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The other cowboy up on the platform was the one who’d given the opening prayer—Luke Lucas, aka the Preacher. Not the best rider here, but it hadn’t been hard to see him behind every rider mounting up, head bowed in prayer for a safe ride. At least in the Lord’s eyes, she deserved the same blessing. And help with the flank strap.
“Hallowed usually breaks right and then comes back hard to the left,” Mitch said as he took up the slack in her bull rope. “Don’t let him get you down in the well, Girlie. His back kick is vicious, so set your spurs and keep your free hand up.”
June tested her grip, nodding for him to give the rope another tug. “I can ride a bull. And my name is June.”
“I know. I’ve seen you do it.” June’s head popped up in surprise, but the only explanation she got was a smarmy wink. “Have a good ride, Girlie.”
The bull twitched beneath her legs, itching to get out of the chute and grind her into the dirt. He blew snot all over the gate as he tried to shake her off.
No fear. Roll with the bull.
“Oooee! That girl looks mighty good up there!” She didn’t recognize that voice.
“I bet she’d look a hell of a lot better riding the Red Bull, if you catch my drift.”
Next time, she’d break Red’s arm.
“Mort, this is insane. No way she should be up there. At least make her wear a damned helmet,” Travis went on.
“What’s the matter, Travis? Afraid the little Indian princess is gonna make you look like a pansy?”
Damn it, these men were going to stand around and take potshots all night until the bull gave up and went to sleep.
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, watch over this woman and help her have a safe ride,” Luke intoned, his head bowed so that his low voice barely reached her ears.
“Since when is being smart being a pansy?” Travis shot back.
“Since you started wearing that helmet, pansy.”
That was it. She couldn’t focus, and she couldn’t ride with them chattering like monkeys. “Hey! Shut it!”
At the sound of her voice, Hallowed tried to rear up, but he was too damned big to do much more than get his front hooves about a foot off the ground in the narrow confines of the chute. Out in the open, he’d get a whole lot higher. The Brazilian held her steady as she reset her butt on Hallowed’s still-twitching back. June wasn’t the only one who was ready to get on with it.
Finally, silence. A tense, pissed silence, but still. Only Mitch was snickering, “You tell them, Girlie,” as Luke double-checked the flank strap.
Travis appeared on the platform, glowering at her. “You’re really insane enough to do this?”
“No more insane than you are,” she growled, pulling on the handle. Still not tight enough. Maybe Mitch was afraid he’d hurt her?
Travis leaned over and pulled on the rope, cinching it down the rest of the way. His face was only inches from hers. This close, she could smell the Old Spice and see the faint white line that ran just under the beard, down the whole length of his jaw.
A man with scars—scars he tried to hide.
What did the rest of his scars look like? He had to have them. Everyone here did. Her own ankle bore the evidence of her obsession.
The bull shimmied again, but Travis didn’t even flinch. She tested her handle again. Just right. “Thanks.”
His frown was right in her face as he leaned past the Brazilian, who was still holding her vest to keep her on top of the impatient bull. This close, with no one else to hear him, she half expected Travis to wish her a good ride, good luck, but instead, all she got was “Don’t get killed out there.”
Why was it okay for these guys to risk life and limb to do something their mothers hated, but if one woman wanted in, it was too dangerous? Stupid double standard.
She tested her grip on the bull rope, giving it one final cinch as she let her mind clear. Roll with the bull.
No fear.
She nodded her head, and suddenly the world was spinning off its axis.
One.
Every bone in her body jolted hard right as her arm almost popped out of the socket.
Two.
Hallowed Ground broke left, proving once again that the good bulls never did the expected. She managed to get her weight counterbalanced just in time for the next kick.
Three.
He spun hard to the right, trying to whip her off like a centrifuge, all while kicking his back legs up higher than her head.
Four.
She dug in her spurs as he reared back again. Better points for spurring. Roll.
Five.
Roll, she chanted over and over as her body whiplashed right and right again. He was trying to get her down in the well, but she knew if she leaned too far left, he’d spin back that way and throw her under his feet.
Six.
