Win Me Over

by Heather Slade

  “I don’t know about tryin’ your hardest,” he smiled.

  He smiled. It had been so long since he had, and, God, it felt good. Once he started smiling, he couldn’t stop himself.

  “What’s so funny, cowboy?” The smirk hadn’t left Tristan’s face.

  He had to touch her. He put one hand on her waist and hesitated. When she didn’t back away from him, he put his other arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to him.

  Her body was taut, but she didn’t resist. She even rested her head on his shoulder.

  “I missed this so damn much. Just holdin’ you against me feels so good.”

  “I missed you too, Bullet.”

  No buts. She didn’t say “but.” He had no idea where her head was, but he was about to find out.

  Tristan’s suite was much bigger than his room. The furniture in the outer room was draped in McCullough Cowgirl and McCullough Cowboy clothing. There was a garment rack that held more. “You got a fashion show you’re doin’ or something?”

  “Yes. It’s this afternoon.”

  “How come you didn’t ask me to model for you?”

  He was joking, but Tristan looked serious. “I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for us to be together.”

  “Really? I mean you actually considered it? I thought you’d have professional models.”

  “No, the clothes are going to be worn by NFR competitors. The show is a fundraiser for the Justin Cowboy Crisis Fund.”

  Bullet was familiar with the organization that provided need-based financial assistance to athletes injured through their participation in professional rodeo. He looked around the room.

  “No chaps?”

  “I only made one pair of those, Bullet. They were custom.”

  “You gonna do more custom work? I mean can fellas order custom chaps from your company?”

  “I guess so. It isn’t something I’ve thought much about, but you’re right. Professional cowboys would want something custom, not something off the rack. It’s a good idea, Bullet.”

  “Then, I guess I need to be in your show after all.”

  “Oh, yeah? Do you have yours with you?”

  “C’mon, Tristan, they’re my good luck charm. Why do you think I’m ridin’ so good?”

  Tristan bristled. “We need to talk, Bullet.”

  “Wait a minute. What just happened? What did I say?”

  “It’s what Harris says. He needs me back because I’m his good luck charm.”

  Whenever the comparisons between the two men came too close, she would get visibly upset.

  “There’s a difference. I said the chaps were my good luck, not you.”

  She smiled again and punched his arm.

  “You’re right, though. Let’s talk.” Bullet motioned to the two chairs by the window and helped Tristan move the clothing out of the way.

  “Since we saw each other at Pikes Peak or Bust, I’ve been wantin’ to have this conversation with you. I put it off then, and I can’t put it off any longer. I don’t know if it woulda helped or hurt what happened in October with the subpoena, but I know this, Tristan.” He leaned forward and looked into her eyes. “I’m not ever gonna lie to you about anything ever again. Even if the truth is hard to tell, or even if I’m gonna hurt your feelings, I’m not gonna tell you any lies.”

  “You sound like Lyric.”

  Bullet laughed. “That’s the thing with her. We may not like what she says, but we always know Lyric is tellin’ the truth. I wanna be more like that.”

  As uncomfortable as it was for them both, Bullet told Tristan everything he could think of about his past. All of it. That he’d never been faithful to Callie; the dares he took from his buddies when they’d go out drinkin’; even how, one night, he’d had sex with three different women.

  “I’m not proud of any of it,” he told her. “But if the day comes that we’re together and someone from my past decides to tell a story of what we did one night when we were out drinkin’, I don’t want to feel as though I have to hide it from you.”

  Tristan closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “Tell me what you’re thinkin’ right now.”

  “This is not a conversation I ever imagined myself a part of.”

  “How much are you hatin’ me right now?”

  “I don’t hate you, Bullet.” She took another deep breath. “You have lived the life I imagined you had. Not just you, most of the guys that compete in rodeo live that life. A lot of the girls too. Or some anyway.”

  “But not you.”

  “No, not me. I’ve had sex with two men in my life. You and Harris Jones. Do you want to know what I worry about?”

