Just a Cowboy and His Baby

by Carolyn Brown

  “Gemma, this is my mother, Judge Mary Coleman, and my father, Thomas Coleman, who is a lawyer. Gemma is the woman I’ve been telling y’all about, the one who is keeping me on my toes and who is my stiffest competition in the bronc riding competition,” Trace said smoothly.

  Thomas shook hands with Gemma, and Judge Mary nodded. Trace slid a chair out and Gemma melted into it, careful to sit up straight and not keep sliding until she was under the table. Damn Trace’s soul to hell for all eternity. He was in so much trouble that he didn’t have enough days left in his life to get out of it.

  “I’m very pleased to meet both of you,” Gemma said. “When we were in Colorado Springs, Lester, Hill, and Harper told me about you. I understand you live in Houston?”

  “We do. Thomas has a law practice and I’m a judge there. Thomas was raised on a ranch out in the Panhandle, but he never liked it like his two brothers. So you ride broncs?”

  Gemma put on her best smile, but it felt fake. “Yes, ma’am, and I also ride bulls. I was raised on a horse ranch and have three older brothers and an older sister.”

  “And you are giving my son a run for his money?” Thomas asked.

  “I hope so.” Gemma’s pulse raced and her ears rang like she’d been too close to a shotgun when it went off. “But it works the other way too. He’s giving me a run for my money. It’s a tight contest, but things can change in eight seconds.”

  Judge Mary might be a judge and she might try all kinds of cases where she had a poker face, but what she thought of Gemma was etched into her face like writing on a tombstone. And it was not a pretty sight.

  “Shall we order?” Thomas asked.

  “I’ll have shrimp scampi and a longneck Coors in the bottle,” Gemma said.

  “Me too,” Trace said.

  Thomas motioned for the waitress.

  “Two scampi dinners and two bottles of Coors. Two lobster dinners and a bottle of whatever wine you suggest,” he said.

  The lady nodded and hurried off to the kitchen.

  Judge Mary raised both eyebrows so high that they kissed her dark bangs. “Beer? Really, Trace!”

  He shrugged. “It’s hot. I like beer. Let’s not fight, Mother.”

  Judge Mary smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “We should never have let him spend summers with Teamer. I swear that man put all kinds of crazy ideas in his head.”

  “He didn’t have to put them there, Mother. They were always there. I’m not a city person. I love the wide open spaces and the smell of dirt. And if I win the Vegas ride, I’m using every single dime of the money and my savings to buy that ranch,” Trace said.

  “So what brings y’all to Oklahoma City?” Gemma changed the subject.

  “Investments. Thomas wants to invest in some oil properties and I’m not sure with the economy the way it is that it’s a good time to sink any money at all in the venture. So we came up here to look things over before we make a final decision. When Trace said he was flying through here and had a nice layover, we arranged to have lunch with him,” Judge Mary answered.

  “We’ll be flying back to Houston on the two o’clock flight,” Thomas said.

  The waitress brought two beers, a bottle of white wine, and two stemmed glasses to the table. “Your salads will be here shortly. Anything else I can get you?”

  Thomas shook his head and she departed. “We wanted Trace to go into law. I guess you’ve already figured that out, Gemma. But he loves ranchin’ just like my brothers and my parents did.”

  Gemma turned up the bottle and swallowed several times before setting it back on the table. “I can understand what you are saying. My momma has five children. One left the area and she didn’t like it a bit. She gives me fits about not settling around Ringgold.”

  Trace reached under the table and laid a hand on her leg. She picked it up and dropped it off to one side. He wasn’t out of trouble yet. He could have told her that they were meeting his parents. She wouldn’t have worn a halter top which was all mussed up from sleeping. She would have worn jeans or maybe a flowing skirt instead of cutoff denim shorts, and sandals instead of cowboy boots. She was afraid to even think about her makeup and hair.

