Chapter One
“Well, now. If it isn’t the part-time cowboy, back to show us how it’s done.”
Tomas James Casey took his eyes off the activity around the back of the chutes long enough to spare a glance for the man who’d lit up next to him. The words could have been read as an insult, except for the genuine smile coming from the man who’d said them.
Paulo Contreras was a wiry, bandy-legged bull rider whose friendly smile hid a heart that never gave up. He was a regular on the American Extreme Bull Riders tour and one of the few who’d ever offered Casey a hand, advice or an in with the select group of riders that toured year after year.
“Well, now, if it isn’t the old man,” Casey replied, as the other man slung himself lightly over the top rail of the fence and settled to sit beside him. “Good to see you too.”
“You missed Vegas.” Paulo’s eyes held questions that mirrored his words. “Where were you, amigo?”
“My father took a fall and my mother needed me home.”
“Did you mention you were within two hundred points of the lead and had a good chance of taking home a million-dollar paycheck and a world championship?”
“I mentioned it.” And he’d felt like a heel the minute the words had left his mouth. Out of all four of his brothers, only one of them had backed his request to delay the funeral a few days so he could ride in the finals. The other three had shut him down hard, tempers running hot, and his mother had started crying on account of the shouting, and that had been the end of that. “It wasn’t worth the family meltdown.”
“So how is your father?” asked Paulo.
“Dead.”
Paulo turned to eyeball him sharply. “You could have mentioned it.”
“Telling you now.” Casey smiled faintly. “Old news now.”
He could talk about it now without the suffocating weight of sorrow rendering him speechless.
“You could have mentioned it at the time.”
“I didn’t want the AEBR promo machine making a meal out of it. Better off not telling anyone until it was all over.”
“I’m surprised management let you back at all, with that attitude.”
“Yeah.” So was he. They hadn’t exactly been bending over to welcome him. Miss an event without written medical cause and he was out. Be anything but their biddable promotions bitch this season and he was gone. Ride to win, stay in the top two dozen or he was gone. At least that last stipulation applied to everyone. “Extenuating circumstances.”
“How’s your mother?” Paulo asked after a couple of moments’ contemplative silence.
“She has five sons all trying to step into boots they can never fill. I have it on good authority that we’re driving her mad.”
“Tour’ll do you good, then.”
“Reckon so.”
Casey liked the life he led for the most part, and he flat-out loved the adrenaline rush that came with bull riding. Didn’t even mind the travel, to an extent. He got to crisscross the country, take in the sights and the sounds, and there was company when he wanted it and solitude when he didn’t. There was the spectacle and the theater of the sport, and at the heart of it there were eight seconds between him and a bull and damn but he loved to win that argument. Focus on the ride and nothing else, and the points and the standings took care of themselves.
“Looks like the gang’s all here.” He could see the familiar Harper stock provider banner on one of the gates. He could see a woman working the pens behind the chutes, although at first glance she could be mistaken for a slender, half-grown boy. She was Joe Harper’s only daughter and Joe was a retired bull-riding legend who’d won enough to set himself up to breed bucking bulls back in the days when that was nearly unheard of.
This was Casey’s fifth year on the tour. He figured it for Rowan Harper’s twentieth, given the rumor that her father had been carting her around various bull-riding circuits since she was four years old.
“You always look for her.” Paulo had seen the direction of his gaze.
“She’s interesting. Never seen anyone work harder than she does, man or woman.” In Casey’s humble opinion she was also the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, and that included all the models and promoters employed to work the bars and the merchandise kiosks.
She had short brown hair and big brown eyes. What little of her there was, she hid beneath baggy jeans and checkered men’s shirts. Sometimes her hair reached the tips of her thin shoulders and other times it looked as if she’d taken to it with a pair of scissors and no mirror. She usually wore a cap with the Harper logo on it but today she simply wore sunglasses. And gloves. Those too.
