Good Time Cowboy

Dane got to be fun and dangerous and get rewarded for it. But then, that was her experience of all these rodeo idiots. Their life was a big party. They didn’t do responsible things like keep to their commitments or honor their vows. No. And her husband had jumped right into that.

But, that was beside the point.

“Sorry. He didn’t quit.”

“I retired,” he pointed out. “I didn’t quit. Midthirties is a rough time to still be flinging your body around like that. Other guys do it, but...not me. I’m done.” A smile tipped the corner of his mouth upward, and she noticed some lines crease his skin right by his eyes.

He had aged since they’d first met all those years ago but that didn’t make him less attractive. Instead, those weathered signs of aging, of years lived, only made him more attractive in a strange way. She had to wonder if it was some kind of weird female survival instinct. That this man who had taken all these risks was here, had made it well into his thirties in spite of those risks, was sending signals to her body that he was a good provider, or something.

But her body was terrible at correctly identifying men’s true natures. Even if it wasn’t, she didn’t want to know Wyatt or his...nature. So, she wasn’t even going to ponder it.

“Well. Whatever. So you’re thinking roping events?” She pushed the conversation back on track.

“Yes. I got all the approvals from insurance. As long as we don’t have any guests participating, or anything like that, we are cleared for it.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“I was also thinking Jamie could lead a ride during the barbecue.”

She nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

“Will it be all right with you if we take the group over to the vineyard?”

“Should be fine.”

Their eyes caught for a moment, and for some reason it felt significant. More so than the moment before. He was not the kind of man she normally liked.

Granted, she’d been with one man. And in the end she hadn’t liked him very much at all. But still.

He nodded, then smiled. Slow and lazy. It licked through her like fire and she did her very best to ignore it. “Good.”

She cleared her throat. “Good.”

“So, just the brochures? Were there any emails that you needed me to read?”

She curled her hands into fists, irritation coursing through her, saving her from the heat. “Can’t you just...check your email?”

“Can’t you just...tell me what you need?” He smiled. Enigmatic. Infuriating.

“There’s nothing, but if I need anything else I’ll be sure to send you an email. And maybe I’ll add a follow-up phone call.”

“Sounds good. Could you arrange for 6:00 a.m.? A wake-up call? That would be pretty fancy. Haven’t had that since I was on the circuit.”

“You stayed at motels that gave you wake-up calls when you were riding on the circuit?”

“No. The women that spent the night usually woke me up early when they were sneaking out, though.”

He was such a jackass.

“Right. Well. I will not be giving you a wake-up call. Of any variety.” Her lips twitched, and heat flooded her cheeks.

“Noted.”

She turned away, her heart hammering hard. She had the inescapable feeling that she had made a deal with the devil in forging an alliance with Wyatt Dodge. But the devil was infinitely preferable to her ex-husband, and the devil currently had what she needed.

And so, a deal with the devil it was.

* * *

WYATT WATCHED LINDY’S figure as she retreated, the wiggle in her hips transmitting her irritation while also sending some signals to his body that he could do without, thanks.

He let out the breath that he felt like he had been holding for the past fifteen minutes, feeling the tension ease out of his body, down along his spine. That woman got under his skin, no denying it.

Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t deny it. He would have just had her by now. But there were complications to that. Big ones. Like the fact that she was the ex-wife of a man he had once considered a good friend.

Like the fact that she hated him.

Oh, and the fact that he had wanted her from the moment he’d met her, when she had still been hitched to the aforementioned friend.

The fact that he hadn’t made a move on her was a relief only in that it indicated he had learned to think with something other than his cock since he was sixteen years old.

Lindy Parker was a particular kind of thorn in his flesh.

He remembered the moment he’d met her with a distressing amount of clarity. He had been in a bar after one of the events, and she had walked in looking prim and uncertain, her hands clasped in front of her, holding on to her handbag, her blond hair swirling around her as she took stock of the rabble and ruffians in the room.

And he had...he had felt the floor of that bar fall out from underneath his feet.

