by T. S. Joyce
Two Shots was over the table and connecting his fist to Dead’s jaw before Cheyenne could even register that he moved. Dead of Winter blasted backward into the wall so hard, the sheetrock caved in.
“Finally,” Quickdraw muttered, standing.
“Sit the fuck down!” she screamed, pissed at the whole world right now.
“That’s mighty brave of you to talk to me like that,” Quickdraw barked out as the two bull shifters were beating the everlovin’ snot out of each other and breaking everything in their wake. Chairs included.
Cheyenne locked her arms on the table and belted out, “I’ve had a really bad few days, on top of a really bad few years, and I just needed one thing to go right. One thing. Can you understand that? I’m trying to help people who didn’t ask for it, who don’t want it, and I’m stuck! I’m…” She sighed and watched Two Shots holding Dead by the throat and pummeling his face while the bull on the receiving end gave a bloody smile like he lived to fight. She sank into a chair, and her eyes burned with tears. “I’m so tired.”
Quickdraw looked at her a few moments more and then shook his head, strode over to the bulls locked in battle, and yanked Dead out from under Two Shots Down. He tossed him across the room, easy-as-anything. Just one-handed tossed him. Broke another wall.
Two Shots looked right at him with the fury of a thousand suns in his dark eyes. Why was he mad at Quickdraw? Because he’d taken his prey? In the middle of a fight? Because he’d taken his fun? Why was violence fun to these creatures?
Quickdraw pointed to Cheyenne. “She’s crying. I don’t do tears. Fix her.”
Two Shots Down jerked his attention to her and stood, a split in his lip bleeding freely. “Why are you doing that?”
She shrugged, feeling a hundred years old. “All of you do what you want. Don’t sign the contract. Don’t listen to what I can do for you. Don’t improve. Just keep going exactly how you are going, and we’ll see when you burn out. The meeting can be over.”
Quickdraw and Two Shots looked at each other with frowns and then looked at Dead, who was behind her somewhere.
And then suddenly, a silver flask appeared on the table beside her. Dead of Winter left it there and took his seat. His face looked like a bloody crime scene.
There was a platter of donuts she’d brought in for the meeting, and Two Shots stopped by the snack table and collected two chocolate covered with sprinkles and a stack of napkins. Set those beside her and took his seat. And Quickdraw? Well, he reached into his pocket and pulled out some lint and put it near the pile of gifts before he took his seat at the far end of the conference table.
What was she supposed to do with pocket lint? She didn’t know. But a donut and a long swig of some really cheap whiskey later, and she was in control of her facilities again.
“That was awful,” Dead told her.
“What was?” she asked.
“A crying woman in the same room as me.”
She ignored him and pushed ahead. “What can I do for you if you choose to sign the contract? First off, I can get you better whiskey than this rot-gut crap you’ve been drinking,” she said, holding up the flask.
“Rot gut keeps me tough,” Dead argued, arching his eyebrow.
“My job is to guide you in the media. I’ll ask you to improve your behavior, yes, but it’s more than being some glorified babysitter. I’ll be booking your hotel rooms—”
“Hotel rooms?” Two Shots asked. “I usually just sleep in my truck on the road. Rooms are expensive.”
“I’m provided an allowance from the circuit to take care of your accommodations.”
“All three of our accommodations?” Dead asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Two Shots Down murmured, looking shocked.
Okay…what was happening here? “You do realize your importance to the circuit…right?” she asked the boys.
Two Shots shrugged, Dead shook his head, and Quickdraw just stared at her like she’d spoken in tongues.
So she gave them a brief education on what it was like for the other side—the riders. “The top ten riders have their rooms paid for. If they are in the money or close to it, they aren’t sleeping in their trucks.”
“Wow,” Two Shots Down murmured. He leaned forward and took one of the donuts, ate it in one bite, and chewed it slowly. “Wow,” he repeated, crossing his arms.
“You didn’t know that?”
