Quickdraw Slow Burn

by T. S. Joyce

  With a chuckle, he started swaying them back and forth and said, “Okay, lay it on me.”

  “I hate mornings and can’t cook. I’ve never lived outside of a five-mile radius of my parents’ house, I made really bad grades in school, as you already guessed, because I had a big imagination and was daydreaming about ninety-five percent of my waking hours. I currently don’t have a job. I talk to myself a lot and spend way too much money online shopping. I’ve researched pet tortoises for the last three years but haven’t got one because I’m afraid of the commitment. I get lonely easy and apparently get territorial over men who don’t belong to me. I live with a predator inside of me who runs on pure instinct and very little logic. I think with my heart, talk before I speak, and I have horrible taste in men. Historically. No offense intended.”

  “None taken,” he uttered as he moved her backward toward an open area on the dance floor. “I don’t like mornings either, I can cook good enough for the both of us, also made mediocre grades in school, mostly because I was managing a dominant bull and didn’t know what I was doing with my life back then. You’ll find the right job for you eventually, and a little online shopping here and there never hurt nobody. You should get a tortoise. Maybe it’ll help with your commitment shit. Everybody gets lonely sometimes, and I said it before and I’ll say it again…I loved when you got territorial. You have a protective streak that I find so damn sexy. And your wolf functioning on instinct? That’s normal. My bull doesn’t even realize I have a human side. If he’s out of me, he’s on his own. And, again, thank God for your bad taste in men.”

  She laughed and spun again. Hey, they were getting good at this. She wasn’t even stepping on his toes. “You’re a very good dancer.”

  “Thank you. I took lessons.”

  “Really?”

  Quickdraw snorted. “Fuck no.”

  She didn’t know why that made her laugh so loud, but it did. They danced the whole song and then straight into the next. By the time he led her off the dancefloor, the food was on the table and the herd was digging in.

  The band announced their last song, and one of the staff began setting up a karaoke system near the stage.

  Now she was getting a little nervous. Annabelle liked to sing, but she wasn’t so good in front of crowds. When she turned to Quickdraw to tell him that, he was staring at the front door with a troubled look swimming in his eyes. There was no one there, though, just the front door swinging closed, as if someone had just walked out.

  “Are you okay?” she asked him.

  “Yeah. I’ve got to see someone about something. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  “Okay.” Admission: she felt a little stung at being left out as he walked away. He had a whole life outside of her, though, and if he needed to take care of something, make a call, or whatever he needed to do, that was okay. Everything was okay.

  He took a few long strides toward the door, hesitated, and then turned back to her. He sauntered right back to her, slipped his strong hand to her hip and pressed his lips lightly to her cheek. And then he walked to the door and right out of it without looking back again.

  When a few karaoke songs had finished and Quickdraw still wasn’t back, she began to worry, obsessively checking the front door. Goodness, she was a stage-five clinger with this man. She needed to chill out. He was a grown stranger.

  But what if he was in a fight? What if he’d been jumped and was lying in an alley injured? Staring at the sky, bleeding out?

  Oh, geez, her imagination was really ridiculous, as usual.

  She should just make sure he was still alive, though. Before Annabelle could change her mind, she marched to the front door and straight out into the night.

  Quickdraw wasn’t there. The parking lot was well-lit, but no one was there that she could see or hear.

  But around the side of the building in the shadows, two men were talking. And as she approached, she could tell one was Quickdraw.

  Annabelle pressed her back against the wall and listened.

  “Okay, then who do you think it is?” Quickdraw asked low.

  Another man with a gritty, deep voice answered, “All I know is, it’s not the bulls. None in the circuit at least. I think we should look at the riders next.”

  “Yeah, but what would they have to gain?” Quickdraw asked. “If we all went down, they would have no one to ride. I understand if they’re pissed that we’re making more money now, but poisoning us? Every rider I’ve met with has been honest about not being involved. I can hear it in their voice.”