  “Yes, I do.” He was solemn. He dreaded the words she was about to say.

  He knew, without her saying it, that she was worried he’d never be able to break out of that life. That she’d never be able to trust him not to sleep with women who offered. He couldn’t blame her, and there wasn’t any way for him to prove her wrong.

  “What if I’m not enough?”

  “You think I’m gonna get bored?”

  She lowered her eyes. “Yes.”

  Bullet reached over and touched her chin. “Look at me, darlin’.” When she did, he took his own deep breath. “I love you, Tristan. Up until I met you, I didn’t know what it was to truly love a woman. Now I do. It’s the same way I feel about my kids. When I’m not with ’em, I think about ’em all the time. I can’t imagine a world without them in it. If they’re hurt, I wanna take their pain and carry it for them. If they’re sad, I wanna make ’em smile. Whatever isn’t workin’ in their life, I wanna be the one who fixes it. And with you? I want to be the only man who ever touches you. The only man who ever makes love to you again, until the day I die. The idea of touchin’ a woman other than you makes me sick to my stomach.”

  He couldn’t tell by the look on her face whether she believed him or thought he was full of shit.

  “Ask anybody. I’ve been a monk the last few weeks. And it wasn’t because I thought that it would win you back. There wasn’t anybody other than you I wanted to be with. Nobody.”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t; maybe I’m playing the naive fool again, but I believe you.”

  His eyes opened wide. “You do?”

  “Yes, I do,” she told him. “I also believe you aren’t the father of the child in the subpoena.”

  “And what if it comes back that I am? Will you believe it’s a setup?”

  “That’s harder, but…I will.”

  “There are ways to prove I’m not, you know, but not until after the baby is born. At some point, I’m gonna have to know who this woman is, and once I do, I can ask for my own test. It’s the time in between that will be hardest.”

  “Maybe we can find out who she is now.”

  “That’s what I was thinkin’, but I haven’t come up with any ideas how to yet.”

  “Lyric is working on it.”

  “She is? I was gonna ask her what she thought, but then I ran into you in the elevator…”

  Tristan told him about the conversation they’d had earlier at the bar.

  “I have no idea how to find her, but you know Lyric. God knows what she’ll come up with.”

  Bullet didn’t have any ideas either. At least short term. As he’d just said, once the baby was born he could ask for another test, and have it performed by someone neither of them knew. He’d get a court order to make it happen if he had to.

  “Bullet, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  Here it came. His shoulders tensed as he waited for her to speak.

  “No matter what happens, you need to know this. I love you too, Bullet.”

  “You do?”

  Tristan smiled and shook her head. “You’re all I’ve thought about, Bullet. I’ve wished with everything in me that we would somehow find out this was a mistake. It never occurred to me that it was a setup, but it should’ve. I owe you an apology, Bullet. A big one. I should’ve
trusted you. Jesus, I should’ve just talked to you.”

  “So, what’s next for us, Miss McCullough?”

  “Right now we need to get you into those chaps.”

  1994

  “No, Dottie. This is not up for discussion.”

  “But you saw him as well as I did. Billy is a natural born bronc rider.”

  “We saw him one time, tryin’ to break a spirited horse. That doesn’t make him a bronc rider.”

  “You may have seen him one time, but I’ve seen him a lot more.”

  “What are you talkin’ about, woman?”

  Dottie told Bill that their son had been getting on broncs for over six months. He’d been going to practice pens without Bill knowing it.

  “Who’s been takin’ him?”

  Dottie stood from where she sat at the kitchen table and walked over to where Bill stood near the sink, looking out the window.

  “I have. Clancy too.”

  Bill was furious. Beyond furious. He couldn’t yell at Dottie, but he sure could yell at Clancy. He walked toward the back door and put his hat on.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To give Clancy a piece of my mind.”

  “Clancy? Did you hear me? I’ve been taking him too.”

  Bill opened the door.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, Bill Patterson.”

