Christine Wenger - Lassoed into Marriage

Huh? There wouldn’t be any time for that! He raised an eyebrow at Lisa. “We’ll leave as soon as Aunt Lisa is ready.”

“I just need to lock up the house, and that’s it,” she said. Her face was flushed, maybe from slogging everything, but Sully liked to think that she was excited to go on the trip.

That would be a change for her—being excited about something.

She dropped an armload of groceries on the table. “You could have helped, you know.”

“I was securing everything,” he said. “Can’t have all those plastic boxes flying around.”

“I’ll do it. I’ll do everything.” She rolled her eyes, turned and left the RV.

What was her problem?

He shrugged it off, hoping that everything would go well on this trip. If it did, maybe he could convince her to travel to the next stop on the bull riding circuit.

He’d have to get through this trip to Florida first.

Lisa didn’t seem to be the camping type, although traveling in a motor home was a step up from camping. He thought of camping as backpacking or pitching a tent. A motor home was luxury camping.

But he still wondered how he and Lisa would get along. They were superficially being nice to one another for the sake of Rose, but Sully knew that underneath their façade they were one word away from an argument.

But slowly Lisa was growing on him. He saw how sad she was over losing her sister. She’d sit on the garden bench and stare endlessly at the note from Carol and Rick, still not opening it.

Sometimes, he’d wanted to sit next to her and say a couple of comforting words, but then he decided that his sympathy wouldn’t be welcome. Instead, he’d rope the statue, think and watch her out of the corner of his eye, pretending he didn’t know she was crying.

He liked how she read books to Rose. She pointed to the pictures, asking her questions, and got her to make up her own stories.

He liked how she tried to cook, too. He saw the recipes she’d printed out from the Young Cooks website. Basic stuff. He supposed he ought to roll up his sleeves and do some cooking—he didn’t mind at all—but he didn’t want to seem like a know-it-all. She was doing fine.

Lisa climbed up the steps of the RV. “I think we’re ready to go now. Oh-nine-thirty hours. Just as scheduled.”

He didn’t remember insisting on a time or a schedule.

“Then let’s roll! Everyone buckle up.” He pointed to the table with bench seats. “You can sit there, or someone can sit in the copilot’s seat.”

Lisa slid into the bench seat and Rose slid in opposite her. They both clicked on their seat belts.

He guessed that he’d be traveling without a copilot.

Nice and quiet. That was the way he liked it. Right?

This isn’t a bad way to travel , Lisa thought as she tucked Rose into bed. She liked how the sides of the bed/kitchen table formed a barrier and secured Rose from rolling off. Traveling with a bathroom was another good perk.

But it still didn’t beat flying.

Her cell phone rang, and she looked at the caller. It was her friend Luann at JFW Aviation. She was in charge of booking charters.

Her heart began to race and the blood started zinging through her veins at the thought of flying again. It had been too long.

“Hi, Luann! Got something for me?”

“Yeah, I do. I have a charter of high rollers going from Albany to Vegas. This would be perfect for you since you’re somewhat near Albany already. It’s just a quickie. You’ll be back in three days.”

“You want me to stay in Vegas?”

“Sure. It doesn’t make sense for me to fly you back commercial and then send you back again the next day just so you can fly the charter back.”

But she’d be gone for three days.

“When?” Lisa asked, pulling her appointment book and a pen from her purse. No electronics for her when it came to her appointments.

“Okay, got it.” Lisa wrote down the information and blocked out the dates. “Should be no problem, but I’ll let you know for sure. Thanks, Luann.”

She was going to fly again! As she hurried toward the front of the RV to tell Sully, she felt like she was walking on sunshine.

Wait! A cloud blocked her sun when she remembered that the dates for the charter fell on a weekend. She’d told Sully that she’d fly during the week so he could ride on weekends. Now what? She didn’t want to turn down her first charter, and it’d be round trip from Albany. Just what she’d wanted.

She had to discuss it with Sully.

Taking the passenger’s seat, she turned toward him. “Where are we?”

“Pennsylvania. We’re not as far as I thought. I forgot that Molly had to be walked, and I didn’t know that Snowball would be barfing up hairballs.”

“I’m the one cleaning up cat barf,” she said. “Not you.”

“And I’m the one walking around with plastic bags picking up dog poop.”

Lisa chuckled. “I never thought I’d ever be doing this.”

“Me, either.” He picked up a bottle of water and took a big draw.

“Thank goodness we don’t have to follow Rose around with a plastic bag,” Lisa said.

Sully spewed his water all over the windshield and the front of his light blue shirt. His laughter bounced around the motor home. Lisa joined in.

When they both sobered up, they fell silent. Lisa watched the lines on the road flash by, and she was beginning to drift off to sleep. She yawned, then pinched her top lip to wake herself up.

“How about if I relieve you for a while?” she asked.

“You’re too tired to drive.”

“I guess I am. When can we quit?”

Sully pointed to the sign on the left that said “Sleepy Bear Campgrounds and RV Park.”

“We can quit just as soon as I get a site and hook up the RV.”

She yawned again. “Good.”

He pulled the rig in front of the office, put the RV in Park and hurried down the steps behind Lisa’s seat. “I’ll be right back.”

Lisa closed her tired eyes, thinking that she’d talk to Sully in the morning about the charter flight.

She must have dozed off because the next thing she heard was Sully talking on his cell.

“Of course I’ll be there, Chet. Wouldn’t miss it. Sure. I’ll be glad to sign autographs at the Boot Yard. What’s the date again? Got it. That’s the Anaheim event? Two weeks from this weekend? Got it. No problem.”

And she hadn’t told Sully about it yet. Now he’d committed to an autograph signing.

Lisa sighed. If she remembered correctly what Sully had told her, the next event was the one event at which some cowboys would be dropped from the tour if they had low scores. Others would replace them. It was important for Sully to ride. He was high enough in the rankings to not worry about being dropped, but other riders were hot on his tail, trying to pass him in the standings. If a rider had a good day in the go-rounds, anything could happen.

She and Rose weren’t going to follow Sully around like a couple of buckle bunnies. Rose needed stability, and that meant the big Victorian, not a home on wheels where she slept on the converted kitchen table for weeks at a time.

So far, Rose was having the time of her life. While Sully was driving, they’d played games, colored and put together puzzles on the table. She wanted Rose to have fun on this trip, to be a little girl without a care in the world, and so did Sully.

Now they were stopping at a park where there was an indoor pool, and Rose had put on her bathing suit fifty miles away in anticipation.

It was only seven-thirty at night, but all Lisa wanted to do was sleep. Yet it was time to be a mother and take Rose to the pool for a while.

She sure hoped that Sully brought his bathing suit, too.

Bonding. Wasn’t that what she’d wanted on this trip?