by BA Tortuga
Shit, had he been wrong.
“Cotton! There you are, man. I wanted to go over the set-up for the signing today.” Chris, the publicist guy from High Western Boots came be-bopping over, and Cotton stuffed his cell back in his pocket, undialed.
“Sure. I can do that. In five.”
“Why not now?” Shrewd, brown eyes sized him up, waiting. Man, the guy was a barracuda.
“I have to hit the little cowboy’s room.” Cotton tried an easy grin, and it must have worked well enough, because Chris relaxed and nodded.
“Sure. I’ll be right here.”
“I’ll bet.” He bit off anything else he might have said and headed for the nearest men’s room, which was a bit of a walk, thankfully. He ducked in and checked to make sure he was alone before he called Emmy.
Fuck, he was tired of being alone.
“Hey, I’m not in Kansas anymore. Leave a message.”
Shit.
“Hey, Emmy honey. I just—well. I wanted to hear your voice. Guess I did, huh?” He chuckled. “Anyway, I’ll call from the hotel tonight. I’m busy with the damned sponsors.”
He shouldn’t bitch. He got to stay in a hotel this time because of the sponsor.
“Well, I miss you. Hope to see you soon, honey.”
Someone was coming into the bathroom, so Cotton clicked the end call doolie and went to take a piss. Might as well not waste the trip.
He sure hoped Emmy answered later. He was starting to get a little desperate for her. Too bad everything else was working against them getting together. Kept up much longer, he was going to die of blue balls.
That was never a good thing.
* * * *
“Bubba? It’s me. I…I…” She blinked at the paper in her hand, tears streaming down her face. They were raising her rent. Not by fifty dollars, or even a hundred. Two hundred and fifty. A month.
Shit.
“What’s up, Sissy?”
Emily started sobbing, confessing everything, from falling in love with a goddamn rodeo cowboy to losing her job. A month’s worth of fruitless job searching, selling off things and cutting up credit cards. Now this.
“A cowboy? No shit?”
“Don’t, Bubba. He’s nice.”
She heard her brother take a deep breath. “Does he make any money, Sissy?”
“No. Not really.” She shook her head, sighed.
“Tell me you’re not pregnant.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. “I’m not pregnant, you asshole.”
“Well, I had to ask. Cowboys make babies. It’s their job. They can’t resist. So, what does he say about you losing your job?”
Emily took a deep drink of her beer. “I haven’t told him.”
“Why not?”
She chewed her lip, trying to figure out the happy medium between the cold truth of ‘he’s sharing a broken down van with a bunch of other cowboys and can’t afford a hotel and showers’ and the lie of ‘I don’t want to’.
Because she wanted to, bad.
She’d tried a few times, even, but…
Well, it was never a good time and there were always parties and other girls and kissing booths and TV spots and stuff.
Then there were the blog posts on the League’s site.
Cotton Sayers, Bull Riding’s Bachelor, offering a night of wine and romance for charity to be auctioned off in Grand Rapids.
Ladies, come to Birmingham and have dinner with the studs of the League, including Kynan Daley and Cotton Sayers.
Bull Riding’s Most Eligible Bachelor, Cotton Sayers, is looking for that special someone to introduce to his mom before he settles.
Just, wow.
“He’s busy, and there’s nothing he can do. We’re not living together or anything.”
Terry sighed, and Em could see him in her head, shaking his. “Yeah, but this is the one you spent Christmas with, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And?”
“The jury is still out on whether that was an unmitigated disaster or just a huge catastrophe wherein the weird inked lady fell into cowboy country.”
“Oh, man. Can I write you a check? I can help a little. Enough to get you through the month.”
“Yeah, but what about next month, the month after? I can’t afford this, Bubba.” The tears started again.
“Let’s talk. Thom is at the courthouse today, but we’ll call tonight, together.”
Emily smiled, shook her head. “You two always have to do shit together, don’t you?”
“Since the beginning of time, Sister. It’ll be okay, baby girl. I promise. We’ll work something out.”
