She wasn't ready to call attention to herself.
Her alarm had gone off at three a.m.. That gave her time to tease her strawberry blond curls into a messy, romantic upsweep and put on the perfect makeup. Design the perfect outfit. She didn't want to splatter that with horse muck. She didn't want to run into one of the homeless men who hung out near the arena during the day with their cardboard signs. They had to sleep somewhere. Probably harmless, the majority of them, but no sense taking chances.
Really she didn't see any of those men. Or anybody else. There weren't even security guards. The arena was empty, smelling pleasantly of hay and horses and desert morning air. The majority of rodeo personnel were probably still sleeping off a drunk. Some might even still be in the midst of last night's drunk.
There were only a handful of people obsessed enough to be there before hours if they weren't paid to be. A percentage of those people ghosted through the darkness outside the arena, working the horses, mucking out the stables, and doing all the ranch hand chores that someone else was definitely paid to do in Ray Chaudett's rodeo circuit.
Because they loved it. Jacob Tyrell was here because he loved it.
Cara was there because she loved Jacob Tyrell. And didn't know what to do about it.
"You're stalking him," her roommate Karen had said. They shared a ratty apartment on the wrong end of Vegas.
"With the best intentions," Cara answered. "Doesn't that count for something?"
Karen didn't think so. But Cara did. She'd first met Jacob Tyrell five years ago when she was 17. She didn't think he'd remember. At the time he'd been in his early 20s, and Cara had been a star struck girl at her first rodeo. Back then there were only rumors about the family of shapeshifter werebears competing in rodeos across the country.
That day she hadn't cared whether Jacob Tyrell was a shifter or not. He was a better man than the three men who showed up at the same time Cara's great idea – take her dad's best horse and ride to the rodeo – blew up in her face.
The horse had gotten scared by the crowds outside the arena, the crowds that were normal on Vegas city streets. The horse had bolted outside the modern day arena. It carried her only halfway to her father's ranch outside city limits before it threw her and vanished.
Cara wasn't hurt and the horse ended up home hours before she did. By the time Cara got home, bedraggled and aching, her father apparently thought she'd learned her lesson. Because even though he seemed to accept the runaway-and-returned-home-on-his-own-I-had-nothing-to-do-with-it horse story, he'd never asked how the horse had gotten himself saddled.
Cara's problems had started after the horse threw her. Not only was her father's best horse running off on his own, but Cara, now on foot, was cornered nearly instantly by three guys who stopped on the deserted road to "Help her."
Those men were still "offering her a ride" when the big paws had come out of nowhere and lifted the most insistent of her good Samaritans right off her back. The guy had flown all the way across the highway. He'd landed hard in the dirt on the other side of the road.
"Who's next?" Jacob asked, grinning at each in turn. He wore a man's skin again – he wasn't a bear any longer – but he was clearly maniac and looking for trouble. His grin said he wouldn't mind taking on the remaining two at the same time.
When the first of the two rushed him, Jacob grinned savagely and disabled him with what looked like basic boxing moves.
When the next rushed him with a knife, though, and cut through the first layers of skin over his abs, Jacob went berserk. In a heartbeat he changed into a eight-foot-tall grizzly bear.
One swipe of one enormous paw sent the last of Cara's attackers flying. Cara flinched away. When Jacob Tyrell, clearly struggling to control his emotions, turned to face her, she cowered behind his truck.
She was almost more afraid of the bear than she had been of her three attackers.
He'd recognized that, though. Through the next several minutes she'd watched him reign in his emotions, tamp down the anger. Emotions made weres shift.
Jacob had marshaled his as fast as he could. When he was human again, he held out his hand to her.
She'd been 17. He had been burly, barrel chested, not tall but taller than her five-six. Work rough hands had been gentle on hers. He modulated his voice, keeping it calm but not soothing. He calmed her but he didn't treat her like a spoiled child or a silly girl or a sexual being. He treated her like a person who needed help out of a jam.
"Darlin', ordinarily I'd say stay out of trucks with strange men." He grinned then, very blond and with a spray of freckles across his nose. "And I'm definitely a strange man."
She wanted to say I noticed but her voice didn't work.
"But you're gettin' yourself into more trouble out here than you will with me. Let me give you a ride."
Then he stopped talking for most of the ride to her father's ranch. Before she got out of his truck she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, inhaling the musky smell of animal that clung to him. The scent went straight to her head. If there hadn't already been the gallant rescue and the gorgeous man, that alone would have been enough.
Her stalking was benign – from a distance, designed to keep distance between them while media covered Jacob's affairs and breakups. He was currently single.
He was currently here.
Cara was no longer 17. She was a college grad, a vet tech, and a volunteer on the county sheriff's mounted posse.
And now that she was finally in a position to do something about her feelings, she'd frozen. She had no idea how to move forward.
