Last of the Red-Hot Cowboys

by Tina Leonard

  Last of the Red-Hot Cowboys: Hell’s Outlaws is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2014 by Tina Leonard

  Excerpt from Last of the Red-Hot Riders by Tina Leonard copyright © 2014 by Tina Leonard

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  Loveswept is a registered trademark and the Loveswept colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54930-3

  Cover design: Carrie Devine/Seductive Designs

  Cover photograph: Jenn LeBlanc/Illustrated Romance

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Last of the Red-Hot Riders by Tina Leonard. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  www.readloveswept.com

  v3.1

  Acknowledgments

  Much gratitude to the wonderful Sue Grimshaw, the amazing Nancy Berland, and my endlessly supportive agent, Roberta Brown—and my very loyal and enthusiastic readers.

  “They say to the victor go the spoils. I play to win.”

  —Mayor Judy Jasper to her Hell Belles

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Last of the Red-Hot Riders

  Chapter One

  Trouble walked into the Hell’s Outlaws Training Center wearing a smile, hot pink boots, and a white fringed suede dress. And if six-foot-tall, perpetually sunny Mayor Judy Jasper wasn’t enough to alarm Trace Carter, the three females she’d brought with her sure punched his caution button.

  Trace patted the horse he was currying, watching the ladies make their determined path toward him. If Mayor Judy had rounded up three brand-new stunners, then she was working on a plan of some kind. She always had plans, usually big ones, the kind guaranteed to give her Saturday Night Special, Sheriff Steel Durant, heartburn of the worst kind. Judy’s plans occasionally gave other people heartburn, too.

  Like me, damn it.

  Trace tried to stay out of Judy’s sometimes harebrained plans. Some worked out brilliantly, some fizzled—but either way, anyone with the misfortune to get involved with a plan of Judy’s was bound to lose serious sleep at some point.

  “Hello, Trace,” Judy said, and he stopped currying the almost-black stallion, putting the brush down on an old wooden table. His dog, Prince, perked up, hoping the pretty mayor had brought him a treat, as was her custom.

  “Mayor,” he said respectfully.

  “I’ve brought some friends I’d like you to meet,” Judy said.

  She certainly had. He’d barely been able to take his eyes off the three dolls, particularly the tiny brunette with green eyes staring at him like she expected him to be rude or sprout horns. Mayor Judy had probably prepped these ladies, telling them horrible stories about how difficult he could be. Stubborn. Even chauvinistic.

  Trace resolved to turn on the charm. “Hello, ladies,” he said to the pixie brunette and the spicy redhead and the sandy blonde. He gave them his most effective smile, charming to the max.

  The dolls didn’t seem impressed. Neither did the mayor.

  “Trace, I’d like to introduce you to Ava Buchanan, Harper Castleberry, and Cameron Dix. Ladies, Trace is just about the last of the red-hot cowboys. The real thing.” Mayor Judy smiled, her big blue eyes twinkling at him. He knew that twinkle. It was the pleased expression she wore when she was working on something. Reading Judy was no problem because she had the town’s most expressive face. Steel said Judy was a brilliant poker player, and Trace believed him. Judy had so many facial expressions that it kept everyone off guard thinking they had her figured out.

  They never did. He figured that was why she deserved to be mayor of this one-horse, dysfunctional town. No one else could keep folks in line like Judy.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” Trace said, shaking hands with the mayor’s three shapely “friends.”

  The little brunette with the short hair gave him some frost like he’d never experienced from a lady. Women generally liked him, but being a loner and sometimes a bit of a grouch, he didn’t let too many women into his staid world. She didn’t smile at him and he kind of wished she would.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Judy?” Trace politely asked.

  “It’s what we can do for you,” Judy said. “I wanted you to be the first to meet my new team. These are my Hell Belles.”

  Ah, here came the gambit. With some trepidation, Trace said, “Hell Belles?”

  Judy nodded. “My team of riders. I’ve hired them to travel and be the bright face of Hell, Texas.”

  He had to give Judy credit for always being willing to push Hell, not an easy thing to do, as they were located in a backwater so small that the nearest big city was a couple hundred miles away. Her “girls” would certainly be bright lights—and he had to think Ava was especially shining, as lights went. Amused, he smiled. “Travel doing what, exactly?”

  Judy gave him her most beneficent smile. “That’s where you come in, Trace.”

  The trap sprung shut on him, just as he’d known it would. “Me?”

  “I want you to train these three girls to bullfight.”

  He stared at Judy, then the Belles. “Bullfight.”

  “Yes.” Judy’s smile was radiant. “Be rodeo clowns, in the public vernacular.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No way.”

  The four women favored him with frowns. He hated to see such an expression on Ava’s pretty face. All those tiny brown freckles across her nose and her big eyes made him feel like such a heel.

  It couldn’t be helped.

