Rodeo Queen

by T. J. Kline

  He slid the back of his hand down her cheek, and he could see the tears well in her eyes. “What?”

  Sydney bit down on the corner of her lower lip and shook her head. Scott hated knowing that he was the cause of her tears. He couldn’t give her what he knew she wanted, so he pressed a kiss to her lips. Nothing was going to stop him from falling asleep tonight with her curves pressed against him.

  LIZ WATCHED SCOTT and Sydney ride into the yard from her bedroom window. Derek had informed her that he’d run into both of them at the lake but didn’t know where they were going afterward. She assumed that Scott was just taking her out to dinner, but neither of them had returned to the house; she’d been watching for them all night.

  “That’s her.” Kurt’s voice held a deadly note of malice.

  “What do we do now?”

  Kurt turned and faced her, his blue eyes filled with icy hate. Liz took a step backward, putting as much distance between them as the small window would allow.

  “The less you know, the better off you’ll be.” He grasped her chin with his finger and thumb, kissing her roughly. “My gift to you is deniability.”

  SYDNEY TURNED VALENTINO into one of the stalls near the breeding shed. As she shut the door, Scott reached for her waist, pulling her up against him and kissing her soundly.

  “What was that for?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I’m going to miss you while I’m working today.”

  “Me too,” she admitted, certain that he could hear the heavy thudding of her heart when he looked at her like he wanted to have her for lunch.

  “Be careful breeding him today.” Scott jerked his chin toward Valentino, who stood at the door waiting for his oats.

  Sydney tilted her head to the side. “Really? Because I haven’t done this before, right?”

  Scott arched his brow at her, giving her his look that meant he was serious. “Just tell me you will be careful.”

  “Yes, boss.” She laughed. “Go. We’ll be fine. Derek will be here, too.”

  “That’s not instilling any confidence.” Scott rolled his eyes before pressing another quick kiss on her mouth before she could argue. “Okay, I’m leaving.”

  Sydney watched as he sauntered out of the barn, admiring the way his jeans and t-shirt hugged his frame. That man was far too desirable for his own good. He’d discovered a wanton side of her personality that she’d never known existed. She scooped grain from the bag in front of the tack room into a bucket and opened Valentino’s stall, pouring the sweet molasses mixture into his feeder.

  “Well, boy,” she murmured to the horse, patting his neck as she stood in the open doorway. “What do you think of this whole situation?”

  “I can tell you what I think.”

  The deep voice she’d heard for the last two years in her nightmares couldn’t possibly be real. Sydney turned to see him near the doorway of the tack room. The air was momentarily knocked from her lungs as her chest constricted painfully. “Kurt.” She breathed.

  “Aw, I’m touched that you still remember me.” His blue eyes glittered with hatred, belying the friendliness of his words. “Did you miss me?”

  “Get out of here,” Sydney ordered with a courage she didn’t feel.

  “That’s no way to talk to a guest of your employer.” He must have seen the surprise register in her eyes. “That’s right, there’s no way you could have known that Scott and I were old friends. Small world, isn’t it?”

  Sydney couldn’t believe that Scott would have asked Kurt to come to the ranch, not after she’d told him what he’d done to her. “Scott didn’t invite you.”

  “Your other employer, Liz.” He laughed and shook his head as she narrowed her eyes. “I see you’re still as naïve as ever.”

  “Liz is not my boss.” Sydney’s eyes blazed with fiery hatred. “Get out.”

  “I’ve missed that passion.” He sighed as if the thought made him remorseful, and she knew he was toying with her like a cat with a mouse. “Why did I ever let you go?”

  “Because I saw you for the sadistic monster that you are.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Kurt’s smile spread evilly across his face as he stepped closer, the way she imagined a lion would stalk an antelope. “Now that you brought it up, I believe we have some unfinished business.”

