Chapter One
The rodeo felt crowded as Nadine searched through the crowd for her boyfriend, Cole. He had just run to get them some beers while she waited in the stands for the bull riding event, but that had been half an hour ago. It wasn’t like she knew anyone here in Texas. She had come with Cole to learn the farming life so he could take over for his father down the line. They were both accountants back in Chicago and fortunate enough to make a decent enough severance pay to come here. She loved Cole, but she also loved the city life and missed it a lot. Nadine sighed and wondered if he’d gotten sick and headed back to his truck to leave.
For someone who claimed he loved her, Cole could be strange sometimes. She ran a hand through her curls and cursed the humidity before making her way through the crowd. Nadine didn’t feel right here, even after being in Austin for a month now. She was one of the few black women in Cole’s scene, and everyone just seemed to shun her most of the time. Maybe following him here based on promises of wealth and a peaceful life wasn’t the best idea, but Nadine had fallen in love with him during their two-year relationship. He seemed to be worth fighting for.
Nadine checked the concession stand for her handsome cowboy, but there was no sign of him in any of the long lines. She shook her head and, after stumbling in the cowboy boots that he’d bought her again, she stared down at the pink leather. They were admittedly pretty, but she missed the heels she used to wear to work. Nadine left the food area as she took in the tempting scent of barbecue and corn dogs with a small sigh. They could get something when she found him.
Nadine made her way out to the parking lot, pulling her black cardigan around her body to protect herself against the cool spring breeze she walked and listening to the sounds of the crowd cheering all of the action. She looked up at the sky for a moment to take in the stars before Nadine glanced forward to see Cole’s massive red truck at the edge of the dusty lot. The closer that Nadine got to it, the louder the sounds of moaning became and Nadine widened her whiskey-colored eyes as she moved a little faster. She crossed her arms over her generous chest as she watched Cole’s bare white ass moving between the legs of some woman as she eagerly begged him for more. “What the fuck, Cole?”
He stopped moving and shifted onto his knees in the steel bed of the truck before he fell onto the woman, who was trying to cover herself as Nadine glared at the both of them. “I came here with you from a whole life that I had back home. Why did you even ask me of you didn’t want me to begin with?”
“Nadine, let me explain.” He tried to get his pants on before the crowd that was listening to them drew closer, as he begged her to hear him out. “Nadine!”
She pushed her way through the crowd as the anger turned into sadness, then desperation. Nadine had given up a fantastic job to move here. Even with the generous severance pay, the money had gone primarily into moving into their new condo at the edge of town, leaving her nothing. “Fuck. What am I supposed to do now?” Nadine didn’t know anyone well enough even to ask to stay with them, and there was no way in hell that she was going to forgive Cole. She ran around to the entrance of the parking lot, then she turned sharply and crashed into a sturdy body, falling to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Nadine was crying too hard to answer as he helped her up and looked her over before she nodded and kept going to a part of the rodeo where she could be alone and collect her thoughts. She had seen it earlier when they arrived, and Nadine leaned against a tree as she played the whole scene back in her head. Their entire relationship seemed like a joke when she thought back to when they’d met at a deli in the city when she and Cole were both still in school. Despite their skin color being completely different, they had clicked and moved quickly into a long term relationship. Moving in together in Chicago happened within six months after they were both settled in accounting firms, and the move here had seemed like a no-brainer at the time. She loved him and expected marriage at some point shortly, but all Nadine had now was the shame of returning to Chicago only to tell everybody what had happened.
That is, if she figured out how. Nadine had had no real need for a high-limit credit card before now, so she had nothing to work with. She hadn’t even found a job yet, though she’d been looking.
She slid down the tree trunk in the dark, and her ass hit the soft grass as she started to cry again. So many emotions flooded her brain: rage, betrayal, heartbreak, disappointment and confusion, just to name a few. Nadine buried her face in her arms as she let it all out to try to get to a place where she could figure out just what to do.
“Ma’am? Are you okay?” Her head shot up as she blinked to see the man she’d crashed into standing at the entrance to the trees with his hands in the pockets of his fitted jeans. He was wearing a black cowboy hat, and his voice sent shivers down her spine as his drawl settled over the clearing that she was sitting in. “I wanted to check on you after our collision back there.” He was clearly a local with that drawl, and Nadine looked slowly up his body before she tried to see his face.
“I’m fine from that. The fall was nothing; it’s what caused me to run that I’m having an issue with,” Nadine admitted, as the man walked over and sat down in the grass across from her. He took off his hat to reveal tousled chestnut hair and a dimple that almost made her forget about all of her problems as he smiled crookedly. The light was dimmer here than other parts of the area, but it still showed off his full lips and tormented gray eyes when she took a closer glance at him. “I found my boyfriend with a girl in his truck just now. I moved from Chicago to start a new life with him here and now…I don’t know what I am going to do.” She wiped away the tears that flowed freely from her burning eyes. “I have no home, no car, nothing. I don’t even have money to get back to Chicago because I’ve been supporting his sorry ass.”
He pulled something out of his back pocket and offered it to her. “Want a little distraction for the night?” It was a flask, and she shook her head as she stared at it. It was clearly expensive. “You’re not trying to drug me, right? Not that it would necessarily make this night worse.”
“No, ma’am. I don’t find myself having to drug beautiful women to get them into bed with me.” At least he was honest. She shrugged and took the lid off before she took a long swig of the alcohol inside. It was a good whiskey, and she swallowed it before she took a slow breath.
“That is just what I needed,” Nadine told him, as he watched her and settled back on his hands. “Want some?”
“I’ll be driving you to a hotel for the night in a while, so I’ll hold off for now.”
“Hotel? I don’t even have money for that.” Reality struck Nadine, and she took another swallow from the bottle. “What’s your name?”
“The name’s Owen James. What is yours, if you don’t mind me asking?” He let his eyes drift down her body, over her tight fitting jeans and loosely buttoned plaid shirt with a white camisole underneath it that teased Nadine’s generous cleavage. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Nadine Parson,” she replied in a soft, shy voice, as he extended his hand to her easily. It was evident that this man was a bit on the cocky side, but someone had taught him some good manners.
“Pleasure to meet you.” She reached out to shake his hand as she smiled and he shook it firmly as the heat passed between them.