Page 3 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

I smiled kindly. “Now, darlin’, we both know that’s not going to happen.”

Her lips flattened as she considered. “Fine. I’ll stay the night at Lodestar and bring you back to your truck tomorrow morning.” She turned to Janie. “And when I show up to sewingclub tomorrow unshowered and still wearing today’s clothes, I don’t want to hear a single word from you.”

Janie, who had been leaning on the bar, eyes darting back and forth between us like she was fully engrossed in a tennis match, straightened. “No one will know. And even if they did, no one would care. It’s Zack.” She grabbed a glass and held it under the tap, filling it with amber liquid.

I didn’t bother to take offense to that. “Sewing club?” I asked Hannah.

She nodded. “Ten a.m. at the library.”

I ran the logistics in my head. Aspen Springs was a forty-minute drive from Lodestar Ranch, and even longer if cows were in the road. She’d probably want an hour to shower and change. “All right. I’ll be ready at eight.”

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Really? You could do that?”

“Of course I could do that. I grew up on a ranch. Not only that, but I’ll have you know that in all my years in rodeo, I’ve never once missed my call time, Hannah Bell,” I said, and watched her cheeks flush in response. Sexual innuendos couldn’t make her blush but calling her by her full name was proving reliable. Odd, that. Even odder that I couldn’t seem to stop testing it.

I took a long swallow of beer with a nod of thanks to Janie. “Now. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Right. The rodeo.” She managed to pull another half inch of height from her already ramrod-straight spine. “You might be aware that the Aspen Springs library has had its budget cut—again—and quite frankly, the amount we’ve been given won’t even keep the lights on. If we can’t make up the difference, we’ll have to cut hours of operation. So I thought we could hold a charity event to raise money—a rodeo. But I don’t know the first thing about rodeos. I’ve never even been to one.”

I nodded. “So you figured, why not ask the person in Aspen Springs with the most rodeo experience? And here we are.”

“Sort of.” She pushed at her glasses. “Lodestar Ranch would be the perfect location, so I went to your dad first. He agreed to host the rodeo at the ranch, and said he’d be happy to do whatever grunt work I needed, but he wouldn’t be much help with the planning.”

I nodded again. Dad was great with horses, but he had always left the business paperwork to Mom while she was alive, and then to Adam after she passed. “So he told you to come to me.”

“No, he sent me to your brother, actually,” she said.

“Which one?”

“Both.”

Well, damn. I rubbed my thigh, which had a tendency to ache if I sat still too long. Or if I stood for too long. Or if I slept for too long. Basically, it always ached.

“But both Adam and Brax were too busy with the breeding program,” she went on. “James?—”

“James?” I interrupted, an edge to my voice. Because goddamn. Just how far down this list was I?

“Right. Adam suggested her because she ran a horse show every year at her dad’s stables. But she’s swamped with getting clients ready for rodeo season. She sent me to Essie. Essie offered to help with the work, but she’s pretty busy with clients now, too. She sent me to you.”

I tallied it up. “So I’m your sixth choice. Gotta say, darlin’, that hurts my feelings a bit.” I said it with a long cowboy drawl, heavy on the charm, and a flash of my dimples to show how little I actually cared.

But she had the audacity to take me at my word, regarding me with serious blue eyes. “I thought of you. I wasn’t sure youwere an option, after your injury. But Essie said you were healed well enough and had some time on your hands.”

Well enough. For fucking what? Not bronc riding, I knew that.

“I suppose that’s right,” I muttered into my beer.

“So you’ll do it?” she asked hopefully.

“I’ll think on it.” But I already knew I was going to say yes. I always said yes. I drained my beer and signaled for Janie to bring me another. “You want anything?” I asked Hannah. “This round is on me.”

“If we’re going to be here a while, I’ll take a pinot grigio. Thank you.” She reached into the enormous slouchy bag she carried and pulled out a tablet. “Don’t worry about entertaining me. I’ll be fine. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

Apparently our conversation was over. I paid for our drinks and took my beer to the pool tables, pool being something I could still do just as well after the accident as before. The next time I looked in Hannah’s direction, she was happily engrossed in her book, sipping her wine, looking somehow both completely out of place and entirely comfortable with that.

Nope. Definitely not for me.

But I looked at her again, just to be sure.

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