Just a Cowboy and His Baby

by Carolyn Brown

  “Got a long way to go tomorrow so I’ll have to pass this time around. But hey, congratulations on that win tonight. You really did well.”

  The song ended and he dipped her low. “My offer will still be good after the Colorado Springs rodeo. Hell, it’ll be good until hell freezes plumb over and the angels are ice skating on it.”

  “Now that’s an original line if I ever heard one,” she laughed.

  “It’s the God’s gospel truth according to Landry Winters. And Landry would not lie to a pretty cowgirl like you, sweetheart,” he said.

  The song ended and Landry thanked her for the dance before he disappeared in a sea of hungry women looking for a handsome cowboy. She scanned the arena to see if Trace was at the dance. She found him leaning against a chute, beer in hand, women gathered around him like piglets hugged up to a trough of fresh corn mash. Her green eyes locked with his and one eyelid slid shut in a sexy wink.

  His mouth turned up into a roguish grin that sent delicious little warm waves from her lips to her toes. Why in the hell couldn’t she get that reaction with Landry? She tipped up the beer and finished it, tossed the bottle into the nearest trash can, and looked back at Trace. A redhead in tight Daisy Mae shorts, a top with only a bit more material than a Band-Aid, and hot pink boots must’ve thought he was smiling at her because she ran her hand down his bicep and snuggled in close to his side.

  The band kicked into the old Mel Street song “Don’t Be Angry,” and the redhead led Trace out into the middle of the arena.

  “Dammit!” Gemma fussed at herself for being jealous. The redhead was a hussy deluxe, but maybe that’s what Trace really liked. And that song and dance about not getting tangled up with groupies might have been one big old bald-faced lie!

  “Hello, Miz Gemma O’Donnell,” a deep drawl said at her elbow. Half expecting to turn around and find Landry with another saddlebag full of pick-up lines or maybe Coby with his own brand of get-the-lady-to-fall-over-backward lines, she was amazed to see an older cowboy. He handed her a longneck of Coors and nodded toward the center of the arena.

  “Want to make this old man the envy of all the young bucks in this place?” he asked.

  Gemma sipped the beer, set it on a bale of hay, and put her hand in his. He put one arm around her waist and the other clasped her hand. His movements were so smooth that she felt like she was dancing with her father back in Ringgold.

  “You did right good tonight on that ride, little lady. Cash would be mighty proud of you. I called him and told him that you might not have won first place but you damn sure did a fine job,” he said.

  “Thank you. You know my daddy and momma?”

  “Yes, I do. They raise some of the prettiest horses in the world. Me and Cash have stuck many a boot up on a rail at the rodeos. I watched you grow up. Guess you don’t recognize me, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m just an old bull rider who can’t seem to stay away from a rowdy rodeo, especially the dancin’ part. I was retired from ridin’ long before you was big enough to talk Cash into lettin’ you ride a bull or a bronc.”

  “Well, if you ride like you dance, honey, I’d say you do a fine job. I’m sorry, but I can’t place you.” She smiled.

  “Did all right. I’d be Chopper McBride by name.”

  Gemma stopped breathing. Chopper was the best bull rider ever to hit the rodeos. He had trophies that the young generation could only dream about and was a legend whose name was whispered in reverence. She stared, slack jawed, like a teenager who’d just been kissed on the cheek by Justin Bieber. Words wouldn’t come out of her mouth and she was amazed that she didn’t step all over Chopper’s toes. Her dad talked about him all the time, but she couldn’t ever remember actually meeting the man.

  “I saw Trace Coleman doing some flirting from across the arena,” Chopper said.

  “We’re both antagonizing each other in hopes that we make the other one mess up so bad they’ll go home,” she said.

  She’d barely gotten the last word out when Trace’s arm brushed against hers as he twirled the redhead away in another direction. Her flesh tingled and a fresh flash of desire flared.

