“Don’t come back without my money,” a portly man with bad skin called from the tent. “You owe me, Edward Tyrell, and I always collect my debts. I don’t care who your family is or what you are.”
In reply, Eddie picked up an empty beer bottle lying on the ground and threw it at the man, but his aim was miles off. “Bastard,” he muttered, kicking the dirt.
Vexed, Dakota stood from the ground and dusted the dirt off her knees. Her side ached. It felt as if she’d been attacked by a boulder. “Maybe watch where you’re going next time, yeah?” she admonished.
“Hey, you’re pretty,” Eddie said, ignoring her reprimand. “Wanna take a ride with a real cowboy?”
“Sure, tell me when you see one,” she returned, rubbing her arm. “I don’t appreciate being knocked over.”
Eddie frowned, genuinely concerned. “I knocked you over?”
“Didn’t you notice?”
His frown disappeared, cavalier once more. “I noticed how gorgeous you are.”
Unwilling to entertain him, she turned to leave, but Eddie quickly moved in front of her. “Let me make it up to you. I’ll buy you a shot.”
“You can buy three shots, and you can drink them yourself. I’m going home.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, flashing her a perfect smile, the smile of a playboy, someone who treated life like it was a game of marbles.
Dakota wasn’t impressed. “You can go to hell, that’s where you can go.”
It made him laugh. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
She stepped away. “Don’t worry about where I’m from.”
He tried to maneuver with her, but in his inebriation, he tripped over his own feet and fell into a water trough, soaking him through. “Thanks!” he called, splashing his arms. “I needed a cool down. A girl as pretty as you had me all riled up.”
“What you need are some manners, little brother,” a man said, joining them on horseback. He was tall, like Eddie, but he had dark hair, and he was much bulkier, thick around the shoulders, built to rule. “You okay?” he asked Dakota.
“I’m fine,” she told him, nervous with so much attention on her. She wanted to slip away, but she saw no easy way to do so, not with a man on horseback and a drunk in a trough staring at her.
He turned his attention to Eddie, full of authority. “I’m leaving now. You’ll be in charge. You know what that means.”
“I know,” Eddie grunted, displeased.
“Try to stay sober while I’m gone. The clan will be looking towards you for protection. They need a leader. Don’t be reckless.”
She could tell there was more the man wanted to say, but he wouldn’t in front of her. She wasn’t insulted. She had her secrets too.
“Safe journey, brother,” Eddie bid, half-sarcastic.
“Protect them,” the man said once more, and then he rode off.
The confrontation had sobered Eddie. She could tell he was humiliated. Feeling sorry for him, she offered him her hand and helped him out of the trough. “Who was that?” she asked.
“Holden, my saint of a brother,” he answered, wringing out his hat. “I hate the way he speaks to me.”
Surprised by his confession, she set her hand on his arm, comforting him. “It’s his way of looking out for you. That’s what siblings do. They take care of each other. Even shifters.”
She’d known Eddie was a shifter from the moment she saw him. Only shifters had golden eyes as deep and compelling as his were. It was one of the traits that set them apart.
“It doesn’t scare you that, underneath this sinfully attractive body, I’m a bear?” he asked, resuming his charm.
“No,” she answered. “It doesn’t scare me. I’ve met shifters before.”
“Like who?” he asked, intrigued.
“A friend.”
He laughed. “You’re mysterious. I get it. Is there anything about yourself you are willing to tell me?”
She couldn’t walk around West Texas ignoring the natives. It would only draw suspicion, so she played along. “Tell me more about you first.”
“I’m a middle child. Not much responsibility on my shoulders. No one to prove myself to, except the bull I sit on when I ride. Got a lot to prove to him.”
“Until now.”
“Yeah, til now,” he said reluctantly.
“You don’t want to be the leader of your clan.”
“Would you? There are things happening in the shifter world, unsettling things. I can’t protect my brothers from it any more than I could protect myself.”
It worried her as much as it did him. “What things?”
“Nothing you have to worry about, darling,” he said, perking up, a fresh wave of his intoxication coursing through his blood. “Wanna dance?” Before she could stop him, he scooped her up into his arms and spun her around.
She protested, outwardly annoyed, but a secret side of her enjoyed it. Eddie was brazen, and he was sexy, especially when he wasn’t acting like a drunken fool. His robust charm took away some of the misery of being on the run. She demanded he set her down, but part of her wished he wouldn’t let go.