Last year a girlfriend of one of the riders had commented on Rowan’s rough hands and blunt nails and had pulled a laugh from the cowboys she’d been standing with. Rowan had been part of the group, and Casey hadn’t been the only one to see the flash of hurt in her eyes, or the way she’d shoved her hands in her jeans pockets, offered a tight smile and excused herself shortly thereafter.
Leather gloves, the soft supple ones bull riders wore, had become a workwear staple for her after that.
“You need to stop looking in her direction,” said Paulo next. “She doesn’t look back.”
“True enough.” Except maybe once or twice, toward the end of last year, she’d looked his way and held his stare and started a fire in him that had never quite gone out. And now he was back, and this was his last tour, and maybe he was looking to take something other than memories and money with him when he left. “She sent me a phone message when my father was dying.”
“She knew?”
“No. Well, not that I know of. She asked after me.” Not where the hell are you or what do you think you’re doing. No judgment at all and the lack of it had soothed him, calmed him more than he would have thought possible. “It was only three words.”
“Did you write back?”
“And say what?”
“Something. Anything. No?”
No.
“So the woman you’ve spent the last, oh, let’s say two years pining for reached out to you in your time of need and you didn’t write back.”
“I wanted a different kind of start.” Not one wrapped in weakness and grief. He’d wanted something else to offer Rowan Harper but for all his sideways glances he was still none the wiser as to what she might want. “Do you think she has another life besides this one? One where she’s not trying to be her father’s son?”
Paulo adjusted his grip on the top rail and looked down at the dirt, as if contemplating the unseen particles of the universe. “I know she took a bet in Deadwood one night nearly ten years back, after she chewed out a rookie for using his spurs wrong. To be fair, the guy didn’t know squat and didn’t last long. But she got into a pissing contest with him and the next minute they had one of her daddy’s best bucking bulls in a chute and good money was going down as to whether or not she could show that rookie how it was done.”
“Really?” Casey could appreciate a good story setup as well as the next man. “What happened?”
“Wasn’t her rope, wasn’t her glove, she wore the rookie’s spurs, and someone a little smarter than the rest of them made her wear their vest. That someone might have been me. We had no other safety measures in place, no one else on the ground besides the half-dozen cowboys standing watch. Must’ve been three or four a.m. Full moon, no lights. Outdoor arena and a sweet summer night.”
“Helmet?”
“No.”
It was a setup for catastrophe. “And?”
“It was one of the most glorious ninety-five-point rides I’ve ever seen, I swear to God. Not the first time that girl had ridden her daddy’s bulls, trust me.”
“What’d her father say?”
“Can’t say he was surprised. But three cowboys got suspended, the rest got fined—including yours truly—and Harper almost lost his stock contract. You’ve never seen a man on such a tear. He put the fear of the devil into every last cowboy involved and then ripped his daughter a new one. There was talk about banning her for life only it was hard to make that stick seeing as they wanted Harper’s bulls and he couldn’t leave her at home because she was still underage and there was no one at home to see to her.”
“What about her mother?”
“Harper’s wife died in childbirth.”
“Giving birth to Rowan?”
“Giving birth to a son who died at the same time the wife did.”
“That’s a horrible story, man.”
“But it explains why Harper’s girl keeps her head down, now don’t it?”
It also explained why looking into Rowan Harper’s eyes sometimes felt a lot like looking into a million miles of wet road. “Yeah, all right. Why doesn’t she ride?”
“Well, now. That’s a question for Rowan, her daddy, and the powers that shape this beautiful sport. It’s not for lack of skill or training. I figure it for somewhere they don’t want her to be.”
“I’m going to ask her to dinner.”
Paulo huffed a laugh. “Is this before or after you explain why you didn’t reply to her?”
“Before.” Hopefully that particular conversation would never come up. “That’s what you do, right? You like someone; you ask them out.”
“Around here, if you like the look of someone you buy them drinks after they’ve seen you ride. Then you invite them to stay a while at the end of the night and try to remember their name the next morning.”