  “You are both playing a dangerous game, honey. The vibes, as you young people call them, were dancin’ around like water on a hot grill when he breezed past us,” Chopper said.

  “Dangerous?” Gemma asked seriously.

  “Take it from an old wise man. When a butterfly flits too close to the flame, there’s bound to be some smoke damage on its little wings. You’re playin’ with fire when it comes to Trace and he’s doin’ the same thing. There’s a spark there that any fool could see even with his eyes closed. You are two strong people full of spit and vinegar. You remind me of two wildfires comin’ at each other. Know what happens when they collide?”

  “They hit with a force and burn each other out,” she said.

  “That’s right. You think about that, darlin’. And that’s enough advice from an old bull rider. You just be careful and tell Cash and Maddie hello for me,” he said when the song ended.

  He blended into the shadows before Gemma could tell him that she wasn’t a butterfly. She was a tough woman and she knew what she was doing. She scanned the dance area for Trace. He caught her eye, pulled away from the group of women surrounding him, and started toward Gemma. Before he’d gone three steps, a blonde wrapped her arms around his neck and plastered herself against his body as the singer belted out “All Over Me” by Blake Shelton.

  The woman was definitely working the song for all it was worth as she wiggled and squirmed right up next to Trace. Her visible panting probably had little to do with dancing and everything to do with all that sexy talk she was putting into his ear.

  Gemma picked up the beer she’d set on the hay bale and finished it off while Trace danced with the blonde. Chopper was right. She was playing with red-hot fire and yet she couldn’t help herself. He caught her eye again and rolled his eyes. She imagined resting her cheek on his broad chest and another blistering bout of heat dried up her mouth and made her wish for another beer.

  When she looked at him again he mouthed, “Help me.”

  She shook her head. He’d gotten himself into the virtual vertical sex; he could damn well get himself out of it without her help.

  The singer went right into “She Doesn’t Know She’s Got It,” a faster, spicier song, also by Blake.

  Gemma started dancing and was soon joined by a bunch of other girls. She kept an eye on Trace the whole time. The woman said something and he shook his head so she blew him a kiss and went on to Landry. When the next woman approached Trace he shook his head again, sipped his beer, and leaned against a chute.

  Gemma slipped in seductive moves to torment him, but it worked in reverse because every time she looked at him, it was as if he took off another item of clothing with his eyes. She figured if he could heat up the dust around her, then she’d give him a dose of his own medicine. She put her hands over her head and clapped them together, swaying her hips to the beat of the drum. She shut her eyes and let the music, especially the fiddle, become a part of her as Blake sang about a girl who didn’t know she had it or how bad he wanted it.

  Did Trace really want what she had?

  Suddenly the whole arena was blurring and swaying. The stars in the sky were blending together and the moon was getting smaller and smaller. Good Lord, she’d never gotten drunk on two beers in her entire life. And she wasn’t even drinking on an empty stomach. The song finished and Trace made his way through the people to her side. His jeans bunched up over the toes of black dusty boots. His plaid shirt stuck to his body like glue, and the night breeze carried the scent of his shaving lotion ahead of him. She rolled her neck. Maybe she had gotten whiplash and it was bearing down on a nerve supplying oxygen to her brain.

  “May I have this da
nce, ma’am?” Trace asked.

  She took a step forward and the world did a forty-five-degree tilt to one side. She’d read about swooning in romance books, but there’d never been a cowboy in her past who’d given her a dose of the vapors. The band geared up for a Billy Currington song, one of Gemma’s favorites because he said that beer was good, God was great, and people were crazy. Those three things were a given no matter where she was, whether it was at a big family gathering in Ringgold, Texas, or dancing with a tall dark-haired cowboy at a rodeo dance in Colorado.

  She wrapped both arms around Trace’s neck and laid her cheek on his chest. His heart pounded louder than the drums on the stage.

