by Tina Leonard
Saint nodded. “Agreed. We’re thinking about overruling you, bro.”
Trace looked around at his good friends, men who’d had his back in many a bad, bad place. “Overrule me?”
Saint and Declan nodded.
“Look, meatheads,” Trace said, “we can fight about a lot of stuff, but not women. Women aren’t worth the aggravation.”
His friends didn’t say anything, and Trace realized something of a coup was being staged against him. “You’re serious.”
They nodded. Trace shook his head. “After five years of running a profitable, successful business, after all our hard work, after busting our asses together in the military, you want to draw a line over women.”
“I can’t think of a better reason to draw a line,” Declan said. “Think of it as a gentleman’s curse.”
“Not that we have our eye on any of the girls,” Saint added. “We just can’t bear the idea of what the Horsemen might do to them. They for sure won’t train them. They’ll string them along, thinking they’re getting a great deal, and all the time, they’ll lie in wait for when their darling little guards come down for some reason.” Saint’s face was haunted. “You act tough, Trace, but you know it’d kill you, too.”
It would, but he wasn’t going to admit it. Someone had to think with his gray matter around here—his brothers were thinking with other parts of their bodies—and someone had to be the bad guy. “We built this business from nothing. We’re not going to become a laughingstock over some pretty faces.” He tried not to think about Ava’s face, but she popped into his mind all the time. In fact, he’d dreamed about her last night, and the dream had been so hauntingly sexual he’d awakened soaked in sweat.
Sheriff Durant walked in, his face solemn as he slung himself into the desk chair. Trace noted the drawn expression around Steel’s eyes. “Judy got to you, didn’t she?”
Steel glanced around the room, clearly debating how much to say. “It’s hell, boys,” he finally said. “That woman’s got me by the short ones, and as you know, and as I freely admit with some pride, I love being twisted around her delicate little pinkie. But I don’t like it when she’s unhappy with me, and at the moment, she wants me to defend her honor.” He looked around the room. “I fear that’s going to put me awry with you. And I hate being awry, you know I do. But Judy’s my girl.”
Trace gazed at Steel with sympathy. “Beautiful women are like sticks of dynamite to a man’s peaceful existence.”
“It’s not just that she’s beautiful,” Steel said, “it’s that she’s so damn …” He gulped. “Judy’s my best friend, even when she’s trying my patience, and right now, she’s trying my patience real bad.”
His confession elicited some chuckles from the men, Trace included. “Sheriff, we just can’t give in, no matter how much Judy’s raking you over the coals.”
“I wish she’d just rake me over some coals,” Steel said. “It’d be warmer than my empty bed.”
They all groaned for Steel’s sake, and the sheriff looked gratified by the shared commiseration. Trace sighed. “Steel, the problem is that you know Judy’s not playing with a fair deck. She’s playing you with a set of trick cards, and us with another set of cards, and what we have to do is figure out what she’s really up to.”
“I don’t care if she’s trying to marry every single one of you off to those babes of hers,” Steel said, his tone desperate and a bit mercenary. “I’d gladly throw each and every one of you to the wolves to have my woman smile at me again.”
“Wait a minute,” Trace said, “no one said anything about marrying anybody. Where’d you come up with that, Steel? Did Judy say something about matchmaking?”
Steel shook his head, his face woeful. For a big, good-looking tough guy that everyone respected, Trace thought the man turned to marshmallow at the mere thought of Judy deserting his bed. It was a shame to watch the tough-guy sheriff practically grovel at a woman’s feet.
I never will. If there’s going to be any groveling, it won’t be me doing it.
Declan stared at Trace. “You see what you’re doing. You’re practically tearing this town apart.”
“Now, wait a minute,” Trace said, his temper starting to rise. “This is a business, not Judy’s personal toy shop. And I train men, just like I did in the military. I do not train chicks to ride pretty ponies.”
