by Sofia Hunt
Rowdy D Bar, aka Rowdy, shook his big body then nuzzled her, leaving a wet spot on her pink T-shirt. She laughed at him and swatted his nose. He paid her no mind and tugged on the lead rope in an effort to sample the grass near the road.
Loaded with major chrome and lots of attitude, Rowdy turned heads everywhere they went. When he was on, not a horse could beat him. When he was off, well, watch out. A girl would be better off taking her chances with a cantankerous bull than Rowdy in one of his moods.
Mitzi had fallen in love with his flash and convinced her daddy to plunk down the necessary chunk of change for her tenth birthday present. But then her daddy never denied her anything, except his time. She’d taken Rowdy from an unbroken weanling to a competitive roping and reining horse. Together they’d won countless championships in rodeo and Quarter Horse events, including the women’s all-around.
She loved Rowdy, and he loved her. He’d always been there for her, never judged her, never asked anything of her except to be treated with respect. In a lot of ways, he was her best friend, at least when it came to males.
Rowdy and Mitzi shared a mutual distrust of most humans, an unpredictable personality, and a driven nature.
Mitzi had arrived this afternoon, a day before the rodeo began. She liked time to settle in and get used to a place before the competitors rolled in and the fans filled every nook and cranny. Her duties as Miss Rodeo North America kept her busy throughout the events, and she loved every minute of it.
Turning off the water, Mitzi led Rowdy around the gravel parking area until he was dry, and his breathing returned to normal.
She checked for messages on her cell—two from her father, one from her flake of an alcoholic mother, one from Ethel the NARA rodeo queen coordinator, and several from different men currently vying for her attention. She shook her head in exasperation. Men said women were bad? Heck, seemed like every man she slept with tried to slip a ring on her finger as soon as the deed was done. Every guy except one.
Marriage wasn’t in her future, let alone a steady boyfriend. Marriage to a controlling man drove her mother to the bottle. Sure, she maintained her sobriety enough to function and hide her problem well. A functional drunk was what she’d call dear old Mom.
A cool breeze ruffled the red hair that’d escaped her ponytail. She tucked it behind her ears and settled into a lawn chair in front of her living quarters horse trailer with a beer in hand.
Trailers pulled in and filled the space around her. She watched with interest, waving at old friends. Scraps of gossip floated to her on the breeze. Barb Maxwell bought a new horse, rumored to be really fast. Jenn and Dave McGivens split up because she’d been having an affair with a bronc rider twenty years her junior. Mike Brant busted his nose in a bar fight the night before.
A beat-up truck towing an equally beat-up trailer squeezed into the space next to her pristine rig. So close she’d be able to hear them take a piss in the middle of the night. She frowned and stalked over to the piece of shit truck, ready to ream the cowboy who dared invade her space.
Mitzi groaned as the self-proclaimed Casanova of the North American Rodeo Association stuck his head out the passenger window. “Oh, damn, not you two.” She smacked her forehead in exasperation.
Jonah Yates, the obnoxious bastard, was bad enough, but Riley Backstrom was near intolerable.
“Yeah, babe, it’s the men of your dreams.” Jonah flashed his perfect white teeth, set off by his day’s growth of beard.
“More like the men of my nightmares, Yates.” She rolled her eyes.
“We can be that and more.”
“Why don’t you park that piece of shit on the other side of the grounds?”
“No can do, darlin’. We like this spot. Don’t we, Riley?”
“Yup.” Riley didn’t look her way, just stared straight ahead. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Just once.
“Sorry, honey. You’re stuck with us. Besides, is that any way for a national rodeo queen to talk?”
“Wearing a crown doesn’t mean I have to put up with the likes of you.” She glanced at Riley then addressed Jonah. “You need to cultivate a better class of friend.”
“I like my friends from low places. They make life a hell of a lot more fun.”
Riley still wouldn’t look at her. Well, fuck him. She didn’t need him or his obnoxious buddy. “You two deserve each other.” Mitzi growled and turned back to her trailer.