  She’d only had two beers; she could not be drunk, but she could not focus on anything but the beating of his heart. She’d been drunk before and suffered from hangovers. She’d cried in her beer, she’d giggled in her whiskey, but she’d never felt like she was floating.

  She looked up at Trace and his eyes began to blur. His lips looked so delicious and his dark hair so soft. And then everything started slipping away. She opened her eyes wide and tried to get her legs to support her, but nothing worked. Everything went black and she sank into a deep black hole.

  Chapter 4

  Trace had never seen anyone pass out as cold as Gemma. He scooped her up and her face lolled against his chest, her arms flailed out limply, and her legs hung as if she had no bones in her body. He wasn’t totally sure what to do next. Call the rodeo doctor? Take her to her trailer to sleep it off?

  The song ended and another one started. Dancers changed partners quickly or else kept the one they had and the crowd began to sway and move again. No one noticed him carrying Gemma away from the arena lights and into the darkness. And she damn sure didn’t wake up.

  He sniffed the night air as he headed toward his trailer. Her exotic perfume covered up the smell of alcohol. She must’ve started knocking them back right after her ride because there was no way she could have gotten to the pass-out drunk stage on just two beers.

  He shooed Sugar back away from the door and carried Gemma straight to his bed. She mumbled something when he carefully laid her down, but he couldn’t understand a word. He pushed her hair back away from her face to fan out like a halo on the pillow. But to think that she looked like an angel lying there would be stretching the imagination. Gemma was hard as nails, spicier than Cajun cooking, and was by far the sassiest woman he’d ever met.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned over to whisper in her ear, “Hey, Gemma, wake up!”

  Nothing. Not even a rolling flicker behind her eyelids.

  If she hadn’t been stone cold drunk, she would have risen up off that pillow and scorched the hair off his chest with a fiery hissy fit. And then she’d do that sexy little wiggle stomp dance out of his trailer, slam the door hard enough to rattle Sugar’s teeth, and throw looks off her shoulder that would blister the paint off his trailer.

  He tried another angle. “Sweetheart, you were damn good in bed, but it’s time to go home now. I don’t let women sleep in my bed after sex no matter how good it is.”

  Nada. Not even a break in her breathing.

  He looked down at the Chihuahua sitting beside the bed. “Sugar, I can’t believe a woman who can ride a bronc like she does would pass out after two beers. I figured with her Irish blood, she could drink all of us cowboys under the table and then dance on the bar to celebrate.”

  Sugar whimpered and climbed the steps at the end of the bed. She eased up to the pillow and sniffed Gemma’s face. Then she started at her chin and slurped all the way to her hairline in one big lick. Still Gemma didn’t move a muscle.

  “She’s out, Sugar. Dropped like a light. Never seen anything quite like it, and it’s a good thing that I was there or she’d be stretched out in the dirt. Whoa! Hold the hosses! She’s not drunk. She’d be holding her head over a toilet if she was that drunk. She’s drugged.”

  He lifted her hand and dropped it. It fell back on the bed with a thud. He did the same with her leg and got the same result.

  “Somebody drugged her beer while she was dancing with Chopper. I saw her set it down on a bale of hay. That’s why she’s out so deep. I’m glad I was the one dancing with her. No tellin’ where she’d be if I hadn’t been. You mind sharing your pillows with her tonight?” he asked Sugar.

  The tiny dog curled up next to Gemma, and Trace eased off the bed. He looked back over his shoulder at her before he kicked his boots off and stepped into the shower for the second time that evening. He left the door open just in case she roused and started kicking and screaming.

  Afterwards he put on a pair of cotton knit lounging pants, and then stretched out on the bed next to her and Sugar. He laced his hands behind his head and thought about everything that had happened since he started the trip. It had already been an experience of firsts: his first time competing against a woman, first time seeing someone drugged, first time having his socks knocked off by a kiss.

  He was thirty-two years old and had been dating since he was sixteen. He’d had relationships and almost married a couple of times. But there was something different about what was going on with him and Gemma. And there was damn sure something different in the way her kisses affected him.

