Want Me, Cowboy

by Sinclair Jayne

  Man, he needed a bigger rig or they both needed to take a long run. Nothing else but talking with Tanner would have the power to even begin to settle his head.

  He didn’t press for more. He had an imagination and he knew his brother and how he worked and Sky had been a beautiful and unusual child and as a teen, the last Luke had seen her, she’d been probably one of the most beautiful and ethereal women he’d ever seen. The way she moved, like a silk scarf blowing in a gentle, afternoon Montana breeze was both breath-catching and sensual. As a child, Sky had been a pest, following Kane and her brother everywhere she could, and teenage Sky had been fixated and obsessed with Kane to an almost embarrassingly degree. So, no, Luke didn’t need a crystal ball to know what had happened and why Kane hadn’t let it happen again and why Sky probably wasn’t talking to him anymore.

  “Sex has caused more problems than it cures.” Luke diagnosed morosely, thinking if he’d kept his hands to himself like he’d initially intended and instead had just talked to Tanner, he’d probably be inside her paradise right now instead of banished to hell. But, damn. She was the one who had answered the door naked, wrapped her long, slim legs around his waist. How was he supposed to resist that?

  On cue, two sharp knocks on his door startled him. He leapt to open the door, careful not to fling it open in case he hit Tanner with his enthusiasm.

  Only it was Tucker smiling up at him, a flask of whiskey now nestled in her cleavage, which was now so avidly on display he could see her pale pink nipples peeking up at him.

  Fucking fabulous.

  He exerted rigid control of his limbs and clenched his jaw because every impulse screamed to slam the door and lock it, and every word that hurtled through his brain was mean and nasty, when his anger was really directed inward because he’d not been as open and honest with Tanner as he should have been.

  “Good evening, boys. Two for the price of one.” She smiled and slid the flask out of her cleavage. “I saved some for you. Two Wilders have featured in many of my wilder dreams.”

  Luke barely managed to not roll his eyes. Kane came to the rescue.

  “Hey, Tucker T. I enjoyed our dance.”

  “I heard you were the wilder Wilder.” Her gaze traveled down his body and then centered on his crotch. “Is that true?”

  “No.”

  “Modest. Twosome?”

  “With my brother, not a chance,” Kane said. “But how ’bout I take you home.”

  “Forget it. My dad said ‘too little too late’, whatever the hell that means.”

  “That means I’ll take you somewhere else,” Kane said easily and held out his hand towards Luke.

  “What?” Luke stared at Tucker in dismay.

  He’d dealt with many drunken friends and lots of drunk women over the years but this one was TNT. And he did not want to be seen anywhere near her, especially spilling out of her clothes.

  “Key. You have my room key still.”

  “You can’t take her there. She’s drunk.” He mouthed as if it weren’t completely obvious.

  “You want to have her sleep it off here?”

  Luke shoved the key in his brother’s hand. “Hey, she’s not—”

  “She’s right here and she’s fine,” Tucker said. “Totally consenting, so you don’t need to act like idiot boy scouts with a moral compass the size of a sundial, but she is more than a little pissed off at life, my dad, my sister, and boring men who didn’t used to be so boring and uptight. Oh. And paparazzi, who didn’t even get my name right. Assholes. Oh, yeah, and my agent. And that damn director who thinks he’s all that. And Hollywood executives, if you really want to know. And married men suck the worst. And that’s just for a start.” She rambled.

  Luke’s list of things he was pissed off at was plenty long without listening to any of hers.

  “You’re just going to put her to bed, right. On her own?”

  “Jesus.” Kane shook his head. “One day you and I really need to have a heart-to-heart.”

  “Now that sounds more promising.” Tucker tangled her fingers in Kane’s shirt. “God your chest is like granite. I want to see it.”

  Kane caught her fingers. “Could use some help,” he said to Luke.

  Luke held up his hands. “I’m already in trouble about something I did years ago. Go get some help from the Triple T crew. They are set up by—”

  “I’m not going public with this,” Kane said. “She’ll be sober in the morning. Fine. I’ll go it alone. Won’t be the first woman I’ve taken home or to a hotel room to sleep it off. Alone.” He added. “And then had my name splashed about as doing something else although I would have hoped my brother would have known me better.” His voice was heavily sarcastic at the end enough that even Tucker, starting to stumble a little, noticed.

