COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (171 page)

Chapter Four             

              “You got yourself a little firecracker there, boy,” Buck Lloyd said as Caleb helped him wash up after the big family dinner.  “Just as pert as she is pretty, and fast, too.  I saw her daddy ride in the rodeo some years back, I think.  Same smile.”

Caleb glanced over at the open doorway before he said, “Buck, somebody’s trying to hurt her.  Messing with her gear and such.  I know everyone who was competing against her, and none of them had a reason.  Prizes are too small to tempt any fool wanting to cheat.”

“Then it’s something else.”  The old trail cook handed him a washed plate to dry.  “If she ain’t got a boyfriend, and she’s on good terms with her people, then it’s probably money.”

“Harper’s manager got pissed when she talked about taking a break from the circuit.”  Caleb leaned against the counter.  “He’d have access to all her gear.  But why would he want her to compete if he meant to hurt her?  If she doesn’t ride, he doesn’t earn anything.”

“Unless he found another way to profit,” Buck said, and nodded at Caleb’s shocked look.  “He might have been paid off by someone hoping to take her spot, or knock her out of the running for Nationals.  There’s big money at that level.  You should ask her about it.”

Caleb heard his brothers and Harper laughing in the next room.  “If I can ever get her away from the boys.”

“Take her with you when you ride out to check the herds in the south pasture,” Buck suggested.  “That’s the prettiest part of the spread, and I’ll bet she’d like to see you in action.”

“Excuse me,” Harper said as she limped into the kitchen.  “May I use the phone?  I do need to let my manager know where I am.”

Caleb brought over the cordless extension.  As he went to finish helping with the dishes Harper made her call, and he couldn’t resist listening in.

“I’ll be staying here at Ghost Lake for tonight, but I am dropping out of the competition.”  She listened and then shook her head.  “No, I’m sorry, Brian, but I can’t keep risking my life like this.”  She scowled.  “What?  You can’t have me banned from the circuit.  I was injured today.  You know what, Brian?  Let’s make this real simple.  I quit, and you’re fired.”  She hung up the phone.

Caleb went to her.  “You okay, Red?”

“No.  I’ve never had to fire someone.”  She glanced at him.  “How did I do?”

“You scared me,” Buck said, making them both laugh.

“We need to get out of here for a while.  Want to take a ride with me?”  When she nodded, he went back out into the dining room.  Ethan, I’m going to take Harper with me for afternoon check.  Can she borrow Rosie?”

“If she feels up to it, sure.”  His oldest brother smiled at Harper.  “My paint’s nothing fancy, but she’s gentle and sure-footed, and lopes like gliding rocker.”

“My first competition horse was a paint,” she told him.  “I could do cartwheels on that mare’s back and she wouldn’t bat an eyelash.”

“You’re not too sore, are you?” Jessa asked.  “I can tape that ankle for you.”

“My man Caleb already did.”  Her dimples flashed as the other Boones eyed him.  “Don’t look so surprised.  He’s real handy.  If he keeps rescuing me I might even marry him and have his babies.”

Jonah choked on his coffee, while Thomas smiled broadly as he whacked him on the back. 

“Manners,” Liam, the steely-eyed brother, said.

Buck appeared in the doorway.  “Ms. Mason, that jackass you just fired called back.  I told him you were out riding herd check with Cal, and I might said for him to go jump in a lake.  My memory’s not what it used to be.”

“Thank you so much, Mr. Lloyd.”  Harper turned to Caleb.  “Maybe I will marry you after all.”

“Come on, before they start picking out a church.”  Caleb helped Harper up and let her lean on his arm as they headed out to the barn.  “You’re a troublemaker, aren’t you?”

She tucked her arm around his waist.  “Every blessed day of my life.” 

Harper admired the Boones’ stock horses, and took a minute to sweet-talk Pete before she picked out a saddle for Rosie. 

“I’ve seen that stallion before now,” she mentioned as Caleb helped her mount.  “I think he belonged to a barrel-racer on the circuit.”

“That might explain why he rockets from his stall every time we turn him out.”  Caleb eyed the fractious horse.  “This barrel-racer, was she a woman?”