Casey had done that a time or two—there was no denying it. But those morning-afters had never sat well with him—too much hope in a woman’s eye and never enough coffee. They wanted the fantasy, the extreme-sports athlete, not a man with a fresh pile of aches and bruises and a burning need for silence. “We both know that’s not going to work with her.”
“Neither’s asking her out. Rowan doesn’t date bull riders. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
So much for friendly encouragement. Casey tried to push the other man off the fence but Paulo wasn’t a bull rider for nothing and merely swayed before righting himself and shooting Casey a smartass grin.
“Mind standing my bulls for me this weekend?” Paulo asked next.
“Do the same for me and you’ve got a deal. Where’s Huck?” Huck and Paulo usually stood each other’s rides. Traveled together too, at times.
“Back in Kentucky with a shoulder injury, a newborn babe and a wife who’s glad to see him. Doc says he needs to give it a month. I figure he’ll be back in two weeks if he can get medical clearance.”
Casey shook his head—didn’t know what decision he’d make if he was in the same position. Bull riding could be good to a man if he stayed fit and healthy, covered his rides and stayed in the money.
Not everyone was that lucky.
*
Some riders liked to sit and watch in silence before it was their turn in the chute. Some ran their mouths and made bad jokes. Others had elaborate rituals and routines that you didn’t want to get in the way of. Casey figured himself for yet another kind of cowboy—focused, but not so focused that he couldn’t summon a laugh. Quiet, but not so silent that he couldn’t speak when spoken to. Hungry for the ride—he was always that. Win or lose, the adrenaline hit that came with the ride made everything brighter, louder, and put a heat beneath his skin that made him want to peel out of it. He wasn’t the only cowboy addicted to it.
Paulo was set to ride in the first half-dozen cowboys through the chutes. Casey had helped him in the chute enough times to know what Paulo wanted and when he wanted it. The show announcer’s opening spiel had settled his nerves and reminded him that they were here to entertain and there was no better way to do that than play to the born-tough image, cover your bulls and be humble about it if you won.
The playbook varied a bit from rider to rider but that was the gist of it.
Paulo covered his bull with a solid ride and a score of eighty-two.
Casey rode his, and bounced off the dirt eight seconds later with a score of eighty-four. Not enough to put either of them in the lead but enough to be going on with. Paulo gutted out an eighty during his second ride, and Casey did two better again. When the draw came through the following morning, Casey was down to ride Harper’s new bull Over Easy in the final round. No one had ridden the athletically unpredictable four-year-old yet and he figured it for the perfect excuse to seek Rowan out. They could talk about the bull and then casually, somewhere in the middle of it all, he’d ask her out and she’d realize she really did want to get to know him a whole lot better and say yes.
Given that he now had a game plan, it only made sense to head to the Jackson coliseum early rather than later. The big indoor arena had seating for around seven thousand and sometimes people could be hard to find.
Sometimes, but not always.
As usual, both Joe Harper and Rowan were in the thick of things. Casey watched and waited for a break in the work before approaching Rowan. He knew better than to offer to help. Joe Harper—three time stock contractor of the year—rarely had much to say but when he did talk it paid to listen, and his yearly greeting to riders never varied. You don’t touch my bulls until you’re on their backs. If they don’t stand for you, a Harper employee will come and fix that. Once the gate opens, good luck.
Finally, Rowan penned the last of the load and made her way toward him. He figured she’d known he was there for a while. It helped that he’d planted himself along the run where they brought the bulls in from outside.
“Hello, stranger,” she said when finally she stood beside him. “Heard you were back.”
“Not you too.” He’d been copping flak all weekend for having bailed on the finals last year. Everything from the announcers calling him a part-time cowboy to former fans not bothering to acknowledge his rides. There was judgment in Rowan’s voice too. “And here I thought you’d be happy to see me. It’s good to see you,” he offered, and it was. Up close, he could see the smattering of freckles across her nose and the luxurious sweep of black eyelashes over warm brown eyes. “I missed you.”
“Where were you?”
