Give Me A Texas Outlaw Bundle with Give Me A Cowboy

by Jodi Thomas, Linda Broday, Phyliss Miranda

  It had.

  As he rode up to the chutes that normally held the stock waiting to be transferred by rail, there stood the beast. Two thousand pounds of massive horns, muscular body and suicide eyes blacker than hellsoot. His nose lifted, his nostrils flared, his eyes rolled wild as he breathed in Dally’s presence.

  “Remember me, mankiller,” Dally whispered the threat low and full of reckoning. “I’m the smell of your defeat.”

  Hot steam rolled off the bull’s back as it snorted and kicked the strains of its enclosure. A great bellow rumbled from deep within its throat, setting off a round of discontent from other stock frightened by the beast’s disapproval.

  “Tonight,” Dally promised. “If I’m lucky, we’ll have a go of it tonight. Just you and me and ten seconds.”

  “Hey look, everybody. It’s Angelo and he’s with Bone Buster,” someone yelled. Men started to gather like tumbleweeds racing toward the pens.

  Dally cursed under his breath and reined away, wanting more time alone with the brindle but knowing it would never come now that he’d been noticed.

  A sudden roar of the crowd reminded him that the festivities had already gotten under way and the best thing he could do was find the rest of the Double D and get busy. And, he had to make sure that he talked to whomever was handling the drawings and arrange a seat for the Johanson boy.

  He headed toward the post office where he’d been told everyone should sign up for the events and pay entry fees. He supposed he could find out if the drawing for the outlaw event would be taking place there too. Though most didn’t approve of the bull riding and didn’t count it among the moneyed events, critics and gamblers alike appreciated the grit, skill and sheer bravado it took to ride the rank bulls, without the benefits of any purse or points toward best all-around. Knowing that Bone Buster was in town, they would be expecting Dally to show and ask for directions.

  He made his way past the chutes and through a group of people watching a pair of rodeo tramps and a donkey. One of the tramps did a handstand, a flip, then hurdled over the donkey’s bowed head like it was nothing more than a low rung on a hitching post. Something in the way the clown moved made Dally peer harder.

  His heart thumped hard against his chest as he forgot to breathe. His jaw set so hard, Dally could have sworn it cracked like a whip. He wanted to move, to rein the roan into a ground-eating gallop away from the hip action he’d just recognized. Away from the body he’d known intimately. Away from these gut-wrenching feelings that threatened to destroy his fierce resolution to ignore them.

  “Turn around,” he heard himself whispering, damning his heart for taking voice. God, let him be mistaken about the clown’s true identity.

  The agile tramp turned. Curly red hair and eyes the color of a clear Texas sky proved his suspicions true. There stood Augusta Garrison.

  The woman who’d betrayed him.

  The woman he’d never wanted to see again.

  The woman he’d vowed would be his first and only love.

  Chapter 2

  Augusta Garrison thought she could handle seeing Dally again, but she was wrong. She knew what had brought him here. Knew that he could have no more resisted a potential ride on Bone Buster than she could resist the possibility of seeing him again…one last time.

  Dally Angelo. The boy who had been sinfully good-looking at seventeen and broken her heart. The man who’d given that same heart its greatest pleasure.

  A tingle of sensual awareness started in her belly and spread, shocking her as if she’d been kicked in the chest by the donkey. She couldn’t breathe. Her head began to whirl. Her stomach felt as if it dropped to her knees, weakening them. She’d promised herself that if he came to Kasota Springs, if she saw him, she wouldn’t let him affect her, wouldn’t allow him to arouse any of the old feelings she’d spent years taming.

  For an endless moment she could do no more than stare up at the man sitting atop the roan, aware only that her undeniable attraction to the man was just as alive and thriving as if she’d lain in his arms last night. Tame those feelings? Not hardly. At first sight of him, they were running wild and hell-bent through her bloodstream.