  The other man sighed. “Then, I don’t fuckin’ know, man. All I know is someone is targeting us. It’s not just in the food anymore, and it’s not just happening at events. Land’s End said someone jumped him outside of his barn a couple weeks ago. Just came out of nowhere when he was feeding his horses and slammed a needle of that Filsa shit into his neck. That’s why he was a no-show at the rodeo last week. He was in an out of consciousness at his ranch, with his mate terrified she would lose him. They aren’t even just suppressing our animal-sides with normal doses. They’re overdosing us.”

  “Shhhit,” Quickdraw growled low. “I didn’t know he’d been poisoned. Do you have his number? I want to talk to him about what happened.”

  The other man recited a phone number.

  “Annabelle, you can come out now,” Quickdraw said.

  Annabelle jumped, and her breath got caught in her throat. Cheeks on fire from being busted as a little spy, she padded gingerly around the corner. The man with Quickdraw surprised her. It was the silver-bearded bull shifter from the hospital a month ago.

  “Hey, I know you,” he said when his vibrant gray eyes lit on her. “You’re my girlfriend.”

  “What the fuck did you just call her?” Quickdraw snarled and shoved the man hard in the shoulder.

  He stumbled backward and yelled, “From the hospital! She told the nurse she was my girlfriend. The night I was poisoned. I heard her.”

  “First Time Train Wreck?” Annabelle asked softly as she came to a stop at Quickdraw’s side. “What are you doing here?”

  The bright-eyed cowboy twitched his head toward Quickdraw. “I’m here to talk to this one.”

  “He’s a stalker, too,” Quickdraw said darkly. “He got into the top three one time and got represented by Cheyenne for one week, and now he thinks he’s part of the herd.”

  “Piss off. I don’t even want to be a part of your dumb herd,” Train Wreck said. He pointed to Annabelle. “I never got to thank you for watching over us until our friends could get there. You didn’t know us from Adam, but you made sure we were safe, and that means a helluva lot.”

  “Well, not all of you were safe. I heard Last Chance didn’t make it. I’m so sorry.”

  Train Wreck’s darkening eyes filled with churning sadness, and he pulled the brim of his cowboy hat lower. “You don’t have to be sorry about the things that aren’t your fault. We’ll find who did this.” The “and they’ll pay dearly” was unspoken, but still strong.

  And it struck her. She looked from Quickdraw’s somber face to Train Wreck’s and back again. “You two are hunting whoever did this, aren’t you?”

  Neither answered, but sometimes silence was answer enough.

  “Can I help?” she asked.

  Quickdraw’s attention snapped to her, and she didn’t miss it. There’d been shock on his face in the instant before he composed it again. He dipped his chin, nodded slightly. “No one knows you’re with us.”

  “Putting her in danger ain’t the answer,” Train Wreck said low.

  “I’m a wolf,” she said, curling her lips back at the thought that anyone would assume her weak.

  Train Wreck’s eyebrows disappeared into the rim of his hat. “A werewolf?”

  Quickdraw angled his face and cracked his neck. “She’ll be just fine.”

  “Why do you want to help us?” Train Wreck asked.

  Annabelle lifted her chin higher. “Because I know exactly
what Filsa feels like. That drug has to be a conscious choice you make when you want to get rid of your animal for a while. A decision you make where you know all the pros and cons, and the consequences to your health. You boys didn’t sign up for it, and whoever is doing this needs to be stopped. By whatever means necessary,” she added so they didn’t think she was unaware of how shifters handled betrayal. The laws weren’t the same in this world as the human world. More bloodshed was involved.

  Train Wreck’s lips twisted into an empty smile. “She even sounds like a wolf.”

  “Tread carefully,” Quickdraw advised him. “One insult to her, and they’ll be pulling your corpse out of the brick wall behind you.”

  Train Wreck looked from Quickdraw to Annabelle, and his smile reached his eyes. “Well, I’ll be damned. Quickdraw Slow Burn is finally settling again. With a she-wolf. I knew it would take a savage kind of woman to manage you.”