  “We don’t train female riders,” he said, patiently explaining to Judy what she already knew damn well. “Declan, Saint, and I decided that when we first opened the Hell’s Outlaws Training Center. Besides which, you know quite well that ladies don’t bullfight, Judy. It’s too damn dangerous. There’s not a decent facility in the country that I know of that trains females. And absolutely no cowboy would trust a woman to save him from a rank bull.” He made his tone as flat and practical as he could. No harm done here. The ladies were asking for something that couldn’t possibly be done.

  The group favored him with reproving expressions, but their disapproval wouldn’t work on him. He wasn’t going to do it, and he knew Declan and Saint, his buddies and part owners of the training facility, sure as hell wouldn’t.

  He hated the idea of a woman as darling as Ava getting squashed under two, three tons of pissed-off bull. There were reasons the training center was off-limits to females—and Mayor Judy knew that as well as anyone.

  For
one thing, this was a man’s world. His world, his and Declan’s and Saint’s, their saving grace from what they’d seen and done in Afghanistan and Iraq. They’d built this from nothing, bred horses and trained riders, all in the relative calm of Hell. This was where they found peace and quiet, and maybe, at times, redemption.

  Women were not peaceful, nor quiet, and certainly not redemptive.

  “I think you should at least give me a chance,” Ava said, broadsiding him a sweet voice and dynamite appeal that ran all over him like crazy. “I’m an excellent rider. I’ve grown up around horses. There’s very little I don’t know about the world of rodeo.”

  He didn’t doubt her. “Now, Miss …,” he began, and she held up a hand.

  “The fact is, you don’t want women here.”

  “That’s right,” Trace said, happy to agree with a statement that was absolutely true. “There are places in town that give riding lessons, and also lease horses for just about anything you care to try your hand at, be it Western or English. Mayor Jasper knows the best places.” He nodded at Judy. “Trust me, we’re not skilled in the type of team you ladies are contemplating.”

  “Trace, you’re not listening,” Judy said. “This is not a beginners’ team. I chose these riders from literally hundreds of applicants. They are the best.”

  He certainly thought the trio of cuties was the best at looking hot. Sweet. In shape. Under different circumstances, he’d be dying to know what was underneath that tight black top and those skin-clinging jeans Ava flaunted. Cowgirl gear suited some girls, some not so much. Ava fit hers well. “I’m just not the man for what you’re proposing, Mayor.” He hated to tell the tall blonde no about anything. She was just about the nicest woman he’d met in his life, and no doubt Steel would give him hell later for upsetting his girl. He was stuck in a no-win situation.

  She shook her head. “Trace, of the three of you, I expected you to be less of a hardheaded rascal.”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, his tone honestly regretful as Ava flashed him a look full of disgust. “I’m every bit of a hardheaded rascal, and I’m not ever looking to change.”

  Judy nodded. “Then we’ll be off.”

  “Nice to meet you, ladies,” he called after them as they turned to follow Judy out, Judy indeed slipping Prince a small bone as she departed. They didn’t respond to Trace’s goodbye, and he was left to suffer the sight of lush female fannies swinging out of the training center, leaving him in the doghouse.

  What the hell. He stayed in the doghouse around here, didn’t he?

  “It’s all right,” he told his horse, brushing Heracles to a soft black shine. “It’s a man’s world. And that’s the way it’s gonna stay, no matter how beautiful the babes Miss Judy brings our way.”

  Heracles tried to give him a swift hoof to the ankle and Trace shook his head. Life was not always soft and gentle, and as much as he could use some soft and gentle in his life, Ava Buchanan was going to have to find someplace else to train for Mayor Judy’s team.

  Thing was, the mayor was working on something, and she’d gone to a lot of trouble to get it going—and when the mayor decided to rock the foundations of Hell, Texas, there weren’t many men who cared to stand in her way.

  He felt the foundations quivering.

  * * *

  “No,” Saint Markham said when Trace filled him in on the Hell Belles situation.

  “Hell, no,” Declan O’Rourke said. “We don’t train women. Judy knows that.”

  Trace nodded. “And who’s going to train women to bullfight? No one.”

  The men sat in the wide, circular booth—their standard haunt—in the back of Redfeathers Bar and Pool Hall, trying to digest Mayor Jasper’s plan. It wasn’t easy, because the statuesque blonde kept her cards pretty well concealed. The bar carried the comforting smell of beer and burgers, and even a little smoke from time to time. Stephen Redfeathers liked to light up a pipe on occasion, though he was the only one who ever smoked in his bar. It was just one of those Hell quirks that everybody accepted. This is home, Trace thought. When we were in Afghanistan, we dreamed of coming back here to shoot the shit. We remembered this cracked old black leather booth, and we said if we ever got out of that shithole alive, this was the first place we were coming, the first meal we were going to eat, even though Stephen can’t cook worth a damn. And that’s what we did, thank God.

  “Thing is, she knew we’d turn her down.” Trace sipped his beer, ruminating on their much-beloved Judy and trying not to think about Ava. God, that woman had a backside, one that was honed into shapely leanness thanks to years of riding. No woman had a sweet fanny like hers unless she’d spent hours in the saddle. He got warm thinking about it, and made himself quit before he gave himself an erection that would kill him with longevity. “Another beer,” he said to Stephen, and the chief came over with a full pitcher and a grin, pouring a round silently for all of them.

