To Kiss a Cowgirl

by Jeannie Watt

  And he told himself he was good with that. The last thing he needed was another complication in his life. Nope. He was going complication free just as soon as he figured out how to handle his job situation. His lips curled as he hefted a bag of grain onto a stack. Or, at least, what parts he would be allowed to handle and what parts would be decided for him.

  He hefted another bag with more force than necessary. Oh, yeah. He could deal with having Pat as his superior. Dylan gave a soft grunt as he picked up another hundred-pound bag of grain.

  All right. It wouldn’t exactly be a pleasure going to work, but he could handle it. Eventually the gut twisting would diminish. And, besides, he wanted Pat to have to deal with him on a daily basis. Look into the face of the guy he’d lied to at the beginning of every shift. Yeah.

  He tossed the last bag up and it skidded off the top of the pile, hit the ground on the other side and broke, scattering molasses-coated oats across the dusty floor. He muttered a curse as he went for the broom and an empty burlap bag. He hated the idea of Pat being promoted over him, but he wasn’t going to back off because that was what Pat wanted him to do.

  Unless the captain forced the transfer, he was going to push to return to his old job as a field training officer. Screw Pat. He was a professional. He could do this...and the captain was going to have to come up with a decent reason to keep him away from a job in which he’d received several commendations.

  That fantasy lasted a day and a half. Sadie the dispatcher called him again and he was beginning to get the idea that she was interested in him, which was ironic, because at one time Pat had pursued Sadie and had been super pissed when she’d shot him down. So he’d apparently moved on to Lindsey and now Sadie might be interested in him...yeah. No complications there.

  “There’s been no announcement yet, but rumor has it they’re cutting back on the field training officer program.”

  That meant there might not be a patrol position for him to go back to, which meant continuing in Logistics. He thanked Sadie, agreed to look her up when he was back in town, then jammed his phone into his back pocket. He’d barely let go when it rang again.

  He let out a breath as he recognized the number. Lanesburg Police Department. He hit Accept and brought the phone to his ear. The bastards worked fast.

  * * *

  “WHAT’S WRONG?” JOLIE asked when Dylan came into the store looking dazed.

  He raised those blue eyes, shook his head and said, “Kind of your good news, bad news scenario.”

  “How so?”

  “They’re cutting back on the number of field training officers.”

  “Meaning you won’t be on patrol?” She did her best to keep her voice even, but the truth was that she silently cheered at the idea of Dylan not being on patrol, even in a training capacity. She kept having those dreams every couple nights. The one where Dylan was overwhelmed by whatever awesomely evil force her mind managed to cook up. The evil entities changed, but the result was always the same...she lost Dylan.

  And that made no sense because she didn’t have Dylan.

  “Doesn’t look like it. Not without a fight, anyway.”

  “What’s the good news?” Jolie asked, hoping no customers arrived before they finished their talk.

  “That was the good news,” Dylan said with a straight face.

  “Sometimes you need a smack,” Jolie replied darkly, but inwardly she was smiling. She loved it when he played. Such a change from the times not that long ago when he was closed off and defensive.

  “I just got the call about the test. I passed the written exam and now I have an oral board exam.”

  Jolie felt her face light up. “One step closer.”

  “I’ll be in the pool for the next job opening if I pass.”

  “How do you feel about that? Your chances of passing, I mean.”

  “Pretty confident. Now.”

  Jolie reached out and patted his upper arm. The flannel of his shirt was soft and worn. The muscles beneath rock-solid. It was kind of hard to drag her hand away and she had a feeling that he was well aware.

  “When’s the board exam?”

  “Two weeks.”

  “I have a rodeo next week. We can be nervous together.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought you were the nervous type.”

  “Why not?” she asked with a smile, leaning on the counter, feeling almost as good about him passing the written exam as he probably did.

  “Because you’re the competitive type.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I can read the signs.”

  “I am an awesome competitor,” she said with a cheeky smile. “But I get nerves. Right up until they open the gate and Jenabelle and I do our thing. Then it’s all autopilot.”

  “You don’t steer?”

  She laughed. “Yeah. I steer. Kind of. More than that, I shift my weight, keep my toes away from the barrels when Jenabelle hugs in, then I urge her on home.”

  “And this takes...”

  “Seventeen seconds. On a good day.”

  “Ah. Well worth how many hours of driving?”

  “This trip is only four hours—round trip. Not bad, really.” She drew a pattern on the top of the counter. “It’s worth the time and gas to me.” Her expression sobered slightly as she met his eyes and said simply, “I’m good and competing kind of completes me.”

  “I’d like to see you race,” he said, holding her gaze.

  “Then you should come with me.”

  “I guess I’ll do that.”

  And Mike had better get his ass out of the office before she did what she swore she wasn’t going to do—take Dylan’s face in her hands and have her way with that sexy mouth of his.

  “Okay.” She cleared her throat, tore her gaze away and called for backup because things were feeling too intense for the middle of the day in a feed store. “Mike?” Her voice was thinner, higher than usual, and held a note of urgency. The old man poked his head out of the office. “Dylan has good news for you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I passed the written and now I take the oral.”

