my own terms, I’m rolling out of bed at 6:30 a.m. because the brothers told me to be ready by 7 a.m. so we could be at the shop by 8 a.m. ( right as they open! Naturally! ) so they could get on with the rest of their workday.

As predicted, at 7 a.m. on the dot, a booming knock comes from my door. If I wasn’t already awake, I would be now. I open the door to a characteristically grumpy-looking Eric, Dean right behind him with a smile beaming way too brightly for anyone to have a right to at this hour. I’m not a morning person. They evidently are.

“Morning, sunshine,” Dean says, still stuck behind Eric’s shoulder. “I brought you some coffee.” He steps around Eric to hand me a piping hot cup of coffee, and at this hour with this lack of sleep, I’m eternally grateful. I grab it and take a sip, closing my eyes to let the caffeine sink in a bit. Gut health be damned.

“Thank you, Dean, you just got yourself on my nice list.” I look up from my coffee to see his smirk turn mischievous.

“Huh, guess I owe you five bucks, Eric. She didn’t even flinch.”

“What?” I ask, looking between the two of them.

“That’s a pretty strong brew there, West Coast. I thought you’d be a sugary milk-from-anything-but-a-cow with a splash of coffee kind of gal. Guess I was wrong.”

“So, this was a test?”

“Of sorts.”

“Not a peace offering?”

“Coffee is always a peace offering.”

“Not when a bet is attached to it,” I say with a wink. “Sorry to make you lose, but occupational hazard. I don’t have time for weak coffee when I’ve got a deadline I need to hit.”

“Noted. Ready to go?”

I mourn the loss of my morning smoothie, nod, and walk past the two brothers and over to my car, but Eric beats me to the driver’s side door. “I’ll be driving your car; you ride with Dean.” His voice is all gravelly in the morning, and it works a little too well with his whole grumpy aura.

“I can drive my car alright.” I try to get past him, but he doesn’t budge.

“Not on these roads with a spare tire that thin. I’ll be driving.”

“No, sir, I will be driving.” I spit that out with more gusto than I realize, but something about his tone riles me up.

Dean must see that both of us are immovable on the subject and jumps in. “How about this, Amelia, you drive the truck and get a feel for the roads. Eric, since you’re being your usual stubborn ass this morning, you can ride with her and make sure she doesn’t wreck your truck, and I’ll drive her car to town. Sound good?”

Eric seems to find no flaw in the plan, despite his mulling it over for a few seconds before he finally says a less-than-enthusiastic “fine” and climbs in the passenger side of his truck. I climb into the driver’s seat, reveling in the size of the car. I love big cars. I love being the biggest car on the road, and this truck most certainly fits the ticket.

“You sure you can handle this?”

I try to hold back my eye roll and answer in an even tone, “Yes, I prefer driving bigger cars, actually.”

“Yes, but what you consider to be a big car in California is not the same as a big car here.”

“I drive a ninety-nine lifted Land Cruiser back home.”

He pauses for a split second, and I distinctly hear him under his breath mumble, “That’s not this big.”

“It’s not the size of the machine but the way you drive it, right?” I ask with a smirk as I back out the truck and turn it down the lane. “I hate small cars, it’s been a while since I’ve driven one, so I forgot they don’t get the same traction, alright? I don’t normally fishtail. I drive on the beach at least once a week back home.”

Pacified by my comment, he goes silent for the first five minutes of the drive. But he does nothing to hide his prying eyes. He’s checking my speed, watching the RPM, telling me where to turn in poorly timed grunts and jabs with his thumb.

Since I have to be here for a while and, apparently, over for dinner every night, I don’t want to have to deal with prolonged grumpy attitudes. I can try and make friends with him, right? At least if not friends, we can be somewhat cordial?

“So, the coffee… You won the bet, then?”

“I was just trying to get Dean to shut up.”

“At least you got five bucks out of it.” I look over to see him shrug. That’s it. But I wasn’t going to give up. “Christine says you rodeo?”

“Yep.”

“What do you do?”

“Saddle Bronc.”

“What’s that?”

“Exactly what it sounds like, I ride a bucking horse with a saddle for eight seconds.”

I can’t imagine why anyone would voluntarily do that. It sounds painful. “Is that the same as bull riding?”

