Page 39 of The Undercover Cowboy

Here it comes, Dolly thought. She followed him, fumbling with her phone to turn on her voice recording app. She toggled it on. If Finn thought he was going to blackmail her or proposition her, she was going to get it on tape and then take it straight to Shelby Miller. Shelby had supported Reba last year when Reba told her about the awful experience she’d had with her old boss. Dolly knew Shelby would be an ally if things shook down wrong.

Rounding the corner, though, Dolly stopped dead in her tracks. Two beautiful women in generic cheerleading outfits were posing by a mechanical bull and a saddle.

“Okay,” Finn said to Dolly. “Where do you want me?”

All right. Not what she had been expecting. Relief made her knees weak. It looked like this was a legitimate photo shoot. Dolly sat on a hay bale while she got herself together.

The cheerleaders were too coincidental coming on the heels of her getting the uniform. Or were they? Dolly couldn’t rule out that she was being oversensitive.

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah,” she said, swallowing hard. “Just taking a moment to picture the story I want to tell.”

“Righteous,” he said, and went over to chat up one of the models.

Dolly knew she needed to get off her ass and get started, but she was having a hard time breathing now that she was coming down from the stress of the fight-or-flight adrenaline she had just put herself through.

Do your job, she told herself.

“All right.” Dolly stood up. She wished Blevins had scheduled this with her previously. She would have brought a better camera than her cell phone. But this would work in a pinch. First he overrode her at the VIP booth and now this. She was going to have to meet with him on Monday in the Dallas office and address this. She’d take Shelby with her for safety. Blevins didn’t get to do this to her.

Dolly shut off her recorder and had Finn pose with the models for a few shots. Then because she was feeling ornery, she had Finn take off his shirt and give it to one of the women and then she shot cheesecake pictures of him. To his credit, Finn didn’t seem to mind, and it wound up being a productive shoot. She’d be able to use the footage in several videos.

“Let’s do this on a real bull,” Finn said.

“Not with them dressed like that,” Dolly said. “They could get hurt. If you want them in the ring with a bull, we’re going to have to find a tamer one, and no one gets on his back.”

Finn pouted, but the models looked relieved.

Dolly called Shane. He said he didn’t have a bull that fit the bill here in Killeen, but he could send a bull named Ferdinand to Laredo next week. After checking with the models’ schedules—they were free next Saturday—she booked them for a few hours at the Laredo rodeo. She’d have enough time to write a “We’re cowgirls, of course we…” script for them to say for one of the sessions.

“Thanks,” Finn said as they left the VIP area. “That was fun.”

Yeah, it had been. Now that they were alone, she waited for him to mention something about the cheerleader uniform, but he didn’t. He seemed more concerned about looking pretty for his bull ride that was coming up. She left him to his primping and headed to the chute area where they were loading in the bulls.

If it hadn’t been Finn who sent the cheerleader outfit, who had it been? She was filming the bulls in their pens when Nash came running in.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“It is now,” she said. And without caring who was watching, she launched herself into his arms and gave him a huge kiss.

Chapter Twelve

Dolly

“Well, that’s aconsolation prize,” Finn drawled. “For getting kicked off the roster.”

Dolly reluctantly broke off the kiss, but when she tried to move away, Nash held her close to his side. “Yeah, it is,” he said.

“Which bull did you choose?” she asked Finn, refusing to be embarrassed.

“Windbreaker.”

Dolly blinked. “Seriously.”

“I think they were going for a Tornado feel, rather than…”

“Windbreaker the farting bull?”

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