  “Hey,” Mike said, smiling. “That is good news.” But somehow he didn’t look that thrilled.

  Well, it was good news, Jolie told herself after the two men drifted into the office to talk. If Dylan made detective and got the job, then it wouldn’t be as likely he’d get back in a patrol car. This was very good news.

  And as for Dylan traveling with her...given the circumstances, that wasn’t bad, either. Yes, the sparks were once again flaring, but now that she was looking at him leaving in a matter of weeks, she found that maybe she wasn’t so anxious to keep her distance. She wasn’t going to sleep with him, but she liked being with him, feeling that sexual edge. He would honor her wishes, she knew that instinctively, even if he hadn’t demonstrated it behind the bar the night Wyatt had tried to change her tire. They could have a nice trip and who knew...maybe at some point in the future...

  No. She didn’t think that would happen.

  Too complicated. But no reason she couldn’t enjoy the here and now.

  * * *

  EVEN THOUGH HE grew up in a rodeo town, and the high school had a rodeo team, Dylan could count the number of rodeos he’d attended on one hand. It just hadn’t been his thing. He’d gone to motocross instead with his dad and when his dad had gotten too sick to travel easily, he’d gone with Mike or Finn and his uncle. Toward the end of high school, he’d given up motocross and spent all the time he could with his dad in the garage, working on cars that his dad would never get a chance to drive.

  They pulled into Glennan and drove through town to the rodeo grounds on the east side of the river. There Jolie parked in a grassy field already crowded with gooseneck trailers and big trucks
. There were horses tied to the sides of almost every trailer and a group of kids raced past them as Jolie turned off the engine, the kid at the rear swinging a lariat, trying to rope one of the boys running in front of her.

  Dylan stood back as Jolie unloaded her buckskin mare who raised her head as soon as all four feet hit solid ground and gave a loud whinny. Several horses whinnied back and the mare seemed satisfied to know that there was more of her kind in the area. Jolie tied her up, then told Dylan she needed to check in and she’d meet him back there in ten or fifteen minutes. She pointed to the coffee stand. Dylan took the hint, grabbed the empty thermos from the front seat and headed off on his own mission.

  “We’re going to get home late,” she said as she came back from the office, a bunch of papers clutched in one hand. “I’m the second-to-last competitor in the last section. Just before the bulls.”

  “Then I guess you’ll know the time you have to beat.”

  “That’s an advantage,” she agreed, “unless you let it mess with your head.”

  “Do you do that?”

  She blinked at him with those wide green eyes. Eyes he could kind of get lost in.

  “No.”

  He laughed. The Jolie he’d thought of as so scattered was actually not scattered at all. At least not about things that mattered to her, such as her ranch, the store, barrel racing. Most of the drive to the rodeo had been quiet and Jolie had apologized, telling him that she’d make up for it by talking his ear off on the way home. Before a competition, she liked to go over the run in her head and pretty much let her mind drift. Not too difficult with so many miles to drive. And this was only the beginning, she’d told him. She had a rodeo almost every weekend between now and Labor Day. Mike had agreed to handle the store on the days she needed off.

  Dylan wasn’t surprised. Mike was a little in love with Jolie, in a grandfatherly way, and he also seemed to enjoy being at the store now that customers came in to hang out and visit. He’d even put in a coffeepot near Jolie’s desk, which was proving quite popular with the older guys.

  “I don’t mind getting home late,” he said. “I’d kind of hoped to watch the bulls anyway.”

  “Sounds good,” Jolie said. “Maybe we can grab a burger. I usually don’t stay much past my event. A lot of times I’m pushing on to another rodeo the next day.”

  “How do you afford that?”

  “If I start giving barrel clinics next summer as planned, once Dani comes back, I may be able to write it off as a business expense. But right now, I just hope to win enough money to break even or not lose too much on travel.” She gave a small shrug. “Hey. All hobbies cost money, you know.”

  He thought of the rusted-out Mustang that he and his dad had restored. That had cost a lot of money and in the end they’d sold it at a small profit—nothing close to covering their time. He reached out to run a hand over her shoulder, felt the tension in her muscles.

  “Do you relax more as the season goes on?”

  She lifted her eyebrows in an amused way. “More like I develop a what-the-hell attitude.”

  He let his hand fall away, told himself that he needed to stop touching her, but she also needed to stop looking at him like that.

  The past week at the store had been...interesting...to say the least. Mike had showed up every day, acting as an unwitting chaperone. His presence reminding Dylan to keep his distance from Jolie while they were on the clock—as much as he could anyway. If the chance to get close presented itself...well, more often than not, he took it.

  She wasn’t stepping back emotionally as much as she had prior to confession time, but neither was he.

  When his lawyer had called and told him that she’d sent a letter to Lindsey requesting one month’s mortgage reimbursement for the month that they could prove she’d had a roommate, he’d shared the news with Jolie. And a few days later when the real-estate agent had called to say that there had finally been an offer on the house—a low offer, but an offer all the same—he’d shared that, too. It was as if he was approaching The Oprah Winfrey Show status in the sharing department.

