by Cindy Gerard
“Well, ole buddy—” Jesse slapped a hand on D.U.’s shoulder “—I feel like I’ve just lit on my head.”
D.U. eyeballed him with a scowl then followed Jesse’s gaze as he watched the truck clear the lot and ease onto the highway.
When the headlights of an oncoming car defined the silhouette of a woman behind the wheel, D.U. gave a disgruntled humph. “Never seen a woman put that look on your face.”
Jesse whipped his head around. “What look? There’s no look. She’s just an old friend.” He lifted his hat and raked his fingers through his hair before resettling it again. “That’s Chet Gantry’s daughter.
You know—Gantry? Snowy River Company up in Montana?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know Gantry.”
“Well, I haven’t seen her since she was a kid, is all. She’s changed. A lot.”
D.U. pushed out another grunt. “Musta been a whole lot.”
Yeah, Jesse thought as he dragged his gaze from her truck and turned back toward his own rig. She’d changed, all right. And more than one thing about that transformation had him intrigued. Intrigued and itching to know where those Montana plates were heading with her behind the wheel.
He wouldn’t be scratching that itch tonight, though. Four hundred miles of highway stretched between here and the next rodeo. Each rodeo led him that much closer to the world championship he’d been chasing for the last seven years. There hadn’t been anything yet that had led him off course. He wasn’t about to change the pattern now—not for a woman—even one as provocative as Sloan Gantry.
Not that he didn’t love women. He did. He loved them a lot. All kinds, all models, all ways—but all by design, temporarily.
Rodeo was the only full-time mistress he’d ever needed. And as long as he was having fun at it, it was the only commitment he intended to make—much to the disappointment of his family.
“Let’s burn some rubber,” he said abruptly, needing to stop right there before he got all wound up in thinking about his mom and his brothers and those worried looks they always tried to conceal when he saw them on one of his infrequent trips home.
He hauled himself up behind the wheel as D.U. climbed into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut behind him. “We need to make Sioux Falls by sunrise.”
Jesse slipped the truck into gear and hit the gas. He’d always been content with the road and the next ride—so he was a little puzzled as he pulled out into the traffic that he found it necessary to remind himself why a woman like Sloan Gantry, with her serious black eyes and make-promises-to-me mouth, was a scenic little side trip he couldn’t afford to take.
“Hey, little pork chop, how’s my favorite fella?”
Five-year-old Noah Gantry cranked his head around at the sound of his momma’s voice. He dropped the pint-size bucket of feed he was fetching for his grampa and raced into her waiting arms.
“Loomy had her baby,” he announced after a welcome-home round of wet kisses and pudgy-armed hugs.
“She did?” Sloan asked with all the excitement her son’s revelation demanded and not without a little relief. Loomy was one of Snowy River’s best brood mares. She’d been holding out on them this spring, though, running well over her foaling date.
“Yeah, and it’s a filly,” Noah added, squirming out of her arms and heading toward the horse barn. “Wanna see ’er?”
“You bet. Just lead the way, pardner.”
With her son’s grubby little hand tucked in hers, she let him tug her along, listening with a smile as he jabbered about all that had happened at Snowy River in the two weeks since she’d been gone.
Sloan would never, ever, understand what good fortune had blessed her with this sweet-faced little boy with his inquisitive eyes, his robust, ready giggle, and his grampa’s stubborn chin. She relished every moment she and Noah spent together—just as she felt guilty over every one they had to spend apart.
Unfortunately, until she brought the Snowy River Rodeo Stock Contracting Company a little deeper into black ink, and she could afford to hire more wranglers, the road trips were her responsibility. After almost thirty years in the business, her father had lost his heart for traveling. He liked to sleep in his own bed at night, sit in his own chair, oversee his bronc and bull herds himself instead of leaving it to hired help.
Sloan couldn’t blame him for that. Or for his desire to spend more time here in the valley that had always been home. After all, it was Snowy River, with its clear glacial streams, its verdant, rolling valley flanked by snow-frosted peaks, and its sweet, spacious solitude that had called her back home last year. It was Snowy River and the prospect of introducing Noah to his heritage and nurturing him here, that had led her to resign from her insurance adjuster position in Butte and take her father up on his offer of a partnership.
