He didn’t want Mitch to screw her.
Travis had tried to give up worrying about her and Mitch. After all, they’d been inseparable for two whole months now. That sprained ankle notwithstanding, Mitch did seem to be treating her right. There had been no crying, no cussing and no slashing of the tires. They seemed happy together, and Travis knew he should be happy for them.
But something about the way Mitch two-stepped her around the barrooms across the Midwest hit Travis wrong. Sure, they’d lasted far longer than any of Mitch’s other relationships with countless buckle bunnies. Mitch always loved them when they were there. He was still with June because she was riding with him, pure and simple. When the season ended, he’d leave her behind, just like he’d done to all the others.
That’s what worried Travis—that June was going to be hurt. How she looked at him, those beautiful eyes that changed from black to brown and back under those long lashes—well, that had absolutely nothing to do with it. She’d said it herself, back on that first night. This wasn’t about him. It never had been.
Things hit critical mass in Travis’s mind the week before the Fourth of July. Another Friday night, another pink shirt, another bar. At this point in the season, Travis considered himself lucky that he knew what state he was in. Indiana. He thought.
All the riders were making plans for Cowboy Christmas—the long Fourth of July weekend. Every Podunk town from Argenta to Aurora was holding a rodeo with fireworks and funnel cakes. If a man planned it right, he could do five, maybe six rodeos in three days and take home a chunk of change. Seven years ago, Travis had worked his way through Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma and pocketed over ten grand. It’d been a damn good weekend.
Of course, he’d been young and stupid back then. After putting his neck on the line for that much cash, he’d blown it all on the down payment for a new truck with monthly payments he almost couldn’t meet during the slow winter.
He tried to tell himself he wasn’t that stupid now. If he won that much money this weekend, he’d put it in the bank and live out the winter on it.
“So, Travis, what you got going after Cowboy Christmas?” Mitch asked when he deposited June back into her seat after another spin around the floor. “Got plans?”
“Not sure.” Travis had thought about dropping down to Lincoln, Nebraska, to catch an off-circuit rodeo after the TCB show in Sioux City that Friday night. And from Lincoln, it wasn’t more than a hop, skip and a jump to the old family farm on the Nebraska-Kansas border. He had no family and no farm anymore, but it was where he’d grown up. He missed the old place.
June looked up at him, her eyes clear. “You could come with us.”
“Us?”
“Girlie’s right. We’re road-tripping out to my momma’s house!”
Travis’s stomach fell so fast that he choked on his beer midswallow. Surely he’d heard that wrong. Surely Mitch hadn’t said—
“Mrs. Jenner has invited me and anyone else who wants to come to stop by on the way to the Cheyenne rodeo,” June explained. “The Brazilian is going, of course, and I think Randy and Garth are coming, too. She’s got steaks and she’s not afraid to grill them.”
“That’s my momma!”
That was the ultimate unfulfilled Mitch promise, and he was going to fulfill it with June. She was going to meet the woman who’d produced Mitch Jenner.
This was a disaster in the making. Travis had met Mrs. Jenner when he’d gone to visit Mitch in a cast. She was a nice woman, oblivious to her son’s gigolo life on the road but eternally hopeful that one day she’d meet the mother of her future grandkids.
If Mitch took June home to meet her, that woman was bound to think grandkids were forthcoming.
No, Mitch wasn’t being fair to either of the women in his life.
“So you wanna come?” June asked.
She was doing it again, looking at him like she shouldn’t, like she wanted him to come with them.
“Sure,” he heard his mouth say for him. If she wanted him there, then he needed to be there for her, because the other shoe was bound to drop sooner rather than later.
This wasn’t about him. This was about June.
Yeah, right.
* * *
“SO TELL ME about your mother,” June said from the front seat. They were leading the caravan back to the Jenner Homestead. Everyone would have noticed if she’d climbed into the back. Especially Travis.
“Was that the June Spotted Elk technique of asking whether or not she knows about me and Paulo?” Mitch chuckled. His hand was twisted back over the center console, just enough that June could see Paulo’s darker fingers intertwined with Mitch’s lighter ones. They usually held hands in the car. Not even a backseat could break that up.
“More or less.”
“She knows. She’s met him.” No tension, no panic. June decided that Mrs. Jenner was her kind of woman.
“Last year?”
Mitch nodded. “When I was healing up, Paulo came to see me a few times. She figured it out pretty quick.”
“She doesn’t mind?”
“Not her preferred outcome,” he snorted. “She’d like some grandkids, and I don’t exactly have the fatherly gene in me.”
Paulo chuckled from the backseat. Mitch half twisted in an attempt to smack him, but gave up when the white line suddenly moved to June’s side of the truck.
“Hey, the road!”
“Sorry.” He straightened up. “No, to answer your question, she doesn’t mind... You know, my father was not a good man.”
“No?”
“It was supposed to be perfect—he had a good job, we had a nice house, all that. But if there’s one thing my momma knows, it’s that ‘supposed to be’ doesn’t make it so.”
Boy, she knew that story. “Okay...”
“She had enough of a bad marriage to last us both. When she saw how—well, how happy Paulo makes me, she just decided that happy and vaguely immoral was a far cry better than perfectly legal and miserable.”
