Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Slim’s gaze snapped to her. His eyes bugged out with what looked like fear. “What?”

  She liked knowing she could make him feel the same way he made her feel—nervous and off center. She stepped around Ian. “Why’d you bring an extra bull? I was standing right next to you when you told Mort you’d brought an extra bull. It’s a hell of a long way from Wyoming, you know. You don’t haul an extra bull for shits and giggles unless you need it.”

  She looked to the other cowboys. Most of them looked as confused as she’d felt on that stage. They knew the same things she did—things her father had been teaching her for the past decade and a half. Travel wore on a bull. It wasn’t like loading a puppy into the front seat. Every trip in a trailer was a risk. “Anyone else here bring an extra bull?”

  Several of the contractors shook their heads no.

  “But you did,” she said, turning back to Slim. “Why is that? Banking on a bull getting injured so you could get a bigger paycheck?”

  The contractors and cowboys were all looking at Slim now. His face was turning an interesting shade of red that deepened closer to purple with each passing second.

  She almost smiled, because by God, for once in her life, she had the drop on Slim Smalls, and it was his own fault. He could have waited another five minutes to tell Mort he had that bull, but no—he’d wanted to rub her nose in it. He’d been so busy trying to smear her that he’d overlooked the one thing she could use to smear him.

  She didn’t smile, though. Not with Wreck’s carcass right there on the ground. Not with the way her chest felt. Not when things had become life-and-death so suddenly.

  “Could have been anyone’s bull,” she went on, speaking to the group. “Someone could have gotten hurt.”

  “I didn’t sabotage your pen, if that’s what you’re implying,” Slim spat out.

  But the cowboy who had tried to lead Slim away let go of his arm and took a step back. “That true, Slim? You brought an extra bull?”

  Oh, she shouldn’t be enjoying this. But she was. She stood a little straighter, her shoulders a little farther back. So she’d lost it in the tent earlier. She could still be the tough-as-nails contractor she had to be in public.

  “I didn’t let her bull loose, Jerry, for God’s sake,” Slim snapped. “I didn’t even get here until maybe half an hour ago!”

  “You didn’t have to,” she said in a quiet voice. “You just had to know it was going to happen.” She made certain to phrase it neutrally like that. Cutting a pipe would have taken time and made a hell of a lot of noise. Someone would have heard it.

  Slim might have had his back against the wall, but he wasn’t done yet. “Anyone could have tampered with that pen,” he snapped. “You know those animal-rights activists are always sniffing around, trying to make the rodeos look bad. Why don’t you look into them, huh? I had nothing to do with it!”

  She didn’t say anything. She held her ground and met his gaze with one of what she hoped was steely determination.

  Slim would not be cowed, however. He sneered at her so hard she could almost hear him say, You’ve won this round, but I’ll be back!

  The cowboy who’d tried to lead Slim away cleared his throat. “We’ve got to get this bull out of here.”

  “I’ll make the call,” she said. Her voice was strong, thank God. She sounded as if she knew what she was doing. She was in control. She was not some little girl that had nearly gotten trampled and broke down in hysterics and was unable to manage her bulls. She was a stock contractor, dammit.

  Slim walked off. She knew this wasn’t over, not by a long shot. But she’d stood up for herself. She’d stood up for the Straight Arrow. And she’d done it all without throwing a punch or calling names.

  Her daddy would have been proud of her.

  This unbidden thought pushed that lump back into her throat and she had to turn away from the crowd. The moment had passed, anyway.

  She found Ian watching her, a half grin on his face, his thumbs tucked into his belt loops. His shirt was still a mess, both from where they’d hit the dirt earlier and from where she’d sobbed into his shoulder, and he looked off without his hat.

  Oh—she was still wearing it. She needed her own hat back.

  But she couldn’t look for it, not while Ian held her gaze and gave her that smile. “That was impressive,” he said.

  “It was?”

  “It was,” his partner said, coming up beside him. “Didn’t get him to cop to anything, but you put him in his place. A man like Slim needs to be taken down a couple of pegs.” He held out his hand. “We haven’t been formally introduced. I’m Black Jack Johnson.”

  She knew his name, of course, but they were being polite, so she gave his hand a quick shake. “Lacy Evans. Why do they call you Black Jack—are you good at blackjack?”

  Ian made a choking noise and started to laugh. Jack blinked, and then broke out in a huge grin. “Ma’am,” Jack said in all seriousness, “it’s because I’m black.”

  Heat flamed over her cheeks. “Oh. Right. I mean—oh,” she finished lamely.

  “It’s all right,” Ian said. “We’re all friends here. He’s black, I’m Indian and you’re a woman.”

  “Misfits,” Jack added with a kindly smile. “I understand you might need a little help now and then?”

  She ducked her head. “I might. I should have—”

  Ian cut her off. “Don’t apologize. Everything you said to Slim was true. Someone cut that pole and even if he didn’t do it, he sure as hell seems to have known about it in advance. It could have been anyone’s bull.” He stepped toward her. “And someone could have gotten hurt.”