  Judge Mary wouldn’t be a bit fooled by the fact that Gemma knew how to sit up straight, and use a napkin and a fork. No, sir! It was written in that woman’s eyes that she knew her son was sleeping with Gemma and she did not approve. Had it been a case tried in her court, she would have sentenced Gemma to life at the North Pole.

  Trace Coleman had fallen from grace, and a hand on her thigh was not going to put him back on his pedestal. Hell, he could forfeit the ride the next evening and she still wouldn’t be in a forgiving mood.

  Chapter 17

  “I’m not so sure I want you coming at me with scissors,” Trace said.

  “We are both fully clothed, and if you don’t get a haircut your hair will fall in your eyes and then you’ll use that as an excuse for losing.” Gemma whipped a towel around his shoulders and picked up her scissors.

  “But I wanted it naked,” he said.

  “You don’t get it naked because you didn’t tell me we were going to meet your parents so I could be presentable. God Almighty, Trace, what were you thinking, or were you?”

  “Evidently I wasn’t. My mother has already called and told me I was an idiot.”

  She held his hair up with one hand and cut it into a feathered back cut. “You could have told me earlier.”

  “I was going to tell you, but damn it, Gemma, I swear my brain went to mush when I saw you come out of that bathroom. And then you went to sleep. And besides, you looked damn fine to me.”

  Snip. Snip. Snip. She hoped he was scared to death that she’d take off an ear. “I looked like Daisy May Clampett after a hard night of hookin’.”

  “Well, that’s sexy as hell,” he argued.

  “Sexy as hell is not the first impression I wanted your folks to have about me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Do you mean it? Really, really mean it?”

  “Yes, I do,” he said.

  “Okay then.”

  “You’ll stop bitchin’ at me?”

  “Oh, honey, I’ll do more than that.”

  She laid the scissors down and stripped out of her jeans and halter top, tossed her underpants in the corner, and removed her boots. “Now I’ll cut your hair naked.”

  He stood up and unbuckled his belt. She put a hand on his shoulder.

  “No! Just me. It’s part of your punishment. You have to keep your hands on your knees the whole time.”

  “Gemma, you really are killing me this time!”

  “I hope so. Keep your head still or there’ll be gaps as wide as the Red River in your hair.”

  “But I can’t see you,” he groaned.

  “I know, darlin’,” she whispered softly in his ear.

  “I want to touch you,” he said.

  “We’ll take care of that later.”

  “How much later?”

  “Maybe six seconds before your zipper breaks.”

  “You are a witch from hell, woman.”

  “Remember that if you ever think about not telling me your momma is going to be in the same room with me again.”

  He was almighty uncomfortable when she finally finished his hair, straddled his lap, and slowly undid his zipper.

  “Poor baby. That was like penning up a pit bull in a shoebox.” She laughed.

  He grabbed her butt with both hands and carried her to his bed where he tossed her in the middle and quickly removed his clothing. When he landed on top of her, his lips latched onto hers in a long, lingering kiss that she didn’t ever want to end. And then he was inside her moving fast.

  “Don’t stop,” she said.

&
nbsp; “I don’t intend to.”

  He brought her right up the brink of a climax and then slowed down.

  “You are driving me crazy,” she said.

  “Paybacks are a bitch.”

  She rocked against his thrusts until he speeded up and finally hit the top at the exact same second. She wrapped her legs around him, and he kissed her until she couldn’t breathe.

  “God, that was good,” he said.

  “God doesn’t care if it’s good or not,” she said.

  “Then Gemma, that was wonderful. Does she care?”

  “Hell, yeah! Now let’s sleep for an hour before we go see what’s happening on the grounds.”

  “You really were beautiful in those shorts and shirt,” he whispered.

  She forgave him as she fell asleep in his arms. It was where she wanted to be, not in Ringgold, Texas, but right there in Trace’s arms. Her ass had chosen which horse it wanted to ride. Now all she had to do was convince Trace and stay away from her mother until the dust settled.

