Best of Cowboys Bundle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Barbara White Daille, Judy Christenberry, Christine Wenger, Shirley Rogers, Crystal Green, Nina Bruhns, Candance Schuler, Carole Mortimer

  Instead, he’d come home in the middle of that season with a sexy blonde in tow and married her in Las Vegas during the rodeo finals in December.

  It had taken months for Jo Beth to get over the humiliation of being so publicly dumped. But she had and, in the nearly five years since then, she’d become good friends with his wife and had even managed to forgive him for not living up to her—and their neighbors’—matrimonial expectations. Mostly. Sometimes, though, she couldn’t help but poke at him a little.

  He was, after all, the cowboy who had, well…not broken her heart, exactly, but he’d sure as hell battered her pride. It wasn’t a thing a woman forgot. So, sometimes, especially when she was feeling a little mean to begin with, she took a verbal swipe at him.

  And she was feeling more than a little mean at the moment, despite the fact that she’d just experienced the best orgasm of her life. Or, hell, maybe she was feeling mean because she had just experienced the best orgasm of her life and knew it wasn’t an experience that had a snowball’s chance in hell of ever being repeated.

  Not if she was smart, anyway, because she’d been right in her initial assessment of the consequences of allowing herself to indulge in the reality of Clay Madison. He wasn’t going to be easy to forget and, after just one memorable, mind-blowing quickie, both the cattle broker in Dallas and good ol’ Todd in the next county were going to suffer by comparison. Another tumble with Clay Madison could put her off other men altogether, leaving her with nothing but fantasies to ease her frustrations. Just the mere thought of it made her feel spiteful.

  “That big boy isn’t going to endure a Texas summer as well as my Brahmans,” she said, her tone just short of snide. “And his size is going to make calving difficult for your Hereford cows.”

  “I’ve got plenty of cowboys to pull calves, if need be.”

  “Unlike me, you mean?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Tom said mildly, refusing to take offense. “And you know anytime you need help with calving, or anything else, all you have to do is ask.”

  She batted her lashes at him. “And the big strong cowboy will come to my rescue?” The words and the gesture were teasing; her tone was not.

  “Jesus, Jo.” Tom straightened away from the fence to stare down at her, baffled by her attack. He’d’ve sworn he hadn’t done anything to set her off. Unless being neighborly had become a crime when he wasn’t looking. “What put the burr under your saddle this time?”

  “Nothing.” She shook her head at him. “Forget it. I’m sorry. I’m being bitchy.” She passed a hand over her forehead to hide her eyes from his searching gaze. “I guess I’m still feeling the effects of last night’s bachelorette party.”

  “Headache?” he said, instantly sympathetic. His wife Roxy had come home from the bachelorette party with a doozy of a headache that had taken three extra-strength aspirin and an afternoon nap with an ice pack on her head to eradicate. And she’d still been just a tiny bit wobbly on her pins when it was time to leave for the church.

  Jo Beth lifted one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, not wanting to tell an outright lie. One of her sacred duties as maid of honor was not to drink so much at the bachelorette party that she had a hangover at the wedding. And she hadn’t, but, hey, it was as good an excuse as any for her bad mood. “Humph,” she mumbled, hoping that would suffice.

  “Well, hell, honey, you should know better than to stand bare-headed in the sun when you’re hung over.” Tom proffered his arm, elbow bent, like the born-and-bred Texas gentleman he was. “Come on back to the party tent and we’ll get Roxy to round you up a couple of aspirin before the cake-cutting ceremony.”

  ONCE THE CAKE WAS CUT, the reception began to wind down rapidly. Rooster and Cassie had a plane to catch—they were headed to San Francisco for their honeymoon—and most of the party guests were ranchers and working folks who had to get up early to do chores and attend to business. By eleven o’clock, the band had packed up and gone, and the red taillights of various pickups and four-wheel-drive SUVs flickered in the distance as the last guests headed down the long graveled driveway toward the road and home.

