One Rodeo Season

CHAPTER TWO

HER HANDS SHAKING, Lacy Evans walked back to where Rattler was penned after his go. Please let the animal be okay, she prayed. Without Rattler...

The thought brought on a wave of nausea so strong it almost stopped her in her tracks. She didn’t stop, though. She couldn’t afford a single sign of weakness. No throwing up. No hysterics. And absolutely no crying allowed.

What would Slim Smalls do if he caught Lacy in a true moment of weakness? Bad enough he’d obviously seen the bullfighter take Rattler down—worse that he was hoping Rattler would never get up. Lacy had no doubt about that.

Rattler was the only thing keeping the Straight Arrow going. If she lost that bull, Slim would say something misogynistic about how a “pretty little thing” like Lacy had no business in stock contracting, no business running a ranch—no business existing. And when she broke—or he pushed her too far...

She tried to swallow down the rock in her throat that was pushing against her tongue, but it didn’t budge. So she kept walking.

She saw Rattler in the pen and for a moment, she thought he was holding a leg funny.

She tried to push the panic away as she hurried to the pen. Without getting in there with him, she looked over the bull as carefully as she could—especially his legs.

He shifted his weight onto the leg. Thank God.

In place of the panic, a new emotion took root—anger. The anger felt good. She was furious with that bullfighter. What the hell had he been thinking, twisting her best bull to the ground like that? For God’s sake, he could have killed Rattler! Snapped a leg—or several legs, given the force with which he’d dropped Rattler, as if the eighteen-hundred-pound bull was little more than a stuffed animal someone had thrown at him. Who the hell did that bullfighter think he was?

Chief. That’s what the other bullfighter had called him. The thorn in her side had a ridiculous name like Chief. Of course he did. Lacy didn’t know if that was his real name or another dig at him being an Indian. Because she was pretty sure he was an American Indian. There’d been his faint accent, a different way of clipping his vowels. But beyond that, it was Chief’s dark hair and dark eyes and bronzed skin and eagle nose and strong jaw and muscles moving beneath his shirt.

Not that she’d noticed all those muscles when she’d put her hands on his chest and held him back.

A very small part of her brain replayed the scene again. The whole thing hadn’t taken more than twenty seconds. The bull rider hadn’t made it past five, which was good for Rattler’s statistics. Then there’d been the few agonizingly long seconds where the bullfighter had thought about running. Lacy had seen it in his face. Anyone else would have dodged out of the way. Rattler was no pussy cat—he was a mean son of a bitch who’d broken her father’s arm once and launched Murph, one of her hired hands, fifteen feet into a fence.

But the bullfighter hadn’t run. He hadn’t abandoned the downed rider. He’d stood his ground, absorbed the impact and redirected the bull’s energy into the twist.

If it hadn’t been her bull, her livelihood—she would have been cheering with the rest of them.

But it was her bull, her livelihood. If something happened to Rattler...

She refused to think about that worst-case scenario as she shooed Rattler from one end of his narrow pen to the other, watching his gait the whole time. Rattler seemed okay. No pulling up lame, no favoring one foot.

She needed him to be okay. If that Chief so much as touched her bull again, he wouldn’t have to be worried about getting gored. Lacy would see to that herself.

Reluctantly, she left Rattler. Her other bull, Peachy Keen, was due up soon. Peachy wasn’t half the bull Rattler was, but that didn’t mean Peachy wasn’t a good bull. He was perfectly suited to the Total Championship Bulls Ranger circuit. The riders here were all trying to break into the big league, the Challenger circuit. If they couldn’t get past Peachy, then they didn’t have a hope of making it to the finals in Las Vegas this October, a mere six months away.

Rattler, however, was a different story. He was amassing points every time he was loaded into the chutes. If he had a good summer, he could be bumped up to the bigs. And the bigs paid better.

She needed that. The Straight Arrow was hanging on by what felt like the thinnest of threads. She’d cut every expense she could. If Rattler didn’t have a good year with a strong finish in Vegas, she’d have to start selling off the beef cattle that paid at least half of the ranch’s bills.

