Rough Stock (2 page)

Clay nodded. “Yeah, we assumed you’d be coming to Elk City. You know, to watch us ride, like you usually do.”

April’s face fell a bit. “You guys ride in every rodeo within driving distance. I can come and see you anytime. But the prom…that’s once in a lifetime. You know? I kind of wanted to go.”

She scuffed the toe of her boot against the ground and Clay couldn’t help but notice exactly how sexy the long, lean muscles of her legs looked in those denim cut-offs and boots. The discussion about Clinton had momentarily deflated his formerly happy erection, but the view was stirring things up again.

“I thought maybe if you two wanted, we could all go to the prom together.” April watched both he and Mason expectantly.

Why hadn’t she told them before now that she had become a sentimental girly girl who would choose a prom over a rodeo?
Shit.

Clay frowned. “Mason and I already paid the entry fee.” Nearly half a week’s pay for each of them, but it was worth it. The purse, if either of them won, would way more than make up for what it had cost them in the entry fees and food stops while they were on the road.

“And your father is supplying rough stock for the amateur division. He’s counting on us driving the horse trailer out for him ’cause he and your mama have plans that night.”

“Then I’ll tell Clinton I’ll go with him. No problem.” She turned on her heel and started down the road again.

Clay jogged after her. “Now, don’t get all mad at us, April.”

“I’m not.” She shot him a look that belied what she said.

Clay huffed out a breath in frustration. “If you had told us you wanted to go before we signed up and paid for the competition, maybe we would have gone with you to the stupid prom instead.”

Her stiffened spine as she walked on ahead told him he hadn’t made things any better.

Shaking his head with a scowl, Mason shot Clay a look that had the word
idiot
written all over it and stepped faster after April.

Buckets of bull crap.
Clay ran after them, regretting that April had grown up. If this new and wonderful woman’s body came packaged with the typical female inexplicable weirdness and perplexing behavior, he could do without it. He missed that she was no longer just one of the guys. Then he looked up and noticed her nicely rounded butt cheeks jiggling temptingly within her shorts as she stomped down the road and he changed his mind.

When they reached her daddy’s farm, she broke off from them with barely a goodbye and headed for the house, while he and Mason turned toward the barns.

“Way to piss her off there, Clay.”

Glancing up, Clay noticed Mason was smiling. “What the hell are you smiling about? We’re both going to Elk City instead of with her to that prom.”

Still grinning, Mason grabbed a lead rope from the wall. “Yeah, but I didn’t call the prom stupid, genius.”

Following Mason to the paddock where the new horse had been turned out, Clay scowled. Calling it a stupid prom probably hadn’t been the smartest thing he’d done in recent memory, but he wasn’t going to let Mason get away with assuming his chances with April were any better.

“Hate to burst your bubble there, buddy, but it’s not me you have to worry about. Clinton’s daddy can buy and sell both our families with what he’s got in his wallet alone. You think that’s not going to turn her head? Shit. She goes with him and we can write off any hope either one of us had with her for anything more than just friendship.”

Mason stopped with his hand on the gate. “Jeez, Clay. Give her some credit. She’s not stupid and her head won’t be turned by money. She wants to go to the prom, that’s all. So let Clinton foot the bill and take her. But I tell you what, a few hours of being with him and she’ll come running back to us.”

Clay raised a brow. “You think?”

“Hell yeah. Did you ever hear that sissy pretty-boy jock talk about anything besides football or that new sports car his daddy bought him?”

Clay thought for a second and then grinned. “You know what? I can’t say I have.”

April loved two things, horses and reading books. Football and cars weren’t going to get Clinton into that girl’s pretty white panties, or anywhere else.

With renewed hope, Clay swung the gate open and got ready for some good old-fashioned horse breaking, knowing that the minute he and Mason had the new horse in the ring, April would be down there. Pissed or not, the girl couldn’t resist watching them break a horse.

Clay let his mind stray to how he’d love to break April in, until a handful of spirited, rearing horse demanded all of his attention as he jumped to help Mason.

Chapter Two

Mason grunted as the horse circled the ring with him laying belly down across its back with nothing but a saddle blanket to cushion his stomach as he got jostled during a brisk trot.

Mason loved training horses. It didn’t matter whether it was saddle horses for riding like this one, or bucking broncos for rough stock competitions. He knew Clay more than loved it. He lived for it. However, this particular part, Mason could probably live without. Get him up in a saddle and he was happy, but this step in the training process, though brief, just plain sucked.

The new gelding, after many hours and many days of gentle persuading, had taken to them putting a folded blanket over his back. He’d even, after a bit of bucking, let them hang two sandbags over him so he’d get used to the feel of weight on his back and sides. And since Clay had been the one to hop up and lay across the back of the last horse they’d broken, it was Mason’s turn today.
Oh, goody.

But things were going well so far. The horse hadn’t taken off galloping with Mason, nor had he tried to buck him off. That was exactly the result they wanted. They were one step closer to getting a saddle up on him and making him a valuable saddle horse, or maybe even a barrel horse, for April’s daddy. Of course, tightening down the cinch on a green horse’s belly was the challenge, more than just throwing on the saddle. Then, once he got used to the empty saddle on him, they would try a rider.

One step at a time. Right now, Mason had to worry more about losing his lunch. Next time he’d remember not to go up for seconds of the school cafeteria’s Sloppy Joes before doing this shit.

Clay stood in the center of the ring, controlling the horse on a lunge line. The colt had been trotting for long enough that Mason could feel the horse’s labored breathing beneath him and see the sweat lathering his flank.

“Hold up, Clay.”

Taking a step forward, Clay shortened the lunge line and slowed the horse. “Ho, there. Ho.”