  She felt him studying her eyes as he’d done in the tent. “Although, after watching you put Slim in his place, I’m not so worried about a concussion right now.”

  This time, she allowed herself to smile back. But not for long.

  She forced herself to turn around and look at what was left of Wreck.

  “How much was he worth?” Ian asked, his voice somber.

  “Probably only fifteen thousand. But in another year or two...” No, she couldn’t allow herself to think of what would never be. Wreck would never become a better bull and be a shining star for the Straight Arrow.

  She turned away and dug out the scrap of paper Mort had given her and called the number. While she talked to the cleanup guys, Ian and Black Jack took pictures of the pen and the cut pipe, as well as the trailer and the bull.

  “How much is this going to cost?” she asked the cleanup guy.

  “The animal was thirteen hundred pounds? That’s going to be close to a grand.” He cleared his throat. “We’d need half up front. We could bill you for the other half...”

  “Yeah, okay.” She couldn’t come up with a thousand, but she could scrape five hundred out of the bank account without overdrawing it.

  Not for the first time, she wished her parents hadn’t died. It wasn’t only that they’d left her alone or that they hadn’t told her about the box—that they’d never trusted her with the truth.

  But it was also that paying for the funerals had taken the financial cushion her dad had been socking away and destroyed it. And now she had to pay to bury the bull in addition to losing the fees from his rides.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “Here.” Startled, she looked up to see Ian with her hat in his hands. He lifted his hat off her head and settled her own back down over her hair. It felt tight after his loose one. He tucked one of her curls under the brim. “Better?”

  “I guess.”

  “How’s the rib?”

  “Sore,” she admitted. Then she looked around, afraid someone might have heard her. “Where’d Jack go?”

  Ian grinned at her. “He went to find some chains and a new pole connector. We’re going to
lock the pens down.”

  “Oh. That’s probably a good idea.”

  He notched an eyebrow at the probably. “You need to carry chains with you, Lacy. Double-check the pens before you get the bulls out.”

  He was scolding her, she realized. Well, maybe she had that coming. After all, if she’d waited for him—okay, so it wouldn’t have changed the fact that someone had cut the pole. But together they might have realized the pen had been sabotaged. They might have helped keep Wreck calm.

  But no. She’d convinced herself she didn’t need help.

  “Hey, now.” She didn’t so much see Ian step closer as she felt his presence. Then her cheek was in his hand again and he was lifting her face. “I’m not blaming you.”

  “You should,” she whispered.

  “Did you cut that pole?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then it wasn’t your fault. Jack and I will take turns watching the bulls.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  He cut her off when his fingers tightened against her skin, drawing her closer. “Lacy,” he said, his voice deep and low and for her ears only, “I know I don’t have to. Neither does Jack. But we’re going to, anyway.” His thumb stroked over the apple of her cheek, leaving a trail of tingles in its wake. “So let me do this for you.”

  He’d be so good. So good. He’d touch her like this and whisper those words in her ear, and then he’d pop the buttons on her shirt and...

  And she had to stop thinking about it. Right now. First off, she had a fractured rib and wild sex was probably not the best treatment plan for that. Second off, she could not leave her animals.

  If anything happened to Rattler, she’d be in a world of hurt—the kind of hurt that made a busted rib and a thousand dollars look like child’s play.

  She might have bested Slim in a battle of words, but she was still losing the war.

  Ian’s thumb moved over her cheek again. “Do you have a hotel room yet?”

  Oh, God—this was going to happen. She’d sent out signals that she was open to sex, and Ian—being Ian—had picked up on them. A shudder went through her body.

  Ian felt it. His eyes darkened and his jaw clenched.

  Then he dropped his hand and stepped back. “I think you should lie down for a while,” he said in a different voice. He almost sounded as if he was being strangled. “You need to rest.”

  “Why? I won’t sleep. I rarely do.”

  He scowled at her. “You’re being prickly again. Look, you need to rest. You need some aspirin and some ice. Knowing you, you probably need to eat. You can either do those things now, or you can do them tonight.” He cast a judgey look over her. “Either way, you’re going to rest. If you find a bed now, Black Jack will watch the bulls until we get back tonight. Or you can fight me about it now until you pass out from exhaustion and pain tonight and I put you to bed myself.”

  “You wouldn’t.” She didn’t know why she said that. Apparently, she was being prickly.

  “I would and I could.”

  “I can’t leave my bulls.”

  “Then I’ll stay up tonight with them.” When she opened her mouth to protest, he cut her off with a wave of his hand. “You will sleep, Lacy. I promise.”

  She frowned at him. What were her options? She could go get a hotel room and try to nap now, or she could wait until tonight to try and sleep.

  Damn Ian for always being right—she was tired. And sore. “Will you guys keep an eye on the bulls now? I’ll take the night shift. I’d feel bad making you both stay up all night.”

  “Fine.”

  “But I can’t go anywhere until the pens are secured, the trailer’s been righted and the...carcass has been picked up,” she added.

  This was not what Ian wanted to hear. “If I get some medicine, will you at least take it? You’ve got to be hurting.”