  Sydney felt physically ill at the suggestion that Kurt might touch her again. She shot a glance to the heavy wooden door of the barn. It was closed tightly. Even if she could get past the hulking man who blocked her way, she couldn’t get it open in time to escape him. Kurt noticed the direction of her gaze and advanced on her. She took a step backward, her spine hitting the metal frame of Valentino’s stall door. She was trapped unless she went into the stall with the stallion, who had begun to paw at the floor mats. She abandoned the thought, knowing that an agitated stallion could kill either of them. Valentino stood with his ears pinned against his head, his front hoof pounding the stall door.

  “Stay away from me, Kurt. Derek will be here any second.”

  “And you think that’s a threat?” As quickly as a striking cobra, Kurt grasped her shoulders and shoved her away from Valentino’s stall, slamming her back against the wall, stealing the breath from her lungs and the fight from her pained limbs. He held her throat between his thumb and fingers, restricting her ability to breathe.

  “Do you see this?” Kurt traced the pulsing pink scar marring his cheek. “You did this. Now I’m going to take what you denied me that night.”

  Sydney gasped for air. “Denied you? You took what you wanted. You raped me, you bastard.”

  Kurt’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t remember what happened, do you?” Kurt pressed his body against her, his breath fanned against her cheek as his eyes blazed with fury. “After you ripped open my face, I had to go to the hospital.” Spit hit her face as the wall jolted from the stallion’s escalating assault. “You’d passed out so I left you there and you were gone when I got back. I never got to have my . . . fun.” He looked at her chest, heaving to take in any oxygen.

  “Passed out?” she choked out. “Or knocked out?”

  Kurt ignored her. “See, we still have unfinished business. And taking what Scott regards so highly will make the pleasure that much sweeter.” He trailed his hands across the front of her shirt, squeezing her breast roughly.

  Sydney arched her back in an attempt to dislodge his hand from her jaw. Kurt laughed evilly and lowered his face to hers, grinding his lips against her mouth. She could taste blood in her mouth when he pulled away. She spit in his face with all of the venom and strength that she could muster. The blow came before she could block it and she fell to the concrete flooring in the barn walkway. She heard the pounding of Valentino’s hooves on the stall door, now a constant staccato.

  Kurt gripped her upper arms, shoving her once again against the wall before slapping her in disgust. She tried to stop the yelp of pain before it escaped her swollen lips, knowing it would only excite him further. He continued to deliver blows on her abused body as she slid to the ground, then he picked her up and shoved her toward the tack room.

  She hit the floor again, the concrete tearing at her jeans. She could feel the blood trickling down her chin from her split lip. Her limbs hung useless, unable even to help her stand. Sydney could see her bloody handprint on the concrete as she threw her hands out to break her fall. She could feel herself losing consciousness and knew it would be the death of her if she did. Through her clouded gaze, Sydney saw Kurt coming toward her again. She curled into a tight ball on the floor, fully expecting his scuffed boot to connect with her lower back.

  The shatter of metal pierced the air and she saw Kurt’s eyes widen in shock. She saw the blur of white and heard the dull thud of Valentino’s hoof connecting with flesh. Kurt yelled as he hit the ground. She saw him glance up in time to see Valentino coming after him, teeth bared, ears pinned against his head. He ran for the barn door, dragging his left leg limply behind him.

 
“You and that horse are going to pay for this,” he threatened as he disappeared from sight.

  Sydney knew she needed to get up or Valentino could turn on her as well, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. She heard the stallion kick at the wooden wall of a stall before pawing at the concrete walkway. She tried to force her knees to push her toward the tack room. She felt the soft nudge at her cheek before her nose registered the smell of alfalfa and molasses. Valentino puffed air against her neck and she knew that he had spent his agitation against her attacker. She tried to open her eyes but realized they were swollen shut.

  She would just close them for a second . . .

  Chapter Fifteen

  * * *

  SYDNEY WOKE IN a dark room. She could hear someone nearby, then the soft rush of water from a faucet. She tried to look around, but the pain shooting up the left side of her neck convinced her to stop any movement. As her vision started to clear, she could barely make out the large window off to one side and a television on the wall in front of her. A hospital?

