Travis moved slowly. The boot slid off, revealing a white tube sock.
Something in his blood stirred. “You need help getting that on?”
She yanked up the leg of her jeans and held her foot out. “When you’re ready.”
There it was again, that voice that was closer to flirting than friendly. He hazarded a peek at her and saw that she had tucked her lower lip under her teeth, like she wasn’t sure what was about to happen.
Focus. He didn’t want to hurt her.
He loosened the ties and began to work her foot into the brace. She held still, but a few times she sucked in air, obviously in pain.
“You hurt this a lot?”
“Broke it about five years ago—bad landing off a bronco,” she said as he began cinching the ties tight. “It’s my weak spot.”
Focus on the job, not her voice. One tie, two ties... “The only one?”
“The only physical one.”
His heart took a hard left. She sounded so soft—and inviting. Like a woman who’d almost kissed him. Like a woman he’d almost let himself kiss. This had to be flirting. He’d never heard her talk like that to anyone else—not even Mitch.
Travis swallowed once, then a second time. He could not be flirting with Mitch’s girl—even if she started it. “So,” he said, hazarding a glance at her face, not knowing what to say next. She was watching him intently, looking just as soft and inviting as she’d sounded.
Then that same horrifying thought occurred to him again. What if she wasn’t interested in him because she liked him? What if she was only interested in climbing up the bull-rider ladder, like Barb had been? She’d had her fun with Mitch, but now she’d set her sights on a bigger prize: him.
He didn’t want that to be it. He didn’t want her to be like that. Hell, at this point, he wasn’t sure what he wanted.
All he knew was that he couldn’t afford a distraction—even one as good at riding bulls as June Spotted Elk. He was on target to make it back up to the bigs. He had to remember that. He swallowed a third time and took a step away from her foot. A step away from her. “That better?”
“Much.” She tilted her head to one side, a small gesture that set braided black silk hair cascading down her shoulders. “I— Oh, there’s Mitch!”
He didn’t have time to think about what she’d been about to say. Mitch and the Brazilian were loping across the empty lot toward them. Not particularly wanting to be punched in the face, Travis gave Jeff’s tummy one final rub and said, “See you guys at the bar,” before he headed out.
His head was swimming. A wounded June looking a hell of a lot like a woman who wanted to be kissed. Jeff the hellhound wanting his tummy rubbed. Mitch nowhere to be seen.
Travis had no idea what was going on anymore.
CHAPTER NINE
JUNE HURT. HER ANKLE was swelling into the brace and she couldn’t get it up high enough in the backseat of the Bronco to ease the pressure. The ibuprofen the EMTs had given her had worn off. She needed her emergency Vicodin and more ice, but those were both back in the hotel room. They were headed to the bar, where she needed to act like this whole thing had been no big freaking deal.
“How’s the ankle?”
That was all the opening she needed. “Oh, now you’re going to be all worried about me?” She tried to sit up a little straighter in the backseat, but the effort made her break out in a damp sweat. A wave of pain-induced nausea washed over her, but she forced it back. “Where the hell were you for the last forty-five minutes? Travis thinks you abandoned me, and to be honest, it kind of felt like it.”
The tension between Mitch and Travis after her first ride came back to her. If she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn Mitch was on the verge of taking a swing at Travis.
“You were fine when we left,” Mitch snapped. “Travis was with you. What’s the big deal?”
She’d been faking fine—something she was getting better at every darned day. “The big deal? I swear, you are such a man sometimes!”
“Thanks!” he said brightly.
Why is it, June thought as she used Jeff’s ruff to pull herself up, that the person you most want to strangle is always the one driving? “Did you almost hit Travis?”
“He was grinning like a fool at you,” Mitch said with self-fulfilling righteousness. “It was unseemly.”
Travis had been smiling? At her? The nausea pushed back a little. She would have liked to have seen what that man looked like smiling. “You threaten Travis for smiling at me—and then wander off and leave me alone with him?”
“He’s such a Poppa Bear,” Mitch grumbled.
“That’s so not the point,” she said, hoping she sounded angry instead of on the verge of tears. “The point is that you aren’t exactly being consistent and people are noticing. You can’t be all he-man one minute and then gone the next. It looks bad.”
“You got a point back there?” he snipped. Paulo reached over and took Mitch’s hand.
“You got your knickers in a twist over a stupid smile—that I didn’t even see—but when I needed some help, who was there, huh? Not you. Travis. You gonna beat him up for getting me out to the car?”
“Do I need to?”
“No, you don’t, but thanks so much for thinking of me.”
Jeff whimpered in the tense silence that followed.
What a mess. Her ankle was throbbing and the pain was muddling her thinking. Like when she’d snapped at that fan for slighting Travis.
Although it had been worth it to see the shy smile on his face when the woman finally paid him his due. Those dimples had popped out as his cheeks had warmed with a blush that blew past cute and right into smoldering. With her eyes closed, she forced herself to breathe evenly, wondering if that had been the same smile that had nearly started a fight, or if it had been better.
