Cowboy Crush

by Liz Talley

  “Good,” she said, rocking her pelvis so her cleft rubbed his hardness. A jolt of pleasure slammed into her. “After we, uh, shower, we can go into town. I need boots.”

  “It’s hot to be wearing boots,” he said, though he wore them. He dropped his head and nibbled her sweaty neck. The feel of him sucking her flesh lightly and rubbing his hands over the globe of her ass caused heat to sink into her pelvis. She felt herself grow wetter.

  “Flip-flops aren’t much protection against snakes and random nails. Plus, it would be nice to have a souvenir of Texas,” she managed to say.

  Cal unbuttoned her shorts and pushed them down her hips, leaving her clad in a tiny bikini. Then he dropped to his knees and pressed a kiss to her belly before nuzzling her satin-covered mound with his nose. Looking up he said, “We can go to the Co-op. I need cement for the bucking barrel, anyway. If we get moving, I’ll have enough time to stop by Whitman’s Hardware before they close.”

  Maggie sighed as his hands cupped her ass and brought her hard against his mouth. “But we have to shower first.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take a fast one together. Conserve water,” he said, fastening his mouth on the satin that covered her clitoris. He stroked her with his tongue through the material.

  Maggie knew what he was doing. Driving her to distraction. “I know what will happen when we get naked and soaped up in that shower.”

  Cal released her ass, held up his hands and looked up at her. “Hey, I can keep my hands to myself.”

  “But not your mouth,” she said, tangling her hand through his hair and pressing him back to his previous task.

  He obliged, nuzzling her flesh through the now-soaked panties. Maggie sighed and dropped her head back, letting him do as he pleased. He sucked and nibbled before sliding the material aside. She felt the heat of his breath on her naked flesh as she felt the pressure grow in her womb. Cal made one long slow swipe of his tongue through her sex. Then he stood. “Last one in the shower has to do the dishes tonight.”

  Maggie blinked at the sudden loss of pleasure. Cal grinned as he darted out of the room.

  “You bastard, you know I hate doing the dishes,” she shouted with a laugh. But truly she didn’t, not with Cal sitting at the kitchen table strumming songs on his old guitar. There was something comforting about his baritone while she scrubbed the pots.

  Yeah, this place was growing on her.

  And that determined cowboy was growing on her, too.

  That thought was more dangerous than the snake she saw coiled in the road. Way more dangerous. Buying cowboy boots wasn’t going to protect her from either of them.

  10

  CAL SCANNED THE rack of boots. “We can always drive back into McKinney. Go to Cavender’s.”

  “And get mugged by your fans? No thanks,” Maggie said, holding up a brown leather Justin roper and squinting at it.

  “I ain’t that popular, darlin’.” He tried for lazy charm in his demeanor since he’d lost his cool earlier. But he hadn’t liked letting her see how frustrated he was by his damn inability to control his body. Ripping up the floor had hurt his shoulder like a mother. It pissed him off. That and the fact he’d had words with his mother about Wyatt on Sunday. It had started with his brother, Wyatt, asking questions about riding bulls. They’d finished lunch and sat in the sunroom drinking sweet tea. Wyatt had grabbed a rope and practiced tying it.

  “So you still thinking about riding, huh?” Cal said to Wyatt, eyeing the rope in his brother’s hand. The kid looked like Gary Whitehorse’s Comanche ancestors with the exception of his brown eyes and gangly build. Seventeen and ready to conquer, Wyatt was buck wild and spoiled rotten by his father. The kid’s saving grace was he had a good heart and a mother who’d beat him before she’d let him come to a bad end.

  A mulish expression crossed the kid’s face. Cal knew that look. Seen it too often in the mirror. “Yeah. Why not?”

  “You’re too tall.”

  “Whatever. I’m just messing around, anyway.”

  “Just messing around can get your face broken,” Cal said, noting his mother’s back stiffening. Ruth had lost Cal to the sport. She wouldn’t lose Wyatt.

