Wound Tight: A Rough Riders/Blacktop Cowboys Crossover Read online

  “Your turn,” Lana prompted, nudging Callie’s boot with her own.

  “Sorry I drifted for a minute. What were you talking about again?”

  “Growin’ up and getting bit by the rodeo bug,” Deke said. “It’s odd that neither you nor Lana competed but here you are, workin’ at a rodeo school.” He squeezed Lana’s hand. “Russian girl gets a pass since rodeo ain’t a thing over there, but you know your way around livestock and you’ve got that kickass cowgirl attitude.”

  She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Aw, thanks, Deke. My mom says I was born horse crazy and ‘boots’ was my first word. When I was four my dad got injured during bulldogging, and my mom claims he wasn’t the same afterward. Took him a few years to recover and when he was healthy enough to compete, he hit the road again.” She sipped the honey mead. “He fell asleep at the wheel driving between competitions and left my mom a widow with an eight-year-old and four-year-old twins. We’d been living in Buffalo Gap, where Dad worked as a hired hand, and Mom filled in for him on the weekends he was competing, but after he died we had to move. We lived with who’d ever take us for the first year. That’s the way things played out until Mom got a job bartending in Kearney. I watched my sisters when she worked and babysat other kids in the trailer court when she was home. Then Mom fell the winter I turned sixteen and broke both of her wrists, forcing us to move again. We ended up in Grand Island where Mom’s uncle owned a bar. Since it was a family business, I could work there without restrictions, but I had to drop out of high school. Didn’t leave any time for rodeo pursuits but I did get my GED. I stayed to help out financially until my sisters were seniors in high school. Then I moved here.” She smirked at Deke. “I’ll expect a fifty-fifty royalty split on any down-on-your-luck country songs you write based on my early life.”

  “Holy shit, Callie,” Lana said. “How didn’t I know any of this about you?”

  She shrugged. “It’s in the past. I was happy to move on and get to make my own future.”

  “Girl, you’ve gotta have bitterness toward the rodeo life that took so much away from you,” Jerry said.

  “Actually, I don’t. My folks loved bein’ on the road when my dad was winning.” She fiddled with the lid of her paper cup. “But I’ll admit there’s a disconnect for me with people who refuse to give up the dream. I’m not talking about guys and gals who compete for fun on the weekends and hang out at the rodeo grounds with their friends. I’m talking about the ones who can’t accept it’s time to stop and get a real job. The true ramblin’ men. Working odd jobs, saving up enough money for gas and entry fees and then they’re off again, striving for that perfect ride, the shortest time, and the biggest purse.” She looked at Jerry. “You know guys like that.”

  “Not as many of ’em as I used to,” he admitted. “Hard drinkin’ and hard livin’ takes a toll. That and car wrecks.” He froze. “Sorry, I said that without thinkin’.”

  “It’s the truth though.”

  Silence stretched as the fire crackled.

  “Didn’t mean to be Debbie Downer,” Callie said.

  “You weren’t. I think we’re all tired.” On cue, Deke and Lana stood up too.

  “Gonna be an early one tomorrow, so I’ll help you deal with the fire.”

  Justin stepped from the shadows.

  Callie almost jumped out of her skin. How long had he been lurking there?

  He smiled briefly at Jerry and then his eyes were locked on hers. “You guys go on. I’ll hang out with Callie for a while and make sure the fire gets put out.”

  Chapter Six

  Justin didn’t speak to her until everyone was gone. “Surprised to see me?”

  “I figured you’d come around…or you wouldn’t.”

  He sat across from her. “What’d you say to me the other night? Don’t be dismissive?”

  “I’m not.” She looked at him. “I’ve been the decisive one. I told you where I stand and what I want. You’re the one who needed time to wrap his head around our little age difference thingy.”

  Little age difference thingy.

  He realized she wasn’t being flip. It really didn’t matter to her.

  “Well, sweetness, I’m surprised to see you. Don’t you work at the bar on Saturday nights?”

  “Don’t remind me.” She kicked a log, sending a shower of orange sparks shooting skyward. “I’m in the penalty box tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “The manager is teaching me a lesson. I wasn’t supposed to perform any solo dances last night.”

  “Dancing for me got you in trouble?”

  “A, I wasn’t dancing just for you.” She sighed. “Okay, that was a lie, I was totally dancing for you because you pissed me off and I wanted to show off.”

  “You certainly did that.” He paused. “Good song choice, by the way.”

  “It was that or ‘Go Away Little Girl’ but I don’t have a routine worked out for that one since it’s ancient.”

  Justin threw back his head and laughed.

  When he glanced over at Callie, she wore the oddest expression. “What?”

  “Do you have any idea how sexy you are, Justin Donohue?”

  He sent her an arch look. “If you think I’m all that, then why in the hell are you sitting so far away from me?”

  In the next breath, she wasn’t.

  Callie snuggled herself right into his lap and draped the blanket over both of them. Then she nestled her face against his throat and sighed.

  I feel the same way, baby girl.

  They were content to stay like that, not speaking, watching the fire. A sense of peace that he hadn’t felt in years rolled over him.