That smile had to be why she’d wanted what she’d wanted. After he’d saved her butt, after he’d come over to see how she was, after he’d practically carried her out to the car—what she wanted was a kiss. Not the meek little pecks that Mitch planted on her in public at every available opportunity. No, she wanted a shivering, shaking, lose-her-head-and-then-lose-something-else kiss.
She wanted it from Travis.
And what’s more, for one crazy moment, he’d looked like he wanted it, too. No lectures on safety, no patronizing discussions about how girls couldn’t ride bulls. Just a man looking at a woman. Was it so wrong to want to be looked at like a woman?
Why, just when Travis was starting to smile at her, was Mitch suddenly acting like some knuckle-dragging caveman? In her dizzy state, she couldn’t get a handle on it.
“You want to break up?”
The question from the front seat took her off guard. “What?”
“I asked,” Mitch said slowly, “if you want to break up. If you don’t like how I’m keeping my end of the bargain, you’re free to dump me and go your own way, honey. It ain’t like we’re married. You’ve made enough money to get a nice car. You don’t need me anymore.”
Oh, for Pete’s sake. The tears she’d been swallowing down teamed up with the nausea until she couldn’t keep both at bay. Something had to give and it was easier to clean up after a good cry.
“I don’t want to break up, Mitch.” Her voice wavered. “I can’t drive off into the sunset without you—I can’t drive anything right now.” Not with her ankle pulsing. How the hell was she going to sit in a bar for two hours?
Paulo spun around and leveled those all-seeing eyes at her. June’s chest hitched, and the hitch got bigger as he fished out a bandanna and handed it to her. That did it. She couldn’t stop the tears but she could at least not start sobbing.
Paulo watched her, sympathy rolling off him in waves. June tried to smile—he seemed to understand the
hot mess she was right now—but the attempt brought out more tears.
Paulo sighed, then turned to Mitch and smacked the snot out of his shoulder.
“Ow! What the hell, Paulo?” A second later, Mitch pivoted the rearview mirror around until he found June’s face. “You’re crying! Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry,” she blubbered. This wasn’t like her. She didn’t cry, not over something as stupid as a dumb smile. “I don’t mean to be a bitch, but my ankle really hurts...”
“Honey,” Mitch said, any trace of their fight gone, “why didn’t you say something?”
“Can we go back to the hotel?”
“Absolutely,” he said as Paulo nodded in agreement. “We’ll get you tucked in and iced up.” He pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road, the sudden swerve pushing her ankle into Jeff. “Next time, honey, say something. No one wants you to hurt.”
Even that thought had her crying again.
Forty minutes later, the world was less hopeless. Paulo had tracked down a cup of decaffeinated tea and trucked three buckets of ice into June’s room, while Mitch had built a tower of pillows for her foot and dug out the Vicodin and her nightshirt. He really did tuck her in, too, after a gentle kiss on the forehead.
“We’ll leave the door open. You holler if you need us to get you some more ice,” he said. “We’ll be quiet so you can get some rest. Things will be better in the morning.”
Yes, June thought as she drifted along the painkiller haze. Jeff’s warm body was snuggled up against her, offsetting the cold from the ice. Better in the morning. The first night was always the worst. By morning, she’d be able to limp around, and by the time they rolled into Keokuk, Iowa, next Friday, she’d be able to get back up on a bull, with Travis working her ropes.
Mmmmm, Travis working her ropes. She could see him above her again, his eyebrows pinched together as he pulled. If he rode after her, he would still have his chaps on, and it wasn’t her fault that, from her seat on the back of a bull, her eyes were right at butt level. Combine that backside with that smoldering smile...
Mmmmm. She’d love to see them together.
“June.”
Funny, she thought, trying to get her eyes open, that didn’t sound like Travis. That accent sounded like—
Then she was in Paulo’s arms and he was carrying her into his room.
“Give Girlie a second, Travis,” Mitch was saying from the door. “She wants to make sure she’s decent—or you got a problem with that, too?”
“Get out of my way, Mitch.” That was Travis. He sounded mad.
Paulo put June on the bed as fast as he could without jostling her and then shoved a pillow under her ankle. The movement snapped her out of her haze. Travis? What was he doing here?
Mitch looked over his shoulder. He wasn’t wearing a darned thing but a pair of jeans, and he was shielding the room with his body. “Girlie, you decent?”
Paulo scooped up as much of his stuff as he could and ran back into the other room, softly closing the door behind him. “Um, yeah,” she said, checking to see where the hem of her nightshirt was. Below the hips. That would have to be decent enough.
“Travis here seems to think that I kidnapped you or something.” Mitch opened the door. “Go on—tell him you’re just sore and I’m taking care of you.”
“Let her tell me,” Travis snarled.
“Hey,” she managed to get out.
Travis took in the messed-up bed, the nightshirt, the clothes thrown everywhere and Mitch standing around with no shirt. “Are you okay?”
“I took some Vicodin,” June explained, wondering at the expression on his face. “I was sleeping...” Nothing but the truth there.
“Oh.” Travis shook his head, his ferociousness fading back into his normal overprotective scowl. “You didn’t show up at the bar.”
“She sprained her ankle,” Mitch snorted. He was standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed. His fly wasn’t even buttoned up all the way. “Or did you miss that?”