He had wanted her, immediately. Viscerally. It had been an instantaneous and deep desire unlike anything he had ever felt before.

Then, he had seen the diamond ring sparkling on her left hand. It had only loomed larger in his vision as she had walked over to where he was sitting. He’d had all those seconds, those long moments of watching her make her way across the room to decide he didn’t give a damn who had given her that ring or what it meant. He wanted her. And if she was going to let him have her...well, then he wasn’t going to waste a thought on the poor bastard who’d given her the diamond.

He’d thought that right up until she’d walked up and kissed his friend right on the mouth.

She was Damien’s wife. Of course.

Because the first woman to make him feel like he couldn’t breathe in longer than he could remember was obviously going to be married to a friend of his.

Even if she hadn’t been married to Damien...they were not meant to be. She had been unfriendly to him from the beginning. It wasn’t even her divorce from Damien that had triggered the unfriendliness.

He still wanted her. Dammit.

And he didn’t do that stuff. He didn’t want and not have. Sex, as far as he was concerned was a recreational activity. People didn’t need to make such a big deal out of it. But, he also preferred to like the women he banged. And he preferred it if they didn’t want to decapitate him.

Lindy fell into that category.

The divorce...

Yeah, that was complicated, but it had a little bit more to do with her not liking him rather than him being concerned about preserving a relationship with Damien.

As far as he was concerned Damien was a dickhead. Cheating on Lindy had been an asshole thing to do. There was no defending it. Wyatt wouldn’t even try. Some men shouldn’t get married. Wyatt was one of them. But, he hadn’t gotten married. Damien had. And he had owed it to his wife to be faithful to her. The damned man hadn’t even tried as far as Wyatt could tell.

It had all come out later, when Damien had drunkenly slurred over a beer about the end of his marriage that he had cheated on Lindy multiple times over the years. Being on the road with all that temptation around was too much for him, he’d said. When the buckle bunnies couldn’t find a cowboy to get laid with they would always take him.

And it was all Wyatt could do not to ask him if he was screwed in the head. Because what the hell man would want another woman when he had that one in his bed? Wyatt sure as hell wouldn’t.

Of course, he had never tried monogamy, so he supposed he couldn’t actually judge. But he did.

Still, the fact that he didn’t exactly want his friend to know that he had illicit fantasies about the other guy’s wife was one reason he had held back on lecturing him too much. The other being that he just wasn’t the right man for that job.

A shiftless manslut who had never had a committed relationship in his life was the last person on earth who should hand out lectures on marriage.

“She does not like you.”

Wyatt turned around and saw his brother Grant standing there, looking amused with the situation.

He supposed he should be happy to see Grant looking amused at all, since his brother rarely did. But, he wasn’t. Not when it was at his expense.

Wyatt had never claimed not to be a selfish bastard.

“She doesn’t,” Wyatt agreed.

“And you want her.”

“She’s a shrew,” Wyatt said, by way of answer, crossing his arms, watching as that little red car of hers drove away.

“A hot one,” Grant pointed out.

“You sleep with her then. I don’t want to have to dig her fingernails out from under my skin after.”

“It’s my understanding you end up with fingernails embedded in your skin when it goes well,” Grant said, his tone dry.

“Unless she does it because she wants to mortally wound you.”

“From where I’m at right now, I’m not sure I see a drawback either way.”

“Go.” Wyatt made a shooing motion with his hand. “Get some. Refresh your memory.”

Grant lifted a brow, the lines on his forehead deepening. “Not likely.”

Wyatt locked eyes with his brother. “Get out of town. Find a woman who doesn’t know you and your entire life story.”

“You know,” Grant said. “I tried that once. She remembered me. From the news.”

“Damn.”

His brother’s marriage had ended up famous.

An eighteen-year-old who married his high school sweetheart even knowing she wouldn’t live long had been a tragic and wonderful gesture, as far as the world was concerned.