“Well, they ain’t exactly telling us how unfair it is on us,” Dead murmured. “We’re just animals, I guess.”
“Wrong. You’re the heartbeat of the PBSR. Without you, there would be no crowds, no fans, no one for these specialized bull riders to ride. And you are top three. I’m gonna repeat that part because it’s real important. You are the top three bull shifters in the world. In the world. Top three. You’ve earned hotel rooms. I know how hard each of you fought to get here. I’m gonna make your life better so you keep that fire and keep fighting to stay in the top three spots.”
“Make our lives better how?” Two Shots asked.
“Better nutrition. I will be managing food for you if you want it, and I’ll be doing it based on the guidelines for how much protein, nutrients, and minerals your bodies need to stay in top condition. I will be overseeing your training.”
“Training?” Dead asked.
“You’ll be bucking outside of rodeos. I want you to come out at the next rodeo and blow the crowds away. You earned your place here. Now I want you to own what you are.”
“Top three bulls,” Two Shots said softly.
“Yep. Top three. I wasn’t around the circuit for the last three years. I needed to work some stuff out and do some healing, but that doesn’t mean I quit it altogether. I watched you. All of you. I saw your potential; I saw your triumphs and defeats and how you handled them. This has been in the works for a few months, a manager for the three of you. Did you know that?”
The boys shook their heads, and she gave a little smile. “I wanted it to be you three. I’ve been rallying for you for months, fighting with the organizers and investors, convincing them the top three bulls deserve the treatment that the riders get, and you do. You always have.”
Two Shots chewed his lip and stared at a napkin he was ripping up in his hands. “You did this?”
“Yes. I went through a tragedy, but it bought me some power in this game. Who wants to tell me no on something noble? Who wants that attention?”
“I wouldn’t,” Dead muttered. “You cry, and it scares me.”
“The organizers don’t like that stuff either. So…there is a bright side to what I’ve been through. I’m going to make changes for you.”
“Hotels and food, and all we have to do is behave in interviews?” Dead asked, arching his eyebrow.
“You can misbehave a little. The humans still like to see a little of the shit-show. We’re gonna work on your manners and charm, though.”
Dead of Winter scrunched up his face. “Don’t need no manners.”
“You want the good whiskey? You learn some manners.”
Dead of Winter told her, “I need some time to think on this.”
“Sure. Think on it from your room.” She slid a keycard to him. “Your room is 1212.”
Dead tapped the keycard on the table. “Does it have a minibar?”
“Nope. I had them take it out.”
Dead pouted and muttered, “Fine.” He stood and made his way out the door. “I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
She pushed another keycard toward Quickdraw. He looked at it for a few seconds before he signed the last page of the contract and stood, collected his keycard, tipped his hat, and made his way out the door without another word.
Two Shots stayed. He watched her. Studied her, maybe.
She gestured to his phone where all the gossip stories were probably still popping up. “We have ourselves in a pickle.”
“Yeah, I never figured that saying out. We have ourselves in a p
ickle?” He shook his head. “Whatever it means, I’ll get us out of it.”
“How are you going to do that?”
He took the last keycard from in front of her and gave her a slight smile that nearly stopped her heart. “I have a plan. My reputation is screwed. I’ll be damned if I taint yours, too.” He made to leave but paused at the end of the table. “Hey, Cheyenne?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re a good woman. You care about people. Even people who don’t deserve to be cared about. Whatever happens with all this, don’t lose that part of you.” He knocked lightly on the table and then left her sitting there with her heart in her throat and a fluttering in her stomach.
Chapter Six
Bang, bang, bang, bang!
Cheyenne sat up in the dark and, for a moment, she forgot where she was.
Bang, bang, bang!
Hotel room, right outside of Guthrie, Oklahoma, still dark outside, so who in the H-E-double hockey sticks was banging on her door?
