by Shirl Anders
“If this hadn’t happened and I had met Zeb while still thinking I was in a real marriage, I would have been in big trouble.”
Carly started walking again, thinking the one thing she’d not realized her entire life, because it hadn’t happened before, which was when you met a man that was good for you—you just knew it. Right in your gut. No doubts. It was an amazing feeling, and she had it for Zeb.
She was pretty sure Zeb had it for her. So people might find it strange how it all went down, but that didn’t matter because they hadn’t had that “he’s the one” feeling before. It was powerful.
Feeling so much better after the trashy news about Rick, Carly put a swing in her hips as she went toward the fairgrounds amphitheater. When she was walking down the inclined aisle past audience chairs toward the judges’ table, Carly saw freaking Cabe Santos sitting at the table along with two other judges; one was the mayor and the other the fairgrounds director.
Nobody at work had told her Cabe was going to be another judge for the pageant. Of course, Vincent and Cabe were so wrapped up in their new ladies that when they were around they were distracted. Carly took a deep breath—then she realized seeing Cabe away from work in this atmosphere wasn’t so bad. They’d been friends for years. She also realized she’d not been feeling bad over losing a chance with Cabe as much as she’d felt horrible her marriage wasn’t working. Cabe had told her once it was a waste to pine over someone that wasn’t into you, like he’d done with his wife.
Carly saw that without even realizing it, since Cabe said it, she’d let go of her fanciful crush on him. If some guy wasn’t into her, they just weren’t into her, and she sure didn’t need to try to make them into her. Not when if she’d just wait long enough, and be open enough, the guy that was totally into her as much as she was into him would come along.
So walking up to Cabe knowing she was over the moon into Zeb wasn’t really hard at all.
But seeing freaking Tula Littlebird Andersen up close was.
NINE] No Questions, Carly
Zeb watched Rick Shaw watching Carly. Then Zeb watched Shaw watching Carly and Tula interact for the few moments they had to, while rehearsing the timing of the upcoming pageant. The two reasons he knew it was Shaw was one, he’d seen a photo at Carly’s house, and two, Shaw was hiding and acting supremely nervous when the two women were facing each other.
Zeb’s vantage point was above in the scaffolding. Maybe the reason he’d picked that strategic spot was his sniper training, but he could see all he needed to see from where he crouched.
And Tula couldn’t see him.
First he watched Shaw, while Shaw nervously paced behind the edge of the curtain where Carly or Tula on the far side of the stage couldn’t see him. Shaw kept digging his hand through his hair as if very agitated while he glared at Carly. Carly was oblivious of his nasty looks, while sitting at the judging table further out in the audience.
Zeb pondered that glare, because it was an aggravated and hateful look where Carly couldn’t see it. Shaw took out his cell phone and he punched some letters, and then he stalked out the rear of the backstage area. Zeb got up on silent feet, and he walked as far as he could on the scaffolding to see where Shaw was going.
Right out the stage door.
Zeb was going to climb down and follow Shaw when Tula came out on the stage. He stopped and looked at her. He hadn’t seen her in a year and a half, not counting when she was being deep-throated by that tree when he’d first finally found her, because then he really hadn’t been able to see her.
She was a beautiful woman, and he could see the changes in her that twenty-one months had brought. She’d let her straight black hair grow out, and he was amazed to see her breasts had to be at least a size and a half larger than what he was used to. He’d totally missed that, blinded by rage when he’d first seen her against that tree with Shaw’s tongue down her throat.
How the hell could his wife get a breast job and he not know it?
But the dress she was wearing showed her big breasts way the fuck off as she strutted to center stage. Tula was wearing a plunging neckline with a wide V that barely covered the inner slopes of her fake breasts, and every time she spoke, she posed.
Zeb felt the pit of anger in his gut getting bigger. But he glanced toward the judges, whom Tula was speaking to, and his gaze landed on Carly.