As far as poor Grant was concerned, it had just been life and love. In the end, he had suffered a hell of a lot. But that’s what he was famous for. Being true-blue to a woman who was long gone.

No one had asked if he wanted to get famous, of course. It had been one of the last things Grant wanted. Second only to his wife dying.

Which had thrown Grant right back into the headlines. Wyatt was sure that made hooking up...complicated.

Wyatt Dodge did not like complicated. It was just one of the many reasons that he was not going to follow the road his attraction to Lindy wanted to take him down. Nope. And hell no.

Anyway, getting things off the ground with Get Out of Dodge was too important.

If he succeeded, then no one would ever have to know the reason why.

And that was the ideal situation.

“I appreciate you being here,” Wyatt said. “I hope you know that.”

“I do. But, it’s not like I had anything truly amazing that I was leaving behind. A job at the power company for little more than a decade...sure. The retirement was going to be good...” Grant shook his head. “How long can you possibly live for the future? I mean, socking away money, punching a time card all to invest in years you might never even see? What the hell is the point of that? Can you answer me that, Wyatt?”

Wyatt rubbed his chin. “I’ve been riding bulls for the last...fifteen years? I am not the person to ask about thinking ahead. If I had been thinking ahead I never would have done that.”

His spine sure would’ve thanked him, and unlike so many others, he had never even sustained a serious injury. He was lucky. Lucky as hell. The guys that ended up getting seriously trampled often never walked in a straight line again. Wyatt had gotten out more or less intact. Just a couple of scars. Even still, at thirty-five his body had taken the kind of beating most guys his age couldn’t imagine.

“I’m glad to be here,” he said. “That’s what I meant by the speech. That’s all.”

“I’m glad, too,” Wyatt responded.

Grant turned and walked away, leaving Wyatt standing there, looking around the property. It was all coming together nicely. The landscape in front of the main house, the gravel paths that led between the buildings, raked clean and neat.

Wyatt hadn’t taken anything this seriously for the past twenty years.

The cabins had been restored and redecorated, and he was actively working on finding a cook who could provide something more than basic food.

He had to reach his goal of getting the ranch to full occupancy by the end of the summer, and he had to reach total financial solvency in the following year. Otherwise, he was going to fail at Quinn Dodge’s ultimatum.

And that meant his father was going to sell the ranch.

That was the thing his siblings didn’t know. Wyatt wasn’t the owner of the property.

It was still Quinn’s. And unless Wyatt succeeded in a very short amount of time, it wasn’t going to be in the Dodge family anymore. Instead, Get Out of Dodge would be nothing more than a stack of cash divided between the siblings, and Wyatt couldn’t allow that.

He knew that his father expected him to screw up.

Wyatt was determined that he wouldn’t.

There was no other option.

Of all the reasons not to sleep with Lindy Parker, that was the best one.

He didn’t need her as a distraction, he didn’t need her as a friend and he sure as hell didn’t need her as a lover. He needed her as an ally.

Because if he didn’t have that, he might lose.

And if there was one thing Wyatt Dodge did not do, it was lose.

CHAPTER TWO

LINDY’S COMPUTER MADE its special email chiming sound and she bent down to look.

Wyatt Dodge.

Her heart slammed against her sternum like a hammer going down on iron.

She braced herself. She didn’t know for what, except that obviously if he was actually emailing her now after making a big deal out of the fact that he didn’t need to email her, he was being an ass. That much she was certain of.

She clicked. Surprisingly, it was a comprehensive commentary on the brochures that she had sent.

“Leave it to you to be on topic when I expect you to be an asshole.” She muttered to herself as she straightened, then she turned and startled when she saw her brother Dane’s form filling the doorway.

“Talking to yourself?”

“I wasn’t talking to you.” She thought about pulling him in for a hug. Then didn’t. They weren’t really a hugging kind of family. Sometimes she wished they were. But she didn’t know how to change it now. “I didn’t think I was going to see you until September.”

“I was heading up from Red Bluff, going to an event in George, Washington. This is a little out of my way, but I figured that I would stop in for a bit.”