Roll. The adrenaline dumped into her blood, making her body sing. In a moment of sheer physical clarity, she knew again that this was what she was supposed to do. This was who she was supposed to be.
Seven.
Hallowed bent back hard left, the jolt ripping at her grip. She couldn’t hold on much longer. Her arm was just about to give. One more second. One more—
Eight.
The buzzer sounded just as her fingers slipped the handle.
This was June’s strength—landing not under the feet of a pissed bull, but on her own. “Catlike,” more than one observer had noted. No matter what she was being thrown by—the mustangs she broke back on the Real Pride Ranch, the bulls she couldn’t stay away from, even that one wild buffalo—she managed to land feetfirst. Sure, more often than not, a hand hit the ground, as well, but she’d seen video of her rides. She landed like a runner taking her mark, not a discombobulated rider on the verge of getting trampled. She didn’t know how she did it and didn’t care, as long as she hit the ground in a position to move.
The ground rushed up to smack her, but she managed to get her torso spun around just enough that her feet hit at the same time. And she was running for the safety of the gate. A bull like Hallowed was likely to hold a grudge, and she had no desire to be on the receiving end of those lopsided horns.
It wasn’t until she’d clamored up the side and Hallowed had trotted out of the arena to have his flank strap removed that she heard the silence. The only sounds were her heart pounding and Hallowed snorting as he muscled his way down the chute.
It lasted about five seconds, and then the group of cowboys on the platforms, the bullfighters in the arena and the women in the bleachers exploded.
“Did you see that?”
“Did she just do a somersault in midair?”
“Did she just land on her feet?”
“Did she just ride Hallowed Ground?”
“She did it!”
“She really did!”
Had she? “A good ride?” she hollered, afraid to look. She’d made the time—but had her free hand stayed clear? Women were allowed to use both hands, but men weren’t. Would she get a score? Would she qualify?
Would she get to ride?
“Eighty-nine,” the judge announced over the loudspeaker. “An eighty-nine for June Spotted Elk on Hallowed Ground.”
Relief turned the adrenaline to sheer joy. This rush left her giggly and high with her own power. She whipped off her hat and flung it into the air with a “Hiiieyeee!”
This was the sweetest ride she could remember—not only had it been a good ride, not only had she ridden a monster of a bull like Hallowed Ground, not only had so many of the men here failed to do the same, but if this had been the competition, she would have been in second place after the long go—the first round of rides. Right behind Travis Younkin’s ninety, and right ahead of Red Willis’s eighty-seven.
This was who she was. This was what she was supposed to do.
To hell with what everyone else—her father, Travis, Red—thought. She was tired of living hand to mouth, scraping by on scholarships and her mom’s welfare check, tired of people thinking she couldn’t do anything because she was a poor Indian woman.
She was born to ride bulls. Men got paid good money to do the eight-second dance. Why couldn’t she? She could—the Ranger Circuit was the first step.
And June was on her way.
Amid the shouts and applause from the women in the audience, Mitch jumped into the arena, hat in hand and a grin on his face. “Ma’am, I’m sure I speak for Mort—and us all—when I say that we’re pleased to welcome you with open arms.”
CHAPTER TWO
THIS WAS NOT HAPPENING.
From his perch on the platform, Travis stared in disbelief at the scene unfolding below him. Not only had Mort let that girl on Hallowed Ground without a helmet, not only was he going to let her on the Ranger Circuit, not only were the wives down there treating her like she was rodeo royalty—but now Mitch was also down there, bowing and scraping.
Or flirting. Knowing Mitch, he was laying the groundwork for another conquest. They didn’t call him the Heartbreak Kid for nothing.
That girl should not do this. Travis fumed as he watched her gather up her bull rope, shake Mort’s and then Mitch’s hands, and strut out like she owned the damned place. She moved with a grace he hadn’t seen in the arena before, which had the fringe on her sky-blue chaps billowing out behind her like eddies in a stream. It was a beautiful sight—those chaps cupping that backside, her long braid brushing against both of them—one he wanted to savor. She was something a man didn’t see in a bull-riding arena very often—beautiful.
She’d gotten lucky—Hallowed wasn’t on tonight, that was all. And that landing? A once-in-a-lifetime shot to hit the ground running.
