Dustin Morgan. If possible, he looked better than he had in high school.
Jenna could never forget the guy who flirted with every girl in school—everyone but her.
“Hello, Dustin. It’s been a while.” She offered her hand. So far, so good.
He took her hand for several heartbeats and held it before he finally shook it. She could feel the calluses on his palms and fingers. Dustin stared down at their hands, and so did she.
It was a simple thing, just a handshake, but she felt like a giddy schoolgirl again instead of a rock-solid teacher who was soon to be thirty years old.
“I guess you’re stuck with me,” he said.
She pulled her hand away. Maybe then her brain would work. “I–I guess I am.”
Dear Reader,
How to Lasso a Cowboy continues my Gold Buckle Cowboys miniseries—stories about bronc riders, bull riders and the cowboy next door.
When I was writing this book, it reminded me of the trials and tribulations of high school and “unrequited love.” I certainly remember my first crush, and so does Jenna Reed, the heroine of this story.
Jenna was drawn to bull rider Dustin Morgan when they were students, and Jenna didn’t go unnoticed by Dustin, either. When they went their separate ways, their attraction smoldered. Reunited years later and virtually living under the same roof, old feelings resurface. Jenna decides that she’s waited long enough for Dustin, so she decides to lasso her cowboy—finally! But does she really know how?
I hope this story will make you smile or even laugh out loud. And I’d love to hear from you. Contact me at P.O. Box 2000, Cicero, NY, 13039 or visit me at www.christinewenger.com.
Christine Wenger
HOW TO LASSO A COWBOY
CHRISTINE WENGER
Books by Christine Wenger
Silhouette Special Edition
The Cowboy Way #1662
Not Your Average Cowboy #1788
The Cowboy and the CEO #1846
*It’s That Time of Year #1937
*The Tycoon’s Perfect Match #1980
†The Cowboy Code #2094
Harlequin Special Edition
†How to Lasso a Cowboy #2129
CHRISTINE WENGER
has worked in the criminal justice field for more years than she cares to remember. She has a master’s degree in probation and parole studies and sociology from Fordham University, but the knowledge gained from such studies certainly has not prepared her for what she loves to do most—write romance! A native central New Yorker, she enjoys watching professional bull riding and rodeo with her favorite cowboy, her husband, Jim.
Chris would love to hear from readers. She can be reached by mail at P.O. Box 2000, Cicero, NY, 13039 or through her website at www.christinewenger.com.
To my St. Margaret’s, Ludden and Powelson buddies,
Janice Egloff DiFant and Patty Tomeny Holgado.
Time sure flies, but we’re still having fun!
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Prologue
Jenna Reed studied the new clothes that she’d bought for her long-awaited trip to Europe. They were organized by day, stacked in neat piles on the bed in her guest room and her matched set of tomato-red luggage was open and ready to be filled.
She reread the now dog-eared itinerary that she’d received from Happy Singles Travel, Inc. She knew it by heart, but she still loved looking at it. Their motto was printed in lime green on the top of their letterhead: “Travel with us, meet new friends and discover new places.”
She would have rather traveled with her current friends, but they were all too tied up with their husbands and/or kids. Though she was disappointed, she understood. So, she was going with seventy-five other singles, mostly women, for three glorious weeks in Europe!
Finally, Jenna was going to live it up. She hadn’t had a vacation since she’d started teaching fourth grade after college. When other teachers at Wilson Road Grammar School took the summer off, she worked summer school and tutored kids whenever she was asked. Among her peers, she was the teacher who never said no.
She loved teaching mostly because of the kids. She thought of them as hers and threw her whole being into her work. But they weren’t her kids, and at age twenty-nine, she’d given up looking for Mr. Right. She just wanted Mr. Right Now. Someone special. Someone she could hang out with and who liked to do the same things that she did.
She’d once wanted to settle down and have children, but all that changed when she approached her thirtieth birthday. With no romantic prospects, she decided that she had too much living to do—and now was the time for her to enjoy life. So she cut her workload and began making plans to change her life from a humdrum, staid existence to one of excitement and adventure.
As part of her new life plan, Jenna decided to make a drastic career change and applied for a year-long position teaching English in China. Every time she thought of her application being accepted and making a move, excitement shot through her.
Even if she didn’t get the position, she’d take a leave of absence and travel, visiting places that she’d only read about. And this European vacation would be the perfect start to her new plan.
Jenna sat on the edge of the bed, holding on to her itinerary, and imagined meeting her knight in shining armor at a bistro in Paris or at the Parthenon in Greece. Maybe he’d strike up a conversation with her as she watched him maneuver his yacht through the glittering waters of Cannes or bump into him on the Rialto Bridge in Venice.
Wherever her mystery man was, she wanted him to know that she’d be landing at Heathrow Airport in London in exactly seven days, ten hours and thirty-two minutes.
The phone rang, startling her our of her daydream. She rushed to pick it up.
“Hey, sis.”
“Tom! How are you?”