  ***

  Gemma looked over the top of the chute at Pretty Baby, muscles tensing and a look in his eyes that said his full name was probably Lucifer’s Pretty Baby. He had a solid reputation with the rodeo crew as being one tough son of a bitch to ride. His percentage of wrecks was somewhere around eighty, but Gemma was determined to lower his statistics in the next minute. She eased down into her saddle, jammed her boot heels into the stirrups, measured the rein, and touched her lucky horseshoe hat pin. She’d eaten a rodeo hamburger and forgiven Trace for not telling her about his parents. Nothing negative was sitting on her shoulders.

  She inhaled deeply and nodded. The gate opened and Pretty Baby came out with gusto. The crowd roared somewhere in a tunnel that was way far away. The announcer was yelling into the microphone something about Gemma O’Donnell taming the wild bronc.

  And then Pretty Baby did a dance step that she wasn’t expecting. It happened just as the buzzer sounded and she started to roll to one side. Another two seconds and she would have lasted the whole ride, but when the horse flipped so far to one side that he almost kissed his own butt, Gemma’s foot came loose.

  Her left foot left the stirrup and the right one hung, leaving her shoulder to drag in the dirt as Pretty Baby spun her around the arena for a full five seconds before her boot heel dislodged and sent her skittering. Her mouth, nose, and eyes filled with arena sand, and she came up spitting and sputtering to a crowd screaming and yelling.

  She stood up, bowed, and let a clown lead her back to the chutes where she dunked her head into a watering trough to get the dirt out of her eyes and ears. When she came up for air, the announcer was yelling, “And our next contestant is Trace Coleman from Goodnight, Texas. He’s riding Devil Dog tonight out of chute six. Our rodeo clown, Low Britches, just signaled that Gemma is all right, so while Trace is getting ready, let’s give it up for our little lady from Ringgold, Texas, who almost showed Pretty Baby who was boss tonight.”

  The crowd’s whoops and whistles were muffled as she stuck her head in the water again. That had been her worst wreck ever, and she’d be sore as hell the coming morning. There’d be bruises and aches in places she didn’t even know about. Thank God it was six days until the Lovington, New Mexico, ride so she could heal up. Where in the hell had she gone wrong, anyway? She’d done all the right things to keep her mojo going and hadn’t even thought about Trace except that one time to congratulate herself on forgiving him.

  The announcer sounded like he was screaming into the microphone again, “And that was Trace Coleman, showing the rodeo world how it’s done! Trace just racked up eighty-one points to beat out Coby by one point. Now that’s some close bronc busters, folks. Let’s hear it for all the contestants tonight before we go on to the bull riding with Landry Winters starting the competition right here in Dodge City!”

  Gemma brushed her wet hair back from her face with her hands. The scrape down her jawline stung like wildfire, but it wasn’t bleeding too badly. Her left boot felt tight, which meant her ankle was swelling. She started toward her trailer to check the damage more carefully and fell to her knees with the first step.

  Strong arms scooped her up and she looked up into Trace’s worried face.

  “Hey, you,” she whined.

  “How bad is it? Is it broken? My God, Gemma, I thought I’d die before I could get off that damn bronc and see about you. You were limping and your face was covered with dirt.”

  He jogged toward her trailer. Chap fringe flared out in the hot night breeze. Spurs jingled. Boots heels sent up baby dust devils with every step.

  “It’s a sprain. I’ve had them before. Ice and prop it up. My cheek is just a scrape. It was the dirt in my eyes that scared me. For a second there I wondered if we could train Sugar to be a Seeing Eye dog,” she said.

  “Don’t even tease about that,” he growled.

  He eased her down to stand on her right foot while she opened the trailer door, and then he carried her inside. When she was sitting on the side of her bed, he dropped to his knees and tugged at her boot.

  “Ouch! Ouch! Let me do it,” she said.

  He stood up and stuck his hand deep into his pocket. “You can’t. Your foot is swollen. It’s not coming off.”

  “Hell, no! You will not cut my boot off, Trace! Not without a fight. These are my lucky boots. They’ve gone to every rodeo with me for the past ten years,” she said.

