Win Me Over

by Heather Slade

  “What? I did. Every time I could, I’d change the radio station from country music to rock. And then, as soon as I’d see Gramps headin’ toward the barn, I’d change it back.”

  Tristan had spent the last couple of months assisting her father with his recovery and working, every chance she could, on the first pieces of her new collection. She hoped it would be ready for a fall release.

  It didn’t matter how hard she worked or how much she tried to distract herself, Bullet had been on her mind all the time. Now, here she was and so was he. It was like a dream come true.

  She watched him climb up the back of the chute. He was easy to find amidst the other cowboys. He was wearing the chaps she’d designed. He looked over, caught her watching, and tipped his hat in her direction.

  “We both have cowboys ridin’ for us tonight,” said Lyric, sliding into the seat next to Tristan, which her father had left empty when he went to talk to Nate Simmons. He was almost fan-boying it. “Good to see you here.”

  She smiled at Lyric. “Better to be here. I missed you.” She turned her head and looked in the direction of the bucking chutes. “All of you.”

  “He’s been ridin’ like shit.”

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “RodeoChat.”

  “Right on, girlfriend,” Lyric high-fived her.

  “Which cowboy are you watching tonight?”

  “You know me, Tristan. I watch ’em all, but the one whose time I care the most about is a bulldogger.”

  “Which one?”

  Lyric rolled her eyes. “King West, but I bet you already knew that.”

  “Yeah, I kinda’ figured. Although I have been a little out of the loop.”

  “Did you know he’s been sittin’ in when my dad, Ben, and Mark play?”

  “No. You’re kidding? Does he play the guitar?”

  “Wait until later, and we get a jam goin’ wherever we end up celebratin’. That man has a voice as smooth as silk, and the songs he writes—damn, they’re good.” Lyric fanned her face, and her cheeks turned pink.

  Tristan liked seeing her this way for two reasons. One, she liked seeing Lyric happy. Two, if Lyric was distracted by King, she wouldn’t be paying as much attention to Bullet and her.

  Bullet put on his protective vest, kissed the tips of two fingers, and touched them to the spot he saw on his chaps where Tristan had embroidered her initials. It would have been easy to miss, but when he was removing the McCullough Cowboy tag, something in the detail caught his eye. It was a small heart and the initials “TdM.” He couldn’t wait to ask her what the “d” stood for. When he did, she’d know he found her little love note.

  “Where’s your head now?” asked Buck, who Bullet hadn’t seen sitting on the back of the chute.

  He smiled. “This bull is mine.”

  Bullet didn’t lie. After a near-perfect eight-second ride, Bullet’s score came in at eighty-eight.

  “Eight for eighty-eight,” he overheard Buck say to Bill. The two men were all smiles when Bullet walked back behind the chutes. When he glanced over to the box, Tristan blew him a kiss.

  “Dottie used to do that,” mused Bill. “Always made me feel like I was on top of the world.”

  “I know that feeling.”

  “Hell, Bullet, when you break a losing streak, you go all out, don’t ya?” joked Bill.

  “It’s his career’s best,” answered Buck, who seemed to be studying another bull rider. “Come on up here, Bullet, I want you to see this.”

  Buck and Bullet sat on the back of the chute and studied the final five bull riders. With each rider, Buck asked Bullet to tell him what the cowboy did right and what he did wrong.

  “You should do this every time you enter a bull buckin’, even when you’re practicin’. Watch the guys who aren’t riding well just as much as you watch the earnings’ leaders.”

  Bullet was listening to every word Buck said, but he could feel his body leaning in the direction of the box where Tristan sat. It was almost as though there was a magnetic pull between their bodies.

  What Buck had to say was more important though, so he refocused. He looked around the chutes and could see visible envy on the face of every other rider. Buck Bishop was in the house, and he was coaching Bullet.

  “Are you Bullet Simmons?” one of the cowboys shouted over to him.

  “Yep. Who’s askin’?”

  The cowboy walked over to the chute where Bullet and Buck were. “I’m Harris Jones.” He reached up to shake Bullet’s hand.