“I love you, Bubba. I’m sorry. I…”
He snorted. “Shit. Because you single-handedly brought the economy to a halt, huh? You bitch.”
“That’s me. The giant evil.”
She stared down at the floor, at one of the photos from Christmas. Her head really was bigger than Cotton’s shoulders.
* * * *
“Well, I ain’t sure what to tell you, Chris.” Cotton ducked a smiling girl in chaps and what amounted to a bra, putting his head down. “I didn’t like her.”
The publicist guy was trying to get him to go on a date. A date. With some trashy little beer girl. He didn’t want to date anyone but Emmy, let alone that kind of chickie.
“Learn to. At least in public. You like having a meal ticket and a hotel, right?”
“Well, sure. Y’all have been real generous. I got a girl at home, though.”
Of course, Emmy had lost her net access. Something about the whole building going down in the cable area or something, so he hadn’t even chatted with her on the webcam thingy.
Just a few dismal phone calls that had been cut short.
Cotton was starting to get good and mad at the world.
“I haven’t met her, have I?”
“Well, no.” How did he tell his sponsor that Emmy wasn’t a rodeo girl? Chris would blow a gasket. It didn’t fit with the image Cotton was supposed to be keeping.
“Why not? She got warts? No teeth? Is she big as a house?”
“No! No, she’s a doll baby. I just don’t want her to be a target for y’all.”
The line crackled a little, Chris silent. Then the man snorted. “That’s a load of shit. Now, you need to take my girl out for at least a beer, just to support the whole bachelor image. Then you can go see your lady on the QT.”
“I— I’ll think on it.” He lost that sponsorship, he’d lose the plane ticket he was supposed to get after Gainesboro, and that would suck. He’d suffer through a date for a round-trip to Austin and a week and a half off.
“Don’t think, Cotton. That’s my job.” Chris hung up, the line going dead.
Cotton pocketed his phone and headed for the locker room, which was all but empty this early. Packer and Adrian were there, and Balta, but that was it.
“You look like a thundercloud, mate.” Packer grinned at him, nodding a little. The man was always grinning.
Today it made Cotton want to smack the sorry son of a bitch.
“I’m just— I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Sure you do.” Balta hardly ever talked to the Aussies when other folks was around. They had this reputation for not liking each other. When they were mostly alone, though? Balta and Packer could talk some shit. “Or you would have gone somewhere else. What is it, huh?”
“The sponsor. Wants me to play up the whole bachelor thing.”
“Well, you are, huh?”
He glared at Balta. “I got a girl.”
“Where?”
Packer hooted, and Adrian nodded. “He’s got a point, mate. We’ve never seen her.”
“Y’all would just be ugly.”
“Is she fat?”
“No!” Jesus, what was it with these guys and the fat? Emily was perfect. “She’s just not a cow country kind of girl. She’s from Austin.”
“Ah.” All three of the other men said it together, like that explained e
verything.
“Well, I say do what the sponsor wants for now. At least until you’re ready to show your girl off to the world.”
Packer grinned. “Balta’s too right.”
Balta laughed out loud. “What? Did you say I was right? Did it hurt?”
Packer and Balta got to scuffling, and Cotton turned his back, hunching his shoulders. He wasn’t ashamed of Emmy. Not a bit.
He just wasn’t willing to risk her getting hurt.
He sighed. If he ever got to talk to her again, he’d ask her if she wanted to come to an event. Meet everyone. Then the sponsors would have to stick it up their… Yeah. That.
Chapter Fifteen
God, what a fucking day.
She’d caught a bus into Houston at the last minute, got her sister-in-law to drop her off at the arena in time to grab her fan club ticket at Will Call.
She wasn’t looking her best—jeans and a T-shirt and Cotton’s flannel wrapped around her. Still, her hair was freshly purple and silver, and she had her new ink to show off—a little cotton boll on her breast, over her heart. It didn’t stop the clown guy from turning the camera on her, poking fun and calling her his competition. Hell, her eyes weren’t even done up.
