Chapter Nine
There was knowing something was going to cause you woe … and then there was doing it anyway because it felt so good at the time. Bull riding was like that. Spending time with Rowan was like that too.
The picture-postcard town of Deadwood catered to bikers, tourists, poker players and, every now and again, bull riders. The arena was an outdoor one, small enough for anyone in the crowd to get a real good look at the sport up close. Casey liked that the arena was on the outskirts of the town and that looking out over the stands meant looking up at the black hills beyond. The Deadwood crowd had no need to play at being cowboys and ranching folk because so many of them were exactly that.
Rowan looked like every cowboy’s cowgirl dream in this setting. Creamy skin, glossy brown hair that fell where it would, slim-fit jeans, her fancy red boots and that bronzy gold top that screamed money and designer fashion. She had a chute pass, which made her someone, and a camera around her neck, which suggested an occupation. She wasn’t officially working this weekend, she’d told him. Her father, Mab and a couple of Harper stock hands had it covered. But she still sat back with him and Paulo and Huck and gave her opinion, and she still shouldered in against him to watch the other cowboys ride.
She was delivering on her promise to make their relationship obvious, and he didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand it satisfied every instinct he owned.
On the other hand … nope, no complaints … still gut-wrenchingly satisfying.
They had a travel plan for Monday onward that involved Livingstone, Paradise Valley and Marietta, before ending up in Billings for the next stop on the tour. They’d be staying at his cabin for some of that time. He’d made plans to show her around a raptor rehab center.
Until then there was Deadwood and the sweet outdoor arena and the smell of sawdust in the wind and Rowan standing next to him, shoulder to shoulder, leaning in and watching the riders going through the motions.
He’d already ridden once, nothing special but no damage done.
“What do you think of Chase Garrett’s chances on Road To Ruin?” he asked Rowan as the cowboy in question got ready to ride. Chase had pulled the best bulls all weekend and had ridden Hammerfall in the first go for a score of ninety-two. And then a tiny boy had somehow fallen into the arena and the bull had charged and Chase had protected the tike and got trampled for his trouble.
The kid was all right and Chase was riding again and if he stuck the bull Rowan called Rocky he’d win the event.
“I like his chances,” said Rowan. “I hope he wins.”
“Hey! Where’s the support?”
“You win enough,” she said, and softened her words with a smile. “I’m all for rewarding Chase’s bravery.”
Hard to argue with that.
Chase’s ride was better than good. He stayed on until the horn, and Casey smiled and clapped even as the crowd roared.
“He’s done a rib,” said Rowan, as Chase walked from the arena. “Look.”
It was in the rigid way the cowboy was holding his upper body. All part of the sport.
Casey placed sixth in Deadwood. Nothing to write home about or celebrate, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face afterward and that, beyond anything, was Rowan’s doing.
Because she came down to the bar on Sunday night after the event and made good on her promise to claim him, and not in a tacky way. Not by licking his tonsils in public, although he could have worked with that. Not by fawning all over him and hanging off his arm, although he could have worked with that too.
No, she’d done it by the simple act of walking into the bar in fitted jeans, red cowboy boots, another pretty, creamy-colored top and an open jacket and then casting her gaze over the crowd until she found him. And then smiling.
Huck, sitting next to him, had practically snorted his beer. “You are so screwed.”
“Huh?”
“That woman owns you, man.”
“What?” All he’d done was look. “No.”
“Plain as day,” Huck said sagely. “And stop scowling. Looks like she’s heading your way.”
*
There were more terrifying things than walking into a room full of cowboys, their women, and AEBR officials, but Rowan couldn’t think of any right this moment. She’d rather face an angry bull than this crowd who watched her every move with an interest born of familiarity, curiosity and sometimes outright malice. Not all the wives who toured regularly with their husbands liked her. She had access to places they couldn’t go, an identity that wasn’t hitched to any one cowboy, although it could be argued that it was hitched to her father’s role and Harper Bucking Bulls.
