Her only consolation was that the fight was happening behind the grandstand, where the general public wasn’t allowed. The crowd in attendance would know something had gone wrong, especially if they had to delay the start of the show to reset the pens, but Chloe needed a little time before the details of the brawl got out.
She had to push her way through a knot of riders and local staff before she found them.
What she saw made her heart sink because there they were. “You limp-dick rat bastard!” Flash yelled, struggling against two cowboys who were barely able to hold him back. His lip was split and blood poured out of his nose. It was a lot of blood.
And right next to him, practically foaming at the mouth, with his face an unnatural shade of purple, was her father. “You lying, cheating thief!” he screamed, spittle flying everywhere. Milt Lawrence was so mad that he also had two men holding him back. At least he wasn’t bleeding.
“That’s the best you can do, old man?” Pete taunted. One of his eyes was swollen shut and, oddly, Oliver was physically lifting Pete off the ground. Chloe had no idea if he was about to body slam Pete or what. “You can’t even throw a punch, you fake cowboy!”
“Shut up!” Oliver hollered. Pete kicked him in the shins with his boot and Oliver cursed with much more creativity than Dad.
Fencing was on the ground and a couple of cowboys were trying to herd calves that had escaped and were panicking in the crowd. But as bad as all that was, that wasn’t the thing that made Chloe want to howl with frustration.
No one else seemed interested in breaking things up. Instead, people were recording the fight on their phones. So much for that cushion and any hope she had of spinning this to her advantage. She had, at best, thirty seconds before the whole world knew that the feud between the Lawrences and the Wellingtons was back on in a big way.
Thirty seconds before people began to speculate if the All-Stars could survive the Lawrence family.
Her eyes burned and her throat closed up, but Chloe did not have time to mourn the All-Stars rodeo. It wasn’t dead yet, despite the attempted murder happening before her eyes.
That was the moment when, with a scream of rage, Flash broke free and headed straight for Pete.
Chloe moved without thinking. She launched herself across the space and hip-checked Flash from the side. The impact jarred her hard enough her teeth clacked together but she kept her feet underneath her, which counted for a lot.
Flash didn’t fall, damn him, but he lost his balance and staggered to the side where—thank God—a local stock contractor grabbed him several feet from Pete and Oliver.
“That’s enough!” Chloe yelled. And for once, men listened. Her family stopped screaming. Pete stopped yelling. A hush fell over the crowd.
Every eye was on her.
“Cameras off, please,” she said in what she hoped was a polite voice, but she didn’t think everyone would listen and, sure enough, only a few people lowered their phones. Great. Might as well play to the cameras.
“Now,” she went on in a loud but hopefully not furious voice. “Anyone care to explain?”
“He started it!” Flash yelled, gesturing with his chin to Pete.
“What are you, four?” Pete snarled back, but at least his feet were on the ground and Oliver only had a hand on him.
“Gentlemen,” she tried again, although there weren’t any of those currently in attendance. Pete shot her a look that walked the fine line between sorry and not sorry.
Well, he could stuff his sorry ass. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted him to apologize earlier—because it wasn’t enough. It’d never be enough.
She was so tired of this.
“At least be man enough to admit you’ve screwed this up,” Pete went on.
Which of course was when Milt Lawrence decided to reenter the fray. “This isn’t your rodeo, Wellington. Hasn’t been for years! What are you even doing here?”
“Shut up!” Chloe spun to face her father. “I don’t want to hear another word out of you—out of any of you,” she added, spinning in a slow circle. “This rodeo is due to start in an hour and fifteen minutes and the calf pen has been destroyed. The show will go on, by God. So you,” she said, pointing at her brothers and her father and Pete—and all the various people holding them back, “Come with me. Everyone else, get this pen reassembled, the calves contained and get ready to ride.”
No one moved.
“You heard her,” Pete bellowed. “Move!”
Everyone jumped to attention because of course they did. Pete was a man and he could give orders. Who was she? Just the Princess of the Rodeo. Just another pretty face and an empty head and it’d be an affront to the men here and God above if she dared to ask people to do something.
She was so damned tired.
“Do you need a keeper?” she fired at Flash as she stalked past him. “Or can you at least pretend to be a grown man for fifteen damned minutes?”
“Hey, I’m not the problem here,” he protested, but he shrugged out of the hold of the contractor.
“The hell you aren’t.” But she wasn’t getting into this with him, not in public. “Follow me or else.”
The Pendleton Round-Up was held every year at an outdoor arena, with rooms tucked underneath the stands. She marched toward her dressing room—which was thankfully larger than a closet. Would these dumbasses destroy it and possibly each other? Yeah, the odds were good. But she couldn’t let any more of this out onto social media.
To their credit, Dad, Oliver, Flash and Pete all followed her back without punching each other. Dad grumbled about who owned the rodeo. Flash mumbled about how none of this was his fault. Pete and Oliver were thankfully silent.
When she had the door shut behind her, she turned to look at these men. Her men. Not that Pete was really hers but after the last few nights...maybe he was, just a little.