And if that happened...

She would do anything to keep the ranch. If she lost the Straight Arrow, she didn’t know what she’d do.

She didn’t know who she’d be, without that ranch.

It wouldn’t come to that. Rattler was going to have a strong summer. Peachy and Chicken Run would earn their keep. Then there was Wreckerator. Some rides, he was every bit as good as Rattler. But other rides were a total disaster. She couldn’t bet the ranch on Wreckerator. Not yet, anyway.

Everything was riding on Rattler.

She made her way to the chutes as Peachy went in. She didn’t recognize the rider’s name, but he tipped his hat and said, “Ma’am,” when she slung her leg over the railing to grab Peachy’s flank strap.

She nodded at him. Well, that was a nice change of pace. At least half of these cowboys treated her like a pariah at a family picnic, as if the mere fact that she had boobs meant she shouldn’t be contaminating the air they breathed. Never mind that she’d been a working rancher since she was old enough to sit in a saddle. Never mind that she did a man’s work all day, every day. It didn’t matter. She was not welcome here.

But every so often, one of the cowboys was a decent human being, as her father had been. Dale Evans never let anyone talk down to her or any other woman. It wasn’t the Straight Arrow Ranch for nothing.

She’d never understood what had started the feud with Slim Smalls. At this point, it didn’t matter. Not even Dale’s and Linda’s deaths were enough for Slim. He wanted more. He wanted Lacy’s ranch.

She pulled the flank strap as another rider pulled the bull rope. Peachy shifted nervously in the chute as the rider got his grip. Lacy realized he was praying under his breath. “Have a good one, Preacher,” the other rider said.

The Preacher? Fitting, she thought as the man nodded his head. The chute swung open.

Normally, Lacy watched the rides, making notes on how her bulls did, where they were stronger, where they were weaker. She and her father had always done that, breaking down each ride together until Lacy understood bulls better than her dad did.

But not this time. This time, she was watching a bullfighter named Chief.

Now that she knew Rattler was okay, she almost felt bad for tearing into the man. Of course he was doing his job. Of course he didn’t know about Rattler or Lacy Evans or the Straight Arrow or even Slim Smalls. He’d only known how to take down a charging bull with his bare hands. It had nothing to do with her.

And he had been trying to help her, hadn’t he? He’d cut Slim off before he could start cursing, and Lacy would be willing to bet that he’d have taken Slim down in much the same way he’d taken Rattler down. For her.

Even if it was all macho posturing—still, he’d been willing to throw down on her behalf. And that was after she’d yelled at him. The first time, anyway. She didn’t know if he’d be so eager to defend her again after she’d told him off a second time.

Okay, she did feel bad. She’d been upset and angry and she hadn’t been able to take all of her anger out on Slim. Somehow, Chief had seemed safer. Maybe it was because she didn’t know him. Or maybe it was something else.

She’d pushed him. She’d put her hands on his chest and shoved to keep him from beating the hell out of a man who richly deserved it. She’d felt Chief’s body tense at her touch, which was bad enough. But what was worse was the way he’d looked down at her, as if he hadn’t expected to find her there but he was glad she was.

Then she had to open her big mouth. Again.

She’d apologize, she decided as the Preacher made the time on Peachy. If she got the chance, she’d thank him for not killing her bull and for putting Slim in his place and for letting her hold him back. Then her conscience would be clear and that would be that.

Peachy obligingly trotted out of the arena. Lacy heard the announcer say the Preacher had gotten a seventy-four—not a great score for either the rider or the bull, but it was enough. She was done here. There were only a few riders left, and then the rodeo would be over except for the belt buckles. She could load up her bulls and begin the long trip home to the Straight Arrow in Wyoming.

She couldn’t say the prospect excited her. If she went home to the empty house, there’d be no distractions, good or bad. She’d be utterly alone, except for when the hired hands did their work and even then, there wasn’t a whole lot of interaction. It’d be just her and the truth she kept trying to avoid.