But her father wasn’t here tonight; he was trucking bulls, and she was the Harper representative on the ground. Beyond that she’d told Casey she didn’t want to keep their relationship a secret anymore. Come tomorrow morning she’d be spending the entire week with him, heading west rather than south to Wyoming and home. Familiar ground for both of them, familiar enough at any rate, but she’d never traveled those roads as a sightseer before. She’d never gone where the bulls hadn’t taken her.
Or tried to claim a man in public.
She had no idea where to even start.
Walking up to him seemed like as good an idea as any, except to do that she had to walk straight past Alicia, who always welcomed her, and Gisele who never failed to do the same. It wouldn’t be right to ignore the only women who’d ever made her feel welcome. Maybe they could help her.
Gisele reached out and air-kissed her on both cheeks before drawing back to study Rowan intently. “What’s wrong?”
Was it really that obvious? “I told Casey I’d make it clear to everyone I was in a relationship with him this weekend. No more sneaking around.”
Alicia smiled. “Aw. How sweet. You seriously think no one’s noticed the way you light up—and dress up—just for him?”
“I do not dress up just for him!” That would involve sexy underwear—which she may or may not have already purchased with the week ahead in mind. “I’ll have you know I wear my new clothes when no one’s around. Because I like them.”
Gisele smirked.
“Anyway … do either of you know how to claim a man in public? Because I’m not quite sure how it’s done.”
Giselle nodded. “So … are we talking about creating a drag him from the bar by his belt buckle moment?”
“Definitely not. And no lap riding either. Or clinging. No clinging.”
“Kissing?” asked Giselle. “Somewhere discreet like on his cheek.”
“Tempting, but I have tried that in private and my kiss never quite stays on his cheek.”
“I’m not surprised given the utter perfection of that man’s mouth,” murmured Alicia.
Rowan stared at the older woman. “Hey!”
“Catfight,” said Gisele sagely. “Always a winner. You wait until some gorgeous thing eases up to him and then drag them away by their hair.”
“I’m after something a little less psychotic.”
“Good thinking.” Alicia signaled the bartender for another champagne. “Listen and learn, younglings. Do you know what he drinks? Top shelf option. Order for yourself and one for him and set his down in front of him.”
“What if he keeps right on talking to whoever he’s talking to?”
“Honey, he won’t—trust me. The man has manners and he’ll use them.”
“Okay.” Rowan was warming to the idea. “So I buy him a drink and sashay on over. Then what?”
“Do you even know how to sashay?” queried Gisele. “Because, frankly, sashaying takes practice.”
“She can practice on her way over.” Alicia waved away the objection with an expressive hand. “What happens after that is mainly going to involve seating arrangements. Fifty green says he offers you his chair and pulls up another one.”
“Or pulls her onto his lap,” said Gisele, and Alicia scrunched up her nose and shook her head in a wordless no. “Why not? It happens.”
“For all that this is a bar it’s still a professional workplace environment where business gets done. Casey’s not going to forget that this is Rowan’s workplace as well as his. He might put his arm along the back of her chair; I could see that happening. And if someone else makes a move on her or disrespects her all bets are off. But he’ll start out polite and respectful.”
“I’m sold.” Rowan wanted that scenario and she wanted it now. She caught the bartender’s eye and he responded with a flirty smile. “Two Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserves please, and make them doubles, and leave the bottle. Room 401.” Casey had offered her a glass of the vintage bourbon when they were at his cabin. The very same night she’d promised to acknowledge their relationship when in public.
It didn’t get much more public than this.
She signed for the drinks and picked the drinks up in one hand and the bottle in the other and turned to face her women friends. “Wish me luck. And if it all goes wrong you’ll come and rescue me, right?”
“Rowan, sweetheart, that’s a nine-hundred-dollar bottle of bourbon you’re holding,” Alicia murmured. “Everyone’s going to want to rescue you.”
“Oh.” Who knew? She gave one of the drinks to Gisele and the other to Alicia and asked for two more glasses. “Does this mean I can sashay now?”
“Don’t break the bottle,” said Gisele. “Go get him.”
