Tougher in Texas

by Kari Lynn Dell

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  Sourcebooks Casablanca Copyright © 2017 by Kari Lynn Dell

  Cover and internal design © 2017 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Craig White

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks, Inc., is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  A Sneak Peek of Fearless in Texas

  Rodeo 101

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  In memory of Tal Michael, who loved bucking horses and being a pickup man.

  Chapter 1

  All of Cole’s problems would be solved if he just found a wife.

  The thought popped into his head at the exact instant that a ton of bovine suddenly bellowed and kicked, slamming into the steel gate Cole was holding and knocking him flat on his ass. If Cole hadn’t stood six foot six, he probably would’ve lost some teeth. The gate caught him in the chest instead, and sent him sprawling in the dirt. His red heeler, Katie, barked once and launched herself at the bull to protect him, but Carrot Top just trotted off down the alley, more interested in checking the empty pens for leftover hay.

  Cole scrambled to his feet and snarled as his gaze zeroed in on the bright-yellow cattle prod in the hand of one of the men who rushed to his aid. “What the fuck are you doing with that thing?”

  The cowboy took a hasty step back, then another when Cole stalked toward him. “Just hurryin’ things along.”

  “My stock moves just fine without a hotshot.” Cole made sure of it, training them from birth to handle easily. The rodeo season was a cross-country marathon of long miles and strange places. Less stress equaled better performance, and even though the low-current buzz of the cattle prod was more startling than painful, Cole wanted his stock as relaxed as possible until the moment they exploded from the bucking chute. Carrot Top was an old pro. He’d earned the right to inspect the loading chute before setting hoof on the steep ramp.

  And to come unglued when some asshole zapped him.

  The cowboy ran out of room and backed up against the fence. Cole snatched the hotshot, busted it over his knee, and then tossed it back, the ends dangling by the wires that ran down the long shaft. “Pack that and the rest of your shit and get out of here.”

  The cowboy clutched the broken prod to his chest, jaw dropping. “But I’m your pickup man.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Cole turned his back and strode down the alley to retrieve Carrot Top. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over.

  Half an hour later, his cell phone buzzed. He was tempted to ignore it, but she would only keep calling until he answered. There was a strong undercurrent of stubborn in the Jacobs gene pool. He heaved a deep sigh and put some distance between himself and the rest of the crew before he accepted the call, holding the phone three inches from his ear in anticipation of his cousin’s displeasure.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Violet yelled.

  “He used a hotshot on Carrot Top.”

  “So ban him from the stock pens. Hell, ban him from the whole rodeo grounds except when he’s working the performances, but did you have to fire him?”

  “He used a hotshot on Carrot Top,” Cole repeated, slower this time.

  “I understand. It was stupid. But what do you suggest we do next weekend when you’re the only pickup man in the arena?”

  Cole hadn’t thought about that at the time. He’d been thinking about it since, but hiring contract personnel was Violet’s job. If she was here like normal, he wouldn’t have had to put up with a stranger. He wouldn’t have to put up with any of this crap. He could go back to just taking care of his stock and leaving all the people bullshit to Violet. He couldn’t say that, though, and as usual, his brain collapsed under pressure and offered up only the one sentence in his defense. “He used a hotshot on Carrot Top.”

  Violet huffed out a breath so exasperated he swore he felt the breeze on his end of the line. “You do realize the doctor sentenced me to bed rest because my blood pressure is through the roof, right?”

  Cole ducked his head, crushing a dirt clod with the toe of his boot. He wasn’t trying to aggravate anyone, especially Violet. She was command central for Jacobs Livestock. The hell she’d been going through had thrown all of them for a loop, Violet most of all. She hadn’t been sick a day in her first pregnancy, though Beni had decided to make an appearance six weeks early. She’d been prepared to be cautious and watchful. She had not expected to be sick as a dog practically from the moment she and Joe had seen the telltale line on the home pregnancy test.

  Besides, Cole was almost as excited about the baby as its parents. He loved being Uncle Cole, and now a little girl? He grinned at the thought of a future full of ponies and pink cowboy boots—assuming his family didn’t string him up for driving Violet into another premature labor.

  Cole huffed out a breath, leaning a shoulder against the back of the infield bleachers. Around him, the empty rodeo grounds looked l
ike a hangover—garbage cans overflowed with empty bottles, corners of banners drooped along the fences, spilled popcorn and a smashed glob of cotton candy littered the ground. Katie nosed around under the bleachers and came out packing a half-eaten hot dog. It all looked ill-used and abandoned—sort of like Cole felt.

