Rockstar Romance: Julian (Contemporary New Adult Bad Boy Rock Star Romance) (Hard Rock Star Series Book 3) (25 page)

****

When we get back to the rodeo, Jesse races off toward the arena to avoid being late.

I meet up with Sherry, whose husband and mother have combined babysitting forces at home so I won’t have to watch another event alone. “Aren’t those the same clothes you wore yesterday?” she asks.

“Shut up,” I reply, but can’t keep from smiling.
He loves me!
a happy little voice inside keeps screaming.
He loves me!

We make our way into the stands and take our seats to watch the saddle bronc riding competition. I hate the idea of Jesse falling again. It sounds like his mother’s death hit him pretty hard; I wonder if they were close, unlike he and his father.

His offer to come on the road with him pops up in my brain. “Sherry?” I ask.

“Yeah?”

“When did you know that John was the one?”

She looks thoughtful. “I’m not sure I think there is a
one
. I think you meet someone, you fall in love, and you commit to a lifetime of working on your relationship.” She looks at me. “Are you falling for the cowboy?”

“I think I already fell,” I confess. A smile creeps onto my face. “He told me that he loves me.”

She squeals as only a best friend can upon learning such news. “And you said it back?”

I nod. “Then he asked me to go on the road with him.”

She wrinkles her nose. “What does that even mean?”

“I’m not sure. I think it means I go with him to rodeos all over the country until … I don’t know.”

“But you
hate
the rodeo!”

I look around the arena. Just the sight of a cowboy hat used to fill me with contempt, but now I have much more positive associations with the particular kind of hat.

“It’s not so bad,” I say. “And I can freelance from anywhere.”

“You’re really considering this, aren’t you?”

“I might be.” I grab her hand. “I’d miss you, though.”

She squeezes my hand. “I’d miss you, too.” She looks down into the arena where Jesse’s due to appear. “Jesse’s good people, though. And he’s crazy about you.”

“You think?” I ask.

She scoffs. “Are you kidding? His whole face lights up when you walk into a room.”

The event begins and we lean forward to watch the cowboys in action. One man falls and has to be helped out of the arena. My stomach lurches as I imagine a similar fate befalling Jesse.

When he rides out, though, Jesse doesn’t look like the same rider as yesterday. Instead he looks more like he did back at the stables: loose, but confident and in control. He looks over in my direction, waving his hat wildly, grinning ear to ear. I jump from my seat, waving and cheering, “You’ve got this, Jesse!”

He rides wonderfully and ends up placing! Sherry and I both give him a standing ovation as he receives his medal. Doing well in this event is nice, but I know it’s the bull-riding championship that really matters. If he doesn’t win money in bull riding, then his offer to come on the road with him will become moot. He’ll be stuck back in Alabama milking cows while his domineering father cracks the whip.

Some “relaxing” time seemed to help him loosen up before this event. Luckily, we’ve got time for a lot more of that before the bull-riding championship begins tomorrow night.

****

It’s the last night of the bull-riding finals, and I’m right in the front row with Sherry and her family. My stomach is full of butterflies. Jesse’s done well so far—I’ve gotten so used to seeing him on horses that it’s strange seeing him atop a big, hulking animal like a bull. But he manages these beasts with seemingly effortless grace. His stiffness has completely left him now.

I like to think I had a little something to do with that.

I still haven’t given him an answer about going out on the road. And he leaves tomorrow morning. I try to put these thoughts out of my mind and focus on the rodeo.

The stands are twice as packed as they’ve been for any other event. All the other events have taken place during the day, while for the past two nights, lights have lit up the arena for the bull-riding championship. Jesse’s explained how bull-riding works but I still need John, Sherry’s husband, to point out which cowboys are doing well.

We watch the third cowboy in a row get bucked off his bull almost as soon as they enter the arena. “Are the bulls in a feistier mood today than yesterday?” I ask.

“Don’t you worry about Jesse,” John says. “Your man is some kind of animal,” he says in an admiring tone. “He may be in line to win this thing.”

I raise my eyebrows. $100,000. That would put any worries about having to go back home to the dairy farm out of Jesse’s mind.

Jesse comes out for his last ride on the bull. At first, he looks a bit off-balance and my heart leaps into my throat. The audience gasps, and then sighs in relief as Jesse rights himself. He’s become a crowd favorite during the last two days of the championship—not that I’m surprised.