  Sometime later, Callie broke the silence. “How long were you standing in the shadows?”

  “Long enough.”

  “So you heard everything. About my childhood.”

  “Yeah.”

  “At least I won’t have to explain it twice.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “It’s been a rough go for you for a long time.”

  “Most of my life. But…it wasn’t that bad. I mean, I don’t know a different life. My mom did the best she could. I never ever doubted she loved me and my sisters. I never doubted she wished life would’ve been better. Even with all the struggles, the one thing she refused to do was look for a new husband for herself and a new daddy for us. Even I knew that might’ve made things easier, but it might’ve made things worse, too. She’s an attractive lady, so it wasn’t like she didn’t have offers.” She shifted to get more comfortable. “But she swears my dad really was ‘the one’ for her, her soul mate, all that romantic bullshit people believe.”

  “You don’t believe it?”

  “I’ve never seen it, never experienced it, so I have a helluva hard time believing it exists.”

  Such cynicism at twenty-two. Would she feel the same way when she was his age?

  “Mom was always honest with me. Probably too honest. She didn’t have anyone else to talk to, so she talked to me. It bothered her that my dad was the love of her life, but the love of his life was the rodeo.”

  The sadness in her tone ripped at him.

  She kept talking. “I remember more of him than my sisters do. But that also means I’m angrier about him dyin’ and leaving us destitute.” She swallowed hard. “Mom cried over him for years. Years, Justin. So the thing of it is, I remember my mom being this warm, happy, fun person when he was alive. After he died, he took that part of her with him and I hated him for that. I still do.”

  Justin rested his check on the top of her head. “Aw, sweetness, I’m sorry.”

  “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Sure.”

  “Tell me about your family.”

  Of course she’d wanna open that can of worms to see if his wounds were as deep as hers. “My older brother Jack lives in Wyoming with his wife and their four kids. My mom splits her time between Wyoming and Arizona.”

  “And your d
ad?”

  “Died of a heart attack years ago when I was in my twenties.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “Some days. My mom misses him and that gets to me. But she’s much like your mom, I doubt she’ll ever remarry. She’s got her grandkids, two houses, and time to travel, which is an entirely different life than when she and Dad lived on the farm. Dad worked all the time and so by default, as a farm wife, so did she.”

  “She didn’t stay on the farm after he died?”

  His thoughts returned to that cold winter night that he and Jack and his mom sat around the table in the kitchen, in shock that Marvin Donohue was really gone forever.

  After the funeral, it’d been a bigger shock to find out that Marvin had borrowed so heavily against the equity in the farm to keep it afloat that the bank basically owned it.

  Jack had hemorrhaged money into a losing endeavor, which went against his every instinct as a businessman. But their mom had no other place to go and she was lost in grief that they couldn’t rip her away from the only home she’d known for over thirty years.

  “Justin?” Callie touched the side of his face, bringing him back to the present.

  He looked down at her and kissed her furrowed brow. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t relive the past in your head. I showed you my scars. It’s time to show me yours.”

  “Bossy brat.”

  She nipped his chin. “We were talking about what happened to the farm after your dad died, if your memory is failing you, old timer.”

  Christ. The mouth on her.

  He told her about the farm being in the red and possible foreclosure. “Since Jack used his money to pay off the bank notes we were unaware of, I figured the least I could do was move home, take care of my mom and the farm.”

  “That’s when you dropped out of the PBR for a while?”

  “How’d you know about that?”

  “Your Wiki page.”

  “I have a Wiki page?”

  “Dude. Repeat after me…Google is your friend.”

  “Smart ass.” He paused. “It’s weird that someone I don’t know knows enough stuff about my life to post it online.”

  “I’m pretty sure your page is tied to the PBR main page, that’s why the information is current.”

  “That’d make sense.” But it still made him uneasy that anyone could add things to his page at any time without his knowledge or consent.

  She nudged him. “Tell me more about your farmer days. Did you wear overalls without a shirt when you were out plowing up shit on your John Deere?”

  “Honestly, I don’t remember. I blocked a lot of that time out.” A lie. He’d hated every goddamned minute of being a farmer. “One day Mom took me aside and said she knew the truth that I didn’t want to be there—that I’d never wanted to farm for a livin’ despite what I’d told my dad and my brother. She confessed she didn’t want to be there anymore either. But because Jack believed keepin’ the farm meant the world to both of us, we couldn’t tell him. We phased ourselves out of the farming business slowly to make sure that’s what we both wanted. We leased the land out, Mom started to travel with some of her friends, and I got back into the bull riding circuit on the lower tier.”

  “What did your brother do when he found out?”

  “Nothin’. I’m pretty sure we never fooled him. We kept the farm for a few more years, then we sold it.”

  “Was that a nice chunk of money for you?”

  Warning bells went off. That was the kind of question a gold-digger asked.

  The tiny part of him that remained hopeful assured him that Callie wasn’t that kind of girl.

  His cynicism roared back, But she is a girl, isn’t she? A girl who’s had a rough life and maybe she told you her sob story because she’s looking for a man to take care of her. Maybe that’s why she’s so insistent that the age difference doesn’t bother her. And how much can you truly know about her character in only three days?