“Pretty ponies?” Judy sailed into the office, stealing the air out of the room, and Trace watched his three friends sit a bit straighter. Declan got up, brushed off the leather sofa, and indicated Judy should take his seat. Judy glanced for a moment at Steel, who looked hopeful that she might sit in his lap. She chose to stand, her hands on her hips, a fighting gleam in her eyes.
“Pretty ponies?” she repeated. “Tell you what, Trace. You spend thirty minutes training Ava, and then you repeat those words.”
Trace stared back at Judy, not about to buckle like the other men in the room. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
Every eye in the room fell on him.
“I’m waiting to hear,” Judy said, and Steel looked even more hopeful.
“I’ll suggest to my business partners that we lease you time in the arena to train your team. If my partners agree, we’ll set you up in a special area that’s just yours and your team’s.”
Judy took one look around the room, her gaze sweeping each man’s face. She settled back on Trace. “I need one of you to take on my girls.”
“Can’t do it. And you knew this before you brought them here,” Trace said. “You’re just going to have to tell your team that you brought them here under false pretenses.”
“Now, look,” Steel said, but Judy held up her hand.
“I’m being generous giving you first shot at my team to make a name for your training center,” Judy said.
“We already have a name,” Trace said. “The Hell’s Outlaws Training Center. We have a stellar reputation for training the very best.”
His buddies nodded. At least on this one point, they agreed.
Judy gave Trace an arch look. “Thanks, but no thanks.” The tall blonde sent a glance toward the sheriff as she left. Steel scrambled after his lady, a reproving look shot Trace’s way.
“That was wholly unnecessary.” Declan got to his feet. “We vote on all decisions, Trace.”
“That’s right.” Saint said, nodding. “And so far there’s been no vote.”
“So vote,” Trace said. “But I remind you that we set this business up on the premise that we don’t train women. This is a man’s place.” It was going to stay that way.
The sound of hooves filtered inside the office, pounding in a rhythmic tattoo. Trace looked at his buddies, and they stared back at him. The training center was closed. Nobody would be working their horse at this hour.
Trace’s heart sank. “Judy,” he said.
The three men cruised out to the well-lighted arena. Trace recognized the pixie brunette on top of the speckled gray thoroughbred, her seat firm in the saddle. Ava guided the horse toward a barrel, rounding it smoothly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Judy and Steel watching, too, and Trace knew he was caught in a setup. The bait dangled in front of him, too attractive to resist. He watched Ava round a barrel, holding her horse in a smooth circle, her mount experienced. She flew past him, her face determined beneath her helmet.
“Damn,” Declan said.
“That is some set of cheeks,” Saint said. “I wish I’d seen her first.”
Trace grunted. “I wish you had, too.”
He went to hide inside his office, where it was safer than outside watching the sexiest temptation he’d ever seen on the back of a horse—or just about anywhere.
It was destined to be another sleepless night.
Chapter Three
“Did it work?” Judy asked Steel. She’d watched Trace, Saint, and Declan carefully, tempting them with Ava’s riding skills. They just had to see the potential of her team.
“I can’t tell,” Stee
l said. “Trace took off like he’d been stung by a hornet. Could mean anything. He isn’t an easy man to read.”
“Tell me about it,” Judy said under her breath. She waved Ava to start cooling down her mount.
“Give him time to get used to the idea.” Steel gave her a sympathetic squeeze. “You know Trace doesn’t make snap decisions.”
“He has to. I’m running out of time.” The truth was, she’d promised these girls a team. She didn’t want them to figure out she didn’t quite have the setup she’d promised, and then look for help somewhere else. “I’m going to have to go to the Horsemen. The girls can train, and we’ll have a team, and it’s Trace’s own fault he’s passing on a great thing. My girls took a big chance coming here to help me start this team.”
“Yeah.” Steel looked thoughtful as Ava went to put her horse away. “Tell me again why you’re doing this?”