She’d known then that the bulk of the road trips would fall on her shoulders. Last month she’d taken over those duties in earnest. She didn’t mind the trips. She even liked the excitement of the rodeos and the road. In fact, she found that she thrived on the hassles and the headaches associated with getting both the rough stock and the show stock around the circuit.
But, oh, did she miss this child.
She smiled down at him, pleased, as always, to see a little of herself in his eyes. And when those chocolate browns grinned up at her, as full of pride with Loomy’s baby as if he’d had something to do with it, her own misted over.
“Ain’t she purty, Mom?”
“Isn’t she pretty,” she corrected gently—automatically—and wondered how she would ever convince him to speak proper English when he lived in the company of roughneck cowhands every day.
Squatting to wrap her arm around his compact little body, she tugged him close to her side. “She’s as pretty as a picture. And yes, Momma,” she said in a soothing voice as Loomy turned huge, liquid eyes on them and nickered softly, “we’re talking about your baby. You did real well, girl. If she’s half the bucking horse you were, she’ll make Snowy River a lot of money.”
Noah gave a suffering, male snort. “Mom...she ain’t big enough to go buckin’ no cowboys.”
Sloan scooped her own little cowboy up onto her hip. “She’s not big enough to buck any cowboys. Not yet,” she agreed, nuzzling his neck and making him giggle. “But give her a few years and I’ll bet she’ll make bucking horse of the year.
“And you...” she said, heading out the barn door, cherishing his solid weight on her hip, the dust and salt scent of him close against her. “What have you been up to? I see somebody got you some new boots.”
He stuck out the pointed toe of his shiny new Justin boot and beamed with pride. “Grampa did.”
“Sounds like you must have been a good boy for Grampa and Gramma Ellie.”
Ellie Gantry wasn’t Sloan’s birth mother, but she was her mother in every way that counted. Sloan had been five years old when her biological mother, who’d been a city girl and had never adjusted to the solitary life on a working ranch, had left with a tearful apology and a promise to keep in touch.
The extent of that promise had been a birthday and a Christmas card every year until Sloan’s eighteenth birthday. It was a few months after that birthday when word had arrived that Laura had been killed in a car accident.
The most emotion Sloan had been able to feel had been an empty, distant sort of sorrow for a woman she’d never known but who had hurt both her and her father deeply.
Ellie had taken away that hurt years ago. Chet had married the rawboned, big-hearted Bozeman native when Sloan was ten. Not only had she made Chet happy, she’d filled a void in Sloan’s life that had nothing to do with blood ties and everything to do with loving her.
Later that night as Sloan tucked Noah into a bed scented with line-dried sheets, she said her own prayers while Noah said his, thanking God for the love of family, the gift of home, and for the treasure of her child.
But as she slid between the cool sheets of her own bed, exhausted from her week on the road and
looking ahead toward another that would take her to northern Colorado and a three-day rodeo, she sent a prayer heavenward for a little help, too.
She figured she was going to need a lot of help to get through the rest of the season. With the business, with life on the road and, unfortunately, with her unexpected reaction to a sexy-as-sin daredevil bull rider with midnight in his eyes and mischief on his mind.
For the first time since it had happened, she let herself think—consciously think—about the kiss that outlaw had stolen.
She touched a finger to her lips. A hot, sensory memory sizzled to life at the thought of Jesse’s mouth covering hers. His lips had been surprisingly soft, his scent a dizzying mix of man and sweat and dangerous excitement.
A resurgence of woman need and liquid heat that his impulsive kiss had kindled after years of lying dormant, hit her fast and low. On this, she would not kid herself. The power of the attraction that had crackled between them had hit with the force and surprise of a lightning strike.
Damn that cowboy. And damn her for letting his crooked smile and winning ways keep her awake in the dark and wishing he was lying beside her. Those kinds of thoughts would lead her straight into trouble. Trouble she didn’t need. Time she couldn’t afford to waste.
