“You packing?”

“Packing what?” Clay asked.

“Condoms.” Jo Beth slid her hand from his waist to the back pocket of his trousers and squeezed. “I’ll bet you’ve got a couple in your wallet, right?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t blush. “So?” he said, with all the wariness of a man who had reached out to pet a house cat and found himself stroking a tiger instead.

“So I’m going to dance two more dances after this one, and then I’m going to the corral by the barn. There’s a tack room in the northeast corner.” She leaned into him, lightly touching her breasts to his chest. “It has a door. And a lock.”

The bolt of lust that shot through Clay burned away all thoughts of propriety and what was or was not appropriate behavior at a wedding.

“I’ll wait ten minutes,” she said. “If you don’t show up by then, I’ll lock the door and play by myself.”

Dear Reader,

I received more fan mail after the publication of Good Time Girl than for any other book I’ve written. Readers told me how much they liked the hot sex scenes and then asked when I was going to write Clay’s story.

As an author, I had created Clay Madison strictly as a plot device to move the story along. He was a secondary character whose role was to make the hero of Good Time Girl jealous. Once he’d done that, I never expected to write about him again. Little did I know! Readers loved him. “What happens to Clay?” they asked. “Give us Clay’s story!” they demanded.

It took me a while to figure out where life and love would eventually lead the sexy young bull rider. It took me a little while longer to find the woman who was strong and sexy enough to appeal to the rodeo champion he was destined to become. Much to my surprise (again!) another secondary character from Good Time Girl turned out to be exactly the right woman.

Happy reading,

Candace Schuler

The Cowboy Way
Candace Schuler

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all the romance readers who demanded Clay’s story.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

1

“AH, TO HELL with it!” Jo Beth Jensen pushed back from her desk with enough force to send her chair crashing into the metal file cabinet behind her and shot to her feet. Yanking the straw cowboy hat off the peg by the door as she passed, she jammed it on her head and, spurs jangling discordantly with every step, stomped out of her office. “I’m going riding,” she said to the round-faced Mexican woman who came out of the kitchen to see what all the commotion was about.

Esperanza Diego nodded complacently and disappeared back into the kitchen without saying a word. None of the cowhands Jo Beth passed on her way to the barn said a word to her, either. Anybody with one good eye and half a brain could tell at a glance that the jefe of the Diamond J was in the mood to kick some butt.

It was a mood she’d been in for some time now, off and on. Not that anyone blamed her. What with the three best hands on the place lost to the summer rodeo circuit, and turning the main house into fancy la-di-da accommodations for city slickers, and the wedding and all…it was enough to make anyone a mite cranky. Added to which, they all knew she’d spent the morning holed up inside the stuffy little office across from the kitchen, wrestling with columns of numbers that most likely added up to just barely enough. So they all certainly understood, even sympathized with, her obvious desire to stomp the shit out of someone—just so long as that unlucky someone was someone else. As a result of this very natural desire to spare their individual derrieres, the barn was empty of human habitation when she reached it.

“José!” she hollered, pausing just inside the door to give her eyes a moment to adjust to the shadowed interior. “T-Bone! Damn it, where the hell is everybody?”

A lone horse nickered in answer.

“Cowboys.” Jo Beth shook her head. “Bunch of no ’count, lily-livered good-for-nothings. Always running off at the slightest sign of trouble. Irresponsible sons o’…” Her voice trailed off as she neared the occupied stall. “Hey there, Bella,” she crooned, reaching into her breast pocket to fish out one of the peppermint candies she always carried for her pampered favorite. “How’re you doing, sweetheart?”

The horse nickered again and thrust its head over the stall door, neck stretched out in greeting. Jo Beth offered her hand, palm up. The mare lipped the small red-and-white pinwheel delicately, accepting it as her due, then dropped her head and butted it against Jo Beth’s chest. Jo Beth touched her forehead to the mare’s, and felt her bad mood start to dissolve.

Bella was her best and dearest friend, a sweet-tempered strawberry roan with a freckled white stripe on her nose and three white stockings. She’d been a champion barrel racer in her prime, and was still a damned fine cutting horse as long as you didn’t work her too hard or too long. She was patient, polite, and undemanding, without an ounce of foolishness or folly in her. A woman couldn’t ask for a steadier or more dependable companion.

“What say you and me go for a ride?” Jo Beth whispered into the mare’s velvety ear. “Get ourselves a little fresh air and exercise. Stretch our legs. Work some of the kinks out. Hmm?” She lifted a lead shank from the hook between the stalls as she spoke, clipped it onto the mare’s halter, and led her out of the barn and into the scorching Texas sunshine.

Fifteen minutes later she gathered up the reins and swung into the saddle. Bella took a little dancing sideways step, the powerful muscles of her shoulders and flanks twitching as she sensed her rider’s restlessness and impatience.

“Tell Esperanza not to wait dinner on me,” Jo Beth said to the lone cowhand who’d decided it was safe to show his face now that she was mounted up.

She held Bella to a walk as they exited the stable yard, eased her to a slow, rolling canter when they’d cleared the little hillock and the stand of scrub pine and oak trees behind the barn, and then let her have her head when the land flattened out. They raced hell-bent-for-leather for a few exhilarating moments, the hot wind whistling past their ears, Bella’s red mane and tail streaming, her hooves pounding against the hard-packed earth.

Jo Beth bent low over the mare’s neck, her thick braid whipping out behind her, and the coil of catch rope looped over the saddle horn bouncing against her thigh. She wished they could run forever. But Bella was blowing hot and breathing hard, her thick barrel bellowing in and out between Jo Beth’s legs. Jo Beth reined in, bringing the pulse-pounding, ground-pounding gallop back down to canter, and then to a trot, and, finally, to a walk. Bella shook her head, jingling her bridle as if in protest at the slowdown, but she settled into it, more than content with the leisurely pace.

Jo Beth sighed and tried to be content, too, but she was still restless. Still edgy. Still agitated and dissatisfied and riled up. And it wasn’t all because of the three hands who’d quit on her to follow the summer rodeo circuit, leaving her shorthanded when she needed them most, or the half dozen city slickers who were due to invade the Diamond J in less than a week, or her best friend’s wedding at which she had agreed to be—God help her—the maid of honor. It wasn’t even the bookkeeping.

It was that damned Clay Madison!

If she’d been getting laid regular, it wouldn’t be so bad. But it had been over six months since that weekend in Dallas with Jim, the cattle broker, and she’d gone without for four months before that. It’d been so long, she’d almost forgotten what it was she was missing. And then Clay Madison had swaggered onto the scene with that lazy, loose-hipped, loose-kneed cowboy saunter of his and had reminded her of exactly what she was doing without. She’d have avoided him if she could have, but he was best man to her maid of honor, so ignoring him wasn’t an option.

Unfortunately, having sex with him wasn’t, either.

Jo Beth had two ironclad rules when it came to sex. She didn’t do it close to home. And she didn’t do cowboys. Ever.

And, hell, it wasn’t as if Clay had ever looked twice at her, anyway. She wasn’t the kind of woman a man like him looked at, or even took any particular notice of. She had a decent body—a bit on the skinny side, true, but decent, nonetheless—and she had a nice enough face. Nothing that would stop traffic, but it didn’t stop clocks, either. She freely admitted she didn’t have enough feminine graces to be what anyone would call beautiful, but she had a certain lean and rangy wholesomeness going for her, an outdoorsy girl-next-door kind of thing that wasn’t completely unappealing.

Except to men like Clay Madison.

Men like Clay Madison didn’t want the wholesome girl-next-door. They wanted flash and sparkle in their women. They wanted curvy bodies, big hair, fluttering eyelashes, and glossy wet-lipped smiles. They wanted adoring, tractable, bosomy, bubble-brained buckle bunnies who gave head at the drop of a trophy belt buckle and didn’t make a fuss when the party was over. And they got them. By the truckload. In every town and every city where the rodeo played, the buckle bunnies lined up, waiting for some cowboy to give them a tumble. And if that cowboy happened to be a handsome-assin, four-time Pro Rodeo bull-riding champion with shoulders a yard wide, a tight little butt, and a wicked gleam in his soulful brown eyes, well, that cowboy inevitably got first pick. And it was for certain he would never pick a woman like her.

Not that she’d pick him, either. Not for anything real or permanent. But she sure as hell wouldn’t mind having him in her bed. Just once. Just one time to see if he was as good as he looked.

“And, damn, I bet he’s fine,” she murmured, her eyes drifting closed to better imagine just how it would be.

She pictured herself running her hands over his broad bare shoulders while he kissed her senseless, pictured herself rubbing her bare breasts against his equally bare chest while his hands roamed over her back, pictured herself digging her nails into his firm cowboy butt as he pumped into her. Her mental picture show tightened her nipples inside her plain white cotton bra and had her squirming in the saddle.