He set her back on her feet. “You’ve just made a new friend here today,” he said. “Feel free to call on me anytime, but when you do, I prefer you wear lacy–”
The intercom cut him off, crackling around them. “There has been a change in the schedule. The Tyrell Clan will no longer be competing in today’s events. All riders have been moved forward accordingly.”
“Who the hell decided that?” Eddie growled, outraged. “Sorry, darling, but I gotta go.” Moving fast, he planted a playful kiss on her cheek. “Until next time.”
“There won’t be a next time!” she hollered after him, confused.
A fugitive, Dakota wanted nothing to do with handsome cowboys or their pretty words. She wanted to stay hidden in the shadows, away from Eddie and his recklessness, but she also very much wanted to dance with him again. She was a fugitive, but she was also a woman.
“It’s the heat,” she decided, speaking out loud. “It’s consumed me.”
Chapter Two
The next day, Brianna rode. She was magnificent. She handled the bull like a queen. Sitting in the front row of the stadium, next to the press, Dakota was in awe of her new roommate. A lot of talent had been showcased in the arena, and most of it belonged to Brianna, who wore white chaps with jade beading to match her hat, her signature look.
“85.25,” the announcer cheered when Brianna was bucked off. “Not her best, but a good score nonetheless.”
“A damn good score,” the reporter next to Dakota said, tapping away at his tablet.
In the arena, Brianna modestly waved her hand to her fans and disappeared behind the pens. She wasn’t tawdry. She didn’t need gaudy showmanship to prove she had talent. People loved her as she was.
Dakota had no interest in the other bull riders, so she went outside to the craft stalls until it was Brianna’s turn to ride again. It had been difficult to persuade her to return to the rodeo. A fugitive didn’t play giddy-up for strangers, but she couldn’t tell Brianna that, especially when she was so adamant. With the women competing, she’d wanted Dakota there to watch. It’d be a long morning as each woman made her way through the rounds, leading up to the championship round after lunch. The women weren’t the main event, the men took over again in the evening, an injustice that irritated Brianna.
I’d be angry too, Dakota thought as she wandered through the stalls, admiring the quality of the handmade crafts. It’s brave to put yourself out there like that, to risk judgment and harassment to do what you know is right. I’m not brave, not like that. I never will be.
If she had a slice of the courage Brianna had, she wouldn’t be hiding in West Texas, far from her sins. She would have confronted her mistake.
A blanket in a stall caught her eye. Knitted with beige wool, the motif had apples on it, all lined up in a row. It reminded Dakota of her childhood. Every summer,
she and her brother used to pick apples in the orchard outside their house. She’d climb to the tallest branches of the trees and shake the apples down to her brother, who would catch them in a blanket, using it as a net. The bitterness of apples made her sick to her stomach, but she loved picking them.
“Would you like to buy it?” the vendor asked, a short woman with a crooked nose. “I’ll wrap it up nicely for you.”
“No, it’s too painful,” she answered, but she wasn’t able to set the blanket down. After everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure she’d ever see her brother again. No one knew the number to her burner phone or where she had gone. She had simply disappeared, a shadow in the night.
A much larger shadow than her own crossed in front of her. “You planning a picnic?” Eddie probed, startling her. “I know a bakery that makes apple tarts so good your mama will cry.”
Dakota quickly folded up the blanket and set it back in its place. “No, no picnics,” she said hurriedly, hoping he would leave, fully aware of how desirable his tanned body was. The bulk of his arms alone sent pleasant shivers down her spine. She didn’t trust herself to make good decisions when Eddie was around. She had to protect herself. A hot night in the sack wasn’t worth her risking her freedom.
“So is Dakota your actual name, or is that where you’re from? Cuz I hear it snows a lot up there, and you’re as white as an artic bunny.”
“Where did you learn my name?” she asked, throwing her guard up as high as it would go with his golden eyes studying her, trying to drag her in. She was a reasonable woman, but reason couldn’t battle temptation, not in this heat.
“So Dakota is your name. I thought for sure Brianna was pulling my leg. I’m glad you found your way back to the rodeo. Now I can redeem myself.” He held his hand out to her. “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you, to make up for yesterday.”
It was a sincere request. Dakota like Eddie this way – sober and genuine. She never would have accepted his hand in his drunken arrogance, but she accepted it now, knowing it was a mistake. For so long, she had been scared. In Eddie’s presence, despite him being a stranger, she felt safe. He would protect her, even if he didn’t know what he was protecting her from.