Jesse James was notorious not only as a bull rider who knew no fear, but for his outlaw ways with women. Even if she hadn’t been forewarned by his love-‘em-and-leave-’em reputation, she knew firsthand the risks involved in falling for the seduction of a sexy cowboy’s smile. She knew the heartache of looking for more behind pretty words and a lay-me-down-and-do-things-to-me voice.
She knew, because she’d given in to the romance of the cowboy way once before—and she wouldn’t let herself make the same kind of mistake again. Although Noah was living proof that every once in a while, two wrongs can make a right, he’d been conceived as a result of a rodeo cowboy’s empty promises and a young girl’s naive trust.
Crossing her arms behind her head, she stared hard at the ceiling. She hadn’t thought about Noah’s dad for a long time. She forced herself to think about him now.
Jace Carson had definitely been the worst kind of wrong. She’d fallen for his line, fallen in love, and when she’d told him she was pregnant, he’d lit out like the aimless drifter her daddy had warned her he was. She hadn’t seen him since.
She rolled onto her side, comfortable with the knowledge that she’d stopped loving Jace long ago. She’d stopped hating him, too. He’d given her Noah, after all. For that she’d always be grateful—and she’d always be leery.
“And smarter,” she assured herself as she shifted onto her stomach and punched her pillow into a ball. “You’re only thinking about Jesse now because you’re beat.”
She was dead tired. Her defenses were down. After a good night’s sleep in her own bed, she’d have things back in perspective. And if she didn’t...well, then, she’d just have to cowboy up, and dig deep for the strength to keep that outlaw out of her head. And most important, out of her bed.
Snowy River was what was important here. Snowy River and the success she wanted to make it. For her father. For Noah. For herself.
Ultimately, that was what it all boiled down to. Her father had given her a chance and she owed it to him to make the best of it. She had a vision for the Snowy River Company. Her father had always been content to just get by. More than one year, they’d barely managed that. She didn’t want to run on a shoestring anymore. She wanted security. Stability. Maybe even, notoriety.
If she was going to accomplish all of those goals, she had to stay focused. And staying focused meant she couldn’t afford the time or the risk of getting involved with another rodeo cowboy with a good time on his mind and leaving in his nature.
No matter how well he kissed.
No matter how sweet he smiled.
No matter that meeting up with Jesse James had made her feel things and want things she’d conditioned herself to believe she could live without.
Two
Pocket recorder in hand, Darcy Lathrop kept pace with Jesse and D.U.’s lazy strides as they led her through a maze of gates to the bull pens. Desperately trying to sidestep the livestock litter that threatened to stain her wannabe-cowgirl boots, the reporter from the Denver Post sidled carefully up to a set of gates and stretched to get a look at the leading candidate for the PRCA bucking bull of the year.
“What’d you say they call him?”
Reminding himself that even though he didn’t like them, interviews came with the territory, Jesse slapped on a tolerant smile and appeased himself with a long look at the rear view of Darcy’s snug designer jeans. Though he was as silent as a post beside them, the dazed look on D.U.’s face told Jesse that he was enjoying the view, too.
“They called him Baby,” Jesse said pleasantly, and angled D.U. a look that said, Jump in any time, old buddy.
“Baby,” she repeated, then recited what Jesse figured would be the first line of her article into the mike of her pocket recorder. “They call him Baby, and he was born to buck.”
D.U. hung his head. Jesse shook his, shoved his hat low over his forehead and cupped a hand over his nape. It was going to be a long afternoon.
“He’s pretty intimidating, isn’t he?” she added, stepping away from the pen and holding out her mini mike to catch Jesse’s comments.
He took a long, hard look at her then and tried to work up some appreciation for the fact that she was a fine-looking woman. She was city-slicker sexy. Lots of leg. Acres of artfully tousled blond hair. Big baby blues that more than hinted at an interest in something a whole lot sweeter than bucking bulls.