Still, it’d been seven weeks since she’d seen Cotton, and she was missing him, viciously.
Enough that she’d managed to not burst into tears with an entire arena of rednecks laughing at her.
Cotton had done well, had ridden and gotten a decent score—which she’d Twittered about already, thank you—and now she was standing on the dirt with about ten thousand giggling blondes, a bunch of adorable little boys, and some grannies and grandpas waiting for autographs.
The riders were all making their way around, and Cotton was one of the last to come out from behind the chutes. He was mobbed immediately, and she had to admit he looked good, standing hipshot, smiling at a middle-aged fan with too-tight jeans and the most annoying Midwestern accent ever.
She hung back, getting her book signed by whoever seemed nervous and new. The Brazilians were kind of stunning, though, at least the ones coming out—all big grins and Portuguese. They didn’t seem scared of her at all.
Heck, some of them gave her that look. She was used to that look, because Mexican men loved her.
It was weird, sort of, because she knew of lots of the guys, but she hadn’t met any of them.
Cotton worked his way through the crowd, and when he saw her, his eyes lit up. He lifted his chin in a ‘be there soon’ sort of way and went back to signing autographs.
She grinned, listening to the idle chatter all around them—talking about the after-party, the rides, the hotel, all sorts of things.
God, he looked good.
His jeans were a little too loose, but she’d learned there was a difference between riding jeans and wear to the bar jeans. Cowboys were so damned vain.
“Lord, honey, I have to tell you, if Dillon’d made fun of me like that, I’d’ve fallen into the dirt. You’re brave.” The little old lady at her elbow grinned up at her, hair almost as pink as hers.
“Well, sometimes you just have to go with it.” God, that was weird.
“Uh-huh.” Her arm got patted. “I guess no one’d look like you on purpose if they didn’t want to be noticed.”
“Absolutely.” Because all the little bitches in the muffin top jeans and tank tops were there to be invisible.
“Joa!” There was a tiny, wizened lady wearing a Brazilian flag T-shirt who frantically waved over the most glorious man, possibly in the history of men. He was so pretty she almost missed Cotton when he finally made it within three feet of her. Almost.
“Hey!” She grinned, winked. “Good ride.”
“Thanks!” He bounced on his toes, opening his mouth to say something else, but someone interrupted, shoving a little boy with a hat covered in signatures at him.
She waited, watching a group of pretty, tiny, tanned girls start to gather, along with a group of cowboys that made her feel just a little old.
When Cotton moved closer, she reached out instinctively, feeling the need to touch, to connect with him. It was just too damned odd to be there and not be with him.
He stepped back a little, so she dropped her hand. That was when this pretty-pretty tiny blonde in Daisy Dukes and chaps draped herself over his arm. “Cotton, you about ready to go? The party’s fixin’ to start.”
“Huh?” His cheeks went red-hot, his eyes not meeting hers. “I… Could you go wait by the gate, uh…”
“Callie.”
“Right.”
She leaned over and kissed Cotton on the cheek, leaving a dark pink smear, before bouncing away.
Now those pretty green eyes met hers, a little desperate, a lot ashamed.
Well, Em hadn’t known that she’d be able to make it down, had she? No. No, and Cotton had the right to make a date, right? Right.
Right.
“You’ve got…” She pointed up at the lipstick on his cheek, just before a big old boy in a cowboy hat slapped him on the back.
“Looks like you got lucky, son! Where’s the pretty girl? We ought to get a picture. Callie? Callie, honey, and… Well, shit, boys, send them girls over. Pete! Let’s get some publicity!”
Callie hurried over, tucked herself under one arm, and pressed against Cotton as flashbulbs went off.
Cotton tried to smile, but he ducked away, rubbing his cheek. “Now, now. My sponsors wouldn’t want me doing photo shoots with my shirt all covered in muck.”
Em almost offered to let him change into the one she was wearing. Almost.
