A collective “ooh” from the audience alerted him to the fact someone had taken a bad spill in the arena, and he glanced across to see Dean Maynard picking himself up out of the dirt, a foul expression on his face. Jesse could see the other man’s mouth working, four-letter words pouring forth. Then Maynard kicked at the dirt, a piece of bad sportsmanship that didn’t win him much sympathy with the crowd.
“What happened?” CJ asked, her view blocked by a tall cowboy.
“Maynard came off hard,” Jesse reported.
CJ didn’t say anything, but she’d have to be an angel not to feel some sense of satisfaction that the man who had attacked her had taken a fall.
“I’ve got to get ready for the calf roping, but let me buy you a drink later, to celebrate,” Jesse said, more interested in her than Dean Maynard.
CJ’s smile dimmed a fraction and Jesse suspected he was about to get his marching orders when he heard Maynard’s angry voice nearby.
“This is complete bullshit. Eighty-three. I’m going to miss out on five thousand because they gave the best bronc in the tour to some bitch who’s going to wash out in a week or two anyway. Can you fucking believe it?”
It was a twisted piece of logic, but Jesse felt CJ flinch beside him.
Jesse was pushing people out of the way before he could think twice about it, furious on CJ’s behalf. He’d stood by yesterday, but it wasn’t happening a second time.
“You need to shut your mouth, Maynard,” he said when he was within reaching distance of the other man.
“This has nothing to do with you, Carmody.”
“The draw is random. You’ve been around long enough to know that. Now, apologize to Ms. Cooper.”
For a moment Maynard looked stunned, then his mouth curled into a sneer, anger turning his handsome face ugly. “Read my lips, Carmody. Fuck. Off.”
“What’s your problem, Maynard? Not man enough to handle being beaten by a woman?” Jesse said.
Maynard lunged at him, fists raised. Jesse was more than ready for him, but the Miller brothers caught the other man’s shoulders and pulled him back.
“You want to get disqualified?” Billy hissed, using all his body weight to keep Maynard from shaking them off.
Maynard struggled for a few more seconds before giving up the fight. Jesse saw a security guard heading their way, pushing his way through the other contestants. Tempting as it was to stay in Maynard’s face, it wasn’t worth the risk of disqualification. Not when he was almost certainly in the short round, and not when there would be other opportunities to teach Maynard some manners.
Jesse took a step backward, relaxing his stance, and the Miller brothers ushered Maynard away. The security guard stopped his forward progress, assessing the situation through narrowed eyes. Jesse lifted his chin to let him know the message had been received and understood, and the other man gave him a nod before going back to his station near the access points to the chutes.
Jesse turned away from the drama to see CJ’s back as she wove her away from the chutes, her saddle balanced on her hip.
Shit.
He started after her, but he’d only taken a few steps when he slowed to a halt. What was he going to say when he caught her? Ask her out again? The moment of possibility between them had been punctured by Maynard’s stupidity. In all likelihood, CJ had probably had enough of dumbass cowboys for the day. And who could blame her?
“That wraps it up for saddle bronc, ladies and gentlemen. Next up we have calf roping. Hope you’re ready to see some fancy horsemanship and some flying lassos out there today.”
The PA blast cut through Jesse’s indecision, reminding him he still had an event to compete in.
Checking his watch, he hustled toward the corral to collect Major.
Chapter Five
CJ would have been lying if she pretended she wasn’t upset by Dean Maynard crapping all over her moment of glory. It had felt so damned good, hearing the applause and cheers from the crowd and receiving the congratulations of her peers. It had felt like vindication. She’d gone eight seconds, she’d ridden hard and well, and she was leading the freaking board.
It was a dream come true, it really was.
And then Maynard had said what he’d said, and Jesse had felt honor bound to step in and do some macho chest bumping stuff on her behalf.
Most of the time, she loved cowboys, but there were times when the super macho culture and overload of testosterone made her want to kick something—like whatever was dangling between Dean Maynard’s scrawny thighs.