“Coming!” she called out, stumbling for the light switch on the wall. The illumination from the floor lamp made her wince and blink hard. Still half asleep, she bounced down the small hallway toward the door like a little pinball, bumping the walls twice. She looked out the peep hole but all she saw was hair.
She yanked open the door. “Dead of Winter, what in tarnation is so important that—”
“Two Shots Down has a girl in his room.”
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it hadn’t been that. Her heart fell to her toes. “W-what?”
“The look on your face is awesome. You loooooove hiiiiiim,” he sang. “Also, you aren’t wearing pants.”
He pointed to her crotch, and sure enough, she had kicked off her pajama pants in her sleep. She yelped and put her hands over her nethers.
“Are those Wonder Woman panties?” he asked.
“You wanna get smacked straight across the face, just keep staring, asshole!” She slammed the door. Or she tried to, but Dead of Winter pushed it open and barged in behind her.
“My space, my room, get out.”
“Aw, but we’re bonded now, Cheyenne. You’re my boss.” He grinned and held up the contract. “The second I saw Two Shots on the news dragging in that ho-bag barrel racer—”
“Which one?”
“Noni Pickett.”
“Son of a bit—”
“Language,” Dead of Winter interrupted her. He turned to the middle of his packet. “Rule number fourteen, less cussing.”
“Son of a biscuit eater,” she growled, yanking on her oversize gray sweatpants. They were three sizes too big, had a hole on the left thigh, and a wing sauce stain from two nights ago. “Noni Pickett? Really?” she growled. “Typical.”
“What’s so typical about it?” he asked.
Why was he smiling like that? She wanted to slap the grin right off his face. She stomped past him. “Everyone in the circuit’s had her!”
“In her defense,” Dead said, following her right out the door, “everyone’s had all the barrel racers. You used to be one yourself. You know how easy your kind is.”
“That is so like a man to make a stereotype judgement on a girl like that,” she hissed out. Blood boiling, she turned and swiped her claws at him because he was following too dang close behind her. He ducked out of the way easily, and now he was smiling even bigger.
She poked the elevator button and waited impatiently for the doors to open, all the while murmuring under her breath a string of colorful curse words her granddaddy used when he was fixing tractors.
“Did you just call the elevator a ‘dunderheaded titty-roost’?” Dead asked, getting right in the elevator with her.
“No! I’m calling you that. Stay on your own side.”
Dead leaned against the wall on the other side of the elevator and just stared and grinned at her.
“What?” she demanded.
“This is just way more fun that I thought it would be.”
“What’s the news look like?” she demanded. “What footage do they have?”
“Him pulling Noni by the hand through the front doors of the lobby and them disappearing into the elevator. They made googly eyes at each other twice.” He held up two fingers. “That means two times.” And that awful hairy man batted his eyelashes at her.
She was probably going to commit murder tonight. She could imagine it. Noni with her perfect waist and perfect long legs, probably wore a real diamond belt buckle because she’d been winning a lot of money lately. Her perfectly fake eyelashes and her perfect lipstick and, oh dear goodness, what was she doing with her life?
Ding.
The elevator doors opened, and she descended on the hallway of floor twelve like a witch on a broomstick. She was damn-near floating.
“Stop. Laughing!” she belted over her shoulder at Dead’s annoying cackle.
And then she bang, bang, banged on the hotel door so hard her knuckles ached. “Quickdraw opened the door with the grumpiest frown she’d ever seen. Shit.
“Wrong. Room!” she shouted in his face.
“What in the hell is she doing?” she heard Quickdraw ask Dead in a gritty, sleepy voice.
“She’s stirrin’ some shit. God, I wish I had popcorn. Do you want my signed contract now or after you make an ass of yourself with Two Shots? His room is twelve fourteen.”
“I know!”
Had she ever? Had she ever been so angry in all her life? And why? Why was she so worked up? She knocked again, on the right room this time, and waited, arms crossed, toe tapping on the bright blue carpet.
