Page 29 of Breaking the Cowboy's Rules

Easier said than done. She could feel the heat, strength, and fluid power of his body coiled up, ready to go. And his scent and confidence were drugging.

“Show me,” she demanded.

He picked up a stone, palmed it, kept his elbow tight to his body, cocked his wrist and hand, and then snapped it.

He made that look so easy.

“Follow me,” he said, standing next to her but apart enough that neither of them would bump each other.

“It’s a rhythm. A feel. A balance that hums through your body. An energy that you call on like lightning to strike.”

“That sounds more mythic than I can manage at the moment,” she stated.

The only thing that hummed in her body was ice. Or so she’d been told. But she was done with all that—finished being defined by her family, her pedigree, her trust fund, her education, her career trajectory. Her wins. The men her parents had started maneuvering as potential players on her marital chessboard a few years ago.

“You want to draw your arm back like this—” he did the hinged motion several times “—and then cock your wrist back, but angle down about twenty degrees.”

That sounded counterintuitive.

“Want me to…?”

“I can do it. I’ll get the feel,” she said, her competitive spirit rearing up even out of its element.

He smiled and leaned back against the trunk of a fat evergreen and crossed his arms. She could see the definition of his bicep muscles and his powerful shoulders. His legs were long and lean and gave the impression of leashed power.

Wow.Her lips unconsciously formed the W of the word she wanted to say. Bodhi might be a rodeo cowboy and from a Montana ranch, but he oozed as much if not more confidence than any son of a scion she’d ever verbally fenced with at a dinner party.

His muscles were unreal—not from a gym but from sticking a ride on a bull or bronc trying to toss him off, and she couldn’t stop staring at his muscles. But the ease with which he held himself was mesmerizing. He knew who he was and didn’t need or want to impress anyone.

I want that courage.

She wanted to face her fears. Vanquish the nightmares. Accept the possibility of failure. And not to blink.

Nico drew in a deep breath and thought about the movements Bodhi had demonstrated. Take the sexy flow away, and it was basic physics. The torque, the angle, the shifting of her body weight. And it would, like so much else, require practice. The individual motions were connected one to the other much like her sun salutations each morning.

She thought about her body, not his. Felt the night enveloping her.

She could do this, learn new skills, become anyone she wanted to be. She had the power to control her destiny.

Nico closed her eyes, imagined where the stone would hit, pictured the moves like a movie. She released the stone, imagining her finger willing the stone to follow the path, to hop along the beam of moonlight that lit the alpine Miracle Lake, sending the stone out like a message to share with the others at the bottom of the lake.

Bodhi’s low whistle startled her out of her reverie.

“You were either putting me on and are well versed in the art of manly moments or you are a natural.”

“I did it? It worked?”

“Four skips,” he said.

Nico jumped up, hands in the air, and danced a circle. Totally undignified, but she didn’t care.

“I want to hit ten,” she announced.

His laugh echoed off the trees of the lake. “No baby steps for you,” he said, handing her another stone.

Nico threw several more times. She got up to five, then six but couldn’t break that barrier. Bodhi collected more stones. Threw some more. And never seemed impatient or bored or superior.

“It’s really Zen,” she commented after a while.

---