Love Me, Cowgirl (The 78th Copper Mountain Rodeo Book 4)

by Eve Gaddy

  Dylan, who’d had his back to the door, turned around. “I don’t see a brunette.”

  “The one with the long, black hair.” He motioned to the table they’d taken. “The hot, pretty one. She’s with that couple and their kid.”

  Dylan paused with his drink halfway to his mouth. “You don’t know who she is?”

  “Obviously not, or I wouldn’t have asked you.”

  His lips twitched. “She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”

  Even though he’d thought the same thing, it rankled coming from his youngest brother. “Screw you. I’m not that old.”

  “I can give you ten years, bro. And she’s younger than I am.”

  Sean ignored that. “I met her earlier but I never got her name. But she knew me.” He watched Dylan for a minute, wondering what was so damn funny.

  “She didn’t even give you a clue?” he managed to gasp through his laughter.

  “No, asshole, she didn’t. All she’d say was to ask my brother. She didn’t specify which one.” He looked over at her. She had a big grin on her face. “From the fact that you both seem to find this so damn funny, I’m guessing it’s you.”

  “Her name is Honey. Honey Jordan.” Dylan drained his beer and set his glass down on the bar.

  Honey Jordan? Sean stared at his brother blankly. Why was that name familiar? Honey. Oh, shit.

  “Honey Jordan as in your ex-girlfriend, Honey Jordan?”

  “That’s me,” Honey said cheerfully as she walked up behind Dylan and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Dylan, how’s it going?”

  Grinning, he got up and slipped an arm around her waist, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Can’t complain, darlin’. Sean, meet Honey. The woman who ripped my heart out and stomped on it with her fancy-ass cowboy boots.”

  “Poor baby,” Honey said, patting his cheek before she moved away. “Don’t believe him, Sean. Dylan has no heart.”

  “Untrue.” He sat and ordered another round for Sean and him, and a light beer for Honey. “I had a chest x-ray, and there was definitely a heart in the picture.”

  “Water for me,” Sean said. Even when he wasn’t on call, he regulated his alcohol intake. He never knew when things might suddenly blow up and he’d need to go in to the hospital anyway.

  “Still drinking that watered-down version of beer, are you?” Dylan asked Honey.

  Honey laughed. “No accounting for taste, is there?”

  “That’s a fact. Otherwise, you’d never have dumped me.”

  Honey smiled but let that pass, pulling up the barstool beside Sean.

  A look passed between Honey and Dylan. Their drinks arrived and Dylan stood up.

  “I see someone I need to talk to. But don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

  “Don’t hurry back on my account,” Sean told him. Turning to Honey, he said, “So. You and Dylan. Is that why you didn’t tell me who you were?”

  “Because of Dylan?” She laughed. “God, no. That was over a long time ago.”

  Too young. Dylan’s ex. Smokin’ hot.

  Shit.

  Chapter Three

  “I can read your mind, you know,” Honey told Sean.

  “I doubt that,” he said with a laugh.

  She drank some beer. Set the glass down and looked at him speculatively. “Tell you what. If I’m right, you can spring for the ice cream. After you dance with me. The street party is starting to rock.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then I’ll buy it. And you only have to dance if you want to.”

  “You’re on.”

  Honey studied him as if she were deciding what to say, but it was really just an excuse to look at him. So sue her. She liked good-looking men. Ten to one she knew exactly what he was thinking. She ticked off his thoughts on her fingers. “One, she’s too young. Two, she’s Dylan’s ex-girlfriend. Three, hands off.”

  “I’ll give you two out of three.”

  “Which two?”

  His lips curved into a downright wicked smile. “Tell me about Honey Jordan.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How long have you been barrel racing?”

  “Since I was little. Before she married, my mom ran barrels. She quit the pro circuit when she got pregnant with my oldest brother. Her family owned a farm in the area and Mom taught my brothers and me to ride. I was running barrels by the time I was nine.”

  “You must love it.”

  “I do, most of the time. But why do you say that?”

  “You look happy when you talk about it. How is your season going?”

  “Good.” She knocked on the wooden bar and Sean smiled. “My horse, Halo, is amazing. We’ve got a good chance in the Copper Mountain Rodeo.” At least, she thought they did.

  “Is your family still in the area?”

  “My dad is. My brothers live in Billings. My mom…” Honey cleared her throat. Even after all this time, it still hurt to think about her. “She died when I was fourteen. My grandparents, her parents, sold the farm and moved away a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “It’s rough. I lost my mother when I was a teenager.”

  “It sucks.” She’d known his mom had died, of course, since she’d dated Dylan. But she didn’t want to bring Dylan into the conversation again.

  “Yes, it does.”

  Rather than dwell on that, Honey asked, “Are you liking being back in Montana?”

  He nodded. “Marietta’s gotten bigger since I grew up here.”

  “It’s grown bigger in the past few years. I’m sure the hospital expansion helped with that.”

  He smiled. “I can’t complain about the hospital’s growth. It’s why I moved back. Well, that, and because my brother Jack wouldn’t shut up until I did. But enough about me. Do you rodeo full time?”