“Damn, she’s beautiful,” Zeb muttered under his breath, and he felt the pit dropping away and smoothing out as he watched Carly. Carly was twirling some of her long blond hair around her finger with her pinky out, while she scowled at Tula. The intrepid look scrunched up Carly’s cute nose.
Zeb found himself wishing that Carly had been his woman while he’d been overseas and in that hell mess. Carly would have sustained him over there, not worried him and sucked out all he had when he’d needed it to survive. He growled under his breath, realizing he didn’t even fucking want to see or talk to Tula again. Unless it was to tell her to fuck off.
“Past time to see a lawyer,” he muttered, turning away from the sight of her, and then he went to trail Shaw.
Carly couldn’t believe Tula Andersen, as the name stated on her judge’s packet, was freaking gorgeous. Zeb should have told her that. Of course Tula being in a beauty pageant should have clued her in. All Carly could think was: did Zeb like fake breasts?
Carly heard Cabe, sitting beside her, ask, “Miss MintLeaf, what will your talent be? And after you present, like you are now, you will want to exit the stage to the left.”
“I’m so happy to be here!” Miss MintLeaf exclaimed, in an overly high voice, as Carly watched her posing every other word in her sleek silver gown. “I twirl baton or play the organ if you have one, judges!”
Carly tried not to be judgmental about what the pageant women aspired to do for talent. But this was the bitch screwing her still-legal husband. Her snort was kind of loud, and Cabe cleared his throat.
A glance told Carly that Cabe was trying not to laugh, as he said, “No organ; that will be all for now, Miss MintLeaf.”
“But judges?”
Both Carly’s and Cabe’s eyes lifted to see Miss MintLeaf on her tiptoes waving for their attention. “Maybe the other judge can get me an organ? Judge Shaw?”
The mayor was texting someone, while the fairgrounds president was turned and talking to some workers behind them. Carly nearly screamed she was Shaw and no way was she going to get Tula freaking MintLeaf an organ to play. But something stopped her.
“Thank you!” Tula called brightly, then she turned to exit the wrong way.
“That way, Miss MintLeaf,” Cabe called, pointing.
Carly sat back in her chair and muttered, “Just kill me now.”
Cabe laughed outright. “Let’s kill Vincent instead.”
That made Carly smile, as she asked, “That was weird about the ‘Judge Shaw’ thing.”
“Yeah, do you know her, maybe from before you took your maiden name Oliver back?”
Carly realized she couldn’t really talk to Cabe about any of that, then she realized she now knew how Cabe felt when he was getting together and falling in love with Rusty Harper: kind of illicit, mixed up, guilty, and wildly happy, all wrapped around anger at a two-timing spouse. Crazy stuff.
“Maybe,” Carly muttered, then she settled back to interview the next twenty contestants.
An hour later she, Cabe, and the other two judges had finished the interviews, instructions, and one walkthrough. Cabe had left and Carly was just straightening up the judges’ table while muttering about “men” when she got a text.
She immediately became excited thinking it was Zeb, but the number was unpublished.
Contestant needs an organ. Please check the one in arena C stage. Go right side to the stage. Fairground Pres.
Carly groaned. Why did she have to do it? The president of the fairgrounds had just been there. He could have done it, especially since Carly thought it was for Tula. No way did she want to do anything for t
hat cheating witch.
She’d just bet Tula cornered the fairgrounds president on his way out and wheedled him until he caved about the stupid organ. If this entire event of the rodeo, pageant, and festival wasn’t going to help out her charity WTSF so much, she’d get out of it.
Carly texted Zeb before she started to Arena C. Nearly done honey. Be out front in ten.
She’d swing by the damn organ, find a reason it wouldn’t work even if she had to break it, and then she’d meet Zeb at the truck.
But she was distracted thinking about Rick as she wandered over to Arena C, taking the shortcut everyone in town would take that had been to the rodeo fairgrounds before. It was straight through Arena A and across the dirt-covered event circle, as she worried how to get away from going back home to Rick without him knowing why she was doing it, like Zeb wanted her to do.