“Ah.” What else could she say? She wanted her dad to be happy she was happy, that she’d made enough money to pay for heat this winter for Mom’s house. Mom, at least, was happy to be off welfare. But June knew that her father wouldn’t see it like that.
“She has her rules,” Mitch went on. “She prefers that we not...well, you know, in the house. That’s why the good Lord created barns.”
Paulo snickered from the backseat while June rolled her eyes. “What does she know about me?”
“Just about everything. You’re a crazy female bull rider who’s my girlfriend. You get to stay in the house tonight.”
“And we’re dating?”
“Try to make it look good.”
“What—dating good, or engaged-to-be-engaged good?”
“Can you do engaged-to-be-engaged good?”
It was hard enough to watch Travis watching her when he thought she and Mitch were just sleeping together. If Travis thought they were on the verge of engagement, who knew what he’d pull? “I can do engaged-to-be-engaged.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
She needed to get less transparent by the time this vehicle stopped. She didn’t want to blow everyone’s cover.
Paulo thrust his head between the front seats, leaning against Mitch’s arm but keeping his eyes on her face.
She knew that look. Why was this man a bull rider? He could have made a fortune in the head-case business. “It’s nothing.”
“You got your eye on someone?” Mitch asked.
Paulo’s eyes widened with recognition as the blush hit her hard. He patted her cheek, a gentle smile on his face. No hiding anything from that man. “Sorta.”
“Travis.” Not a question, just a statement of fact. Damned cowboys. Always stat
ing their facts.
“Doesn’t change our deal,” she quickly defended, pulling her face free of Paulo’s suddenly too-personal touch.
“I appreciate that, but you don’t have to be miserable just so I can be happy.”
“Sure—I tell Travis we have an open relationship and it’s all good,” she snapped. Nothing about Travis Younkin said he’d go for an open relationship.
Hell, she didn’t even know if he’d go for a closed one.
“Well, as your boyfriend, I give you permission to at least test the waters. If you want him, June, go get him!”
Great. Now she was getting sage dating advice from the gay man she was supposedly sleeping with. How on earth had she gotten to this point?
Still, it was sweet of Mitch and Paulo to give her the go-ahead. This was why she’d chosen to throw her lot in with them. Yes, the gay thing meant she didn’t have to fend off any untoward advances, but their friendship went so far beyond that.
It was almost as if she’d found...a family. They were friends who looked out for her, who wanted her to be happy. It was more than she’d thought she’d find from her fellow bull riders. Hell, it was more than she’d gotten from her parents. Mitch and Paulo didn’t try to keep her off the bulls. At this point, there wasn’t much she wouldn’t do for those two cowboys. She definitely wouldn’t leave Mitch in the lurch.
But...the flirtation with Travis sure seemed to be going somewhere.
What a total mess.
“Thanks,” she said, desperate to change the subject. It was one thing to have his permission. It was another to actually do something about it. “Do I get my own bathroom tonight?”
“Absolutely, if you can handle the cowboy-hat shower curtain and coordinating cowboy-boot trash can,” he snorted.
June giggled. Hopefully there wouldn’t be steer horns as towel hooks, but she wouldn’t hold her breath.
“She tends to go a little overboard. I’ll be out in the barn with Paulo.”
“Sim,” was the quiet response from the back.
“Who else will be staying at the house?”
“We’re it. What’s the plan, Paulo? You’re going to get too drunk to do anything but stumble off to the barn tonight at dinner?”
Paulo nodded. That made it the fifth time June had heard Paulo say something. One more and she was going to have to break out her other hand to keep count.
A man with a plan. Maybe she needed to be a woman with a plan. But how did a woman go about testing the waters with one man while in her fake lover’s mother’s house?
Just roll with it, she scolded herself. Something would turn up. “Sounds good. I’m going to need a shower before dinner.”
“You don’t want to miss it. My momma grills the best steaks. Hey, we’re here! You ready, Girlie?”
Even from the front seat, she could feel the wall of emotional distance Paulo put up, and Mitch stilled after he put the truck in Park. With a visible shake, he plastered on his big Heartbreak Kid grin. Maybe tonight, after everyone else went back to their hotels and trailers, he’d get to relax again.
“Home sweet home, Girlie!” Mitch crowed, his arm around her shoulders as the cowboys all rolled out of their pickups. “Damn, it’s good to see this place again!”
June couldn’t help but smile at him as he did a little jig up to the front porch. A simple two stories, the house was a sunny-yellow with electric-blue shutters. Columbines bloomed madly in front of robust roses. Bird feeders competed with wind chimes for the space below a willow tree that shaded half the house.
No doubt about it, Mitch’s mother had a flair for the dramatic, too.
As if on cue, the door flew open and a slender woman with her hair in a bun came barreling out. The same lankiness that made Mitch gangly looked graceful on her. “Mitchell!” she shouted, her voice overflowing with exuberance, “you’re home!”
“Oof! Hey, Momma,” he replied as he caught her in a strong hug. June saw the slightly embarrassed look he shot over to where the guys were milling around, but he didn’t push his mother away.
