Good Time Girl

She was now as ready as she would ever be.

It was time to go get herself a good-looking, dangerous cowboy.

1

“WELL, I’M HERE to tell you, sugar, rodeo cowboys are a whole hell of a lot of fun but they’re the most irresponsible sons o’ bitches in the world when it comes to women. You can’t trust ’em any farther than you can throw ’em, and you sure as hell can’t believe a word they say. Especially the good-lookin’ ones. They’re the most dangerous kind, you know, ’cause they’ve been gettin’ by on looks and charm their whole lives and they got it down to a science. I’m tellin’ you the pure honest-to-God truth here, sugar. You got to keep an extra sharp eye on the good-lookin’ ones or you’ll get your poor little heart broke for sure.”

Roxanne Archer heard those cautionary words of advice echo through her mind as she pulled into one of the few remaining parking spaces in front of Ed Earl’s Polynesian Dance Palace, and resolutely reaffirmed her decision not to let the dire warnings of one crusty old ex-barrel racer from San Antonio put a damper on her quest.

She was going to get herself a cowboy.

A good-looking one.

The most dangerous kind.

If she got her heart broken in the process, well, so be it. It was no more than she expected, in any case. And a broken heart had to be better than one that had shriveled up from disuse. Not to mention a few other body parts that were in imminent danger of dehydration from prolonged neglect.

She turned off the ignition of her rented candy-apple-red Mustang convertible and sat there for a moment, her fingers still clasping the key, her foot on the parking brake, staring blindly at the flock of pulsating pink-neon flamingos atop the roof of Ed Earl’s, and contemplated the series of events—the series of non-events, actually—that had brought her to a cowboy honky-tonk on the outskirts of Lubbock, Texas, in the middle of her summer vacation. It was simple, really.

Roxanne Archer had been a good girl—a very good girl—for the entire twenty-nine, uneventful years of her life. She wanted to take a crack at being a good-time girl before it was too late. If it wasn’t already too late. She’d been mired in good-girlness an awfully long time, and it was an awfully deep rut to climb out of—even with the help of a dangerous, good-looking cowboy.

Provided, of course, that she actually managed to get herself one.

“I just won’t go home until I get him,” she muttered stubbornly, and reached up to flip open the lighted makeup mirror in the visor so she could check her lipstick—glossy candy-apple red like the car—and make sure her hair hadn’t blown all to pieces on her drive over from the Broken Spoke Motel. It had. But as promised by the young woman who’d cut it for her in Dallas just two days ago, being blown all to pieces had only improved the style. Roxanne smiled at herself, delighted by the chunky, layered cut that tangled with her eyelashes and caressed the back of her neck with such reckless abandon.

It was amazing what a new hairdo could do for a woman. Not to mention a new shade of lipstick. And new clothes. Especially when each and every item of those new clothes—right down to the leopard-print bikini panties and matching push-up demi bra—were so radically different from what said woman usually wore.

Feeling wild and wicked and blessedly unlike her usual boring self, Roxanne pushed the car door open, swung her feet out onto the graveled parking lot, straightened up to her full five feet nine inches…and teetered precariously as the high, stacked heels of her brand-new, lipstick-red Sweetheart of the Rodeo cowboy boots sank into the rocky, uneven surface. She made a hasty grab for the top of the car door to steady herself, wondering if maybe the high-heeled boots had been a mistake. She always wore flats at home, or sensible pumps with little one-inch heels so she didn’t tower over people—men—any more than necessary.

But, then, no, she told herself firmly, good-time girls didn’t wear sensible shoes, whether they towered over people or not.

And, besides, she’d always wanted a pair of red cowboy boots, ever since she was a little girl growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut, secretly dreaming about riding the range as a dangerous outlaw queen like Belle Starr or Cat Ballou. Although it didn’t actually say so in any of the books she’d read, she’d been absolutely positive an outlaw queen would wear red cowboy boots. She’d gathered up her courage and asked her mother for a pair.