Harper nodded.  “Amber Worth.  She got divorced a couple years ago, and no one’s seen her since.  I heard she had to sell off most of her competition stock.  Shame, too.  Tiny thing, like a jockey, but stronger than me.  Putting her on a horse was like giving it wings.”

              Riding across his family’s land with Harper made Caleb feel oddly complete, as if some unseen part of him he’d never known was missing had been put back.  She seemed just as happy as she admired their Holsteins and discussed the merits of competition horse breeds.

Once he’d finished the herd check, Caleb tethered their horses at the edge of the pasture.  Walking down with Harper to the bank of the creek, he spread out a blanket.

“I hope you’re not planning a picnic,” she warned as she stretched out on the plaid wool.  “Buck stuffed me to the gills with dinner.”

“No picnic.”  He took out the thermos of coffee and fried apple pies the cook had packed for them.  “Dessert by the water, madam.”

They shared the thermos cup as they nibbled on the crispy pastries and watched the sun scatter diamond light over the creek’s rushing waters.

“You’re lucky,” Harper told him.  “This is a beautiful place to live.  You and your brothers have really accomplished a lot, too.  Are you planning on staying?”

He shrugged.  “Some days I never want to step foot off the place.  Then there come times when I wish I could leave it behind, and see what else is out there.”

“You could do both,” she said as she stretched out on her side.  “Work the ranch for a few months, then go traveling.  I’m on the road six, eight months out of the year, so when I do get home I appreciate it more.  Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’ll do when I stop competing.”

Caleb lay down beside her.  “You could train rodeo horses.  Maybe set up your own ranch and breed them.”

“Speaking of breeding.”  She walked her fingers up his chest and brushed them against his lips.  “You want to help me work off a little dinner?”

He glanced down as she unfastened his belt and lowered his zipper.  “What did you have in mind, Red?”

“Just a little extra dessert.”  She slipped her hand inside to curl her fingers around his rock-hard shaft.

“Hmmm.  I don’t think I can wait for mine.”  Caleb opened and worked her jeans down to her knees, giving him more access to her damp little pussy.   

“Greedy man.”  She straddled him in reverse, pushing his jeans down and stroking his cock as he gripped her hips and kissed the back of her thighs. 

Caleb stroked her as she bent over to kiss his straining cockhead, and then brought her hips back to bury his mouth against her, licking his tongue from her clit to her rosebud and back again.

Harper let out a muffled sound of pleasure while she took him into her mouth, her head bobbing slowly.  The feel of her wet, soft mouth and clever tongue sent jolts of sensation through his groin.

Caleb had never had sex out of doors.  Feeling the sunlight pouring over them as she sucked his cock and he licked her pussy made everything take on a dreamy quality.

“Ah.”  She released him to shudder through an orgasm, and then went down on him to his root, gently caressing his tightening balls.

“Here it is, baby,” he murmured, and then bowed under her as his seed fountained into her mouth.

Harper dropped onto him, letting him glide from her lips with a sigh.  Caleb stroked her bottom and her lower back, his eyes closing as he drifted with the ebbing pleasure.

Harper climbed off him and sat up, looking all around them.  “Did you hear that?”

“Thunder,” he said, yawning a little.

“Cal, there’s not a cloud in the sky.”  Harper stood up, fastening her jeans before she turned full circle.  “It’s getting closer.  Is that a bunch of semis on the road?”

Now Caleb could hear it too, and it made him jump to his feet and yank up his jeans.  “We’ve got to get to the horses.  No, baby, leave all this stuff.”

              The sound of gun shots made her eyes widen.  “What is it?”

              “Stampede.”  Caleb scooped her up in his arms and ran.

Chapter Five                                                                                                                                         

              When Caleb got to the edge of the pasture, Harper cried out in alarm.  Both of the horses were gone, and a tsunami of cattle were rushing toward them.  She remembered him telling her there were over two thousand head in the herd.  Over three million pounds of frightened animal were running straight at them, and there was nowhere for them to go.

Caleb scooped up a coil of rope that had fallen from his saddle to the ground and looked all around them.  He tested a root sticking up from the ground, and peered up.  “If this doesn’t work, run down to the creek where it slopes downhill, and get behind that cluster of rocks by the water.”

