“So how about you? Why do you do what you do?” she asked.
“Well, that’s the thing,” he said. “My brothers say I do it for buckles and babes, and that bothers me.”
Suze grinned. “I don’t see why. If they want to judge you by that standard, you’re a howling success.”
He laughed again. She so loved to watch him laugh. Maybe they’d be friends after this—if she could keep that trailer door closed. She didn’t want to be another one of the women Brady left behind. She wanted to be his friend. The challenge was to resist the sexual magnetism that emanated from him like the reflected aura that had shimmered around him in that puddle on the asphalt.
“Everybody thinks I’m superficial,” he said.
She almost laughed. Of course he was superficial. That’s what everyone loved about Brady. It might not feel good to be called shallow, but in a way, it was another word for honest. Brady never lied about his motives or pretended to be anything other than what he was. And that was refreshing.
But right now he was being serious, and nobody wants to be laughed at. Staring up at the sky, she thought about how that would feel—to have everyone think your only purpose in life was to have a good time. She supposed life could feel a little empty that way.
“There’s a lot more to you than buckles and babes,” she said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here, with me.”
He grinned. “Some people would say different.”
She whisked away the comment with a wave of her hand. “I’m no babe. You left them back at the bar.”
“You’re right,” he said. “You’re not a babe. You’re something more.”
She felt his eyes on her and tried not to blush. The things he was saying—this was better than any fantasy she’d ever had. And she’d had many fantasies, all of them starring the man beside her.
The man who was looking for something from her. Not sex, but meaning. She needed to quit mooning about him and talk to him.
“Just think about it,” she said. “What’s the real reason you do it? The deep down reason?”
“Same reason you do, I think. The way you talked about riding before, about that moment when you start the race? That’s the kind of thing I do it for.” He looked up into the star-spattered sky. It was smudged with a few streaky clouds, but they didn’t obscure the bright speck of light that drew a quick arc across the sky and disappeared.
Brady turned to Suze, a question in his eyes, and she smiled. They shared the rare experience without a word. She liked that.
Maybe Brady wasn’t as superficial as they said.
His voice went low and soft. “I collect moments like that. Rare moments.” He reached over and took her hand, and she was so dazzled—star dazzled, Brady-dazzled—that she let him.
Moments. Rare moments. She wondered if he knew he’d just created one for her.
But he was still talking rodeo.
“When I get settled just right in the saddle, and I brace my feet and give the nod—I guess that’s my equivalent of your moment, when Speedo starts his run.” He was warming to the topic now, edging forward in his chair and gesturing as he talked. “It’s the possibilities. A thousand things could flow from that moment, and you don’t have a clue what’s going to happen. You could win; you could lose. The bronc could make one of those high, straight-legged jumps where you leave the saddle for a second and float above him, weightless.” He raised his hand, palm down, in the air. “I love that feeling. Or he could sunfish and crash down on you, like that danged Tornado did to my brother.” The hand flipped over, palm to the sky, and crash-landed in his lap.
“How is your brother?”
“Better,” Brady said. “He won’t rodeo again, though. Dang bull rolled over on his hand, and he has no grip at all. But he’s married now, and happy.”
“That’s good.” She shuddered. “He’s lucky he’s alive. That was a terrible wreck.”
He nodded. “Every time I board a bronc, I feel how little separates life and death.”
Suze grabbed another beer from the six-pack. Popping the top, she took a long drink. “I try not to think about that when I watch you.”
“Why not?” He grinned. “Half the crowd’s hoping I’ll wreck.”
He seemed to have forgotten about the falling star they’d shared, which was all right with Suze. She’d hold that moment for a long time—the way he’d turned and smiled, the way he’d taken her hand. It would become a treasure, like a shiny toy kept hidden away so she could play with it whenever she felt down.
“How can you know they’re hoping you’ll get hurt and not be—I don’t know, angry or resentful?” she asked.
He shrugged. “That’s just how it is. So when I get bucked off, I try to dismount slick. I want to land on my feet and tip my hat, like it’s nothing to me. I don’t want to give them that wreck.”
“It always seems like it really is nothing to you.” Suze flushed. “I mean, I know you want to win as much as anybody, but you’re so good-natured when you don’t score. I don’t know how you do that. I think it’s why you’re so popular.”
He shrugged. “Rodeo’s the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s my world, the best one I ever knew. If that crowd wants me to get stomped, frankly, I don’t mind giving them a show once in a while. Long as I can stand up and climb back in the saddle the next time my name’s called, I’m good.”
One part of her was listening to his words; the other part was reading the current that flowed beneath them. Brady had survived an ugly childhood in the foster care system, and an uglier one before that, with abusive parents. He didn’t talk about it, but she knew his real life had begun when Bill Decker pulled him out of the system and onto the ranch.
She looked up at the trees and stars, and thought how lucky she’d been to be born into this life. Her father might be hard to please, and she sure wished her mother had lived. But she had horses and blue jeans and a country world so wide, she’d never run out of dirt roads and rodeos.