The door creaked open, and there he stood. The Adonis. The Demigod. The perfectly sculpted specimen of a man that attracted every red-blooded female within a mile radius. She leaned forward and sniffed him. “Are you wearing cologne? To bed? Are you trying to be perfect? Perfectly perfect?” She crossed her arms. “Ridiculous.”
“Uuuuuuh…” He looked down the hallway at Quickdraw, who had meandered out of his room in a pair of boxer briefs, then at Dead of Winter, who was still wearing that annoying shit-eating grin on his stupid face, with his stupid beard and his stupid eyeballs.
“Are you okay?” Two Shots asked her.
“Where is she?” And yep, she stomped right past him into his room like a little psychopath. Her mind had left the building. Here it was. She’d finally snapped.
She flipped on the lights and searched the empty room. Empty beer can on the table, men’s clothes laid on the chair, ruffled sheets, toothbrush and toothpaste and deodorant and facewash lined up neatly on the bathroom counter. No Noni.
“Where’s who?” Two Shots asked.
“You know who I’m talking about.” Cheyenne called into the room, “Noni, come out here right now.” She knelt down and lifted the skirt of the bed, but there wasn’t anything under there but an old Cheez-It package.
Okay, Noni was petite, but there weren’t that many hiding places in here. Cheyenne stomped to the window and threw back the curtains to reveal…nothing.
Out in the hallway, Dead of Winter was cracking up.
Quickdraw muttered, “I’m going to bed. This is what I get for signing a contract with a twitterpated woman.” And then he disappeared down the hallway.
And Two Shots Down? Well, he stood there with fire in his darkened eyes, his arms crossed over his muscular chest, triceps all puffed up, abs on point…little happy trail of hair from his belly button to the hem of his sweats…boner through the thin material…great feet… Focus.
“I brought Noni up here for an hour last night as a decoy.”
“A—a decoy?” she asked in a pitch higher than she’d meant to.
“You didn’t seem too keen on looking like you were shacking up with the man who killed your husband, so I asked a friend to help out.”
“Noni is your friend?”
“Yep.” He didn’t look amused at all. “She stayed here an hour, sat in that chair over there.” He gestured to the one right in front of an empty
pizza box. “We ate, and then she left through the back door of the hotel. Said no one saw her. Said if we want, she can pretend to be my girl until the rumors about me and you die down. Any more questions?”
“So…you didn’t…ya know…”
“I didn’t fuck her? No. We’ve been buds since I first came into the circuit. She’s not my type, and I’m not hers. Now, I read over that contract, and I didn’t see any rules against bringing girls into our rooms.”
Cheyenne cleared her throat and shuffled her feet. “It seems I’ve made a misstep.”
“Uh-uh,” Dead of Winter said. He was eating a bag of candy and grinning. Where had he gotten chocolate covered raisins? “I think you stepped just right. This is amazing.”
“Get out,” Two Shots murmured.
“Piss off. I was here for this show first.”
“Get out or I’ll kill you,” Two Shots’ rumbled in a tone that said he wasn’t playing even one percent.
“I hate being on the same team as a no-fun titty-roost.”
“Don’t,” Cheyenne said, shaking her head. “Don’t say my grandpappy’s favorite curses. Those are mine.”
Dunderhead, he mouthed as he disappeared from the open doorway. The door slammed closed behind him, and she wondered for the eightieth time what she was doing here with these irritating bulls.
“What was that?” Two Shots asked. “And don’t say you’re in here protecting my virtue or reputation. I set both of those on fire years ago. Why did you come in here like a little hellion, demanding answers to questions you had no right asking?”
Her cheeks were probably the color of strawberries right now. She pressed her fingertips to them in an attempt to cool them down. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough. I answered all your questions. The least you can do is woman up and answer mine.”
“I’m trying, but honestly? I don’t know. Dead said you were with another girl, and I was half-asleep and got all riled up and came up here to kick her out.”
“Why?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Truly.”
He closed the ten feet between them in a moment and cupped her face right before his lips crashed onto hers.