Ian cleared his throat and crossed his arms. She started, but didn’t make a noise. Instead, she glanced over her shoulder and made eye contact with Ian. He gave her a curt nod that he hoped said, I’m on your side. At least in this matter.
The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she wanted to smile but wasn’t going to. Then she turned back to Slim, who was now glaring at Ian with undisguised hatred. “Do you really want to find out, Slim? Because I guarantee you won’t like it. I’m not afraid of you.” This statement was only slightly contradicted by the way her voice wavered. “My father wasn’t afraid of you, either.”
Slim spat. “He can’t protect you anymore, you little—”
“Watch your mouth around a lady,” Ian growled as he flexed his muscles. That was a threat, plain and clear. And sometimes, a threat had to be met with a threat.
Slim snorted. “What are you going to do about it, Geronimo? Scalp me?”
Ian charged. His vision narrowed until all he could see was Slim. Just like when he’d been on the football field, when all he could see was the quarterback, the ball. His body primed for the hit, the satisfying crunch of pad against pad, bone against bone.
He didn’t make it. Suddenly, he was jerked to the side. At the same time, Evans turned around and put both hands on his chest, pushing him back.
“Dammit, Chief,” Jack hissed in his ear. “You’ll get kicked off the circuit.”
“Don’t,” Evans said, her wide eyes all the wider with a mix of horror and fear. Then she pitched her voice up louder. “He’s not worth it.”
Ian’s vision widened enough to see that Slim was now standing behind two riders Ian didn’t know real well. Ian could have easily taken them both. “What’s the matter?” he asked, shaking off Jack. “You’ll threaten a woman but you’re too much a coward to man up?”
“Boy,” Slim said, spitting the word out as if it was an insult. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.” Then he turned on his heel and walked off.
Ian watched him go and then turned his attention to Evans. “There,” he said. “That should—”
“What the hell is your problem?” Evans demanded, cutting him off. “Are you trying to ruin my life or what? Because you’re doing a damn fine job.”
“I was trying to help,” Ian said through gritted teeth.
“Well, don’t. I don’t need any help, certainly not from you. I don’t know how I can make it any clearer, buddy—Leave. Me. Alone.”
And with that, she turned and stormed off for the second time in less than fifteen minutes.
Ian blinked, but this time she really was gone.
“What the hell happened?” he asked Jack.
“I think,” Jack replied, his Texas drawl stronger than normal, “you made her mad.”
“Yeah, thanks for that insight,” Ian shot back. He looked again, but he didn’t see Miss Evans from the Straight Arrow Ranch anywhere.
Ian started after where he’d last seen her, but the promoter began shouting that the short goes was starting and everyone needed to stop standing around and gawking like schoolboys.
Ian had to get back to work.
But he wasn’t done with Miss Evans.
CHAPTER TWO
HER HANDS SHAKING, Lacy Evans walked back to where Rattler was penned after his go. Please let the animal be okay, she prayed. Without Rattler...
The thought brought on a wave of nausea so strong it almost stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t stop, though. She couldn’t afford a single sign of weakness. No throwing up. No hysterics. And absolutely no crying allowed.
What would Slim Smalls do if he caught Lacy in a true moment of weakness? Bad enough he’d obviously seen the bullfighter take Rattler down—worse that he was hoping Rattler would never get up. Lacy had no doubt about that.
Rattler was the only thing keeping the Straight Arrow going. If she lost that bull, Slim would say something misogynistic about how a “pretty little thing” like Lacy had no business in stock contracting, no business running a ranch—no business existing. And when she broke—or he pushed her too far...
She tried to swallow down the rock in her throat that was pushing against her tongue, but it didn’t budge. So she kept walking.
She saw Rattler in the pen and for a moment, she thought he was holding a leg funny.
She tried to push the panic away as she hurried to the pen. Without getting in there with him, she looked over the bull as carefully as she could—especially his legs.