It was difficult to believe sometimes that Dane was her little brother. He towered over her by at least a foot. Broad-shouldered, rugged and with the kind of smile that made women weak in the knees. She was proud of him. And always a little bit nervous about just how he used his good looks and charm.

He was a bull rider.

All adrenaline, here and now and no thought for the future. Constantly living for the action, never worrying about the reaction.

But she loved him.

They’d had it rough growing up. Their dad had been in their lives only intermittently until he’d finally left for good, their mom making it impossible for them to have a relationship with him. Not—she supposed—that he’d tried that hard to change it.

They’d grown up in a single-wide trailer, a small space for three people, and yet Lindy had always felt like there were walls between them. Their mom was a proud woman. So proud she could hardly bend down to give her children a hug.

Distance. That was what she and Dane had both learned, and learned well. To rely on no one but themselves.

“How long are you going to be here?” she asked.

“The rodeo starts in two days. So really, I need to get out of here tomorrow. I don’t want to hassle with the traffic. Lots of people are going to be coming in on the highway.”

“This is one of the big ones, isn’t it?”

“Yep,” he said.

“Do you have any breaks after this?”

“I’ve got a few small events down South, just things to build up points. But there’s some downtime in July, before the big stuff. Sisters, Pendleton and Vegas.”

“I have a feeling that Wyatt is going to ask if you want to do some things over our Fourth of July event that we’re planning. I don’t actually know if he’s going to have you ride bulls.”

“Well, I’m not going to barrel race,” Dane said, as if that was the most ridiculous thing in the entire world.

“I’d pay to see that,” she said.

“It’s for girls,” he said.

“Right,” Lindy shot back, crossing her arms. “And mostly, you’re afraid that you’d get beaten.”

“Hell yeah,” he said. “You need precision for that. A connection with your horse. Do you know what you need to ride bulls? Big balls and the subtlety of a blunt instrument.”

Lindy knew that you needed more than that, particularly to get where Dane had gotten in life. Where Damien had helped him get. She resisted asking about that. Asking about Damien. She knew that he was still around, managing various aspects of different riders’ careers. But not Dane’s.

The minute that Dane had found out about Damien’s infidelity, Dane had gone scorched-earth-no-survivors on his brother-in-law.

In fact, he had done what he could to break off Damien’s relationship with the professional association. He hadn’t been entirely successful, but she knew that he had convinced several riders to start working with outside PR people and refuse to work with Damien.

Whatever she thought about her brother’s day-to-day morality, he had come through for her in the end. The two of them against the world.

“So, basically you’re crashing on my couch overnight?” There would be no crashing on her couch. She lived in a gigantic house all by herself. There were more than enough bedrooms for Dane to have his pick.

In point of fact, she would be surprised if he ended up spending the night at her place. It was more likely that he would end up in the Gold Valley Saloon picking up a new conquest.

“That’s about the size of it,” he said.

“You know you’re always welcome.”

She sighed heavily, and then lifted her hands above her head, locking them together and flexing them backward, stretching herself upward from the center of her chest, drawing her shoulder blades down and trying to release some of the tension in her body.

“I think you’re doing too much,” Dane commented, following her out of her office and into the main dining room of Grassroots Winery.

Over the past couple of years Lindy had overhauled the facility and opened a satellite tasting room in the town of Copper Ridge.

The dining room—where they hosted lunches, weddings, parties and pretty much anything else—was a converted barn that had been on the property for years, now carefully crafted into a rustic and elegant setting.

They had a few guests, sitting and eating cheese platters while drinking wine flights and visiting.

The vast, wooden chandeliers that hung down at the center of the high, arched ceiling were blazing with a golden glow, bathing the room in soft lighting.

It was beautiful. Perfect.

Hers.

The kind of thing she never could have imagined when she was a girl growing up in a Gold Valley trailer park on the dying edge of town.

A place with more empty buildings than businesses.

Her former sister-in-law, turned sister by choice, Sabrina Donnelly was standing behind the counter scribbling on an order form.