Bella tossed her head and looked around to see what was going on.

“Sorry, sweetheart.” Jo Beth reached out and patted the mare’s neck to reassure her that all was well. Cutting horses and barrel racers took their signals from the movement of the rider in the saddle; a press of the leg just a certain way meant one thing, a shift of weight meant something else. “I didn’t mean to confuse you, baby girl.”

Dealing with her own confusion was more than enough for the moment.

It wasn’t as if she even liked cowboys. Well, okay, she liked them all right, as employees, as colleagues, as friends, but definitely not romantically. She’d learned her lesson there the hard way. And, yet, here she was fantasizing about one. Which just proved it was way past time she scheduled herself a trip to Dallas for an overdue visit with her favorite cattle broker. Or, maybe, since time was so short and her need was so desperate, she ought to just call up that good ol’ boy banker in the next county. He was always real glad to hear from her. Tomorrow, after the wedding, she decided, she’d give Todd a call and see if he’d like to meet her at the Holiday Inn out on Highway 81. A nice sweaty bout of recreational sex was just what she needed to clear her head and settle her nerves so she could concentrate on something besides the physical needs that hadn’t been satisfied in far too long. After all, it wouldn’t do to be all wound up when the city slickers finally arrived. It might create a bad impression if she bit a paying customer’s head off just because that customer was breathing the same air she was.

She shifted in the saddle, arching her back in a long stretch, rolling her head from side to side in an effort to loosen muscles that were tight with tension. In the process, she inadvertently tightened her thighs against the mare’s sides. Bella took a quick little sideways jump in response. The move might have unseated a less experienced rider but Jo Beth only swayed in the saddle, keeping her seat without any trouble. “Sorry, Bella,” she said again, reaching out to settle the mare with a stroke of her hand.

Hell, she decided, maybe she wouldn’t wait until after the wedding to call ol’ Todd. He was always real accommodating, always ready to meet her whenever and wherever she wanted him to, always up, as it were, for an afternoon quickie or an all-night marathon. Maybe she’d better call him this afternoon, as soon as she got back to the ranch, and set something up for tonight. Get the kinks out before the wedding.

Except, damn it, she couldn’t.

Tonight was Cassie’s bachelorette party. As maid of honor, Jo Beth was duty bound to show up for it, despite the fact that she was looking forward to it with only marginally less dread than she was to the wedding itself. The difference in her level of enthusiasm being that the wedding would be a public ordeal with everybody in the county in attendance, ready to snicker should she make a fool of herself traipsing down the aisle in a flowing silk dress with rosebuds in her hair.

The bachelorette party, thank God, would at least be a private affair. Silly as all get-out, of course, but blessedly private because the bride had decided she wanted to have an old-fashioned slumber party instead of the more traditional girls’ night out on the eve of her wedding. The invitations had specified baby-doll nighties as the preferred wearing apparel for the festivities—“Not in this lifetime,” Jo Beth muttered morosely—and they were going to listen to golden oldies, make popcorn balls and ice cream sundaes, and give each other manicures and pedicures so they’d all have matching nail polish for the wedding. As a special surprise for the bride, bridesmaid LaWanda Brewster, who’d recently become an entrepreneur in the at-home sex-toy business, was going to treat them to a demonstration of her most popular products.

Jo Beth shuddered at the mere thought of it, and wondered what it was about weddings that turned otherwise reasonable women into starry-eyed lunatics. Or, hell, maybe it was just her. Maybe she was the lunatic and all the rest of them were behaving perfectly normally under the circumstances. All the other bridesmaids—all five of them—had been tickled pink to be part of the wedding. They’d seemed to genuinely enjoy the shopping trip to Dallas to pick out just the right bridesmaids’ dresses, and the endless discussions about the appropriate flowers and which wedding-cake recipe was best and whether the groom’s cake should be devil’s food or red velvet. They’d been sincerely and utterly delighted with the color-coordinated bridal showers, cooing like doves over the pastel sherbet punch, the platters of tiny crustless sandwiches, and the silly bouquet made out of a paper plate festooned with bows from the shower gifts.

It wasn’t that Jo Beth wasn’t honored to have been asked to be the maid of honor—after all, she and Cassie had been best friends since kindergarten—but, really, if she had to sit around with a bunch of otherwise rational women and gush over one more precious pot holder with the bride’s chosen rooster motif on it, she was going to run screaming from the room.

“Thank God it will all be over tomorrow,” she said to Bella as she reined her in and swung out of the saddle.

Her boot heels sent little puffs of dust into the air as they hit the ground, the jinglebobs on her spurs ringing merrily with the movement. She pushed the brim of her hat back with the tip of her index finger and swept her gaze over the empty landscape. A sigh of satisfaction escaped her lips. She’d ridden out into the middle of nowhere—or as close to it as she could get and still be on Diamond J land. In this remote corner of the ranch there was nothing but the hot Texas wind and the land, a few gnarled oak trees that’d managed to stand up to both, and the old wooden windmill, its blades creaking rhythmically above the water tank beneath it.

The tank was made of smooth, weathered concrete and was a foot and a half deep and nearly ten feet across. The water in it was cool and clean. Later in the summer, when the cattle were moved in to graze the pasture, the area around the tank would be thick with mud and the water would be churned up and murky, but right now—at least until the new pool behind the main house was filled—the water tank was the closest thing to a swimming hole on the Diamond J.

And Jo Beth was determined to take full advantage of it.

She looped Bella’s reins around one of the crosshatch wooden braces at the base of the windmill, and reached for the metal button on the waistband of her jeans.

WITHOUT LOOKING AWAY from the scene unfolding below him, Clay Madison looped his reins around the saddle horn in front of him, reached into the saddlebag suspended from the rigging behind him, and extracted a pair of high-powered binoculars. Someone was nosing around the water tank in the gully below. It was probably perfectly innocent, just someone intent on getting a drink for themselves or their horse, but it never hurt to make sure. Water was a precious commodity out on the Texas prairie, and a smart rancher took care to safeguard it. Not that Clay was a rancher, but he was the guest of a man who was, and that made it his duty to see what the lone rider messing around down there by the water tank was up to.

Nudging up the brim of his black Resistol cowboy hat with the flick of a finger, he raised the binoculars to his eyes and placed the smooth plastic eyepiece directly against his brow bone. It took a second or two to manipulate the focus wheel, and then, suddenly, with no warning at all, a naked female bottom filled his entire field of vision.

He stared at it for a second or two, then lowered the binoculars, blinked carefully and deliberately, as if to clear an obstruction in his eyes, and repositioned the binoculars. Yep, even at fifty yards there was no mistaking what he was looking at. It was definitely a woman’s ass. Creamy white and softly rounded, two perfectly formed globes of luscious female flesh peeked out at him from beneath the hem of a faded blue shirt. As he set there, stock-still atop his borrowed pinto, his gaze fastened unwaveringly on the enticing curves exposed beneath the blue shirt, he was suddenly struck with the overwhelming need to have one burning question answered.

Who’s luscious ass was it?

It was nobody he knew or had met in the last interminable week, that was for sure. He’d never forget an ass like that. Even if he’d only seen it fully clothed before—and, regrettably, the only asses he’d seen for a couple of months had been fully clothed—he’d have recognized it. It wasn’t the kind a man forgot. There was a nice, sweet double handful there, slim enough to entice the eye, round enough to give a man something to grab on to when the action got hot and heavy.

But who the hell was it?

He readjusted the focus of the binoculars to take in more of the scene below, telling himself—promising himself—he’d watch just long enough to satisfy his curiosity about who it was, then he’d turn the pinto around and go back the way he’d come. It was the proper thing, the gentlemanly thing to do. And no matter what certain matrimonially disappointed females might say to the contrary, his dearly departed mama had raised him to be a gentleman. As soon as he knew who it was, he’d go.

Stubbornly, though, almost as if she knew he was there, she kept her back to him as she finished undressing. She shrugged out of the blue shirt, letting it slide down her back, covering up her ass for a moment before she caught the shirt by the collar with one hand and reached up to loop it over the saddle horn on top of the pair of jeans already hanging there. Given her size in relation to the horse she was using as a clothes rack, she was an inch or two above average height, but she was slightly, almost delicately, built. The waist above that luscious ass was as narrow as a boy’s, her arms and legs were sapling slender, and he could clearly see the bumps of her spine, running down the valley of her back like a strand of pearls barely showing beneath her pale creamy skin. The look of fragility was directly countered, however, by the strength inherent in the smooth flex and coil of the well-toned muscles that covered her narrow frame. She was, he decided judiciously, what was commonly called lean and wiry. She looked the way he had always imagined a ballerina would look if you saw her naked. Not his type at all—he preferred exotic dancers to ballerinas—except for that fantastic little caboose.