  “Hello?”

  Was that croak her voice?

  She had no idea why her body wouldn’t cooperate. She pushed her hands against the soft mattress, attempting to sit up, but there seemed to be no connecting her brain with her muscles. She curled her hands into fists. This was no dream. Sydney shifted on the mattress, trying to arch her back as pain shot across her ribcage and she groaned.

  “SYDNEY, ARE YOU awake?” Scott poked his head out of the bathroom.

  He thought he’d heard something and went rushing to the side of the bed. Scott knew that her condition was serious, even without the doctor confirming it. Sydney had been in and out of consciousness for the last two days. Her face and body still bore the bruising from the beating she’d taken. Sydney lay motionless in the hospital bed, fighting through the pain of a cracked rib and an infection that had set in.

  No one had seen anything until Clay had found Sydney lying on the floor of the barn, Valentino standing beside her with his head to the floor. The trip to the hospital had been agonizing. Scott had watched helplessly as the hospital staff searched for internal injuries, warning him of the danger she might be in. He hadn’t left her side and had even given the sheriff the limited information he had from her hospital room. So far, no one had any clues as to who might have done this or why. He heard the groan from the woman on the bed.

  “Sydney?” He brushed her cheek with his thumb.

  Her lashes batted on her cheek as she tried to pry her eyes open. “Scott?” Her voice sounded more like a pained moan.

  “Princess, it’s okay. Don’t worry about talking yet. Let me get the nurse.” Scott pressed the call button on her bed, surprised when the nurse came into the room only moments later.

  “Did you need something?” she asked. “Oh! You’re awake.” She reached over the bed and brought the blood pressure cuff to Sydney’s arm.

  “What happened?”

  Scott reached for her right hand as the nurse took the cuff off of her arm. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

  “You’re pressure is good. I’ll just go page the doctor on call.” The nurse nodded at Scott before leaving the room.

  “I don’t . . .” Sydney blinked and lifted a hand to her face, touching her swollen lip. “Ow!” Scott could see when the memories returned as panic flooded her eyes. “Valentino!”

  “Shh, he’s fine.” Scott tried to calm her. “He was standing guard over you when we found you in the barn.”

  “You have to go check on him, Scott.” She began to tremble.

  Scott could see her distress. If he didn’t ease her worry, she was never going to get any rest. “Okay, I’ll call Derek and have him check on him. Try to relax and get some rest, okay?”

  “Scott.” Sydney stopped him with a hand over his wrist. “It was Kurt.”

  Scott felt the lump of hate forming in his throat. What in the hell had Kurt been doing on the ranch? How had he even known Sydney was there, or had he come looking for Scott and found Sydney instead? He cleared his throat, trying to hide his fury from the woman recuperating. His jaw clenched tightly and he took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, not trusting his voice. He gave Sydney a nod and brushed past the curtain separating the beds before heading into the hallway to call Derek.

  He punched Derek’s cell number into his phone. It had barely rung once when Derek picked up. “How’s Sydney?”

  “She’s awake.” Scott didn’t want to let jealousy cloud his better judgment. Right now, he needed his brother’s help. “I need you to check on Valentino.”

  “What?” Scott could hear the confusion in his brother’s voice.

  “Sydney is having a fit about Valentino and I told her I’d have you check on him.”

  “He’s out the in corral. He was pretty agitated when Clay found them, and the siren from the ambulance just made it worse, so I put him into the corral where he could stretch his legs a bit.”

  Scott sighed. Why couldn’t Derek just do what he asked him to? “Can you just go out and look at him?”

  “Fine.” Scott could hear the sound of a door slamming from the other end of the line and his brother’s boots crunching over the gravel that separated the house from the corral. “There. I see him. He’s fine. You can actually tell Sydney that he seems a bit interested in Betty.”

  “We need to get the broodmares bred or we’re going to miss our window,” Scott said.