“Now,” she said in as calm a voice as she could because even if they weren’t punching each other, she could see that these four were like gas-soaked rags, just waiting to catch a spark and go up in flames. “What happened?”
They all started to talk at once—except for Oliver, who was leaning against her dressing room table, arms crossed and watching the whole thing.
“Boys,” Dad roared. Under different circumstances, Chloe would’ve enjoyed the way both Flash and Pete clammed up like chastised schoolboys, except that was when Dad turned to her, finger jabbing in her direction. “I told you to fire this whelp.”
There was a part of Chloe that was just as chastised. This was her father, who’d been a loving dad and had done his best to raise his kids after the death of his wife.
But she wasn’t thirteen anymore. She was a grown woman, doing her best to run a successful rodeo. “Yeah, and?”
“What do you mean and, young lady?” he asked indignantly.
Pete smirked but Chloe ignored him. “You provided input on how this business should be run. I took that input into consideration and made a decision that was in the best interests of the business. Which was not to fire Pete.” She took a step toward her father. “And?”
Dad’s mouth opened and closed and his eyes all but bugged out of his head. “Do you know who he is?” he finally spluttered. “What he’s done to our family? What he’s doing to our livelihood right now?”
“Trying to keep Flash from destroying the All-Stars?” she replied in her most innocent voice.
“Hey, this is not—”
“Pete hasn’t done anything to our family that we haven’t done to his,” she went on, ignoring Flash. “Did any of you consider that maybe things had changed? That we didn’t have to keep doing this?”
Her gaze locked with Pete’s and for the barest second she was encouraged by what she saw there. Support. Understanding. He was listening to her and he agreed with her and that was a good thing.
&nbs
p; It didn’t last.
“I’ll tell you what’s changed,” Flash spit into that second of silence. “Oliver went behind Dad’s back and put you in charge of the All-Stars and it’s all gone to hell since then.”
She spun on her baby brother. If his nose wasn’t already broken, she’d break it for him. “Oh? Is that so? Well tell me this, Frasier—who attacked Tex McGraw in Missouri, huh?” She used his real name because if ever he needed to be reminded that life was not all buckles and bunnies, it was now. “Who turned the most popular rider and all his fans against him and the All-Stars, single-handedly dropping take-home revenue by almost 7 percent? Whose actions, I wonder, created such a freakin’ PR disaster that I had no choice but to hire a manager to keep the rodeo going while I worked overtime trying to contain the damage?” Flash opened his mouth in protest, but Chloe cut him off. “And for what? Because Tex insulted a woman?”
“That’s not what happened!”
“Like hell it’s not,” Pete growled. Chloe glared at him.
“You,” she went on, walking up to her baby brother and jabbing him in the chest, “need to grow up. You will not be allowed back on the All-Stars until you’ve completed your sentence for assault and demonstrated that you can control your behavior.”
“That’s not fair!” he yelled. “Tex started it and he didn’t get suspended!”
That did it. She snapped. “Tex quit rather than be around you!” she screamed. “At least he has that option! You want to talk fair? How is it fair that you got into a fight and I’m the one being punished for it? How is it fair that I had to hire Pete because no one listens to me when I tell them to do something, but the moment he says jump, everyone asks how high?”
“People don’t—” Oliver tried to say.
No one listened. Not a one of them. Chloe knew she was past the point of no return now, knew it was a good thing Pete was holding her back because she was done. Done.
“Did you not see the same thing I did not five minutes ago? Where I told everyone the show must go on and not a single person moved an inch until Pete told them to? You didn’t even listen to my explanation about why I need Pete’s help, Oliver. Instead, I got scolded like a little kid because of Flash. Why is it my job to manage his behavior, not his?” She spun back to Flash. “So you just tell me how it’s fair that Dad lets Oliver run the company but I have to go behind his back to even get a chance to prove myself and, when I do get that chance, you screw it up? How is any of this fair, huh?” Her voice cracked.
Oh, no. She couldn’t cry. Not now. For the rest of her life, anytime Flash wanted to get under her skin, he’d just casually bring up the time she cracked under the pressure and started sobbing. She took a step back and tried to breathe. She’d rather break her hand on Flash’s jaw than do anything as unforgivable as cry.
“Me? You treat me like a child!” Flash shot back.
“I’m not—”
But Pete cut her off. “You act like a child,” he replied, sounding exactly like a disappointed big brother. “You want to be treated like a man? Act like one.”
“Hear, hear,” Oliver added, as if it were necessary.
“And you!” Pete turned to him. “You act all high and mighty? You play God with people’s lives and you don’t care what happens to them. Your wife’s family stole money from half the country and your father stole my rodeo and do you care? Of course not.”
“Pete, that’s not fair,” she tried to say.
But Oliver talked right over her. “You keep my wife out of this,” he said, pushing off the table, his voice deadly.