He shifted his weight onto the leg. Thank God.
In place of the panic, a new emotion took root—anger. The anger felt good. She was furious with that bullfighter. What the hell had he been thinking, twisting her best bull to the ground like that? For God’s sake, he could have killed Rattler! Snapped a leg—or several legs, given the force with which he’d dropped Rattler, as if the eighteen-hundred-pound bull was little more than a stuffed animal someone had thrown at him. Who the hell did that bullfighter think he was?
Chief. That’s what the other bullfighter had called him. The thorn in her side had a ridiculous name like Chief. Of course he did. Lacy didn’t know if that was his real name or another dig at him being an Indian. Because she was pretty sure he was an American Indian. There’d been his faint accent, a different way of clipping his vowels. But beyond that, it was Chief’s dark hair and dark eyes and bronzed skin and eagle nose and strong jaw and muscles moving beneath his shirt.
Not that she’d noticed all those muscles when she’d put her hands on his chest and held him back.
A very small part of her brain replayed the scene again. The whole thing hadn’t taken more than twenty seconds. The bull rider hadn’t made it past five, which was good for Rattler’s statistics. Then there’d been the few agonizingly long seconds where the bullfighter had thought about running. Lacy had seen it in his face. Anyone else would have dodged out of the way. Rattler was no pussy cat—he was a mean son of a bitch who’d broken her father’s arm once and launched Murph, one of her hired hands, fifteen feet into a fence.
But the bullfighter hadn’t run. He hadn’t abandoned the downed rider. He’d stood his ground, absorbed the impact and redirected the bull’s energy into the twist.
If it hadn’t been her bull, her livelihood—she would have been cheering with the rest of them.
But it was her bull, her livelihood. If something happened to Rattler...
She refused to think about that worst-case scenario as she shooed Rattler from one end of his narrow pen to the other, watching his gait the whole time. Rattler seemed okay. No pulling up lame, no favoring one foot.
She needed him to be okay. If that Chief so much as touched her bull again, he wouldn’t have to be worried about getting gored. Lacy would see to that herself.
Reluctantly, she left Rattler. Her other bull, Peachy Keen, was due up soon. Peachy wasn’t half the bull Rattler was, but that didn’t mean Peachy wasn’t a good bull. He was perfectly suited to the Total Championship Bulls Ranger circuit. The riders here were all trying to break into the big league, the Challenger circuit. If they couldn’t get past Peachy, then they didn’t have a hope of making it to the finals in Las Vegas this October, a mere six months away.
Rattler, however, was a different story. He was amassing points every time he was loaded into the chutes. If he had a good summer, he could be bumped up to the bigs. And the bigs paid better.
She needed that. The Straight Arrow was hanging on by what felt like the thinnest of threads. She’d cut every expense she could. If Rattler didn’t have a good year with a strong finish in Vegas, she’d have to start selling off the beef cattle that paid at least half of the ranch’s bills.
And if that happened...
She would do anything to keep the ranch. If she lost the Straight Arrow, she didn’t know what she�
�d do.
She didn’t know who she’d be, without that ranch.
It wouldn’t come to that. Rattler was going to have a strong summer. Peachy and Chicken Run would earn their keep. Then there was Wreckerator. Some rides, he was every bit as good as Rattler. But other rides were a total disaster. She couldn’t bet the ranch on Wreckerator. Not yet, anyway.
Everything was riding on Rattler.
She made her way to the chutes as Peachy went in. She didn’t recognize the rider’s name, but he tipped his hat and said, “Ma’am,” when she slung her leg over the railing to grab Peachy’s flank strap.
She nodded at him. Well, that was a nice change of pace. At least half of these cowboys treated her like a pariah at a family picnic, as if the mere fact that she had boobs meant she shouldn’t be contaminating the air they breathed. Never mind that she’d been a working rancher since she was old enough to sit in a saddle. Never mind that she did a man’s work all day, every day. It didn’t matter. She was not welcome here.