  “You want me to do it? I could get Clay to help out,” Derek offered.

  “No. Sydney will want to be there.” Scott saw the doctor approaching from across the hall. “I have to go, the doctor is here. I’m hoping that we can head home by tomorrow.”

  SCOTT HAD BEEN avoiding his own work all week to keep an eye on Sydney. Kurt had completely disappeared off the grid. The sheriff had been watching for him, even checking with a few of the towns nearby, but he’d warned Scott that he didn’t hold out much hope of finding him. Scott knew that the best bet was to find him on the circuit, but the sheriff wasn’t interested in sending his limited manpower on a wild goose chase and Scott wasn’t about to leave Sydney’s side to go looking. If he ever saw Kurt again, he would cold-bloodedly kill the man with his bare hands.

  It had been hard enough to persuade her to slow down and take it easy for a while. She’d been trying to convince him that she could still work the animals with cracked ribs and had pointed out that bull riders did it all the time. Scott had only been able to sway her by allowing her to be present while Scott and Derek bred the stallion to the mares. She’d stood valiantly by, ever watchful of the stallion, insisting the barn door was locked with him inside each night. If he hadn’t watched her come into the house each night, he’d have wondered if she weren’t sleeping in the tack room. He didn’t understand the fear for the stallion and she refused to discuss it.

  Scott stared out of barn office at Sydney, lost in her own thoughts, as she leaned over the corral fence. She watched as Valentino pranced around the corral, showing off. He’d been a bit on edge since the attack, pinning his ears back more often than was typical for him, and he hated being locked in the barn for extended periods. But he seemed otherwise unharmed, and Scott thought he’d be back to normal before Sydney was. The bruises had faded to a dull yellow-brown over the past week, but her fear hadn’t seemed to fade. Scott knew she had every reason to be afraid. He’d let her down and hated himself for it. He wasn’t sure how to make it up to her, or to not let it happen again.

  “It’s over, Liz.” Scott heard his brother’s voice from behind the barn and had to strain to hear her reply.

  “Don’t you dare back out on me now.” There was a warning note to her voice, but Scott could barely hear her from his office. He slipped out the doorway and made his way toward the back of the barn where it sounded like they were conversing. They’d obviously assumed that the barn was empty. Scott stood with only a thin wall separating him from their conversation.

  “. . . and given you ev
erything I promised.” Damn, he’d missed the rest of Liz’s comment.

  “You said that Kurt was going to make Scott jealous, not kill Sydney.”

  “Shut up!” Scott heard the dull thud of flesh being pounded and assumed that Liz had hit Derek, which was less than he wanted to do to either of them right now. “Someone is going to hear you.” Scott could hear the impatience in her voice. “Yeah, Kurt got out of hand, but I had no idea that’s what he had planned. I don’t even know where he is now. He caused this mess and took off.”

  “Poor Liz.” Derek’s sarcasm was unmistakable. “That was not a little out of hand. He broke her ribs and she was unconscious for the better part of two days.” The wall shook near Scott’s face with the force of Derek’s anger. “This stops now.”

  “No, I’m too close.”

  “Now, Liz, or I tell Scott everything.”

  There was nothing but the sound of ragged breathing for a moment. Scott could tell that they had reached a standoff. Liz was the first to cave. “Fine, it stops.” He heard footsteps walking away, Derek’s from the sound of them.

  “It stops when I say it stops, you coward.” The voice was deceptively soft and lilting, almost sweet, and Scott knew he had to get Sydney as far from Liz as possible.

  SCOTT WALKED UP behind Sydney and circled her waist with his arms, placing a kiss behind her ear. Sydney jumped.

  “You okay?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been thinking.” Scott turned her in his arms so that she faced him. “I want to take you away for a little while.”

  “But the horses,” she argued.

  “Not that far. What if we just stay at my house? You could keep Valentino there, we can put the mares in the barn, or take the horses you need to break.”