  Could life have been more unkind, she thought, sucking in air again. Did he have to have aged so well? The good-looking boy had developed into a lady-killer of a man. And, Heavens, what a man. Crow-black hair that made her fingers flex, remembering the feel of its thick curls as he deepened a kiss. The same ice blue gaze that swept over her so possessively that it left a rush of quivering gooseflesh in its wake. Five feet six of pure, hard male—the lean, lank sinews of a man skilled in harnessing power and passion.

  A black leather vest and blue shirt stretched across his muscled chest and tapered to a flat abdomen and even muscular legs, wrapped in batwing chaps. Every bit the fantasy that haunted her dreams at night. Every ounce the man she’d hoped to call husband.

  But at the thought of their failed engagement, the attraction that had heated her every pore evaporated into a shiver of fear. He would never forgive her. Never marry her. Not once he found out about the secret—no—secrets she’d hidden from him.

  Augusta nearly forgot to dig in her heels and stop the momentum that kept her from tumbling headfirst into Joey, the other clown. She tapped her bulbous fake nose three times, the agreed-upon signal used to warn Joey, her fellow performer, that something was wrong with the routine and she needed a moment of recovery. Fortunately, the sad-faced clown was as quick thinking as he was agile. Joey lured the crowd’s attention away by vaulting over the donkey backward, then completing a series of acrobatic maneuvers that would have made a team of clowns envious, much less one. If word got around about the Charivari, someone from Barnum & Bailey would come calling to see the unusual routine.

  Dally removed his hat and brushed his forehead with his arm sleeve, nodding at her. “Gus,” his mouth formed her name.

  Though she couldn’t hear it from where she stood, she remembered all too well the low resonance of that tantalizing voice. “Rusty the Tramp,” she whispered back, then spurned his gaze.

  She faced Joey and signaled for him to end their acrobatics. As boss clown, the tramp responsible for coordinating the routines and clown spots at the rodeo, she could decide to end or prolong the routine, depending on the crowd’s enthusiasm. The crowd seemed pleased enough, according to its laughter and applause, but she needed to be done with the routine and now. She ran to her cohort, dug deep into his baggy pockets, lifted out an apple and offered the treat to the donkey. The donkey rose from its display of stubbornness and followed Augusta willingly out of the makeshift corral. Joey shook his head and held his palms up as if questioning why they hadn’t thought of that before. The children in the crowd laughed loudest and the two tramps walked away with a hearty round of applause.

  “Mind telling me what’s going on, boss?” Joey asked, grabbing the lead rope from Augusta’s hand. “It isn’t like you to stop things when it’s going so well. Folks were having a good time. Didn’t have anything to do with that cowboy staring at you like you were fresh water after a drought, did it?”

  “Just take care of the donkey, Joey,” she said sharply.

  Obviously surprised by her uncustomary curtness, Joey exaggerated his white-painted frown. “Well, sure, Gus. Didn’t mean to make your frown any truer.”

  Feeling ashamed of her rudeness, Augusta apologized. “We’ll talk about it later. I’ve got to get set up for the next routine, and I need a moment to collect things.” Myself mostly, she added silently.

  “Well, okay”—his lips lifted into a forgiving smile—“but I ought to warn you, you’re being followed. Want me to run him off?”

  “No.” She had hoped to avoid Dally after the routine, but she should have known he would never let it alone. She hadn’t given him the answer he wanted. If there was one thing she knew without a doubt, it was his bulldog persistence in not letting something go. That would never change. It was the reason they were apart. “I’ll take
care of it. I do know him. He’s no threat to me.”

  At least no threat you can protect me from.

  Augusta made her way down Clown Alley, the row of tents that had been set up to house their trunks with costumes and props. The tents were lined up so closely that there was only an alleyway to walk through. When she reached her own, she went inside and let the flap close behind her, hoping that he would not invite himself in.

  That hope vanished as the flap drew back and he filled the tent with his presence. “I’d have recognized you anywhere.” His voice held an edge of seduction in its tone, but his eyes lacked the warmth she had felt only a few minutes ago.

  Four years since she’d seen him and he still could make her feel vulnerable. “I don’t remember a padded clown suit and painted freckles being part of our past history together.”