No, there was no doubt in his mind that the next time out, she’d regret the day she set foot in an arena. She should not do this, plain and simple. To try again was certain death. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her die for riding bulls.
“Travis,” Randy Sloap said as he sidled up beside him, “what are you going to do?”
Randy was one of the younger riders, green and eager. Later, Travis would pound Mitch and his Poppa Bear comments into the ground, but that didn’t change the fact that Travis was the senior rider and a lot of these guys looked up to him. He had never been comfortable as a role model but it was a far sight better than the cult following Red was building over there.
Those men disgusted him. Seven guys talking and laughing and groping the hour-glass figure they were cutting through the air with their hands. The bulls weren’t the only things that were going to do that girl in. This was no place for her kind.
“Travis?” Randy was looking at him expectantly, thumbs stuck in his belt loops.
“I’m on it.” Travis scanned the arena—and spotted Mort headed for the front gate, where he’d set up his office in a broom closet. As fast as he could without limping, Travis climbed off the platform and took off.
Mort tried to shut the door in Travis’s face. Tried, and failed.
“You are not letting her on the circuit.” Travis slammed the door behind him. The piece of crap bounced right back open again, but he was too hot to care. “She does not belong here.”
“Travis, please.” Mort settled his sweaty bulk into the folding chair. “I don’t have a choice. If it were up to me, she’d be out of here—”
“Why isn’t it up to you? Ain’t you the boss around here?”
“She had a clean ride. She’s got her TCB permit—”
“She’s got her what?” How the hell had she gotten that?
Mort shuffled the papers on the folding card table. “Here—see? What can I do?”
“J. Spotted Elk,” the photocopy of the Total Championship Bulls membership card said. “Permit status.”
“J.!” That might work for lady writers, but it wouldn’t work here. It couldn’t. “You’re going to let that girl ride on a technicality?”
“Travis, I don’t know what you expect me to do. She even brought a copy of the application form—nowhere does it say ‘men only.’ She had a clean ride, her membership is in good standing and if I don’t let her ride, her uncle...” He let the sentence trail off as he fished out his bandanna and wiped off his forehead. “I’ve got to let her ride.”
“This is how he calls it in? What the hell did he do to make you let a girl ride on our circuit?”
Mort’s face went scarlet as his mouth opened and shut several times. “I— It— He— Look, Travis, this is just the way it is!”
“So that’s it? She rides next week in Texas because some guy pulled your fat from the fire?” Travis had spent two years clawing his way back to the break-even point, putting his body on the line every single weekend—and some pretty little thing was just going to waltz her way into the show on a wink and a favor? Hell, no. Not on his watch.
This had nothing to do with the “pretty” part, either. That’s what Travis told himself. He’d hate to see that face—or that body—messed up by one bad landing, though. One landing was all it took. Nobody knew that better than he did.
Finally, Mort managed to look like he had a spine. “Listen, Younkin, no one said you had to ride with her. Feel free to hobble off into the sunset like you should’ve done in the first place. You can try to talk her out of it, but I doubt you’ll have much luck—just like normal.”
Maybe it was a good thing Travis had hit his weak shoulder tonight, because the fact that he didn’t think he could get off a solid swing was the only thing holding him back. “You rat bastard—”
Mort threw up his hands to ward off the verbal blow. “Be reasonable, man! Didn’t you see the way those women flocked to her like she was a superstar?”
“So?”
“Think about it from my point of view! Don’t you remember that woman race-car driver? She ain’t even the best one out there, and she’s pulling them in!” Mort waved his arms like he was welcoming the women of the world into his office.
This wasn’t about applications or permits or even bull riding. And Mort just confirmed that fact as he went on. “All of a sudden, there’s a woman who rides with the men, and the wives and mothers and daughters are buying tickets to the show, buying pink girl-power T-shirts with her name on them, buying posters that she’ll autograph—”
“You’re going to let her kill herself for money?” Who was he kidding? Of course Mort would. He’d throw his own mother—walker and all—into the ring if he thought he could make a dime off it.
