The door to Quickdraw’s room opened. He stood there, filling up the entire doorway with his massive shoulders, glowering down at her.
“Good morning,” she greeted him politely.
“No, it ain’t.”
She opened her mouth but closed it again. How did one even respond to someone so grumpy like that?
“If you’re looking for Tweedledee, he’s in the gym downstairs with Tweedledumb. They’ve probably killed each other off by now.” Quickdraw lowered his cowboy hat to shadow his eyes and nearly ran her over getting past her in the narrow hallway. “Get out of the way.”
“Remember at the meeting last night how we talked about having more manners?”
“Please get out of the way,” he called without turning around.
“Don’t forget you have interviews on Thursday night!” she yelled back as the elevator doors opened. Oh, hang it, what was she doing? She high-kneed it to the elevator just as the doors were closing and shoved her suitcase in between the sliding doors to stop them.
She’d never seen a look of more deep disappointment than on the face of Quickdraw Slow Burn.
“Thank you for holding the door for me,” she said sarcastically.
“I didn’t.”
“I’m aware!” She poked the lobby button and continued what she needed to tell him. “I’ve put us all on a text loop—”
“Just took myself off it,” he muttered, looking down at his phone and poking buttons on it.
“Well, it’s important I can give all three of you the same information at the same time and not have to repeat myself.” She typed his contact in the loop. “I added you back. You’re welcome.”
“Took myself out again.”
Mother fucker. Don’t scream, don’t scream, don’t scream. “Anyhow, I need you to be on time for your Thursday flight because, as soon as you land, you will need to book it to the hotel for your interviews that start at six.”
“Not doing them,” he said in a bored tone.
The elevator dinged before she could attempt to strangle the beastly man.
Plastering on a smile, she said, “I’ll text you your itinerary. Please don’t make me chase you all over creation. I’m your agent, not your mother.”
He ignored her like a pro, shoved his phone in his back pocket, and moved toward the door. Only she’d thought he was a gentleman who would let her go first, so she’d stepped forward just in time to get stuck in the doorway with his stupidly big frame. Both of them struggled and spilled out of the elevator like a bowl of gravy. She stumbled and nearly went down.
“Please tell me the entire event circuit won’t be like this,” she growled out as she straightened her spine and fixed her wrinkled shirt.
He didn’t answer. Just moseyed on down the hallway to the hotel lobby, duffle bag thrown over his shoulder, looking like a model in one of those cowboy magazines. He would be a handsome man if he wasn’t so damn rude.
Personality always trumped looks.
She shook her head in disapproval until he was outside the front doors, and then she turned for the gym. It was just down a short hallway, past the entrance to a pool that was apparently closed for repairs according to a handwritten sign on the window. The butterflies went to flapping around in her chest as she pulled on the gym door, and when she got inside, she saw something she hadn’t expected.
Two Shots Down wasn’t lifting massive weights or chugging a protein drink near the minifridge. He was running on the treadmill.
Huh.
He grinned at her and gave her this charming-boy wave that he’d probably learned from romance movies or something. It worked. She was swooning. That’s what this was, right? Like in the old days when women would feel faint, get all hot and flustered and need to fan themselves ? That’s how she felt.
He was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants. Gray. The sexiest color of sweats a man could ever wear. His white T-shirt was damp with sweat and clung to his flexing six-pack as he jogged. Each stride was powerful and graceful in a way she’d never seen on a man before. Big shoulders, round like boulders, muscular pecs, fists lightly clenched as he swung them with his gait, hair damp from exertion, powerful legs that looked like he could go for days. He wasn’t even breathing heavy. If she was running like that right now? She would be gasping for breath and holding onto the rails, questioning every decision she’d made for her physical fitness journey. And she was no slouch! She’d been a barrel racer.
“Morning, sunshine,” he said.
“I thought you left.”
He shook his head. “I wake up at five every morning to work out.”
“Aaaah, gym rat. I like it.”
He chuckled. “Gym bull. Any bull who is worth their salt is training every day. Especially during event season.”
She frowned and looked around the otherwise empty gym. “Quickdraw said Dead of Winter was down here with you. Or as he called him, ‘Tweedledumb.’”
“He was,” Two Shots Down drawled out, “but he had an attitude that needed adjusting.”
“What do you mean?”
Two Shots held up his hand and opened the palm. It was covered in dried blood!
“What happened?” she yelped, rushing to him. She tugged it to her, but he swatted her hand away.
“Woman, stop fussing! You’re gonna yank me off this. It ain’t my blood!”
“Whose blood is it?”
“Tweedledumbass’s.”
“Why was he bleeding?”
“Because I stabbed him.”
“You stabbed him!” she shrieked.
“He stabbed me first!”
“With what?”
“With his knife, so I whooped him and stabbed him back.” He frowned. “Stop looking so worried. It wasn’t a kill shot. I just wanted him to bleed a little so he would leave.”
“Bleeding someone isn’t how you make them leave, Two!” Fire in her blood, she made her way to a small sink near the minifridge and poured water over a paper towel. “Where did he stab you?”
“In the back.”
And sure enough, when she turned around, the back of his white T-shirt was covered in red that had dripped and soaked the fabric from shoulder blade to hip. “I don’t understand what is wrong with you bulls.”
Two Shots Down slowed the treadmill and then stopped it completely. He leaned on the two bars on either side of the machine and canted his head at her. “Question. How much time have you really spent around bull shifters?”
“Lots. Loads. Tons of hours.”
“Do you have any friends who are bulls?”
“Yes! Of course!”
“Excluding me,” he said.
Pursing her lips, Cheyenne made her way to him. She pulled his bloody hand to her and started cleaning it off.
“No answer is still an answer, Cheyenne. You signed up to manage three bull shifters, and you don’t know how we work, do you?”
“It seems I stepped in a pond that is little over my head.”
“Nah, you stepped in the middle of the ocean. Rule number one with bull shifters, especially the dominant ones: Blood is normal. Fighting is normal. Violence is normal. Breaking stuff?”
“Let me guess. Normal.”