  “I remember telling you once that no matter how you looked was beautiful to me.”

  She remembered that too. They’d started out fishing. The fishing had turned into wrestling in mud at the stream. The playful afternoon had ended in sweet ecstasy in a blanket of wildflowers near the bank.

  She cast him a withering glance. “According to the Flying G hands, I’m told there are plenty of women who have come to see if you draw Bone Buster. Why don’t you waste some of that charm on them?”

  His smile came slow, sexy as hell. “So you think I’ve still got it?”

  He had it all right. Enough to melt her into a pool inside her oversized boots. “It’s never been whether you have it,” she admitted, cursing herself for feeding his ego. But she wouldn’t lie about that. The sooner they both focused on the truth between them, the sooner they might resolve the issues that separated them.

  He had the good grace not to push the issue. If he walked over now…If he attempted to kiss her…she didn’t know how or even, if, she would resist.

  “How have you been, Gus?”

  She was afraid to give him answers. Afraid she might slip up and say too much. Now was not the time. This was not the place. There was too much at stake. Maybe the best thing to do was just to remain silent. Let him get whatever he wanted said, said.

  “I’d have known that hair and those eyes any—”

  “Don’t, Dally”—she warded off the compliment with her palm—“I’m not seventeen anymore. Trying to smooth talk me won’t get you anywhere.”

  “You sure about that?”

  No, she wasn’t, but the sound of guitar and feisty fiddle playing reverberated through the tent, warning that the music competition had started. First place singers and pickers of everything from banjos to fiddles to French harps would provide the background music for the dance later tonight. She had to get out of this costume and into the next before Joey came back and grabbed up their drums to add to the melee of sound. She had to ignore the challenge in Dally’s eyes. “Look, this has been a treat to see you again, but I have a job to do and not much time to do it.”

  He took a step toward her. “I could help you change. Make things a lot easier.”

  “You wish.” She turned away from him and started to unbutton the back of her costume. “Stay back. I can do it myself.”

  Disregarding her command, he crossed the space that divided them and his hands immediately took over where hers were struggling. “Stubborn redhead.”

  Damn him, she could almost feel him smiling behind her. Why did he have to call her his favorite nickname for her? She ought to turn around and belt him, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he could still provoke her. “That’s one thing that hasn’t changed for sure. Now why don’t you get lost and leave me alone?”

  “So you do want me to leave you alone.” There was something more than teasing in his tone.

  “I said it didn’t I?”

  “The point is, do you mean it?” He finished the last button, then spun her around. “Actually, Gus, I followed you in here for three reasons.”

  “One?”

  “To hire a couple of tramps to ride herd on the rough stock during the bull riding event.”

  “You’ve got a lot of grit asking me to stand by and watch you ride that mankiller.” Rage filled her and she was glad of it. Glad that it was so all-consuming that it immediately evaporated even the slightest heat of seduction still kindling inside her. “If you think for one minute that I’m going to—”

  “I didn’t say you, Augusta. I said a couple of tramps. Maybe one of them could be that donkey jumper who stared me down like he wanted to peel off my hide when I followed you here.”

  “Who, Joey?” Augusta laughed, though it pleased her that she thought she heard a tinge of jealousy in Dally’s tone. “He looks out for me when I need him to.”

  “Yeah, he’s just the tramp for the job I have in mind. See if he can somersault over old Bone Buster when he starts snorting and hooking, instead of some stubborn jackass that doesn’t know sit from giddy-up.”

  “And two?” she asked, ignoring his barb about Joey. If any of her fellow clowns wanted to participate in the outlaw event, then that was up to them. Joey included. Dally would be damned lucky if Joey agreed to help. He was the most agile of all the clowns and had experience dealing with the bulls on occasion. That’s why she’d hired him in the first place. If she was ever at the competition where Dally got the luck of the draw, then she wanted someone as adept as Joey to distract the bull, play bullfighter, if necessary. That is…if she ever allowed Dally to get a true draw.

  “Two?” Dally looked puzzled.