  Cal didn’t know whether he should support his younger brother’s dream of bull riding or squash it before the kid tore himself apart. On one hand it gave them something in common. Cal had been on the road during much of Wyatt’s boyhood, driving incredible distances until he hit the PBR and started making enough to fly to the venues. And there had been no breaks. He rode all year, chasing the rankings, battling through broken noses, gashes and strained muscles. No time for Coyote Creek. But despite the fire in the kid’s eyes, Cal had seen enough to know his kid brother would never achieve success as a bull rider.

  “I ain’t afraid if that’s what you’re implying,” Wyatt said, brown eyes flashing with anger.

  “Did I say that?” Cal asked.

  Wyatt made good grades and as he approached his senior year of high school, he had a good shot of getting an academic scholarship. But Cal figured he’d have to toss Wyatt a bone, and in the process of letting him try bull riding, he might knock some sense into the kid.

  For a few seconds the kid stared down at the rope. “One of the guys over at the Co-op said you ordered a bucking barrel in. Maybe I can come out and try it.”

  Cal nodded. “I could use some help getting it installed. You can shovel.”

  “I can do that,” Wyatt said.

  Ruth caught Cal’s eye and she glared at him. Battle lines drawn. “Can I speak to you for a minute, Cal?”

  Wyatt rolled his eyes as Cal and their mother rose. The kid knew what their mother wanted. Same song, different dance.

  “You have to nip this in the bud,” his mother whispered, spinning on him, her finger jabbing him in the chest.

  “Mom, I’ve got this,” Cal said, taking her finger out of his solar plexus.

  “No, you don’t. That’s all he does is watch you and all your friends ride. He’s glued to his laptop, streaming all your rodeos.”

  “And you’re not?” He still wanted his mom to watch, to be proud of him. To not hate the sport he loved so much. But she had issues with rodeo. The sport had brought Cal’s father to town...and it had taken him away.

  “Of course. And I live with my heart in my throat, scared to death. And when Rasputin tossed you, gored you and stomped on you, I felt like it was happening to me.”

  “Mom,” Cal began.

  “No. You don’t understand. I’m proud of you. I am. But I can’t go through it again. You and I both know that Wyatt isn’t cut out for it. He’s too tall and he’s starting too late. He’ll get hurt.”

  “But you have to let me handle it. If you push him away, he’ll only hold on tighter. Let me spend some time with him. He can come out to the ranch and I’ll put him to work. He can earn a little cash and I’ll teach him to ride. After a few weeks, I’ll take him over to Sawyer’s and get him on a practice bull. Hal Sawyer will tell him straight up that he won’t cut the mustard. Better he hear it from someone in the business than me or you.”

  Ruth made a face. “But he could still get hurt.”

  “Nah, maybe a bump or bruise. Maybe enough to give ’em up for good.”

  “Like you did?” his mother said wryly.

  Cal smiled. “Well, if he gets addicted, I can’t do much about it. He’s fascinated enough to want a ride, but I’m not sure the passion and work ethic are there yet.”

  “But the sense of adventure and all those girls are. It’s such a lure. Look at the life you lead.”

  He knew she was thinking, “like father, like son.” Cal’s father had lived the same vagabond lifestyle. Handsome as sin and just as shiftless, he’d rolled into town thirty-six years ago and hired on to help with branding, saving money for his next ride. Ruth had been a teenage waitress with plans to leave the five-stoplight town for a chance at modeling in LA. But she’d taken one look at Dave Calhoun’s baby blues and that had been al
l she wrote. Ten months later she had a newborn, a used trailer and an empty spot in her bed. Dave hadn’t stuck around long enough to learn to change a diaper before he was gone again. She’d tracked him down in Wyoming. A woman had come to the pay phone and told her Dave was with her now and to stop pestering him. Ruth never looked for Cal’s father again.

  So she probably thought Cal was like his old man, roaming around, a new girl in each town. The thing was Cal wondered the same thing. Maybe he understood his old man better than he thought...though Cal would have never knocked a woman up and then abandoned her and their child. Never. But that itch to move, that empty feeling in his belly, seemed never fulfilled.

  Maggie pulled him from his recollections with a sigh. “How do you do it?”

