One Rodeo Season

Even if it was all macho posturing—still, he’d been willing to throw down on her behalf. And that was after she’d yelled at him. The first time, anyway. She didn’t know if he’d be so eager to defend her again after she’d told him off a second time.

Okay, she did feel bad. She’d been upset and angry and she hadn’t been able to take all of her anger out on Slim. Somehow, Chief had seemed safer. Maybe it was because she didn’t know him. Or maybe it was something else.

She’d pushed him. She’d put her hands on his chest and shoved to keep him from beating the hell out of a man who richly deserved it. She’d felt Chief’s body tense at her touch, which was bad enough. But what was worse was the way he’d looked down at her, as if he hadn’t expected to find her there but he was glad she was.

Then she had to open her big mouth. Again.

She’d apologize, she decided as the Preacher made the time on Peachy. If she got the chance, she’d thank him for not killing her bull and for putting Slim in his place and for letting her hold him back. Then her conscience would be clear and that would be that.

Peachy obligingly trotted out of the arena. Lacy heard the announcer say the Preacher had gotten a seventy-four—not a great score for either the rider or the bull, but it was enough. She was done here. There were only a few riders left, and then the rodeo would be over except for the belt buckles. She could load up her bulls and begin the long trip home to the Straight Arrow in Wyoming.

She couldn’t say the prospect excited her. If she went home to the empty house, there’d be no distractions, good or bad. She’d be utterly alone, except for when the hired hands did their work and even then, there wasn’t a whole lot of interaction. It’d be just her and the truth she kept trying to avoid.

A little distraction could be good. Hell, it might even be great. As she thought it, she looked back at Chief. She might see him again, she might not. Bullfighters didn’t always follow the same schedule as the bulls and the riders. This could be a one-off, for all she knew.

At that moment, Chief looked up and caught her eye. She tensed. She couldn’t exactly apologize or thank him across an arena but what if she didn’t get another chance?

He was staring at her. She only knew this because she was staring back. His head dipped forward in a polite nod. Wow, she thought. Polite and tough and hot? He was the kind of guy who could be very distracting.

Then he winked at her, his mouth curving up into a suggestive smile.

She scowled. Great. It hadn’t been no-strings-attached, that little show he’d put on earlier with Slim. Chief wanted something in return. Did it matter that she’d been thinking about nearly the same thing? No.

She did not hook up and she did not hang out, not with bull riders or fighters or stock contractors. That was that.

She pushed away from the chute and went to get her animals. She could not afford to be distracted by a bullfighter with a testosterone imbalance. She had a ranch to save and contracted bulls to deliver. Anything outside of that was...

Well, it was unlike her. Dale and Linda Evans’s daughter did not allow distractions.

But even as she thought it, sadness gripped her. Sure, Dale and Linda’s daughter didn’t hook up.

But Lacy wasn’t their daughter, not really.

The lump was back and breathing was difficult. The only thing that kept her from falling apart was the sheer number of people milling around. She would not cry or weep or, God help her, sob. Cowgirls didn’t cry. Certainly not in public, anyway. She was not weak.

She got to her truck and sat there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths until the lump passed and she had things back under control. She drove over to the pens. It was really a two-person job but she wasn’t about to ask for help. Besides, she’d been loading bulls since she was a kid. She could do this. She had to.

“Come on,” she grunted at Rattler. He lowered his head and bellowed. Lacy glared at him. “I’m not the one who grounded you. Don’t take it out on me. Now get up!”

Rattler gave her a look and blew snot in her face and walked into the trailer. Peachy followed his traveling buddy, thank God.

Slim and his “pretty little thing” could go to hell. She could do this—deliver her bulls and get them back home. She could do the job—which meant she could keep her ranch.

She climbed into the cab of her dad’s F-350 and fired up the engine. No, this wasn’t his truck anymore. He’d been gone for seven months now. The truck, the bulls, the Straight Arrow and every single bill were hers now. Distantly, she thought she might be hungry. When was the last time she’d eaten? No lunch today. Had she had breakfast? Well, she’d eat when she got home.

Hays, Kansas, was only about six hours from the Straight Arrow, which sat between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, although it was closer to Laramie. Laramie was where her mom had taught second grade and, therefore, where Lacy had gone to school.

The Straight Arrow was set on the high plains near the base of the Laramie range. The winter held lots of snow for forts and snowball fights. In the summer, the Laramie River was only a short horse ride from the house. It didn’t matter that the river never got much above sixty degrees, even in the warmest part of the year. Lacy would ride out and jump in again and again until her lips were practically blue, and then she’d lie out in the sun until she warmed up. Or until her mom rang the dinner bell. Then they’d all sit around the table and talk about the day before they watched the movies her dad had loved so much.

She’d never have that back, that sense of perfect belonging. It was gone now. The only part of her life still recognizably hers was this—bulls in the trailer, sitting in the truck, driving home from a rodeo.

God, she missed her parents. She missed being their daughter.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t see the tall figure in a white T-shirt flagging her down until she almost ran into him. But the man stepped to the side, neatly avoiding having his toes squashed, just as he’d avoided Rattler’s horns.

Lacy slammed on the brakes—at least she’d only been going about ten miles per hour. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to stop. “Dammit!”

Because it was Chief again. The pain in her neck, come back for more.

He leaned against her driver’s-side mirror and waited for her to roll the window down, looking cool and graceful and hot all at once, dang it.

She lowered her window. “What now?”

“I’m sorry about the bull,” he said. “I’ll pay for any treatment he needs.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“The bull.” He shifted and she realized the white T-shirt he was wearing was soaked through. It clung to his body, highlighting muscles and more muscles and then, down a little lower...

Chief cleared his throat, making Lacy startle. “Is he okay?” he asked again.

She needed to come up with something that wouldn’t have her breaking down in grateful tears that Rattler was, in fact, okay. It would be best if that something she came up with didn’t let Chief off the hook or give away the fact that she was having a hard time not looking at his chest. “I won’t know for sure until the vet checks him out.” There.

“Let me know.”

She nodded in agreement and waited for him to move back, but he didn’t. “Yes?”

The corner of his mouth curved up into the kind of smile women like her didn’t often get from men like him—confident and sensual and interested. If Lacy had been a normal single woman, it was the kind of smile that would make her want to melt into his arms and kiss him.

But she wasn’t a normal single woman. She had responsibilities.

“We got off on the wrong foot. I’m Ian Tall Chief.” He stuck out his hand.

And waited while Lacy looked at it. “Are you serious?”

He dropped his hand, looking offended. “Did I look like I was joking?”

Oh, hell—had that come out wrong? She wasn’t trying to make fun of his name. Actually, given that everyone called him Chief, she was relieved to hear that was not some sort of derogatory nickname.

So she clarified, “I’m not interested. I don’t hook up.”

That got both eyebrows up and moving as his face relaxed.

“Are you serious?”

“Look,” she said in exasperation, “I know how this goes. There are two kinds of men here. The first doesn’t think a woman like me should be anywhere near a bull because we might do better than them and that would obviously be the end of the world. The second thinks I’m nothing but a one-night stand that hasn’t happened yet.” She pointed a finger at him. “Guess which one you are.”

His lips—nice lips, rounded and full and— No, stop it, Lacy. She was not going to start thinking about his lips, which were twisting as if he was thinking about laughing at her but trying not to.