“Have you met the girl? I’m not gonna let her do anything.” Mort snorted. “Look. Either she’ll break a nail and go home, or she’ll do well. And if she does well, she could add to the gate.”
A percentage of the gate went to the take-home pay for the riders every night. That was why most of the guys here had chosen the TCB circuit as opposed to the rival rodeo outfit where calf roping and bronco busting were part of the competition. Here, a man could just ride a bull, and bigger crowds meant bigger checks.
If Mort explained it in those terms to the guys...well, most of them needed the money. Travis was one of the few who had a steady sponsorship and earned enough most weekends to make a living. As it stood now, he was nearing the money cutoff for the pro circuit. Not so for most of the other guys. They drove all night to get back to their jobs or ranches, worked all week and then did this every weekend. Sort of like playing Russian roulette as a hobby.
Travis wasn’t going to win this battle, not with Mort and probably not with the other guys— especially not with the Preacher and Mitch out there making her feel at home.
He was going to have to take this to the source.
“Fine. You believe she’s going to be your gravy train. But I’m warning you,” he said, grabbing the edges of the card table and shoving it hard enough that it bounced off Mort’s considerable girth, “if anything happens to her, I’m holding you personally responsible.”
The door still wouldn’t slam when Travis stalked out of the broom closet, but he gave it his best effort.
“Well?” Randy seemed to be speaking for the group of guys nervously milling around. “What’d he say?”
Travis tried not to snarl. They’d heard every word, no doubt. “I’m going to go talk to her.”
A few eyebrows went up.
“You guys agree that this isn’t a safe place for a woman, right?”
“Sure,” Randy said as heads halfheartedly nodded. “We don’t want her to get hurt, but...” Standing behind him, Garth, another rider, elbowed him in the ribs. “Is it true, what Mort said about the gate?”
Travis could feel the last of his cool slipping away. “We all know that she’s not going to make us rich, Randy. I don’t want her blood on my hands.”
Randy looked doubtful. “So you’re going to talk her out of it?”
Someone in the back snorted. “Good luck with that!”
“I’ll handle it,” Travis said with more force. “You guys go on and have a good time tonight. Watch out for the buckle bunnies, okay? They can be brutal in this town.” He knew that from personal experience. That had been a long time ago—must be almost seven years now.
Seven years ago, he’d been a green rider with a lot of promise, just like some of these guys. He hadn’t been too crazy his first year, but he’d drunk most of his winnings and woke up in plenty of strange beds with stranger women.
That hadn’t happened in a great while. No one wanted a man who looked like Frankenstein. Especially not pretty women who could ride bulls.
Wait—where the hell had that thought come from? He shook it away. He had a job to do here, one that did not involve female bull riders in a state of undress.
The remaining guys began to place bets on who would go home with which bunny and who could drink who under the table. Just kids, he reminded himself as they headed back toward the collection of secondhand cars and trucks parked in the back. Normally, he’d shadow along, keep an eye out for trouble, make sure whoever got the drunkest got somewhere safe to sleep. But not tonight.
He had to go looking for trouble. And her name was June.
He headed back out to the parking lot. Calm down, he told himself. If he lost his head, he might do something stupid, like grab her again, and this time, without bystanders, she might break his arm.
And if she broke his arm, then he’d never get the chance to finish his big comeback—to prove to the world that he wasn’t a cripple who should have hobbled off into the sunset, broken and forgotten. To prove that he hadn’t lost a thing to that damned bull. Travis was still one of the best in the world. He just had to prove it the hard way.
By God, he’d spent too long rehabbing his broken body and then working his way back up from the very bottom of the bull-riding circuits to have his plans blown to hell and back all because some pretty girl wanted to ride with the big boys.
And the fact that she was beautiful? Nothing but an unwelcome distraction. Distractions got a man killed out there. Hell, distractions had already almost gotten him killed once—when he’d caught his girlfriend, Barb, making eyes at Chet Murphy right before Travis had gotten on that damn bull, No Man’s Land. He’d paid dearly for wondering what the hell she was doing.
He couldn’t allow another woman to distract him. Not ever again.
