Page 3 of Beau
Cammie shook her head, then wiped her eyes. “I don’t know. A woman. Blonde hair, my height. She had a number pinned to her chest like she might be competing. She, um, saw us together and tried to stop the guy. He was mean and really strong. She kicked him in the balls and told me to run, so I did. Oh God, I left her there.”
She started to cry again, but I gave her a little shake.
“You did the right thing. You ran, just like you were supposed to and got help. You got your ticket to the rodeo?”
She nodded.
“Good. Go on in and find your seat and Momma. You’ll both be safe in that crowd, all right?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Good girl. Text me when you’re with Momma. I’m gonna take care of this.”
She gave me another shaky nod, then took off toward the arena. My truck was only a row back from the competitor entrance. People were milling about not thirty feet away.
I watched her go up to the entrance and hand off her ticket, then go inside. Once I was sure she’d be safe surrounded by the crowd, I made my way through the makeshift parking lot and weaved through all the trucks and farm vehicles, circling back once until I found the alpaca trailer she mentioned. Then, I turned and headed toward the outer edge of the field.
A scream cut through the air and I turned in that direction. It didn’t take long to find the little group after that.
I took a breath, slowed my gait, then stoppedall together when I recognized the woman who was being manhandled.
Lainey Wilder.
My good friend Trig’s sister.
And the woman who I’d imagined fucking twenty different ways since I met her for the first time the other night at her parents’ house for dinner. I’d entered the room with Trig and his wife, Ellie. I’d made introductions with her father and mother and then… bam. Like I’d been bucked off the back of a bull and tossed through the air.
I had yet to land.
She’d been sitting at the huge dining table–big enough to seat at least fifteen–and held a bowl of green beans. It had been her eyes, the brightest blue, that had snagged me. Or the blonde hair pulled back in a loose braid over her shoulder. Or the way she was so damned tiny seated between two of her brothers. Or that mouth, plush and plump and biteable.
I was used to hanging on for eight seconds. All it took was one for me to fall for Lainey Wilder. To know she would belong to me.
Over the meal, I’d quickly learned that a woman who had eight overbearing brothers could hold her own. Sass and determination, like a tinyfirecracker that made the biggest boom. My dick had been instantly hard beneath the table and all I wanted to do was toss her over my shoulder and carry her off like a Neanderthal.
She stopped me in my tracks once again, not expectingherto be the one who’d saved Cammie and ended up with these fuckers. Those blue eyes widened in recognition as they met mine. I saw a touch of fear that was hidden mostly by fiery anger.
How dare someone fuck with something that was mine.
“What the fuck, Gil?” I said. “To get a woman you gotta muzzle her?”
Gil, a barely successful saddle bronc rider, had his hand over her mouth. The fact that he was touching her, hell, breathing near her, pissed me the fuck off. Had he been the one to grab Cammie first?
“She doesn’t stop yackin’,” he said.
That sounded like the Lainey I knew.
She and Gil sat on a beat up cooler. Lainey’s eyes narrowed and she made a sound against Gil’s beefy hand. “Maybe let her breathe? Your way with the ladies needs some work.”
I knew all but one of these men. They wereassholes, definitely on the fringes of the rodeo circuit. Didn’t treat the animals like they should. Drank when they shouldn’t. Even scared away the buckle bunnies, who’d climb on and take any man on the rodeo circuit for a ride.
They might win here and there, enough to keep them in beer and gas for their rough RV, but most likely only because they doped a horse or the competition somehow broke a leg. I’d never heard them force a woman before. They sure as hell had crossed a line.
“Yo, Beau! Wanna play? With that big bank account of yours, we’d be happy to take some of it from you.” Sherman Parks, who was called Parks because he hated his first name, patted an empty camp stool beside him.
“I’m here for the woman,” I told him. “No love match if you’ve gotta force ‘em, Gil.”
The fellas laughed.
