Cowboy to the Core

by Maisey Yates

  Wyatt raised his middle finger and climbed over the metal fencing, into the pen and on the back of the horse.

  The horse was kicking against the side of the pen, and the handlers had him restrained.

  And then it was time.

  The gate opened with a clang, and Wyatt’s horse burst out, bucking in place, up and down, up and down.

  That was child’s play.

  The horse wasn’t even going to give a decent ride.

  But suddenly, he turned the other direction, and he sent Wyatt Dodge flying. Wyatt managed to land on his feet, the momentum walking him forward, and the horse trotted away, doing half a lap before turning and going back out through the gates.

  “No score,” Gabe said, clapping his hands together and rubbing them.

  It was his turn.

  He climbed up behind the gate. Exhilaration fired through him.

  It didn’t matter how many times he did this. It was a rush. Because you never knew what you were going to get. If you were going to get that pansy-ass pop-and-turn shit that Wyatt had just done. Or if he was going to get the real deal.

  Judging by the barely leashed energy from the horse underneath him, he was in for something. Although, sometimes those horses surprised him. Spent all their energy in the lead-up.

  But not this one.

  When the gates opened, the horse burst forward, and Gabe’s mind was blank of everything but the pitch and roll of the animal beneath him. The horse threw him forward, then back, and Gabe moved with him, one arm held back to balance.

  He had a mental clock going off in his head but soon he let that fade away, too. All that mattered was the horse. That he find its rhythm.

  That he hang on tight.

  There was a hell of a lot of skill involved in this event. No lie about that.

  But some of it...some of it was just down to pure grit.

  Sometimes grit was the most important part.

  Then the buzzer went off, letting him know he’d gone to the eight-second mark, and he waited until there was an easy opportunity for him to jump down onto the arena, planting both boots firmly in the dust, the momentum spinning him forward about two steps.

  The cheers that erupted for him felt different than the cheers on the circuit.

  He had enjoyed that. There was no denying it.

  Whatever anger he had let get twisted around him since coming back...

  He had enjoyed the glory. He had enjoyed the women.

  He had found himself sinking into all the things he had judged his father for wanting more than he wanted home.

  But in front of the home crowd, Gabe found something different. And when he turned and saw Jamie, not clapping at all, just leaning over the fence, staring with an expression of pure adoration on her face...

  Yeah, the home crowd was the best crowd he’d ever been in front of.

  He lifted his hat and waved it, then walked out of the arena.

  “Show-off,” Wyatt grumbled.

  “That’s the entire point, Dodge. To show off.”

  “Hell,” Wyatt said. “If we had a bull, I could’ve shown you up pretty good.”

  “Maybe. But you have to admit, the bronco’s harder than you thought.”

  “It’s tough.”

  “To my mind,” Gabe said. “Bareback, saddle bronc, bull... On some you lean backward, on another you lean forward. It’s all just a different kind of back pain.”

  Wyatt laughed. “I guess that’s how you know you’re getting old.”

  “I don’t mind it,” Gabe said, looking around again at the crowd that was meager by the standards he and Wyatt were used to. And then back at Jamie, who was grinning like a fool. “Yeah,” he said. “I don’t mind it.”

  * * *

  JAMIE HAD POSTED a record time for herself. One that was definitely competitive in professional circles. One that meant she was ready. As soon as she could go, she was ready. She didn’t have to wait a year or two, as long as she could get the money together.

  And for some reason, her heart was pounding into overdrive having just watched Gabe complete that ride. It was the sexiest damn thing she’d ever seen in her life.

  She suddenly understood why women flung themselves at cowboys.

  But she only wanted to fling herself at one cowboy. And she honestly wanted to do it so badly she was concerned for her health.

  Right now the only ride she wanted to complete was a ride of Gabe Dalton. Naked. In his bed.

  Hey, against a wall would work.

  She wasn’t picky.

  She clenched her thighs together.

  It was so strange, now that she had her ticket out. And part of her felt like she had never wanted to stay so badly.

  “Good job,” Kate said, clapping Jamie on the back.

  “You, too.”

  Sierra gave her a hug. The woman managed to smell like perfume, even after a run like that. “Great job,” she said.

  Then the two women went off to their families, and Jamie was struck somewhat dumb by the sight of it.

  They had families. They raced. She knew that Kate still did it professionally when she got the itch. Sierra never really had, but Jamie had always had the impression that Sierra had been more involved in amateur events, and had never had a real aspiration toward professional riding.

  But they had it all. They had it all in a way Jamie hadn’t ever let herself imagine a woman could.

  Sierra even had it all with glitter.

  Suddenly, McKenna and Beatrix bounded over to Jamie and pulled her in for a hug.

  “You did great!” they both said, overlapping each other.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’m surprised.”

  “I’m not,” Bea said, smiling.

  “Gabe was pretty amazing,” McKenna said.

  “Yeah,” Jamie said. “So were Grant and Dane.”

  She inadvertently realized that she had compared Gabe to McKenna’s and Bea’s fiancés. As if it was the same thing.