  “Siblings suck,” she said.

  “Some days,” Kane agreed as he led her out of the trailer. He turned at the end. “Get some fucking sleep and don’t try to talk to her until the morning when she’s calmed down. If you don’t, I’m going to pull your name out of the finals myself.”

  Luke kicked the door shut. Locked it. Definitely, siblings sucked. Big time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Tanner decided she hated the dawn, especially when she hadn’t slept. And she hated reasonable friends who held her when she cried instead of compiling a list of why Luke Wilder was the biggest jerk on the planet. Instead, after all the tears had dried and her headache had pulsed like a disco beat, Talon had made Tanner a nonalcoholic smoothie with two crushed up Tylenol PM and told her she had to talk to Luke in the morning before he rode. She owed him. Talon had actually said that. Tanner owed him a chance to explain.

  And now Luke’s brother strode up to her all grim and humming energy as she shoveled fresh sawdust into each of her bull’s pens, even though Jorge had cleaned everything out last night, and she’d done it again this morning, just because she couldn’t stand still or think. She’d start crying again like the biggest whiney girl ever.

  “You talk to Luke yet?”

  “Not my priority.” She snapped, her headache still a vivid memory, her throat dry, and her mind sluggish from the Tylenol because it hadn’t worn off so she felt hung over with no alcohol or fun memories to counteract the morning after.

  “Make it your priority.” Kane grabbed the shovel out of her hand.

  “Hey.” She grabbed it back and engaged in a useless tug of war.

  “Hey, yourself. You can’t let him get on a bull like that. He’s losing his goddamn mind. You know what could happen.”

  Tanner swallowed hard, the fight bleeding out of her as fast as her attitude, but she tried to grab it back so she could keep some control over her battered heart.

  “He’s a big boy. He can make his own decisions.”

  She didn’t tell him Luke had gone to the ranch last night looking for her, earning her a pissed off call from her dad who’d been woken up. Then Luke had woken up Jorge, who also wasn’t happy with her. Then he’d staked out the bulls this morning until the rodeo grounds staff had made him leave since he would be competing that day and couldn’t hang out around the bulls. The whole time she’d been crouched behind a wheelbarrow like she was a four-year-old in trouble.

  “You like him?”

  “He lied to me.”

  “He didn’t lie.”

  “Pretty enormous lie by omission.”

  “That’s true. Let Luke explain.”

  “Thought that’s what he was trying to do by sending his so-called prettier little brother.”

  “Not that shit again. I’ll kill him if he used the word prettier at any point.”

  “Be my guest.”

  “I know it sucked that he was, uh, with your sister, but it was four or five years ago. He didn’t even know you. And Luke can’t handle drama. Really sucks at it. Our mom should have been a soap opera star for real. She did a number on him growing up, and he handled it all so I didn’t have to.”

  “I’ll buy him a
violin.”

  Tanner wanted to yell at Kane that Luke had met her first. Twice. Sort of. And that she’d noticed him more than five years ago. That she deliberately took her bulls to the Mountain circuit rodeos just so she could watch him ride. It would be too pathetic. She was pathetic. But they had been introduced. At two sponsor events. He’d shook her hand and said hi and then had moved on, his beautiful golden eyes drifting over her vaguely to land on the next person in the group.

  “This isn’t even about Luke and you know it.”

  Kane’s words were a slap in her face.

  “So what? Your sister was prettier than you. Don’t load him up with your crap before a ride. Carry it yourself. You’re a big girl. You talk to him or I tell the judges he’s compromised and can’t ride.”

  “You can’t do that.” Tanner breathed. “He’d never forgive you. He’s in first place by eleven points.”

  “I don’t give a fuck how many points. Won’t matter if he’s distracted and thrown. Trampled. Gored. You of all people know what can happen when a ride goes south.”

  Tanner could barely breathe as images of Luke, his beautiful face taking a full errant hoof, or his—the images made her sick and she bent over, holding her stomach.