“Rodeo saved you, didn’t it?” she asked Brady.
He was quiet for a long time, looking up at the sky as if he’d find the answer written in the delicate tracery of the stars. It felt to Suze like the world held its breath, waiting to see if he’d let her in.
At some point, he’d moved his chair closer, and he still held her hand. Now he took it in both of his and smiled.
“You’re right. Rodeo, and Bill Decker.” He kissed the back of her hand and dropped it. She wondered if he was dismissing her or if the kiss meant something. With some effort, she resisted the temptation to obsess over interpreting it and paid attention to his words. “I’ll never forget when Bill took us to our first rodeo. For me, it was like stories I’d heard about the circus—so big and full of life and lights and pretty girls. I never wanted anything else after that. Nothing else in the world.”
“Nothing?” She fluttered her lashes and felt her heart lift like a rowboat rising on the crest of a wave. She was flirting. She’d figured it out.
And it worked.
“I guess there is one other thing I want,” Brady said. “One other thing.”
She pulled another beer from the six-pack and lifted it in a toast. Brady didn’t need to know she was celebrating her first successful effort at flirting.
“Are you thinking we might have a moment?” she asked.
He took his hat off and smiled. “I think we’re having one now.”
Suze felt her heart ramp up to a fast trot, and her breath came quick and shallow. Brady was right. They were having a moment, and it was moments that mattered—life’s little diamonds, scattered through even the most commonplace life. Those rare gems were what everyone lived for, when it came down to it. And right now, she had a chance to have more than a moment with Brady.
Rising from her chair, she opened the trailer door. She wanted to turn and
flash Brady a saucy look, but instead she tripped and banged her shin on the step.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said. “I’m fine. Um, you want to come in?”
This wasn’t quite the way it happened in her fantasies. But it was happening for real.
Chapter 4
Brady was surprised Suze Carlyle would even talk to him. Normally, she wouldn’t let him close enough for conversation. The moment he entered a room, she’d toss that tawny gold braid and leave. He’d always figured either she hated him or she was in love with him.
Tonight he’d found out she didn’t hate him. And that meant he shouldn’t flirt with her. Shouldn’t even be having this conversation.
Suze was serious about everything she did, and he didn’t do serious.
She didn’t look serious right now, though. She was smiling like she did this all the time.
He’d always thought she disapproved of him. She’d see him with some buckle bunny, and she’d lift her chin and toss her hair, and he’d feel like dirt. Or she’d run into him with his friends, drinking and fooling around, and look at him like he was an idiot.
So the open door of the trailer and the woman standing in its square of golden light were too tempting to resist. He stepped up and kissed her, harder than he meant to. She grabbed for the door frame, but it was too late. The two of them fell, laughing and kissing, onto the kitchen floor.
They crawled inside in a tangle of limbs and laughter. She’d start to stand, and he’d pull her down for another kiss, and then she’d scramble a few feet toward the back of the trailer and he’d pull her back to him.
He heard footsteps passing by on the gravel lot and wondered how much anybody could see by the dim red glow of the chili pepper lights. He tried to kick the door shut, but his boot hit her shin instead. She yelped and laughed, kicking him back, but then she escaped his grip and shut the door. The two of them sat on the floor, panting for breath and grinning at each other.
He glanced around, realizing he’d never seen the inside of a two-time champion’s trailer before. Sponsors fought for the privilege of providing trailers for rodeo royalty like Suze, and Montana Saddlery was proud to emblazon their name across the side.
The trailer might be just the thing to light a fire under his lazy ass, because it was as knock-you-down gorgeous as its owner. It was fitted out like the inside of a ship, everything either gleaming teak or spotless white, all with brass fittings. The space was small, of course; it had to be hauled all over the country, and it needed to carry two horses as well as Suze herself. There was even a small tack room at the back, and a space for hay and grain.
Her bed was all the way at the front, a platform that could be propped up to double as a sofa. It was covered with a bright Native American blanket and heaped with pillows in various solids that matched the stripes on the blanket—blue and burnt orange and brown.
What was it about girls and pillows? There was barely room enough for two people there.
Suze took care of that in no time, sweeping the pillows aside and letting half of them fall to the floor. One particularly shaggy one turned into a hairy little dog who jumped up and treated Brady to a ridiculous display of doggie machismo, barking and growling from behind a curtain of gold and gray hair that covered his eyes.
“Hush, Dooley.” Suze turned to Brady. “Don’t mind him. He’s all bark.”
“More like he’s all hair. What kind of dog is he?”
“He’s a Dooley dog.” She laughed. “There’s only one.”
He reached out to pet the dog, and it turned into a wriggling, tail-wagging bundle of glee. “You don’t seem like the type who’d have a hairy little yapper dog,” he said.
“Yeah, well.” She flushed. “He needed a home.” She lifted him off the bed. “Shoo, Dooley.”
The dog scampered away and Suze plopped down in the middle of the pillows, bouncing on the bed, and looked up at Brady, seeming suddenly shy.