But every so often, one of the cowboys was a decent human being, as her father had been. Dale Evans never let anyone talk down to her or any other woman. It wasn’t the Straight Arrow Ranch for nothing.
She’d never understood what had started the feud with Slim Smalls. At this point, it didn’t matter. Not even Dale’s and Linda’s deaths were enough for Slim. He wanted more. He wanted Lacy’s ranch.
She pulled the flank strap as another rider pulled the bull rope. Peachy shifted nervously in the chute as the rider got his grip. Lacy realized he was praying under his breath. “Have a good one, Preacher,” the other rider said.
The Preacher? Fitting, she thought as the man nodded his head. The chute swung open.
Normally, Lacy watched the rides, making notes on how her bulls did, where they were stronger, where they were weaker. She and her father had always done that, breaking down each ride together until Lacy understood bulls better than her dad did.
But not this time. This time, she was watching a bullfighter named Chief.
Now that she knew Rattler was okay, she almost felt bad for tearing into the man. Of course he was doing his job. Of course he didn’t know about Rattler or Lacy Evans or the Straight Arrow or even Slim Smalls. He’d only known how to take down a charging bull with his bare hands. It had nothing to do with her.
And he had been trying to help her, hadn’t he? He’d cut Slim off before he could start cursing, and Lacy would be willing to bet that he’d have taken Slim down in much the same way he’d taken Rattler down. For her.
Even if it was all macho posturing—still, he’d been willing to throw down on her behalf. And that was after she’d yelled at him. The first time, anyway. She didn’t know if he’d be so eager to defend her again after she’d told him off a second time.
Okay, she did feel bad. She’d been upset and angry and she hadn’t been able to take all of her anger out on Slim. Somehow, Chief had seemed safer. Maybe it was because she didn’t know him. Or maybe it was something else.
She’d pushed him. She’d put her hands on his chest and shoved to keep him from beating the hell out of a man who richly deserved it. She’d felt Chief’s body tense at her touch, which was bad enough. But what was worse was the way he’d looked down at her, as if he hadn’t expected to find her there but he was glad she was.
Then she had to open her big mouth. Again.
She’d apologize, she decided as the Preacher made the time on Peachy. If she got the chance, she’d thank him for not killing her bull and for putting Slim in his place and for letting her hold him back. Then her conscience would be clear and that would be that.
Peachy obligingly trotted out of the arena. Lacy heard the announcer say the Preacher had gotten a seventy-four—not a great score for either the rider or the bull, but it was enough. She was done here. There were only a few riders left, and then the rodeo would be over except for the belt buckles. She could load up her bulls and begin the long trip home to the Straight Arrow in Wyoming.
She couldn’t say the prospect excited her. If she went home to the empty house, there’d be no distractions, good or bad. She’d be utterly alone, except for when the hired hands did their work and even then, there wasn’t a whole lot of interaction. It’d be just her and the truth she kept trying to avoid.
A little distraction could be good. Hell, it might even be great. As she thought it, she looked back at Chief. She might see him again, she might not. Bullfighters didn’t always follow the same schedule as the bulls and the riders. This could be a one-off, for all she knew.
At that moment, Chief looked up and caught her eye. She tensed. She couldn’t exactly apologize or thank him across an arena but what if she didn’t get another chance?
He was staring at her. She only knew this because she was staring back. His head dipped forward in a polite nod. Wow, she thought. Polite and tough and hot? He was the kind of guy who could be very distracting.
Then he winked at her, his mouth curving up into a suggestive smile.
She scowled. Great. It hadn’t been no-strings-attached, that little show he’d put on earlier with Slim. Chief wanted something in return. Did it matter that she’d been thinking about nearly the same thing? No.
She did not hook up and she did not hang out, not with bull riders or fighters or stock contractors. That was that.
