by Liz Talley
“First before you say anything I have to apologize,” Cal said, leaning against the lip of the tailgate. “I was an asshole. I shouldn’t have overreacted or accused you of trying to control me. I know you better than that, and after I thought about it, I knew my mama had cornered you. She’s hard to say no to.”
Maggie nodded. “Yeah, she is.”
“I told her you reminded me of her.”
She jerked her head around. “How so?”
“You’re hard to say no to,” he said with a smile. It was a shamefaced smile, and she could see he was embarrassed about his behavior. He should be.
“You shouldn’t have stormed off that way. It was immature and irrational and—”
“Dumb ass,” he finished.
“That and not fair to me. You told me it wouldn’t end that way.”
“I know.”
She crossed her arms. “I would never try to stop you from doing what you love. I can see the passion you have for riding. But I also understand how your mother feels. It’s a dangerous sport. You have a lot of scars to prove it.”
“I’m a regular ol’ collector of hurt, ain’t I?”
“So you hurt me?” She didn’t want the emotion to fall into her voice, but she was helpless to stop it.
“I didn’t want either one of us to hurt. This thing between us was supposed to be simple. Have fun and part with a smile on our faces, but it didn’t work that way. I went off in a huff, but then I missed the hell out of you. Kept thinking about things I wanted to show you, like the dolphins I saw in the Gulf or the way the sun set over the water. But I had shoved you away with my insecurities. I was afraid of my feelings, and like a selfish, immature kid I ran away from the hard stuff.”
“I don’t want to be your hard stuff,” she said, wondering what he meant. Why was she the hard stuff?
“You aren’t.” He looked out at the trucks. Seconds ticked by. “Why did you really come? Not just to hear an apology?”
“No, I wanted to propose something to you.”
“Propose?”
“A partnership. I didn’t sell the Triple J.”
He jerked his gaze to her. “Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want to let it go. Bud left me a note. He challenged me to not think with my head but to follow my gut. Somehow, that made sense. I refused Hunt Turner’s offer and I’m staying in Texas.”
“You’re staying?” Cal’s voice held something that sounded like hope and that gave her the needed courage to ask him a pretty big thing.
“Yes, and I am hoping you’ll lend me your name.”
“Like get married?” He sounded even more shocked than when she’d told him she hadn’t sold the ranch.
Maggie’s heart jolted at the words get married. “No. Like in a business partnership. I want to make the Triple J into a ranch that provides stock for rodeos. I’ve been reading a lot of information about stock contractors. Your brother actually gave me the idea. The Triple J is the perfect size and we’ve already got a good-size barn. I’ve sketched out—”
“Wait, you’re staying in Texas and you want to raise bulls?” Cal sounded shocked again. She thought shocking him might be a good side hobby. He made some funny faces when surprised.
“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. I’ve worked on a business plan and I think I can get a loan that will float us until we can get some more cows and buy some straws of bull sperm. Proven bulls have expensive sperm. Until we can become viable stock contractors, we can sell some older cattle for beef and even run a training facility for bull riders or provide boarding for horses or something. I’m not exactly clear on what opportunities might come our way, or my way rather, but I know this is something I can do. I have a good acumen for business and a can-do attitude for a city slicker.”
Cal started laughing. “What do you need me for?”
“The sperm.”
“The sperm?”
“Are you going to keep repeating everything I say?” she said, crossing her arms and glaring at him. “I need your connections and your name. This is still a good-ol’-boys network and you’re a top-notch bull rider. You have an ‘in’ I don’t have. So I’m offering you a partnership.”
“A business partnership?”
Maggie huffed. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary, do you need to clean out your ears? Yes, a business arrangement.”
“No.”
Maggie’s heart sank. “But why not? It would be a good investment.”
“I’m not saying it wouldn’t be, but I’m not interested in just a business relationship with you, Mags.”
“What are you interested in?”
“A forever sort of relationship.” Cal caught her at her waist and pulled her to him.
“You’re talking about...?”
“Me, you and a barn cat named...Sue?”
“I named her Tuss,” Maggie said, clamping her hands on his forearms and pushing against him. “And I’m not sure we’re ready for that sort of commitment.”