“Or what? Do any of you realize that this all could have been avoided if you’d just treated Chloe like an adult? You,” he said, staring at her father, “you act like the only thing she’s good for is carrying a flag. If you paid attention, you’d realize that she’s got some brilliant ideas to take the All-Stars to the next level. You,” he said, spinning to Oliver, “back her up next time when it’s clear these two won’t listen to reason. And you,” he said, turning to Flash, “if you want to prove yourself, then stop expecting her to bail your ass out when you screw up.”
Yes, because talking about her as if she weren’t here was treating her like an adult. It was nice of Pete to defend her, but she could defend herself, dammit.
“You’re one to talk,” Flash said, getting right up into Pete’s face.
“Wait—” But no one listened to her.
“I am,” Pete ground out. “You think I don’t know what it’s like to be young and angry and lash out at every single person because of something you have no control over? Jesus Christ, kid,” he said, hitting kid extra hard, “open your damned eyes and man the hell up. Stop running to your father every time something goes wrong and stop hiding behind her skirts.”
“Guys,” she tried again because this was already spiraling out of control. “Listen.”
No one did. Not even Pete. For all his big words, he was just as bad as they were.
“All you want,” Flash said in an unnaturally calm voice, “is to get into her skirts and then, when you’re done with her, push her out of this rodeo. You’re using her—if you haven’t already. She’s nothing more than a pawn in your plans, and it’s not my fault if she’s not smart enough to see you for what you really are.”
She gasped, pain slicing through her chest. Oh, God—was that how Flash saw her? Too dumb to even realize that Pete’s betrayal was a possibility? She wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to hold herself together.
Dad swung around to stare at her, his face taking on that purple tinge again. Even Oliver looked concerned by this announcement.
“Chloe?” Oliver asked. “Is he using you?”
She was a grown woman. She was in charge. This was fine. She was fine.
“Did he touch you?” Dad roared, because the only thing that could apparently get her family to pay attention to her was a discussion of her sex life.
“It was his plan from the beginning,” Flash crowed, shooting her a mean smile. “I tried to warn Chloe but no. She said she knew best.”
“You watch your mouth,” Pete said in a deadly whisper.
What happened next was utterly predictable. Flash took a swing at Pete’s face. Pete managed to block the blow and got off a shot to Flash’s ribs. Dad yelled. Oliver tried to break it up. Someone punched him and he punched back and within seconds, it was an all-out brawl.
Chloe just stood there, trying not to despair. Trying not to lose all hope that this whatever could work. It couldn’t. She’d been a fool to think it might.
Something crashed to the ground and shattered, probably off her dressing table. Oliver yelled and Chloe...
She walked. She grabbed her purse off the hook by the door and walked right out of that room, softly closing the door behind her. The sounds of the fight didn’t quiet down, which meant they hadn’t even noticed her leaving. Because, when it got down to brass tacks, she wasn’t relevant to the feud. She was merely another sore spot to fight over, just like the All-Stars.
Did she even matter? To any of them?
She so wanted the answer to be yes. She wanted to believe, with her heart and soul, that she mattered to Pete. She had the last few nights, after all.
But Flash’s words echoed in her ears as she wove her way through the arena grounds, ignoring the people who called her name. It didn’t matter if she responded to them or not. They wouldn’t listen until her orders came out of Pete’s mouth.
When had she lost track of the fact that Pete was a Wellington, first and foremost? She’d known from the beginning that he was plotting to get his rodeo back. But then Flash had acted like a dick and they’d gone into crisis mode and Pete had been so damned good at his job.
So damned good at listening to her. To her big ideas and her grand plans. To translating those plans into concrete progress on the ground. To ru
nning the All-Stars rodeo.
At making her feel like she mattered.
What if it were all a trick?
What if none of it was real?
But then again, what if it were? He wasn’t in there tearing her down. He was defending her to her own family. He had her back, even if no one else did. That counted for something. It’d come so close to counting for everything.
What did it matter? Yeah, the sex was amazing. And for a few days, it’d been...almost too good to be true.
Dammit, Pete had made her like him. Even now, he was standing up for her—in spectacularly wrong fashion, but still, he was trying. And she’d begun to think...
That there could be more. That they could go forward together.
She didn’t care what the hell Flash said. What happened in private between her and Pete was just that—private. She would not be shamed for her sexuality, dammit.
But it was so much more than that, wasn’t it? She couldn’t run the rodeo as long as those four kept playing tug-of-war and using her as the rope.
Her eyes burned. To hell with this. She didn’t need them or their “help.” If any of them thought they could run the rodeo without her, they were free to do so. She had options. She was a successful clothing designer and businesswoman. She could...
Well. She’d keep moving forward. But she was going to do it alone.
But even thinking that made her look back over her shoulder. Please let Pete come after her. If he really wanted her and not just the damned rodeo, let him come with her. Because it was one thing to say that he was going to do better by her. It was another thing for him to put action behind those words.
Please, she thought. Come back to me tonight. Every night. Please.
The crowds parted and she held her breath, but Pete didn’t appear. Even above the din of the animals and people getting ready for the show, she thought she heard a howl of pain and a huge crash.
Right. Pete wasn’t coming for her. He’d rather brawl over the All-Stars.
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