  Huh. Harris Jones. The name didn’t sound familiar to him. And if Buck knew him, he wasn’t in the mood to say hello. He didn’t even look the cowboy’s way.

  “We have a mutual friend,” said Harris.

  “That right? Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve got a hell of a lot of friends here tonight.”

  “This one’s pretty damn special, though.”

  “Yeah?” Clearly this Harris fella was talking about a lady. “What’s her name?”

  “Tristan McCullough.”

  Who was this asshole? Was he the one who’d turned her heart forever black toward bull riders? Given his smirk, Bullet would lay odds it was. What the hell did he want?

  “We’re goin’ back out to Billy and Renie’s tonight. Pretty quiet out there, not to mention the only neighbors are here with us anyway,” Lyric told her.

  Tristan wasn’t sure her father and grandfather would be up for it.

  “I’m Lyric and Bullet’s grandmother. Everyone calls me Gram,” Tristan overheard her say to her grandfather.

  “Hugh McCullough Senior,” he answered. “That one, there, belongs to me.” He pointed at Tristan. “And you aren’t gonna believe this, but everyone calls me Gramps.”

  “I don’t know about you, Gramps, but I’d just as soon sit on the porch and listen to the sounds of the prairie tonight.”

  Tristan’s grandfather smiled. “Sounds perfect to me.”

  When everyone was ready to leave, Lyric volunteered to take her grandmother and Tristan’s grandfather to Bullet’s place, but Bill and Dottie insisted they ride with them. “It doesn’t get much better than sittin’ on our deck and enjoying such a beautiful summer night,” said Dottie.

  Tristan looked around but hadn’t seen Bullet since the rodeo ended. He would go to Billy’s, wouldn’t he?

  “Where’s Grey?” Tristan asked Lyric.

  “Bullet took him to stay with Callie’s parents for the week. They miss him like crazy, ya know? Wait. Do you know who Callie is?”

  “Grey’s mother. I know, Lyric.”

  “Oh, good. That would be a downer of a story to have to tell you tonight.” Lyric pointed toward the barns. “Look there. You think there are any finer lookin’ cowboys at this rodeo? I sure don’t.”

  King and Bullet were walking toward them. Each had their own unique swagger, and Lyric was right, there wasn’t anyone better looking than the two of them here, tonight.

  “Who’s that?” Lyric pointed in a different direction. “I ain’t lookin’ right now, but if I were, that cowboy would be on my dance card tonight.”

  Tristan looked over and squinted. Who was that? He looked familiar…oh, no. “Uh, Lyric, let me tell you, King West has everything goin’ on, and that man has nothin’.”

  “Really? From here he looks pretty hot.”

  “He’s only hot because he spends all his time in hell.”

  “Huh?”

  Tristan looked away. “That man is the devil, Lyric.”

  Tristan didn’t need to explain further. Lyric got it. Fortunately, she didn’t ask his name, because she did not want to ever utter it again in her life. She opened up her program and looked at the bull riding page. His name wasn’t on it. Odd. What was he doing here if he wasn’t riding?

  Bullet knew Tristan had seen Harris, but he wouldn’t let on he’d spoken to him just yet. Best to pretend the guy didn’t exist. He was pretty sure Tristan was thinking the same thing. The look of disdain
she had on her face when she watched Harris Jones head toward the barn, immediately turned to a smile when she looked in his direction.

  “Now, that’s what I like to see,” he said.

  “What?”

  “That beautiful smile. Those eyes that draw me in and make me want to look at nothin’ else for the rest of my life.”

  “Nothing else?”

  Bullet put his arm around her shoulders and drew her in close. “Before I make a mess of this, tell me, is it okay to kiss you out here, in front of God and everybody?”

  Tristan leaned over, kissed Bullet’s cheek, and gave him a sweet smile.

  He’d be keeping the more heated stuff at bay until she gave him the all clear. He wasn’t going to push her anymore, in any way.

  “We’ve got some celebratin’ to do, ol’ Bullet.” Billy Patterson slapped him on the back.