It gave him hope that what she had in the breast department might be equally fantastic, and had him unconsciously sucking in his breath when she reached up behind her and released the hooks on her plain white bra.

She leaned forward a bit as it loosened, crossing her arms over her torso, lifting her hands to brush the shoulder straps down. As she straightened, reaching out with one hand to stuff the scrap of white fabric into one of the saddlebags strapped to her horse’s saddle, she flicked a long brown braid over her shoulder. It was nearly as thick as a man’s wrist and came halfway down her back. The sight tickled a memory in Clay’s mind. He’d seen a woman with hair like that. Recently, he thought. He was almost sure of it.

But who?

And where?

And then she turned toward him and it seemed as if his gaze met hers through the precision-ground lenses of the binoculars.

“Jesus,” he said, and dropped the binoculars as if they’d suddenly gotten too hot to hold.

It wasn’t so much that he thought he’d been discovered. Situated as he was, in a stand of tall cottonwoods and scrub oak just below the crest of a hill, with the hot Texas sun at his back and shining full in her face, it would be almost impossible for her to have seen him. Still, he sucked in his breath and froze for a moment, just in case she had, and wondered what in hell the prissy, dried-up stick of a rancher from the Diamond J was doing shucking her clothes to go skinny-dipping in a watering tank in the middle of the day.

He wouldn’t have guessed she had it in her. From what he knew of Miz Jo Beth Jensen—which was, admittedly, not much—she was a serious-minded, no-non-sense, nose-to-the-grindstone kind of woman who seemed to have a perpetual mad-on against men in general and cowboys in particular. What with them both being key members of Cassie and Rooster’s wedding party and having similar duties to perform, they’d been thrown together pretty regularly over the last week and he’d read the No Trespassing signs clearly, right from the start.

At their very first meeting, when Rooster had introduced his best man to his bride’s maid of honor, Clay had politely dipped his head, touching the brim of his hat with two fingers in the accepted cowboy greeting, and flashed his never-fail “howdy there, darlin’” smile in an effort to start things off on a friendly footing. She’d dipped her head in return and answered his smile with one that could freeze the balls off a prize bull at fifty paces. Don’t even think about it might as well have been written across her nearly nonexistent chest in bright red letters. He’d done her the courtesy of acceding to her unspoken wishes and hadn’t given her another thought that didn’t have to do with the wedding preparations.

But that was before he’d seen her standing buck naked in the bright Texas sunlight and realized the dried-up stick of a rancher had one hell of a sweet little body hidden under her dusty jeans and snap-front western shirts. Completely forgetting his vow to leave as soon as he knew who it was, he swung out of the saddle, retrieved the binoculars, and raised them to his eyes.

BRACING A HAND ON THE EDGE of the tank, Jo Beth stepped over the rim and eased into the water. Even warmed as it was by the relentless Texas sun, it still felt deliciously cool against her sun-flushed skin, slick and silky against her thighs and belly, wonderfully refreshing as it lapped against her breasts. She sank down a bit, letting the water slide up over her shoulders and neck to the base of her chin, and tilted her head back so that everything but her face was immersed. And then she sat up and leaned back against the rim of the tank, her eyes closed, her face turned up to the sky, and ordered herself to relax.

It should have been easy. The air was hot and dry and blessedly quiet, the silence broken only by the creaking of the old windmill and the breeze that rustled the leaves of the ancient oak trees that dotted the pasture. The water in the tank was swimming-pool warm. She was completely and utterly alone for the first time in days, her only companion the old horse that stood with her head down and one foreleg bent, drowsing in the shade of the windmill.

And, damn it, she was still wound up tighter than an overworked watch spring, and no relief in sight, except what she could give herself. She sat up and smacked the water with the flat of her hand, irritated and annoyed and just plain frustrated that she’d had to resort to her own devices so often lately. Self-love was convenient but she’d never found it all that satisfying. Still, when it was all you had…

She leaned back against the edge of the tank again, closed her eyes, and pressed her hands against her water-slicked breasts, giving in to the fantasy that had been making her crazy for the past week.

CLAY VERY NEARLY DROPPED the binoculars again. She couldn’t be doing what it looked like she was doing. Could she? No, prissy, dried-up sticks didn’t do that, especially not out in broad daylight in front of God and everybody. Except that she didn’t look prissy and dried-up at the moment. She looked luscious and juicy and wanton, lying there in the shallow water with her head thrown back against the rim of the tank and her small, work-worn hands caressing her own breasts. They weren’t very large breasts by anybody’s reckoning—certainly not exotic-dancer material—but they weren’t nonexistent, either. Small, high and rounded, made buoyant by the water, they were startlingly white under the bright Texas sun, glistening with droplets of water that looked like diamonds on her skin. Her nipples were a pale pinkish-brown, small but beautifully erect, the lighter colored areola drawn up tight and puckered around them. She brushed her fingers across them…back and forth…around and around…slowly, oh-so-slowly…until they were as prominent and deeply pink as the most succulent summer raspberries.

Clay’s entire body hardened in response. His jaw clenched. His fingers tightened on the hard plastic casing of the binoculars. His cock swelled in his jeans.

JO BETH PINCHED HER NIPPLES gently, tugging them into hard little points, squirming as she imagined other hands on her aching flesh.

Bigger hands.

Stronger hands.

Clay Madison’s hands.

She pictured them in her mind’s eye, tanned and calloused, with broad palms and long square-tipped fingers. His nails were clipped and clean, which wasn’t always the case with a cowboy. There was a thin, jagged scar across the back of his left hand, the kind a man got from handling barbed wire. Last night at the rehearsal dinner, she’d noted that his right palm bore the dull red marks of a recent rope burn. Hands like that—big, tough, hardworking—would be exquisitely rough against her tender skin. They would envelope her breasts, kneading them, the palms completely encompassing and covering her, making her feel delicate and sexy at the same time. His calloused thumb would rasp against her nipple, moving in slow, maddening circles, around and around, until she was aching and needy, until she couldn’t stand it anymore, until she had to have his mouth on her or go crazy.

She arched her back, moaning softly, and let one hand drift down her body to touch the soft, curling hair at the apex of her thighs, while the other stayed where it was, caressing her breasts, plucking at her turgid nipples.

CLAY’S HANDS WERE GRASPING the binoculars so tightly, his fingers very nearly left grooves in the plastic casing. Sweat broke out on his upper lip. Sweet Jesus God! She had her hand between her legs now, touching herself. He couldn’t see it beneath the surface of the water because of the sun’s glare, but it was obvious what she was doing, obvious how it was making her feel. Her head was pressed back against the edge of the water tank. Her eyes were closed. Her lips were parted. She was panting lightly.

Clay’s own breathing increased and his heart started to pound against the wall of his chest, echoing the throbbing behind the fly of his jeans. He could almost taste her…her mouth hot and avid against his…her throat cool and smooth against his tongue…her tight nipples berry-sweet between his lips. He could almost feel her…the strong, slender body arching beneath the weight of his…the slippery softness of her labia against his fingers…the clinging heat and wetness as he pushed them inside her to caress the swollen, weeping walls of her vagina…the hard little nubbin of her clitoris as he circled it with his thumb…her body taut and straining toward his, reaching for fulfillment.

“Oh, baby,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble in his throat. “You are so hot.”

JO BETH FLATTENED HER FINGERS against her mons, applying a firm, kneading pressure, seeing in her mind’s eye his hand doing the same thing, his hand sliding lower, his hand slipping gently into the soft folds between her legs, circling her clitoris with a deft, knowing fingertip. The fantasy was so real now, she could almost feel him next to her, almost feel his mouth on hers, almost feel the brush of his lips against her throat, almost feel his tongue circling her nipples, almost feel his thick, blunt-tipped fingers delving into the slick, swollen passage between her legs, slipping in and out, pressing deep.

She could almost hear his voice in her ear, gravel-rough and whiskey-hot, praising her passion and her firm, slim body, telling her what he wanted from her…telling her what he was going to do to her…telling her how it would feel when he did it.

“Yes.” She quickened the movement of her fingers against her clitoris, increasing the pressure, driving herself higher, until she was panting heavily with the need to come, until her body was vibrating with suppressed passion, until every nerve and muscle was taut and tensed, hovering on the maddening edge of release. “Oh, yes,” she moaned again and opened her legs wide as if accepting a lover between them. “Yes.”

THROUGH THE BINOCULARS, Clay saw her lips move.

“Yes,” she said, so clearly he would have sworn he heard the words being whispered in his ear. “Yes. Yes. Oh, yes.”

She was almost there. He could feel it as keenly, as sharply, as if he were actually between her wide-open thighs, thrusting into her hot, tight, hungry little pussy. He could feel her body clamping around him, holding on, her legs locked around his waist, her nails digging into his butt, demanding he give it to her.

Harder.

Faster.

Deeper.

