Page 1 of Cowboy Under Siege

ChapterOne

Jaren Abel nudged the brim of his cowboy hat up and squinted at the dirt spraying off the horses’ hooves.

“Too bad you didn’t throw your hat in the ring to compete tonight.” His buddy, Casey, gave him a nudge from where he leaned on the rail at Jaren’s side.

To the cheers of the rodeo crowd, the competitor tossed his lasso and landed it square over the horns of the steer he was wrestling.

“Not really my thing. I go for bigger rushes of adrenaline.” In the past, that was speed and souped-up engines. But since moving to Montana, Jaren’s craving was slowly shifting to other pursuits.

Casey grunted. “You did better than most breaking those green horses with me a couple weeks ago.”

Jaren clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, but I’ll leave the bareback riding to you.”

The scream of the buzzer ripped through the air, cutting off the final competitor in the steer wrestling event.

The crowd cheered and then silenced in anticipation of the winning times on the scoreboard. When the last competitor took the win with a time a fraction of a second better than the others, the arena erupted.

Jaren scanned the stands packed with fans who’d come to cheer on the traveling rodeo and a few of their own hometown competitors tonight. “Man, I never realized just how many people live in Stone Pass.”

Casey pushed off the rail. “The town itself isn’t that big, but people come from all over Montana for this rodeo. My event’s up next. I gotta go.”

“Tear ’em up.” Jaren held out a fist, and Casey bumped it with his own.

Casey wandered over to the group of bareback riders about to take the arena. Jaren hadn’t been friends with Casey Clayton for more than a few months, but he trusted Casey the same way he trusted his brothers—with his life. They were both on the WEST Protection team and had partnered up several times. Their boss seemed to see how well they worked together and paired them often for security details.

He could say their friendship stemmed from both being the newbies on the team. Casey was a former worker on the ranch where the security office was located and Jaren joined the team about six months earlier. While they were alike in the way they attacked problems, he and Casey couldn’t be more different in their origins.

If someone told him a year ago that he’d be standing here in dusty cowboy boots, worn jeans, a plaid shirt and a white Stetson instead of crawling around on the floor of a shop making tweaks to his Harley-Davidson Breakout, Jaren would have laughed in their face.

Jaren was known for being the moody brother. That was enough to count him out of any situation with screaming fans. He much preferred the open road and his bike. Or, ever since the hell he and his brothers had been through a short time ago, a solitary barstool.

But here he was at an actual rodeo…and he was loving it. The roar of the crowd swept him up with the same excitement everyone else in Stone Pass, Montana felt tonight. The smell of dirt kicked up by hooves combined with french fries appealed to Jaren’s other senses.

As did the stunning brunette who’d hooked his attention the minute she blasted across the arena on the back of a white horse.

It wasn’t only the sight of her in tight jeans and a fitted plaid top that roped him in. The way she held herself in that saddle attracted him just as much as the flutter of her warm brown hair in the breeze created by her speed on that horse.

And the way she carried the American flag with so much pride brought everyone to their feet.

She leaned against the rail with the rodeo contestants, and even if he hadn’t seen her on the back of that horse, it was clear to Jaren that she belonged to the big rodeo family that traveled from town to town.

He tried more than once to catch her eye, but she hadn’t sent him so much as a glance. Still, he couldn’t stop watching her every chance he got.

Besides the thick cascade of deep brown hair that made a man burn to dig his fingers into the mass—and a pair of full but perky breasts to cup—she played mother hen to all the competitors.

Every man, woman—hell, even horse—that finished their event, she was there to greet them with a word of praise, a high-five of victory, or an empathetic touch on the shoulder for their loss.

She was also scanning the audience over and over again. And fidgeting too. Two red flags to a guy like him who could read body language like other people read the back of a cereal box.

The woman was nervous about something.

She drifted toward the bareback riders, a tiny bounce in her step when she walked that he just knew made all the right parts of her jiggle. His gaze seared into her luscious ass.

Gut clenching, he watched her for a moment before realizing Casey was going to get a chance to talk to her before he did.

Jaren pushed away from the rail and sauntered over to the other riders. Before he could make his presence known to her, another guy caught her attention.

She’d been staring hard toward a group seated down front. When the guy waved a hand at her, she jerked as though startled back to reality.

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