She pushed away from the chute and went to get her animals. She could not afford to be distracted by a bullfighter with a testosterone imbalance. She had a ranch to save and contracted bulls to deliver. Anything outside of that was...
Well, it was unlike her. Dale and Linda Evans’s daughter did not allow distractions.
But even as she thought it, sadness gripped her. Sure, Dale and Linda’s daughter didn’t hook up.
But Lacy wasn’t their daughter, not really.
The lump was back and breathing was difficult. The only thing that kept her from falling apart was the sheer number of people milling around. She would not cry or weep or, God help her, sob. Cowgirls didn’t cry. Certainly not in public, anyway. She was not weak.
She got to her truck and sat there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths until the lump passed and she had things back under control. She drove over to the pens. It was really a two-person job but she wasn’t about to ask for help. Besides, she’d been loading bulls since she was a kid. She could do this. She had to.
“Come on,” she grunted at Rattler. He lowered his head and bellowed. Lacy glared at him. “I’m not the one who grounded you. Don’t take it out on me. Now get up!”
Rattler gave her a look and blew snot in her face and walked into the trailer. Peachy followed his traveling buddy, thank God.
Slim and his “pretty little thing” could go to hell. She could do this—deliver her bulls and get them back home. She could do the job—which meant she could keep her ranch.
She climbed into the cab of her dad’s F-350 and fired up the engine. No, this wasn’t his truck anymore. He’d been gone for seven months now. The truck, the bulls, the Straight Arrow and every single bill were hers now. Distantly, she thought she might be hungry. When was the last time she’d eaten? No lunch today. Had she had breakfast? Well, she’d eat when she got home.
Hays, Kansas, was only about six hours from the Straight Arrow, which sat between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, although it was closer to Laramie. Laramie was where her mom had taught second grade and, therefore, where Lacy had gone to school.
The Straight Arrow was set on the high plains near the base of the Laramie range. The winter held lots of snow for forts and snowball fights. In the summer, the Laramie River was only a short horse ride from the house. It didn’t matter that the river never got much above sixty degrees, even in the warmest part of the year. Lacy would ride out and jump in again and again until her lips were practically blue, and then she’d lie out in
the sun until she warmed up. Or until her mom rang the dinner bell. Then they’d all sit around the table and talk about the day before they watched the movies her dad had loved so much.
She’d never have that back, that sense of perfect belonging. It was gone now. The only part of her life still recognizably hers was this—bulls in the trailer, sitting in the truck, driving home from a rodeo.
God, she missed her parents. She missed being their daughter.
She was so lost in thought that she didn’t see the tall figure in a white T-shirt flagging her down until she almost ran into him. But the man stepped to the side, neatly avoiding having his toes squashed, just as he’d avoided Rattler’s horns.
Lacy slammed on the brakes—at least she’d only been going about ten miles per hour. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to stop. “Dammit!”
Because it was Chief again. The pain in her neck, come back for more.
He leaned against her driver’s-side mirror and waited for her to roll the window down, looking cool and graceful and hot all at once, dang it.
She lowered her window. “What now?”
“I’m sorry about the bull,” he said. “I’ll pay for any treatment he needs.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“The bull.” He shifted and she realized the white T-shirt he was wearing was soaked through. It clung to his body, highlighting muscles and more muscles and then, down a little lower...
Chief cleared his throat, making Lacy startle. “Is he okay?” he asked again.
She needed to come up with something that wouldn’t have her breaking down in grateful tears that Rattler was, in fact, okay. It would be best if that something she came up with didn’t let Chief off the hook or give away the fact that she was having a hard time not looking at his chest. “I won’t know for sure until the vet checks him out.” There.
“Let me know.”
She nodded in agreement and waited for him to move back, but he didn’t. “Yes?”
The corner of his mouth curved up into the kind of smile women like her didn’t often get from men like him—confident and sensual and interested. If Lacy had been a normal single woman, it was the kind of smile that would make her want to melt into his arms and kiss him.
Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Page 28