From there, Jesse performs magnificently. I thought he was good on a horse, but I can see that bull riding is truly Jesse’s event. I don’t even need to ask John to explain. Jesse’s told me before that the points are out of 100 in bull riding, and that an 80 is a terrific score. Getting above a 90 is nearly unheard of.

Jesse gets a 95.

And when the champion is announced, they call Jesse’s name.

Outside the arena I run into Jesse’s waiting arms. “You were so good, Jesse,” I tell him. “I’m so proud of you.”

He hugs me back hard. “It was all thanks to you.” He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “I just kept thinking if I don’t win this thing, I might not ever get to see you again.” He looks down. “Not that I…”

“Yes,” I say quickly.

“What?”

“Yes, I’ll go with you,” I tell him. “I can do my work from anywhere, and Sherry’s already given me her blessing.”

Jesse’s face splits into that crooked smile I’ve come to love so much. “I love you, Annabelle.”

“I love you, too … Cowboy.”

He pulls off his cowboy hat and settles it on my head. “You’re a cowgirl now.”

My old biases against the rodeo start to rise up in my chest, but they settle back down as I look into Jesse’s star-studded blue eyes. If getting to be with Jesse means being a cowgirl, then sign me up for some spurs and a pistol.

THE END

Callie Tyler grinned to herself as she tied Lateefah’s reins to a pole right outside her assigned cabin at the rodeo. She was tired; deliciously so. But since she was also a rodeo junkie, she felt invigorated just being there. She loved everything about the rodeo; the sights, the sounds, the crowd, the noise, and most of all, the sheer rush of adrenaline competing in the rodeo gave her.

She stroked Lateefah, crooning softly into the horse’s wide ears as she offered Lateefah a treat and rubbed her down. She had traveled far to get to the competition and even though it wouldn’t begin for two days yet, she was positively chomping at the bit.

That was the thing about her; she was always impatient when it came to rodeo. She had never actually competed in the rodeo, merely trailed along in the wake of her brother Wade, but he had always been a touch over-protective and never let her compete. Her gaze drifted to the gold piece of masculine wristwatch adorning her hand and she smiled wistfully. Wade couldn’t make it this time because his wife had just presented him with a beautiful baby girl he absolutely could not tear himself away from.

Thinking of little Laila made her smile again. The girl was as cute as a button with innocent, wide staring eyes, a sweet smile, and barely-there baby hair. Just three days old and she had managed to wrap them all around her tiny little finger without trying.

Well Callie had Laila to thank for her brother’s unprecedented willingness to let her travel to compete in the rodeo in his stead and alone; so she was completely a fan. At twenty-two, she was an adult alright, but Wade seemed to think she was a kid; probably because he was more than a decade older than her at thirty-four.

She opened the door to her cabin, shrugging off her jacket and letting it slide to the floor as the door shut behind her. Her ash-blonde hair was done up in a tight bun high on her head that, unbeknownst to her, revealed the slender, graceful curve of her feminine neck.

Callie sat on the edge of the bed, tugged off her boots and proceeded to shimmy out of her jeans. She whipped her tee-shirt over her head, unhitched her bra, and loosened her hair from its bun, letting it drift down to her waist, before flopping onto her bed. She closed her eyes with an audible sigh; every bone in her body protested as she tried to roll onto her side and she resignedly remained on her stomach.

In mere seconds, she was snoring softly.

****

Cade Gallagher swore ripely as he studied the small drop of blood on his finger. True, it wasn’t worth crying over, but coming on top of the kind of day he had had, he could be forgiven for being a bit touchy. First, his truck had broken down about a few miles away from the rodeo, and then his cell phone battery had up and died—again; and what crisis would be complete without his horse getting a stone in its hoof?

He had only noticed it when he got to the rodeo and, exhausted as he was, he had had to get rid of the damn thing and sooth the poor animal. The last thing he needed was Caesar going lame just when this competition from hell was going to begin. If there was one thing Cade hated, it was the rodeo—and yet, here he was! He needed the money because that fool father of his had gambled away their entire savings and spent the rest of what he could scrape together on women right before he died two weeks ago.