  “Then what? You’d feel bad? Wished you let him explain his feelings. Why he did what he did because he sure as hell had a reason for waiting to tell you about Tucker. That was years ago. Not this weekend. You need whatever the saying women have for balls to listen instead of hiding away like a little girl nursing hurt feelings from a decade ago. Only it’s too late to talk if he’s dead or fucking brain damaged because you were a coward.”

  Tanner held her hand palm out. He had to shut up. It was enough. The images were brutal and he was right. Talon had told her the same thing only more gently.

  “You’re right.” She stood up, feeling bruised around the middle only he hadn’t come within a few feet of her but his energy swarmed around him, buzzing like a displaced hive of bees. “I should have let him explain. I will. I promise.”

  Kane continued to stare at her, his pale grey eyes almost swirling silver with emotion. His face tight with anger. His body, longer than Luke’s but just as rangy and hard, tense as a pole.

  “You’re right.” She repeated. “Before the ride. What?” She demanded as he continued to stare, his pale blue grey eyes so intense she felt as if her skin would peel off.

  “Trying to see what he sees in you,” Kane said his words, another left hook, and Tanner flinched.

  She’d wondered the same thing. She hadn’t been able to believe it, and now his beautiful and famous brother was confirming all her worst fears.

  “He’s always held himself apart from everyone. Never let anyone close. I want to know why he finds you so special because he doesn’t seem very special to you.”

  Tanner didn’t even think. She lunged forward, her fist a blur as she slugged him in his hateful smug mouth, managing to pull the punch just slightly at the end as her brain kicked in even as the words spilled out. “You don’t know me. You don’t know my heart!”

  She sucked in a shocked breath, holding her fist like she could take it back. She looked at his lip, split and swelling, a trickle of blood, and then he smiled, the famous smile she’d seen on dozens of rodeo products and she saw all his teeth, thank God. He probably had insurance on that famous smile. What the hell had she just done? She hadn’t hit anyone since second grade when Tommy Applebaum had continued to taunt her with the uninspired “carrottop.”

  “I do now, little girl. Time to grow up.”

  And he turned and walked away, fluid and cocky, and Tanner just stared at him, her emotions jumbled and her thoughts and body feeling definitely off-balance like the world had just tilted a few degrees. Had she just been played? By another Wilder?

  *

  As the morning wore on, Tanner’s courage hadn’t failed her so much as fate. A bull from another contractor, Wicked, had escaped his handlers and then stampeded down two aisles of holding pens before being cornered by a swaggering cowboy on a beautiful, black horse, wielding a lasso like he was in an old time western movie. The problem? The bull was clearly in pain about something and the Triple T bull involved in the fracas, Spiral, named by Jorje’s ten-year-old son because as a calf he used to spin in tight circles like a cat chasing its tail, had slammed himself against his gate and had gouged his rump on something. The bleeding wasn’t bad, but Tanner wasn’t taking any chances. Noah Sullivan, the large animal vet on call this weekend was busy with Wicked so Talon had climbed up on top of the pen, wielding two syringes, and cleaned the wound while Jorge and a new ranch hand, Evan, controlled Spiral. She dosed the bull with antibiotics, and numbing medicine and then stitched the circular gouge closed.

  “Remind me why you’re in school?” Tanner demanded.

  “So I can get paid,” Talon said, watching Spiral critically. “I only know how to do all this because I’ve stalked Noah relentlessly and he’s let me, and I read all the time.”

  “Not all the time.” Tanner teased, trying to find her inner friend and professional instead of the anxious woman afraid to have her heart broken by a cowboy she had a bad feeling she’d fallen in love with while she’d been wasting her time worrying that she was starting to like Luke too much.

  “I’m not kissing and telling,” Talon said primly, but her fair complexion couldn’t hide the blush and her beautiful blue eyes shone with happiness.

  Tanner caught her breath. She’d always thought her friend was pretty, with an inner kindness and strength that radiated, making her beautiful. Tanner realized that was how Luke had made her feel, like attraction wasn’t just physical but soul deep, and she had ignored that for some hurt that had been born long ago in her childhood. Kane was right. Time to grow up.