“And aren’t you the lucky one to have us watchin’ out for your best interests all summer?” Jonah’s smooth voice reached her ears.
Mitzi halted and spun back around. “What did you say?”
“Why, honey, didn’t your daddy tell you?”
Mitzi glanced from one to the other, not appreciating their knowing smirks. “Tell me what?” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Why, he’s hired us to be your bodyguards this summer. We’ll be snuggled right here next to ya, you lucky little lady.”
“Not if I can help it.” Mitzi stalked into her trailer and slammed the door behind her as she dialed her cell phone. Her father’s foreman answered on the first ring, as if he’d been waiting for her. “Scott, is my dad around?”
“Sure, honey, but wouldn’t you rather talk to me?” The edge in Scott’s voice raised the hairs on the back of her neck. He’d been coming on to her for years, but lately he’d ramped up his campaign. She didn’t like his ever-increasing innuendos, which bordered on inappropriate.
Biting back a smart retort, she forced sticky, sweet syrup into her voice. “As much as I’d love to shoot the breeze with you, Scott, I really need to talk to Daddy. It’s important.”
Silence followed, long and thick with tension. Mitzi frowned into the phone and wondered if they’d been disconnected.
“How’s my little girl?” Steve Garrison’s deep voice floated to her over the miles.
“Not happy. How could you do this? Daddy, I told you I don’t need bodyguards. Especially not those two.”
Her father chuckled, not the least bit moved. “Now, baby girl, you know I worry about you.”
“I know, Daddy, but I can’t have them following me around. I’ll take my chances with the stalker.” Mitzi hated the childish tone her voice took on every time she talked to her father. Yet she didn’t have a clue how to prevent it.
“Sorry, they’re sticking to you like glue until I’m satisfied you’re safe, and that’s the last I’ll hear of it.” Her father dismissed her, just like he always did. “I have another call coming in. Behave yourself. ”
Just like that, he hung up. She debated on calling him back, but he rivaled her for stubbornness. So instead she threw herself on the bed in frustration.
This could not be happening to her. Jonah, she could handle if she had to, but Riley Backstrom bugged the hell out of her, like a burr under her saddle. Last summer they’d spent one unforgettable night screwing each other’s brains out in her trailer’s gooseneck bed. Hot, sweaty, messy, wild, frenzied sex. Sex like she’d never experienced before. The kind of sex which ruins a woman for anyone else. And it’d done just that.
Riley battered down her carefully constructed walls and touched her deeper than any other man in her life. She let him in, and he’d proven to her exactly why she shouldn’t be so trusting.
The next morning she’d woken to find him gone. Not just gone from her bed but gone from the rodeo grounds. No note. Nothing. Just flat-out gone.
She’d run into him countless times since, and never once did he mention their night together, almost as if it hadn’t happened. Perhaps, it’d been so unmemorable to him he’d filed the memories away with all the other insignificant women in his life. The possibility grated on her.
Men didn’t just walk away from her. They pleaded with her, begged her, dogged her, but they didn’t walk off. Especially not after a night like that.
She hadn’t been done with Riley, yet he’d been done with her.
Chapter 2
Mitzi rubbed her
temples, but the motion did little to ease the dull ache in her head mainly caused by the cowboys camped out a few feet from her trailer door in their piece-of-crap horse trailer. She chastised herself for her snobby attitude. What they travelled in had nothing to do with her feelings toward them. If they towed a hundred-thousand-dollar living quarters trailer, she still wouldn’t want them parked next to her.
She offered her BFF, Tanya, another cup of coffee, as the two sat across from each other in her trailer’s small dinette. Mitzi didn’t have many female friends, and Tanya ranked at the top of a very short list.
“Okay, the truth. What are they doing parked next to you? I know how you feel about both of them.” Tanya pointed out the small window at the rusted trailer no more than ten feet from Mitzi’s mansion on wheels.
“My father hired them to protect me all summer long.” Mitzi glared out the window at the trailer dominating her view.