  Yes, he had put them in a tight spot, but there were some things he wouldn’t tolerate when it came to his stock. Okay, many things. Obsessive-compulsive prick was another way of putting it, though only Joe dared say that to his face. He was family. Plus, he was a lot faster than Cole.

  “Don’t try to say I didn’t warn you,” Violet said, her voice laced with grim amusement.

  Cole froze. She couldn’t mean… “I thought you were kidding.”

  “No, I was not, any more than I was kidding when I told you to make this one work, or else.”

  Panic churned Cole’s gut. “Violet, you can’t. There must be somebody else—”

  “I refuse to even ask. This makes three perfectly good pickup men you’ve chased off. If you can’t force yourself to get along, I’ll send someone you can’t fire.”

  “Don’t. Please.” He didn’t hesitate to beg. If she followed through on her threat, he’d either be insane or under arrest by season’s end in September. “Just one more. I promise—”

  “Nope. I’m done. If you can find a replacement before tomorrow morning, I’ll hire him. Otherwise…” He could hear her smirking, dammit. “Your new partner will meet you at Cuero.”

  “Violet, come on—”

  The phone had gone dead. If he called back, it would go straight to voice mail. When Violet said she was done, she meant it.

  He jammed the phone in his pocket and stomped over to his rig, his stomach rumbling right along with the big diesel engines of the stock trucks that sat idling, waiting for him to lead the procession to the next rodeo. Yet another reason he needed to get on that wife thing. He’d never realized how much food it took to keep this big ol’ body of his fueled until he’d had to start rustling it up for himself. Living with his aunt Iris, there’d never been any need to learn how to cook. But she was with his uncle Steve in Salinas, California, at one of the most venerable rodeos in the country, always held the third week of July. They did the subcontracting, hauling the very best of the Jacobs string to elite shows too big for any single producer to handle.

  Leaving Cole to handle all of the rodeos where Jacobs Livestock was the lead contractor. And starve.

  He scowled into the fridge in his trailer—cold cuts, store-bought rolls, and plastic deli tubs of gooey macaroni and potato salad. He slapped together three sandwiches, grabbed a Coke, and kicked aside a pair of jeans that had spilled out of the overstuffed laundry hamper. His socks were turning gray and there wasn’t a crumb left from the last batch of cookies Miz Iris had mailed to him. He hadn’t had a homemade dinner roll since the Fourth of July.

  “This is no way to live, Katie girl.”

  The dog gave a little whine of agreement.

  He slammed into the cab of his pickup and tossed one of the sandwiches to Katie in the passenger’s seat. She ignored it. Even the dog was sick of cold cuts. At his growl of frustration, she cocked her head, the brown patches above her eyes creasing in concern.

  He rubbed a hand over her head. “First, we call everybody we know and try to find a new pickup man. Then we’re gonna figure out how to get us a wife.”

  Katie shot him a dubious look, then sighed and began to pick at her sandwich.

  Chapter 2

  As far as Shawnee Pickett was concerned, when most women went out to get a Brazilian, they were doing it all wrong.

  Yawning, she stretched, then rolled over to admire the long, lean body sprawled beside hers. She trailed her finger down the dark bronze arm slung over the pillow, and paused to wrap her hand around his biceps on the off chance she might be able to absorb some of the brilliance humming under his skin. That arm was property of the hottest young team roper to explode onto the pro rodeo scene in years. Maybe decades.

  Some people might not be thrilled about the Brazilian invasion of a sport they liked to think belonged to North America, but Shawnee sure wasn’t complaining.

  Her phone buzzed on the nightstand, then began to dance to the tune of Garth’s “Friends in Low Places.” Tori. Shawnee let it play a few bars, then peeled herself away from all that tempting bare skin and picked up. “Yes, Mother?”

  “I slept in, had breakfast, and drank two cups of coffee. Then I read the Sunday Dallas Morning News front to back, so thanks to you I’ve lost what little faith I had left in humanity.” Damn. Tori always made sarcasm sound so classy. “You’ve been holed up in that room for almost twelve hours. Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

  “Says the woman who was just whinin’ about not gettin’ to wrap her hands around Delon’s hot little ass for another week.”

  At the sound of Shawnee’s voice, Joao Pedro Azeveda—alias J.P. because most people were too lazy to learn to pronounce his name—stirred. Without opening his eyes, he reached out and hauled Shawnee over to where he could nestle his face in her bare cleavage. She sighed.

  “I heard that,” Tori said. “I’m loading the horses right now. If you’re not standing out in the parking lot when I swing by the motel, I will keep going and let you hitchhike home.”