  Jo Beth had morning chores, too, of course, and she considered using them as an excuse to leave when the other guests did, but, as the maid of honor, another of her duties was to take charge of the wedding dress Cassie had left behind when she’d changed into her going-away outfit, and to round up and secure the wedding gifts brought to the reception.

  Clay didn’t have any chores he could claim, and wouldn’t have if he did. As best man and a guest at the Second Chance he was obliged by country tradition and good manners to stick around and help his hosts clean up.

  “Oh, Lord, let’s leave the rest of this mess for the morning,” Roxy said, when they had made enough progress so that opossums, raccoons and other night critters wouldn’t be tempted by what was left. “Grab that last stack of plates there, will you, Clay sugar, and let’s all go in the kitchen and put our feet up. I don’t know about y’all, but I need a nice hot cup of coffee and a good gossip to settle all that champagne and cake.”

  “Coffee?” Clay gave an exaggerated shudder as he followed his hostess up the porch steps and through the back door into the heart of the house. “At this hour?”

  “I’m sure Tom could be convinced to crack open a bottle of sippin’ whiskey, if you’d rather have that. Me, I want coffee. I’ve about had my quota of alcohol for the entire year in these last few days. How ’bout you, Jo Beth?” Roxy asked as Jo Beth came clattering down the back stairs into the kitchen.

  Jo Beth peered around the edge of the bulky white dress box she held awkwardly in both arms. “How ’bout me, what?”

  “Coffee or whiskey as a nightcap?”

  “Neither, thanks. It’s been a long day and I really should be getting ho—” The scent of the rich French-roast grounds Roxy was spooning into a paper filter reached out across the room to tantalize her. “Okay, you hooked me. One cup,” Jo Beth said, and eased the dress box to the floor to lean it against the kitchen counter. The oversize shopping bag slung over her shoulder swung forward with the movement, threatening to spill Cassie’s white satin shoes and various other wedding paraphernalia over the floor.

  “Whoa, there.” A large tanned hand reached out to steady it. “Let me help you with that,” Clay said, attempting to slide the bag off of her arm.

  Jo Beth sidled away from him like a skittish mare, resettling the bag on her shoulder to cover her instinctive retreat. She hadn’t seen him when she’d come into the kitchen and his sudden appearance at her side had, quite naturally, startled her. At least, that’s what she told herself.

  “Thanks. I’ve got it,” she said, and wondered if it would cause undue speculation if she decided against staying for that last cup of coffee, after all.

  A quick glance at Clay’s face decided her. He flashed her a quick, self-satisfied little smile, an I-know-what’s-got-you-on-the-run smirk that instantly put her back up. She let the shopping bag slide down off her shoulder and plopped it on the floor next to the dress box. “Could I maybe get a tiny smidge of that whiskey in my coffee?” she said as she pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down.

  “A little hair of the dog that bit you?” Tom said as he turned from the distressed-pine cupboard that served as the Steele’s liquor cabinet with a squared-off bottle in his hand. It had a familiar black label. “Clay? You want yours in your coffee, too?”

  Clay shook his head. “Straight up.” He pulled out the kitchen chair opposite Jo Beth, swung it around, and straddled it. “Coffee’d keep me up all night,” he said blandly, although the look in his eyes as he stared across the table at Jo Beth was anything but.

  Jerk, she thought, and narrowed her eyes at him, trying to telegraph boredom and aloof indifference.

  It would have been easier if he weren’t so damned hot. He’d discarded his tuxedo jacket and rolled back the cuffs of his pin-tucked white dress shirt, showing off strong, tanned forearms. His bla
ck silk bow tie hung loose around his collar, the ends dangling down the front of his shirt, framing the narrow hair-dusted wedge of chest peeking out from between the shirt buttons he’d also loosened.

  During their all-too-brief encounter in the tack room, she hadn’t had a chance to touch his bare chest, or even see it. That was a major disappointment and a major fantasy left unfulfilled because, from what little she could see, it was a damned fine chest, heavily muscled, lightly tanned, deliciously hairy.

  Clay’s knowing smirk widened into a grin.

