The Bull Rider Meets His Match

by Jeannie Watt

  Until it caught up with him.

  As Grady’s ride approached, the calmness she’d faked herself into evaporated. She forced herself to breathe. Grady did this for a living. He was good at it. Really good. She’d be stupid not to be concerned, but she had faith in his abilities, even if he’d drawn a rank bull. She wasn’t familiar with No M.O., but a bullfighter’s son filled her in. “Dad hates that bull,” the kid said at the end of his dissertation. Lex stretched her mouth into a smile of acknowledgment and focused on her breathing. She could do this.

  She had to do this.

  * * *

  GRADY WAS BEGINNING to wonder if a little of his sister’s recent hard luck hadn’t rubbed off on him. He’d done okay during the first few stops of the Bull Extravaganza, had won a leg, but the current stop wasn’t starting out so well. His luggage had gotten lost, so all he had to his name was the grip bag with his rope, glove, rosin, vest and spurs. His chaps had been in the checked bag—a mistake he’d never make again—so he’d had to borrow. Green batwings with metallic pink fringe. Lots of it. Flashy, to say the least, and almost too long, so he had to watch how he walked. And then he’d drawn No M.O., perhaps the rankest bull on the circuit. If Grady could do his part he’d be in the money, because the bull always scored high, but that was the trick. No M.O. was so named because he didn’t have one—an M.O., or modus operandi, that is. He changed up his routine, sometimes rearing out of the chute, sometimes charging a few feet, then throwing himself into spins, first one way, then the other, and sometimes he simply short hopped before launching into some nasty twisting bucks.

  Grady spent the last minutes of his warm-up time stretching, going over the ride in his mind. Tamping down the fear, because in his book, only fools weren’t afraid. He never watched the other riders until after his ride, didn’t want their victories or errors getting into his head.

  The house was packed, as it generally was for the specialty bull-riding events, but the crowd seemed unreal during his prep. There, but not. He enjoyed the cheers, the positive vibes, but he was never really conscious of being watched until he rode for eight and then allowed himself to look outside the bubble of concentration he’d created. If he landed on his butt, the only people in his world were the bullfighters, the other riders, the gate men. The judges. There was no embarrassment, no shame.

  Grady paced behind the chute until No M.O. was loaded. Then he adjusted his belled rope and eased on, pounding his gloved left fist tight around the rope with his right hand. That was when the calm came, blocking out everything except for the feel of the warm flesh and powerful muscles shifting and twitching beneath him, ready to explode when the gate opened and the flank strap tightened.

  Grady nodded, and No M.O. reared out of the gate almost before it was open, planted his front feet and attempted to swing his backside over his ears. After that a series of quick spins to the right, followed by a change of direction and quick spins to the left, drool flying off his muzzle.

  He had this one. Instinct told him when the whistle would blow. A fraction of a second later it sounded, and he was still in the center of the bull.

  * * *

  LEX GRIPPED THE edge of her seat hard. Even though Grady was still on top, she couldn’t relax, because this was the part of the bull ride she was conditioned to fear—the part after the whistle. The part where her dad could have gotten hurt.

  Grady was checking out his dismount, and Lex was beginning to think she could allow herself to breathe again when the bull did a sudden twisting kick and flipped Grady over his hand onto the wrong side of the animal. His feet beat on the ground as the bull started spinning, tossing Grady against his side like a rag doll as he fought desperately to get his feet under him so he could free his trapped wrist.

  Lex jumped up, hand pressed hard over her chest.

  Wild Bill dashed at the animal, taunting him, luring him out of the spins and into a straight line, allowing Grady to finally get his feet under himself. Grady made a grab for the tail of the rope as the bull charged Wild Bill, caught it as his feet went out from under him again. He managed a yank and broke free, falling to his knees in the dirt as the second bullfighter dodged a hook and kept the bull from coming around and charging Grady.

  Thus thwarted, the bull tossed his head, kinked his tail and trotted toward the exit gate, his work done for the next several weeks. For a long moment, Grady stayed where he was, on his knees in the middle of the arena. He shook his head, then slowly got to his feet and headed toward the fence. The crowd cheered wildly, for Grady, for the bullfighters, for the bull.

  Lex was apparently the only one in the audience with tears streaming down her face.

  * * *

  “GOOD TO GO.”

  Grady had known that before the medic checked him out, even though his shoulder had come close to being dislocated and his wrist was turning blue as it swelled up. Might be a sprain, might be a fracture. They’d have to wait for the swelling to diminish to know for sure.