“Stop thinking with your head, Maggie. Think with your heart,” he said, dragging her to him. He set his forehead against hers and looked deep into her eyes. “Bud was right. Go with your gut. Mine tells me you are the woman I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t even know it, but you are exactly what this cowboy needs.”
“But—”
His lips caught her protest. She allowed the logic to fade into the background and she slipped into a rightness that existed only in Cal’s arms. He gathered her to him, growing bolder. His tongue slipped inside her mouth and he groaned, breaking the kiss to say, “Oh, Mags, I missed you so much, baby. I’m so sorry. Please say you’ll forgive me. Say you’ll stay with me.”
Maggie pulled back. “But what does that mean?”
“It means I want to live with you at the Triple J. I want to raise bulls with you, teach young guys how to ride and make love to you every night. I want to be your business partner, your life partner, your sun and moon.”
“You want to live with me?” she repeated, her heart once again thudding in her ears.
“And love with you. Somehow I’ve fallen for you. I’ve been so miserable these last few days trying to get my old life back. I couldn’t. Know why?”
She looked up at him.
“Because you changed me. I’m not the man I was. I’m a new one. One with a future.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, staring at him. She wanted him to mean it. More than anything she wanted to start this new life with Cal beside her.
A fresh start together.
“More than I’m sure of anything. I don’t know how much longer I’ll ride. May be done this year, but I want a future to look forward to. I want a future with you.”
Maggie smiled. “You love me?”
“I do,” he said, giving her another kiss.
Lifting up on her toes, Maggie kissed him. “I love you, too, cowboy.”
“Don’t make it too easy on me now,” he said with a grin.
Maggie studied that face she loved so much, marveling over how everything had changed in a matter of minutes. Cal loved her. She’d gone to Texas and found a future she’d never imagined. And she’d come to Alabama to get her cowboy back.
Mission accomplished.
“I envision you groveling and maybe cleaning the toilets for a good month,” she said, looping her arms about his neck.
He made a face. “Surely you wouldn’t make the man you love clean toilets. How about some sexual favors instead?”
“What do you have in mind?” she asked.
“Something where you wear my chaps and I try bucking you off.” He grabbed her hips and brought her to him.
“Did you say bucking?”
“Mmm-hmm,” he said, dotting her jaw with kisses.
“Okay, deal.”
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from NAKED PURSUIT by Jill Monroe.
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Naked Pursuit
by Jill Monroe
Prologue
“YOU CAN'T LEAVE,” Larissa Winston said as she gripped the wood molding lining the doorway, blocking the exit from the patient lounge into the lobby with her body.
Was she really doing this? When had jamming herself between the door and the hallway become part of her job description at PharmaTest?
Four faces stared back at her, each one reflecting a different response: wildness, humor, recklessness and utter disorder. None of which she’d seen in previous test subjects.
Under the watchful eye of the amazing Dr. Mitch Durant, the drug HB121 had been in clinical trials for nearly a year. Usually the test patients simply went to their bunks and quietly slept the night away. In the morning, Larissa would ask a few exit questions, take the subjects’ vitals and process the paperwork for payment. Easy-peasy.
There had never, not one time, ever been a patient revolt. Until now.
She manufactured a stern voice, a combination of the voices of her mother and that scary teacher she’d had in the second grade. “If you will all please return to the patient lounge, I can get you something to eat. I’m sure you’ll be getting very tired soon. I have assigned you each a room for you to rest in until morning. Why don’t you—”
“Are you preventing us from leaving?” the pretty young brunette asked, subject number thirty-five.
“This should make for a very interesting angle to my film,” test subject seventy-eight informed Larissa as he lifted his phone and aimed the camera lens in her direction. Ah yes, this volunteer was the California documentary filmmaker. “Please confess to the world how PharmaTest kidnaps patients and holds them here at the testing center in Dallas, Texas, against their will.”
“Yeah,” the pretty brunette at his side cheered him on. Were they together now? Already?
Larissa had distributed the testing dose to each of them less than an hour ago. How were people coupling up? They should be in deep REM by now, in that dreamless sleep of the fully medicated.
But the filmmaker’s threat hung heavy in the air. A sudden wave of panic struck her in the stomach. Larissa was no social-media dummy. This video would go viral. In less than a second, her Twitter handle would spread from one tweet to the next, followed by the public shaming and embarrassing meme, finally culminating in job loss. If she was lucky.