  Bullet was so happy tonight even Billy wouldn’t get to him.

  “Back to our place, right, darlin’?” Billy said to Renie.

  “God, yes,” she answered. “Mom is taking Willow and Sutter over to Bill and Dottie’s tonight. I pumped breast milk every chance I got so I could have a cocktail.”

  “Oh, I hoped to see the baby,” sighed Tristan.

  Renie and Billy’s son had been born the week after her father’s surgery. They’d named him Sutter Flynn Patterson.

  “You can see him all you want tomorrow. You can hold him all you want tomorrow.” Renie smiled. “I say that now, but tonight is the first time I’ll be away from him, so you probably won’t be able to pry him out of my arms tomorrow.”

  “I swear Willow wasn’t as big as him at a year old.” Billy put his arm around Renie’s waist and kissed her neck. “Our two-month-old is gonna eat us outta house and home before he can walk.”

  “Good thing we have more than one home,” she smiled at him. “Come on, Tristan, we need to catch up.”

  Bullet watched Renie lead Tristan over to talk with Blythe and his sister. She fit in with this bunch even better than he did. He wondered if she missed them when she was in New York. They sure as hell missed her.

  “You up for this?” he asked when she walked back over to him.

  “Oh, yeah. Who would want to miss the chance to be in a room with three legends of rock?

  “My gram, your gramps.”

  “How about that? It was sweet of her to recognize it wouldn’t be his thing. Something tells me it’s just the kind of night she’d enjoy.”

  “You’re right, she would,” Bullet laughed. “She’s a firecracker, ain’t she?”

  Tristan had never seen so many guitars in one place, and all of them were acoustic. Mark, Nate, and Ben each had a stool and, right behind them, their own rack of instruments.

  “Tonight will be the first time anyone but the three of us has heard these songs,” Ben told them.

  “And they’re damn good,” added Nate.

  “These two jokers think we should go out on tour,” added Mark. He’d been away from touring and the music business for two decades. He still wrote music, and made a hell of a lot of money from it, but he kept his involvement quiet by writing under a nom de plume.

  “Liv should be here,” Tristan whispered to Bullet.

  “She is.” He pointed toward the door Liv had just walked through.

  While the guys were still tuning guitars and testing sound equipment, she came over and sat next to Tristan.

  “I was just saying to Bullet that you should be here.”

  “Dottie agreed. She informed me Sutter was just as much her grandson as mine, and she’d be the first to get to watch him overnight since she was the oldest.”

  “Really?” Tristan laughed.

  “She was teasing, of course. Although she is the oldest,” smiled Liv. “Dottie is like a second mother to me and has always been like a grandmother to Renie. And now here we are…in-laws.”

  The guys started to play their first song, “Mountain Harmony.” Their sound was so different from what Tristan had expected. Their voices blended beautifully. She supposed that most heavy metal rock songs started out this way. Simple voices, unplugged, melodic.

  Lyric got up and went to the front door. King West walked in, guitar in hand.

  “Did you know he played guitar?” whispered Bullet.

  “Lyric mentioned something about it.”

  “I have a feeling he’s gonna be way out of his league with these guys.”

  Before they started the next song, Ben invited King to join them. And proved Bullet wrong.

  “Where’re you stayin’ tonight?” Bullet asked Tristan, but was looking over at her father.

  “Lyric was gracious enough to offer to let us stay at her place tonight when she heard we had booked a hotel in Colorado Springs.”

  “I guess sneakin’ in your window would be out of the question.”

  “My daddy and Gramps have concealed carry, so I wouldn’t recommend you trying.”

  Bullet pulled her close and rested his chin on her shoulder. “Damn. I want to be alone with you, Tristan. I missed you so much.”

  “I know.”

  “Think we can make it happen one day this week?”

  Tristan shook her head. “I don’t see how, Bullet.”

  Shit. That was bad news.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Bullet leaned down and covered her lips with his. “There you go, sayin’ you’re sorry all the time.” He kissed her again and again. He could kiss her all night long, and through the next day too.

