Temptation: Reckless Desires (Blue Moon Saloon Book 2) (8 page)

Cole spent a sweaty hour repairing the fence, alternating between hammering and sniffing from Janna’s bandana. That and the clean scent of pine that started where the property merged with the forest made him feel a little more sane.

Rosalind put the guests’ kids on a pony and led them around the ring while the parents snapped pictures, but he kept his distance, just in case. Kept his head and eyes down, too, so they’d know to leave him alone.

But then a truck pulled into the paddocks adjoining Rosalind’s place and slowly backed up to the gate. When human voices mixed with animal bellows drifted to his ears, he couldn’t help but look up.

The trailer the truck had hauled in rattled and shook with the sharp bang of hooves. Something very big and very ornery wanted out of that trailer, bad.

“Moo!” One of the little kids, fresh off his pony ride, ran over to the fence. The sound of his voice carried. “Moo!”

“Big moo,” the dad said, watching three men tilt the trailer’s ramp down.

Cole’s ears twitched. Could he really hear their voices from so far away?

“Hmmf.” That was Rosalind, who rented the spare paddocks to stock traders on occasion. She sure didn’t look happy at what they had unloaded this time.

“Hey! Hey!” One of the handlers whistled and yelled, and the spotted rump of a huge bull appeared.

It bellowed, twisted, and banged away, taking one step forward for every two back. One of those ornery Longhorn-Brahman mixes that liked to fight every inch of the way. The inexperienced handlers were making things worse, too, riling the beast up more than settling it down.

Cole shook his head, watching the men force the beast down the ramp with a whip and a prod. No wonder the bull was so pissed off.

With a snort, the animal clomped down the ramp and trotted across the paddock, bucking and kicking at an invisible foe.

Cole squinted into the sun to watch it in spite of himself. He studied how the bull dipped its shoulders before lifting its hips, and how it twisted to the right. Getting a feel for the animal’s patterns out of sheer habit.

The bull was huge. Angry. Wild. A product of overly aggressive breeding practices was Cole’s guess, because big money called for ever bigger, meaner, wilder bulls to challenge riders. Breeders were succeeding, too, because the percentage of riders completing eight-second rides had dropped dramatically in recent years. Some bulls were downright unrideable, and it wouldn’t surprise Cole if this was one of those.

“Bad bull,” Rosalind told the little boy in the red T-shirt and brown overalls. “You stay away.”

Cole contemplated the fencepost in front of him for a long time. He’d stayed away, all right. Practically run away from anything to do with cattle, even though it was in his blood. He’d grown up on a ranch, got his start bullfighting on a ranch, spent his whole life doing what he loved best, until…

Yeah, until last year.

He glanced up at the bull huffing and puffing at the far corner of the enclosure and imagined those wide, red-ringed eyes up close.

It wasn’t bulls that scared him. It was fate, swooping down out of nowhere to grab one life and send the soul of another spiraling into an abyss.

Everyone said it was best to get back in the saddle after a fall, but he hadn’t gotten around to that. He doubted he ever would, because what if something he did led to another meaningless death?

Something on the breeze mocked him.
Maybe you are just scared.

He grimaced and went back to hammering. Missing twice for every hit, cursing every time.

The dust trail of an approaching vehicle came down the drive, and he wondered who was coming now.

Mine! Mate!

He jumped to his feet as he recognized the battered little Mitsubishi Janna was so proud of.

Janna! Janna!
his soul sang as she pulled in.

Part of him wanted to run straight to her and pull her into his arms; the other wanted to run for the hills. What if that inner voice got out of control again? What if he went too far and hurt her one day?

Would never hurt my mate,
the voice growled back.

She got out of the car and looked around briefly before turning exactly in his direction. It was as if she’d sensed him the way he’d sensed her coming down the drive. She was a good quarter mile away, but even so, that feeling of standing barefoot in a mountain meadow trickled slowly into his soul.