A little distraction could be good. Hell, it might even be great. As she thought it, she looked back at Chief. She might see him again, she might not. Bullfighters didn’t always follow the same schedule as the bulls and the riders. This could be a one-off, for all she knew.

At that moment, Chief looked up and caught her eye. She tensed. She couldn’t exactly apologize or thank him across an arena but what if she didn’t get another chance?

He was staring at her. She only knew this because she was staring back. His head dipped forward in a polite nod. Wow, she thought. Polite and tough and hot? He was the kind of guy who could be very distracting.

Then he winked at her, his mouth curving up into a suggestive smile.

She scowled. Great. It hadn’t been no-strings-attached, that little show he’d put on earlier with Slim. Chief wanted something in return. Did it matter that she’d been thinking about nearly the same thing? No.

She did not hook up and she did not hang out, not with bull riders or fighters or stock contractors. That was that.

She pushed away from the chute and went to get her animals. She could not afford to be distracted by a bullfighter with a testosterone imbalance. She had a ranch to save and contracted bulls to deliver. Anything outside of that was...

Well, it was unlike her. Dale and Linda Evans’s daughter did not allow distractions.

But even as she thought it, sadness gripped her. Sure, Dale and Linda’s daughter didn’t hook up.

But Lacy wasn’t their daughter, not really.

The lump was back and breathing was difficult. The only thing that kept her from falling apart was the sheer number of people milling around. She would not cry or weep or, God help her, sob. Cowgirls didn’t cry. Certainly not in public, anyway. She was not weak.

She got to her truck and sat there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths until the lump passed and she had things back under control. She drove over to the pens. It was really a two-person job but she wasn’t about to ask for help. Besides, she’d been loading bulls since she was a kid. She could do this. She had to.

“Come on,” she grunted at Rattler. He lowered his head and bellowed. Lacy glared at him. “I’m not the one who grounded you. Don’t take it out on me. Now get up!”

Rattler gave her a look and blew snot in her face and walked into the trailer. Peachy followed his traveling buddy, thank God.

Slim and his “pretty little thing” could go to hell. She could do this—deliver her bulls and get them back home. She could do the job—which meant she could keep her ranch.

She climbed into the cab of her dad’s F-350 and fired up the engine. No, this wasn’t his truck anymore. He’d been gone for seven months now. The truck, the bulls, the Straight Arrow and every single bill were hers now. Distantly, she thought she might be hungry. When was the last time she’d eaten? No lunch today. Had she had breakfast? Well, she’d eat when she got home.

Hays, Kansas, was only about six hours from the Straight Arrow, which sat between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, although it was closer to Laramie. Laramie was where her mom had taught second grade and, therefore, where Lacy had gone to school.

The Straight Arrow was set on the high plains near the base of the Laramie range. The winter held lots of snow for forts and snowball fights. In the summer, the Laramie River was only a short horse ride from the house. It didn’t matter that the river never got much above sixty degrees, even in the warmest part of the year. Lacy would ride out and jump in again and again until her lips were practically blue, and then she’d lie out in the sun until she warmed up. Or until her mom rang the dinner bell. Then they’d all sit around the table and talk about the day before they watched the movies her dad had loved so much.

She’d never have that back, that sense of perfect belonging. It was gone now. The only part of her life still recognizably hers was this—bulls in the trailer, sitting in the truck, driving home from a rodeo.

God, she missed her parents. She missed being their daughter.

She was so lost in thought that she didn’t see the tall figure in a white T-shirt flagging her down until she almost ran into him. But the man stepped to the side, neatly avoiding having his toes squashed, just as he’d avoided Rattler’s horns.

Lacy slammed on the brakes—at least she’d only been going about ten miles per hour. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to stop. “Dammit!”

Because it was Chief again. The pain in her neck, come back for more.