  “Hey, the chaps. They’re amazing. Before I forget to ask, what’s the ‘d’ stand for?”

  “You saw it?” She smiled so sweetly. God, he loved this woman. It took every ounce of willpower he had not to tell her so.

  “I did.”

  “Daughtry. It was my mama’s maiden name.”

  “It’s beautiful.” Bullet pulled Tristan over to the Adirondack chairs. He sat, and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her.

  “Tell me about her.”

  Under the starlit sky, Tristan told Bullet everything she remembered about her mother. At first she wasn’t sure she could. She never talked to anyone about the woman who loved her more than anything, and vice versa.

  Tristan saw her mother everywhere she looked, in every beautiful thing God made. She could still hear her voice whisper to her, especially when she was feeling all alone. And if she closed her eyes real tight, and concentrated real hard, she could still imagine how it felt to have her mother’s arms around her.

  She told Bullet the first time Dottie hugged her, she cried. Dottie hugged the same way her mama did, all in. It wasn’t just Dottie’s arms wrapped around you, she wrapped you in her love too.

  Her mother loved to draw, and taught Tristan. She still had some of the dresses her mother had made for her when she was growing up.

  “That’s why you became a clothing designer.”

  Tristan nodded. “She never used a store-bought pattern.” Tristan told him her mother would draw the dress, and then take it apart in her mind, drawing each piece on what would become her own hand-drawn pattern.

  “I bet she’d be so proud of you.”

  “I like to think she is. Sometimes I feel as though it isn’t my hand drawing. Or sometimes I look back through the pages, and I’ll see a design I don’t remember. I miss her so much, Bullet.”

  He gathered her closer still. “I know you do, darlin’.”

  Tristan was quiet for a while, but then said something Bullet didn’t expect.

  “The bull rider, you know, the one who broke my heart. He was at the rodeo tonight.”

  “I know.”

  Tristan sat up. “How did you know?”

  “He approached me. Introduced himself.”

  “What else did he say?”

  Bullet wasn’t sure whether to tell Tristan the full extent of their conversation, but decided that, with her, even white lies wouldn’t fly. “He said he knew you, and that you were somebody ve
ry special.”

  Tristan looked up at the sky but didn’t speak. He could feel the tension in her shoulders.

  “That’s all he said. I’m not sure if it was meant as a warning, or what.”

  “I don’t know why he’s here. He didn’t enter the competition.”

  After the cowboy walked away, Bullet had asked around. No one seemed to know who he was, or why he was behind the chutes. Except Buck.

  “He’s a dirty rider,” Buck told him. “Glad to see he wasn’t entered here.”

  “If he’s not entered, what’s he doin’ here? Cowboy Christmas and all.”

  Buck told him he couldn’t say for sure, but he’d heard talk that there had been thefts at several of the rodeos where Harris Jones had been seen. No one could prove it was him, but he was definitely a suspect. “He’s down on his luck. Hasn’t ridden well at all for the last couple of years.”

  “You think he’s casin’ this rodeo?”

  “I can’t say, but why would a fella who’s been a contender in years past, not compete at every rodeo he could this time of year?”

  Bullet agreed. It didn’t make sense. But then again, Buck didn’t know about Harris’ past relationship with Tristan. Maybe that was the real reason the cowboy was in town.

  “Buck knew him,” Bullet finally said to Tristan. “Said he was dirty. Also said there’re folks who think he’s responsible for thefts at other rodeos he’s been to.”

  Tristan shuddered. “How was I ever with him?”

  Bullet could answer that, but wouldn’t. If he had, he would’ve said it was because he was charming, and women like Tristan were easy to read. She was an easy mark. Just enough spunk to be tough, but when it came to men, an innocent. Instead of the usual buckle bunnies, Tristan was a nice girl, a real cowgirl. A challenge. Guys like Harris preyed on girls like Tristan. There’d been a time Bullet was one of them, but not anymore. Tristan wasn’t his prey; she was his forever.

  “Bullet?”

  “Yeah, beautiful girl?”

  “I’m sorry I ever compared you to Harris. You’re nothing like him.”