  “She knew her plan was a no-go,” Saint agreed, “which leaves me to wonder what she really wanted.”

  “Women,” Declan said with bemusement. “They can’t just come right out and tell you what they’re up to. They have to spin a web and let you walk right into it.”

  “Yeah.” That bothered Trace, too. “She said these girls were the new face of Hell.”

  “And God knows we appreciate her efforts,” Saint said. “New faces never hurt. And if they’re as pretty as you say they are, we’re lucky bastards.”

  Declan laughed. “They can’t be that pretty. Trace just hasn’t had a woman in so long that he—”

  They went dead silent as four gorgeous women strolled into Redfeathers. Trace’s mouth dried out. Ava looked fine tonight, her spiky brown hair highlighted by the dim lights of the bar. She wore pinkish lipstick and a smile, though not when she met his gaze. Her friends Harper and Cameron were no eyesores, but Trace didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman he wanted to get in bed with more than Ava.

  “Are those girls with the mayor’s team?” Saint asked.

  “Yep,” Trace said, recognizing the gutted look on his friends’ faces. “You were saying I might have been exaggerating their effect on the retina?”

  “Holy crap,” Declan said. “Mayor Judy’s trying to rip this town apart.”

  Trace blinked. “How?”

  “There’s never been ladies that radioactive that haven’t started trouble,” Saint said. “Cleopatra and Helen of Troy come to mind.”

  Trace drummed his fingers on the scarred wooden table of their booth. No one in Hell would fight over women. He would never fight about a lady. Weren’t all cats gray in the dark?

  “That little brown-haired one—,” Saint began.

  “No,” Trace said.

  Saint and Declan stared at him.

  He met their gazes without blinking.

  “Oh,” Saint said, glancing back at the women. “You know, just because you saw her first doesn’t mean you get to lay claim to her.”

  Trace’s jaw tightened. And so it begins, pitting brother against brother.

  “Luckily for you,” Saint said cheerfully, “I was going to say that the little one looks a little young for any of us hard-bitten soldiers.”

  Declan laughed. “Asshole,” he said pleasantly. “I don’t remember you worrying about your age before.”

  Saint shrugged. Trace didn’t say anything. He was too busy watching Ava. Judy spotted them and waved, dragging her team over with her. Trace barely moved in time to stand as the ladies arrived, and the next thing he knew, the booth was full of perfume and laughter and soft skin parked right next to him.

  Ava.

  He had to sit still, enjoy the view, and try to ignore the fact that he had a hard-on that probably wasn’t going to go away for a week. He was like a jack-in-the-box around her. Two times he’d been near Ava, and twice he’d gone right up like a flagpole.

  Saint was right. He needed a woman—any woman.

  “Beer,” he called to Stephen, and then said, “Ladies, what can we
get you?”

  “I’ll take care of my girls, thanks,” Judy said, squishing in between Ava and Trace, not an easy thing to do because he’d tried to leave as little space as possible between himself and the pixie brunette. “We’ll have water, tea, and maybe some veggie quesadillas and salads, please. Olive oil dressing only. The girls are in training.”

  Stephen nodded and went off, taking his long pipe with him.

  Trace had a thousand questions, none of which he was going to ask as introductions were made around the table.

  “Training where?” Saint asked.

  “With the Horsemen,” Judy said, mentioning their archrivals ever so casually. “Jake, Rebel, Buck, and Fallon said they could help us out over at Wild Jack’s. Fallon’s Declan’s twin brother,” she told the Belles.

  Saint and Declan looked at Trace. Their gazes were slightly accusatory, so he shrugged. The Horsemen were rowdy badasses who played fast and loose with women, hung out a good deal at Ivy Peters’ Honky-tonk and Dive Bar on the outside of town, and couldn’t be trusted to sell good horseflesh without cheating those who were unbaptized in the equine world, in Trace’s opinion. But what good did it do to regret their decision? He wasn’t going to see women get stomped on his watch. That wasn’t part of the business model of the Hell’s Outlaws Training Center.

  Hell was no place for women. It was owned by men and run by men, a small town of less than two hundred people—mostly male. They created their own wild world here out of necessity, and the people who stayed here were tough, strong. Like Mayor Judy.

  “Maybe we were too hasty,” Saint said, catching Trace off guard.

  “We’ve been known to be hasty,” Declan said. “Tell us about your team.”

  His “brothers” smiled at the ladies in their midst. Trace sighed. Nothing good could come of this, and yet, now that they’d seen the sweet temptation Miss Judy had lobbed their way like a well-thrown bomb, Trace figured “good” was the last thing his buddies were worried about.

  * * *

  Sheriff Steel Durant crowded into their booth not ten minutes later, trading places with Ava, and she found herself sitting too close to the sexy-as-sin, aggravating cowboy. Judy had warned the team that Trace Carter was no one’s fool, and that he was the important initial key in making her plan work.