It was as if she hadn’t heard the compliment. Or hadn’t taken it as such.
“My father had money on you taking the buckle last year,” she continued. “He wasn’t too pleased when you didn’t show for your final rides.”
“Did you have money on me too?”
“Good to know your ego’s still alive and well.”
Although not for long if she had her way.
She studied him frankly, as if he was a puzzle piece she couldn’t place. “I definitely thought you were in with a chance,” she said finally. “You let a lot of fans down. I hear you lost sponsors too.”
Yeah, well. That was a sore point. “I was needed at home so I went. I’m not a part-time cowboy, no matter what people think, but I do put family first. No exceptions. Now are you going to come out to dinner with me or what?”
“What?”
He probably could have used a better lead-in and a whole lot less element of surprise.
“Dinner. Tonight. After the show.”
“Assuming you’re still standing,” she said dryly. “You drew our best bull.”
“So I hear. Do you really call him Eggs for short?”
“Why? You don’t like it?” She smiled and went from being merely beautiful to utterly breathtaking in an instant. “It doesn’t have quite the same ring as Trainwreck or Hammerfall, but I like to think his gentle name suits him well enough. Until someone tries to ride him. As for your other question, I don’t date bull riders.”
“I heard that.”
“And promptly took it as a challenge. I’m disappointed in you, Tomas James. You’re the fourth cowboy who’s tried to pick me up so far this tour. Granted, you’re the only sober one, but my answer’s the same. I’m not your meal ticket when it comes to getting off a bull’s back and into the heady world of stock contracting. I’m not any man’s trophy, besides which I don’t tend to look the part. I don’t want to rehash your best five rides over the entree, although I could probably tell you what they were. And if you’re after information on how I think the bull you’re about to ride is going to buck and how best you should ride him for maximum points, all you have to do is ask. I’ll tell anyone that. Not that anyone does ask.”
“So that was a no to dinner?”
“You’re very smart.”
He got that a lot. Smartass. Book smart. Too smart for his own good. He was the only one of five boys who’d ever gone to college. Give his opinion on a family ranching decision these days and he’d be accused of being a clueless college intellectual—as if he didn’t also have the practical experience everyone else at the table had.
“Rowan, I’ve got four brothers and they’re all older, bar one. Put-downs are not a deterrent. They’re like a little taste of home. Now, if you ask any of my brothers, bar one, whether their put-downs have any effect at all, they’re likely to tell you it does nothing but make me dig in.”
“And what does your bar-one brother say?” The tiniest of smiles now graced her perfect lips—lips that were full and plump, not too wide, and shaped to mimic the curve of her jaw and chin.
“Do I have something on my face?” she asked, and wiped her gloved hand across her mouth before he could answer either question.
Well, she did now.
“Little bit of dirt, right there.” He showed her on his own face by rubbing at a spot to one side of his lips. “As for my younger brother, he’d say he can deflate me easy enough, and he can. I’ve no intention of introducing him to you for a very long time. I can picture you learning all his bad habits.”
Her smile came at him a little faster this time. “Much as I like the sound of your family dynamics, I’m still not having dinner with you.”
“If I ask you how you think I should go about riding Eggs Benedict over there and then stick it for eight seconds … will you have dinner with me then?”
“What is this, a bet?”
“It’s kind of a bet. What’s your advice on the ride?”
“My guess is the bull will start with more air than you can handle and break left, away from your hand. Ride him left-handed, you ambidextrous wonder, keep your left leg set, rake with your right, and you might stay on longer than most. Once he switches direction—and he will—you’re toast. Try not to get hung up.”
“Bold advice, Ro. Do you have any idea how often I botch the dismount when I ride left-handed?”
“Forty-one percent of the time over the past two years. It’s a lot, but it’s still your best bet for this ride. Assuming you want to stay on longer than three seconds.”
Casey blinked. “How do you know that? I don’t even know that.”
“I’m here. I get bored. I run the math. What else is there to do?”