Cara surfaced from her memories. Jacob Tyrell had been a total gentleman that day. Attentive and caring, he'd helped her to his truck when it turned out her ankle was sprained. He stopped for ice at a convenience store and made her a pack for her ankle.
When she told him it would be better to show up on foot and alone, he stopped out of sight of her father's ranch and let her hobble from there. He didn't insist on taking her to the door.
It hadn't ended there, though. Every Chaudett rodeo allowed the stars to choose a charity and donate winnings. Also at every event cowboys could choose a family to sponsor. An entire low income family might attend, or a special guest.
Jacob chose both. He'd sponsored a family with three small children and a wounded veteran dad, and he'd chosen to invite Cara, free of charge, with a VIP box and her own guests. Cara and Karen spent the day like princesses while her father came and went, talking horses and ranches and expenses. Jacob himself sat with them during some of the events.
By the end of the day Karen was teasing her nonstop. By the end of the day Cara was in love.
Five years later.
Soon Jacob would look up from the far side of the arena where he was walking one of the horses. He'd see her in the shadows, watching. There was no way he'd recognize her. Or even remember her.
She hadn't thought of anything to say yet. When Owen Hutch, Jacob, Eddie and Holden Tyrell's cousin and one of the superstar bull riders on the circuit, one of the winning-most cowboys of all time, got together with Mary Beth Chaudett, the big boss' daughter, it was after they'd known each other for years and on her side, at least, years of animosity.
Then Ray Chaudett had a heart attack that landed him in the hospital. Mary Beth, who had turned her back on rodeo altogether, stepped in to fill his shoes and ended up sharing them with Owen.
Colby Tyrell, another cousin, met Gemma Thomas when she showed up to interview Owen at a Reno Nevada rodeo. First he knocked her down by mistake, then he bandaged up her leg after she cut it by accident and fainted during the interview.
Or at least so said the urban legend, and the whole fainting and being bandaged up again fairytale was too good to pass up.
Even Eddie Tyrell, one time boozer and gambler and now reformed shapeshifting cowboy – even he'd found a woman in his life.
But everyone was moving cautiously. Because as the anti shifter movement moved underground, more a
nd more shifters vanished. Rumor had it Holden Tyrell was off investigating the disappearances. Colby, who was a lawman back in his own county in Texas, had survived two anti shifter attacks. Rumor was he hadn't been seen for a week, but rumors always abounded in rodeo. Especially where bears were concerned.
That didn't mean some of them weren't true. Or that people weren't being very careful.
If Jacob saw her, he might think she was one of the homeless who made the arena home, hiding well enough they usually couldn't be flushed out. Or he might consider her a threat.
The rodeo association had rules for the protection of both participants and audience. So did the performers. Especially now: Anti-shifter sentiment ran high anymore. There were more t-shirts with international NO symbols – the circle and the slash – showing bears in cowboy hats.
The Rodeo Association hadn't handed down any decisions against them. The Tyrell Clan and the few other shifter groups starting to participate in rodeo could still do so.
But they faced audiences that were at best 50 percent against them. Worse, most of the movement against weres competing in any sport was moving underground where it was harder to keep track of them and harder to predict – and stop – attacks.
If he saw her, he might call security. He wouldn't know who she was or what she wanted. Remembering his kindness on that day five years ago, Cara guessed he would be polite, sign an autograph if asked, and all the while he'd be moving her inexorably to the exit. If he could help it he probably wouldn't even tell her she wasn't supposed to be in the arena itself, especially before the shows.
It was like getting an electric shock. Until just then it hadn't occurred to her that being where she wasn't supposed to be was anything other than a harmless trespass.
That wasn't how she wanted to meet even if she hadn't thought of anything clever to say. Before she was face to face with him she'd make sure she was somewhere her face was allowed to be.
Cara began backing out of the arena, keeping her eyes on Jacob as if she could will him to not look at her.
Just then she thought she saw someone else in the shadows as she moved toward the exit. Someone moving just as stealthy as she was, but deeper into darkness. Cara blinked after the figure. Whoever it was, now he was moving faster, taking less care to avoid being seen. Any minute now he'd attract Jacob's attention.
She glanced back at Jacob. He was moving away from her, leading the horse back to the stables, maybe. Now was a good time for her to get out of the arena, rethink her strategy (or think on it altogether).
She was moving fast, two-thirds of the way back to the chute that would lead her out of the shadowy arena, when she smelled smoke.
At first she was irritated. Everybody seemed to smoke at rodeos, and if they didn't smoke, they chewed. Smoking around the horses seemed wrong, though. Not that she wanted it around her, either, making her hair and clothes stink. She jogged a couple steps toward the exit.
Someone shouted from behind her.
Cara caught her breath. In that instant she knew she didn't smell cigarette smoke.