In his mind, he was right there beside her…on top of her…inside of her. His heart was slamming against the wall of his chest, his breath was sloughing in and out of his lungs, his whole body was rock-hard and throbbing, aching to give her what she wanted. What they both wanted. He struggled to hold on, to hold back, until she reached her peak. A gentleman always let a lady go first, even if only by proxy.

HIS IMAGE FLICKERED behind her closed eyelids, his big hard body moving over her, covering her, his lean horseman’s hips settling between her thighs, pushing them wider, his rock-hard cock thrusting into her. She thrust her own hips upward—pistoning, frantic, demanding—but the man of her imagination took over, slowing the pace, deepening the sensation, drawing it out. His movements were measured and deliberate, exactly the way she liked it best, plunging deep into her secret core, withdrawing slowly, plunging again, until she was nearly mad with passion and lust.

Her body arched up out of the water, every sinew stretched tight as she reached for the final crest. Her head rolled against the concrete rim of the water tank. Her fingers worked frantically between her legs. The image in her mind’s eye quickened his movements in unison with her mounting need. His hips were pistoning wildly now, too, slamming into hers. His breath was hot against her neck. His big hard hands cupped the cheeks of her ass, lifting her into each hard, driving thrust.

“COME ON, JO BETH,” Clay murmured, his voice low and rasping with need. His breathing was in sync with hers. His cock was ready to burst, straining to release the full force of his lust. He held it back by sheer will, waiting for her, coaxing her to the finish with fevered words, wanting it to be as good for her as it was for him. “Come on. Let it go, baby. Let me have it. Give it to me.”

“OH, YES. YES,” she moaned, and pushed herself over the precipice into the abyss of pure physical sensation. Her whole body clenched tight. “Oh. Clay. Yes!”

2

CLAY LOWERED THE BINOCULARS and sagged against the side of his horse, as wrung out and replete as if he’d actually had sex. He’d definitely come, that was for sure. Hands-free and in his jeans, which hadn’t happened since he was a hormone-ridden sixteen-year-old making out with Tish Bradley in the front seat of his daddy’s pickup. And, incredibly, this hands-free orgasm had been hotter and more satisfying than the last time he’d actually come inside a woman.

Of course, the last time he’d come inside a woman, he’d been flat on his back in a hospital bed and buzzed on painkillers, so he hadn’t exactly been at his best. Not that the woman in question had voiced any complaints. Quite the contrary. Feeling everything through a haze of pharmaceuticals had muted his physical sensations and slowed his reaction time to the extent that his partner had been limp with blissful exhaustion before he’d joined her at the finish line. She’d been very vocal in her appreciation. So vocal, in fact, that the night nurse had left her desk to see what all the commotion was about. The resulting confrontation, like the amorous encounter that had gone on before it, was kind of fuzzy in his mind. A lot of things had been fuzzy in his mind around that time, starting with the incident that had put him in the hospital bed in the first place.

He’d been stomped by a bull. He knew that because he’d seen the ESPN highlight tape of ol’ Boomer dancing on his carcass. Clay didn’t actually remember the wreck itself, though, which everybody said was a damned good thing. His last memory of that day—his only memory of the day, really—was walking toward the rodeo office with Rooster to get their competition numbers. Everything else, up to and including his go-round with Boomer, was a complete blank. He knew he’d spent the following three days in intensive care after the doctors finished putting him back together because Rooster had told him he had, but all he recalled of his stay there was a series of shadowy disjointed dreams, the echo of half-heard voices, and vague impressions of worried faces drifting in and out of his field of vision.

By the time he was well enough to be transferred to a regular room, the sequence of his days had gotten clearer and more coherent but they were still kind of fuzzy around the edges, especially in those fog-shrouded minutes just before and after the morphine kicked in.

In the two months since the wreck, the pain had subsided and the pain medication had been changed and decreased, and then changed and decreased again, but his reality had stubbornly remained just the tiniest bit out of focus. He chalked it up to the abrupt and unwelcome modification to his lifestyle. He was used to living fast and hard, traveling from one go-round to the next, always on the move, always on the lookout for the next ride, the next good time, or the next willing woman. Being forced to slow down, even if it was only temporary—and it was only temporary—dulled the intensity and blurred the edges, making him, as Rooster was wont to say, a “mite moody.”

And then, suddenly, out taking a solitary ride to improve his mood before the bachelor party tonight, everything snapped into sharp focus through the lenses of a pair of borrowed binoculars. For the first time since the wreck, every cell and nerve ending in his body was on red alert, alive and humming and ready to go. And all because he’d watched a woman he barely knew masturbate to climax. A woman, moreover, for whom he hadn’t previously spared a second thought—or a second look—beyond what had been required for civility’s sake.

Shaking his head at the sheer absurdity of the situation, he tucked the binoculars back into the saddlebag, and mounted up.

He didn’t know if it was the surprisingly luscious Miz Jo Beth Jensen herself, or the surprise of coming upon her out of the blue the way he had, or simply the fact that playing the voyeur was something he’d never done before that provided the spark. Whatever it was, he wanted more.

It stood to reason that she wanted more, too. She’d cried out his name when she’d come—he was almost sure of it—which meant she had to have been fantasizing about him during that close encounter with her own hand. Clay had been the focus of a good many female fantasies over the years, and he’d found that most women were more than happy to have the chance to make those fantasies real. And, usually, if the circumstances and the woman were right—and sometimes even if they weren’t—he’d always been more than happy to oblige.

Completely forgetting that he’d been going to ride away like the gentleman his mama had raised him to be, he clucked softly to his horse and, laying his reins against the side of the pinto’s neck, guided the animal out of the trees and down the slope into the gully below, absolutely certain he was about to get lucky.

He kept the horse to a walk and his gaze on the recumbent form of the woman in the water tank. She was leaning back against the concrete edge with her face turned up to the sun and her eyes closed. Her slender, well-toned arms were stretched out to either side of her, resting along the rim of the tank. The position bared her upper body nearly to midtorso, leaving her pretty little breasts resting lightly on the surface of the water. Her whole being reflected complete and utter relaxation.

Clay grinned wickedly. It was a shame, really, to disturb her autoerotic afterglow. But, after all, the woman had called out his name in the throes of passion. Hadn’t she? And if she hadn’t…well, she was obviously in need of what he could do for her. No woman should have to resort to self-manipulation to fulfill hr sexual needs, especially not when he was ready, willing and more than able to fulfill them for her.

Watching her as closely as he was, he knew the exact instant she became aware that her solitude was no longer absolute. Her shoulders tensed and she straightened away from the edge of the tank slightly, at the same time sinking down so her breasts disappeared beneath the water just as her rounded knees broke the surface. Surprisingly, she didn’t fumble around or scramble to cover herself. She didn’t get all fluttery or flustered, either, the way he’d expected her to; the way most other women would have if caught in similar circumstances. She didn’t even blush. Instead, she calmly curled one arm around her bent knees and lifted the other, tenting her hand above her eyes in an effort to see who was approaching.

“That’s far enough,” she said, the unmistakable snap of authority in her voice.

Clay reined in, halting the pinto a good six feet from the edge of the tank, and stared down at her, waiting for what she would do next. It wasn’t often a woman managed to surprise him, and she’d done it twice already: first with her heated abandon, then with her complete lack of embarrassment at being caught naked. He couldn’t help but wonder what other surprises she had in store for him.

Jo Beth squinted up at him from underneath her raised hand, but all she could see was the silhouetted figure of a man on a horse. His shoulders were impossibly broad against the expanse of blue sky behind him. His face was completely hidden in the shadow of his hat. Except for the sun glinting off the blunted rowels of his spurs and the silver conchas on his chaps, he was shrouded in darkness.

An instinctive quiver of apprehension snaked its way up Jo Beth’s spine. She very deliberately brushed it aside. This was, after all, Diamond J land. She was the jefe of the Diamond J. And he was a Diamond J cowhand.

Whatever reason he might have for trailing her out to this remote corner of the ranch, it sure as hell wasn’t because he had any nefarious designs on her body. None of her cowhands would dare. Especially given the mood she’d been in when she left the stable yard.

Which meant there was some problem that demanded her immediate attention back at the main house. Her squint deepened into a frown. Good Lord, couldn’t she have one measly hour to herself? Just one measly little hour without the whole operation falling apart?

“This had better be damned important,” she said irritably, scowling up at him from under her tented hand.

“Ma’am?”

“Whatever you trailed me out here for. It had better be damned important, or you and whoever sent you out here after me are going to be damned sorry.”

“No one sent me after you,” Clay said, thinking delightedly that she’d already managed to surprise him again. Whatever he’d expected her to say, however he might have expected her to say it, he certainly hadn’t anticipated anything so prosaic as a simple expression of annoyance at his presence and the possible reason for it, especially not with her still sitting there neck deep in water and as naked as the day she was born.

