Page 18 of Cowboy Wolf's Secret Baby

“Who was that woman you were talking to last night?”

“The mother of one of the junior cowgirls,” he said.

“Why were you talking to her?” Kelly demanded.

Conner turned around and narrowed his eyes. “That is none of your business. We are not a couple. We are not even friends. I can and will talk to whomever I please.”

“That’s not nice.”

Conner didn’t reply.

“We could be the rodeo power couple. I’m the rodeo queen and you are the star cowboy.”

Connor choked out a laugh. “Not a chance. I am not in the slightest bit attracted to you. I don’t want to date you or be with you.”

“Why? I’m beautiful. I’m a lot of fun to hang out with.”

“You might be what some people consider to be beautiful on the outside, but you are extremely ugly on the inside.”

“What do you mean? My insides look the same as everyone else’s,” she said, clearly confused.

Not so bright, either, Conner thought. Aloud he said, “I don’t mean physically. You are mean and arrogant.”

Kelly put her hands on her hips. “I am not.”

“The night that we went out to the restaurant, you were extremely rude to the waitress. You talked down to her and were extremely rude.”

“It took her forever to bring our food, and my steak wasn’t right.”

“The food came when it should and your steak was fine. You ordered it medium well, and it came medium well. Even if it wasn’t, you didn’t have to be such a bitch about it. The waitress doesn’t cook the food.”

“That doesn’t make me an ugly person.”

“You treat every single person around here as though they are your personal servants. You constantly gossip about them, making things up when you don’t have anything. They avoid you like the plague because you are constantly insulting them. Even the locals who don’t know you as well don’t want anything to do with you after meeting you once,” Conner said. “The problem with you is that you believe your own hype. You think that because you are a beautiful rodeo queen that the world should bow down to you. The fact is that your physical beauty will fade and all that will be left is a cracked shell of yourself, like Dorian Gray’s picture.”

Her eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you would say such things to me.” She huffed.

“You need to understand that I’m not attracted to you and I don’t want to be with you. I don’t want to be your friend and I damn sure don’t want to be your boyfriend.”

“I can be nice.”

“Uh-huh.”

She tugged on his sleeve. He jerked his arm away. “I can change and be the nice person you want me to be.”

“I don’t want you to be anyway and even if the tiger could change her stripes, I wouldn’t want anyone to change for me,” Conner said. “Even if you did change for a while, you wouldn’t be able to keep it up. Your old self would leak through. I don’t want to be with you. There isn’t anything you can say or do that could make that happen. If you want to change and try to trap – er -- find some other person, then be my guest. But for the love of all that is holy in this world, leave me alone.”

“I can be a better person and you’ll love me. Just wait and see,” she said and stormed away.

“Zephyr, I don’t know about that woman. She is nothing but trouble.”

He whinnied in agreement.

That afternoon at the meeting before the event started, he leaned against the fence with one foot on the rail. He stood in the back of the crowd, casually watching everyone. Taryn kept stealing glances at him. She was trying to be sneaky about it, but she wasn’t very good at that.

Why in the world does she look so familiar? It was driving him crazy that he couldn’t figure it out. I guess I’ve just seen her around here before.

The explanation was logical, but it didn’t stop that nagging feeling in the back of his mind.

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