by Tina Leonard
Declan looked at him. “Sorry, brother. I don’t know how you can fix this. She kind of has a right to be pissed.”
“Yeah.” Steel nodded. “You may be caught between a rock and a hard place. Your head ‘the rock,’ and ‘the hard place’ your groin.”
All this brotherly love was going to kill him. Suddenly his friends were all minstrels of the heart, plucking their harp strings and trying to outdo each other with sonnets to his suffering heart. He wasn’t miserable—not entirely. He rose. “I’m going over to Redfeather’s.”
“Little early for a beer, isn’t it?” Steel asked.
“It’s five o’clock somewhere. See you lot later, hopefully not too soon.”
He loped across the street to Stephen’s place, sighing with relief as the dimness of the bar and grill enveloped him. This was what he needed: darkness and a beer. A place to think. Some of his best thinking happened in this old cracked black leather booth.
Fallon O’Rourke, Declan’s evil twin, and Jake Masters slid into the circular booth, grinning at him. Shit-eating grins, like they knew something he didn’t. And damn it, they probably did. “What ill wind blows you into my booth?”
“You know, funny thing about this booth. We always hear how it’s the Outlaws’ special resting place for you assholes to sit on your righteous duffs, but we don’t see a name on it,” Fallon said.
“Penis envy or simply brotherly envy?” Saint asked Fallon.
“Not funny.” Fallon glared at him. “I’m not envious of my twin at all.”
“Of course you’re not. Why would you be?” He raised his beer to them in a silent, mocking salute. “That would require brains, and maybe some self-examination of the psychological variety.”
“One of these days, Markham, you’re going to wish you hadn’t opened up that fat yap of yours,” Fallon said.
“Anyway,” Saint said, “as you’re taking up space in my booth, what is on your peabrains?”
Jake looked like he wanted to take the bait and start up a fight, decided against it. “Somebody stole the tires off Ivy’s truck last night.”
Saint looked at Jake, his attention caught. “Why are you telling me? Steel or Frick and Frack need to file a report for you.”
“Because you and your crowd are the only ones who would pull a stunt like that,” Fallon said.
“Really.” Saint sucked on his beer. “Anyway, I can’t help you, boys. Steel is in his office, so you two head over there. I’ve got my own fish to fry.”
“You’re obviously not surprised about the theft,” Jake said.
“Nothing surprises me in Hell. That’s not an admission of guilt.” Saint was more surprised than he was letting on, but there was no point in revealing that Cameron’s tires had been taken too. He wanted to play this out a little more, see what else the Horsemen had on their tiny, dented minds.
Stephen came over to the booth. He looked at Saint, long and steady, silently inquiring as to whether he should serve the Horsemen. Saint shrugged. He didn’t give a damn if they sat in his booth or across the room. Them posturing in his booth, breathing fire, actually kept his mind almost all the way off Cameron—which he appreciated.
Of course that was pretty pitiful now that he thought about it, that he was so wrapped up in her that it took these two sad sacks to give his mind a break from thinking about her. Jake and Fallon ordered beers identical to his, and Saint sighed. They hadn’t had an original thought in their entire troublemaking lives.
“Where did you lost souls go so wrong?” Saint asked, studying with some careful admiration the hamburger Stephen had just served him. There was lettuce, a tomato, and a pickle on the plate, so if the burger wasn’t edible, the veggies at least might be. This was a marked improvement.
“Actually, we’re not as lost as you are,” Jake said. “Word has it that you can’t make your woman happy.”
“Well, that ‘word’ is pretty interesting, especially since I don’t have a woman.” Saint bit into the burger, cautiously trying to catalogue the flavors. So far, so good—which really wasn’t like Stephen. He was known to make a decent burger, but the crisp, fresh trimmings were a new thing.
Something was off.
“Cameron Dix is supposedly giving you the runaround like crazy.” Fallon grinned. “I hear about these things from Declan.”