Charlotte Hayworth Archer had lectured her nine-year-old daughter about her poor choice of role models and footwear, then bought her proper brown leather riding boots and a proper English saddle and signed her up for proper riding lessons, no doubt believing all that wholesome, healthful propriety would rechannel Roxanne’s interests and ambitions in a more socially acceptable direction.

Which it had.

Sort of.

Roxanne learned to keep her admiration for unconventional women to herself, and she never mentioned her desire for red boots again.

After a while, she almost forgot she’d ever wanted them. Dressage riders didn’t wear fancy red boots, nor did honor students or members of the debate team or the Latin club, and certainly no class valedictorian had ever pranced across the stage to the podium in red boots. A cheerleader might, of course, or a member of the drama club, but Roxanne was too tall and too inhibited and…well, just too plain geeky to belong to either of those cliques. A girl like Roxanne had been during her high school years—tall, gangly, scholarly, shy—would never wear or do or say anything to attract attention to herself. It got to be a habit, and Roxanne passed out of her awkward teens and into her marginally less awkward twenties without attracting any undue notice from anyone.

Shortly after her twenty-fourth birthday she became one half of a mature adult relationship with another teacher at the exclusive private school were she taught English Lit and beginning Latin to fifth graders, but she never really attracted his attention, either. Not completely. In the three years they spent together as a couple, he never once remembered how she liked her coffee—a half a spoonful of sugar, damn it!—or noticed that she faked her orgasms.

Which, in a roundabout way, was the reason she was standing in front of a cowboy honky-tonk outside of Lubbock, Texas, in the middle of her summer vacation, wearing red cowboy boots and the shortest, tightest skirt she’d ever worn in her life.

Roxanne Archer was finally ready to call some attention to herself, to cut loose, to kick over the traces, to take a walk on the wild side and find out what all the shouting was about. In the immortal words of Auntie Mame—another admirably unconventional woman with a flamboyant fashion sense—Roxanne was ready to “live, live, live!”

For the duration of her vacation, anyway.

She let go of the car door, then reached down with both hands—freshly manicured with glossy fire-engine-red polish instead of her usual tasteful French manicure—and carefully smoothed her sweaty palms over the curve of her hips to make sure her tiny denim skirt was still covering everything it was supposed to cover.

Someone whistled appreciatively

Roxanne started at the unexpected sound, her body stiffening instinctively, as if to ward off a threat or an insult. And then, deliberately, remembering her mission, she forced herself to relax. She’d dressed to attract attention, hadn’t she? Well, she’d attracted attention. Now she just had to figure out what to do with it.

She turned her head slightly, glancing over her shoulder, and flashed what she hoped was a saucy smile at her admirer.

The response was immediate. And immensely gratifying.

He puffed up like a rooster and swaggered toward her with the loose-limbed, bow-legged gait of a man who’d spent a lot of time on a horse. “Well, hey, there, baby doll,” he crooned appreciatively as he honed in on her.

He was six foot four, at least, with shoulders like a bull, a trophy buckle the size of a pancake decorating his belt, and a smile as wide and open as a Texas prairie beaming out at her from under the rim of a cream-colored Stetson. An honest-to-goodness cowboy. Good-looking, too, in an open, aw-shucks, country boy sort of way that, unfortunately, wasn’t the least bit dangerous.

Roxanne had her heart firmly set on dangerous.

Still, a cowboy was a cowboy, even if he had freckles and a snub nose. And she could certainly use the practice. She fluttered her eyelashes experimentally.

“Hey, yourself, sugar,” she drawled. Her accent was a near perfect imitation of the San Antonio barrel racer who had warned her against trusting cowboys. The flirtatious tilt of her head was the result of two weeks’ worth of close observation and diligent practice in front of a mirror. Amazingly, it worked.

The cowboy swaggered a bit closer and leaned in, putting one big, beefy hand on the open car door. The mingled scents of horses, saddle soap and a musky men’s cologne, liberally applied, engulfed her. “You here alone, baby doll?”