Her wedged sandals were wobbly in the dirt, and she had to nearly tiptoe to make it to the other side of Arena A before she opened the gate and closed it to walk a side cattle chute, following the rails to the end before she got to the tunnel to Arena B, which would eventually take her to Arena C.
On the one hand she knew Zeb was right about trying to figure out why Rick would come back to her saying he want to reconcile, while he was carrying on with another woman. So waiting, yes, was a good thing, but it was not an easy thing to do. Maybe she could still use WTSF as an excuse for not coming back home, but Rick might notice she’d packed half her clothes.
Carly tiptoed across Arena B, not paying attention to much beside her thoughts and her toes so she wouldn’t trip, while muttering about how dark it was. Maybe she could get into an argument with Rick over the phone and get so mad (that wouldn’t be hard) to say she was leaving and needed time or something. Maybe she could just say she wanted a divorce because it wasn’t working out for other vague reasons and nothing to do with cheating.
She was liking that idea the closer she got to Arena B’s right-side gate and chute, but suddenly she heard a loud squeaking, a clomp, and then a very heavy snort.
“What the—” she started to exclaim, stopping to turn toward the noise.
Just then, the loud stomping started to repeat, and she squinted at a dark blob moving in the shadows of the ring. What the heck was that?
“Hello,” she called. Heavy snorting sounded, and her heartbeat flipped with fear then started racing as her mind tried to comprehend what it must be.
An animal!
She was slow to react, because she was so unbelieving when the big black blob started to grow while moving toward her. She finally tried to run because she was only ten feet from the gate, but the stupid three-inch wedged heels she was wearing were not good for running on dirt, and she immediately fell. Screaming, Carly looked back, and she realized a huge bull was going to trample her.
A growled shout sounded behind her. Before Carly could turn to look that way, a muscled arm hooked her waist and she was lifted off the ground. The bull came to a shuddering halt as Carly whined in fear, but Zeb who was carrying her in a one-armed fireman’s hold, growled and waved his free arm menacingly at the bull, who snorted and stomped, but didn’t move.
“Open the gate,” Zeb yelled at her.
Zeb set Carly’s feet on the ground so she could unlatch the gate as he watched the bull for signs it was going to rush them, but the bull shook its head, stomping and snorting as if it wanted to rush them but it was uncertain.
Thank freaking God. He had no clue what to do with a damn bull, so his instincts were to try to act tough and make the beast wary. Then they were through the gate, and Zeb pushed it shut with a clanging sound. The bull took that moment to rush forward, as if it was going to pummel its thousand pounds into the gate.
Carly screamed and grabbed him from behind as he latched on to her, while death-staring the bull and not moving. The bull pulled up short of the gate by an inch, so close Zeb could feel its heat and huge snort.
“Bastard,” Zeb growled under his breath, and anyone watching would have thought he meant the bull ... but he didn’t.
“How did you get here,” Carly cried into his neck. Zeb tightened his arm around her, nearly lifting her off her heels at his side as the bull ambled away around the darkened ring. No way was Zeb telling Carly he’d got there by following her husband.
“Just lucky,” he muttered in her hair.
Zeb couldn’t say without a doubt Shaw wasn’t messed up in what just went down, because he’d lost track of Shaw a few minutes before the incident. But his gaze scanned the darkened arena and he just knew the bastard was watching.
He kept Carly quiet about any questions, until he got her outside because he was certain Shaw was watching. But the minute they cleared the building and stepped out into the sunlight, he moved an arm’s length away from her, only keeping his fingers lightly touching her hip.
“Need you to take the truck back to Rowdie’s right now,” he told her, while she was brushing the dirt off her clothes and legs. She glanced at him, questioning, and he added, “No questions, Carly, just do it for me.”
She stood, straightening and looking around for a moment. She was not a stupid lady, and he could see she might be assuming a few things he was, but probably not to the extent he was. She nodded.
“Okay, Zeb.” She started toward him like it was kissing and hugging time, and he backed up and stiffened his fingers to keep her where she was.