He looks at me from under his hat for a second before saying a flat, “No.”

“Alright, do you do any other events or just the one?”

“I’ll team rope with Trevor or Dean every once in a while.”

“What’s team roping like?” I ask. I read about it when I did my research and watched a few videos, but that’s it.

“For someone who’s supposedly writing a book about this, you sure don’t know anything.” His tone does nothing to hide how irritating he finds my game of twenty questions.

“That’s why I’m here,” I mumble out because he’s right. That one comment is enough to shut me up for the rest of the ride. He doesn’t have to be rude about it. I know I wrote this book outside of my normal routine. I know I didn’t do enough research. I get it. But I don’t need the asshole next to me making me feel bad about it, too.

The rest of the ride is silent. I try to turn on the radio but quickly realize I don’t know any of the stations and his pre-sets aren’t set. Eric does nothing to hide his eye roll as he sets the station to country music, and I don’t hide back my eye roll at his selection of music. This isn’t my style, but I doubt there’s a station I like out here.

He continues his grunt-direction-giving, and I continue to drive in silence. But even that amount of effort to acknowledge my existence seems to be more than he can handle. By the time we’re turning onto Main Street, I’ve settled just fine into his silent treatment and am at liberty to take in the town in peace.

I didn’t expect it to be this far of a drive from the ranch, but tucked out in seemingly the middle of nowhere is the thriving almost-Mayberry I’d always dreamed existed. I didn’t get much of a chance to look at it on my way in, but now that I’m driving down Main Street I get a better look at the town. Fort Collins is adorable and modern all at the same time. I’m in a bit of shock as we pass restaurant after restaurant with trendy fonts I’m accustomed to seeing back home, patio sets I could seriously spend some time in, and so many clothing shops I’m momentarily left speechless.

He motions to an auto shop off of Main Street and I pull up behind Dean in my car. He hops out of my comically small front seat. I didn’t realize just how small my stupid rental is until I saw a Randall brother standing next to it, but it might as well be a clown car. I hop down myself to go talk to the mechanic, even though what’s needed should be pretty straightforward. Before I can reach the man, who came out of the front door, Dean beats me to it.

“The lady here just needs her tire replaced, and you should probably make sure everything looks good under there. Could be a rock or two wedged where it shouldn’t be.” The mechanic finally turns to me and holds out his hand.

“Name’s Sean, this should take about an hour. That sound alright?”

“That’s perfect, thank you.” I shake his hand and turn around to see the two brothers conversing in hushed tones. It doesn’t take a genius to put together the fact that they’re probably talking about me, but I give them the courtesy of beating them to the punch. “You two go ahead, I’ll be just fine. We passed a coffee shop I can hunker down in. I don’t need a babysitter.”

“You sure?” Dean asks from next to Eric, who continues to treat me like I’m the biggest burden in the world.

“Positive. I’m sure you have a busy day ahead of you, and I’ve already taken a lot of your time.”

“If you say so, darlin’,” Dean says with a wink.

“We’ll walk you to the shop, at least,” Eric adds in a no-nonsense tone and turns on his heel back toward Main Street.

“He speaks,” I whisper as he crosses a decent distance away. Dean hears me though and sends a smirk in my direction.

“Eric’s a good guy, just takes him a while to warm up to people.”

“I gathered. He doesn’t seem all that thrilled to have me here.”

“Well, I’ll shoot you straight. You’ve been here all of forty-eight hours, and you’re already the biggest distraction we’ve had all season.” The smile doesn’t leave his face, so I know he doesn’t mean it as a criticism, but my face reacts all the same.

“It’s the damn car, if I’d known—”

“No, no, sweetheart, not that kind of distraction. You’re all the guys could talk about after dinner. It’s rare to get such a pretty, fresh face around.”

“Oh…”

“But don’t worry, we’ll keep them at bay.” He winks again, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not. “Eric just bears the brunt of what goes on at the ranch, and when people start slacking, it pisses him off.”

“That sounds a bit tyrannical.”

“It is, but we know where it comes from.”

“What’s that?”

“He was in an accident a while back and he woke up changed, that’s all. A little more serious, a lot more focused, and a lot less willing to put up with pretty distractions.”