“Then why the hell did you follow me out here?” she demanded.

“I didn’t follow you.” His easy, affable tone was in direct contrast to the snapping impatience of hers. “I was out taking a ride all by my lonesome and saw someone moving around down here by the water tank.” He eased up on the reins as he spoke, letting the pinto amble closer to the concrete tank. “I thought I’d better take a closer look in case that someone was up to no good. So…” Leather creaked as he leaned forward and casually draped a forearm across the saddle horn. The reins dangled loosely from his gloved fingers. The pinto dropped his head and began sucking up water. “Are you up to no good, darlin’?”

Jo Beth opened her mouth to lambaste him for the dual offenses of dereliction of duty and being overly familiar when it occurred to her that not only was he a good deal closer than he’d been a moment before, but—Diamond J cowhand or not—she had absolutely no idea who he was.

Nothing about him was familiar. Not the tilt of his hat. Not the sound of his voice. Not even the way he sat his horse. And she prided herself on being able to put a name to every hand on the Diamond J just by watching him ride.

The quiver of apprehension returned, a little stronger this time, a little more insistent as it snaked its way up her spine to lodge at the back of her neck. It wasn’t fear. Not yet. Not by a long shot, she assured herself. But it was close enough to it that she glanced toward Bella, mentally judging the distance to the shotgun holstered behind the saddle, hoping like hell she wasn’t going to have to sprint for it, buck naked and dripping wet. Her gaze darted back to the man who seemed, suddenly, to be much too close, much too big, much too…much.

She stiffened her spine against the nascent fear, refusing to give in to it. Her eyes took on a steely glint beneath the shade of her sheltering hand. “Just who the hell are you, cowboy?”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” he said, as polite as if she’d asked a civil question instead of snarling it at him like an angry bobcat. “I didn’t realize you didn’t recognize me or I’d’ve made myself known to you straight off.” He dipped his head, reaching up to touch two fingers to the brim of his hat. “I’m—”

In that instant, with that slight telling movement, Jo Beth suddenly knew who he was. “Oh, good Lord!” she burst out before she could stop herself. “You’re—” She dropped her upraised hand, covering her mouth before the name escaped.

“Clay Madison,” he said, and swept his hat off, giving her a theatrical little bow from the saddle. It was the same cocksure, conquering-hero bow he used in the ring to acknowledge the approving roar of the crowd. “In the flesh,” he added, with a wickedly charming cowboy grin.

Jo Beth stared up at him for a disbelieving few seconds, her eyes gone wide above her concealing hand, her body frozen like a wild woodland creature trying to escape the notice of a predator. Visions of her fantasies and what she’d done to fulfill them chased round and round in her head. She knew it was too much to hope that he hadn’t seen her solo performance. If he’d been watching long enough to see someone moving around by the water tank, he’d certainly been watching long enough to have seen what happened after that someone got in the water tank.

She closed her eyes briefly, trying to block out the awful reality of the situation, desperately wishing that one or both of them would just disappear into the hot, dry air. But when she opened them again, he was still there, sitting atop the pinto with the sun shining on his gleaming black hair, hat in hand, grinning at her like a feral cousin of the Cheshire cat.

And she was still bare-ass naked, sitting in a water tank in the middle of a sun-baked cow pasture with the guilty blush of self-indulgence heating her cheeks.

There was only one thing to do, one tack to take. She dropped her hand from her mouth, squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, and glared up at him with the expression every hand on her ranch had learned to fear. “Just what the hell are you doing on Diamond J land?”

He shrugged elaborately, unintimidated by the ferocity of her question. “Like I said, I was out taking myself a little ride. Just following my nose, don’t ’cha know? Ended up taking the shade in that stand of cottonwoods on the hill, yonder.” He gestured with his hat, indicating the gentle swell of the land behind him. “No rhyme or reason to it.” His grin flashed again, his eyes raking over her with a warm, appreciative gleam meant to charm and flatter. “Just plain ol’ good luck, I’d call it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” she snapped, stubbornly refusing to be charmed or flattered. “What I’d call it is plain ol’ trespassing. You’re on Diamond J land, Mr. Madison, and I’d appreciate it if you’d turn that pinto around and ride back the way you came.”

“Well, now, that’s not very neighborly.” He took a moment to resettle his hat on his head, deliberately thumbing it back a bit so the brim wasn’t shadowing his face. “Downright unneighborly, I’d say. Especially considering as how I rode down here to see if I could offer you a helping hand.” He let his gaze drift downward, away from her face, and his seemingly ever-present grin warmed lasciviously. “So to speak.”

Jo Beth tightened her arms around her bent knees and tried not to squirm. “Really?” she said, injecting what she hoped was a credible amount of scorn into her voice.

It wasn’t easy.

The man was a living, breathing sexual fantasy. Her living, breathing sexual fantasy. She knew as well as she knew her own name that she could have him—right then, right there—just the way she’d imagined in those heated moments of self-induced rapture. All she had to do was say the word and he’d get down off that horse and climb into the water tank with her. She was absolutely sure of it. Just one word, and her frustrations of the last few weeks would come to what was sure to be a glorious end.

But damned if she’d say it.

Fantasy or not, the man was a cowboy. Worse, he was a four-time Pro Rodeo championship bull-riding cowboy. Which meant he was a true wild thing, more reckless, more feckless, more fancy-free and unreliable than the usual breed of cowboy. Trouble with a capital T, and she sure as hell didn’t need any more of that in her life.

She gave him her haughtiest glare, and tried to think of anything other than what he’d look like soaking wet and wearing nothing but his black Resistol hat. “I thought you rode down here because you saw someone nosing around the water tank and were concerned they were up to no good.”

“Yep,” he said amiably, wondering exactly what it would take to make her lose her cool and rattle that ironclad composure she wore like a shield. “I surely was. But then I saw you slide down into the water and start…ah…” He hesitated and his gaze dipped downward again, as if he could see beneath the sparkling surface of the water to the place where her hand had been so busily engaged just a few moments ago.

Jo Beth felt every sensitive female part of her body begin to tingle, tensing with anticipation under the promise of that heated look, but she merely smiled—a small, icy, cowboy-withering smile meant to cut a man’s ego to ribbons—and raised an imperious eyebrow, daring him to say it flat out.

“Thrashing around in the water like you were doing,” he finished smoothly, as if that’s what he’d intended to say all along. “Well, it got me to worrying. It surely did. As far away as I was, there was no telling what kind of trouble you were having.”

“Trouble? Is that what you call it?”

The look in his hot-coffee eyes heated to scorching. His wicked cowboy grin turned a shade more knowing and intimate. “Unless you’d like me to call it something else.”

Jo Beth ignored the wild leap of her pulse at the invitation implicit in his words and manner. “What I’d like is for you to turn around and ride away,” she said, knowing she was lying through her teeth. What she’d really like was for him to shuck down to his birthday suit and climb into the water tank with her so she could see if the reality of him lived up to her fantasies.

“And I’d like to oblige you, Miz Jensen,” he said genially, lying in his turn. He thumbed the brim of his hat another half inch farther back on his head. “I really would,” he said earnestly, as if he actually meant it. “But my dear sainted ma raised me up to be a gentleman like my pa—”

Jo Beth snorted inelegantly.

“—like my pa,” he reiterated, giving her a doleful look of mock censure, “an’ she’d roll over in her grave for sure if I was to just up and leave you out here by your lonesome, all unprotected and vulnerable-like. Some fella who ain’t nearly as well-mannered as me might come along an’ try to take advantage of the situation.”

The attitude, the words, the tone, the ridiculously thick aw-shucks-ma’am-I’m-just-a-dumb-cowboy accent were all calculated to make him sound as innocent as a wet-behind-the-ears farm boy. Even the way he was wearing his hat, well back on his head with the brim framing his face like a halo, contributed to the impression of a harmless good-natured hayseed bent on doing the right thing.

But the heated look in his eyes, his sly Cheshire-cat grin, even the casual loose-limbed way he sat his horse was a blatant, unabashed sexual come-on, a challenge of the most sexual sort.

I’ve got what you want, he said, without saying a word. All you have to do is ask.

And, oh, it was tempting.

He was tempting.

Too tempting.

And he knew it.

The arrogant jerk.

That’s what came of having legions of panting, dewy-eyed buckle bunnies throwing themselves at his feet every time he so much as flashed that lady-killer smile of his. It gave a man an exaggerated impression of his appeal and made him think every woman he met was just dying to get down and dirty with him.

There was only one surefire way to regain her dignity and show him he had absolutely no allure for her.

“Well, then, if you won’t leave, I will.”

She put her palms on the rim of the tank behind her and pushed herself up. The movement was swift but unhurried, as natural as if she were rising, unobserved, from her bath. And then, using every last bit of self-control she possessed, she stood there for a moment, knee deep in the trough, and calmly, efficiently sluiced water down her arms and torso with the flat of her hands, just as she would have done had she been alone.