“Oh, crap. Because of that stalker?”
“There is no stalker. I don’t believe it for a second. It’s a scheme my father’s concocted to keep me under his thumb and prove to me I’m just a helpless female.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if he’s real?”
“Real? Are you kidding? You know my father. Would he hire those two clowns to guard me if he honestly thought I was in danger? He’d hire a former FBI or CIA agent, a real professional.”
“They’re Special Forces. That’s professional.”
“Professional screwups. That’s all I’ve ever seen from them.”
Tanya pursed her lips, obviously not agreeing with Mitzi’s assessment. “What makes you think this stalker isn’t for real?”
“First of all, the timing. He started stalking me after I approached my father and demanded to be equal partners in the ranch, just like my brother.”
“I bet that went over like a three-legged bull in the extreme bull riding.”
“Then he told me I needed to settle down and raise a family like a normal woman. You can’t imagine how pleased he was I did a feminine thing like run for rodeo queen.”
“Why did you run for queen?”
“I love the outfits.”
“Yeah, what else?”
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do since was a little girl. I enjoy it. The clothes, the grand entry parades—”
“The attention.” Tanya winked at her.
“You know me too well.”
“But you being queen seems to have attracted a stalker.”
“An alleged stalker.” Mitzi sat at the dinette and sipped her coffee.
“Other than your suspicions, what other things make you think he’s not real?” Tanya picked up the mirror sitting on the table and checked her makeup.
“Lots of little things, but this guy knows intimate details about my life, stuff he’d have to get from a close family member or friend.”
“Hello! He’s a stalker. That’s what they do—stalk and gather information.”
“This guy didn’t gather anything. It was fed to him by my father. I’m not playing his game. I’m losing these lowlifes and giving them a run for his money. I’m not a baby anymore. Dad needs to see that. As far as he’s concerned, I’m a decoration to be hung on the wall and admired but not to be taken seriously.”
“So you talked to him about helping your brother manage rodeo stock.”
Mitzi sighed. “Yes. He actually laughed in my face and told me to worry about my rodeo outfits and whether my hair is out of place. Let the men take care of the real work.” Her father kept trying to shove that square peg into that round hole. Her brother wasn’t made to be a stock contractor and rancher. Mitzi was, but the lack of balls and a penis exempted her from consideration as far as daddy was concerned.
Tanya shook her head. “Your dad is something.”
“Tell me about it.” Mitzi tossed her hair back and rested her chin on her hand. Her father was the world’s most impossible man—overbearing, self-righteous, and infuriatingly chauvinistic. He treated Mitzi like a ten-year-old. She’d give anything if just once he’d acknowledge her as a person with a brain, not just a pretty face he showed off to his buddies, a princess on display.
Her friend glanced toward the unwanted neighbors again. “I don’t know how you’re going to ditch them.”
“Jonah might be okay, but Riley—”
“You’re still harboring a grudge.”
“I am not.” Mitzi focused her irritation on her friend, who dared broach the truth.
“Oh, but you are, my dear. Riley got to you.”
Mitzi threw up her arms in exasperation. “Okay, fine. I just thought Riley would be different. I expected a love-’em-leave-’em attitude from his buddy, but Riley seemed more serious, not as much of a player and not so swayed by superficial stuff. Turns out I was wrong.”
“So? You just want superficial relationships with men.”
“I know, but I also like to be the one in control.” Mitzi smiled a wry smile.
“When are you going to learn? You need to practice using the word ‘no.’”
“I can’t help myself. I’m addicted to gorgeous bastards. I didn’t want to say no at the time. Later, well, that’s a whole different pile of bull manure.” Mitzi sighed and propped her siren-red cowboy boots on the opposite couch.
“I know that story, but sometimes doesn’t it all seem so—” Tanya struggled for the right words. “So hollow? Don’t you feel empty after an orgasm with an interchangeable hunk?”
“A little.” Mitzi shrugged and sighed.
“We’re testosterone junkies.”
Mitzi nodded her agreement. “Someday, we need to grow up.”