Selfishness was something Cade had never been able to understand and had always abhorred which was why he hesitated to apply the word to his ‘dearly departed’ father. But when he considered the fact that they had been extremely wealthy until three months ago when his father learned he had less than four months to live due to his hitherto undetected cancer—and proceeded to squander everything that wasn’t nailed down—he didn’t know what else to think.

“You’ll be alright here, Boy,” he crooned, stroking Caesar.

He turned and bounded up the three wooden stairs leading to the door of the cabin, his grey eyes sweeping his surroundings. It was pitch dark outside and he was eager to have a hot meal and flop onto his bed. There wasn’t much chance of getting the first so he might as well settle for sleeping, he decided with a mighty yawn.

He slammed the door shut behind him, barely remembering to latch it behind. He stumbled over something in the middle of the room right next to the front door. He was so tired, he didn’t bother checking to see what it was as he staggered towards the bed in the middle of the next room. He carefully removed his clothes and hung them over the back of the lone chair in the room. Then he turned, stark naked, towards the bed and froze in his tracks. There was a girl—woman?—in his bed!

She had a tantalizing expanse of fair, baby-soft skin that made him go hard just looking at her. With an oath, he grabbed a blanket from off the floor and tried to cover her up. But just then, she muttered in her sleep and turned onto her back giving him a sudden eyeful of her huge thrusting breasts, an impossibly flat stomach, thin waist and a small nestle of curls at the juncture of her thighs that told him her blonde locks didn’t come from a bottle.

His arousal swelled even more insistently making him so hard it hurt.

Cade cursed aloud.

The woman’s eyes flew open and in less than one second, she registered the fact that a stark naked, strange man was leaning over her. She screamed immediately—an ear-splitting sound that made him go temporarily deaf—and then she reached for a pillow and swung it at him. It bounced off harmlessly, but was enough to give him pause. Then she rolled off the bed in a tangle of flying long limbs as she reached for an unseen gun and flipped on the bedside lamp in one fluid motion. He relaxed a little when he saw it was rock-salt. That motherfucker hurt as hell and could do more than its fair share of damage, but at least it was not an actual rifle.

“Okay, hold on—you’re in
my
bed. Why are you the one who gets to shoot me?”

That made her pause; she looked askance at him, “
Your
bed?”

He shrugged. His eyes scanned the rest of her. She had really luxurious, curly blond hair that hung all the way to her waist, beautiful white teeth that flashed every time she spoke, a face a man could stare at all day and a body straight out of his naughtiest fantasies. He would have her, he decided; maybe not tonight, but one way or the other he had to have this sexy, intoxicating, absolutely tantalizing woman. He would be gentle he decided, because she looked so fragile; her features were so fine they were almost porcelain.

He cleared his throat awkwardly as his dick swelled even more insistently against his thighs, “Perhaps we should get dressed; I’m sure we both look a tad ridiculous standing around naked with a gun waving this way and that between us.”

Wry humor flashed in her green eyes and Cade knew immediately that he liked her. She had not squealed and morphed into some shy miss desperately reaching for a blanket or something which was exactly what he had expected.

She stared at him coolly, her eyes for the first time noticeably flicking down the length of him. Her eyes assessed his face, which he had been told had character. He had a long aristocratic nose, firm thin lips, chiseled chin, firm granite jaw, and high bushy eye brows that lent him an air of raw masculinity that ladies seemed to love. Her gaze descended to his naked, hairless chest, past his small budded nipples, down his flat, washboard abs, and straight to his hard, erect rigid member. He expected her to flick her gaze up to his or look away modestly, instead she stared long and hard at junior before dropping her gaze the rest of the way to his hard, masculine legs.

When she finally looked up at him, her eyes were carefully blank but she had a slight pink tinge on her cheeks. He realized then that she was not as unaffected as she had made out.
Good,
he thought as a trickle of sweat worked its way down the middle of his back.

Slowly, he turned to reach for his clothes and she immediately barked, “Hold it right there, buster!”

“Just gonna reach for my clothes,” he said, his hands still raised comically in the surrender position.

“Guess again. Step over towards the bed,” she ordered briskly, waving the gun at him.

So she wanted to search out his clothes before he reached for them, in case he had a weapon? Smart girl!

“You got it, ma’am,” he said mildly as he moved to obey her.

