Cowboy Strong. Kelli Ireland

cake, extra powdered sugar, and a large lemonade.”

      Ty stepped around the corner of the trailer. “Thank you, ma’am.” He tipped his hat to her before tucking the plastic cup between his arm and body, juggling the grease-stained paper plate in his hands.

      If he ever met a woman who could whip these up for him? His single days would be over. For regular funnel cake access, even he would consider marriage.

      A large barn fan kicked on and swept away the extra powered sugar. Ty clutched his plate tighter as the dense cloud of sugary goodness dissipated in the air.

      Ty tore off a wedge of the hot treat and shoved it in his mouth. Sucking in a breath at the burn, he inhaled a lungful of powdered sugar. All the willpower in the world couldn’t stop him from choking. He coughed hard and blew out what looked like a face full of illegal substance all over the back of a nearby cowboy’s dark denim shirt.

      Oops.

      Still, he wasn’t about to let something as ridiculous as a second-degree burn to the mouth or a personal confrontation destroy the pleasure of the first bite. There was something about rodeos that just made funnel cakes taste better.

      He glanced around and let the sights, sounds and smells momentarily take him over. Man, he loved rodeos. Listening to the scratchy amplification of the announcer’s voice boom over the subtle, hive-like hum of the crowded stable area, Ty thought that was probably how God sounded as He called out the scores for those entering heaven horseback. And if, for some reason, Ty couldn’t enter heaven horseback? He wasn’t sure he wanted to go.

      Shod hooves hit the dirt pack with sharp clips as owners unloaded horses nearby. Others were arranging stalls, wiping down hides until they shone under the lights and generally working with their animals. Some—both animals and owners alike—were high-strung. Others were old pros, comfortable with the routine common to every competition. Even one with stakes as high as this. The banter between the cowboys, half bragging and half bullshit, resulted in sharp laughs now and again.

      Ty relaxed a bit.

      He wandered into the community barn and stopped in front of the stall he’d been assigned. Shifting to lean against the bottom half of the Dutch door, he chewed rapidly and tried to breathe with more care—in through the nose, out through the mouth. His eyes still watered enough his vision blurred. Yeah, he could’ve taken a big swallow of lemonade, but he wasn’t a wuss. Besides, some things were simply sacrosanct. Funnel cakes were up there on that list, so he’d eat his cake like a grown man or not at all.

      Gingerly shifting the paper plate around, he took a second bite. The first burn was bad enough that the second and then third hardly registered. Glancing around, he took a healthy swallow of lemonade, his shoulders sagging as the cold assuaged the scalding heat.

      Still not a wuss, since no one witnessed the momentary weakness.

      A dark velvet nose slipped over his shoulder and huffed, sending the plate—and the treat—flipping end over end out of his hand. The plate rolled away and came to a stop next to a bale of hay. The delicacy hit the hard-packed dirt with a thwap—facedown.

      Tyson glanced over his shoulder at the big, wide eyes—one brown, one blue—doing their best to appear innocent and full of curiosity. He scowled. “Don’t look at me as if you were being deprived, you big mule. You know I would’ve shared a bite when it cooled off.”

      The horse flapped his lips at his owner in a not-so-subtle demand.

      Fighting a grin, Ty picked up the cake and retrieved the plate, gently slapping the two together to knock away most of the dirt before tearing off dusty chunks and feeding them to his horse, Doc Bar’s Dippy Zippy Gizmo. But as far as the ladies were concerned, he went by Gizmo. The stud horse had the disposition of a labradoodle crossed with a bullmastiff—gentle, playful, loving and strong as an ox with a heart that just wouldn’t quit. He was also developing quite the reputation with breeders in the area for passing on both his disposition and superior skills to his get. Demand had become so intense eighteen months ago that Ty had put the horse on a breeding hiatus. He hadn’t wanted to, but he couldn’t keep up the breeding demand and the competitive circuit. One or the other had to give.

      The stud horse was only six years old. On the fringes of entering his prime, as far as competition went, and the idea of pulling him off the rodeo circuit when he’d really begun to shine seemed incredibly unfair to both of them. They’d worked hard to earn the points, and money, necessary to make it onto the pro roster. That had been followed by hard work and a lot of long hours in the truck and trailer as they traversed the country, attending every event they could. The end goal had always been the same—earning a spot on the National Cutting Horse Association national finals roster and a chance at the more than four million dollars in prize money.

      It still didn’t feel real.

      Winning would entitle Ty to demand premiums for Gizmo’s stud services, to be even more selective in breeding and creating the Covington line of Quarter horses, a line he’d named Bar None. Like Doc Bar before him, Gizmo was the seat of what Ty was determined would go down in the Quarter Horse Hall of Fame as one of the finest lines ever.

      He didn’t want to create a mass-market Quarter horse. He wanted exclusivity, a name for his horse and himself, a legacy that would make him his own man, no longer overshadowed by his brothers.

      Ty was pulled from his thoughts as a crowd of spectators walked by the stables discussing the horses and their odds. It didn’t matter that it was December in Fort Worth, Texas. People from around the world had flown in for this. They’d hang out, see the city’s sights and spend a little money. But come tomorrow, these same people would be in the stands, cheering on the stars of the rodeo circuit.

      On the streets, limousines ferried international horse breeders and buyers—men and women who Ty hoped would come out to watch Gizmo in action and see what Ty had worked so hard to cultivate in the genetics program he’d started in his teens. They would watch with the open intent of either investing capital in Ty’s program or passing on him.

      No. Pressure.

      Ty shook his head. Thinking that way gained him nothing. What he needed to do was focus on Gizmo, keep him healthy and happy and energized. The horse was nearly psychic. If he sensed Ty was off, the two would end up out of sync, and that wouldn’t serve either of them well. That meant Ty had to find that inner place where he could simply exist, the place he’d spent so much time as a child, the place no one could reach him.

      But his mind threw one more curveball before he could shut himself down. What if he actually took the top title? The little bit of funnel cake he’d eaten wadded up into a thick lump and sank deep in his gut, settling like a ship’s anchor. If he won, the recognition would take him places he’d dreamed of going all his life.

      Ty studied his horse with a critical eye. Known as a grullo, Gizmo was a rare dun color—deep blue-gray body; black mane, tail and leg markings; a black dorsal stripe; and a pale face mask. Gizmo often sired colts with dun coloring thanks to a rare genetic marker, and as his predictability in colt color went up, so did the stud fees Ty could charge. Grullos were rare. Every dime of that money helped fund Ty’s breeding program as well as his ability to travel the rodeo circuit and pay the exorbitant entry fees, not to mention helping cover the costs of hiring extra cowboys to cover him at his family’s dude ranch. But what mattered most was Gizmo. Ty had loved the lunk since the colt had taken to following him around only a few days after birth.

      “Doesn’t seem to matter where we are. I always find you making moon eyes at that damn horse,” said a highly familiar, decidedly feminine voice, coming from a dozen or so feet to his left.

      Ty’s lips twitched as his body came to life, fueled by raw awareness. “Not true.”

      “How do you figure?”

      He ran his fingers into Gizmo’s forelock and scratched. The horse’s eyes drifted half closed. Ty glanced toward his stable neighbor, lifting a single brow as he offered a lazy smile. “Sometimes he makes moon eyes at me.”

      Mackenzie