  “If he was manageable, I wouldn’t want him,” Annabelle murmured. She cast a sideways glance at Quickdraw who lifted his chin, his eyes darkening to a pitch black that matched the night sky. “I like him bad.”

  “Mmm,” he rumbled in approval. How did he look even bigger now, even wider, even more muscular, blocking the stary sky behind him with the width of his shoulders? He gave his attention to Train Wreck. “It’s your shift to check the arena. You got it tonight?”

  Train Wreck nodded. “I can do it tonight, but tomorrow I have a bucking practice late at night a few towns over.”

  “I’ll take a shift tomorrow,” Quickdraw told him. “I’ll be there anyway for interviews.” And then Quickdraw turned and walked away, just like that. No goodbye.

  “He always does that,” Train Wreck muttered. “When he’s done talking, he’s just gone. That, or he’ll punch me in the fuckin’ face for fun and then walk away, one or the other.”

  Aw, Quickdraw was all cute and violent, which she thought was very attractive. She would’ve wondered what that said about her if she didn’t have a volatile wolf inside of her always urging her to start wars, too.

  She liked this. Liked getting to know Quickdraw. Liked how much she understood him.

  He made an astounding amount of sense to her.

  “My advice, for what it’s worth?” Train Wreck said as they watched Quickdraw disappear around the corner of the building. “If you see us in the arena, don’t act like you know us. Stay separate. Just watch what’s happening around you. Don’t make it obvious, just use those wolf senses you got. This is the finals, and I have a bad feeling about it.”

  Train Wreck strode away toward the parking lot, and as Annabelle watched him walk away, she couldn’t help but agree with him. She was getting that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach, too, and she’d learned long ago to always pay attention to her instincts.

  Quickdraw was a mighty big target in all of this. She didn’t understand why anyone was going after the bulls yet, but she did understand one thing. The number one bull in the world wasn’t safe.

  Not yet.

  Chapter Six

  Did she know?

  Did she even know?

  See, here was the thing about darkness. Once a man became accustomed to it, no one could drag him out. At least, that’s what Quickdraw had always believed. But one night with Annabelle had shaken everything up. She wasn’t some light and bright fairy princess that offset his darkness. She shared the shadows. He could tell in those raw moments: When she talked about being poisoned by a man. When she put a stop to that woman’s advances on him. When she talked about taking Filsa. When she offered to help and showed she knew exactly what her help would result in. When she spoke of him to Train Wreck like she needed Quickdraw to be the big, bad bull.

  That woman didn’t want to drag him out of the darkness he’d become accustomed to. She didn’t need him to change. She asked questions instead, as if she wanted to understand the shadows he’d grown used to. More and more, she was holding his attention.

  She was reserved in some ways, careful in some ways, a watcher in some ways. But she knew her place in this world and was confident in her animal side as well as her human side. She knew she was a badass, and that, to a man like him, was incredibly sexy.

  He didn’t need a princess, and she sure as hell didn’t need a Prince Charming.

  Annabelle was up at the bar with the girls, and Quickdraw was leaned back in his chair, watching her. God, she looked so fucking hot tonight. Tight wranglers hugging her curvy ass just right. He loved her ass. It filled his hands and had been so fun to grab onto while he’d railed her against the wall of his RV last month. And on the bed. And on the couch. Best night of his life. She’d been so wet for him. So open with him. So fun. She’d come five times, and then he’d watched her sleep afterward and wondered if anything had made him feel as full as her.

  And now she was back with him, teal tank top hugging her full tits, flannel tied at her waist, red hair pulled back into a low ponytail. He liked it. He could see the shape of her high cheekbones when she had her hair pulled back like this, and those wolf-bright eyes that never darkened. God, his dick was getting hard right here in the middle of the bar.

  Quickdraw leaned forward and thought of a dancing cactus to get rid of his boner.

  “You love her,” Two Shots said from the seat next to him.

  “I don’t know her,” Quickdraw growled, spinning the Jack Daniels on the rocks that Annabelle had brought him, insisting on being the designated driver tonight. Cheyenne was gonna have their hides if they got rowdy the night before interviews, but Annabelle was doing a bang-up job of keeping their boss distracted, as evident from their laughter at the bar.