The person behind her called again. "You! Stop! What are you doing here?"
Oh, shit, that was Jacob's voice. She started to run, realized she couldn't run out on him. What if he hadn't smelled it yet?
She spun around on her heel. "Fire!" she shouted. "Get the horses out!"
Chapter Two
Even as she shouted the warning Cara clawed at her cell phone, freeing it from the back pocket of her boot cut bling pocket jeans.
She never got the chance to key in 911. Jacob shouted something from across the arena. Cara could see him, waving his arms.
The fire began to spit sparks. The sound of actual flames filled the increasingly smoky air.
Cara sucked in a breath and started to cough. Her thumb went back to her phone.
An arm lashed out, caught her across the shoulder. The phone jolted out of her hands. When it hit the dirt, a cowboy boot smashed down on it.
Cara jerked back away from the cowboy emerging from the chute. He came straight at her, face twisted in fury. His lips were pulled back from his teeth. He spit as he shouted, "Shifter whore!"
"No, wait!" Cara's hands went up defensively. Girlishly.
She knew better. After she'd taken her father's horse and come home without it, and after a few more incidents where her father discovered after the fact that Cara wasn't where she was supposed to be, he enrolled her in self defense classes.
Her girlish defense dropped. She threaded her fingers together, dropped her hands like she gripped a golf club, lined up her shot and followed through.
She caught the cowboy right on the chin and saw him blink, dazed. She could have run then.
Except for the horses. Except for Jacob, now heading toward her, not toward the stables.
Except for the other men who appeared out of the chute. Heading right for Jacob.
Heading right for her.
Her hands flashed up. The double grip attack was good for the first strike because no guy expected it. Every time she'd had to defend herself, the guy she was fighting thought she was going to strike much lower.
Her hands connected with his chin.
Even with all her strength behind it and the force of the swing, Cara wasn't good enough to knock a guy out. What she could do was distract him, confuse him long enough to get in another blow.
She aimed for the throat, her fist doubled, and screamed, "Fire! Horses!" even as she drove her fist forward.
There was just enough time for her to see Jacob dart around the big guy coming at him with a bat. Just enough time to see Jacob's fist sail out as he went past his attacker. His fist caught the other man on the back of the head. Hard enough to stagger him. Hard enough to send him flying forward.
Jacob was already concentrating on her. He was coming to rescue her.
She didn't need saving. In that split second she thought, No! Go! Horses! I've got this!
Right before her attacker's fist connected with her jaw.
Bright lights exploded in her field of vision. The world turned wrong side out and spun around.
She dropped to her knees, gagging at the pain in her jaw. Both hands flew up to her face. That was enough to stop her attacker's boot from connecting with her mouth. He hit her hands instead.
Her eyes streamed tears. She could see just well enough to throw herself back, out of range of the next kick.
As she landed on her butt in the dirt, she saw Jacob ripple.
And change.
She saw the air around him seem to boil. Saw his face twist with savagery.
The bear pushed through the veneer of humanity. The grizzly roared, up on its back feet. Giant, killing paws with razored talons struck so fast she barely saw him move.
She screamed. The man who had hit her wavered briefly and fell, one hand pressed against his face.
His face. Jacob hadn't gone for the throat.
She let out a breath. There were two other men, both armed with baseball bats. But when she blinked away the pain and could see, the other men were already in custody, held between security guards, ranch hands, cowboys and a pissed off looking sheriff's deputy she didn't know.
A second sheriff's deputy was screaming into Jacob's face.
Jacob's mostly human face. The lips were still dark. The canine teeth still looked a little like fangs when his lip curled back. His hands couldn't be that big in human form. Could they?
She gulped, swallowing convulsively. Abruptly she could hear. The sheriff's deputy was shouting, "I want you out of this town," and Jacob responding, "We're here for the rodeo," and the reply, "I don't give a good damn what you're here for, I want you out."
Jacob's face was stony as he stalked over to her, faded jeans dusty, pointed, well-used boots kicking the dust. "Mind if I check on the victim?" he snarled back at the cop.
The deputy bent sharply, plucked his own sage green hat from the ground, and smacked the dust off against his thigh. "I don'
t give a good damn what you do, either," he snarled. "Take the whore with you."
With that he was out the chute, his silhouette disappearing quickly toward the arena and the city beyond, before Jacob could react to the last thing he'd said.
Jacob's hands were gentle on her as he helped her to her feet. Cara instantly tried to pull way.
"Fire," she said, surprised her voice sounded normal.
"Yeah, we've got that," Jacob said. He wasn't meeting her eyes. His attention was trained on her jaw. "Turn your head a little." He put one gentle hand on her shoulder and the other on her jaw and manipulated the jaw.
Leeward Bear (BBW Shifter Romance) (Fisherbears Book 3) Page 17