He leaned against her driver’s-side mirror and waited for her to roll the window down, looking cool and graceful and hot all at once, dang it.

She lowered her window. “What now?”

“I’m sorry about the bull,” he said. “I’ll pay for any treatment he needs.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“The bull.” He shifted and she realized the white T-shirt he was wearing was soaked through. It clung to his body, highlighting muscles and more muscles and then, down a little lower...

Chief cleared his throat, making Lacy startle. “Is he okay?” he asked again.

She needed to come up with something that wouldn’t have her breaking down in grateful tears that Rattler was, in fact, okay. It would be best if that something she came up with didn’t let Chief off the hook or give away the fact that she was having a hard time not looking at his chest. “I won’t know for sure until the vet checks him out.” There.

“Let me know.”

She nodded in agreement and waited for him to move back, but he didn’t. “Yes?”

The corner of his mouth curved up into the kind of smile women like her didn’t often get from men like him—confident and sensual and interested. If Lacy had been a normal single woman, it was the kind of smile that would make her want to melt into his arms and kiss him.

But she wasn’t a normal single woman. She had responsibilities.

“We got off on the wrong foot. I’m Ian Tall Chief.” He stuck out his hand.

And waited while Lacy looked at it. “Are you serious?”

He dropped his hand, looking offended. “Did I look like I was joking?”

Oh, hell—had that come out wrong? She wasn’t trying to make fun of his name. Actually, given that everyone called him Chief, she was relieved to hear that was not some sort of derogatory nickname.

So she clarified, “I’m not interested. I don’t hook up.”

That got both eyebrows up and moving as his face relaxed.

“Are you serious?”

“Look,” she said in exasperation, “I know how this goes. There are two kinds of men here. The first doesn’t think a woman like me should be anywhere near a bull because we might do better than them and that would obviously be the end of the world. The second thinks I’m nothing but a one-night stand that hasn’t happened yet.” She pointed a finger at him. “Guess which one you are.”

His lips—nice lips, rounded and full and— No, stop it, Lacy. She was not going to start thinking about his lips, which were twisting as if he was thinking about laughing at her but trying not to.

Unfortunately, in trying so hard not to stare at his mouth, her gaze drifted back down to his chest. The wet T-shirt left nothing to the imagination. Pecs, nipples—

She snapped her gaze to the front windshield. She wouldn’t look at him. That was the best solution.

“Have you considered,” Ian Tall Chief said in an amused drawl, “that there might be another kind of man here?”

“No.”

“What’d that old man say to you?”

“What?”

Ian leaned forward. “Before I got there to back you up. What’d he say?”

“Look,” Lacy said in frustration, “it’s really not a big deal.”

Ian dropped his head to one side. “That’s not what it looked like to me. It looked like he was threatening you. Sounded like it, too. Does he always go after you like that or was today a special occasion?”

She tried to shrug, as if another verbal battle with Slim Smalls was no big deal. “I appreciate you trying to help, but I can handle it.”

Ian snorted. “You shouldn’t have to ‘handle’ it.”

She glared at him. “I was doing fine without your help, Mr. Tall Chief. I can handle Slim. I can handle my bulls. I’m not some silly girl who’s in over her head. I’ve been bringing bulls to rodeos for over fifteen years now.” But she’d had her father with her then.

Didn’t matter. She could still handle this—all of this. Slim, the bulls, the fighters and the riders—she could even handle Ian Tall Chief.

“Any woman who can load two bulls by herself is not silly.” Ian met her gaze and held it with his own. At least, she thought she could handle him. It’d be easier if he were wearing a dry shirt, though. Or if he stopped looking at her like that, with some mix of protectiveness and—dare she say it—respect in his eyes.

He crossed his arms over his chest. Unfortunately, that put a whole lot of biceps right at eye level. Good lord, was any part of this man not muscled and ripped? He had some interesting tattoos on his right side—not the standard stuff, but something that looked like a circle in red and black and yellow.