He stopped, took a deep breath and pushed Barb far from his mind. He sure as hell wasn’t going to get upset about her again, not when he hadn’t even seen her in three years.
Once he was calm, he focused on keeping his gait even. It wasn’t easy. He wished again he had landed on his right side tonight. Every part of his body on the left was screaming in agony, from the wire mesh in his jaw to the rods in his leg. He needed to take an ice bath and a Percocet as soon as possible, because he had to get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow and put in an appearance at True West Western Wear, his sponsor.
Not too many guys actually had sponsors at this level—Red had Red Bull, of course, but Red also wasn’t going to stay in the minor leagues that much longer. Within a year or two—sooner, if Travis couldn’t keep his stuff together—Red would be up in the bigs, riding with the real pros—just like Travis had been doing three years ago.
Before the rods and wires and Percocet.
But that girl had a sponsor—her vest had a huge America’s Real Pride Beef patch sewn right on the back. Not even a winner, and someone was paying her to ride.
Where was she? He scanned the lot before he saw the lone white car, parked on the far side, away from the lights. He didn’t see her, per se, but the dome light in the car was on. Most of the guys had parked back on the other side, closer to the bulls and away from the general crowd. How clueless was she? Didn’t she know that she needed to be in a well-lit area so people didn’t sneak up on her?
Like he was doing now?
He couldn’t make out where she was, but she had to be around. No one wandered off from a car with the door open.
“Listen, uh...” He fumbled around for the right thing to call her. “Miss, we need to talk,” he said, hoping his words gave her enough warning.
As he came up alongside the car, a fury of barking erupted from the backseat, and suddenly a dog’s head lunged out of the partially open window. Okay, maybe she already had some protection. This thing didn’t even look like a dog. It looked more like a wolf had gotten together with a fox and produced some sort of devil’s spawn. Even the faint light from the distant streetlamp was enough to catch the slobber on those killer teeth.
“Jeff!” At the sound of June’s voice, the dog reduced his volume to a steady growl, but its nose followed Travis as he stepped forward. Mental note, he said to himself as he tried to locate June from her voice, do not piss off the hellhound—named Jeff?
Then he found her on the far side of the car, in the field that bordered the parking lot. All he saw was a wide sheet of hair so black that it made the sky look bright at this time of night. It was like she was trying to hide.
“You move quiet for a white man, Travis. And my name is June.”
He caught a glimpse of a white-clad bottom that curved out from one side of that hair curtain. Compared to the darkness of her hair, that backside was a blinking neon light that demanded a guy look at it. And look he did.
She had a fine backside. Even better in a simple pair of panties than when it had been cradled by her chaps....
He shouldn’t be looking. Not why he was here.
He took a step backward—right into range of the now-snapping jaws of Jeff.
Jeans slid over the whiteness, leaving him both relieved and disappointed that he hadn’t gotten a better look.
“Jeff! Cool it!” she ordered, apparently unconcerned with the fact that Travis had chosen the moment she was changing to barge in on her.
The dog acted like it was listening. His trap snapped shut, but apparently nothing would stop the throaty growl. The animal’s reaction was like something out of a movie—the Indian princess at one with the forest creatures.
Before he knew what he was doing, Travis’s mouth opened. “What kind of Indian are you?” The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
“Gee, what gave it away?” He could almost hear the eye roll behind that hair. “Was it the hair? The brown skin? The last name? Most people get it from the last name, you know.”
“No, you just—”
“Just what? Trained my dog to listen? Please.” She snorted in derision. “I do not have a telepathic link with animals. I do not shape-shift into eagles. I do not dance with the wolves.” She sounded irritated, sure, but not like she was going to kill him. He relaxed a bit. “I’m not ‘some’ kind of Indian. I’m a Lakota Sioux, a full-blooded Lakota woman. Can you handle that?”
Was she lecturing him on political correctness? Well, he had that coming. “Sure. I’ll make sure to remember that. Lakota. Sioux.”
She was still hiding behind that sheet of hair, nearly invisible in the darkness. He was afraid to look again—what if she still wasn’t completely dressed? A hit of adrenaline rushed into his blood at the thought.
“Something you needed to get off your chest, Mr. Younkin?”