That would show him how unimpressed she was with his cowboy charm.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t so much as move a muscle, but she could feel him watching her, could feel the heat of his gaze following her hands as she briskly skimmed them over her own body. Without looking at him she knew he was completely, absolutely, utterly focused on her. Handsome-as-sin, four-time Pro Rodeo bull-riding champion Clay Madison was looking at her. And practically drooling with lust. The sensation was as physical as a touch, as heady as brandy fumes, as irresistible as a soft, sweet kiss in the dark.

Almost without conscious volition, she raised her hands back to her chest, placing her palms flat against her skin, and moved them downward for a second time, outlining the sleek wet lines of her body as she brushed the water from her skin. Her palms slid over the gentle swell of her breasts…caressed the firm, flat plane of her midriff and stomach…brushed ever so lightly across the patch of dark silky hair covering her pubic mound…

He made a strangled sound, something between a moan and a growl.

Jo Beth looked up at him, square into his eyes. What she saw there caused her to cross her hands over her pubic mound, instinctively, as if to hide it from him. But her shoulders remained straight and square, and her chin was well up. “What?” she said belligerently, trying to pretend she wasn’t the least bit intimidated.

He didn’t move his gaze from her face. “Do you want me to climb down off this horse and get into that tank with you?”

For one brief, delicious, insane second, she actually thought about saying yes. What could it hurt, after all? One hot, fast bout of slap-and-tickle with the fantasy cowboy who’d been driving her crazy for the past week might do her some good. It would get him out of her system, relieve the itch, and settle her down for the wedding tomorrow so she could concentrate on her maid-of-honor duties. No one would know. No one would care. And he’d be gone in a couple of days, so it wasn’t like she’d be in danger of actually getting involved in any kind of messy public relationship that would need explaining somewhere down the line. She could screw him and forget him, and that would be that.

On the other hand, he had the look of a man who might not be all that easy to forget. And that could be plenty messy in its own way, even if nobody ever found out.

“Well?” he demanded, his glare both furious and fascinated.

She opened her mouth. “Ah…” The word stuck in her throat, and the horror of it was, she didn’t know if that word was yes or no. “Ah…”

Clay tightened his hand on the reins, pulling the pinto’s nose up and around with one quick twist of his wrist. “Let me know when you make up your mind,” he said, and touched his spurs to the horse’s sides so that it sprang into a gallop from a standing start.

Jo Beth stood in the water tank, her hands still shielding the dark hair at the top of her thighs, her shoulders still square, and watched him until he disappeared up and over the hill. And then she sank down onto the side of the concrete tank because her knees were trembling too hard to hold her up anymore, and wondered just what the hell she would have said if he’d waited for her answer.

3

“LADIES. LADIES. PLEASE. Let’s have a little decorum here.” Jo Beth rapped the top of the coffee table with her empty glass. “And another shot. I need to make a toast.”

A slender blonde in a hot-pink, lace-trimmed satin chemise peered at her through an untidy fringe of spiky bangs, a half-empty bottle of tequila clutched protectively to her chest. “You just made a toast.”

“Well, I’m gonna make another one. I’m the maid of honor. It’s my job.” Jo Beth rose unsteadily to her knees and thrust her empty glass out across the table, waggling it back and forth under the blonde’s nose. “Come on, Roxy. Pour me another shot so I can do my job.” She waved her free hand expansively. “Pour everybody another shot.”

“Everybody” consisted of all six bridesmaids and the bride-to-be. They were ranged around the glass-topped coffee table in Cassie’s living room in various states of dishabille, from Roxy Steele’s pink satin and black lace chemise, to Cassie’s white eyelet baby doll with embroidered forget-me-not blue flowers, to Jo Beth’s yellow cotton knit tank top and green plaid boxer shorts. Thanks to the professional manicurist Roxy had hired as her contribution to the festivities, they all wore Juicy Peach polish on their toenails and sported matching French manicures.

The table was littered with cold slices of half-eaten pizza, barbecued chicken wings and baby back ribs on paper plates, chocolate-smeared sundae glasses, an empty Sara Lee cheesecake box, and a pile of squeezed-out lime wedges. A phallic-shaped saltshaker sat, strategically placed, atop the centerfold of the most recent issue of Playgirl magazine.

They’d started the evening with two unopened bottles of Jose Cuervo’s finest. The first lay on its side under the table, its contents sacrificed to the evening’s merriment. The second bottle was barely half-full.

Roxy obligingly served it up, pouring shots all around. Most of it ended up in the glasses, but some sloshed over onto the table. Not much, though, considering the bartender was halfway sloshed, as well.

Jo Beth bent her head, licking stray drops of tequila off her fingers, then raised her glass and waited until all five of the other bridesmaids—and the bride—had raised theirs, too.

“To Rooster Wills, the groom-to-be.” Her tone was somber, her manner solemn and almost respectful, as if she had something of particular gravity to say.

“To Rooster Wills,” they echoed, equally somber and serious.

They clinked glasses. More tequila sloshed onto the table.

“May he have more sexual stamina and staying power than the bird he was named after,” Jo Beth said and tossed back the content of her glass in one dramatic gulp.

A cacophony of feminine voices erupted in whoops and squeals. Someone giggled. Someone else spewed a mouthful of tequila out of her nose. They had reached the point in the evening’s festivities where every utterance seemed screamingly funny to at least half of them, and deeply profound to the rest. They’d also gotten to the point where the discussion of sex was inevitable—and inevitably risqué.

“So how about it, Cassie?” Roxy put her forearm flat on the table for balance and leaned in close, unmindful of the puddles of tequila soaking into the front of her satin chemise. “How is ol’ Rooster in the sack?”

Cassie shook her head. “I don’t kiss and tell,” she muttered, hiding a lopsided smile behind the rim of her glass. “It’s not ladylike.”

“Aw, come on, Cassie.” LaWanda Brewster fluffed her springy red curls in a gesture she’d copied from watching countless old Mae West movies. “There aren’t any ladies here. Spill.”

“Yeah, spill, Cassie.” The added encouragement came from Melissa Meeker, an elegant and urbane mortgage broker who’d flown in from Atlanta the previous evening. “I’ve always wanted to know if what they say about bull riders is true.”

Cassie came out from behind her shot glass and aimed a smile at her old college roommate and sorority sister. “And just what do they say about bull riders?”

“Well.” Melissa edged closer to the table and leaned in to dish. Everyone else leaned in, too, until they were huddled over the coffee table like a gaggle of teenaged girls at a slumber party whispering about S-E-X. “I don’t have any personal experience, you understand. Not like some lucky people I could name—” she rolled her eyes at Cassie, who rolled them right back at her “—but I’ve heard tell that all that experience riding bulls sort of transfers over into other, more, shall we say, intimate kinds of riding.” She waggled her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “If you get my meaning.”

They all got it, but, “No, tell us what you mean,” LaWanda said. “Don’t be shy. Just lay it right out there on the table.”

“I mean,” Melissa continued, “if a bull rider can stick on the back of a bull with all that bucking. And twisting.” She drew out each word, her voice husky and heated and not the least bit shy. “And thrashing. And heaving. Well, then, it just naturally follows that he’d have that same kind of expertise and stick-to-it-ness in bed. At least—” she sighed lustily “—I sure hope it does.”

Jo Beth sighed, too, thinking of one particular cowboy bucking and twisting and thrashing around in bed. It created quite a vivid picture in her mind’s eye. She sank back down on her heels and crossed her arms, very casually, over her chest in an effort to conceal just how vivid that picture was. Some of the other bridesmaids weren’t so circumspect.

“Oh, gawd,” LaWanda squealed. “My nipples are getting hard just thinking about it.”

“Speaking of nipples…” Barb Kittner, mother of two, heavily pregnant with her third, and the only one of the seven women who hadn’t sampled the tequila, smiled dreamily. “Cowboys have great hands. Have y’all noticed that? Big. Strong. Capable.” Her dreamy smile turned a shade sly as she pinched her own nipples through the fabric of her soft cotton nightshirt. “Talented.”

The other women hooted in approval.

Jo Beth pressed her thighs together and tried not to think of Clay Madison’s hands and what she had imagined them doing to her earlier that afternoon. Tried not to think of what they would most certainly have done if she’d invited him into the water tank with her instead of sending him away. If she’d said yes, if she’d actually allowed him to do everything she’d imagined him doing, she wouldn’t be suffering the tortures of the foolishly celibate now, listening to the other women talk about cowboys’ legendary—and wholly inflated!—sexual expertise.

“They’ve got great butts, too. Nice and small with tight, compact little buns. Tasty.” Karen Holden, oldest bridesmaid by six months and leader of the Bowie First Fellowship Church Choir, smacked her lips. “Mighty tasty.” She chuckled wickedly. “Makes me want to leave teeth marks on ’em.”