  With the green and pink chaps slung over his shoulder, he collected his gear, automatically checked his phone before shoving it in his pocket, then almost dropped it when he saw the text from Lex.

  I need to see you. Tonight if you aren’t hurting too bad.

  Tonight?

  Where are you? he texted back, heart thumping against his ribs as he waited for the reply.

  Here. With Sam Mitchell’s son. Near west exit.

  Grady didn’t bother to reply. He worked his way through a small crowd of riders outside the changing room, rounded the end of the holding area, grimacing as a guy with a camera bumped his shoulder, then headed toward the west exit.

  “Grady!”

  He stopped, turned. And there she was, looking like something out of one of his dreams, dressed in jeans and boots and a lace top, her dark hair falling over one shoulder. Looking so good that he hoped against hell he wasn’t having some kind of hallucination; that his brain hadn’t been beat to the point that he was imagining things.

  Her chin moved as she swallowed; then she started toward him, her expression a mixture of determination and uncertainty. But what struck him most was that her eyes were red. She’d been crying.

  Lex. Crying.

  That did him in. Grady closed the last couple of feet between them, wrapping his good arm around her, burying his face in her hair as he held her tightly, thinking how crazy this was. Lex was here. She pressed more tightly against him, and he felt her shudder.

  “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay.” What on earth had she been putting herself through that she’d been crying? How many demons had she confronted by coming here?

  She nodded against his shoulder, and damned if he didn’t feel dampness there.

  When she finally pulled back, there were indeed tears glistening on her dark lashes. She blinked those gorgeous eyes at him but didn’t say a word. There was no need. He got it.

  “Would it be too soon to tell you that I love you?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and he figured she was afraid that if she answered, she’d start crying for real. In public. Not a Lex thing.

  “I have to stay until the show’s over,” he said, running his hand up and down her arm, then brushing her hair back over her shoulder before cupping his palm against her face and leaning down to kiss her. A soft kiss. An it’s-all-right kiss that deepened into an I-can’t-imagine-life-without-you kiss.

  “I’ve got things I have to tell you,” she said when he lifted his head. “Important things.”

  His stomach tightened, but he nodded. “We can talk later. In private.”

  “This can’t wait...I was wrong.”

  “About what?”

  “Needing. I wasn’t being honest with myself. People need other people. And I need you.”

  “Of course you do,” he said in an attempt
at cockiness. The effect was ruined by the fact that he felt like crying himself. “But no more than I need you.”

  A smile trembled on Lex’s lips. “I was hoping you wouldn’t tell me to take a hike.”

  “Not a chance. This has all been really hard for me, but—” he gave a small shrug “—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I’ve kind of been feeling like Superman lately.”

  “Sorry about that.” She reached out to take his good hand, running her thumb over the back of it. “Can I stay with you until the show is over?”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  And so it was. Grady kept Lex’s hand in his as they waited for the announcement of the winner—not him, but he’d been close—and the presentation of the buckle. Then, after the longest bull event of his career, he had Lex all to himself on the taxi ride back to his hotel, and she hadn’t let go of his hand once. She was, however, a little more herself once they hit his room, where his luggage was waiting.

  “You can imagine my relief when I discovered those pink and green chaps weren’t yours,” she said.

  “They were kind of pretty under the lights.”

  “And had nice movement as you were flopping along the bull’s side.”

  “Funny.”

  She took his face in her hands, both frowning and smiling as she said, “I’m afraid to touch you anywhere else.”

  “Take a chance. I’ll tell you if it hurts.”

  “You know what?” she said with a lift of her eyebrows.

  “What?”

  “I’m going to do the same.”

  She wasn’t talking bruises—not the physical kind, anyway—and hearing those words made his heart almost explode. “You know I’m here for you.”

  “And that is the most amazing thing, Grady. I figured that you’d probably written me off.”

  “I tried. It didn’t work.”

  “Same here.” She leaned her forehead against his. “Guess that means we’re stuck with each other?”

  He smiled against her lips. “Can’t think of anyone I’d rather be stuck with. I love you, Lex.”

  “Not one bit more than I love you.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from HIS RODEO SWEETHEART by Pamela Britton

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  His Rodeo Sweetheart

  by Pamela Britton

  Chapter One

  There was something about a man in uniform.

  Claire Reynolds had seen a lot of them over the years. It had gotten to the point that she hardly even noticed them anymore, but this man, she thought as a warm wind blew off the tarmac, this man stood out—and not just because he wore dress blues.