  “Do what?” he asked, bending down to peer at the lower shelf lined with boots. A pair of sand-colored boots caught his eyes. Weren’t Lucchese, but they sported nice leather tooling and looked comfortable enough.

  “Sound like such a cowboy. It’s so hot.”

  “That’s just how we talk down here. Ain’t like I’m using it for effect or nothing. Here, try these, baby.” He shoved the boots toward her.

  “Oh, these are pretty.”

  He liked the way her eyes lit up. “Then they’ll definitely suit you.”

  “You don’t have to say things like that to get me into bed,” she teased.

  “I know. ’Cause once you’ve been with Cal Lincoln, you’re ruined for other men,” he said, pulling her hip toward him, rubbing a hand on her bared shoulder.

  Maggie’s hair tumbled around her shoulders and her cheeks looked rosy. Like a well-loved woman’s should. Her skin had grown tan from all the work she’d done washing windows, pulling weeds and tilling flower beds. Even though she’d worked like a dog—something that had surprised the hell out of him—she looked healthy and relaxed. She hadn’t lied when she implied she’d needed sex. He’d patched her up real good and he’d send her back to Philly ready to...

  Something terrible bloomed inside his head.

  It was the image of a faceless man gripping Maggie’s hips, nibbling his way down her collarbone. Then he saw her throw her head back as the stranger tugged the band from her ponytail, making sweet waves of brown silk tumble over her naked shoulders. Her breasts heaved as the man licked first one nipple, then the other.

  Furious jealousy seized him, sinking its claws into him, shaking him.

  His hands curled so he jabbed them into the front pocket of his jeans and turned away. He didn’t want to feel this way about her. He’d told her they were about five weeks of pleasure. Thinking about her with another man shouldn’t make him incensed...ready to punch his fist through something. But despite his best effort to keep his distance, he did, indeed, care about Maggie. Thing was, the woman delighted him. From cooking him dinner to refusing help with the tiller to her willingness to tangle with a perceived threat to her status as his woman, everything she did charmed him. He loved too much about her. Even those ridiculous house shoes with the floppy bunny ears she’d worn the past few mornings.

  “I talked to Charlie today,” she said, sitting on the bench and sliding off the flip-flop she wore.

  “Why?” he said drolly.

  “I wanted to know why you two act so weird around each other,” she said.

  Cal’s jealousy faded and irritation took its place. Just when he thought everything about her was perfect, she started meddling. “Nothing like coming out of the corner with a sucker punch.”

  Maggie looked up at him, her forehead crinkled as she struggled to pull the boot on. “Surprise attack worked for the Pict peoples who occupied ancient Scotland. It was one of the main reasons they built Hadrian’s Wall. Very effective.”

  “History lesson aside, why do you care about me and Charlie?” Cal asked.

  “I don’t know. You go out of your way to avoid him and I wondered,” she said, obviously refusing to drop the subject.

  Did the Picts know when to retreat? ’Cause now would be a good time for Maggie to do that. “If you’re implying I’m emotionally crippled, that’s horseshit.”

  “I merely wondered why you both circle each other like snarling yard dogs.”

  She definitely wasn’t going to drop it. “We have history. Nothing worth repeating.”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “Did he?” Cal wouldn’t have expected Charlie to open up to Maggie, but then again, the old man seemed to have a soft spot for women and children. That was likely his only redeeming quality. “Okay, fine. Charlie taught me to ride bulls. He actually taught me a lot of things—roping, branding, sittin’ a horse in a rainstorm.”

  Her head jerked up as if she hadn’t actually expected him to tell her. “He’s the person who taught you to ride a bull?”

  “Yeah, before he went to work as a ranch hand, he rodeoed. I was a little wild and he hired me to work one summer. We clicked. Charlie taught me the cowboy code.”

  “Cowboy code?”

  “Things like a man always takes care of his horse before himself, how to tie knots, shoot a pistol. Just things a guy needs to know if he works in the saddle.”

  “But you don’t work in a saddle.”

  “I did for a while. I’ve worked a spread or two in my lifetime,” Cal said, finding another pair of boots that looked nice and holding them up to her. She shook her head. “We had a falling-out when I was eighteen.”