“Good idea.” LaWanda waved her empty glass to show her approval. “Put your brand right smack-dab on their cute little tushies. Keep ’em from straying.”

Jo Beth pressed her thighs even tighter together, and prayed for a turn in the conversation. Good Lord! Did all women have the same fantasies about cowboys? Or had she somehow telegraphed her lustful daydreams to the rest of the bridesmaids? Not that she’d actually imagined biting Clay’s backside but…damn if the idea didn’t sound kind of appealing, now that she thought of it. She squirmed slightly, trying to banish the picture of Clay lying facedown in the sheets on her bed, his tight little cowboy butt offered up like a particularly tasty treat.

“They’ve got great shoulders, too,” Melissa said. “Have you noticed? You just don’t see any stoop-shouldered cowboys running around, now do you? I wonder why that is?”

An instant picture formed in Jo Beth’s mind of Clay Madison’s shoulders. They were a yard wide, at least. Or they’d looked that wide, at any rate, with him sitting up there, atop that pinto gelding, with the sun at his back, silhouetting his impressive shoulders against the blue sky. They’d have been more impressive, of course, without the shirt. Jo Beth closed her eyes, imagining it…imagining him slowly unsnapping the front of that black shirt…imagining him sliding it down off one magnificently broad shoulder…imagining…

“I just like the way cowboys are built. Period,” LaWanda said. “All lean and wiry, with— Hey, Jo Beth. You falling asleep on us?”

Jo Beth’s eyes snapped open. “Oh. No. Sorry. Just resting my eyes. Too much tequila,” she said, flushing as she pushed her empty glass away. “I need to switch to something softer.” She placed one hand flat against the table and levered herself to her feet. “Anybody else want a Coke or a Dr. Pepper while I’m up?”

Nobody did.

They refilled their shot glasses with what was left of the tequila and went right on talking about cowboys while she made her way out to the kitchen.

THINGS WERE A TAD MORE SEDATE over in the bunkhouse at Tom Steele’s Second Chance Ranch, where Rooster and his groomsmen were holding the bachelor party. The seven men sat around a scarred wooden game table, mostly silent as they scrutinized the cards they’d been dealt. George Strait sang softly from the CD player. A narrow side table held the remains of a jumbo deli platter. The yeasty smell of beer mixed with the cigar smoke hovering in a blue cloud over their heads.

“I’m in.” Clay tossed a couple of chips into the pot in the middle of the table, then reached out a long arm and tapped his cigar on the edge of a terra-cotta flowerpot they were using as an ashtray. So far, the spiny barrel cactus in it didn’t seem any the worse for wear. “So, what are the ladies up to tonight?”

Rooster squinted at the cards in his hand. “Slumber party,” he said and tossed in his chips to match Clay’s bet.

“Slumber party?”

“Yeah, you know. A bunch of women in pajamas doin’ girl stuff. Watchin’ sappy movies. Eatin’ popcorn. Talkin’ about whatever it is women talk about when they get together. Probably fixin’ each other’s hair and nails. Stuff like that.”

Clay immediately honed in on what was really important. “What kind of pajamas?”

Tom grinned around the thin black cheroot clamped in his teeth. “I can’t speak for the rest of them, but Roxy packed a really hot-looking pink number with lace all over it,” he said. He’d been jealous of Clay once, a long time ago. He figured it was only fair Clay return the favor now. “Black lace.”

“Black lace, huh?” Clay threw down a couple of cards. “Two,” he said to Hector before turning to Rooster. “How ’bout Cassie?”

Rooster was still squinting at his cards. “How ’bout Cassie what?”

“Her pajamas. She pack a hot number for the slumber party, too?”

“Cassie don’t wear pajamas,” Rooster said, and then blushed beet-red. “What I mean is,” he sputtered, manfully ignoring the snickering of his groomsmen, “she wears a nightgown.”

“What color?” Clay asked.

“I dunno. Blue, usually.”

“It have any lace on it?”

Rooster shook his head. “Flowers,” he said, as he tossed down a single card and signaled for one to replace it.

Quiet reigned for a moment as they all studied their newly reconstituted hands. Bob Evers and Tiny O’Leary, both buddies of Rooster’s from the rodeo circuit, threw down their cards in disgust and got up to get more beer and scavenge at the remains of the deli platter. The other five men all added chips to the pot.

“You know who I wouldn’t mind seeing in her pajamas is that redhead,” Tiny said as he wandered back to the poker table to kibitz. He had a fat dill pickle in one hand and a beer in the other. “That LaWanda what’s-her-name?”

“LaWanda Brewster,” Rooster said.

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Pickle juice dripped down onto the front of Tiny’s plaid shirt but he paid it no mind. “She’s built real nice, that one is. I bet she looks fine in her pajamas. Or in nothin’ at all, if it come to that.”

“Well, hell, if we’re fantasizin’ here and pickin’ favorites, I’ll admit to some curiosity about that slick little gal who flew in from Atlanta yesterday.” Joel Boyd, who ran the local feed store, had been a friend of Rooster’s since they both got sent to detention in high school. “I bet she wears one of those thong things. Most city women do.”

“And you’d know that how?” Tom said. He’d known Joel since high school, too, and felt free to razz him when the BS quotient got too high.

“I read about it in Cosmo,” Joel said, deadpan. He tossed a chip into the pot. “Call.”

Rooster grunted derisively. “I think you’d be ashamed to admit you read that kind of smut.” He tossed in two chips, doubling the bet. “Call and raise.”

“I’m out.” Tom laid his cards facedown on the table and reached for his beer. “You know, I saw all Cassie’s bridesmaids in their pajamas once,” he said into the silence, as they waited for Clay to decide whether he was in or out. “Briefly. It was back in high school. Me and Rooster and a couple of our buddies got it into our heads to crash the cheerleaders’ annual slumber party.”

Rooster smiled in fond remembrance. “The girls started screamin’ and runnin’ around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off when we tapped on the window glass. You’d’a thought we was serial killers or somethin’. A right fine sight, it was. All those cheerleaders flittin’ around in their baby-doll nightgowns.”

Clay glanced up from his contemplation of his cards. “Any of ’em wearing lace?”

“Not that I recall.” Tom finished off the last swallow of his beer and flipped the empty can into a wastebasket. “’Course I have to admit I was kind of distracted by LaWanda’s sister. She’s seven or eight years older, which would have made her all of about twenty-four at the time. She was chaperoning the party.” He shot a grin at Rooster. “Remember?”

Rooster gave a bark of laughter. “I ain’t likely to forget it. She came chargin’ out onto the porch with her daddy’s shotgun pumped and ready, wearin’ nothin’ but a skimpy little black nightgown—”

“With lace,” Tom added for Clay’s benefit.

“—and her hair done up with them big pink rollers with one of those what’d’ya call ’em?—beauty masks?—smeared all over her face. Threatened to pepper our asses with buckshot if we didn’t hightail it outta there. She would’a done it, too.”

“She a redhead, too?” Tiny took up the subject of LaWanda and redheads as if they’d never left it. “I’ve always been partial to red hair on a woman. Top and bottom, if you know what I mean.”

“Gentlemen, please.” Hector “Padre” Menendez censored them all with a look from beneath his grizzled brows. He was an imposing patriarchal figure, more than twice the age of most of the other groomsmen, and had had a hand in raising both Rooster and Tom. “You’re talking about our friends and neighbors, and the wives and daughters of our friends and neighbors. Show a little respect.”

They all had the grace to look shamefaced, except Clay, who sat brooding at his cards, wondering why no one had picked Jo Beth Jensen as an object of their erotic fantasies. True, she wasn’t as out-and-out, in-your-face sexy as Tom’s wife Roxy. She didn’t have flaming red hair and generous curves like LaWanda. She lacked Cassie’s kittenish cuteness. But, damn, she was hot— burning-up-the-stove, curl-your-toes, fry-your-brain hot.

Hadn’t any of these jackasses ever looked at her, he wondered, forgetting that he himself hadn’t really looked at her, either, until she appeared naked in the viewfinder of his binoculars.

“Hey, pard.” Rooster nudged him with his elbow. “You gonna hold ’em or fold ’em?”

“Sorry.” Clay tossed in the chips necessary to stay in the game. “Hold,” he said, and then sat silently while the game progressed, entertaining himself with fantasies of Jo Beth Jensen wearing nothing but a black-lace thong while performing lewd and wonderful acts upon his body.

It was a shame, really, that he wouldn’t be in town long enough to make those fantasies a reality. On the other hand, he wasn’t planning to leave Bowie until the day after the wedding. Two days was more than enough time to make his fantasies—and hers—come true.