  She almost told him she wasn’t—but the way he was looking at her made it pretty damn clear he wasn’t buying that. “A little,” she admitted. She put her hand on her ribs, right below her underwire. “Here.”

  “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ve got ibuprofen in my pack.”

  Black Jack came back with some chains and a guy in a truck pulled up and a different guy with a massive tractor arrived and everything happened at once.

  She wrote a check for four hundred and fifty-three dollars and twenty-seven cents, because that was what was in her account. The cleanup guy didn’t give her any crap, not after he got a good look at the trailer. The tractor guy didn’t ask for anything, so Lacy had to assume that Mort had taken some small measure of pity on her.

  Then it was all done. She was one credit card bill away from flat broke. Wreck was gone to that great pasture in the sky. Her trailer was upright, and Ian hosed the blood off the wheel well. The water mixed with what was left of Wreck’s blood on the ground, turning the red dirt a deep rust color.

  And she was tired. The pills Ian had given her were taking the edge off her pain, but as she watched the trailer with Wreck’s remains drive off, she felt as if she could fall asleep standing up.

  She was so tired of death. More than that, she was so tired of being the one who had to clean up after the death.

  Then Ian’s arm was around her shoulder. “Come on,” he murmured, and she had no choice but to follow as he guided her toward her truck.

  He turned her around, and then his hands were on her waist. He lifted her up into the cab of her truck as if she weighed nothing at all. “Keys?”

  She managed to fish them out of her pocket and buckle her seat belt as he slid behind the wheel.

  The next thing she knew, Ian was saying, “We’re here, babe,” as he undid the seat belt and helped her to her feet. He slid an arm around her waist, and she let him take some of her weight as they headed into a hotel lobby.

  “Did I fall asleep?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Did you sleep last night?”

  “I don’t... No?” She didn’t recognize the hotel, but at this point, she didn’t much care so long as she could lie down for a little while.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  She leaned on Ian as he got her a room. When he went to pay, she tried to protest. “I can get it.”

  “No, I’ve got it,” he said, sounding amused. “If you’re going to stay up tonight, there’s no need for separate rooms. Black Jack will sleep here tonight after we get to the arena.”

  There was something about that statement that didn’t make sense, but then Ian was walking her toward the elevator and they were going up and she was swaying, dammit all, when the thing came to a stop.

  Ian held her up, and then they were at the door to the room. He let go of her long enough to get the door open. Then he pulled her inside and set her down on a bed and pulled her boots off.

  He lifted the hat from her head, then leaned her back on the pillows and pulled the covers up over her. “Sleep now.”

  Her eyes started to drift shut, but she forced them open. She didn’t like being this tired. “I’m okay, right?”

  “You’re okay,” he said in a reassuring voice. “But if you feel off when you wake up, will you let me take you to the doctor?”

  She nodded. He was standing there, looking down at her and it could have felt wrong. It should have felt wrong.

  It didn’t. She felt safe.

  “Will you be here when I wake up?”

  He crouched down next to her. His fingertips touched her forehead, brushing her hair away from her eyes. Then they stroked down the side of her face. She sighed at his touch. “I’ll be right here. Get some sleep.”

  Amazingly, her eyes closed.

  And there was nothing but darkness.

  CHAPTER TEN

  LACY’S EYES CLOSED. She tu
rned her head to the side, and within seconds, she was breathing regularly.

  Ian exhaled heavily. He hoped like hell he hadn’t gotten his no-concussion diagnosis wrong. She’d been entirely lucid for a good two hours or so, starting when she’d finished crying it out in the medical tent right up until the carcass guy had pulled away with what was left of her bull.

  But then she’d curled into herself like a leaf falling off a tree, and he’d seen that she was almost to the point of collapse. Of course, if she hadn’t slept last night—well, it’d been a long-ass day.

  He watched her sleep, trying to dismiss the worry that crowded his thoughts. She didn’t do anything symptomatic of a greater problem, though. She just slept. So Ian quietly left the room and went back down to the truck.

  Behind the driver’s seat, he found a gym bag. He peeked inside to make sure there were clothes, but he didn’t want to look too closely. Yes, she probably had a pair of panties, but there wasn’t a shot in hell he would look at them without her permission. If she wanted to show him her underwear, then he’d wait for that as he’d waited for her name and her hair.

  He was a strong man. Or so he liked to think. But there was something about her—that had to be why he’d offered to take care of her. And she’d taken it to mean a very specific kind of care.

  She’d wanted him. And he could have taken her. He could have brought her back to this hotel and stripped her down and climbed into that bed with her.

  He hadn’t. He wouldn’t.

  He hefted the duffel out and stopped to get some coffee in the lobby. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to sitting up all night, but he’d be damned if he left her in that arena all alone with some joker cutting pipes and God only knew what else under the cover of darkness.

  She hadn’t moved when he got back into the room. He wanted to take a shower, but his clothes were still in Jack’s truck. He couldn’t leave her because there was always a chance he’d missed something.

  Whoever had cut that pipe—and he was going to find out who had—was still out there. But his first responsibility was to the woman who wanted him to be there when she woke up.