  Now J.P.’s hands were getting in on the action, despite the fact that he’d only slept for four hours. Lord. Twenty-two was a beautiful thing. Shawnee stifled a moan. Maybe a quickie…

  “Don’t even,” Tori warned. In the background, Shawnee heard the sound of hooves thudding on the floor of the trailer as the horses hopped in. “If that boy is too weak to swing a rope at Bandera tonight, his partner will wring your neck.”

  Aw, hell. Shawnee caught J.P.’s wrist before either of them could get too heated up. He lifted his head and cocked it, questioning. Shawnee shook her head, pointing to the phone, then the door. He flashed her a coaxing grin as he slid his palm down her side and along her hip, pulling her against him so she could feel what she was missing. Her body responded in kind. She breathed a silent curse and shook her head again. He did one of those shrugs that was worth a thousand words, rolled over, and buried his face in the pillow.

  “Ten minutes,” Tori said.

  “You know you suck, right?”

  Tori gave an evil laugh and hung up. She didn’t judge, bless her heart, but she also didn’t make idle threats.

  Nine minutes later, Shawnee hopped around muttering curses while she tried to tug jeans on over shower-damp skin. Might help if she had slightly less butt to stuff into them. As she dragged a comb through her wet mop of brown curls, she gave J.P.’s gangly body one last, lingering glance. Asleep, he looked even younger. Suddenly she felt every one of the eleven years between them, and for an instant she wished…

  She shook off the weird little ache, grabbed her wallet, and headed for the door. This was how she rolled—keeping it loose and easy with guys who didn’t expect her to be there when they woke up.

  And yeah, she was aware that loose and easy were the most polite of the words tossed around behind her back. Well, fuck those sanctimonious assholes and the donkeys they rode in on. This was the life that had chosen her, and she was bound and determined to live it to the hilt. She didn’t hear J.P. or any of his predecessors complaining.

  She spared a glance in the mirror and winced. Without makeup, her face was a doughy blob with a couple of finger holes poked in it for eyes. Oh well. She could slap on a little something in the pickup.

  J.P. didn’t twitch when she opened the door. She didn’t wake him to say goodbye. Spanish she could handle. So far, Portuguese had eluded her and J.P. had only mastered the bare bones of English, which wasn’t all bad. When their paths did cross, they never wasted time on chitchat, though she wouldn’t have minded hearing him explain how he’d learned to snatch up both hind f
eet on wild, ass-slinging steers.

  As she stepped outside, a pickup and horse trailer rolled around the corner, right on schedule. After the cool dimness of the motel room, the midmorning sunlight slapped Shawnee in the face like a hot, damp towel. Still, her heart did a little happy dance at the sight of the rig. All hers. Turn ’Em and Burn ’Em Champion Heeler, the bold letters scrawled across the double-cab declared. Three years, and she still got a thrill every time she looked at it. Or its twin, which was parked in Tori’s driveway.

  The icing on the cake had been the monster prize money that came along with the pickups. Enough for Shawnee to finally get rid of her granddad’s rickety old stock trailer and buy herself a decent used gooseneck with a small but adequate living quarters in the front section. Sure as hell beat camping in the back of her old rust-bucket pickup.

  The rig barely rolled to a stop to let Shawnee hop in before Tori swung back out on the street and hit the gas. Shawnee dug her sunglasses out of the center console, jammed them on her face, then squinted through the blessedly dark lenses. Tori Patterson Hancock Sanchez didn’t look like the daughter of Texas’s version of royalty. Her caramel-brown hair was yanked through the loop of her baseball cap and she wasn’t wearing a scrap of makeup. Her jeans were smudged with dirt from the previous evening’s roping, though her sky-blue tank top was clean. She filled it out better than when they’d first met. Either Delon’s chocolate habit was contagious or being disgustingly well loved gave her an appetite.

  Speaking of which…

  “Can we swing past a hamburger stand? I’m starving.” At Tori’s impatient grunt, Shawnee scowled. “What, you’re in such a rush to get out of town you can’t spare three minutes to feed me? You got something against this place?”

  Tori threw her a dark look. “My memories aren’t quite as pleasant as yours.”

  In other words, she’d spent the last eight hours brooding because she’d missed their last steer and a shot at winning third place and a couple thousand dollars. Tori was good at many, many things, but failure was not one of them, which made her an excellent partner and an occasional pain in the ass. She took pity, though, and pulled over at the Dairy Queen on the edge of town. Shawnee had just dug into her one fast food fix of the week when her phone rang again, this time to the tune of Joe Diffie’s “Pickup Man.”