Page 39 of Riding the Storm
I quirk a brow. “Is that right?”
“Sure do. We met in Livingston last year.”
As she calls out to the bartender for a light beer, I dig back into my memory to last summer’s roundup. I recall scoring eighty-nine points and taking home the top prize, but I do not remember this particular female.
“Sorry, sweetheart. I’m drawing a blank.”
Her cherry-red lips curl into a sly smile. “I was with Dell Wright. We all went out drinking at The Whiskey Attic after the event.”
Dell Wright. A fellow bull rider. Good guy.
“That’s right,” I recall. “How is Dell?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care,” she says as she moves a fraction of a step closer to me. “I caught him with a trashy blonde bunny in Bozeman a couple of months ago and had to cut him loose.”
I shake my head. “That’s too bad.”
She brings a hand up and brushes a red-tipped finger against the cross hanging from the leather strap around my neck. “Oh, I don’t know. Doesn’t seem too bad at the moment.” Her finger slides down my chest. “What brings you to Wildhaven?”
I take her by the wrist to stop her descent before she causes a problem I can’t control. “Just visiting friends.”
“Me too. How lucky is that?”
The bartender sets a glass, two waters, and a bottle down between us. “Your shots will be there in a minute.”
I tip my hat and thank her, then look back down to the girl, who’s now plastered to my side.
“Excuse me, darlin’. I gotta get these over to those friends.”
“Okay. My girls and I are just over there.” She turns and points to two women who are standing at a pub table, watching a group of rowdy cowboys shooting pool. Then she twists back to me. “Come find me later?”
I give her a practiced smile. One I’ve given a hundred women in a hundred different bars. “I just might do that.”
Accepting that answer, she picks up the bottle of beer and walks away. The exaggerated rock of her hips sends a message that’s easy to read. She glances back over her shoulder to make sure I’m watching the show before rejoining her friends, who are now looking from her to me with interest.
I grab the waters with one hand and my whiskey with the other. When I make it to our table, the girls are coming off the dance floor, and the server is already there with their shots.
Charli rounds the table and takes one of the bottles of water from me before I can hand them off to the boys. She wraps her hair with her other hand, lifts it, and then rolls the cool bottle against the damp skin at the back of her neck. Her eyes drift shut, and she moans. “Oh my God, that feels good.”
“Want me to order you something cold?” I ask.
Her eyes flutter open. “Yes. An old-fashioned with extra ice, please.”
Something about the way her voice caresses the wordpleasehas me imagining taking a cube of ice from her cocktail and running it over her hot skin just to hear her moan again.
“Bryce?” she calls.
“Right,” I say, shaking the thought from my head. “Old-fashioned, extra ice. Another water for Cabe. Anything else?” I ask.
“I’ll come with,” Cabe says. “I need to piss, and I think everyone could use water.”
I lift my chin to him and tell Charli, “Be right back.”
I take off after Cabe when I feel a hard tug on my jeans that jerks meto a halt. I glance down, and her finger is wrapped around one of my belt loops. My eyes go to hers.
“I’m thirsty,” she states.
“Yeah,” I say.