  Tucker had always received more of her mom’s attention because she was so pretty and girlie; her father had always favored Tucker because she knew how to play him where as Tanner had always separated herself, trying to outwork and out compete everyone. And in college she’d been in a more male-dominated field, just like ranching, and she still tried to outwork, out compete everyone like she had to prove her worth instead of just enjoying her accomplishments and enjoying everyone around her.

  As if reading her mind, Talon looked up, sympathy stamped on her face. “Did you talk to Luke yet?”

  “No.” She stubbed her toe in the dirt.

  Around them fluttered rodeo life—smells of animals, mixed with popcorn and grilled hotdogs and hamburgers, snuffles of livestock, chatting between their handlers, and, dimly, the rodeo announcer and clapping, cheering, and foot stomping on the metal bleachers from the crowd soaking in the entire experience. Tanner loved it all, but today her heart was heavy, not interested in engaging with the crowd and the events.

  She knew if Luke were here, she’d want to watch him prepare for his ride, maybe share a quick snack at one of the food booths. Or maybe they would have enjoyed pancakes at the annual pancake breakfast in Crawford County Park, a Sunday tradition for as long as she could remember. Today was the first one she’d missed.

  “Last night I felt so betrayed,” she said. “I still do even though it’s probably not the right feeling.”

  “Feelings aren’t right or wrong,” Talon said. “They just are, but not opening up and sharing where the feeling is coming from, that’s harmful. If you want to build something with Luke or someone else, you have to let them in, really in.”

  Tanner sucked in a deep breath. That was it, wasn’t it. She didn’t want to be that hurt little girl again, vulnerable. Abandoned by her mother, feeling abandoned by her father and her sister after her accident, remaking her life and shutting her family out of it, deliberately becoming as unlike Tucker as she could, no longer confiding in her, and not confiding in her father.

  Oh, she’d been the good girl, coming home, leaving school after he’d been hurt in an accident, but she’d taken over the ranch, deliberately and methodically changing t
hings, remaking the ranch into what she wanted rather than asking his opinion, and now that he felt well enough to do more, she kept trying to sideline him. Why? So she’d have the power. So she wouldn’t be hurt.

  “You make it sound so easy,” she said, not sure she liked herself after all these revelations.

  Kane hadn’t been exaggerating. She had been running scared. A coward. She tasted the word in her mouth. Bitter. Metallic. Foreign.

  “Not easy. But worth it. Colt is the first to say he sucks at communicating, but I push and push and we’re getting there, but he speaks more with actions, not words so I have to learn his language, and I sometimes overwhelm him with… well, with mine, with me.” She laughed. “I talk a lot, ask a million questions, share everything so he has to learn my language. But totally worth the risk. Really.”

  “You could be an advertisement for love. The perfect couple,” Tanner said, remembering how she’d shown up at their small ranch house last night, when she’d been unable to stand her own company anymore and hadn’t known what to do with everything burbling up inside her. She’d felt lost.

  Colt had answered the door without comment. Had made her a hot chocolate with a large splash of brandy, handed it to her, and steered her toward the couch in the living room and draped a blanket over her in total silence while Talon had dressed and popped a quick batch of chocolate chip cookies into the oven. Never once had either of them made her feel like she was overreacting or interrupting when, obviously, she’d been doing both.

  “He’s definitely perfect for me. I love how he’s so all-in with everything in our lives—starting a new career, learning to build barns at a place out towards Livingston and working at Big Z’s sometimes, parenting Parker, supporting me while I’m in school. He never leaves me in doubt. I can totally rely that he will always try to do his best for our family, but no, Tanner, it’s not easy. Sometimes I wake up at night and he’s on the porch just staring. Or on the roof just sitting up there. Or out in one of the barns with his punching bags just hitting and kicking in this wild, raw fury, and he won’t talk, and I have to let him be until he comes back to me, but it’s totally worth it. Colt’s worth the effort for me. And I’m worth the effort for him. You just have to figure out if Luke is worth the effort for you.”