It went well to begin with. She brushed past Casey’s shoulder and set the bottle down in front of him on the table. The glasses came next, empty, but hopefully not for long because she needed something to do with her hands.
Casey stood, his green eyes bemused as he pushed back from the table. “Take a seat. Take my seat while I find another.”
“So I’m welcome?”
His eyes flared hot to scorching and her skin felt the lick of it. “Always.”
He turned away to find another chair and she slid into the seat and the warmth he’d left behind, and there was dead silence from the cowboys he’d been sitting with, and then as if by unspoken agreement Paulo and Huck on either side of her shuffled their chairs as close as they could get to her, leaving barely an inch of breathing room.
“We’re going to need more glasses,” said Huck. “What are we celebrating?”
“I’m claiming Casey as mine.”
“You should do it more often,” said Huck. “Every weekend.”
“Let me guess. You’re a bourbon guy.”
“Mother’s milk,” said Huck reverently. “Or in this case, Pappy’s milk.”
And then Casey was back with a chair that he wedged in between Huck and someone else, and then he put one hand to the back of Rowan’s chair and one to the back of Huck’s and loomed over them. “Huck, don’t make me ask you,” he murmured and Huck laughed, even as he moved over one and left the seat next to Rowan free for Casey who settled to it with a sharp grin. “So what are we celebrating?”
“Our sightseeing trip through Montana next week. I’m starting early.”
“Because I thought I heard you say you were claiming me,” he said as he reached out and uncapped the bottle and poured for her first and then him. “And that’s definitely worth celebrating.”
“Huck’s salivating,” she said, but her eyes were for him and the barely leashed want in him. She leaned over and kissed him lightly on the cheek, high up where the temptation to slide right down and find his mouth was lessened and even then she forgot to breathe, pulling away and holding her breath at the fierce promise in his eyes and the way his gaze caressed her lips.
“I’ll get water,” said Huck. “And more glasses.”
“Bring another bottle,” said Casey. “We’re celebrating.”
“Alicia said you’d respect the fact that this is a professional environment for us both.”
He was still focused on her lips. “I’m trying. Might help if you stopped looking at me like that.”
Rowan smiled crookedly and held his gaze.
“Or that.”
It was as close to a whimper as she’d ever heard from this man.
“Sightseeing where?” asked Paulo, and that was a conversation that started with Livingstone and old western films and ended with eagles, and then Huck was back with more glasses and a different bottle of bourbon.
“They didn’t have another bottle of the good stuff, man,” said Huck. “But I’m still the best friend you have here. I gave up my seat for you. And it was all warm and cozy and don’t make me beg.”
“Huck.” Rowan reached for the bottle and gestured toward the empty glasses.
“And she has a generous hand,” Huck declared reverently as she poured him a drink and then poured for the rest of the cowboys at the table.
“This is so much better than sashaying over and giving Casey a lap dance,” she said, to a chorus of Amens.
“Wait!” spluttered Casey. “What? Why is it better?”
“You should drink now,” Paulo told Casey with a shit-kicking grin. And then Alicia came over and pulled up a chair, and Gisele and Kit came over too, and all of a sudden it was party time and it was loud and full of laughs and when finally she and Casey left, they left together.
“I claimed you,” she said, sliding her fingers through his and tugging him closer as the elevator doors shut and the noise from the bar faded away. “I hope you noticed.”
“I noticed.”
“Did you like it?” she whispered against the impossible plushness of his lips, right before he kissed her to within an inch of her clothes.
“Believe me,” he rasped as the elevator doors opened again and he stepped back to let her out. “I liked it.”
*
The week that followed became crammed with warm smiles and laughter and the hottest sex Rowan had ever known.
Casey showed her his home state and the parts of it he’d fallen in love with as a child. He took her swimming in the hot springs near Yellowstone. They spent a night in Marietta and went to Grey’s Saloon for a meal where he filled her in on Jett’s bachelor auction and the fallout.