  “You said you had three reasons you followed me.”

  Dally’s hands gripped her shoulders roughly at first, then softened. “Four years is a long time to make a man wait. I want to know why you won’t answer the question I asked on the day you walked out on me. Do you ever plan to marry me?”

  She willed her body stiff, trying to ignore the current sizzling from the simple contact of his fingers on her skin to every pulse ending in her bloodstream. But her flesh remembered the heat and leaned in to be warmed, challenging her mind’s will to forget. It wasn’t fair that so casual a touch could stir such longing within her.

  “Don’t touch me,” she said, mustering enough sense to push him away. If this seduction of her senses didn’t end soon, she might not be able to think clearly. Lord knew she’d never been able to resist him in the past. “And you know exactly why I never answered you. I said I wouldn’t until the day you gave up on trying to ride that damned bull.”

  He didn’t move back as she’d hoped. He stood there, looking eye to eye, waiting for her to do what? Tell him she still loved him. She did. Tell him that she could watch him possibly kill himself? She couldn’t. Assure him that she would never marry another man? She loved only him.

  But she couldn’t tell him. Not until she was sure he never meant to ride that bull. Until she was sure that he would always be around and not so hell-bent to kill himself. Until she found the courage to admit the wrong she’d committed against him—a wrong that was the real reason behind his father’s death.

  Augusta knew she was overreacting, knew that seeing him again would throw her for a loop. But she couldn’t be reasonable about the trepidation that hammered in her pulses like drums beating the deathsong of her dreams. Dally didn’t know it, but once he learned the truth behind the secrets she’d kept from him, he had the power to tear her world apart more completely than he did when she’d left him.

  The day he buried his father and said that he would ride Bone Buster or die trying.

  The day she’d walked out of his life and vowed not to return until he gave up his deadly pursuit.

  The day Augusta discovered her life would forever be tied to his.

  “If I pull his name out of the hat, I’ll make the ride.”

  The finality in Dally’s tone was not a surprise to her. She knew what he’d say before he ever said it. She turned away. “Then we have nothing more to discuss.”

  He spun her around and lowered his lips to hers, stopping only a wh
isper away. “One more thing, Gus. You forgot number three.”

  “Three?” she croaked, unable to hide the fractured fragments of what was left of her senses.

  “The third reason I followed you. To do this.” His deep, seductive voice sent a shiver of anticipation through her as he took off his hat and threw it on a trunk. She gazed into his eyes and knew he was going to kiss her and she was going to let him. He took her into his arms and their bodies touched. Awareness, as old as the day she’d fallen in love with him, unlocked itself from her heart and rushed to trace the play of muscles in his back, the granite strength of his thighs rubbing against hers, the velvet perfection of breast against chest.

  His lips touched hers in such slow, tender possession that she could not hold back the joyful moan that escaped her. Augusta closed her eyes and sank into the kiss, letting the sensations fill the emptiness that had become her life. She wanted more, demanded to remember it all. His tongue met hers, eager, enticing, erotic.

  Her arms tightened around his neck as he deepened the kiss. This was no boy asking permission, but a man laying claim to what he knew was his.

  Dally raised his head and they stared at each other for an endless moment, then he backed away. Clown makeup smeared his cheeks and nose, making him look comical, but his eyes were smoky with intent.

  “That kiss just told me everything I need to know. You still love me. You might as well just say yes and marry me.”

  “Not if you’re gonna ride that damned honker, I won’t. Ever. Now get out!”

  “I’ll go for now, Augusta.” He grabbed his hat and stopped at the flap that led outside. “But I’m coming back. After I ride that bull and when you have no more reason to put off marrying me.”

  Chapter 3

  I must have lost my bull-busting mind, Dally decided as he left the tent and headed toward the post office. He’d only meant to follow Augusta inside the tent when he realized the other clown didn’t intend to join her there. He’d thought a moment alone with her would give him time to easily settle the issues between them, then he could get his mind on making the draw for the night’s bull riding. But no, it couldn’t have been that simple.