Calling her brother was on her list of things to do. She’d planned on letting him know when she was leaving on her trip. Then her excitement dissolved. Her brother only called her when he needed something or if it was bad news. She braced herself.
“I called about Andy—” he began.
She just adored her ten-year-old nephew. “Oh, Tom! Is he okay?”
“Relax, Jenna. He’s fine. He just didn’t do well on his final report card. He’s failing reading and math. He’s going to be held back in fourth grade unless he goes to summer school.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yup.” There was a moment of silence. “And since he could use some extra help, I thought of you, since you teach fourth grade. I figure if you came down here to Tucson, you could tutor him and babysit at the same time. I’ve been helping him myself, but I’m not doing that great of a job. He’s not getting it.”
“I’m sure he’s getting it, Tom. You’re a very patient father.”
Then something hit her—Tom had said babysit.
“Uh…Tom, why do you need me to babysit? Where are you going to be?”
“As long as you’re going to be here at the Bar R, I figured that I could enter as many bronc-and bull-riding events as I can during the summer. It’d be the perfect opportunity for me to win some extra money, pay for some repairs that I need to do around my ranch. Besides, Andy needs braces, his babysitters are costing me a fortune and Marla just filed for divorce. I need to retain a lawyer.”
Jenna was silent. She knew that Tom was still reeling from his w
ife leaving him for another man. Marla said that traveling the bull-riding circuits kept him away from home too much.
“When do you need me?” Jenna asked.
“Next week.”
“Tom—” Jenna’s heart sank. Her brother never asked for anything, and she owed him so much. “I meant to call you, but time just got away from me. I’m supposed to leave for Europe on vacation this Tuesday. I’ll be gone for three weeks, but—”
There were no buts. She’d do anything for Tom and Andy. After their mother and father died in a terrible auto accident when Tom was a senior and she was a freshman in high school, Tom assumed the role of parent even though they lived with their grandparents. It was Tom, the champion bull rider, who’d helped her with her college tuition. It was Tom who loaned her the money for a down payment on her house when she got her teaching job in Phoenix.
And Andy was the sweetest nephew an aunt could have, and Jenna knew that Tom needed the extra money. Besides, she didn’t want Andy to have trouble in school.
She sighed. Her European vacation was spinning down the toilet, but her family needed her. Still, she held on tighter to her itinerary, not wanting to part with it.
“Sis, I understand. I can make other arrangements.”
“Don’t you dare,” Jenna said adamantly. “I can postpone my trip.” She’d waited this long to spread her wings, she could wait a little longer. “And I took out travel insurance, so there’s really no problem.”
She stared at the new clothes that she’d bought throughout the year, just for this trip. The clothes were totally inappropriate for the summer at Tom’s ranch in Tucson. She’d need old shirts, old shorts and even older jeans. And her beat-up old cowboy boots. If Tom wasn’t going to be around, she’d probably have to do some work around his ranch, too. And she sure as hell didn’t need her new navy raincoat in the Arizona desert.
“A week from today, then,” Jenna said. “I’ll drive down in the morning, and get there around noon. Is that okay?” Instead of flying to Europe on that day, she’d be driving to Tom’s ranch.
She could hear Tom let out a relieved breath. “I can’t thank you enough. I really appreciate this.”
“It’ll be great to spend time with Andy,” she said, meaning every word. “How long are you going to be gone, Tom?”
“As long as I can. And as long as Andy is okay with me being gone. He’ll be thrilled that you’re going to come for a visit, so he won’t miss me all that much. I had a little talk with him and prepared him in case you said yes, and he understood. He said that he was going to root for me and Uncle Dustin on television.”
“Uncle” Dustin Morgan wasn’t Andy’s real uncle. He was an old friend of Tom’s from high school. The two had been traveling together from rodeo to rodeo for years.
Every time she talked with Andy, most of the conversation centered on Dustin, a man she’d thought about with steady frequency since she’d first laid eyes on him in algebra class in freshman year at Catalina High School in Tucson.
“Uh…um…” Tom began. “Speaking of Dustin, I invited him to come and stay at the ranch when he’s released from the hospital. He needs to heal up a bit from his accident.”
Jenna knew from watching the Albuquerque event on TV that Dustin seriously injured his ankle when a bull stepped on him. She worried about his injury and worried even more when the sports medicine doctor for the bull riders stated that he was being taken to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery.
But wait…was Tom expecting her to take care of Dustin? He couldn’t possibly think that she’d know what to do. She was a teacher, not a nurse.
“Tom, you asked Dustin to stay at the ranch?” Her heart began racing when she realized that Dustin Morgan would be living under the same roof with her.
“Yeah. He’s going to stay here with you and Andy and look after the ranch for me. He won’t be any trouble for you.”
What she remembered about Dustin from high school was her intense crush on him, but she’d been too much of a geek to even relax around him. She’d longed to date him, but he was way too popular, and she was way too much of a bookworm for them to have anything in common.
