“Getting married?” Ryder asked as soon as the door closed behind them.
“Shut up and play, Daniels,” Jake said.
“Seriously,” Colt said. “You’re going to marry Callie Carson, and you think that Abe Carson isn’t going to wring your neck?”
Yeah, well. His brother had a point. “Not my problem, since I’m not in the rodeo anymore.”
“But he might kill me,” Colt said. “And that’s relevant to my interests. Or dis-interests, as the case may be.”
“What you do has nothing to do with what I do, and he knows that. Everyone knows it. We’re not the same person.”
“It’s not like family and the rodeo is rare,” he said.
It was true. Brothers often found themselves competing, and they were often carrying on a legacy left behind by their fathers. It just wasn’t unusual for families to be part of the business. And sure, families did tend to get lumped in together, but it was also just usual enough that it wasn’t like people assumed you were the same just because you were related. And Jake and Colt were not the same.
They never had been.
They loved each other, sure as hell, but they’d always been of two minds. And for all that they spent years out on the circuit together, they tended to gravitate to different groups. He had a feeling that it was related to the way their lives had been, the way that everything had gone when they were kids.
And there were certain things that Jake knew...things that he didn’t want his brother to know. And pulling away from Colt had been a natural way to do that.
“I don’t need any drama,” Colt said.
“I’m not giving you drama. Callie wants to ride. It’s not up to Abe to stop her.”
“I guess I agree with that,” he said. “Reluctantly.”
“No need to be reluctant about it. It just is what it is. Callie is a grown-ass woman, and she can make her own choices. She needs access to her trust fund. And to do that she has to get married.”
“What year is it?” Logan asked. “That’s some weird shit.”
“Rich people, man,” Jake said, shrugging. “Hell if I know.”
“And you’re not sleeping with her,” West asked, looking deeply skeptical.
“No,” Jake said. “I’m not.” He gritted his teeth against the images that statement conjured up. “She’s a friend. She has been for a hell of a long time. She’s a good kid. But that’s the thing, she’s a kid.” And he wished like hell that he believed his own damn lies.
“Doesn’t look like a kid to me,” West said, a half smile curving his lips.
That earned West a glare from Ryder.
West lifted his hands up. “I am wholly and completely committed to your sister.”
“See that it stays that way, dickhead,” Ryder said, pointing at West while holding the football.
And Jake had a feeling that West was cruising to get his ass handed to him during the game.
“I have to spend Christmas with her family,” Jake said.
“Damn,” Colt said. “I would not want to be you.”
Jake shrugged, feigning a nonchalance he didn’t feel. “They’re nice enough.”
“Sure. All of them. Before you were banging Callie.”
“I’m not banging Callie,” he said, making sure to enunciate very clearly.
“But her family doesn’t know that. And they won’t know that. Because all they are going to know is that you married her. And quickly. And I’m just saying...”
“Yeah, I get you. This is what I get for being a good friend. And frankly, for being a good family member, being here in the first place.”
“We all think you’re very good,” Ryder said. “Is that what you’re looking for? A cookie?”
“I don’t want your damn cookie,” he said. “A little respect, though, that would go a long way.”
“You have it,” Ryder said. “And I think you know it. Anyway, let’s quit talking and play some football. And make sure not to damage Jake too much. He has to look pretty for his wedding.”
CHAPTER FIVE
JAKE’S FAMILY WAS so nice. Really, they had been exceptionally wonderful to her during Thanksgiving, and they had made fun of Jake for agreeing to a fake marriage, but they had been supportive in a way she had not imagined anyone’s family could be. But then, they were unconventional, the lot of them. While Jake been outside playing football, she’d spent time listening to the women chatting. They were all different from each other, though they were all married. Rose was a spirited tomboy around her own age. Pansy was the chief of police, tough as nails and filled with spirit. Iris was softer, sweet in a more traditional way, with Sammy as earth mother, bringing a different kind of airiness to the group. It was sort of fascinating to her, to be surrounded by all these different kinds of femininity.
Sure, there was a bit of that in the rodeo. It was inescapable. But mostly, the women affiliated with the rodeo were easily categorized into three different buckets.
You had your tough cowgirls, which she considered herself among. Then you had your sparkly cowgirls. Your rodeo queens, and your barrel racers who liked to spend time gluing jewels to their horses’ butts. She was not that. And there was a little bit of friendly ribbing that happened between those two types of cowgirls.
Then there were the buckle bunnies, of which none of the cowgirls were fans. It was cowboys that liked those ladies. Who were there for only one reason. To dress the part for a few minutes so they could get down and dirty with one of the men riding the animals. And she heard it expressed more than once by the girls on the circuit how unfair it was that the boys messed around with those fake cowgirls.
“Because they can’t handle a real one,” she remembered Lara Pritchett saying once. One of the more gussied-up types of barrel racer, she always had nice, fancy braids and pretty makeup done.
“I guess you’re welcome to put out the same as they do,” one of the other cowgirls had said.
“None of those boys are worth that kind of carry-on,” she’d said. “If they want to man-up and get serious, then they’re welcome to it, but until such a time as that, I will not be competing with some trumped-up skank in a plastic belt buckle.”
And Callie hadn’t really seen the issue.
They all wanted to compete in their events the way they wanted to, as she saw it. The buckle bunnies were just looking to complete a different ride, so to speak.
And it didn’t interest Callie. It just wasn’t what she was going to pour her energy into. Trying to get into the sack with some cowboy who would never remember her name, and who would make things uncomfortable for her around the circuit, yeah, that didn’t appeal to her at all. But she wasn’t going to sit around stewing like the other women, either. If she wanted to do it she could.