“Well, hell, if you’re gonna sit there grinnin’ like a skunk eatin’ cabbage, I’m out, too,” Rooster said, and tossed down his cards.

THEY WERE STILL TALKING about cowboys when Jo Beth came back into the living room with an icy can of soda in her hand.

“It’s not just that they have the…um…bucking technique down pat,” Roxy was saying as Jo Beth carefully folded herself back down between the coffee table and sofa. “Or how great their hands and butts are. It’s their incredible stamina. That’s what’s really impressive.”

Melissa’s gulp was audible. She licked her lips. “They have incredible stamina?”

“Oh, yeah.” Roxy nodded sagely. “In-cred-i-ble. And it’s not just bull riders. It’s bronc riders, too. Think about it. They’re in the saddle, on top of those bulls and broncs, day after day. Sometimes two and three times a day during the summer season. And night after night, too. Isn’t that right, Cassie?”

Cassie nodded so hard she nearly toppled over.

“For a bull or bronc rider the job is all about holding tight and staying on till the ride’s over. That’s the cowboy way. And they tend to keep right on doing it that way.” Roxy flashed a wickedly smug little smile. After all, her husband had been a champion bronc rider. “Even after they retire.”

Jo Beth snorted derisively, deciding it was time to inject a little reality into the conversation. They could all use a dose of common sense to counter the braggadocio. And she could certainly do with a change of subject. All this talk of cowboys and sex was getting her hot. Okay, hotter.

“Cowboys may stay on till the ride’s over,” she said, “but in rodeo, remember, the ride’s over in eight seconds.”

“Yeah, but it’s a wild ride,” Cassie said. “And they’re always ready for a second and third go-round to better their score.”

Roxy hoisted her empty glass. “To the cowboy way!”

The other women whooped and hollered.

Jo Beth pressed the cold soda can to the pulsing vein in her neck to cool herself down. It didn’t help.

“WELL, BOYS, I think I’ll call it a night.” Hector rose stiffly from his seat, mindful of the arthritis that stiffened his joints when he sat in one position for too long. “I’m not as young as I used to be, and sunup seems to come earlier every day.”

“I think I’ll chuck it in, too,” Joel said. “I promised Margie I wouldn’t stay out too late.”

“Since when is ten o’clock late?” Tiny asked.

“Since Joel Jr. started teething and Margie started having her morning sickness at night.”

“Well, if that don’t beat all.” Tiny shook his head in disbelief. “Breakin’ up a perfectly good poker game because of a cranky baby and a woman who can’t keep her supper down.” He leveled a half-humorous, half-serious glance at Rooster. “That’s what happens when you get married, you know. You sure you wanna go through with it?”

“Sure as death and taxes.”

“Well, don’t say nobody warned you.” Tiny pushed to his feet. “See y’all tomorrow at the church.” He cuffed Rooster on the shoulder as he rose. “’Less you come to your senses before then, that is.”

“Hey, the game don’t have to break up just because Hector and Joel are out,” Rooster protested. “Five players is more than plenty to keep it interestin’.”

“Naw, I think I’ll head back to the motel and hit the sack. I’m kinda tired now that I think on it.” Tiny yawned hugely. “And my luck ain’t been all that good tonight, anyway.” He nudged Bob Evers with the toe of his boot. “You ’bout ready to roll?”

“Yeah, sure.” Bob lumbered to his feet. “You own the keys to the truck.”

“They ain’t goin’ to the motel no how, no way,” said Rooster as the door to the bunkhouse swung closed behind his two escaping groomsmen. “Tiny O’Leary ain’t never hit the sack before midnight for as long as I’ve known him, unless he had a woman in it with him. They’re headin’ over to that honky-tonk out on 81. They got strippers there.”

“I thought about getting strippers for tonight,” Clay said. “Bachelor party tradition an’ all, you know? But, then, I decided against it because, well, hell.” He shrugged. “I figured Cassie and the rest of the ladies wouldn’t like it if they found out we’d had strippers.” It was the truth, as far as it went, just not the whole truth. The whole truth was that he’d kind of lost his taste for that sort of thing even before the run-in with ol’Boomer had put a crimp in his love life. But that wasn’t the kind of thing one man admitted to another—especially when that man had a reputation to protect. “We could head over to the honky-tonk if you want to, though. It’s your bachelor party.”

Rooster thought about it for a second or two. “Naw.” He shook his head. “You’re right. The ladies wouldn’t like it none.”

“OH. MY. GOD.” Cassie shrieked and hid her face in a fringed throw pillow as the male stripper yanked off his tear-away pants and started gyrating in front of her wearing only a black satin jockstrap, fringed chaps and cowboy boots.

“Don’t you pay her no mind, darlin’,” LaWanda hollered encouragingly when Cassie refused to take his hand and join him on the floor. “You just swivel them hips right on over here to me. I’ll dance with you.” She grabbed Jo Beth by the hand and pulled her to her feet. “We’ll both dance with you.”

Jo Beth considered refusing for about two seconds. “Oh, what the hell,” she said, throwing caution to the wind. She’d had just enough alcohol not to be appalled at the up-close-and-personal sight of the bare buttocks of a complete stranger. “Why not?”

It was, after all, the closest she’d been to a nearly naked male body in some time. Given the way things were going, it might be the closest she’d get for some time to come. She put her hands on his hips, just above the low-slung waistband of his chaps and plastered herself to his back. LaWanda came at him from the front. Thus sandwiched together, they began to bump and grind their way around Cassie’s living room to vintage Hank Williams Jr. belting out “Honky Tonk Women” at full volume.

It wasn’t long before every woman in the room, including the blushing bride-to-be, had joined the love train.

“THIS IS DOWNRIGHT PITIFUL. Y’all know that don’t you?” Tom sat with his chair tilted back on two legs. His booted feet, crossed at the ankles, rested on the edge of the game table. A can of beer was balanced on his upraised knee. “Three grown men who can’t think of anything better to do at a bachelor party than sit around drinking beer and watching rodeo on ESPN.”

His comment brought no response from the other two men. Their attention was focused squarely on the bull-riding action taking place on the big-screen TV.

“See there?” Clay gestured at the screen with his beer. “See how that Taylor kid uses his spurs on the downswing?”

“Yep, I see.” Rooster nodded in acknowledgment. “Reminds me of another young bull rider I know once.”

“It damned well should,” Clay said, trying not to sound as disgruntled as he felt. “The kid told me right out loud that he copied that move by watching slow-motion tapes of me in action.”

“There ain’t no disgrace in that. You did the same yourself, once upon a time. So’d I. So’d Tom. So’d every professional cowboy out there who’s worth his salt. It’s the best way to learn aside from doin’ it.”

“Yeah, well.” Clay took a sip of his beer to avoid saying any more. Rooster was right. There was no disgrace in watching and learning from a competitor’s tapes; it was standard practice for professional athletes in every sport. But, hell, there was just something about the young bull rider currently strutting his stuff on the TV screen that rubbed Clay the wrong way. The kid was too cocky by half, for one thing. And he wasn’t near as good as he thought he was—a fact that would be amply illustrated when Clay was healed up enough to return to the circuit.

“Judgin’ by the way he’s movin’ up in the rankings, he appears to be learnin’ right well,” Rooster said.

“That’ll slow down some when he gets some real competition.”

“Meanin’ what?”

“Meaning the two top contenders for the last four years running aren’t competing this year due to injuries and—”

“That’d be you and Marty Bates.”

“That’s right. Me and Marty Bates. Plus Bud Taggart’s been slowed down considerably by his bad back, so his scores aren’t near as high as they should be. It’s probably his last year on the circuit, if his wife doesn’t nag him into quitting before the season’s over.” He could feel the tension ratchet up inside him as he spoke, all out of proportion to the subject at hand, and had to make a concerted effort to keep his tone even. “But Marty will be out of his cast in another couple of weeks, and I’ll be back on the circuit next year. Then we’ll see how fast that Taylor kid moves up the rankings.”

“I thought the doctors told you not to plan on goin’ back on the circuit,” Rooster said.

The sudden wave of anger and anxiety that washed over Clay at his friend’s words took him by complete surprise. He had to clamp down hard—physically and emotionally—to keep from showing it.

“What the hell do doctors know?” he said, waving a hand dismissively. Casually. He had to be casual. “They told me I wouldn’t be back after that wreck in Abilene six years ago when I cracked those two bones in my back, either. Or the time I got kicked in the head and was unconscious for three days. They were wrong then. They’re wrong now.”

But Rooster wouldn’t let it go. “You were a lot younger then. Broken bones and broken heads heal faster when you’re young.”

“All that means is it’ll just take me a little longer to heal this time. It doesn’t mean I won’t go back.”

“It means you shouldn’t, though.”

“Leave it alone, Rooster.”

“I’m only just sayin’—”

“Leave it alone,” Clay said, more sharply than he had intended.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.