  Jo Beth cut her eyes away from him dismissively and stood up. “Can I help you with anything, Rox?”

  Roxy put a heavy white china mug on the table in front of Jo Beth’s chair. “You could grab some forks from the drawer there behind you, if you would, sugar.”

  “Forks?”

  “For the cake.”

  “There’s more cake?” Clay said, his face lighting up like a kid’s at the mention of dessert. “Devil’s food or white cake?”

  “Devil’s food.” Roxy smiled indulgently and placed a large slab of thickly frosted devil’s food groom’s cake in the middle of the table. “There’s only this one piece left.” She shrugged a little sheepishly at Jo Beth’s incredulous look. “It’d be a shame to waste it.”

  “We won’t waste it,” Clay assured her.

  “Oh, what the hell,” Jo Beth said, and got the forks.

  A few moments later, all four of them were sitting around the scarred wooden kitchen table in their rumpled wedding finery, eating devil’s food cake from a communal platter.

  Jo Beth tried not to watch as Clay lipped chocolate cake off the tines of his fork, tried not to pay any attention to the play of tendons and veins in his bared forearms, tried not to show any interest in the way his throat worked when he swallowed, tried desperately not to let her fascination show.

  It wasn’t as if he were doing anything deliberately erotic. At least, not that she could tell. He was just sitting there, happy as a ten-year-old boy, eating chocolate cake in the company of friends. It was her own raging libido that infused his every move with raw sensuality and made it necessary for her to avoid intercepting his gaze lest she give herself away.

  “So, Jo.” Tom licked last bit of frosting off his fork and picked up his whiskey. “You hire any extra hands, yet?”

  Jo Beth had to swallow before she could answer. “Not yet,” she said, thankful she had something to focus her attention on besides the way Clay Madison looked eating cake. “And I had another one quit on me yesterday.”

  Tom raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “Jimmy Billings decided he could make more money roping steers on the circuit than he could working for me.” She mashed a few of the remaining cake crumbs with the tines of her fork. “He probably can, too. He’s good enough to pull down some decent prize money.”

  “So now you’re what? Two hands short? Three?”

  “Three.” She licked the fork clean and placed it, tines pointed down, on the edge of the cake platter. “This time of year it wouldn’t normally be a problem because I can usually make do with fewer hands once the spring calving season is over. But I’ve got those dudes coming in a couple of days.” She sighed and took a sip of her whiskey-laced coffee. “I’ve got a feeling they’re going to need a whole lot more handling than my cows.”

  “Could you use a couple of boys part-time?” Roxy asked. Besides being a working cattle ranch, the Second Chance Ranch was also a group home for delinquent and abandoned boys. “A couple of our older ones—” Roxy always referred to the boys in her care as ours “—are turning into good cowhands. I know they’d be interested in picking up a little extra cash. It’d only be part-time, though,” she reiterated. “They have summer-school classes.”

  “Sure, that’d be great. Send them on over and we’ll figure out a schedule that’ll work with their schooling.”

  “That still leaves you one hand short,” Tom reminded her.

  “Yeah, well…” She finished off the last of her coffee. “I’ll work something out. I always do.”

  “I’d be happy to lend a hand,” Clay said, surprising himself as much as everyone else.

  He’d had no idea he was going to make the offer until he heard it coming out of his mouth. Once he’d said it, though, it sounded like a really good idea. A brilliant idea, in fact.

  He’d already come to the conclusion that all he needed was a little time and proximity to convince Jo Beth she was interested in another go-round with him. The only question nagging at him had been how he was going to manage it without looking as if he were trying to manage it and, suddenly, here was the perfect solution. Lending a hand on her ranch would be the perfect way to get close enough to persuade her she wanted another taste of what he had to offer without looking as if he were chasing after her like a hound with his tongue hanging out.

  Before Jo Beth could think of a really good reason—one she could share, anyway—why it was a really bad idea, Tom seconded the notion.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that myself,” he said. “It’s the perfect solution to both your problems.”

  “Both our problems?” Jo Beth said. “What do you mean, both our problems?”