  “Ms. Reynolds?” He walked out from beneath the shade of a C-40, although he had to yell to be heard. Behind him, across a strip of asphalt that shimmered from desert heat, the nose of a C-5 cargo plane lifted. The roar of its engines sounded as if a thousand storm clouds hovered overhead.

  “You must be Dr. McCall?” she all but yelled back, a hank of her long black hair blowing across her face. She should have pulled it into a ponytail.

  The man nodded, his hand lifting to his hat, a black beret with a gold oak leaf cluster near the pointy tip. Major Ethan McCall. Decorated soldier. Veterinarian for the US Army. She’d been on base before thanks to CPR—Combat Pet Rescue—but she’d never met this man. Was he new?

  Beneath his hat, green eyes squinted as he turned to face the back end of the smaller cargo plane, the big bay door yawning open like the back of a semi. In the shade of one of the wings, an aluminum dog crate stood silent. Claire watched as a black nose and part of a snout popped out of one of the holes, then back in again. For some reason, it made Claire smile. She looked up at the man in uniform and found him staring at her.

  “Thanks for coming all the way out here.” He looked away, and Claire took a moment to gather all her hair in one hand and twist it so that it would stay in place. He was young, much younger than she had expected. And handsome. She hadn’t expected that, either. Light brown hair. Strong jaw. Sideburns. A younger version of George Clooney.

  “I didn’t mind.” And she hadn’t. She’d needed to get away, even though her troubles had followed her here. As much as she loved her six-year-old son, as much as she wanted to be there for him every step of the way, she’d craved a brief burst of freedom. So she’d made the long drive east and then south to the desert, leaving Adam in the care of her brother and sister-in-law. God help her, she’d wanted to keep on driving.

  “Sorry about the uniform.” She looked up in time to see something cross behind his eyes. “Funeral detail.”

  The reason for the heightened security presented itself. She’d been on base enough times to have the routine down by heart. But today there had been an added layer of tension. She did a half turn toward the plane and spotted it then. A casket sat just inside the cargo bay. It caused Claire’s heart to stab her rib cage, the same way it did whenever she heard more bad news about her son’s health.

  “Oh.” Of pithy things to say it probably didn’t top the list, but there really wasn’t much more to verbalize. He probably hadn’t heard her anyway. The roar of four jet engines as they reached maximum horsepower made words disappear. When the sound faded somewhat she raised her voice and said, “I better make this quick, then.”

  He hadn’t taken his eyes off the casket, and when he turned back to her, she saw the sadness in them.

  “It’s his dog.” The words emerged from her, unbidden, but when she saw him flinch, she knew it to be true.

  Janus. The Belgian Malinois, which a less trained eye might ID as a German shepherd, had belonged to his friend. She had to look away for a moment, her throat closing in mute sympathy because she recognized his type of pain.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Her security badge caught the breeze and blew against the white shirt she wore. Inside the crate the dog poked his nose through a hole again. She was tempted to present her scent, but there would be time for that later. Instead she took a deep breath and looked Major McCall in the eye.

  “Is the family certain they don’t want to keep him?”

  He shoo
k his head sharply. “He’s a great dog. Passed his personality test with flying colors. It’s just that the wife has two small kids. She’s worried about Janus being too much to handle.”

  He would be a lot of work. Military dogs were known to be hyper, but they settled down once they realized their job description had changed. From military dog to family pet. It happened all the time.

  She inhaled, trying to think of something else to say. “Tell them they can always change their mind.”

  “They won’t.”

  He shook his head mutely. Inside the kennel Janus whined. You could tell a lot by an animal’s cry. There was the feed-me whine and the I-want-out-of-my-crate whine, and the one that always tugged at her heart. The I-miss-my-master whine.

  Janus wanted his master.

  “Toughest part of the job, listening to their cries.” She’d said the words softly, too softly to be heard by him, or so she’d thought. The cargo plane had lifted higher into the clear, blue sky, the sound of its engines slowly fading away, and the wind had caught her words, bringing them to his ears.

  “It is, isn’t it?” His eyes were so light that the black lashes stood out in stark contrast. From a distance it would look as if they were lined with makeup. Major Ethan McCall was all man. Wide shoulders. Narrow waist. Big hands.

  She had to look away because noticing his hands seemed somehow wrong, especially given their conversation.

  “I wanted to come do this for Trevor, but after tomorrow...”

  She looked up again because something about his words caught her ear. She tipped her head sideways. “You’re getting out?”

  He nodded. “Seemed as good a time as any.”