  “Sorry. Forget I asked.”

  He chose his words carefully. “No, it’s fine. I didn’t see a dime of it. There wasn’t much left after Jack recouped his money. The rest went to Mom.”

  “Ah. Gotcha.”

  “Anyway, the break improved my riding. Within six months, I jumped back to the top fifty and spent the next seven years livin’ my life eight seconds at a time.”

  “Do you miss competing?”

  “I miss the rush of bein’ on the back of a bull and not knowing what’ll happen. I don’t miss all the bullshit that went along with being a bull rider. Don’t miss that at all.”

  “I used to follow the PBR when I lived in Nebraska. On TV, anyway. But I only got to watch it if it came on during my shift at the bar.”

  “Who was your favorite rider?”

  “Guillherme Marchi.”

  Justin nodded. “Guy could ride. Good guy off the dirt too.”

  “It’s weird to think you personally know the guys I’ve only ever seen on TV.”

  Another comment that sent those warning bells ringing again.

  Her eyes lit up. “But I met a famous bull rider once. I was a flower girl at a wedding in Wyoming, some friend of my parents from a big ranching family. He was a cousin of the groom. I was like five, but I clearly remember swooning when he said I’d done a good job throwing them petals.”

  When she was five, you were twenty-three—a year older than she is right now.

  Shut it, stupid mental math. Where had that fast addition been when he’d needed it in high school?

  “I still remember his name, although he was done competing by the time I got interested in the sport.”

  “Who was the bull rider?”

  “Chase McKay.”

  Jesus.

  “You know him?”

  Justin started to tell her they’d been traveling partners on the circuit for years, but changed his mind. “Yeah. We competed at the same time. In fact, my sister-in-law Keely was a McKay before she married Jack. She and Chase are cousins.” Something occurred to him. “Hey, I’ll bet the wedding was for Keely’s brother—”

  They said “Carter” at the same time and laughed.

  “Small world, ain’t it?” she said.

  “It’s about to get smaller when I tell you that Carter McKay is Jack’s best friend.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Were you at that wedding?”

  He shook his head.

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t want you looking at me now and trying to reconcile it with seeing me as a little girl in a fluffy dress.”

  With the hungry way she was looking at him? Not a chance in hell that was going through his head.

  Callie continued to stare at him as she rubbed the tips of her fingers through the scruff on his cheeks.

  “What?”

  “Do we know enough of each other’s backstories now that we can get naked together?”

  Justin turned his head and scraped his teeth across the base of her thumb. “Got a bucket of cold water handy?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “If you’re not interested in fucking, you can just say no. You don’t have to threaten to dump cold water on me—”

  He kissed her, but he was smiling too much to make it more than a quick peck. “Sweetness, the cold water ain’t for you. Or for me. It’s to dump on the fire.”

  “Oh. Uh, I think there’s a cooler of ice under the picnic bench.” She scrambled off his lap.

  “I’ll get it.” He pushed out of the chair. “Keep that blanket away from the fire. When you go up in flames, I want it to be from my touch.”

  Her eyes took on a sensual, slumberous haze but she didn’t say a single word.

  Callie remained quiet and watchful as he doused the fire.

  There wasn’t sexy chatter between as she led him to her camper.

  And when they were inside her cozy bedroom space, they were too busy mauling each other to talk.

&nbs
p; The kisses were hard and wet and impatient.

  Slow it down, buddy.

  He ignored that warning and stripped to his boxers. Then he tugged Callie between his legs as he sat on the edge of her bed and watched as she peeled off her shirt. He couldn’t get his mouth on her tits fast enough and she accidentally elbowed him in the face when she reached around to unhook her bra.

  “Sorry. I’m just…”

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  Justin groaned and bent to take her nipple in his mouth, twining his tongue around the tip, stopping to suck hard, and then starting all over again on the other side. Had he ever truly appreciated being with a young woman with firm, perky, luscious breasts? Even when he’d been a clueless kid in his twenties?

  That’s what you’re thinking about? Why don’t you take your creepy old man thoughts and tell her you’re happy her boobs haven’t started to sag yet like the older chicks you’ve fucked?

  He shook his head to clear it and ended up motorboating her.

  Not sexy or cool at all, old man.

  What the hell was up with the running commentary from his subconscious?

  She squeezed his shoulders for balance as he pushed her pants down the curve of her ass and past her knees. Stepping out of her jeans, she paused in front of him, acting a little shy.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said gruffly.

  If you’d taken the time to get to know her before fucking her, you wouldn’t even have to ask her.

  “You have a condom?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “Yep.”

  “Put it on.”

  Is she impatient because she wants to get this over with?

  Shut up, stupid play by play.

  “Spread your legs first,” he urged. As soon as she complied, he brought her down to his thigh. “Rub yourself off. I wanna watch.”

  Callie started kissing up his neck, stopping at his ear. “I don’t want to get myself off. I want you to get me off. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

  “Stretch out on the bed.”

  When he found the condom in his jeans pocket, he dropped it twice before he got ahold of the package enough to rip it open and put it on.