“We really need to get you some hobbies. You can tell me what else you’re interested in over dinner. Besides me.”
“Don’t get too smug, cowboy. I can tell you those kinds of stats on everyone. I’ve got a little book.”
“And I wouldn’t mind getting a look at it.”
“Get your own.”
He offered up his most charming smile. The one that so rarely let him down once he chose to use it. “But, Ro, yours is already done. You could be my mentor. My trainer. My secret weapon. I’ve always wanted a secret weapon. Four brothers and not a moment’s peace. I used to dream of secret weapons.”
She smiled back as if she couldn’t help it.
“Is that a yes?” he pushed. “You’ll take the bet? If I cover Over Easy we’ll go out for a meal?”
“I don’t celebrate with cowboys after the event. I load up; I’m gone.”
“Where will you be tomorrow, lunchtime?”
“All going well, I’ll be several hours east of Jackson and heading for Montgomery with a truck full of bulls.”
“I can meet you on the road. It’s pretty country. We can have a picnic.”
“You’re mad.”
“Surely this isn’t news, given my occupation. Or we could catch a meal in Atlanta. I’m not going home between now and then.” Too far south for returning to Montana to be anything but foolish. “I’ll come in early. You’re always early.” They had a week to fill between here and Atlanta, and although he didn’t exactly know what Rowan’s plans involved, he did know there were a lot of hours to fill between one event and the next.
A shout from the rear end of the laneway warned of another bull heading toward them. Rowan raised her hand and opened the gate before climbing the rail and getting out of the way. Casey followed suit.
“All right,” she said, not even looking at him. “If you can cover my bull, riding the way I said to, I’ll eat with you. I’ll even bring my little book of facts and figures.”
So much for Rowan Harper not dating cowboys. That or she figured he had no chance in hell of riding that bull. “Have you covered Over Easy yet? At home?”
Bambi-brown eyes turned sharply assessing. “Now, why would you think that?”
“Rumor has it you ride on occasion.”
“Seriously? People are still talking about that ride?”
“In mythical terms.”
She snorted. “I haven’t ridden Eggs.”
“Has anyone?”
“Cowboy, no one’s even come close. He takes extreme exception to being ridden, flank strap or no flank strap. He’s the real deal.”
“What’s he like once the rider’s on the ground?” An important question for any bull rider to ask.
“Not as bad as some. I can’t say I like your chances if you’re in his way but he doesn’t usually go looking for trouble.”
“And if a rider gets hung up?”
“Good question. I’ve not seen it yet. You’re my guinea pig.”
“Ro, you’re not exactly filling me with confidence about riding left-handed.” It had to be said.
“Don’t take my advice, then. Do it your way.”
Her studied nonchalance lit a fire in his belly. “No, I’ll take your advice. Do you like steak and jacket potatoes? I like steak and jacket potatoes. I saw a steakhouse on the way in.”
“Cockiness will get you hammered by this one, cowboy,” she said as she walked away. “Enjoy your meal.”
*
Casey whiled away the rest of the afternoon, waiting with increasing impatience for the show to begin. It was always the same, the welcome patter accompanied by bright lights, loud rock music and flames burning into the sky. Spectators in the stands were looking to be entertained, no question, but there was also plenty of downtime between rides, and they used that time for eating and drinking and getting better acquainted with their neighbors.
It wasn’t that the crowd was bored. It was more that there were no sporting teams or major rivalries involved. It was bull against man and there were long seconds of heart-in-mouth action during a ride. In between those moments, though, people looked for release.
Casey was riding second to last on account of going into the round in second place, and already there was a new leader on the scoreboard. He needed an eighty-seven-point ride to put him at the top of the board, and even then there’d be one more rider after him still capable of pulling off the win.
He could do this.
When Rowan stepped up beside him and reached for the flank rope, Casey turned to look at her. “You’re flank man? Woman? Since when?” Wasn’t often he saw her in this role.
“My breeding program, my bull,” Rowan murmured. “And I know how and when to tie his flank strap. If you have any objections, take it up with management.”