Jumping clear, Mason tried not to stumble even though his equilibrium was shot to hell after that face-down belly ride. “He’s had enough for today. It’s too damn hot to keep working him.”

Clay nodded and strode up to the horse to unhook the long lunge line from his halter as Mason took out his bandana and mopped his face. The horse wasn’t the only one sweating in this heat. Only difference was, Mason could guzzle some water, the horse would have to wait until he cooled off a bit first or they risked shocking his system.

Heading for the spot where he’d dropped his water bottle before, Mason’s face broke into a smile as he spotted April sitting in the shade behind a big oak tree, probably hoping they wouldn’t notice her.

Mason swung over the top rail of the ring, grabbed the bottle and took a gulp of now tepid water as Clay joined him.

“Well, well. Do you see who I see?” Clay grinned, grabbing his own bottle of water.

He swallowed another mouthful and nodded. “Yup, I sure do.”

“Humph. I knew she couldn’t stay away from the horses, pissed at us or not.”

“Pissed at
you
, my friend. Not me.”

Clay shook his head. “You know damn well she’s not just upset I called the prom stupid, which it is. She’s mad because you and I didn’t drop out of the competition to go with her.”

Mason considered that theory. “Maybe.” He laughed at himself and what he was about to say next. “Maybe we should.”

Clay shot him a look of disbelief. “That entry fee cost us practically half a week’s pay each. We’d forfeit that and have to buy tickets to the stupid prom.”

“I know. But if it makes her happy…”

Clay shook his head and sighed. “You’re thinking with your little head now.”

Maybe, but Mason was sure he wasn’t the only one. “As if you haven’t been drooling over her since the second she stripped off her clothes this afternoon and jumped in that pond.”

The image of April standing before them, beautiful and totally unaware of what torture she was inflicting on two horny teenage boys, filled his brain until Clay interrupted his thoughts.

“I never said I wasn’t drooling. We both were. But the purse in Elk City will be huge and there will be a lot of big names riding. If we were gonna skip a competition to dress up like fools and pay a bunch of money to go to some dance, this is not the competition to drop out of and you know it. She’ll get over it. Don’t worry. Like you said, next to that ass Clinton, we both will look like Prince Charming.”

Mason was covered in dust and smelled like a mixture of sweat, wet woolen blanket and horseflesh. Not very prince-like. “Let’s not push it. And shush up now ’cause she’s coming.”

He watched April stand, leave her shaded hiding spot and make her way over to them.

Clay glanced over his shoulder and cringed when he saw the determined look on her face. “I’m, ah, gonna go ask if they want him turned out in the paddock or put back in the barn after we hose him off.”

Mason grinned. “Chicken.”

He heard Clay making soft clucking noises as he walked away and laughed, until April was closer and that not-so-happy look was turned on him now.

She watched the high-strung horse pace back and forth, from one side of the ring to the other. “I wanna ride him.”

Mason watched her rather than the horse. “He’s coming along good. I think in a few weeks, after we’ve been up on him a couple of times, your daddy will agree if we let you hop on him in the ring.”

April shook her head and turned to face Mason. “No. I mean I want to ride him now.”

Mason was sure the look on his face told her what he thought about that idea. “April, we haven’t even gotten a saddle on him yet.”

“So? I can ride bareback.”

That statement popped a very ungentlemanly, though tantalizing, image into his head. Damn. If Mason kept picturing April naked as she rode
him
in her bed, he’d be forfeiting that entrance fee and putting on his dancing boots before he knew it.

Remembering Clay, Mason shook the crazy thought from his head. Clay would really be pissed at him if he dropped out and let him go ride alone. As much as Mason wanted more with April, the consequences of choosing her over Clay was not something he cared to consider.

He’d have to figure something out. In the meantime, what was with her wanting to ride the green horse? “No. I won’t let you up on him until he’s saddle broken. You could get hurt.”

“Like you’d care.”

It was mumbled under her breath, but Mason heard it just fine. Maybe Clay was right. She was mad because they hadn’t dropped out of the competition to take her to the prom. As if their willingness to do
that
was any indication of what good friends they were.

Mason raised his hand, noticed that it was much too dirty and sweaty to be touching the smooth creamy skin of her pretty face and instead laid it on her shoulder. “I care very much, April. It would kill me if anything happened to you.”

April watched him with a narrowed glare before breaking eye contact and letting out a big sigh. “Maybe you care, but he doesn’t.” She cocked a head in the direction that Clay had gone.

Mason paused, biting his tongue.

Damn.
It was most likely stupid to defend his number-one competition for this girl when it looked like he was in the lead, but Clay was his best friend, closer than a brother, and Mason had to tell the truth. “You know that’s not true. He cares as much as I do.”

Mason noticed he had absently begun playing with one curl that had escaped from her ponytail and dangled on her shoulder. He swallowed hard and let the curl as well as his hand drop.

Touching her was too damn tempting. He could feel the heat radiating off her body, and he wasn’t convinced it was just from the unseasonable weather.

Mason considered exactly when it had happened, this sudden awareness of April as more than just a friend. Certainly it hadn’t been overnight, so why the hell hadn’t he noticed she affected him like this until now? It seemed as if one day she was just April, his and Clay’s buddy who tagged along fishing and watched them ride, and then
wham
. She was April, the girl with the body who wanted to go to the prom and almost made him want to. Almost.

“Look, April, about this prom—”

“It’s not a problem, Mason.” She cut him off. “I just thought it would be more fun to go with you two, but I already called Clinton and told him I’ll go with him. So it’s done. See? All taken care of. You two can ride your broncos, and I get to go to the prom. Everyone’s happy.”

Yeah, right. Not by a long shot. “You’re not happy,” Mason observed. And the thought of her dancing in Clinton’s arms didn’t make him too happy either.