  They weren’t looking for men. They just genuinely seemed happy to be spending time together—Annabelle, Raven, and Cheyenne. He liked that.

  For the third time, he caught Annabelle glancing over at him. She lifted her water and mouthed, Do you want another?

  Quickdraw bit his bottom lip and shook his head. You having fun? he mouthed back. Her answer mattered. He reveled in every one of her smiles tonight.

  She moved to the side to better see him since a dancing couple had gotten in their way. So much fun, she mouthed, and her face was earnest.

  A drunk dude was butchering a Bon Jovi song right now, so Quickdraw twitched his head toward the stage. Save us.

  Her eyes went round before she looked at the song-maimer then back to him. God, those gorgeous wolf eyes…

  Her cheeks were pink as she leaned in and whispered in Raven’s ear. The three of the girls came back to the table. Annabelle set a shot in front of him and clasped her hands behind her back.

  “For me?” he asked.

  “I’m on water tonight. That’s liquid courage in case you decide to come sing with me.”

  “Woman, I’m not singing a rock song, and you don’t know much country.”

  “I said I didn’t like country.” She leaned in with a pretty smile. “Not that I didn’t know country songs.” She mimed him taking the shot and then made her way to the sign-up table. She talked easily to the man sitting behind it, controlling the music, and then pointed to something in the song option book.

  The man grinned and said, “Let’s see what you got, girl,” and okay, now Quickdraw was curious.

  The howler finished his song, thank God. Raven took the seat beside him as Annabelle took the microphone on stage. Raven patted Quickdraw’s knee. “You’re about to fall in love with a stranger.”

  Too late.

  Annabelle’s cheeks were still flushed, but if she was nervous, she sure didn’t show it as the first notes of a song played.

  He knew this one. Fuuuuck yes, he knew this. It was a song off a soundtrack to a movie he secretly loved. Hell, most cowboys and cowgirls had seen it. He knew every word but, damn, he was shocked down to his boner that she knew it, too.

  She swayed with the intro acoustic guitar, lifted the microphone to her lips, and sang that first line.

  It was a duet from C
ountry Strong. She was taking the male and female parts, and he just…got lost.

  Her voice was pure and clear as a bell, pretty tone, soft vibrato. She had absolute pitch control. He bet her wolf howled like a dream when she was changed.

  A few boys at the bar started singing along, and then a few more ladies on the other side of the room.

  Annabelle grinned bigger and nodded, gestured for them to sing on with her. Then she lifted her hand to him and twitched her fingers. Come here.

  “You gonna leave her up there singing alone?” Raven asked.

  All eyes were on her right now, and this was her moment, but she kept looking at him.

  Two Shots and Dead were grinning at him, like they could see his reserve slipping. Assholes.

  “Aw, fuck it,” he muttered, tossed the whiskey shot back, and stood up.

  Behind him, the bar whooped and whistled.

  Hell, he was probably blushing, but he took the second microphone the man behind the table handed him.

  She’d just finished the girl part, so he picked up the male lead in his deep, less certain voice. He wasn’t one to get embarrassed. He spent too much time in front of cameras and bucking for huge events, but singing was out of his wheelhouse. And as he looked out at the crowd, he had a moment. He wanted to hide.

  There was a soft tug on his hand, and when he looked down, Annabelle was looking up at him with such openness. Just watch me, her eyes said. And he did. Even though the bar sang loudly right along with them, he just sang with Annabelle. By the last few lines, the room had faded away, and it was just her pretty voice and his gruff one, just the two of them, singing about giving in to each other.

  When the last few words came, much too soon, the cheering and whistling dragged him back down to earth. He rubbed the small of her back and kissed her on the cheek for the crowd…nah, for her. For himself. He took her microphone and handed it to the karaoke organizer and then guided her back to their table.

  Dead was wiping his eyes.

  “Are you crying?” Quickdraw asked, disgusted.

  “That was so beautiful,” Dead said thickly.