She watched him testing the length with a throw on the ground.  “Caleb, what are you doing?”

“You ever play Tarzan when you were a kid?” he asked, hauling the rope back into a coil.  “Never mind.  Climb on my back.”

Harper nodded and clambered up onto him, gripping his shoulders tightly.  As soon as she had, he took the rope and tossed it straight up, catching a bare but sturdy branch fifty feet over their heads.  Pushing the toes of his boots under a thick root extruding from the ground, he began winding the rope around his hand and elbow, bowing the branch as he pulled it down toward the ground.

Now Harper could see what he meant to do.  “We’ll be catapulted into them.”

“Not if I get just the right amount of energy in the tension.”  He grunted as he wound it two more times.  “You hold onto me tight now.  We only get one chance at this.  I love you, Harper.”

“I love you, too, Cowboy.  But I’m not marrying you, and I’m not having babies.  Unless this works.  Then I might change my mind.”  Harper kissed the side of his neck as she watched the wave of cattle thundering toward them. 

At the last possible moment Caleb pulled his boots out from under the anchoring root.  The tree branch snapped back up into place, hauling both of them up to dangle a scant ten feet above the stampeding herd.

Once the cattle reached the creek, the downhill slope made the front line turn back, and what had been a deadly wave turned into a huge, seething mass of confusion.

Harper glanced down and saw bloody wounds on the flanks of some of the steers in the very back.  “Someone deliberately shot into the herd.  Who would do such a thing?”

“The only person who knew you were out here besides my family,” Caleb said, his expression grim.  “Brian.”

Three riders appeared on the fringe of the herd.  Ethan waded into the cattle looking all around him.  “Caleb?  Harper?”

“Up here,” Caleb said, and grinned down at his relieved-looking brother.  “You boys happen to bring a safety net with you?” 

#

              That night Jonah and Liam rode out with the coroner to recover the trampled body of Brian Montlake, which the Boones had discovered while taking Harper and Caleb back to the ranch house.

“He must have thought he was safe riding into the herd on a strange horse,” Chris later theorized when they sat down at the kitchen table to talk it out.  “The dumbass.” 

“When he started shooting at them to start the stampede, the horse likely spooked and threw him,” Ethan told Harper.  “The real question is why?  How would your death benefit him?”

Harper thought for a moment.  “Brian took out a new medical insurance policy on me right before the accidents started happening.  I didn’t read the papers,” she admitted, feeling foolish now.  “It was just supposed to be extra coverage, in case I got hurt.  Maybe it was something else.”

Caleb winced.  “Life insurance.”

“If he made himself the beneficiary,” Chris said, “that would be plenty of motive.  Especially if you died accidentally.  Most companies pay double for that.”

              “It would also explain why he wanted you to keep competing,” Caleb put in.  “He must have planned to keep sabotaging your gear until it did you in.  Then he could get rid of the evidence and collect on the policy.”

              “Getting himself killed, trying to kill me.”  Harper shook her head.  “Well, I’m going to have to take a break from the circuit now to find a new manager.  Although I’m not even sure I really want to, considering.”

“I’d look for someone who knows everything about team roping,” Ethan said as he rose from the kitchen table.  “He should be good at handling horses, looking after your gear and fending off the arena yahoos.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a wife-to-be waiting upstairs.”  He winked at Caleb and then headed upstairs.

“I got one them myself tucked in my mansion across town.”  Chris lifted his massive arms in a lazy stretch.  “You know, Harper, if I was looking for a manager I’d want someone young and unencumbered who could go anywhere I went.  Good company on the road.”  He grinned at Caleb before he said, “Night, you two.”

She almost giggled once they were alone and she saw Caleb’s scowl.  “Your brothers give good advice.  Know any young, unencumbered team ropers who might want to manage the fastest-rising female rodeo star on the circuit?”

“I think they’re trying to get rid of me,” he grumbled.  “But yeah, I do.  He can’t spend the whole year on the road with you, though.  He’s got a family and strong roots.  He might chafe at them now and then, but they go deep.”

She smiled slowly.  “How about half the year on the road, and half the year at the ranch?”

His expression softened as he took her hands in his.  “Shoot you a game of pool for it.”

THE END