Roxanne stifled the urge to take a quick step backward, out of range of that too strong cologne and the unfamiliar burden of his undivided attention. It was what she would have done. Before. Now, she shut the car door with a sassy little thrust of her hip, dislodging his hand, and gave him what she hoped was a provocative look from under the fringe of her chunky blond bangs. “I’m meeting someone inside.”

“Girlfriend?” he said, looking so much like an eager, oversize puppy that Roxanne couldn’t help but smile at him again.

“Boyfriend.” She touched the manicured tip of her index finger to the center of his massive chest and pushed lightly, backing him up. “And he’s real jealous, sugar, so I’d be careful if I were you.”

The cowboy’s grin widened. “I’m willing to take a chance if you are, baby doll. We could run away together before he even knows you’re here. My truck’s right over there.”

Roxanne laughed and shook her head, causing her tousled flyaway cut to shimmer in the pink neon glow of the flock of flamingos gracing the roof of Ed Earl’s. “I wouldn’t want your death on my conscience, sugar. But thanks for the invitation.” She sighed regretfully. “It was a real sweet offer and if I wasn’t otherwise engaged, I’d be tempted.” She batted her eyelashes again for good measure. “I really would.”

She patted his chest and turned away, tucking the car key into the pocket of her stretch denim skirt as she sauntered across the parking lot—slowly, because of the unaccustomed height of her boot heels and the graveled surface beneath her feet. The careful pace made her hips sway seductively, in a way they never did in her usual flats.

“Man, oh, man,” she heard him say reverently, and she slowed down even more, exaggerating the fluid movement of her hips, enjoying the moment, reveling in her unexpected success.

Oh, it had been so easy! Who would have ever believed it would be so easy?

With a triumphant, self-satisfied smile tugging at the corners of her glossy red lips, Roxanne pulled open the front door of Ed Earl’s Polynesian Dance Palace and sashayed in like she owned the place.

It was as if she had stepped into another world and—like Dorothy torn from her black-and-white life and thrust over the rainbow into a brilliantly colored Oz—she could only stand there and blink in stupefied amazement. It was loud, smoky, and tacky. Unapologetically, unrepentantly, gloriously tacky.

Chinese paper lanterns were strung from life-size wooden cutouts shaped like palm trees. Brightly colored plastic fish dangled from the ceiling. Bedraggled fisherman’s netting, studded with glass floats, striped beach balls and pink plastic flamingos of various sizes, was draped across the walls. Gyrating hula dolls—the kind found on the dashboards of cars of people with questionable taste—decorated each table. The wait staff wore gaudy Hawaiian Aloha shirts and paper flower leis with their Wranglers and boots. The four members of the twanging cowboy band stood on a small, raised stage constructed to look like a log raft. The crowded dance floor was huge, kidney-shaped and painted a vivid blue. Roxanne’s cocky smile faltered a bit as she watched the dancers’ whirling, skipping, kicking progress around the scuffed blue floor.

Dancing had never been her strong suit. Not that she didn’t love to dance. She did. But girls who were five feet nine inches tall by the time they were thirteen, especially girls who were brainy and wore glasses, too, didn’t get much opportunity to learn all the latest dance moves. Her mother had insisted she learn all the standard ballroom dances, of course—and what a wretched embarrassment those lessons had been, being waltzed around the room by an unwilling partner whose head barely reached her chin!—but she’d never danced any of the popular dances all the kids her age were doing back in high school. Not in public, anyway.

Determined not to be left out this time around, she’d secretly taken a six-week series of dance lessons in preparation for her Wild West adventure, but none of the half a dozen country-western dances she’d so painstakingly learned bore more than a passing resemblance to the bewildering series of steps currently being performed on the floor of Ed Earl’s Polynesian Dance Palace. Obviously, her instructors—a fresh-faced young preppie couple in matching pastel plaid shirts—had never been in a Texas honky-tonk. Or six weeks of lessons hadn’t been nearly enough. Either way, she couldn’t possibly—