  “Oh.” She stilled and waited for him to continue.

  Hell, she was like every other woman. She wanted to fix things, make everyone hunky-dory, latching arms and singing “Kumbaya.” He’d have to spill or he’d look emotionally damaged or like he was at fault. He wasn’t. Charlie was the one who’d lost his marbles.

  “It started with my mom going out with Charlie when I was in high school. Long story short, he fell for her. She didn’t fall for him. When I was a senior, she started dating Gary, who she’s now married to. Charlie convinced me to interfere on his behalf. It caused some drama. She married Gary, anyway, and Charlie took to the bottle. He got mean.”

  “You stopped training with him?”

  “Not at that point. See, I got a scholarship to University of Texas to play baseball. Everyone thought it was a no-brainer that I go to UT, but I wanted to be a bull rider so I told the MLB team that drafted me along with UT that I wasn’t going to play baseball. It pissed my mother off.”

  “Wow. You turned down a baseball scholarship to ride bulls? That takes a lot of self-assurance. And passion for rodeo.”

  “Two things I have in buckets,” he said, finally finding a smile. He’d known since his first ride he was destined to be a bull rider.

  “So what happened?” she asked.

  “I got thrown my freshman year of college. Ended up with a bad concussion. Charlie came to Southeast Oklahoma State where I was on partial scholarship. My mom came, too. She’d just given birth to Wyatt and she was hopped up on hormones. It wasn’t a good scene. She cried, Charlie yelled at my advisor for putting me in danger and Mom yelled at Charlie for interfering. It was a real crap storm.”

  Her gaze was riveted to him.

  “Charlie had always been a quiet, reasonable man, but I guess the booze did something to him. He threatened my mother, my coach and half the rodeo team.”

  “With a gun?”

  “No, but they called the police on him.

  “To make matters worse, the doctor told my mother I had possible brain damage so she threatened to sue the college. That paired with Charlie’s crazy altercation got me dropped from the rodeo team. Then Gary called the MLB scout for the team that drafted me and worked a deal for me to go to their A team. It led to lots of bad blood between...well, all of us.”

  Maggie grimaced. “Ouch.”

  “So I left home and didn’t talk to my mother for five years.”

  “But she was just being a mother. It’s a dangerous sport. I can see why your mother...and even Charlie might want you to do something safer.”


  Like a match tossed into diesel fuel, anger exploded inside him. “No one is going to tell me how to run my life, and no one is going to tell me when I’m done riding. Not a stubborn old drunk or any woman. I can decide for myself when I should quit.”

  Maggie slid away from him, from the force of his anger. “I’m sorry. I was merely acknowledging their concerns. Surely you can see—”

  “No,” he interrupted, not wanting her to go any further explaining herself. She didn’t get a say-so in his life. “My decision to ride is mine alone. Gary and my mother overstepped. Charlie overstepped.” He looked hard at her so she’d understand that she overstepped, too.

  She tore her gaze away. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  He’d hurt her feelings, but he couldn’t help it. Having his mother, Charlie and Gary try and stop him from doing what he loved had made him defensive. Better change the subject. “You going to get a pair of boots?”

  Maggie looked down at the ones on her feet. “Think I’ll take these.”

  “Good. I need to get the barrel. Told Wyatt he could help me install it tonight. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Of course not. It will be nice to have some company at night.” Her brown eyes went soft when she looked at him, making him feel like dog crap for blowing up on her. He shouldn’t have dipped down into that emotional vortex. No need to have gone there. Should have told her it was nothing between him and Charlie. He had to remember that he and Maggie were temporary. They were shits and giggles. That was it.

  “Let’s mosey on, cowgirl,” he said.

  * * *

  MAGGIE WATCHED CAL instruct his younger brother in digging a two-foot hole with a posthole digger, still smarting from Cal’s earlier outburst. She should have kept her mouth shut, but something inside her had wanted to help. Being a mediator was both her strong suit and her downfall.

  Cal was installing the bucking barrel in the barn. He’d already unloaded five sacks of Sakrete he’d use to cement the pole in. The barrel sat over by the horse feed, covered with a tarp.