  This was his third rodeo circuit, and he hoped that old adage about the third time around being the charm was the gospel truth. Two years before he’d made his first attempt at winning enough money to buy the ranch and he’d steered clear of the rodeo groupies. He didn’t even make the final cut that year, but he did find out the groupies had bets going about which one would get into his trailer first and how long she’d keep his attention. Ava hadn’t done any betting, but she’d made it past the front door of his trailer in Lovington, New Mexico. That was less than a year ago, but looking back, it seemed like it never happened at all. She’d appeared out of nowhere at the dance after the rodeo. Her tight jeans and boots were brand spanking new and she didn’t know how to two-step, but she was willing to learn. She hadn’t known how to drink whiskey, but she’d learned to do that, too, that weekend. And when the band sang Conway Twitty’s old song called “Tight Fittin’ Jeans,” she’d hugged up to him like a real cowgirl.

  “This is the story of my life. I’m used to wearing pearls and riding in limos, but this weekend I’m out to see what it is about you cowboys that turns a woman into a hormonal fool. Got to admit, it wouldn’t take a lot to turn me right now,” she’d said.

  He’d told her that that was the craziest come-on line he’d ever heard. The next morning he had awakened to those new jeans and boots lying beside his bed. One wild night had stretched into a weekend.

  On Monday morning after breakfast she had dressed in her jeans and boots and told him, “It was fun, cowboy. I guess the fuss about you cowboys is well earned. I’m not disappointed, but it was just for one weekend. Now like that singer said the other night, I’m goin’ back to my own world and you can stay in yours.” She had shut the door behind her and he’d never seen her again.

  He hadn’t loved Ava; hell, he didn’t even know her last name. He didn’t have her phone number and he didn’t want to see her again. He wished it had never happened. There should be something between a man and woman other than a bottle of expensive whiskey and too many beers to count before they went to bed.

  He’d made it to the finals that year but wrecked in the Las Vegas ride. So one year he had stayed away from rodeo sex. The next year he’d had one weekend of it. Neither year had been a good one.

  He looked over at Gemma again and wondered what this year, the third one and supposedly the charm, would bring. Neither Ava, nor the two women he’d fancied himself in love with, made his mouth go dry and his heart do double time like Gemma O’Donnell. She couldn’t begin to understand how important it was to him to win that title and the money that went with it. He’d worked for his Uncle Teamer
for the better part of ten years, and Teamer had offered to sign the ranch over to him lock, stock, and barrel.

  “I haven’t got kids and you’ve been like a son to me, Trace. Let me give you this land and cattle. Your grandpa left it to me so it’s rightfully yours,” he’d said.

  “There are three more male cousins who deserve this as much as I do. I’ll buy it, but I won’t take it free of charge,” Trace had told him.

  Winning the bronc riding event in Vegas would give him the rest of the money he needed to make that happen. Gemma O’Donnell just wanted the glory and she could get that another year. He’d even sit in the crowd and cheer for her the next year, but this year belonged to Trace Coleman.

  Sugar roused and looked at the woman lying on her pillow.

  Trace shook his head slowly. “Wild horses couldn’t wake her up. But I will guaran-damn-tee that come morning that Irish beauty is going to wake up cussin’ mad.”

  Gemma’s arms were still beside her, her hair fanned out on the pillow, and her boot toes pointed straight up. She looked so much like a corpse that he checked her pulse to make sure she was alive.

  “Hey!” he yelled again, but she didn’t move.

  “Gemma!” he yelled louder, and Sugar growled at him.

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear so he could see her face. He liked her better when her pretty green eyes were wide open. If she was happy, they dazzled. If she was mad, dark storm clouds brewed in them.

  He fell asleep pondering over what he’d see in those green eyes if they suddenly snapped open and saw him lying beside her. Would they go all soft and dreamy, or would a class five tornado come streaming out of them?

  ***