A cute frown curved her lips. “Okay, we’ll talk about you saving my life when I see you soon then,” she muttered. “However it is, you’re going to get back.”
Zeb smiled at her, trying to speak through his gaze. “I need you to text me the minute you hit the motel room door and lock it.”
That gave her the relieved look of I-want-to-kiss-you-so-bad, but she backed up while nodding. “You be careful,” she demanded, glancing around, then she turned and walked away from him.
Zeb hoped it all looked like an encounter by two people that didn’t know each other and only interacted like they would after he’d saved her. Her hugging him during the attack could be reasonable given the circumstances.
Zeb turned and walked back toward the building. He was going to find out how the hell that bull got in that ring, while at the same time hopefully making Shaw believe he was just some random fairgrounds worker and not with Carly at all.
TEN] Long As It Takes, Baby
Something was really wrong. Carly knew it because of the unexplained loose bull in an arena where it shouldn’t be, and the way Zeb was acting. She didn’t know Zeb very well, but she knew him well enough to know he had not wanted them to act as if they were together as they left the fairgrounds.
Carly sat in Zeb’s motel room on the bed, trying not to chew on her French-tip fingernails.
“Maybe they were keeping that bull in that arena for a reason and I shouldn’t have just wandered through,” she muttered. She began twisting her hair up in her hand, letting it drop, then doing it again. At least she wasn’t chewing her nails.
She could nearly believe it had been a bad coincidence, her and that old bull. God, she’d never been so scared, except maybe earlier today when her brakes went out.
“I need to get this day over with,” she muttered. “It’s like the best day and worst day, combined.”
She wished she had a girlfriend to talk to about everything, and she fleetingly thought about Tess Whitehorse. They were becoming friends, and as weird as it seemed, so were she and Rusty since Tess and Vincent’s wedding.
Man, every time she thought about that wedding, she sighed. It had been so romantic.
But she probably wasn’t good enough friends yet with either Tess or Rusty to dump this drama on them.
“God,” Carly expelled, and she fell back on the bed. Then she kept twisting her hair off to the side.
Well, one thing was good for her, because she had Zeb now and he seemed pretty determined to watch out for her. She couldn’t remember any man she’d been intimate with doing that. It
felt really good. Of course, Vincent watched out for her and so did Cabe, and now she guessed Sam kind of did.
Still, she hesitated to call Vincent with vague worries she had no proof of, and then she’d also have to tell him the huge detail that her marriage had failed. She’d better talk to Zeb about it either way, so with that decision kind of made she started thinking of calling Rick and what to say to him.
And she knew she had to go into work the next day, because there were girls and now some young men depending on her, when she’d just as soon spend the next month glued to Zeb’s hard body. Carly sighed. He was so hot that it was inconceivable to her that Tula was picking Rick over Zeb.
Suddenly her cell rang and Carly sat, grabbing her purse to fish it out, hoping it was Zeb. But one glance showed it was Rick calling. She actually got nervous and nearly let it go to voicemail, but then she forced herself to take the call and see what the rat was up to.
“Hey,” she said noncommittally into her cell.
“Hey, honey, missed you. How’s your pageant thing going?” Rick asked.
Anger rushed through Carly: the only reason he was asking was because of his Tula. Bastard.
Carly struggled to keep her voice even as she answered. “It’s a pain, just like I said it would be. The women are tasteless and totally phony—fake boobs, fake lips, and fake appeal.”
Oh my God, it felt good to zing Rick like that without him knowing!
“Hon, it takes a lot of work to do that circuit. I saw it when I was running rodeo clowning. You could get up there and win them all,” Rick said.
Carly’s gaze went to the ceiling as she tried not to tear up. He sounded so insincere ... he was just saying the words. But she had to—
“Thanks,” she muttered.
“How’s your code red going, been weird with you gone?”
Carly made a face into the room that showed she didn’t believe him. Why was he playing these games? “Messy. It’s a bad one and I still need to stay with her. I will explain it all when I get home in a few days.”