Thankful For You

“One of those cowboys a boyfriend?”

Tom rested his boot on the bottom slat of the fence. “Dallas isn’t the kind to get pinned down. She’s never let anything interfere with barrel racin’.”

Dallas cantered by, and even though he knew that she saw him, her focus was entirely on her horse.

“She’s ready, Ketch.”

Tom pulled a stopwatch out of the pocket of his blue-and-white-checkered shirt.

“Watch this,” Tom said to Nick.

Dallas cantered out of the arena, made a small circle and then halted at the arena entrance to wait for Tom’s signal. Dallas’s horse pranced in place, anxious to race toward the first of the three barrels placed in a triangle pattern. Once Tom gave her the signal, the rowdy cowboys quieted while Dallas galloped full throttle toward the first barrel. As Dallas rounded the first barrel, Nick heard her yell “Ho” to the mare. Once around the first barrel, Dallas urged her swift-footed gelding to gallop the short distance to the second barrel.

“Ho!” Dallas’s voice was sharp and crisp and commanding.

“Now she’ll head for the money barrel,” Tom explained.

Once Dallas rounded the third barrel, all the cowboys started to cheer and wave their hats in the air. Tom stopped the stopwatch and looked at the time.

“I’ve seen her do better.” He shook his head before he gestured for Dallas to go again. “Give her more leg when you go around the last barrel, Dallas! You’re losing a ton of time letting her drift so much!”

Now Nick understood why Dallas drew a crowd—she was a dynamic, risky rider who was sexy as hell to watch.

“Can I give you a word of advice, son?” Tom asked without looking at him directly. “Never try to corner somethin’ that’s meaner than you.”

Chapter Two (#uaf8c1d78-9760-5724-92b3-140b87c16959)

Nick hadn’t been the only man to stay until Dallas was done with her barrel racing practice. In fact, most did stay. There was something magnetic about the cowgirl—she had that unexplainable “it” thing that made a man want to follow her with his eyes.

Later that night at his hotel room, Nick reflected on his odd fascination with the barrel racer. He had always been attracted to tall women—he hadn’t gotten his father’s height, so he tended to date women who were a little taller than he was. He liked his women leggy, with a healthy bust and a reasonable family pedigree so she would fit in easily at the country club. His parents had doted on him as the only boy, and he had been, for years, an unabashed playboy. After he barely squeaked out a diploma in business from Princeton, he’d spent the better half of his twenties yachting with his friends and spending time in Europe and Dubai.

He’d dated women from all over the world, but he couldn’t recall a woman like Dallas registering on his radar screen. She was the total opposite of what typically attracted his attention: she was short, stocky, flat chested and had a mass of untamed brunette hair. She was—unkempt. It made him wonder if the fascination would stick. Would Dallas Dalton still be as interesting to him tomorrow as she had been today? Only time would tell.

* * *

“Howdy-ho!” Dallas called out to him the next morning.

“Good morning.” Nick held up his hand in greeting.

The cowgirl walked toward him wearing a brown tank top, cutoff shorts that hit her midthigh and her cowboy boots.

“I decided just to bite the bullet and make camp here for a bit.” She hitched her thumb over her shoulder toward a rickety paddock where her horse was trying to reach a piece of grass located on the other side of the fence. “Unless you mind, I’m gonna bunk here until we’re done.”

She stopped when she reached him, and that was when he felt it again—that magnetic pull toward Dallas. He usually looked up to the women on his arm, even taller in their high heels, and it was nice that he could look Dallas right in the eye, that she was shorter than he was by a couple of inches, at least.

“I was thinking the same thing.” Nick surveyed the property with his eyes. The place seemed to be more of a mess than the day before. The trip back and forth from Helena to Bent Tree was going to get old quick.

“There’s plenty of room,” Dallas said. “But no luck with the trailer. It’s a long ways away from livable. I think the cabin is our best bet if you want to bunk out here too.”

