I shrugged and grinned back. “It’s all good. I needed the points and riding a shit bull for eight is better than face planting in the dirt after three,” I joked back. A lot easier on my body too. I’d had quite a few breaks over the last couple of years, but with each wreck, the bull taught me something new. “You coming out later?”
Tom shook his head. He was in his late twenties and had a fiancee who traveled with him. Lissy was nice, but she was seven months pregnant and she always looked at me like she was gonna cry or scratch my eyes out. I stayed well out of her way and Tom coddled her like she was his world. Which she was. Tom was a good guy.
I stuffed everything in my bag and waited for Frankie to do the same. I know the guys all thought me and Frankie were a couple, but even if they did see him fucking buckle bunnies no one said anything to me. I didn’t mind, and I didn’t dissuade the notion. It offered me a little bit of protection, because although they were all respectful of me, they were even more respectful because I was someone else’s girl.
Fucking knuckledraggers.
I talked shop with a couple of the guys while I waited, talking about their rides, the crowds, all that other crap. After about twelve months, the majority stopped seeing the blonde curls and the boobs and instead saw another person with the same passion they had.
“Cover your dicks boys, the piranha is here,” a crude voice yodelled and I grimaced. Most. Not all. Junior was the son of rodeo royalty. His father, grandfather, and uncles had all been pro riders. Junior sucked but got by on the legacy of his name. But he was a fucking dickcheese of a human being. The guy beside me, a part timer who worked a normal construction job most months, grimaced and went to stand. We were still in the South and I was still a woman, even if I did like to climb on the top of bulls. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back down, shaking my head. I stood and gave Junior a derisive look. “I don’t see you covering yours, Junior. Is that because you don’t have one?”
Someone snickered, and Junior’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe you chewed it off,” he growled. I made a truly disgusted face that I didn’t have to fake in the least.
“I wouldn’t go near your dick for a million dollars. Hell, I wouldn’t touch it even if they offered me the chance to ride in the World Finals.”
Junior growled and stepped forward, and suddenly Frankie was there. “Ready to go, Querida?”
Frankie didn’t follow Luiz into bull riding because he was way too tall. Easily 6”4, he didn’t have the center of gravity to be a bull rider. But he was big, muscled and athletic as hell. There was a reason he pulled the buckle bunnies.
Junior, however, was scrappy and I wasn’t sure who’d win in a fight. No, wait I was. Frankie. Junior was a little bitch who was all bark and no bite.
Frankie led me from the room and I flipped Junior the bird on the way out the door. Asshole.
Frankie was shaking his head as we got to my truck. It was new and reliable. It had four doors and seat warmers. It was the only time I’d dipped into my trust fund money. Technically, my daddy’s shares in the contracting business went to me. Jack Watson, Branch’s father and Daddy’s business partner, had hired a property manager to govern the place on my behalf.
He’d grieved my father as much as I had. They’d been friends for decades. Most people would have taken the opportunity to buy me out, but not Jack. He loved me like a daughter too, I knew it in my soul. But still, I hadn’t been able to go back to the farm. Hadn’t been able to see my old house, my old room, Daddy’s recliner.
I’d gone straight from the hospital to California, and I’d never been back. I talked to Jack and Judy on the phone every month though. They kept me up to date on things back home.
I was brought back to the present by Frankie’s voice. “I don’t trust that guy, Tessa.”
Yeah, that was a good gut feeling. I wouldn’t like to be cornered by Junior in a dark alley either. But it was what it was, and until he did something super out of line, we all had to suck it up and take precautions. He wasn’t someone I could make random allegations against, especially as one of the only card holding female bull riders in the country. So I’d suck it up.
But I would take a baseball bat to him if he stepped over the line. Daddy hadn’t raised a shrinking violet.
I drove us back to the hotel, just a cheap little place with two single beds and a flea infestation. I might have money, but I tried not to touch it. Except for the truck and my dues every year, I didn’t dip into my trust fund money unless it was an emergency. I wanted to make it in this life on my own.
I let Frankie grab my duffle, something I’d never do if there were other riders around. But when it was me and Frankie, the rules were different. I unlocked the door to the room.
“Dibs on the first shower,” I called, racing for the tiny ensuite to the sound of Frankie’s cursing. It might be molding bathrooms and cheap diner food, but I was living my dream, and that was enough to put a smile on my face.
Parties on the last night of a rodeo were all the same. Girls in short skirts and pristine boots. Banged up cowboys. And more booze than was probably healthy for a person.
I drank my beer as I stood to the side of the room, tapping my toe to the music streaming from an old school jukebox. Frankie was across the room talking to a pretty redhead in a silk camisole with legs that went on for forever. He’d occasionally shoot a look in my direction to check I was okay, but then he’d turn back to the conquest of the night. On cue, his dark eyes shot to me, and I tilted my beer at him.
“You seem too pretty to be here by yourself,” a smooth voice said from beside me, and I looked over at a rider. Not one that I knew personally, although his face was familiar. No, it was his cocky swagger that told me he was a rider, and his shiny buckle just confirmed it.
His eyes sparkled with friendly mirth, but he didn’t give me a bad feeling, so I grinned and tilted my beer at him. “The rumor is that I devoured the last guy who approached me at a bar praying mantis style, so guys give me a wide berth. Especially ones who are looking to get laid.” I raised my eyebrows in his direction.
He looked down at me and laughed. “I bite back,” he said in a low, growling voice that almost had me abandoning my principles and dragging him out the back. As if he knew the direction of my thoughts, his eyes got hot. They were a pretty shade of blue, dark like violets. “I’ll take my chances, I think. Let me buy you another beer?”
I shook my head. “Nah, I have to drive. But I’ll take a bottle of water if you’re feeling chivalrous.”
He strode to the bar and I got a good look at him. Yeah, he had that lean muscle thing going on that made me weak in the knees. Short dark hair hidden under his hat. Wide shoulders that rippled with muscle.
Down girl. Down. I’d made it a rule not to date within the circuit. Don’t shit where you eat. Words to live by. Mostly, if I needed to scratch an itch, there was always a local boy at one of the stops who wouldn’t mind getting into the back of my truck with me. I never took them back to my hotel room, and Frankie never took his conquests back there either. We respected each other.
But this guy, he was real pretty and I was really happy and it was making it super hard to remember why I didn’t date on the circuit.