She couldn’t tell him everything. He’d protest. Steel understood the basic mechanics of the situation: She needed the Outlaws to train her girls, because quite simply there were no other men she’d trust to train her team. Bull-riding was dangerous enough; you couldn’t be sloppy about it. And if some matchmaking happened, too, Trace deserved that as well. Steel was trying to help her lure him into it, because if Trace fell in love, the other men would, too. But nobody could force Trace to agree to train her team, and without him she had nothing. She respected that—when it didn’t make her mad.
“Oh, fiddle. I’m going to grab the Belles and head off.” She leaned up to kiss Steel goodbye. “Thank you for trying to help me. You’re a wonderful man.”
“I know,” Steel said, brightening. “We could move Saturday night up to tonight, if you want.” He ran a hand down her arm, sending tingles over her. “I’m good with any night that ends in y.”
She smiled. “Saturdays have always worked for us. Be a shame to mess up a good thing. You say you want me more often, but men say one thing and mean another. That’s what Hattie Hanover says, and she’s one of the smartest women I know. Even you listen to my good friend when you want to hear common sense. And she makes a mean redeye gravy.”
She went off to find Ava. Cameron and Harper were in the stall with her, helping Ava groom her horse for the night. “Nice riding.”
Ava looked up. “Did Trace bite?”
“Not yet,” Judy said, and her team looked dispirited.
She couldn’t bear to let them down. They’d all come from such faraway places—they each had their own private goals and reasons for taking the risk of joining a brand-new team. “It’s all right,” Judy said. “There’s always another way to take a shot. I’ll work it out.”
* * *
“Hell, no,” Trace said reflexively, knowing without looking that Declan and Saint had come inside the office to badger him some more about Judy’s team. “Don’t even ask.”
He kept his gaze on the papers on his desk. Declan and Saint could lose their minds at the sight of pretty faces—darn pretty faces—but Trace intended to stand firm. Standing firm was what had saved him and many a warrior under harsh conditions.
A pert fanny slid onto his desk, right at the edge of his sight. Trace glanced up, the sight of Ava, damp and a bit ruffled from her ride, a very appealing thing to his miserably lonely libido. “What do you want?” he said.
She shrugged. “Nothing.”
He waited. “You’re annoying me for a reason.”
“Maybe I like being around you because you’re such a pleasant person.”
Trace laughed. “Probably I am. How’d you enjoy sleeping in my house last night?”
She shrugged. “I’ve stayed in better, I’ve stayed in worse. I didn’t come to Hell for the accommodations.”
He put down his pen and leaned back in his chair, studying her. “Clearly you can ride. You could be training riders; you could be competing. Why are you signing on to Judy’s madcap scheme?”
“Why do you care?”
He cared because she was so darling he practically felt pain from not being able to take her right there on his desk. Trace sighed. “I don’t, and yet I do. Helluva problem you’re giving me. Like a pain in the ass that just doesn’t quit.”
“I experience likewise emotions around you,” Ava said.
“Yeah, well.” He laced his fingers behind his head, grinning. She was such an open book. “Now what?”
She caught him checking out the delicate derriere she’d parked on his desk, and frowned. “Now we move on to the next step. You aren’t the only ingredient necessary for our success.”
“Look, sweetheart.” Trace hated to burst her illusions but there was no helping it. “There’s not going to be a rodeo here. Miss Judy has no team. I’m not going to train you. Whatever reason she really brought you here isn’t going to happen.”
“So I should just leave? Desert Judy?”
He shrugged. “She brought you here under false pretenses.”
She considered that. “And your answer is definitely no about training me.”
“Look. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t, I don’t know the first thing about training women.”
“So don’t think of me as a woman. Train me like you would a man.”
His gaze skimmed her curves. “Impossible.”
“I do believe you’re afraid of the sexual attraction between us.”
Trace stared at the goddess perched on his desk, his groin tightening, his scalp prickling with a thousand sparks of something. Desire. Lust. Something he couldn’t control. “Lady, look. I’ve faced a lot of things in my life, things you can’t possibly understand, things that would scare the pants off most men. I definitely am not afraid of anything you may or may not be offering.”
“Okay.” She slid off his desk, sashayed to the door. “Just wanted to give you one last chance to say yes.”