Her eyes still trained on him, she reached for his jeans; dabbed, dabbed. Nothing. She threw them over to him and he caught them on the fly, grinning. Next she flung his tee-shirt to him. She didn’t send over his knapsack, he noticed.

She looked around the room, as though searching for something.

“Aren’t you going to get dressed, Sweetheart?” he drawled in a deliberately thick Texas twang.

Her eyes flashed green fire at him even as her cheeks heated up. He realized with an inward chuckle that her clothes were probably what he had stumbled over at the door.

He let the chuckle bubble to the surface unable to hide his mirth at her predicament.

“Well, the way I see it, Honey—” he said, flopping deliberately onto the bed, “you can either head on out to get your clothes, in which case I might arm myself before you return. Or you can send me to go get them in which case…” he trailed off, with a shrug and an insouciant grin.

She eyed him for a bit, then she slowly picked up his trench coat from the chair and wriggled into it with absolutely nothing else underneath. It was the singular most erotic thing he had ever witnessed and the top of his head almost came off, even as his dick pressed all the more insistently against his fly.

He swallowed.

“At this point, I’m gonna want to know your name. I don’t know about the fellas you’re used to honey, but I usually like to know who is sleeping in my bed.”

“Your bed?” she scoffed. “Of all the— This is
my
room.”

“Not according to my buddy, it isn’t. This here text says Room 15F.”

“Well unless your
buddy
is Wade Tyler, this isn’t your room!” she informed him, disbelievingly. Of all the nerve!

He paused, “My buddy actually
is
Wade Tyler. How the hell do you know him?”

Callie’s eyes narrowed as she thought about it. Wade had seemed especially accommodating and strangely acquiescing of her intention to attend the rodeo alone. What were the odds he hadn’t in fact sent this man after her to keep an eye on her? She
had
been waiting for the other shoe to drop since Wade honored to her request to go without him, hadn’t she? But to send this man to her room?

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Cade Gallagher. Yours?”

“Callie Tyler.”

“Callie? That’s a pretty name…I like it,” he said with a sudden smile that made her breath catch in her throat.

If she had thought he was handsome before, when he smiled, he was an absolute knockout. And what was he babbling on about her name anyway?

“Listen Cade, my brother never told me about anyone coming here. Plus, he would never send you to my room. He’s way too protective. Are you sure you’re not talking about a different Wade?”

“I know he’s a seven-time champion in bronco riding and team roping. Plus he just had a baby girl, Laila, which he’s absolutely crazy about.”

That was her brother alright. Slowly, she lowered the gun, feeling drained without explanation. He made to rise from the bed, but she immediately trained the gun on him.

“Stay where you are,” she ordered.

She edged around the other side of the bed, away from him, and grabbed her phone. She dialed Wade’s number from memory and listened to the ringing. Wade picked up almost immediately.

“Did you send a man to my room?” she demanded the moment he said hello.

“We’re all fine over here, Callie; thanks for asking,” he muttered sarcastically.

“Well, did you?” she repeated, impatiently.

“Yes. His name is Cade Gallagher,” Wade said wearily.

“You sent him to my room?” she shouted, lowering her voice at the last moment.

“No. No. A different room. But it’s all booked so he’ll stay with you. He’s a perfect gentleman, don’t worry. He fell on some hard times so I set him up to compete with you in the rodeo. He could use his half of the prize money real bad.”

“I don’t believe this!”

“Relax, Callie. You’re safe with him.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Silence.

“Go on, Wade, why didn’t you tell me you were sending a perfect stranger to bed down with me?”

“He won’t do that. He’s a gentleman. Grew up right here in Texas.”

“So you trust him because he’s got a Texas twang and good ol’ boy charm?” she asked.

It was a barb, but it seemed to sail right over Wade’s head.

“There are precious few things I won’t trust Cade with,” Wade assured her earnestly.

“Obviously I am not one of them!” she spat bitterly, and then she hung up on him.

“So?” Cade asked, obviously haven eavesdropped shamelessly.

“You’re staying. But ground rules, cowboy, you sleep on the couch in the outer room. And just so we’re clear, if you ever attempt to touch me, I’ll cut off both your hands and any other part that sticks out!” she spat and then she disappeared into the little washroom and slammed the door behind her.

Silence.

Then, “Hey, what about my coat?”

Callie gritted her teeth. He
was
the most infuriating man alive; next to Wade!