  “Whenever I possibly can.” She loved it. She really did… But sometimes she wished she could just stay home without wondering what shit her dad would pull.

  “Why were you stringing lights? Do you work here part time?”

  “Not if I can help it. But my father was… out of pocket.” Meaning drunk as the proverbial skunk. “Everyone on his regular crew was busy, so I did it. And don’t tell me to be more careful. I know I should have been.”

  “I wasn’t going to say a word.”

  “Ha. You thought it.”

  He grinned and didn’t deny it. “How about some dinner before the ice cream? The Diner sound good to you?”

  “It will be packed.”

  “Like this place isn’t?” Sean asked.

  As they talked more and more people had crowded around the bar, until Honey was sandwiched between Sean and a tall, lanky cowboy she thought rode saddle broncs. He wasn’t paying any attention to Honey, other than to bump her with his elbow every two minutes. The cowboy was much more interested in hitting on her friend, Martha Lockhart, who sat on the other side of him. Martha ran barrels too. She was one of Honey’s main competitors, as well as a good friend and business partner. Honey and Martha often drove to rodeos together to split expenses. About a year before they’d started making custom handbags and purses to sell at rodeos. They’d even talked about someday expanding to an online business, but that wouldn’t work as long as they traveled so much.

  As Honey brought her glass to her lips, the cowboy elbowed her. Her beer sloshed all over her brand-new western shirt. “Damn it.” Great, now she’d smell like beer all night long, unless she went home and changed. She looked around for a napkin but couldn’t find one, so she tried to wipe off the beer with her hand. “You have a point.”

  Sean got up, walked around behind the bar and came back with some paper towels. Honey had pulled his chair even closer to hers and was now perched between both of them. “Seating is at a premium,” she said. “Thanks.”

  She finished mopping up. Instead of sitting down, Sean held out his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She took it and let
him help her off the seat. “You read my mind.”

  *

  What the hell just happened? Honey had gotten it exactly right. Except the hands off part. When she’d come in to Grey’s wearing that shiny blue western shirt, a silver concho belt buckled low on her hips, and thank you, Jesus tight jeans, he wanted his hands very much on her.

  The argument he had with himself didn’t take long. So she was young. She was over twenty-one. Besides, he wasn’t thinking about dating her. Theresa had ruined that for him for quite a while, if not forever. So not dating. Not really. He wanted to have a little fun. And if he read her right, so did Honey.

  “Okay, I can’t stand this.”

  “Can’t stand what?”

  “I smell like a brewery.” She moved closer to him. “Tell me I don’t stink of beer,” she demanded.

  Sean sniffed. “You don’t stink. But you do have a faint odor of beer about you.”

  “Faint? How faint?”

  He held his fingers about an inch apart.

  “Liar. I’m going home to change.”

  “I’d offer to drive you, but my car is at my place. I walked.”

  “So did I,” Honey said. “Where do you live?”

  “The Absaroka apartments. Across from the elementary school and the junior high. What about you?”

  “The Absaroka apartments. Across from the elementary school and the junior high.”

  He laughed. “You’re kidding. Why haven’t I met you before?”

  “Which building are you in?”

  “Building one.”

  “I’m in number four. It used to be number one, but they upgraded when they added more units, so they kept pushing ours back. Anyway, I’m gone a lot, too. Rodeoing. I only came back to town a couple of days ago. It was a couple of months before that.”

  “How long are you in town this time?” he asked as they walked to the apartments.

  “Not too long. There’s another rodeo about two weeks from now. Halo and I are running barrels.”

  Definitely just having a little fun. What was the harm?

  “Honey! How are you?”

  “It’s great to see you, Cynthia.” Honey and the pretty blonde hugged while the man with her looked on with a grin.

  Honey reached out and snagged his arm. “This is Sean Gallagher. I mean Dr. Sean Gallagher. Sean, this is Cynthia Henley and her fiancé, Chad Anders. Cynthia and I went to school together.”

  “Call me Sean,” he said, shaking hands with both of them.

  “Any relation to Dylan Gallagher?” Chad asked.

  “My brother.”

  “I heard all three of Dylan’s brothers were in town now,” Chad said. “I guess he’s the renegade, huh? With the three of you being doctors.”

  Sean laughed. “That’s Dylan. Although our sister manages a ranch, so Dylan’s not the only outlier.”

  “Glenna’s in Argentina, isn’t she?” Honey asked. “I haven’t seen her in forever.”

  “That’s right.” And she apparently meant to stay away permanently. Glenna had only been home once since she took the job in Argentina. Sean had been long gone by then, but he gathered from family gossip that Glenna and their father had a huge fight and she took off to no one knew where. The next thing they knew, she sent a letter—not an email, but a real letter—saying she was in Argentina, working as a ranch hand. She’d been there several years now, working her way up to management, which was her current position.

  Glenna had paid a flying visit home to go to their father’s funeral and left the next day. She wouldn’t stay for the reading of the will, either. Which didn’t surprise him once he heard the details. Their father had divided everything equally between his sons. Glenna’s portion, and her stake in the ranch, was held in trust with the bank as trustee, until, as the old man phrased it, she “stopped all this nonsense and got married.” He’d also set a time limit, saying if she hadn’t married by the time she was thirty, the money would be equally divided among her brothers. Knowing Glenna, Sean wasn’t a bit surprised that she’d thumbed her nose at their father and her inheritance.