Jesse figured that without too much effort, he could dispense with this media dance in short order. Darcy’s signals had been pretty clear from the get-go—she was out to score more than an interview with a Top Ten bull rider for the sports section of the Sunday paper.
Any other day, he might have agreed that what Darcy had in mind was a darn fine idea. But earlier this morning he’d run into Sloan Gantry. And when he compared the two women in his mind, Darcy, for all her glitz and savvy and willing smiles, had come up short.
Darned if he could figure out why—because Darcy was exactly the kind of woman that suited his needs. She wasn’t looking for anything complicated. Just a short, sweet encounter with no notions of tying him down or holding him up. Yet here he was, making comparisons, and the offshoot was that Sloan—with her long legs packed into working denims, her flat-heeled Roper boots coated with the dust of the chutes, and that glorious mane of hair that she pulled back into a no-nonsense braid—came out on top.
Sloan struck him as the genuine article. Hardworking. Headstrong. Hard-to-get. And without a doubt, the most exotic and natural beauty he’d ever encountered.
He’d been playing hell getting that country girl out of his head since Rapids City. Meeting up with her again here in Colorado had added tinder to a fire that had been smoldering for the better part of two weeks. He didn’t much care for the distraction.
“I’m sorry,” he said when a delicately cleared throat snapped him back to the moment. “You asked me a question.”
She smiled, coy and cagey. “We were talking about intimidation.”
Giving up on any help from D.U., Jesse tried to work up a little interest in the invitation in the reporter’s eyes. Darcy, after all, was here and willing. Sloan, from all indications, wasn’t willing to give him daylight.
“‘Intimidation’?” he echoed, and flashed her a winning smile. “Well, Darcy, this little bull’s got a whole game plan based on that word.”
For a fact, Baby, who just happened to be a Snowy River bull—which made him Sloan’s bull—hadn’t been ridden since he’d started his first tour in January.
He gave Baby a respectful nod. “He’s the product of a Brahman-Charlay cross. Close to a ton of wildeyed, cowboy-hatin’ bull who’d rather go to a slaughterhouse than let a lowlife, fancy-chapped cowboy stay on his back for eight of the lon
gest seconds in life. And he’s been turned out by some of the top bull riders on the circuit.”
“‘Turned out’?”
He thought about how to explain it to her, then gave it a go. “If a bull rider turns out a bull, he goes through all the motions to make the ride, but when the gate swings open, and it’s show time, he pulls out and turns the bull out of the pen. Counts as a ride with a no score instead of a forfeit And it could make a difference in the points average in a competition.” He grinned. “And with Baby, it could mean he’ll live to ride another day.”
“Ain’t no shame in it,” D.U. added stoically, finally lending his voice. “Just makes sense sometimes if a man’s hurt or the like. Or with a bull like this ’un who throws a man into a well so deep he might never crawl out.”
Jesse agreed. There was no shame in turning out a bull, but there was a helluva cost in pride just the same. He had yet to get a shot at Baby. When he finally did, he had no intention of turning the young bull out. He couldn’t wait to draw him, but in the meantime, all he could do was bide his time until luck pitted them together.
“Baby,” Darcy mused aloud, as if trying to equate the name to bad-ass ugly and triple-mean-on-the-hoof. The smile she sent Jesse’s way told him that while she still had in mind a little afternoon delight with a real cowboy type, for the moment she was concentrating on the article. “I wonder what it takes to keep a baby like that happy.”
Jesse gave up a genuine smile. “Not much, really. Ole Baby, he only wants three things out of life. His stomach full. His back bare. And his goat near by.”
On cue, an abrupt bleating erupted and drew their attention to the far corner of the pen. A calico nanny stood knee-deep in bedding, contently chewing hay, her ears twitching out a warning that she was nothing to mess with.
Darcy crinkled her forehead. “What’s this business with the goat, anyway?”
Again Jesse grinned as he faced the pen and his nemesis. Everyone associated with the sport knew Baby’s story. “Baby was orphaned at birth. The goat was brought in as a surrogate momma.”