They went to Livingstone and stayed at a historic hotel and went across the road to the open-air cinema one night where John Wayne was playing. He took her to the ice-creamery and the brewery, the chocolate shop and to visit his old mentor at the raptor sanctuary—and she fit.
He took her home to visit his mother and to the cabin again and she loved every moment. There were worlds beyond rough stock transport and bull breeding that she’d never explored and they were open to her.
Some worlds, including the world of hairdressers and beauty products and shopping, fit her regular world far better than she ever thought they would.
Other worlds like the Domestic Goddess world would carry on without her.
Calling Mab’s mom the week after the Montana trip and asking her to come and stay for a couple of nights midweek when Mab was here had opened up a whole new world of friendship. Mab’s mother wasn’t old enough to be her mother but had a whole other world of experience that came with her. And she knew bull riding. Didn’t like it, mind, but knew it, from a different perspective to the one Rowan knew, and had broken free and ventured beyond it and that was interesting too.
As for what was going on around the Harper ranch, she’d just bought her first rose and dug a hole and half filled it with weathered bull droppings, like the instructions had said. Gardening was new to her too and her association with it might well end up as fleeting as her stint as a domestic goddess. On the other hand, maybe it would stick.
She leaned on her shovel as her father walked up, his face unreadable beneath his cowboy hat.
“You can always ask one of the ranch hands to help with that,” he said.
“I know. And if I had fifty of them to plant, believe me I would. But there’s only one and I want to do it myself.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a rose called Renae. It’s fragrant. And pink.”
Her father nodded as if he cared. “I want to buy you out of the business.”
Rowan narrowly avoided falling into the hole she’d dug as she turned to stare uncomprehendingly at her father. “What?”
“The financial advisor says if I take on a silent partner who wouldn’t have a majority stake or say in the running of the business, I can afford to buy you out without any loss of running capital.”
“But … why?” That was the main question here. “Am I not silent enough?”
Her father barely discussed things with her as it was. He ran a tidy, well-resourced operation. Harper Bucking Bulls were well housed, well fed and their breeding program was hands down the most comprehensive in the business. Joe Harper knew the bloodlines he wanted and went after them with ruthless efficiency. He turned over stock transport trucks every three years or one hundred thousand miles, whichever came first. They had a solid ten percent profit margin and didn’t owe anything anywhere. On paper, Rowan pulled a wage as a company director. In reality, that money plowed back into the business as needed or sat in a bank account somewhere, accruing interest. She had an expense account to draw from but her recent spending marathon had barely made a dent in it. “Dad, what do you mean? Is this about the ducks?”
Her father snorted. “I want to give you a choice about what you want to do with your life.”
And that was just … another sentence she couldn’t comprehend. “You want to give me choice in my life by throwing me out of yours?” Rowan wasn’t used to arguing with her father. She was used to keeping her head down and doing what she was told, but not this time. “Dad, what’s going on?”
“I talked to that cowboy you wanted me to get to know. I’ve been watching you both.”
“And?”
“He doesn’t fit in here.”
Rowan blinked. “How do you know? He’s never been here.” They hadn’t crossed that river yet. She wasn’t ready for it. She wanted her life to be fuller and prettier before she showed it to him.
“He’s not aiming to stick around after the year is out,” her father said next, which wasn’t exactly news.
“Okay. So? I do know that. But that aside, how do you get from Casey not belonging here to buying me out of the business? That’s what I want to know.”
“You’re doing well with your photographs and—”
“Pictures about bull riding,” she interrupted. “Taken while I was on the road with you.”
“You got accepted into a course.”
“I paid for that course.” Her patience was being stretched. “The book of photos is an interesting project and I’m invested in making it work, but it’s not all I want to do. It’s not as if I’m the new Ansel Adams here, Dad. It’s a hobby, not a vocation. Besides, who are you going to take on as a silent partner? Who do we know and trust to even do that?”
“Jock Morgan’s interested.”
“Jock Morgan’s dying.”
“And he has good bull bloodlines and a son he needs to provide for.”