  “Dottie, please don’t push this.”

  “I’m gonna. You turn right back around and say what’s on your mind. To me. Not to Clancy.”

  He couldn’t. Spitting in the face of God was something he couldn’t do, and telling his wife about the deal he’d made was something he couldn’t do either.

  “If you walk out that door, I’ll never forgive you for it.”

  “Dottie…please.”

  “Say whatever you need to say to me.”

  He walked over and took her by the shoulders. “Do you know why I quit rodeo? Do you?” he shouted.

  “Of course I do.”

  “No. You don’t. I quit because I had to. I quit in order to keep you and Billy safe.”

  “Yes, Bill, I know.”

  “How could you?”

  “Do you think you could just tell me one day that you didn’t want to compete anymore without me knowing what was behind it?”

  “I told you then; it was because you were pregnant.”

  “And then you sold all your gear, threw away anything that came in the mail about rodeo, changed the subject if anyone, including me, brought it up.”

  Bill nodded his head, but didn’t answer.

  “You quit because you promised God that you would as long as he let me survive the pregnancy and have a healthy baby.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know you.”

  “Then why in the dickens have you been letting Billy get on broncs?”

  “Because that’s his decision. He hasn’t made any deals with God. And sayin’ you don’t want anything to do with rodeo ever again isn’t the deal you made either.”

  “But it is.” Bill slunk down in the kitchen chair and put his hands on his face.

  “No, it isn’t. My darling, sweet, wonderful husband, it isn’t.”

  “If somethin’ happens to him…”

  “I agree. If something happens to Billy, I don’t know how I’ll go on, but I will. And even if you forbid him to ride another bronc, something still might happen to him. He could be in a car accident tomorrow and get hurt much worse than if he bucks off of a horse.”

  “I know that, but…”

  “Bill, look at me.” He looked into Dottie’s eyes. “It brings him such joy. Don’t take it away from him. God gave him to us, but that doesn’t mean we own him. He’s our son, to raise up to be the best man he can be. Let him do this, Bill. Let him for me.”

  23

  It took Lyric until the last day of the NFR, but she did it. She was on her way to the airport to bring the woman who accused Bullet of fathering her child to the competition tonight. In the end it was King who came up with the idea. It took going back to Colorado Springs, but he’d figured it out. Lyric would be picking him up at the airport too; he was the one bringing her here.

  She called Tristan earlier, to tell her. She hadn’t told Bullet yet, and asked Tristan not to either. Tristan did have a job to do, though. She had to get Harris Jones to the Thomas and Mack Center tonight, at the same time Lyric arrived.

  “This is Ashleigh,” King introduced Lyric. “She’s the one we met at the bar, you know, that night.”

  Ashleigh was quiet, but Lyric didn’t expect her to be any other way. “Let’s go see him, then. If Bullet is your baby’s daddy, you two are gonna need to spend some time gettin’ to know each other.”

  The girl’s cheeks turned pink, as Lyric expected them to. It must be awful to be getting ready to “meet” a man you already had sex with.

  “I tried to call him…”

  “Yeah? He gave you his number that night?” That surprised Lyric. Bullet would be more apt to take her number, and never call, rather than give his number out.

  “Not the right one.”

  That didn’t sound like Bullet either. He may have slept around, but he was usually upfront about not wanting to see someone again. It wouldn’t be like him to give a girl a wrong phone number intentionally either. But Harris Jones wouldn’t know that.

  “Almost there.” Lyric patted Ashleigh’s hand. They sat in the back seat of the cab, King sat in the front with the driver.

  As was prearranged, Bullet was out front, waiting for Tristan to arrive. She was already inside, though. She wasn’t supposed to arrive at the same time they were.

  “Here we are,” said Lyric, climbing out of the cab. Ashleigh followed behind, got out, and stood on the sidewalk, waiting as King paid the driver. Thankfully, Bullet was looking at his phone and hadn’t noticed them pull up.