They circled the stadium, away from the crowd, until they reached a barnyard that, according to the signs posted around the makeshift pens, was closed to the public. The animals belonged to the men and women of the rodeo.
As Eddie led her past a muddy pen filled with noisy pigs, some the size of a small pony, she asked, “We’re allowed to be here, aren’t we?”
“I am,” he teased, tightening his grip on her hand. “Don’t run off, darling. We’re almost there.”
Leaving the pigs behind, they entered a stable filled with rows of horses, the roof sheltering the animals from the blaze of the sun. Eddie stopped in front of an oatmeal Thoroughbred, its coat so light it was almost white.
“He’s a bronco,” he informed her. “Never been trained. Never been ridden. Never seen a saddle in his life.” He petted the horse along its forehead. “You’re my best friend, aren’t you boy?”
In reply, the bronco bucked.
Dakota had not thought such adoration possible from the reckless playboy. Unwillingly, her guard began to drop. “If he’s never been ridden, why is he at the rodeo?” she asked, curious.
“I entered him in the beauty pageant. He’s a show horse. Wins first prize every time. But even to put him in here kills me. I don’t like him to be cooped up. When we aren’t traveling around from one rodeo to the next, we have a ranch in New Mexico. He runs free there. I understand his need to run. All animals want to roam.”
“You understand because you’re an animal too. A bear.”
“We’re all bears in the Tyrell Clan.”
“Are there many of you in the clan?”
“Just a pocketful. My brothers, our cousin Colby, and Owen.”
“Owen Hutch, the rodeo superstar?”
Eddie laughed. “Don’t tell him that. He hates being a star. He just does his thing, and he’s happy enough with that. I’ve been friends with him for a long time.”
She leaned against the wooden divide between the stables, not caring how dirty it was. “You always been a bull rider?”
“Since I was a cub.” Eddie moved in closer to her, taking her easy posture as an invite, and he brushed away a loose strand of her hair. “You always been this haunted?”
“I’m not haunted,” she claimed, her body pulsing with him so near. She could feel his breath against her neck, tantalizing her like a soft kiss. I’m hunted.
Eddie put an arm over her head. He could devour her, and she wouldn’t care. “I think you are haunted. Hopefully, this can scare all the ghosts away.”
He leaned forward to kiss her, but a young man burst into the stables. Lanky and clumsy, he knocked a bucket over on his way to them.
“That’s Jacob, my younger brother.” Eddie sighed as he moved away. “He has a knack for good timing.”
“Hi.” Jacob blushed as he waved his hand. Like Eddie, he had sandy blonde hair, but he was leaner, and he had freckles sprinkled across his even nose. “Owen’s waiting,” he said.
“Waiting for what?” I questioned.
“Retaliation for kicking us out of the competition.”
“You were kicked out?”
“Disqualified, technically, for this rodeo only, after what happened to Owen yesterday.” Eddie scowled. “There are no rules saying shifters can’t compete. It’s not right.”
“No, it ain’t,” Jacob echoed, looking down.
“Gotta go, darling,” Eddie said, holding his arm out, a mischievous grin replacing his scowl. “Let me escort you back before the boys and I round ourselves up a big ole dose of trouble.”
“No need,” Dakota said, staying put. She didn’t want to be anywhere near trouble. “I’ll find my own way back.”
***
The arena was empty, but the stadium was full, the crowd drawn for Brianna’s ride. Dakota wasn’t sure how many rounds there were, or if they were even called rounds, but based on what she’d overheard others say, the average of the scores determined a bull rider’s place in the championship.
Thirsty, Dakota took a sip of her lemonade, which she’d picked up on her way back to the stadium. The drink was cool against her throat, with a sweetness that almost made her smile, if she was capable of smiling in her situation. It’d been a long time since she could taste food. The fear of running turned everything to ash, but she indulged on the lemonade now. It made her tongue tingle.
Maybe it’s because I’ve finally found a place to settle, a new home, she thought. Or maybe it’s because of Eddie. He heightens my senses.
As she enjoyed her lemonade, her attention was drawn to the barrel sitting in the middle of the arena. It moved on its own, as if shaken by a small quake. From watching Brianna earlier, she knew the barrel was used as a centerpiece for entertainment, and it gave the bull riders a place to jump if nowhere else was safe, but there was no one in the arena. The round had yet to start. Brianna stood casually by the pens with her competitors, waiting to be called.
Colby (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 3) Page 6