Blood rushed from her body, one of those reactions to shock that couldn’t be helped, because she could see it now, the way this was shaping. “You want Mab.” If she sounded bitter it was only because she was. “You want a son to take over the business one day. God. Doesn’t even have to be your son, does it?”
“Rowan, listen—”
“If I’d been the son you’ve always wanted we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” she snapped. “You’d be proud to build me and hand over to me eventually. Instead you’ve fought that every step of the way.”
“If you were the son I wanted I wouldn’t have to factor in you taking off after every two-bit cowboy you fancy yourself in love with!”
Truth. There it was. And it added to the shock and made her colder. “Is this about Casey? It is, isn’t it?”
“I’ve talked to him.”
“Oh, yeah? What did he say?”
“He doesn’t fit in around here, Rowan. He doesn’t intend to.”
“And Mab does?” Hot anger bubbled and overflowed. “Mab barely knows one end of a bull from the other. At the end of the tour he’s looking to go back and live with his mother. Go to school, play basketball. All those other things kids do when they’re not loading and hauling bucking bulls from one end of the country to the other!”
“This isn’t about Mab, it’s about choice.” Her father’s jaw jutted stubbornly from beneath the hat and shadow concealed his eyes. “The money’s there for you to use.”
“Use how?”
“However you choose. T.J. Casey’s got a direction and he’s heading in it. He won’t turn around for you.”
“And this is news?” She threw the shovel aside and squared up to him, toe to toe even if she barely reached his shoulders. “Since when has anyone ever turned around for me? Have you? Ever? Do you think I’m not fully aware that when it comes down to wants and needs mine come last?”
“I’m trying to put yours first!”
Her father, who so rarely raised his voice at either beast or person, was raising it now.
“I’m giving you a way out, with money at your disposal, so you can follow your goddamn cowboy wherever he wants to go. If that’s what you want!”
She stared at him in silence, openmouthed and dying inside.
“You’re nesting,” he grated.
“I’m what?” Was she? “What does that even mean? Surely I can have more than one interest in life. I can be more than your shadow and still do my job. You’re my family. This is my home and I’m trying to make it how I want it, ducks and roses and all. They’ll fit. I’ll make them fit.”
“Rowan, I—”
“No! You don’t get to casually toss me aside because I’m no longer needed. This is what I know; it’s everything you’ve taught me and I’ve worked for it. I don’t want to sell my half of the business and take my money elsewhere. And maybe I’m not male, and maybe that matters to some but it doesn’t matter to me. I won’t be selling and I have no plans to take off after Casey.”
She took a deep breath.
“If you want to buy Jock Morgan’s business when he dies, I’ll not say no. If you want to manage it on Mab’s behalf and combine the two and bring Mab on board later, I’d consider it—provided he’s interested. But I’m going nowhere. You might have built this business and sacrificed plenty but so did I.”
She turned her back on him and reached for the rose in the pot. It was big and heavy and as she tipped it on its side to roll it toward the hole her father stepped up to help her.
“I can do it,” she grated, and she damn well wasn’t talking about the rose. Twenty years on the road. All the politics, all the players and all the crap. Driving until her eyes were ready to fall out of their sockets, one dingy hotel room after the other until the money had started flowing their way. No regular life on her horizon but she’d made do. And now he wanted to take that away from her too. “Let me do it.”
“I’m giving you an out,” he said quietly.
“I don’t want an out. I’m here. I’ve always been here, whether you’ve wanted me or not. Deal with it.” She had the rose out of the pot and all the roots were showing. The book said to spread the roots out gently and pack soil in around them but to hell with that. She pushed the plant in the hole, picked up the shovel and started packing dirt all around. She’d water it and feed it and it’d survive or it wouldn’t. Sometimes life didn’t give you the start you wanted but you made do and grew regardless. “Anything else?”
“No. I—no.”
He took a step back and then another. She could see several of their ranch hands loitering just inside the barn door … as if standing in shadow meant they were invisible. Her father turned and walked away and she watched him from beneath her cap. She’d always tried to please him no matter what but not this time. She’d fight for the life she had and fight hard.
Just watch her.