“Oooh, Mitchell,” someone teased. Sounded like Garth. June hoped he got stepped on by a bull tomorrow night.
“Is this her?” Mrs. Jenner let loose of her son and came down to where June was waiting. “Is this the girl?”
Who made that strangled noise? Was that Travis? Lord, June didn’t know how much longer she could keep this up.
“Yup,” Mitch said, wrapping his arms around both women. “Momma, this is June Spotted Elk. Girlie, this is Momma.”
“It’s so nice to make your acquaintance,” June said, sticking out her hand.
Which proved to be pointless, because Mrs. Jenner wrapped June in a fierce hug. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m so appreciative of you helping Mitchell out,” she whispered.
“Glad to. He’s a sweet man. You raised him up right,” she replied.
“Oh, now, stop that, or you’ll get me going.” Already, Mrs. Jenner was wiping tears from her eyes. This had to be the best show they’d put on yet in front of all the other cowboys. The loving mother welcoming her son’s girlfriend with enthusiastic arms—June fought the urge to look back at Paulo. He probably had on his normal glower as he looked at anything but Mitch.
June worked to keep her smile real. So it was another lie. Add it to the pile.
Mrs. Jenner finally let her go and turned to the other cowboys. As Mitch introduced her to each one of the fifteen that had made the trip out, June went to get her bag.
“I’ve got it.” Travis’s unexpected presence made her jump.
He was always doing that, sneaking up on her. “I can get it.”
He was mad—furious—as he jerked her bag out of the trunk. “Can you now?” he sneered under his breath. “Or should I let your future husband get this for you?”
So they’d managed to create the correct impression. Funny, it didn’t feel like a victory. “Travis,” she said, keeping her voice low, “what are you doing?”
“I guess the better question is, what in the hell are you doing?”
The way he said it hit June two ways at the same time. First she felt the anger she always felt when he tried to tell her what she could and could not do.
Then she felt something close to hope buried under the irritation, because why the hell would he be so worked up about June meeting Mitch’s mother if it didn’t matter to him?
Because it did matter.
And as he wrestled the bag away from her, it was clear that it mattered a whole lot.
Paulo appeared out of nowhere and snatched the bag from Travis’s hands before he could protest. “Thank you,” she said as Paulo tipped his hat and carried the bag into the house. “See? That was a lesson in chivalry. Not everything has to be a battle, Travis.”
“Does if you’re involved,” he snapped before he stomped off toward the house.
How did a woman test the waters when they held a barracuda?
* * *
BY THE TIME Travis cooled down, half an hour had passed and most of the other guys were outside, working their way through Mrs. Jenner’s well-stocked coolers. Everyone seemed to be having a good time—except him.
Damn if he could get a handle on what had happened. It’s not like he hadn’t expected Mitch to introduce June as his girlfriend—everyone knew they were sleeping together. But the way that woman had latched onto June, getting all teary-eyed as Mitch beamed like an idiot—well, hell. Didn’t need to be a genius to see how this was playing out. Mrs. Jenner had grandkids on the brain and June was on board with that.
Except it wouldn’t happen. The rodeo season only lasted another two and a half months. By October, June would be up in the bigs, riding for the real money, and Mitch would be long gone, sweet-talking the next victim of the Heartbreak Kid. Except t
his time, he was going to break his momma’s heart, too.
If June could even ride with a broken heart. Something like being dumped by Mitch when the good times ended could throw her control right out the window and then where would June be?
She’d be like him. Travis had let himself get distracted for just eight seconds by Barb making eyes at Chet Murphy and it had left him hanging on to his life by the thinnest of threads.
The scene where that bull had nearly run June down flashed through his mind again. If June couldn’t concentrate, she’d be a sitting duck. All because of Mitch.
Just thinking about it set Travis’s blood boiling. Well, he wasn’t going to stand by and let it happen. Enough was enough. This game Mitch was playing had to stop before June got seriously hurt. Mother or no, that boy needed to be taught a lesson, starting now.
Travis found himself standing in the rustic country kitchen before the woman who looked so much like Mitch that she could have been his sister, except for the smile wrinkles around her eyes. “Pardon me, ma’am, but have you seen Mitch?”
Mrs. Jenner looked up from her cutting board, knife paused midslice on a homegrown tomato. “Mitch?” she said, like she’d never heard of her own son before. “Why do you ask?”
“I’d rather discuss it with him, ma’am.” No need to drag this sweet lady into the mess Mitch was making of June’s life.
She cocked her head to the side. “Is this about June? She’s lovely.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s true—”
“She’s something in the arena. Mitchell and I saw her ride last summer up in Cheyenne. An amazing woman.”
Wait. Did he know Mitch had seen her ride last year? Had Mitch been planning this for a year? Stalking her like she was—well, an elk and he was the hunter?
He must have looked like murder was on his mind, because Mrs. Jenner sighed and said, “It’s all right, Travis. They understand each other perfectly.”
She understood nothing, that much was clear. Mothers. They always seemed to think they knew what the problem was. But there was no way she could understand the ass her son was being. “Just something I need to discuss with him personally, ma’am. Do you know where he is?”
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