  “I’ll call you,” Honey told Cynthia. “Let’s have lunch.”

  “Sounds good. Nice to meet you, Sean.”

  “Good to meet you.”

  Since they were going the opposite direction from the action, they didn’t see too many more people, and no one stopped to talk. It didn’t take long to get there since the apartments were down the street and one block over from the party.

  At her building, Honey climbed the outside stairs to the second floor. “It’s messy,” she warned him as she put her key in the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She disappeared into her bedroom, leaving him to look around the tiny apartment. Sean had only been in his building, which as Honey had said, was one of the newer ones. The older apartments were smaller, had an exterior rather than an interior staircase, and hadn’t been updated in some time. Sean had rented a one bedroom because he planned to get a house before too long. In the meantime, he stored everything that wouldn’t fit at the ranch. Wyatt, an orthopedist also recently back in town, was living at the ranch with Dylan for the time being, but Sean had wanted a place of his own.

  Messy didn’t exactly convey what the apartment looked like. His first thought had been that a bomb had exploded in the small living/dining room. The dining table was completely covered in papers, patterns and fabrics. All the chairs, most of the couch and the coffee table had stuff on them too. Swatches of fabric were scattered haphazardly around, some draped over furniture, some in big piles. Also on the dining table was something that looked like a tackle box, but held sparkly stones, studs and other things he couldn’t identify. Another larger tackle box held a variety of hardware. A sewing machine sat on the table, ready to go with a piece of fabric still caught in it.

  “My apartment isn’t usually this messy,” Honey said, coming back into the room. She looked around and sighed. “Not quite this bad, anyway.”

  He turned around. She’d changed into a long, button-down white shirt with embroidered flowers across her shoulders and running down on either side of the buttons. The same belt she’d worn earlier rested low on her hips. Damn, she was pretty.

  “Luckily, the beer only got my shirt. I have one other clean pair of jeans and I’m wearing those in the rodeo tomorrow.”

  He was curious to know if there was a purpose to the chaos or this was simply her standard operating procedure. Since he couldn’t ask if a bomb had exploded—he was pretty sure it hadn’t—and he couldn’t think of a nice way to ask her if living in chaos was normal for her, he kept his mouth shut.

  “In case you’re wondering, my friend Martha Lockhart and I have a purse business. We travel to rodeos together most of the time, and this”—she gestured at the room in general—“is our side business. It helps finance our barrel racing. We call it Barrels and Bags.”

  “Cute.”

  She shrugged. “Best we’ve been able to come up with. Are you ready to go back to the street party?”

  “Any time.”

  Chapter Four

  More people milled about as they reached Main Street. Sean saw a few people he knew, but Honey seemed to know everyone they ran into, and they all wanted to stop and talk. By the time they actually made it to the restaurant, it was packed and Sean was starving.

  “Let’s go get ice cream,” Honey said. “You don’t want to stand in line, do you?”

  “No. But I’m going to need more than ice cream. I should have gone for the hot dog stand we passed.”

  “There’s a lot of other food. Do you want to walk back up the street and get something else?”

  The incongruously named Sweet and Sassy Ice Cream Shop was across the street. The owner, Bertha Brady, wasn’t sweet and had passed sassy long ago. Honey gazed at it longingly. What the hell. “Ice cream is good.”

  “Eat dessert first,” Honey said, rewarding him with a brilliant smile. “That’s my motto.”

  “Depends
on what’s for dinner. I’d choose steak first over ice cream.”

  “That would be a hard choice. But I’d still take dessert.”

  After they had ice cream, they wandered up and down the street, looking at shops, munching on the different foods, talking to people and listening to music. Although the official dance was tomorrow night, there was music and dancing tonight as well.

  “That song is one of my favorites,” Honey said when the band began to play an old Clint Black song.

  Sean didn’t like to dance. In fact, he hated it. But she looked so hopeful, gazing at him with those beautiful blue eyes the color of spring bluebells. True blue without a speck of hazel, green, or brown.

  Good God, what was wrong with him? Sure, she was a fox. A total babe. Seeing her hair spilling down her back made him want to wrap it around his fist and see if it was as silky as it looked. Her hair wasn’t the only thing he wanted to touch. She looked good. Really good. But damn, spring bluebells? That was so not him.

  She was smiling up at him, those sexy, full lips curved in a—Shit, just dance with the woman, moron. Before you totally lose it.

  Dancing didn’t help. Especially when the music turned slow. Holding her close, her soft curves pressed against him… Smelling her, the crisp but sweet scent that made him think of the flower thing again. His brain was addled. How long had it been since he’d had sex?

  Not since he before he and Theresa had broken up. Is that what you’re calling it? Don’t you mean since Theresa lied to you, then dumped you when you called her on it?

  “Sean?” He looked down at her. “What was the thing I was wrong about?”

  “Huh?”

  “You know. When you said I was right about two out of three things. What was the third thing?”