She plastered on a smile and lowered her arms. “Of course I’m not trying to kidnap you. I have some tea, or perhaps you’d prefer some flavored water? Let’s go to the lounge and you can choose. It’s all part of the compensation for your time. As well as the money you’re being paid as a volunteer test subject.”
“You can keep the forty bucks,” offered the firefighter from Colorado.
That man was delicious, all rugged and well-honed muscles. Not exactly her type, though. Larissa’s weakness was the smart-with-glasses, quiet, sciencey type, like Dr. Mitch Durant. He was the head researcher on this study and the reason she’d stuck around on a job for which the hours were from eight at night until seven in the morning, often screwing up her weekends.
The med student—uh...Stella Holbrook—hooked her hand around the firefighter’s arm. Wait, was this another quickie pairing? Had Dr. Mitch tweaked with the formula again? Added some kind of hooking-up pheromone? Not that she blamed the woman for being intrigued with the firefighter, but c’mon, ladies and gents. This was an experimental drug test, not the club.
Larissa couldn’t just let them leave, could she?
Of course, the four of them were all adults. They could make their own choices. But more importantly, they’d all been required to sign waivers releasing PharmaTest from any liability. Larissa would never have distributed the meds without double-checking to make sure that important detail had been taken care of.
But her dilemma wasn’t just the patients’ well-being. Dr. Durant’s research was important, not just to the man who’d put every bit of himself and his career into developing HB121, but also to the potential pain it would prevent for the hurt and wounded of the world, allowing doctors to give life-saving aid. How many times had Dr. Mitch gifted her with the smile that reached all the way to his dark eyes and told her how important she was to his team? Even now a tiny little thrill inched its way down her vertebrae at the memory. Larissa had to fix this situation for him. Now.
Clearly the pacifying approach wasn’t working. The four looked like they’d rush her at any moment. And they’d win. At five foot two, she’d always been shorter than everyone else on the playground. She’d hated Red Rover.
Maybe a play on their altruistic side would do the trick. “This research is important. All of you wanted to do something to further this study. To help people. By leaving now, you’re changing the sample. That will make the conclusions and results suspect.”
“You said we should be sleeping, right?” the med student asked, a line forming between her brows.
“The drug is designed so that the patient can answer questions if needed or even respond to stimuli and move if in danger, but yes, for the most part, the injured is unconscious.” Larissa nodded, a wave of relief allowing her to breathe again. She was getting through. Finally. At least to the med student. Maybe if Larissa could get her to understand, then the soon-to-be Dr. Holbrook would help to convince the others to stay until their portion of the study was completed in the morning.
“Then, since we’re not asleep, we must be in the control group that got a placebo,” the future doc said, the line on her forehead gone and a smile on her lips.
Subject thirty-five nodded. “I’ve done enough drug trials to know that’s true. I think we can go without changing the end results. You can keep my money, too.”
“What if you’re not in the control group? Please listen to me. This medication is designed to take away fear and panic. Think about it. Are you acting rationally? You’d planned to stay the night as test subjects, and suddenly you want to leave...” Larissa let her words trail off so the significance of what she was saying would sink in with the four of them.
“We’re leaving because this place blows.”
“Big time.”
“I’m ready to do something fun for a change.”
Their words came at her fast and furious. She’d lost. Larissa’s shoulders slumped.
In the future she’d probably end the retelling of this story with, “And that’s how I lost my job...”
And how she lost the man she so, so wanted to see naked. Just once.
But she could still protect him and his research. She owed Dr. Durant that. The kind of people who gave research grants tended to shy away from scandal, and Mitch needed the funding to continue with his work.
“I’m going to ask you to sign something, stating you are leaving the study early and on your own. That you don’t hold me or PharmaTest liable and you don’t expect to be compensated for your time.”
“Why?” the filmmaker asked.
“Because, Mr. Garcia, one of the side effects is short-term memory loss. Usually for twenty-four hours. Still interested in leaving?”
“Oh, we’re leaving,” Mr. Garcia said, and the others nodded.
Copyright © 2016 by Jill Floyd
ISBN-13: 9781488000065
Cowboy Crush
Copyright © 2016 by Amy R. Talley
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