  With his thumbnail he pulled a long sharp blade out of the knife.

  “They are not!” He pointed toward the floor.

  She looked down and moaned. That’s where she went wrong. She’d worn the wrong boots. Her lucky boots were standing beside her bed and she’d shoved her feet right back down into the old boots that she’d worn on the flight from Ringgold to Dodge City. What in the devil had she been thinking about anyway?

  He looked at her.

  She nodded.

  He carefully slit the boot leather down the inner seam. “If I do it this way, you can take them to the boot shop and they might be able to repair them.”

  He removed the boot and her sock and gasped. “It’s already turning purple. We need to get you into the shower, get all the dirt cleaned off you, and prop this thing up with ice. I’ll be surprised if you can even ride in Lovington.”

  He removed her other boot and slipped his arms around her. “Hold on to me and stand on your right leg.”

  She grimaced when she stood up and put weight on it, but she’d had sprains before and she’d had a broken ankle once when she was a teenager. She knew the difference and he was right—it would be a miracle if she was able to ride in Lovington.

  He removed her chaps, then the rest of her clothing, and carried her strip-stark naked to her tiny bathroom. He started the water and set her down under the shower.

  “Get on out of here before you ruin those chaps and bitch about it until eternity dawns,” she said. “And shut the door. I can hold on to the wall and take a shower standing on one leg.”

  “I’ll get out of these chaps and be right here when you get done, but I’m not closing the door all the way shut. You might need me,” he said.

  Mud streamed down her body as the water washed away half a bushel of the arena dirt. When she was finally clean, she turned the faucet off and eased the door open. Trace was leaning against the doorjamb with a big white towel in his hands. He took one step forward, wrapped it around her, and swept her off her feet.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, picked up another towel, and rubbed the water from her hair before he brushed the tangles out. After that he gently dried the water droplets from her shoulders and the rest of her body and dressed her in underpants and an oversized nightshirt. Then he propped her leg up and opened the refrigerator. He found the flexible ice pack in the freezer and molded it around her ankle. />
  “Where’s something for that scrape?”

  “In the kit beside my bed.” Every cowboy and cowgirl’s traveling kit contained an ice pack, a heat pad, aspirin, Tylenol, antiseptic spray, antibiotic ointment, and ibuprofen.

  He shook out a couple of Tylenol and handed her a bottle of water from the fridge. “No beer or dancing tonight, lady.”

  Then he squeezed ointment on his fingertip and applied it to the scrape on her jaw. When he finished, he settled her back against more pillows and stretched out beside her on the bed. He laced his fingers with hers and squeezed gently.

  “Now what in the hell happened out there? You survived a damn bee, woman. Did some fool grease your saddle?” he asked gruffly.

  She laid her head on his shoulder. “If I’d been drinking I could call it a hangover. Last time I wrecked this bad was when I tried to ride a bronc after proving I could best my sister at shots.”

  “But you weren’t drinking. You haven’t even had a beer since yesterday at lunch.”

  She giggled. “If it wasn’t a hangover, then it might be the result of a bangover! From now on, no sex on the night before or the day of a rodeo. And absolutely no naked haircuts, even though your hair does look sexy.”

  “What about the night after a rodeo?” he asked.

  “That is optional, but tonight ain’t an option.”

  “Of course it’s not, but I’m going to carry you over to my place where the bed is bigger and more comfortable. I won’t leave you alone, Gemma. You ready?”

  She yawned. “I’m not arguing.”

  He sat straight up and ran his fingers over her entire head, carefully probing and searching. “You shouldn’t be sleepy this early, Gemma. Do you have a concussion? Look at me so I can see your pupils. Do you feel dizzy or bumfuzzled?”

  She shook her head. “I got a mouthful of dirt and it got in my eyes, so they are probably bloodshot, but I didn’t hit anything but soft dirt when I fell. The pills you gave me are making me sleepy. I’m very drug sensitive. Two Tylenol knock me on my ass for ten or twelve hours. That’s probably why that drug in my beer hit me so hard.”