The thought was silly and crude enough to cut through her disappointment and she slowed her pace a little. Adjusting the weight of the saddle on her hip, she used her free hand to pull her protective vest away from where it was cutting beneath her armpits.
Letting a mean-spirited jackass like Maynard rain on her parade was foolish in the extreme. She refused to let him get to her.
She’d reached the stands now, the area behind them sardine-can full with rodeo goers keen to buy snacks and drinks. As she picked her way through the crowd, it took her a moment to register the smiles she was getting, along with bright-eyed looks of recognition.
“Great ride, CJ,” an older man said, giving her an approving nod.
“You looked great out there,” a young woman said, giving her an approving pat on the shoulder. “Way to represent.”
By the time she’d reached the locker rooms, she’d been stopped twice to sign the program, and once to take a selfie with a young girl and her mom who told her they’d almost fallen off the bleachers cheering for her.
The goodwill of the rodeo fans went a long way to restoring her joy in her ride—and then she walked into the ladies’ locker room and was met with a chorus of whistles, foot stomping and cheers.
“You go, girlfriend,” Lena Martinez said. “You were on fire out there. Hope you heard us all screaming for you.”
Barrel racing was scheduled after the calf roping and the racers were all on their way out, but their congratulations washed away the last bitterness of Maynard’s attack.
Dumping her saddle on the bench in the now-empty locker room, she pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed home, something she’d been wanting to do almost from the second she heard the whistle announcing she’d qualified.
The emotion of it all caught up with her as she waited for someone to pick up and she blinked away the sudden burn of tears. Then her mother’s voice sounded down the line, and CJ drew in a shaky breath.
“Mom, it’s me. I qualified with an eighty-eight.”
Her mother’s squeal of delight almost punctured her eardrum. “I know, baby! I was listening to the broadcast over the Internet. I was jumping out of my skin with nerves for you, but it sounds as though you had the ride of your life.”
“It was great. Pretty much a dream. He came out of the gate like a hurricane, but I just found my groove and stayed in it,” CJ said.
“So now you just have to ace the short round tomorrow,” her mother said.
“Oh, yeah. I’ll just pull that out of my backside, no problems,” CJ said dryly, but she couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Bet you wish you came with me, huh?”
The moment the words were out her mouth, she regretted them. They had never discussed her mother accompanying CJ to Marietta. Given her father’s disapproval of his daughter going pro, it would have felt too much as though CJ was asking her mother to take sides, and CJ would never do that.
“Oh, baby, I wish I could have been there, I really do,” her mother said, her voice quiet with regret.
“Forget it, I didn’t mean it. It was just a joke,” CJ said, but her throat felt tight.
“Listen, your father’s out at the Hendersons’, shoeing that new gelding they bought, but I texted him with the news and I’m sure he’ll call once he checks his phone.”
“Okay. Thanks, Mom,” CJ said. Personally, she wasn’t so sure she’d hear from her father. The streak of stubborn in her family ran a
mile wide, and her father had remained staunch in his disapproval of the path CJ had chosen for almost a full year. Just because CJ had done well in her first pro rodeo, she wasn’t expecting a miracle turnaround.
It would be nice, but she wasn’t holding her breath.
She and her mother talked for a few more minutes before ending the call. CJ dropped her head back against the cinder block wall, closing her eyes for a few seconds. She could hear the crowd outside, cheering on the barrel racers. If she was back home, she’d go out with her friends and hit a bar to drink some good bourbon and dance for a few hours. Or she’d kick back at home with her brothers and talk horses and strategy for tomorrow.
She wasn’t home, though, and those options weren’t on the table, so it seemed to her that the next best thing would be to enjoy the vibe of her first pro rodeo and go out to watch the rest of the events. And then maybe she’d go into town and see if she could hunt down the pendant necklace she’d resisted buying last night.
Last night, treating herself had felt like an indulgence, but today it would be her way of commemorating her first pro ride.