They started walking toward the small cluster of buildings near the trailer where Dallas’s famous father had spent the last years of his life as an eccentric hermit. He didn’t want to offend Dallas, especially after she had just recently lost her father, but the legend of her father didn’t match the condition of his aunt’s property. It didn’t make sense that Davy Dalton could have ended up this way. Nick hadn’t said the words aloud, and neither had Dallas for that matter, but the famous rodeo personality had been hoarding for years.

With fresh eyes, Nick stated what might have already been the obvious to his companion. “This may take more time than I originally thought.”

Dallas nodded.

“I honestly don’t know where to begin.” He didn’t normally feel overwhelmed, but he did now.

“Pop always said...the only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”

* * *

Dallas had worked side by side with men her whole life. Her earliest memories were traveling from town to town, chasing rodeo money with her dad. Her father had been one of the first of his generation of rodeo men to garner endorsements, so when Davy wasn’t riding a bull or roping a calf, he was posing for pictures at tack and feed stores. She’d only really known the nomadic life because of Davy; he’d raised her his way on his terms. The schools were always after him about the huge blocks of time she was out from school, but her father believed that she could learn a heck of a lot more about life out on the road with him than she could locked up in a school for eight hours a day.

She had loved her freedom growing up and often felt sorry for her peers who didn’t get to do as they pleased. Davy was too busy making a buck or losing that same buck gambling to regulate her every move—she made her own rules, set her own agenda. Could her father have done better by her? Sure, he could have. What parent was perfect? And yes, her childhood had left scars—some too deep and jagged and discolored to ever heal. But she was as tough as any man—she wasn’t afraid of much in life—and she was a survivor. She had Davy to thank for that.

“It’s hotter than the dickens in here.” Dallas lifted the bottom of her ribbed tank top up to her face and wiped the sweat off her face.

“Let’s take a break,” he suggested, and she agreed.

Although she had spent most of her life surrounded by men, none of them had been like Nick. In the short time she had spent with him, he had caught her attention in a way no man before ever really had. Nick was clean-cut, educated and a gentleman. And so handsome. Just like everyone else in his family, Nick had those shocking Brand-blue eyes, and she had found herself staring into them more than once. Yesterday during practice, she’d found it difficult to focus on her work with Nick watching her.

While most of her fellow barrel racers dreamed of marrying cowboys, Dallas had always wanted something different than what she’d known. She didn’t spend a whole lot of time imagining herself married, but when she did think of a husband, it was to someone like Nick.

“You need gloves.” Dallas fished a bottle of water out of her cooler and handed it to him.

Nick’s once-well-groomed fingernails were black—his hands gray from the dust and the old print off the newspapers.

Nick looked down at his free hand as if he were noticing how dirty it was for the first time. He stared at his hand for a long minute.

“I admit,” he said, “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into here.”

“No.” She finished her water and capped the bottle. “I bet not.”

Not only was Nick a handsome man, he was tougher than she had originally given him credit for. She had thought that the thick, stale, hot air, the dust and dirt, and the piles of decaying magazines and newspapers would send him packing pretty quick. But he had hung in there with her. She was impressed.

“I didn’t even think about food.” Nick squinted in the bright sunlight streaming in through the window.

“Your aunt packed a care package for me this morning. There’s more than enough to share.”

Barbara Brand, Nick’s aunt, was the matriarch of the Brand family and self-appointed caretaker of the disavowed and disenfranchised youth. Nick’s aunt had been looking after her, in one way or another, ever since she was a little girl.

They took turns scrubbing their hands in the cabin sink with a sliver of soap that had become cracked and chalky over the years. Then they turned a crate over in the yard for a makeshift table and salvaged a couple of creaky-legged wooden chairs out of the cabin; with the backdrop of the expansive, cloudless blue sky and mountain peaks in the distance, Nick joined her for lunch.

“Okay—let’s see what we’ve got here.” Dallas fished into her cooler for the care package.

“This looks to be smoked ham and Swiss on Barb’s homemade sourdough bread. And this one is...” She peeked inside the wrapping. “Roast beef and cheddar on sourdough.”

“I’ll take whichever one you don’t want.”