“No you don’t.” Saint chewed, somewhat amazed that the burger didn’t totally suck. “Declan doesn’t talk to you except once a year when you go over the family business.”
Fallon’s mouth pinched. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“And right back at you.” Saint peered disbelievingly at the burger. Cooked to perfection. What the hell was going on back in Stephen’s kitchen?
“Excuse me. I’ll be right back to continue this scintillating conversation.” He looked at them. “And if you touch my burger, if you mess with my beer like you did Declan’s, you’d better make sure it’s going to kill me. Because I’m not as nice as Declan, and when I come to, I’ll kill you both. That’s a promise.”
He sauntered back to the kitchen. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He stared at Harper, standing over the stove, whipping up plates of food in appetizing arrangements. “What the hell is going on around here? Why are you trying to save Stephen’s restaurant when you should be training?”
—
When Saint couldn’t get a satisfactory answer from Harper about the obvious changes to the Hell’s Belles’ team structure, he went straight to his favorite redhead, finding her at the training center barn. Discovering Harper had taken up part-time work cooking at Redfeather’s—when everyone in town had grown accustomed over many years to Stephen’s questionable fare—meant there was a problem in Hell. Harper had been reluctant to share any details, saying that she would feel disloyal to Mayor Judy.
And that was really all he needed to hear to know that he needed to dig deeper.
“Don’t get your chaps stuck in your butt, Saint.” Cameron carried a saddle, barely slowing down as she passed him. “We’re going to have to change a few things, change our direction. Judy brought us here, but she didn’t think through her plan. Now she’s gone, and we can’t live off big dreams and promises. That’s all.” She looked at him. “How is this your concern?”
She was still steamed with him. She was also head over heels for him, and that was bad, because they were too much alike. He wanted to boss her, and she wanted to be her own boss, and that wasn’t going to work. The last thing she needed was a stubborn, sexy cowboy trying to rule her life.
“Look.” She reluctantly gave up the saddle as he took it from her and followed her to Charlie’s stall. “I’m sorry as hell. I shouldn’t have said anything the other night. It just startled me, is all.”
“It startled you that I’d be excited about taking a real job? When the team has kind of fallen apart and I have no hope of other employment around here?” She watched as he carefully placed the saddle on Charlie. “Maybe women are china dolls in your life, but not in mine. We look out for ourselves in my family.”
“No, no, I know. In mine, too.” Frankly, his sisters would roast him alive if he’d tried some of the stuff on them he reluctantly admitted he had on Cameron. She just kept him so off-balance. And to be fair, she was even more of a fearless soul than Judy; everybody in Hell recognized that. Which was why Judy had been counting on Cameron to be her big breakthrough on the rodeo circuit as a bullfighter. “My brain disconnected from my mouth. Can we leave it at that?”
“We can, but I’m not looking for any more of what almost happened last night.”
He winced. That wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement of his skills. In fact, it wasn’t good at all. He couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her, and she didn’t ever want to kiss him again. Saint rubbed Charlie’s nose pensively. “I never said I wasn’t an asshole.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“But I’ve got a few good points.”
She cinched the saddle,
glanced at him. “I know that. Just not the kind of points that work for me.”
He cursed whoever had stolen her tires—they’d stolen more than rubber, damn it. Five more seconds, and he would have been lost in her, convincing her with his body of his feelings for her.
No, that wasn’t right. You couldn’t love-make away all the problems that were inherent in a relationship. Cameron was right: He was stubborn, and he was bossy. She was independent, like Harper. They were both making new decisions with Judy being gone—they had to.
Their only other choice was probably to leave Hell, go back to their homes and their families. His stomach tightened at the thought.
He definitely didn’t want that.
And he definitely wanted to kiss her again.
Saint pulled in a deep breath. “The Horsemen claim the tires were stolen off Ivy’s truck, too.”
Cameron shook her head. “I don’t believe them. They’re just saying that to deflect suspicion.”