“There’s no shame in asking for help,” he said. His voice was surprisingly soft—gentle, even. “Or accepting it.”

Warning bells went off in her head—loud, clanging bells that beat a fast rhythm. For some ridiculous reason, she felt exposed, even though he was the one standing around in a practically see-through T-shirt. She wanted to look away—she desperately needed to—but she couldn’t break his gaze.

“I don’t need any help.” It came out as a whisper. It was a lie and she knew it. And, given the way he looked at her, he knew it, too. But she couldn’t accept what he was offering, whatever it was. She couldn’t be in anyone’s debt. Not his, not Slim’s—no one’s.

So she tried again. “I don’t need any help.”

There. That was better. She just had to keep saying it.

After what felt like a long time of staring into his eyes—deep, dark pools with things hidden in their depths she could only wonder at—Ian nodded and took a step back. “All right, then. Have a safe trip home.”

She blinked. What? Was that it? After that long, lingering look? She hadn’t even told him her name yet. Was that the end of the conversation?

Was he going to take her at her word?

He was. How freaking weird.

“You, too,” she said, because it was the most polite thing she could come up with.

She drove off. In her side mirror, she saw Ian Tall Chief stand there and watch her go.

She might not ever see him again. Bullfighters operated under a different schedule than the riders or the bulls. Her next contracted rodeo was next weekend, in Colorado Springs. Ian Tall Chief might be in Amarillo or even Baton Rouge, for all she knew. She certainly didn’t want to see him again—not to risk having him hurt one of her animals or piss off Slim Smalls even more.

Before I got there to back you up, he’d said. That and, You shouldn’t have to handle it. She could almost hear the word alone after that second statement.

Because she was alone.

Or at least, she had been. Until Ian Tall Chief had backed her up.

Maybe he’d be in Colorado Springs next week, after all.

CHAPTER THREE

LACY ROLLED INTO Colorado Springs Thursday afternoon. She was feeling good. Okay, good might be a bit strong, but she was feeling better. She’d been able to sleep the past few nights without too many nightmares about car wrecks, so that counted for something.

The night before a rodeo was her favorite time. The arena grounds were quiet, with only a few stock contractors and the promoter around to unload the bulls. The riders wouldn’t show up until tomorrow, and then tomorrow night, the crowds would come pouring in.

This time was about the bulls. Had it been less than a year since she’d done this with her dad? They’d get in around dark on Thursday nights and unload. Dale would shoot the breeze with the other stock contractors and check in with the promoter.

She didn’t want to run into Slim again. If she could get through this weekend without feeling as if she was losing her grip on—well, everything, that’d be great.

Lacy checked in with Mort and got the details on where she was to unload her bulls. She had three with her today—Rattler, Chicken Run and Wreckerator.

You can do this, she thought as she backed the truck up to the pens. Sure, unloading and loading two bulls by herself had been a challenge. Three would be downright hard, especially because Wreckerator was in one of his moods. She’d had Murph to help her at the Straight Arrow, and Wreckerator had almost charged the trailer. Which meant he’d have a good bunch of rides this weekend, but it didn’t help Lacy right now.

She got out of the cab and looked around. The good news was, she didn’t see Slim. But the bad news was, she didn’t see anyone else, either. For some ridiculous reason, she was disappointed not to see Ian Tall Chief. Not that she wanted to. She didn’t. She didn’t need his help or his excessively large muscles, and that was that. Besides, he would have no reason to be here tonight. He’d probably roll in tomorrow afternoon with everyone. She was being ridiculous to even look for him.

Except Rattler was refusing to back out of the trailer and Lacy didn’t want to push her luck going in to lead him out, not with Wreckerator behind him, pawing at the metal floor and bellowing with nervous energy. She needed to get the bulls out so they could stretch and get water. She could go get Mort, but she didn’t want to tell the promoter of the rodeo that she couldn’t handle her animals on her own. That was the sort of thing that could be used against her in future contract negotiations, and the last thing she could afford was to weaken her bargaining position.