When she’d opened the door to her trailer, he’d been sure she’d made up her mind to let him into her bed. But maybe he’d assumed too much. She looked up at him with a smile that was a little tentative, as if she was wondering what she’d started.
He sat down beside her. “Remember how you said I was good-natured even when I get a no score?”
She nodded, biting her lip.
“Well, you’re right. That’s one of the things that drives my brothers crazy.” He kept his tone conversational, and he could feel her starting to relax. “I’m just not very goal oriented. Sometimes a moment is enough.” The light in his eyes softened as he took her hand. “I don’t have to score. And I don’t even like to hear this called that.”
Her smile quirked up on one side. “This?”
He looked her straight in the eye. “You know what this is.”
“I sure do.” She kicked off one boot, then the other. They hit the floor with two solid thumps, and she shot him a sultry look from under her lashes. “I’m a big girl, Brady. I can handle it.”
He sure as heck hoped that was true.
And for the first time ever, he found himself wondering if he could handle it.
* * *
Brady had been bucked off in the first go-round that day, so he’d had time to go home and clean up before hitting the beer tent. Suze, on the other hand, had won the barrel racing, which was the final event of the day. She was still dressed in her riding clothes, which didn’t look all that different from her everyday clothes—a long-sleeved Western shirt, Wrangler jeans, and boots. It was the same thing Brady was wearing, but his clothes were clean. She probably smelled like a stable—or worse.
“I need to take a shower,” she said.
Brady rolled over, pulling her close, and breathed deep.
“Are you going to use all kinds of fancy soaps and shampoos, and squirt yourself with flowery perfume when you’re done?”
Suze huffed out a laugh. She should have known she wasn’t good enough for Brady. Might as well let him know that now.
“I don’t own any fancy soaps,” she said. “And I use Mane ’n Tail shampoo.
Brady laughed. “Is that the same shampoo Speedo uses?”
Suze nodded. She wasn’t really ashamed of using horse shampoo. Brady might not know it, but lots of the girls used it. It seemed to strengthen hair and make it shiny better than anything else on the market.
“Seems like it’s working,” he murmured.
She realized then that he’d undone the rawhide tie at the bottom of her braid and was working his fingers through the plaits, undoing it from the bottom up. It felt good, his fingers stroking through her hair, and she didn’t want him to stop. But she needed to tell him…
“I don’t have any perfume either.”
“Praise the Lord.” He buried his head in the crook of her neck and shoulder, and inhaled her scent, which was probably nothing pretty at this point. It might look like a girl just sat up there in the saddle and the horse did all the work, but riding barrels was a workout.
“Dang, girl.” He kissed the side of her neck. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. You smell fantastic.”
He probably said that to all the girls, but, heck, she’d take it.
Whatever he wanted to give her, she’d take it.
He tugged her collar aside so he could nuzzle her throat. One button slipped open somehow, then the next, and then she was lying there in low-slung jeans and a plain white sports bra. The outfit was hardly the stuff of randy male fantasies, but at least she didn’t have to be ashamed of her body. The workout she got from riding might not make her smell pretty, but it kept her in shape. And the stretchy bra tamed her curves a little bit, which was a good thing.
Brady sat up on his knees and looked down at her. She’d ended up sprawled on the pillows in what probably looked like a wanton, come-hither pos
e. Come to think of it, she was feeling pretty wanton and sexy. And it was obvious that Brady liked it.
“You should dress like that more often.”
“Like this?”
Only a man would say that. She had way too much up top to parade around in her next-to-nothings. There were girls who did, but they were attention hounds, and wore things far more lacy and sparkly than her plain white bra.
“Just like that.” He reached out and ran his finger gently down the edge of one strap, then across the front, taking his fingertip on a hilly journey across the top of one breast, down into her cleavage, and across the other.
Just one touch of his finger made her breath catch. What would it be like if—if this went further?
“If you dressed like this all the time, I could look at you and think about doing this,” he said, tugging one strap down her shoulder. “And this.” He loosened the other strap. “And this.” He stroked his hands down her sides. The nerves just under her skin rippled with the sensation, making her gasp. “You like that,” he murmured, bending down to kiss her.
She couldn’t help herself. She did like it. She liked it a lot.
She tried to stay cool, to control her breathing, but she loved kissing, and kissing Brady was sheer heaven. He smelled so good and tasted better, like toothpaste and mint and very, very faintly of beer.
Come to think of it, she probably tasted like a brewery. She’d had how many beers? Two? Three? She couldn’t remember, but she suspected that however many she’d had, they were responsible for her newfound courage—the courage that let her stroke her tongue across his upper lip and dart it into his mouth, the courage that let her pull him down on top of her so she could writhe under his body and press her hips to his, making her needs perfectly clear.
God, he felt good.
She could feel the tension of the day unwinding as she gave herself over to pure feeling—something she rarely did. Her mind was always running, always worrying, always obsessing about something. The only other time her mind cleared was when she was racing.
Like water flowing.
How to Kiss a Cowboy Page 3