And after that…well, she’d play it by ear. There was a steak dinner in town tonight, and probably more dancing. Maybe she’d put on the red dress she’d packed on a whim, pull on her hand-tooled aqua boots and see if she couldn’t find someone to dance with.
Instantly an image of a tall, dark-haired cowboy with arresting green eyes filled her mind. She wondered if Jesse Carmody was a good dancer, or if he danced at all. After a moment’s self-indulgence, she banished the thought.
Even if he was as talented as John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, she couldn’t dance with him. Not after the way he’d weighed in to defend her today. Talk would be all over the town before five minutes had passed, and she was done with being the subject of speculation today. For the rest of her life, really.
Nope. Whatever happened tonight, it would be in a Jesse-Carmody-free zone.
*
It took her half an hour of cruising the shops along Main Street in Marietta before she found the jewelry store she’d seen last night. The pendant she’d lusted after was still available—a silver dollar that had the silhouette of a cowboy on a bucking horse painstakingly cut from the center of the coin.
“Thank you, it’s perfect,” she said as she handed it to the woman behind the counter.
She did a little more window-shopping, then stopped to have something to eat in the Main Street Diner near the courthouse. The older woman behind the counter sported a genuine beehive, and CJ watched in fascination as the other woman greeted almost every customer by name. She even recognized CJ, insisting on getting her to sign a menu because “for sure, you are going to be famous one day, young lady.”
Fame wasn’t something CJ hankered for, but the idea of having a career long enough and notable enough for people to know her name was a nice one.
It was nearly five as she pulled into a spot near her room, and she was looking forward to a long soak in the tub before she decided what to do for the evening. She gathered her few shopping bags from the front seat before collecting her gear bag from the truck bed.
It wasn’t until she was a few feet from her room that she noticed the door was slightly ajar. There was no visible sign of a break-in, and for a second she thought housekeeping must have accidentally left it open. Then she pushed the door open and was hit with a sour, sharp smell, along with the sight of her clothes strewn across the floor and the bedding pulled from the bed. A dark mark marred the middle of the bare mattress.
For a moment shock held her immobile. Then she set down her bags and stepped closer to the bed. She caught a stronger whiff of the sour smell and this time she recognized it for what it was: urine.
Someone had broken into her room and urinated on her bed and bedding.
A horrible thought hit her then, and she bent to examine her clothes. Sure enough, they were sodden, too, along with her bag. More so even than the bed. She sat back on her heels, her clothes spread before her, all tangled and damp with some asshole’s body fluids, and for a moment rage and hurt threatened to become tears.
All she wanted was a chance to compete fairly against the best of the best. Why it mattered whether she was male or female was genuinely the cause of great bewilderment to her. If she was as good as or better than a man, hadn’t she earned her place on the tour? Hadn’t she earned it just as much as any man?
She tilted her head back and took a deep breath, blinking the dampness from her eyes, willing the tightness from her throat. She didn’t have to tax herself to work out who was responsible for this petty piece of vandalism. Dean Maynard had left the arena angry, and he’d become even angrier when Jesse Carmody had challenged his loud-mouthed assertions. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine him consoling himself with a bottle of whiskey and some sympathetic friends until he’d convinced himself CJ had practically asked for him to break into her room and relieve himself all over her belongings.
The image of him laughing with his buddies was the final push she needed to square her shoulders and clear her head. He would get off on the notion she’d been cowed or wounded by his act. It was exactly why he’d done it.
No way was she giving him the satisfaction.
Leaving the room as it was, she walked across to reception and reported the incident, accompanying the duty manager back to inspect her room. An older, salt-and-pepper-haired man, he was shocked by what had happened, apologizing and insisting the locks on the doors were all state of the art before asking if she was sure it had clicked shut when she left in the morning.
The implication she might be partly to blame for what had happened wasn’t lost on her.
“Believe me, it was locked. Someone broke in to do this. This wasn’t just someone finding a door open.”