  “You need a cowhand. Clay needs something to do to keep him from going stir-crazy while he finishes healing up from that last wreck.”

  “I need an experienced cowhand, not a la-di-da rodeo star.” Jo Beth cast a disparaging glance at Clay. “No offense intended,” she assured him mendaciously.

  “None taken,” he said, equally untruthful.

  “Clay’s more than a rodeo star,” Tom said indignantly, insulted on Clay’s behalf. “He grew up on a cattle ranch up in…Where was it, Clay?”

  “Nebraska,” Clay said.

  “Nebraska. That was it. It’s good cattle country up there. Not as good as Texas, of course, but running cattle is running cattle, no matter where you do it.”

  “But I thought you planned to head on home in a few days,” Roxy said, “so you could visit with your family while you heal up.”

  “Nebraska isn’t home. Leastways, not since my folks died.” Clay jerked his thumb over his shoulder, aiming in the general direction of the back door. “That rig outside is home. My aunt Lorraine and her husband invited me to park it at their place until I was healed up enough to go back on the circuit.” He shrugged. “We aren’t real close, though. It wouldn’t hurt any feelings or ruffle any feathers if I called and said I wasn’t coming. Truth be told, they’d probably be glad not to have to put up with me.”

  “I need someone for the entire summer,” Jo Beth said, ignoring the little spurt of sympathy she felt at his careless words. She knew a lot of professional rodeo cowboys lived in trailers like his. Most of them appeared to prefer it that way but it had always seemed to her to be a lonely rootless way to live. In any case, his living conditions weren’t any of her concern. What was her concern was her ranch.

  “I’m not interested in hiring a cowhand who’ll be heading back to the rodeo as soon as he’s healed up,” she said. “I need someone who’ll stick around for the whole season.”

  “I’m not going anywhere near a rodeo for at least three months,” Clay said. “Doctor’s orders.”

  “You’d have to put in a full day’s work. I can’t afford to be paying wages to someone who can’t pull their weight.”

  “I don’t expect you to pay me any wages at all,” Clay said. “My offer’s strictly neighborly. Besides, you’d be providing me with a place to park my rig. That’s payment enough.”

  “Oh. Well.” It took her a second or two to think of a rejoinder to that. “I’d still expect a full day’s work, wages or not. There’s no room for slackers on the Diamond J.”

  “I can do a full day’s work,” Clay assured her, his tone just the slightest bit testy. No one had ever questioned his work ethic before. “And then some. The only thing I can’t do right now is ride bulls.” His gaze turned deliberately seductive. “
I can ride anything else I can get my leg over, though.”

  “I’m sure you can,” she said, her gaze as steely as his was hot. “But your expertise as a rider isn’t what I need.”

  “And what do you need?”

  Jo Beth ignored the implication in his question. “What I need is someone who can interact with the dudes,” she said, hoping that would put him off the idea. “Someone who can make them feel like they’re participating without letting them get in the way or get into trouble.”

  “That doesn’t sound too difficult.”

  “I’d expect you to cater to them,” she said, making it up as she went along. “Put up with their whims. Run errands, even, if that’s what it takes to keep them happy.”

  “Like I said—” he shrugged “—that doesn’t sound too difficult.”

  “Not difficult, maybe. But it wouldn’t be anything like you’re used to.”

  His lips turned up in a rueful little smile. “Pretty much nothing in my life lately is like what I’m used to.”

  “And, hell, Jo, think how impressed the dudes would be,” Tom said.

  “Impressed with what?”

  “With Clay, that’s what. With having a real live rodeo cowboy in their midst. A four-time bull-riding champion, no less. Your dudes would get a real thrill out of it.”

  “I don’t see why,” Jo Beth said dismissively, although she did, all too clearly.

  “No, Tom’s right,” Roxy chimed in loyally. “Rodeo’s gotten to be a real popular sport, especially bull riding. It’s on ESPN all the time. The dudes would love it.” She flashed one of her thousand-watt smiles at Clay. “Especially the women.”