  When he raised his head and looked at Lyric, she shook her head and put her finger in front of her mouth.

  “Okay, you ready to go find my brother?” she asked Ashleigh.

  “Yes,” she answered softly and walked right past where Bullet stood. When Ashleigh looked at him, Lyric watched. No recognition. As they passed, King motioned for Bullet to follow.

  It took a minute for Lyric’s eyes to adjust from the bright outdoors to the more subdued lighting in the convention center. When they did, she spotted Tristan talking with Harris, near the box office.

  “We’ll have to pick up your pass at will call,” Lyric told Ashleigh. “And you’ll have to show your identification.”

  Lyric walked slowly, so Ashleigh was beside her. She watched the girl as she looked around. When she spotted Harris, she stopped and put her hand on Lyric’s arm.

  “There he is,” she said.

  “There who is?”

  Ashleigh’s expression was puzzled. She looked at Lyric. “Your brother.”

  “Where?” Lyric asked.

  “Right there, don’t you see him?” Ashleigh was pointing at Harris, who at that moment, turned away from Tristan and looked at Ashleigh.

  The expression on his face confirmed what they already knew. Harris knew Ashleigh, and Ashleigh knew him. She just didn’t know his real name.

  “That isn’t my brother,” said Lyric. “He is.” She pointed at Bullet.

  Ashleigh turned around to look. “I don’t know that man,” she said. “Is this some kind of trick?”

  Harris tried to deny he knew the woman with Lyric, which resulted in Ashleigh breaking down in tears.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” she said to Lyric.

  “You’ve been tricked, but not by my brother.”

  “But he told me his name was Bullet Simmons. It isn’t a name I’d ever get confused with Harris.”

  “He lied to you.” Lyric motioned for Tristan to come closer.

  “Harris and Tristan used to date. She can tell you all about the kind of man he is.”

  “That’s okay,” A
shleigh said through more tears. “You all must hate me. I’m so sorry. I had no idea I was bein’ played.”

  Tristan wanted to tell the girl she could’ve avoided all this by not having sex with someone she didn’t know, but lecturing a total stranger wasn’t her business. Bullet was though. She looked for him behind Lyric and King, but he wasn’t there.

  “Did you see where Bullet went?” she asked King.

  “No. Not with all the commotion goin’ on. I wasn’t payin’ attention.”

  “Excuse me,” she said to the group, and went in search of him. She ran into Billy and Jace first. “Have you seen Bullet?”

  “Yep, he’s behind the chutes, gettin’ ready to ride.”

  Tristan looked up at the big scoreboard over the arena. The clock was ticking down to the official start of tonight’s competition, the final of the week.

  She ran to the stands and found Liv with Dottie and Renie. Most of the gold buckles had been awarded the previous nights, but bull riding was the last competition each evening and the last event to be awarded.

  Scores were close between the six riders slated to ride tonight, which included some of the best riders in the world. After four buck-offs and a disappointing ride from the fifth contestant, Bullet was up next.

  When the chute boss told Bullet he’d be the last rider of the night, barring any re-ride options, he was relieved. Mentally, he could prepare himself better. As long as he didn’t buck-off, he was in a damn good position to finish in the top two or three. A good ride—a really good ride—and he might be able to win this thing.

  Bullet grabbed his bull rope and handed it to Buck, who’d be pulling for him. He climbed up, grabbed the opposite side of the chute, and rested his boot on the bull’s back.

  He crawled over and slid his legs down the sides of the bull, making sure his toes were pointed forward and in, so his spurs didn’t touch the animal. He sat right down, keeping a tight hold on each side of the chute, until his spotter, Jace, was in position.

  He ran his gloved hand down the resin on the rope, warming it up, getting it hot and sticky. Buck waited for the nod that it was tight enough. He may be Bullet’s trainer, but in the chute, he was the boss, and he called the shots. He couldn’t afford to let the bull think he was anything but the aggressor.