One Rodeo Season. Sarah M. Anderson

about nearly the same thing? No.

      She did not hook up and she did not hang out, not with bull riders or fighters or stock contractors. That was that.

      She pushed away from the chute and went to get her animals. She could not afford to be distracted by a bullfighter with a testosterone imbalance. She had a ranch to save and contracted bulls to deliver. Anything outside of that was...

      Well, it was unlike her. Dale and Linda Evans’s daughter did not allow distractions.

      But even as she thought it, sadness gripped her. Sure, Dale and Linda’s daughter didn’t hook up.

      But Lacy wasn’t their daughter, not really.

      The lump was back and breathing was difficult. The only thing that kept her from falling apart was the sheer number of people milling around. She would not cry or weep or, God help her, sob. Cowgirls didn’t cry. Certainly not in public, anyway. She was not weak.

      She got to her truck and sat there for a few minutes, taking deep breaths until the lump passed and she had things back under control. She drove over to the pens. It was really a two-person job but she wasn’t about to ask for help. Besides, she’d been loading bulls since she was a kid. She could do this. She had to.

      “Come on,” she grunted at Rattler. He lowered his head and bellowed. Lacy glared at him. “I’m not the one who grounded you. Don’t take it out on me. Now get up!”

      Rattler gave her a look and blew snot in her face and walked into the trailer. Peachy followed his traveling buddy, thank God.

      Slim and his “pretty little thing” could go to hell. She could do this—deliver her bulls and get them back home. She could do the job—which meant she could keep her ranch.

      She climbed into the cab of her dad’s F-350 and fired up the engine. No, this wasn’t his truck anymore. He’d been gone for seven months now. The truck, the bulls, the Straight Arrow and every single bill were hers now. Distantly, she thought she might be hungry. When was the last time she’d eaten? No lunch today. Had she had breakfast? Well, she’d eat when she got home.

      Hays, Kansas, was only about six hours from the Straight Arrow, which sat between Cheyenne and Laramie, Wyoming, although it was closer to Laramie. Laramie was where her mom had taught second grade and, therefore, where Lacy had gone to school.

      The Straight Arrow was set on the high plains near the base of the Laramie range. The winter held lots of snow for forts and snowball fights. In the summer, the Laramie River was only a short horse ride from the house. It didn’t matter that the river never got much above sixty degrees, even in the warmest part of the year. Lacy would ride out and jump in again and again until her lips were practically blue, and then she’d lie out in the sun until she warmed up. Or until her mom rang the dinner bell. Then they’d all sit around the table and talk about the day before they watched the movies her dad had loved so much.

      She’d never have that back, that sense of perfect belonging. It was gone now. The only part of her life still recognizably hers was this—bulls in the trailer, sitting in the truck, driving home from a rodeo.

      God, she missed her parents. She missed being their daughter.

      She was so lost in thought that she didn’t see the tall figure in a white T-shirt flagging her down until she almost ran into him. But the man stepped to the side, neatly avoiding having his toes squashed, just as he’d avoided Rattler’s horns.

      Lacy slammed on the brakes—at least she’d only been going about ten miles per hour. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to stop. “Dammit!”

      Because it was Chief again. The pain in her neck, come back for more.

      He leaned against her driver’s-side mirror and waited for her to roll the window down, looking cool and graceful and hot all at once, dang it.

      She lowered her window. “What now?”

      “I’m sorry about the bull,” he said. “I’ll pay for any treatment he needs.”

      She blinked at him. “What?”

      “The bull.” He shifted and she realized the white T-shirt he was wearing was soaked through. It clung to his body, highlighting muscles and more muscles and then, down a little lower...

      Chief cleared his throat, making Lacy startle. “Is he okay?” he asked again.

      She needed to come up with something that wouldn’t have her breaking down in grateful tears that Rattler was, in fact, okay. It would be best if that something she came up with didn’t let Chief off the hook or give away the fact that she was having a hard time not looking at his chest. “I won’t know for sure until the vet checks him out.” There.

      “Let me know.”

      She nodded in agreement and waited for him to move back, but he didn’t. “Yes?”

      The corner of his mouth curved up into the kind of smile women like her didn’t often get from men like him—confident and sensual and interested. If Lacy had been a normal single woman, it was the kind of smile that would make her want to melt into his arms and kiss him.

      But she wasn’t a normal single woman. She had responsibilities.

      “We got off on the wrong foot. I’m Ian Tall Chief.” He stuck out his hand.

      And waited while Lacy looked at it. “Are you serious?”

      He dropped his hand, looking offended. “Did I look like I was joking?”

      Oh, hell—had that come out wrong? She wasn’t trying to make fun of his name. Actually, given that everyone called him Chief, she was relieved to hear that was not some sort of derogatory nickname.

      So she clarified, “I’m not interested. I don’t hook up.”

      That got both eyebrows up and moving as his face relaxed.

      “Are you serious?”

      “Look,” she said in exasperation, “I know how this goes. There are two kinds of men here. The first doesn’t think a woman like me should be anywhere near a bull because we might do better than them and that would obviously be the end of the world. The second thinks I’m nothing but a one-night stand that hasn’t happened yet.” She pointed a finger at him. “Guess which one you are.”

      His lips—nice lips, rounded and full and— No, stop it, Lacy. She was not going to start thinking about his lips, which were twisting as if he was thinking about laughing at her but trying not to.

      Unfortunately, in trying so hard not to stare at his mouth, her gaze drifted back down to his chest. The wet T-shirt left nothing to the imagination. Pecs, nipples—

      She snapped her gaze to the front windshield. She wouldn’t look at him. That was the best solution.

      “Have you considered,” Ian Tall Chief said in an amused drawl, “that there might be another kind of man here?”

      “No.”

      “What’d that old man say to you?”

      “What?”

      Ian leaned forward. “Before I got there to back you up. What’d he say?”

      “Look,” Lacy said in frustration, “it’s really not a big deal.”

      Ian dropped his head to one side. “That’s not what it looked like to me. It looked like he was threatening you. Sounded like it, too. Does he always go after you like that or was today a special occasion?”

      She tried to shrug, as if another verbal battle with Slim Smalls was no big deal. “I appreciate you trying to help, but I can handle it.”

      Ian snorted. “You shouldn’t have to ‘handle’ it.”

      She glared at him. “I was doing fine without your help, Mr. Tall Chief. I can handle Slim. I can handle my bulls. I’m not some silly girl who’s