  McKenna smiled. “You really like him.”

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said.

  Except she did know. She didn’t really like him. She liked him in every way a woman could like a man. She liked him clothed and talking, and eating toast, and naked and not talking and eating her.

  “He’s a good guy,” Beatrix said. “I had my doubts, but I can see it in the way he is with the animals.”

  “Is that your gauge for how you feel about everyone?” McKenna asked.

  “Not everybody likes animals,” Bea said. “I figure that’s because they haven’t met the right one. But unless you’ve given animals a reason not to like you, they should. So a lot of it is how animals react back.”

  Jamie absolutely believed that that was how Bea decided who was worthy of being considered good, and who wasn’t. Everyone was getting chili and beer now, and Jamie should have been enjoying the festivities more than she was. The problem was, she wanted to spend them with Gabe. In the way that they could be when they were alone together. But... Even though it seemed like they were a pretty poorly kept secret, she didn’t feel comfortable wandering around touching him. Making some kind of claim on him like they were a couple, when they were... She supposed they were friends.

  Friends with a particular affinity for each other’s bodies.

  Jamie went and got herself a bowl of chili and a cup of beer, and sat down on the bleachers. Gabe followed suit, sitting next to her, but with a respectable distance between them.

  “You were incredible,” he said.

  Those simple words ignited something in her chest. “Thank you,” she said.

  “You’re going to tear it up out there. When you go pro.”

  “I guess... I mean, it should be pretty quick for me. Not two years, even.”

  “I wouldn�
�t think,” he said.

  “I’m going to help get your ranch set up, though. That matters to me. I don’t want to leave until that’s established.”

  “Well, if all goes according to my plan, it should be good to go before you need to worry about anything for next season. So I appreciate it. But I don’t think the plan should delay you. Especially since I’m committed to that now, and I’m not going back. Hell, I’d gladly trade out my spot for yours, anyway. You’re the one that should be doing it.”

  She shifted uncomfortably. “That’s very nice.”

  “I’m not trying to be nice. It’s just true.”

  Everyone had cleared out of the arena area, most people going to sit at the picnic tables that were all around the property, and around the firepit, where there were marshmallows.

  It made them feel isolated over there, even though Jamie was sure that Wyatt knew exactly where she was and who she was talking with.

  “Hey,” Wyatt said, wandering over to where they were.

  “Hey,” Gabe said back.

  Jamie had known that her brother was around.

  “We’re all going out to the bar later. You want to come, Dalton?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  “Just don’t hug Jamie the whole time,” Wyatt said.

  And if she had needed an indication that Wyatt was pretty aware that something was happening between them, she had just gotten it.

  She wasn’t sure why he was being okay, when he’d been a bear about it for the months leading up to her taking the job.

  But then...

  She hardly recognized the girl she’d been. The one who had stormed up to Gabe on the first day of the job and given him hell. The one who had fought with Wyatt at every turn, all prickles and insisting that she was tough enough to handle anything.

  It wasn’t that she was less tough. It was just that...she felt like she had uncovered some things that had been hidden for a long time.

  Jamie bumped her boot against his. “I guess I’ll see you tonight, then, too.”

  “I was kind of hoping I would either way,” he said, bumping her boot back. “But it’ll be interesting to go out with your family.”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Yes, it will.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  JAMIE KNEW THAT she was taking kind of a risk exposing herself this way. That her brothers were going to have commentary, and that...that the whole town would.

  But she was thinking about Sierra Thompson more and more. And even about Kate. And how though they definitely had different senses of style, both women didn’t seem afraid of femininity. Kate had a child, and a husband, and still did barrel racing.

  Sierra did, too. Plus, the woman was cowgirl Barbie.

  And Jamie was sick to death of feeling like there was one more thing she’d missed.

  Gabe loved her body the way that it was. He could barely seem to keep his hands off her. And he never seemed to care when she showed up in a sports bra and plain cotton panties.

  On the contrary, he seemed perfectly happy.

  But this wasn’t about changing for a man. Not even for Gabe specifically. This was about her.

  And maybe she would hate it. She might hate it.

  But she wanted to know.

  And that was how she ended up at McKenna’s place, with Beatrix in tow.

  “What are we doing?” Beatrix asked.

  “You’ll see,” she said.

  And then when McKenna let them in, and confirmed that Grant was not home, Jamie told them her mission. “I want you to make me look like a girl.”

  McKenna looked her up and down. “You definitely look like a girl,” McKenna said, “so was there something more specific to that or...?”

  “You know. Like a girl like you two look like girls. Like a girlie girl.”

  McKenna laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being a girlie girl before.”

  “You are compared to me.”

  “I have been,” Bea said. “I am one.”

  “Yes, you are,” McKenna agreed. “But with rodents as your accessories.”

  “I’m complicated.” Bea sniffed.

  “Complicated, girlie or not, you both dress better than I do, and your hair does—” she waved her hand “—things.”

  “What do you mean does things?” McKenna asked.