“No objections,” he was quick to assure her. But she was going to have to lean over the rail a fair way when tying off, and more than one cowboy was going to be looking in her direction, and sexy competence was hellishly distracting. And then Paulo slipped into place and Casey turned his attention to matters more at hand, like lowering himself onto the bull’s back and getting his rope where he wanted it and having Paulo hold it tight so Casey could run his hand up and down it and warm up the fresh rosin on his glove to make it stickier. Paulo never had much to say once they got down to business; he was all focused strength and competence. Didn’t hurt to have that around you in the chute.
Paulo tightened the rope, and at Casey’s nod, handed it over for the wrap.
Now Rowan was tightening the flank strap. The bull moved restlessly beneath him as Casey put his weight right up on his left hand and got into position, reaching into his vest pocket with his free hand for his mouth guard. No more prep. He had this.
Paulo pulled his hand away.
Eyes firmly fixed between the gray bull’s shoulders, Casey nodded.
Harper’s bull let him keep that confidence for a split second as he burst from the chute and came up for air.
Casey tried not to get too far back in the pocket, and even managed it for several more seconds, riding well, riding as planned, getting ready to rake with his leg.
And then that son of Satan changed direction on him in midair and he was too far back and listing the wrong way. On the next buck he saw daylight and it was all over bar the flying without wings.
He saw more air than the bull, landed hard, and didn’t bounce back up.
The eight-second siren went off a short time later. Adrenaline got Casey on his feet and moving back toward the chute he’d come from. Someone handed him his rope and bells and he staggered as he took hold of them. Not a good sign. Someone opened the gate and let him in and shut the gate behind him, away from the hungry eyes of the crowd. Paulo was there to steady him.
Rowan was there too, leaning over the rail in duplicate or maybe triplicate. Six eyes in total.
Spiders had six eyes. Some of them.
“That was a good start,” said Paulo. “And then there was that steaming pile of ugly at the end.”
Casey agreed with him, but nodding only set him to swaying the other way this time.
“Whoa.” Paulo again, as he ducked his head to get a better look at Casey’s face. And then one of the sports medics who toured with them was shouldering Paulo out of the way and shining a flashlight in Casey’s eyes.
“Concussion,” Casey offered helpfully, and batted away the too-bright pen light. He’d ridden the way Ro told him to. Ridden his best and hadn’t got hung up at the end but there was no way he’d won that bet. “Sorry, Ro. No steak for you. You’re not a vegan, are you? Because, steak, Ro. And potatoes. Sour cream. Mushroom gravy … mmm … baby peas. Do you like baby peas, Ro?” He could order baby peas for her. In their pods. She could pick the pods up with her fingers and suck the peas out one by one. “That’d be hot.”
“Romeo, tell us more.” Paulo sounded hugely entertained, and Rowan’s six eyes were rolling around a lot as the medic shuffled Casey out of the chute and headed them for the medical treatment room deep beneath the arena seating. Every arena had a designated area, and if it didn’t they set up a tent. The medic, Ross? Ron? Ronross the medic let him lean against the wall once they were away from the crowd. Not that he left Casey alone, no. Instead he put a hand to Casey’s shoulder and looked quite unlovingly into his eyes once more.
“Bad?” Casey rasped.
“Not too bad. The peas are a worry though.”
Right. Probably no point trying to explain his line of thought there.
They laid him out on a stretcher once he reached the treatment room and Doc Freeman started in on him.
“How’s your vision?”
“Blurred.”
“How’s the light?”
“Way too goddamn bright.”
“How’s the headache on a scale of one to ten, with ten the most painful?”
“Two.”
“Course it is. That’s why you can barely stand up,” said the doc. “Want to try that one again?”
“Six.” He’d had worse.
He thought he saw Rowan, hovering at the edge of the room. He thought he might have said something about food. Right before he rolled to the edge of the stretcher and promptly lost breakfast, morning tea and lunch.