She and Sabrina had always had a lot in common. From the moment they’d met, Lindy felt like she’d found the sister of her heart. While her former mother-in-law and father-in-law had given her a less than welcoming reception into the family, Sabrina had been warm and open.

Of course, that had been due in part to the fact that Sabrina had been estranged from her father—over something to do with Liam Donnelly.

Liam Donnelly who now, finally, some fourteen years later, was Sabrina’s husband.

“Hey, Sabrina,” Dane said.

Sabrina looked up, smiling. “Hi yourself.” Then, her eyes fell to Lindy, and Lindy must have been telegraphing something because Sabrina’s expression changed to one of concern. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“She’s doing too much,” Dane said.

“I am not doing too much.”

She was doing things, yes. Making changes. But they were all good, and she was happy with them.

It was likely that if she looked taxed it was because her mind kept going over and over the fact that Wyatt had finally sent her an email after resolutely ignoring her emails. And that it was clearly connected to the conversation they’d had yesterday.

But there was nothing she could do about any of that. She had the exact amount of things to do that had to be done, and she had to deal with Wyatt Dodge.

All of that was regrettable in some form or another, but it was better than being impoverished. Better than being married to a man who was sleeping with other women behind her back.

All things considered, life was great.

It didn’t mean that her muscles weren’t tired and her neck wasn’t stiff, but still.

“I know that she is,” Sabrina said. “But, this looked like something might be going on in addition to that.”

“Nothing is going on,” she said.

Sabrina and Dane continued to stare at her.

“There isn’t,” she said, defensively. “I mean I’m navigating the Wyatt Dodge situation, but other than that...”

“What Wyatt Dodge situation?” Dane asked.

“The one I mentioned to you earlier,” she explained. “You know. Rodeo events and all the other various crap he’s trying to add to our event. That in and of itself is a whole thing. That’s what I meant by that.”

“Is he giving you a hard time?” Dane asked.

“Does he ever not give someone a hard time?”

Dane smiled. “Not really. That’s kind of his thing.”

“Well, good to know that I’m not special.” Those words seemed to echo inside of her, reverberating and lingering and in general just not going away.

She seemed to be the only one who noticed that, however, which was welcome. She didn’t want anyone studying her too closely. Didn’t want anyone trying to get a read on her thoughts. Or her feelings.

She was violently opposed to most of the thoughts and feelings she had surrounding Wyatt Dodge that didn’t involve pushing his head through a wall. And sadly, those thoughts and feelings existed.

She had always prided herself on her ability to hold two thoughts in her head at one time. She was a dreamer, and she was a pragmatist. She had experienced a life of poverty, and a life of plenty, and she had always imagined those things had given her the capacity to understand that reality was complex.

She was a lot less self-congratulatory about the fact that she found Wyatt simultaneously infuriating and sexually compelling.

And she was downright ashamed of the fact that there seemed to be a part of her that had hoped that Wyatt’s teasing was something reserved just for her.

She knew better than that. Knew better than to want that. Particularly from someone she didn’t even like.

As if your judgment when it comes to men is good enough to consider liking them a decent litmus test?

She gritted her teeth. “Anyway. Nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, at least, nothing out of the ordinary in terms of the last couple of years. Expansion is...” She lifted her hand and rolled her wrist in a physical indication of the march of time. “Expansion. The future.”

“Right,” Dane said, grabbing hold of her hand and shaking it gently before drawing it downward. “But if you work yourself into an early grave you don’t get to enjoy that future.”

“I am not about to be lectured on longevity by a bull rider.”

Dane opened his mouth to say something smart-ass, no doubt, and was stopped by a slamming door coming from the back room of the converted barn.

Lindy didn’t have to ask to know who it was. “Are you all right, Bea?”

“Fine,” came the cheerful reply.

Lindy’s other former sister-in-law, Beatrix Leighton—usually called Bea—came in to the room, breathless and smiling. That smile only got bigger when she saw Dane standing there.