“Ah.” That’s twice that he’s referred to me as pretty in the last two minutes, and I know I’m blushing not from him saying it, but from the fact that he’s implying Eric might find me to be more than a nuisance. “But don’t worry, I’ve got your back.” Then looking at the sign ahead of me, he stops and points. “Here we are!”

Eric appears beside us and looks me up and down, and I find it a little less irritating. I’ve got a soft spot for people who’ve gone through bad experiences. I can’t help it, I’m a writer. I might even collect his situation to use one day. His edge is still irritating to me, but now that I understand a little bit more, I won’t be as offended by it. Especially if he thinks I’m pretty. Am I still blushing? Surely, I’m not still blushing.

“Give us a call if anything goes wrong, alright?” Eric simply says as he hands me an actual business card. Like a real-life, printed on paper the size to fit in my wallet, straight out of the nineties honest-to-God business card.

“Do you want my AIM handle, too?” I joke, but once again it falls flat on Eric, but Dean lets out a buffered chuckle. “I’ll be fine, but thank you.” I tuck his card in my back pocket, wave goodbye, and head into the coffee shop.

I expected to spend my time in Northern Colorado hunkered in my rental, relying on my hotspot and praying to get internet however I could. I did not, under any circumstance, expect to be sitting in a swanky coffee shop with mid-century decor, almond milk lattes galore, eating a rosemary cheddar scone while cruising through fiber-powered Wi-Fi.

The first thing I do when I realize how powerful the Wi-Fi is running is dig into rodeo events. I read about them, I watched YouTube videos, but I thought the only one worth spending extra time on was bull riding. It seemed to be the main event. And looking at it further, it is, but for showmanship. The more I dig into the other events, the more I read about the parallels of using the skills in operating a ranch. I’m particularly intrigued by Saddle Bronc. I never really put much thought into the idea of taking a horse and getting it to a place where it willingly accepts a human rider. Now that I think of it, it’s kind of ridiculous. Taking an animal of that size and getting it to do your bidding is crazy.

I’m knee-deep in reading about the training process when a herd of girls walks into the coffee shop. I’ve only been seated for fifteen minutes, but based on their conversation apparently the Randall brothers are still in the vicinity.

“…no, he hasn’t dated anyone since it happened,” a tall brunette in a pair of Converses whispers to her friend.

“That’s crazy! Anyone would kill to go out on a date with him.”

“I know, but he turns them all down. Dean, on the other hand…he goes on a date every other weekend.”

“Yeah, but just the one. Mary went out with him once and said it was the best date of her life, and after he politely kissed her goodnight, he informed her he’d like to keep their friendship just as it is.”

“No!” This exclamation came from a petite redhead in workout clothes that are too perfect to break a sweat in.

“I know! I can’t believe Trevor is the only Randall to settle down. It’s a shame, really.”

“There’s always Vegas…” This comment comes from another, shorter blonde and she wiggles her eyes mischievously at the comment.

“The dream. I’d marry either one, Vegas or not. I don’t even care which one.”

“I think I’d take Eric. He’s such a Mr. Darcy. So broody and handsome and responsible…”

Their chatter dies down as they hit the counter and make their orders. I’m surprised by the lack of denim I’m seeing. I know I’m stereotyping, and maybe that’s the problem. I assumed cowboy culture to be exclusive in and of itself, almost like a time capsule. Looking around, I couldn’t have been more wrong. Sure, there are horse and cattle motifs peppered around this town, but this coffee shop alone proves I made some pretty mighty assumptions with my book.

It’s almost disappointing. There’s a romance behind a culture that’s not touched by society, but the group of girls in front of me alone are all dressed in the same brands I see plastered all over my own social media feeds in California. Are there any corners of the world untouched by globalism?

Before I can send myself into a spiral of universal doom, which sounds way too dramatic for my liking, I launch myself back into rodeo research. After hearing the girls talk about Vegas, I look a little more into the event. The process of qualifying looks pretty straightforward. You have to be a part of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) to make it to the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) and I’m already so many acronyms deep my head is starting to hurt. It’s a points system earned at qualifying rodeos, and I’m already itching to see one in person.

Absurdly, the first thing I think about, however, is that I have zero things to wear that wouldn’t make me stick out like a sore thumb when attending a rodeo. So even though I have so much to do, and my car should be ready in the next thirty minutes… I decide to go shopping.