He blinked. She made a valid point, at least one to consider. And it hit him that this was what Steel saw in Cameron: a quick mind, and smarts. He himself only saw her sweet, sexy side, but Steel had looked deeper.
Which was the part of herself Cameron wanted to be known for.
I really am an ass.
He pulled in another deep breath. This was going to hurt like the devil; it was going to burn his pride and that hallowed male chauvinism of his that he hadn’t quite realized he possessed until he met Cameron. But it was the right thing to do. “Cameron.”
She glanced at him. “What?”
“I’ll train you to bullfight out at Rory’s, just like I did Ava. It’ll probably kill me, but I’ll do it.” There. That hadn’t been so bad. His courage was strangling his throat, and his stomach was somewhere around his boots, but by God, he’d done the right thing.
Finally.
It might not win him a kiss, but Cameron deserved a shot at her dream—just like anybody else. Without him standing in the way.
To his shock, she took three steps away from Charlie and moved right in front of him. “Thank you,” she said, and then she kissed him so sweetly Saint nearly blacked out from the sudden erection that hit him like a thunderbolt.
But it was the good kind of pain, and Saint dove right in for all the pain he could get while Cameron had the sign out on her kissing booth.
He pulled her to him, inhaling her, wishing they were anyplace but this stall where anyone could walk in on them at any second. Cameron didn’t seem worried. She wrapped a leg around his, forcing herself tight to his groin, trying to get closer to him, and Saint thought he was going to explode on the spot. Her mouth was all over his, and he felt her heat spinning all over him, driving him mad, drawing him in.
He felt her slide a hand inside his jeans, just at the waistband, but it was enough to nearly make him faint. He gently bit her lower lip, then traced her mouth with his, dove in again to get all of her that he could. My God, she was sweet, and somehow innocent in her kisses. Saint didn’t want to let her go, but he couldn’t ravish her in public, not any more than he already was doing—this was a horse stall, for crying out loud. Fans moved hot air around in the rafters and horses whinnied. Charlie stood totally still, too bored and well-trained to be worried about the humans taking up his space.
“Cameron,” Saint said, gasping for air as he pulled back, “I can’t kiss you in public.”
“You are.”
“I know. I mean I shouldn’t.” He tried to catch his breath, wishing like hell he could teleport them magically to someplace, anyplace, with privacy. “I respect the hell out of you. I don’t want to do anything to upset you.”
“I’m not upset. That was a little thank-you.”
She turned back to Charlie. Saint’s ears were ringing as his body tried to right itself from all the sexual desire flooding it. “ ‘A little thank-you’?”
She nodded. “Mm-hmm.”
Jesus. If that was a little thank-you, he could hardly imagine what a big thank-you would be like. “So, I’m going to go now,” he said, not sure what else to do with himself while he was a wall of raging lust. “And thank you for that.”
She giggled. “You’re welcome.”
Should he ask her for a date? Ask if he could call her?
She smiled at him, and Saint backed up a step. He was onto something here. He didn’t know exactly what it was that he was onto, but he’d finally done something right. He decided he’d better get the hell out while he was ahead. “See you.”
“Bye.”
So that was that. He walked out with his pride and a helluva stiff one, but that was more than he’d had coming in.
He’d take it.
Chapter 12
Saint cussed himself out the next day, and the permanent hard-on that clearly ruled his rational side, as he found himself at Judge Rory Nunez’s place, the site of the only mechanical bull in Hell. The judge was a fine breeder of bulls, some of them registered as bounty, no easy feat.
He really didn’t want to train Cameron.
Yet he had no choice. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, as had been pointed out to him on several occasions.
“Every man has his own way of doing things. I’m not going to tell you that I learned what I know in any kind of school other than the School of Hard Knocks. If you went up and trained with Shorty in Colorado, he’d teach you a whole different way. But you’re not ready for Shorty yet, so this is the Saint School of Hard Knocks,” Saint told Cameron.