“Shove it, Mitch.” Travis crouched down next to her and looked her in the eye. “Are you okay?”
Suddenly, she was a whole lot more than okay. Sure, it had to be the drugs talking, but those eyes—wow. In the dimly lit hotel room, she could see the seriousness that was always there, the worry that was his everyday companion, but this time his eyes seemed different. Something else was coloring that lovely brown gaze, a need she hadn’t recognized before. He’d been waiting for her. He’d come looking for her. He didn’t just want her to be okay. He needed her to be okay.
He needed her.
“I cannot believe that you think so little of me that you’ve got to bust up into our room in the middle of the night,” Mitch scoffed. “Really, Travis.”
“I check on lots of guys,” Travis replied, his eyes never leaving June’s. “I came to see you last year, didn’t I? Don’t remember you whining then.”
“Shoot,” Mitch snorted. “You are such a Poppa Bear.”
“Would you two shut up?” She didn’t want to think about Mitch right now. She just wanted to take that look and everything that went with it back to dreamland where she could appreciate it properly. “Some of us were trying to sleep.”
“I’m sorry,” Travis said, and he really did look like he was. “But I wanted to make sure you were okay...”
Maybe she was still asleep and this was all a Vicodin dream. That would be nice, she decided. Then she could get a shot at those eyes and that smile and that butt, all at once. She reached out and touched his face. The prickle of his beard on her hand wasn’t very dreamlike, she realized. “I’m going to be fine. Good as new by Keokuk.”
She couldn’t believe that he checked on other guys like this. She couldn’t believe he looked at anyone else like he was looking at her now.
She couldn’t believe she was touching him.
Mitch cleared his throat, which broke the spell.
“You call me if you need me.” Travis straightened up and crammed his hat back on his head. “For anything.”
“She’ll be fine, Travis,” Mitch said with an overly dramatic yawn. “Just let the woman rest, okay? We’ll see you in Keokuk.”
Travis got up in his face. “She better be there in one piece, Jenner. Or it’s your neck.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mitch replied, shooing Travis out of the room. “See you in a week.”
The door shut and bolted, Mitch collapsed against it. “Lordy,” he muttered. “What was that? You really okay?”
“Depends,” June muttered as she tried to push herself up with no success. Her arms felt like spaghetti, but then, so did her legs. That was a good thing. “Was he really here?”
“Oh, he was here, all right.” Mitch opened up the suite door to find Paulo standing, waiting. “All clear—I hope.”
This time, when Paulo scooped her up, he made sure to do it slow and easy. His chest was warm as he carried June back to her room, where Jeff was waiting for her on the bed.
“Did you say my name?” she asked, already drifting as he tucked her in. “I thought you did. You have such a pretty accent.”
Patting Jeff’s head, he smiled and leaned down close to her ear. “Sim.”
Yes. She was definitely dreaming.
CHAPTER TEN
JUNE HAD WHAT it took to be a star.
She was making a hard run at second in the rankings, and she was having the kind of impact that Travis could only dream about. For the first time since Travis had been back, Red wasn’t the cocksure idiot he normally was. Through sheer skill, June had taken him down a peg—maybe a couple of pegs. Some days, Travis thought that if she looked at Red hard enough, he’d start calling her “Ma’am.”
That suited Travis fine. Freed from the Red tug-of-war, he could appreciate the ride a li
ttle more. Of course, he knew if he wasn’t careful, she’d push right past him and right into the Vegas finals. Honestly, he wasn’t too sure how he felt about that.
He’d worked so hard these last two years to make it back to the bigs. He’d endured the agony of relearning how to walk, how to ride—how to do everything—so that he could put his body on the line and prove that he was still one of the best.
And if he couldn’t do that, well... There’d been no guarantees that he’d beat Red. There were never any guarantees that he’d be able to walk away again. But Red was an easy guy to dislike. Beating him was a point of personal pride.
Losing to June? To a girl? Even if that girl was one of the best natural riders he’d ever seen?
Even if he’d almost kissed her?
He didn’t want to fail and have to drive off into the sunset, forgotten and broken with no other prospects. He didn’t want to lose. Not to Red and not to June. No matter how she looked at him with those big doe eyes when he pulled her rope for her.
But watching June... Hell. When she rode, he didn’t think about how he needed to beat her score. He just enjoyed watching the ride.
Everyone else watched, too. The crowd was a sellout every night. People snapped pictures of her rides and then got her autograph afterward. She delivered for her fans, spectacular landing after spectacular ride. Like she’d promised, she’d been as right as rain in Keokuk, winning the whole danged thing.
Yes, she had what it took to be a star. He might be able to beat her this year, but after that? If she kept making the time and sticking the landings, she was at the start of a long career.
Even if Travis made it back to the bigs this year, what about next year? Or the year after? He wasn’t twenty anymore. The days where he couldn’t drag his busted bones and rods back up onto the back of a bull were fast approaching.
He had this year, maybe next. He had to make the best of it. He had to beat June.
But he wanted to beat her fair and square, on the back of a bull. He didn’t want something outside the arena to pull her off her game.
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