  Jolie, on the other hand, hadn’t been so open. She teased when the opportunity arose; she didn’t back away when he got close. And more than that, she hadn’t withdrawn her offer of letting him travel to the rodeo with her even though there had been three days between her offer and the actual event. She seemed to like their new status as friends—not the kissing kind—but from the way her gaze kept slipping to his mouth, he wondered how long that was going to last. How long he was going to let it last.

  She was driving him crazy and, if he were honest, he was loving it.

  As his dad had told him, what was worth having was worth waiting for.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  JOLIE WASN’T CERTAIN whether having Dylan at the rodeo with her was a blessing or a curse. She liked being close to him, would have been lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the tension snapping between them. It seemed that once she’d made her decision to enjoy it, it made it possible for her to do just that. He was a friend. A hot, hot friend. Nothing wrong with letting a hot friend add a little zest to one’s fantasy life.

  In a few weeks he’d be back in Lanesburg, she’d be at the store and maybe they’d see each other on the holidays. Maybe she’d hear about him via Mike. He’d get his detective’s badge, work in a position where he wouldn’t be in that cruiser tempting fate, and she’d be happily building her ranch. Running barrels. Waiting to become a doting aunt.

  She glanced over to where he was standing near the front of the truck, watching the contestants as they made ready for the day. The roping kids raced toward him and he had to take a quick step sideways to avoid being roped before they charged on. He laughed and looked back at her and she felt a slow tumbling in her midsection. Damn but he was gorgeous.

  He ambled toward her, hands in his jacket pockets. “Cute kids.”

  Who would grow into hunky cowboys, no doubt. “Yeah,” she agreed.

  “What do you do until you compete?”

  “Warm up. Sometimes I shop at the vendor booths if I’m feeling flush. Catch up with old friends.”

  “And today?”

  “Warm up. And I’ll probably watch the first half of the rodeo with you.”

  “Want to grab something to eat? Or are you a nervous-stomach performer?”

  “Just the opposite. I feed my stress.”

  He laughed, his teeth flashing white against his tanned face. He held out a hand. “I’ll buy you some lunch.”

  Jolie hesitated ever so briefly before putting her hand in his. He squeezed her fingers and she returned the pressure. Friends.

  * * *

  WHILE JOLIE WARMED UP, Dylan watched the competition. It was a smallish venue, but the stands were packed—because it was Memorial Day and one of the first rodeos of the season, Jolie explained. He had to admit to thinking that maybe he’d missed something by not attending more rodeos. Or maybe he just appreciated the fact that a guy could get the snot beat out of him by a bronc then stand up, dust himself off and wave his hat to the crowd as he walked off, doing his best to look as though he felt no pain. Kind of what he did in the line of duty.

  Yeah. He admired these guys.

  As her event approached, Jolie took on the same look as the steer wrestlers and the ropers—one of grit and determination. And when Dylan watched her charge out into the arena, one small woman atop a thousand pounds of churning horseflesh, he felt his mouth drop open then snap shut as he silently rode with her, helping her around those barrels, then bringing her on home. It was all he could do not to jump to his feet as she crossed the barrier then pulled her mare to a sliding stop. The crowd cheered. She wasn’t the top time, but missed it by only fractions of a second. In the money, which was what she’d hoped. Dylan got to his feet and made his way to her goo
seneck, all thoughts of watching the bulls gone.

  “Way to go,” he said as he approached.

  Jolie was not smiling. She looked exhausted. “Yeah. I’m happy.” She didn’t sound like it, but he realized she was coming down after her performance and probably felt about the same as he did after successfully chasing down a runner.

  She unsaddled Jenabelle as if on autopilot, her look distant, and he had the feeling she was still going over her run in her head, analyzing. Tweaking. He took the saddle from her and she looked surprised but didn’t fight him for the honor of storing it away in the tack compartment. A cheer came up from the arena and she glanced at him as he stepped out of the compartment.

  “If you want to watch the bulls, you better get back to the stands.”

  Dylan simply shook his head.

  “Then...you want to grab something to eat?”

  He wanted to grab something, all right. And she was standing right there in front of him. Slowly he hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, curling his fingers loosely against his jeans.

  “Yeah.” That palpable...something...was once again there. Hanging between them. Neither of them moved.

  Finally, Jolie let out a long, low breath. “Dooley’s is good.”

  “Dooley’s it is.”

  Dooley’s was good. And so was the company. Dylan was to drive home, so he didn’t drink, but Jolie had a tall beer and as the glass emptied, she began to talk more. About the circuit. About the ranch. About her plans for the future.

  Dylan listened, suspecting that she was talking about one subject but thinking about another. And he was doing the same.

  She fell asleep on the drive home, startled herself awake at one point, shot him a fearful glance, which made him want to ask whether she’d had a nightmare, then she let out a shaky breath and settled back against the door and closed her eyes again.

  They stayed closed until he drove into her yard where his truck was waiting next to the barn.