She stood looking at him patiently, with confidence and trust in her huge eyes. He felt himself sliding, heading toward loving this woman the way he’d never loved any woman, and wished she needed anything from him other than this. She was dressed for the occasion, in worn jeans, boots, her hair pulled back tight so a helmet would fit over the bouncy curls. Everything about her spoke of her serious intent. The last time he’d been this worried—okay, scared—was overseas in the midst of war.
“I’m ready,” Cameron said.
He knew that. She’d been ready to learn far longer than he’d been ready to instruct her.
“The first thing we’re going to do is put you on this mechanical bull.” He tried not to stare at her mouth, forcing his mind to stay on the task at hand, which was putting the woman he had a serious case of lust for in harm’s way.
That’s what he was doing by training her to bullfight.
What a man wouldn’t do for a kiss.
Which made him think about the kissing booth and the line of men who were going to be eager to kiss his girl. Cameron, on the other hand, seemed unfazed by women locking lips with him.
One thing at a time.
“Once you’ve done this a few times, we’re going to get you in shape.”
“I’m in shape.”
She had a damn fine shape. “This is a different kind of shape. You’re going to need to develop more quickness and speed to get out of the way of bulls while you’re getting a cowboy free. His life and limbs depend on your reflexes and speed.”
She nodded, got on the mechanical bull. Looked down at him. “I know this isn’t easy for you, Saint. Thank you.”
He shrugged. “I’m going to turn this on slow, and you’re going to begin to get some very small idea of what a bull feels like under a cowboy. This is like a simulator, if you used one of those when you were learning to drive. Simulator was nothing like driving a car, and this isn’t like being on the back of a bull, but it’s where we start.”
“Okay.”
He went to turn the bull on. Judge Rory Nunez watched from near the controls, his face impassive as always. Saint liked Rory, considered him an old friend. He was evenhanded as a judge, generous with the community, and no one ever talked bad about him, because he was fair-minded. He could always be counted on to see both sides of a situation.
“Never trust a redhead,” the judge said, winking.
“Trust her? I’m trying to survive her.” He switched the bull on
, his gaze going to Cameron. “The worst part is, I don’t think it would matter what color her hair is.”
Rory laughed. “I hear she’s pretty much cut from Judy’s cloth.”
“Not at all. Judy gets what she wants because she’s so darn nice no one wants to be the one who lets her down. Cameron’s just plain brave. Independent.” He considered that for a moment. “From Cameron, I’ve learned the difference between a woman who plans and a woman who plots.”
Rory laughed. “Judy’s always been a plotter.”
“Tell me about it.” But Cameron had plans. She made lists, drew up charts. Tried to keep everything organized. Knew where she was going and had a good idea of how to get there. When she hit a roadblock—like her tires being stolen—she found a way to get back to her plans with a minimum of fuss.
Like taking Steel up on his offer to train in law enforcement. His stomach clenched. His gut told him he could never be serious about a woman who was an officer of the law.
“Doesn’t this thing go any faster?” Cameron called, and Rory laughed.
“You know what your trouble is? She’s fast and you’re slow.”
“I’m methodical.” He inched the speed up a notch on the bull.
“No, son, you’re slow. That woman’s going places, and you’re trying to stand in her way. You’re not going to romance her by being a roadblock to what she wants.”
Saint hesitated. His mouth dried out. Holy shit, he was a roadblock. “There may be something to what you say.”
“Well, you’ve never liked change, Saint. You had all those sisters that kept things lively out at your place.”
Saint knew exactly what the judge was talking about. His four sisters kept a fun shitstorm stirred up at their house, a veritable dramafest of boyfriends who called and romances that died, pranks on neighbors and fellow classmates, even once sneaking onto the county school bus. They’d had a slumber party on the bus, inviting all their friends to join them, spending all night rigging the bus up with traps for poor old Mr. Thomas, the deaf bus driver who hadn’t heard the whoopee cushion fart under him, and couldn’t understand why the bus erupted in laughter. He’d just smiled and waved at the kids in the mirror.