  “It...it moves. It stands up away from your head.”

  “That’s called volume,” McKenna said.

  “And that’s just because I have curly hair,” Bea said.

  “Well...couldn’t mine do more than—” Jamie grabbed the limp end of her ponytail and lifted it, then dropped it heavily “—this?”

  “What’s causing this?” McKenna asked. “Is it related to Gabe? Did he say something about you not being feminine enough?”

  “No,” Jamie said. “Gabe... He doesn’t care. But I want... I want to look like that woman that he would’ve crossed the bar to see. He knows me. And he...” Her face felt hot. “I don’t know why, but he wants me. And that’s kind of amazing. But I’m definitely not anything like that woman he was trying to pick up that night.”

  Bea blinked. “So he... Have you slept with him?”

  “Yes,” Jamie said, squirming a little bit.

  “I knew it,” McKenna responded.

  Bea just squealed.

  “Details!” McKenna crowed.

  Jamie could not share details. What she and Gabe did together was...raw and personal and she wasn’t ashamed of any of it. But it was hers.

  His body was hers. And what it made her feel.

  She didn’t want anyone having details.

  “Don’t get excited,” Jamie said. “It’s not like it’s...anything big. He’s working on this new endeavor, and I’m helping. And then I’m going to go pro next year. It’s not... It’s not serious.”

  “You want a makeover.”

  “I always thought that I chose to be what I am,” Jamie said. “But I’ve been realizing the past few weeks that I am what I am by default. I never wanted my dad to feel guilty that there wasn’t a woman in the house. I never wanted to seem like I wasn’t every bit as tough as the boys. But I had to go buy myself my first bra when one of the boys at school said something about how my T-shirt looked when I was about eleven, so I went and found myself a sports bra at Big R and smashed everything down as flat as I could.”

  She ignored how large Bea’s eyes had gotten. And how protective McKenna’s stance had become. She didn’t like people feeling sorry for her and sometimes that was a barrier to her talking about her life.

  But they were her friends.

  She had told them she was sleeping with Gabe.

  She was asking them to help her do makeup.

  They could hear this story.

  “Thank God for school health class,” she continued, “because if not for that, I don’t think I would’ve known what was happening when my period started for the first time. There was nobody to talk to about that. Not ever. And it’s not really their fault. Because I didn’t say that I needed help. I just decided I didn’t. And that if I didn’t care about it... If I didn’t care that no one was around to talk to me about those things, that no one was around to give me makeup tips, or anything like that...then I wouldn’t miss her.”

  Beatrix wiped a tear off her cheek. “Oh, Jamie.”

  “I don’t have the right to miss her,” Jamie said. “Not the way the boys do.”

  “You have every right to feel the way you do,” McKenna said. “Nobody can decide that or change it.”

  She let those words glance off. She couldn’t bear to hear them.

  “Well. Whatever about feelings,” Jamie said, taking a breath. “I just want... I just want to look hot.”

  “Oh, I think we can d
o that,” McKenna said, her words a little bit shaky as she opened up her closet. “Yes, I think we can definitely do that.”

  By the time McKenna and Beatrix were finished, Jamie thought she might have miscalculated. Because the dress she was wearing clung to her body like it was another layer of skin, and her hair—still not curled at all—was hanging loose and shimmering around her shoulders. And thanks to a quick trip to town, courtesy of Beatrix, Jamie even had lacy underwear on.

  She had cleavage. Minimal though it was, it existed.

  And she was about to parade it all in front of the town. She’d already spilled her guts to McKenna and Bea and she felt like a wrung-out disaster. Now she felt like a wrung-out disaster that would be very easy to tip over.

  “I’m staying home.” She sat down on McKenna’s bed.

  “No!” Bea said. “I just put eyeliner on another person’s face. That isn’t easy. I might be blind now.”

  Jamie flopped back onto the bed, her arms spread wide. “Well, Evan can be your guide raccoon.”

  “You’re a terrible person,” Bea said.

  Jamie sighed and sat back up. She looked in the mirror, stunned by the woman looking back at her. She was a stranger. A stranger with very large eyes and glowing skin. Rosy cheeks.

  It was like someone had put on a very glossy Jamie suit, and was trying to imitate her motions and facial expressions.

  “What?” McKenna asked.

  She watched the unfamiliar-familiar mirror face contort. “I just don’t know if I can go out like this.”

  “Why not? You are the one who wanted to do it.”

  “I know but I feel...like I’m basically going to be walking into the barn naked. And everyone’s going to know that it has to do with Gabe.”

  “So what?” McKenna asked.

  Bea wrinkled her nose. McKenna gave her a baleful look. “You don’t agree with me, Beatrix?”

  “Not especially,” Bea said. “It’s not that easy when you’ve lived somewhere all your life. What people think about you and the way they see you feels more...magnified. People don’t know you well enough to be shocked by you turning up at the Gold Valley Saloon in...a Care Bear costume.”

  “I am pretty sure people would be shocked if I turned up in a Care Bear costume.”