“I’ll do all that at the after party, huh?” Cotton rolled his shoulders, moving past the pod of girlies. And her.
“Cotton?” She reached out, fingers just barely brushing his shirt.
A big, burly guy grabbed her shoulder. “Fan time’s over, ma’am. We’re clearing the arena.”
“But…”
“You can get your signature some other time, lady.”
Cotton glanced over his shoulder at her, but it was as if he didn’t really see her. Not really. Then he was gone.
Oh.
Right.
“Come on, Callie. Cotton’s promised to show you off to everyone! All the boys!”
The gaggle of girls followed after the bull riders, and she heard one of the riders mutter, “That’s that freak Dillon was talking about. Jesus, they’ll let anyone that pays in.”
Okay. Okay, right. She headed up the stairs, grabbing her phone and dialing Terry. “Bubba? Can you come get me?”
“Huh? Sissy? You said you got you a hotel room…”
“Please. Please, just come get me?”
Everyone who looked at her—everyone—was staring like she was nasty.
“Sure. Sure. Where are you? Reliant?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll head out away from the parking lot, ‘kay?”
“I’ll be there in a heartbeat, Sissy. You hang on.”
“Yeah. Bring beer.”
She hung up and headed away from the crowds, then dialed Jeff, managing to get her ‘hello’ out before bursting into tears.
* * * *
Cotton called Em the moment he was alone.
She didn’t answer, and he gritted his teeth. Shit, he couldn’t blame her for not answering. First Dillon had made her a target for the whole crowd, which he hadn’t known about until Gar told him, because he’d been in the locker room. Then that asshole sponsor guy of his had pushed that little girl right on him, right there in front of Em.
What really got him, though, was that he’d let it happen.
The whole thing had happened so fast. So fast. He’d wanted to explain, but there had been all those people and cameras, and she’d looked at him like—like he was that kind of asshole.
And he guessed he was.
He dialed her number again, and it went straight to voicemail. Shit. She’d turned it off, now.
“Emmy, honey? I need to talk to you, okay? Real bad. I’m sorry,
honey. Just… Call me, okay?”
Cotton sighed, flipping his phone closed. Everyone had been accusing him of being ashamed of Emmy, of not wanting anyone to see her.
Well, he sure was ashamed, but not of her. No, sir. This was all on him.
* * * *
“So, Emily? What are you going to do?”
“How much is in the bank?”
“How much do you owe?”
“What did he do?”
“You’re not pregnant, right?”
“We could have him sued for…”
“Neglect?”
“Libel.”
“Right. But we need you to focus. You’ve been crying for three days.”
“It’s like an intervention, but less creepy.”
“Because you’re not on drugs.”
“You’re not on drugs, right?”
“Boys” Emily stared at her brothers in pure shock, then she dropped her head into her hands and sobbed, entire body shaking. She didn’t know. She couldn’t pay her rent. She couldn’t pay her bills, she was in love with someone who had beautiful girls to pick from. Skinny, young, country girls that were perfect arm candy.
Not like the world’s biggest freak on wheels.
“Boys.” Stephanie stood up, hand on Thom’s shoulder. “Emily’s had a hard day. This isn’t court. Don’t cross-examine.”
Helena came in from putting all the kids down, went to Terry. “Steph’s right. Quit pushing.”
“You could stay here.”
“Or at our house. Right, Steph?”
“All my stuff…”
Thom shook his head. “They have these Pod things. We’ll deal with it. You can take all the time you need, hang out. Swim.”
“We wouldn’t even ask you to babysit.” Terry took her hand. “You look tired, Sister. So tired. Come home.”
Problem was, she didn’t know where home was anymore.
* * * *
Emmy hadn’t called back. Shit, she’d disconnected her phone, and when he’d tried her apartment, she was gone.
Cotton couldn’t remember the name of the tattoo shop she’d talked about, and he didn’t know Ricki’s last name. It was like she’d just disappeared into thin air—without him.