“Not yet. I’m only twenty-six, and you’re only twenty-five.” Tanya tossed back her long blonde hair. Her teeth worried at her lower lip.
They should’ve been rivals, archenemies always competing for the same prize, battling it out to the end. Yet, somewhere in their long acquaintance, they recognized kindred souls, poor little rich girls gifted with every physical attribute a woman could have, yet penniless when it came to love from their families and from men.
Other women hated them with a jealous passion just because they were beautiful. Men didn’t want to know them as people, only as possessions, beautiful trophies to flaunt to their buddies. They wanted the conquest, the bragging rights, and the body under those tight western outfits.
Mitzi and Tanya met in college. After a wild night of partying, they’d staggered out of an anonymous frat house at the same time, both disgusted with certain men and all men in general. They sat on a beach until daylight, sharing a bottle of tequila and their complaints about the opposite sex.
They’d forged a fast friendship—two women who didn’t make girlfriends easily. Both had learned to mask their pain and loneliness behind dazzling smiles, perfect teeth, painstakingly applied makeup, and designer clothes. Even though they’d competed against each other for numerous rodeo queen titles through the years, they stayed close. Tanya, an excellent horsewoman, had taken a fall in the national rodeo queen finals last winter and finished second runner-up. The first runner-up being the she-bitch, Brooke Regan, whom neither of them could stomach.
“Are we a little jaded about men?” Tanya’s voice snapped her out of her reminiscing.
“How about a lot. They don’t care about me as a person. I’m a plaything with boobs.”
“Honey, it’s not just your boobs they’re after.”
“Well, it’s not my virtue either. You can only lose your virginity once, and I lost mine years ago.”
“I’m sure those men are grateful you aren’t guarding your virtue.” Tanya leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “So how did you lose your virtue?”
“Another gorgeous cowboy, a champion bull rider. Ten years older than me. I was only fifteen. Bulls weren’t the only thing he rode. He was doing me and three other girls at Reno. I thought I was in love until I discovered him banging Patsy Kilmer up against a bucking chute.”
�
��How come you never told me that story before? You’ve heard mine.”
“Yeah, yours is worse. A married man old enough to be your father.”
“Older brother, and I didn’t know he was married. I thought he was divorced.”
“So we’ve both been suckers at love.”
“Good thing we have each other.” Tanya popped a piece of cantaloupe in her mouth. “I really thought something might come of you and Riley.”
“So did I.” Mitzi’s voice trailed off. She’d had high hopes after watching him from afar. They’d been casual friends for a few years. Never once had Riley treated her with anything but the utmost respect. He’d been the consummate gentlemen in a world full of randy cowboys. She’d liked that about him.
For one brief moment in time, in the afterglow of the most incredible sex she’d ever had, she’d felt like a woman cherished for her brain and her personality, not just her face and body. Riley talked to her, asked questions, and most of all, he listened. The next morning, he’d snuck out of their bed, packed up his gear, and headed to the next rodeo. Just like that. He’d made her almost believe in love then he’d shown her exactly why she shouldn’t.
She didn’t forgive easily.
“All he wanted was an eight-second wild ride and a chance to add another notch to his belt.” Mitzi added more sugar to her coffee, stirred it, and added another spoonful.
“Professional cowboys. They’re all the same.”
“So why do we keep going back for more?”
“Because we like what they have to offer. We like how they come out of the chute bucking and twisting and going hell-bent for leather. It’s all good as long as our hearts stay in the barn, and our bodies are the only thing participating in the rodeo.” Mitzi pictured steamy windows surrounding her gooseneck bed and a steamier Riley heating her up all night. Swallowing, she breathed a big sigh and sipped her coffee. “I have a confession. I haven’t slept with another man since Riley.”
“You’re joking? Wasn’t Riley over a year ago?”
“Yes. How screwed up am I? I’ve had tons of propositions. When it comes down to it, my heart just isn’t in it. I keep comparing every one of them with Riley. They come up lacking.”