She turned to leave. His gaze, of course, went straight to those well-packed jeans. She looked back, catching him looking, just like she’d known he would be. Trace didn’t bother to act like he hadn’t been staring, and Ava disappeared down the hall.
He slumped in his chair, mopped his face with a bandanna. She was right about one thing: The sexual attraction was fogging his brain. He wanted to say yes. God, how he wanted to say yes, to anything she wanted from him.
She was desire in blue jeans—and turning it down was hard as hell.
* * *
Ivy Peters’ Honky-tonk and Dive Bar on the outskirts of town loomed near the road, close enough to be seen by cars that passed by, but set far enough back that the flashing red neon light that read Girls wasn’t obtrusive.
He strolled inside the old wooden retrofitted hunting lodge with Steel, thinking that the place was a bit more garish than he remembered. Or maybe it just hadn’t seemed so before, until Mayor Judy’s team of dolls had rolled into town, knocking every man’s socks right off his feet.
“Hello, boys,” Ivy said, strolling over to greet them.
There was no denying that Ivy was a looker. She was almost as tall as Steel, and as she drifted on to the sheriff’s arm, Trace tensed for trouble. Ivy was total counterpoint to Mayor Judy. Judy was blonde and tall and channeled Mae West; Ivy had streaked blonde hair, light over dark, and straight, instead of poufy like Judy’s. She was as tall as Judy, she was jealous of Judy, and she’d do whatever she could to steal the sheriff.
The two women were mortal enemies. Trace held his breath as Steel allowed Ivy to melt up against him.
Then he stepped away. “We’ve had a complaint, Ivy.”
“Don’t talk to me about complaints, Sheriff. We keep it low-key out here. You know that.”
The sex appeal that Ivy was beaming all over Steel was enough to raise the temperature in the room ten degrees. Trace wasn’t certain how Steel withstood it; a man needed a flame-retardant suit to protect himself from the heat. Five of Ivy’s girls gathered around, smiling at Trace. He smelled perfume and promise, and tried not to look like he was daunted.
He was.
>
Trace looked away from all the female firepower launching at him, keeping his gaze fixed on Steel.
“Someone mentioned there’s been some fighting out here,” Steel said.
“Fighting?” Ivy smiled and ran her hand up Steel’s arm. “That’s not what I’m in business for, Steel. Fighting never made a girl money.”
Trace’s throat felt like it had closed up a bit. The ladies smiled an obvious invitation at him, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that Ava had gotten under his skin like a burr, maybe he’d have bought these ladies a beer, just to keep things peaceful and silky-smooth. But he wasn’t in the mood. He’d only come out here with Steel as a favor to the sheriff—playing shotgun rider for the outing. Judy didn’t like Steel being at Ivy’s place by himself; she was well aware that Ivy had her eye on her man. Ivy was a Venus flytrap, patiently waiting until her prey got close enough to ensnare, and Judy knew it.
“Just wanted you to know we’d had a report of trouble,” Steel said easily. He backed away a bit from Ivy, and Trace recognized Steel was about to make his retreat. He tipped his hat to the ladies and Ivy out of habit, making an initial silent announcement of their exit.
“Stay, Steel,” Ivy said, her voice husky, her hand on his forearm. “We don’t get to see you often enough around here. Judy keeps you so tied down.”
“Got another call, Ivy. Hope it’s on better terms when I see you again,” Steel said, his tone official, reminding Ivy that all her wiles hadn’t deterred him from his business.
Trace followed the sheriff out to his truck. They got in, and Trace turned the air conditioner on full blast.
Steel laughed. “They got to you.”
“They always do. I need a beer. I’ll buy you one at Redfeathers.”
“It’s a deal.” Steel turned onto the two-lane road toward Hell. “The ladies ought to be there by the time we pull in.”
“Ladies?” Trace didn’t want to sound too hopeful, but all the same, if Ava was supposed to be at Redfeathers tonight, he wouldn’t complain.