The only thing they had in common was Tom, and Jenna couldn’t wait until Tom brought Dustin over to their house.
Then she remembered the sadness she felt when he was offered a full ride—a complete, four-year scholarship to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Instead of accepting it, he’d hit the circuit to compete with the Professional Bull Riders. He never graduated with their senior class.
What a waste, she thought, although he made a small fortune riding bulls.
“Dustin can help you out with Andy, too,” Tom added.
She was about to tell him that she didn’t need any help with Andy, and that she’d feel uncomfortable practically living with Dustin Morgan, but it sounded like a done deal.
No trouble?
She doubted that.
“Thanks again, Jenna. You know I appreciate this, and so does Dustin. Andy will, too, when he passes to fifth grade.”
“No problem, Tom,” she lied. “See you next Mon day.”
They hung up, and Jenna just sat, reeling.
Looking down, she saw that she was still clutching her itinerary. Soon, she’d have to call and cancel her wonderful trip.
After a while, she lovingly placed the item into her brand-new tomato-red, twenty-nine-inch upright with the 360-degree wheels.
Maybe she had to cancel for now, but as soon as possible, she’d reschedule—just as soon as Tom figured out when he’d return. She was needed by her family, and that was okay.
But it seemed as though she was always needed, mostly by those she called the “four Ps”: her pupils, their parents, the principal or her peers, and she always had to postpone her dreams of romance and adventure.
She sighed. Now, Dustin Morgan, fresh from the hospital, needed her.
Then she smiled as she began to pick up her clothes. She might still be a geek, and Dustin might be one of the most popular bull riders in the PBR, but maybe her stay at the Bar R would somehow give her a chance to spread her wings, just like she’d planned to do on her European trip.
And maybe…just maybe…Dustin would turn out to be the adventure of a lifetime.
Chapter One
Dustin Morgan struggled to get out of a taxi in front of Tom Reed’s ranch house.
He tugged his crutches out of the vehicle and positioned them under his arms while the driver unloaded his duffel bag.
Unfortunately, in the short-go round in Albuquerque, a bucking, whirling, two-thousand-pound Brahma named Cowabunga bucked him off, then stomped on his ankle, crushing it. After surgery, Dustin sported a massive amount of hardware to keep his bones together, along with a heavy cast.
Damn it.
Thanks to Cowabunga, he’d have to skip the usually profitable summer circuit.
After a couple of years of always being a bridesmaid, he’d finally hit number one in the rankings, and now he couldn’t ride. While he sat at home and watched the Professional Bull Riders on TV with his leg up, there’d be several young guns who would jump over him in the standings. But maybe, if everything went as planned, when he got back he could move up again in time for the PBR World Finals in Las Vegas in early November. Fingers crossed.
He paid the taxi driver, turned toward the house and took a hearty breath. He could smell the scent of animals on the air. Damn, how he loved that smell!
He was itching to do something where he could work up a sweat, but his surgeon had told him to take it easy. Dustin couldn’t grasp that concept. There had never been a time when he’d taken it easy.
When he was younger, he entered junior rodeos and rode anything with fur. As a sophomore in high school, he played football and caught rodeos every chance he could. When he turned eighteen, he was able to qualify for the Professional Bull Riders circuit as well as the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. He rode bulls in the PBR. In the PRCA, he r
ode broncs.
And he’d managed to avoid serious injury—until now.
Dustin studied the long ranch house and the out-buildings of the Bar R Ranch. Someday, he’d have a spread like this.
He looked at his duffel bag lying on the Arizona dust. Dustin couldn’t believe that he’d agreed to stay at Tom’s place. The only thing that had convinced him to come here was the fact that Tom needed him—and to be honest, he owed Tom big time. Tom had saved his life two years ago by pushing him away from a rogue bull. His friend would always sport scars from being gored.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” Tom had said when he’d visited Dustin in the hospital after his surgery.
Dustin had struggled to stay focused, still a little groggy from the painkillers he’d been given. “Hit me with it.”
“Since you’re going to be laid up for a while, how about heading to my ranch and overseeing the operation? I don’t want you to work, just supervise the foreman and the hands. You’re going to be recuperating anyway—how about doing it at the Bar R?”
“I—I don’t—”
“My sister will be there taking care of Andy for me. And Andy would just love a visit from you. It’s been a long time, Dustin.”
“Jenna?” His eyelids drifted closed for a moment, but Jenna’s image appeared in his mind. In high school lugging a load of books. Studying under the big tree by the school cafeteria while everyone else was having fun. Being elected class president every year for four years. Giving the valedictorian speech at graduation.
He’d always liked her energy, her sense of independence, her willingness to get involved and the fact that she was comfortable being alone and didn’t follow the crowd, like he always had.
Back then, she’d had long blond hair that she usually wore in a ponytail tied with a piece of rawhide and usually pierced by at least one pen and one pencil. That was Jenna, always studying, always writing in a notebook. Her spring-green eyes were magnified by wire-rimmed glasses that rode low on her nose.
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