“Well, I guess we should call the sheriff,” he said, shooting her a doubtful look. “Although technically nothing was actually taken, was it?”
That he was reluctant to involve the law and all that would entail was writ large on his face. CJ simply held his eye. She wanted this on record. She wanted Dean Maynard to pay a price for what he’d done.
“Okay, then,” the manager finally said.
She watched as he pulled out his phone and rang a number, quickly relaying the details to whoever answered the phone. He nodded a few times, checked his watch, then nodded some more.
“Okay, I’ll pass that on. Thanks, Rose.” He ended the call. “So. Apparently they’re tied up with a bunch of stuff in town. Big weekend, with the rodeo here and all. Crowd control, drunks and so on. They want you to come in tomorrow to talk to them. Asked me to take some pictures of the room, send them through.”
It wasn’t ideal, but CJ could appreciate that a vandalized hotel room was probably low priority given the huge influx of people in town for the weekend and the kind of issues the sheriff was probably dealing with.
“All right. Let’s do that,” she said. “And when you’re done, maybe I could have a trash bag and directions to the laundry room?”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “Ma’am, I am real sorry to tell you this, but I’m afraid our laundry is out of order at the moment. There was some kind of issue with the pipes backing up on Thursday, and the plumber couldn’t get here till Monday, so it’s closed right at the moment.”
Well…shit.
CJ took a deep breath. “Okay. I guess I’ll need directions to the laundromat in town, then.”
*
Jesse went out to the ranch to shower and change after washing out in the calf roping. He and Major had done their best, but today it hadn’t been enough. He was happy enough with the day’s achievements, however—he still had a chance at the prize money in saddle bronc, having placed second behind CJ after today’s rides.
His family were nowhere to be seen when he arrived home, and he figured they were either out on the ranch somewhere or in town still. He’d seen Sierra briefly after he’d put Major back in his st
all, but they’d barely had a chance to talk before she’d had to hustle or risk losing sight of her friends.
“Have to go, but you’re all mine once the short round’s over tomorrow,” she’d told him before disappearing into the crowd.
He thought about her words as he showered and found something clean to wear, a much easier feat than usual since he’d taken advantage of being home to catch up on all his laundry.
He still hadn’t decided if he was hanging around after the rodeo. Technically, he could claim he had work lined up, because he did, after a fashion—a former bronc rider he knew had a spread up near Deer Lodge, and he’d let Jesse know there was a few days’ work as a ranch hand on offer if he wanted some extra travel money between rodeos. Since Deer Lodge was more or less on the way to Great Falls where the next circuit event would be held, Jesse had been planning on looking in on his old buddy, but he was pretty sure Sierra wouldn’t be thrilled to learn he was bailing on her for a few days’ casual labor.
It wasn’t as though he hated being home. Just the opposite. But the past always loomed large when he was here. It had taken him nearly four years to come home the first time after Jed told him to shape up or ship out. Sierra had been responsible for that, nagging and cajoling until he’d agreed to be there for Christmas. He’d come home expecting to look his brother in the eye and say what needed to be said to clear the air.
Somehow, it had never happened. He hadn’t initiated it, and neither had Jed. At first Jesse had convinced himself that was a good thing, that maybe they should just let it fade into the past, an incident they both regretted. It hadn’t faded, though. It was there in the distance between him and Jed, lurking beneath every overly polite question and every wary response, and it had been going on so long now that Jesse almost didn’t know how else to be with his brother.
A picture caught his eye as he sat on the end of the bed to pull on his boots, one of several framed family shots someone—most likely Sierra—had arranged on the far wall. The picture had been taken his sophomore year at Marietta High, the year he made the football team. Jed was a senior by then, and had been playing for a few years. The two of them stood side by side, helmets under their arms, both flexing madly for the camera. Jed looked as though he was barely holding it together, and his own eyes held a mischievous glint. Staring at the pic, he tried to remember that day. What had they been joking about? Had he said something to make his brother laugh?
The Cowboy Meets His Match Page 6