She’d come to see him! His heart thumped inside his chest. She wanted him. Maybe even needed him the way he needed her.

Rosalind had once boarded a fancy Arabian mare with a long, glossy mane for a week, and the way it pranced around the paddock put all the other horses to shame. That’s what Janna looked like, gliding across the way. Never mind the dust, the beat-up cars, and peeling paint of the barn: she rose above it all, shining like a jewel amidst pebbles. Making the whole place classier just by being in it, the way she did at the saloon. But she fit in at the same time, like a princess who’d been mixed up with a cowgirl at birth and had grown up working a ranch.

He entertained himself with silly notions like that as she started up his way. It was a good, long way, and that was fine with him, because he could relish the moment longer, watching her smile, her springy step, her easy, flowing gait.

Heya, Janna,
he’d say when she got closer and try to play it cool.

Heya, Cole,
she’d answer and maybe even tilt her chin up for a kiss.

But neither one of them got around to saying anything, because when Janna was still a couple of hundred yards away, another voice screeched.

“Johnny! No!”

Both of them spun toward the stock pens, where someone was running. Pointing. Yelling.

“Stop! Oh my God, stop!”

A second person was climbing the split-rail fence and yelling, too. “Johnny! Johnny!”

It took him precious seconds to zoom in on the spot they gestured toward. A little blur of red in the dirt of the pens. A little kid.

“Johnny!” a woman screamed, but the kid just ran on. More voices joined the first two, and a dog started to bark.

“Moo!” the kid cried in glee. Just a little guy in overalls, having a great time outfoxing his parents, who clung to the fence and waved at him madly as he ran on. “Moo!”

The bull in the far corner of the paddock perked up its ears. Its nostrils flared. One massive hoof pawed the ground, and its white-rimmed eyes narrowed on the child.

Oh, shit.

“Stop!” another voice called. It was Janna, streaking into the paddock when no one else dared to, chasing down the kid. She had her hair in a ponytail, and it whipped behind her as she ran full tilt.

“Jesus,” he muttered, running for the fence from where he’d been on the hill. He scrambled over the three rungs, swung himself over the top rail, and leaped into the corral. “Janna!”

Janna didn’t stop, though. Not even when the bull snorted and swung its head and massive horns her way.

Cole hit the ground, sprinting hard. Trying to intercept Janna and the kid and bull, all at the same time. His feet pounded the ground, but it seemed to take forever, because that was his woman out there.

The bull roared and barreled straight at the boy, who froze and gaped like a deer in the middle of a highway. A deer about to get plowed down by an eighteen-wheeler in the ugliest possible way.

Voices sounded from all sides, but all Cole saw was the scene ahead. He saw the bull, eating up the distance to its target. Saw Janna, closing in on the kid. She scooped the child up without slowing her fleet feet and raced straight for the fence on the other side.

The bull leaned left, altering course to intercept her.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” a not-too-helpful onlooker screamed.

Cole kicked into another gear, too busy running to utter a sound. If he had a spare breath, he’d use it to blurt a string of curses that would reach over the state line.

Pip the dog ran in and raced right for the bull, who lowered his head and swiped sideways, missing the mutt by an inch. The bull barely broke its step, though. It was still locked on to Janna and the kid wailing in her arms.

“Faster!” someone shouted, as if Janna hadn’t thought of that.

“Janna!” he yelled. Two damn syllables when his mind was crowded with a whole string of instructions he could never get out in time.
Cut back my way. Over here to your right. Head off at an angle and run for your life.

But her name was all he could get out. No time for anything more than that and a frantic prayer. “Janna!”

She ran on, then made an abrupt cut right — precisely the way he’d envisioned. His heart skipped a beat, then pounded on. He was closer now, but the bull was closer, too.

He yanked the bandana off his neck and wrapped one end around his fist. Snapped it in the air while running full tilt and hissing at the bull.

Over here, motherfucker. Over here.

Janna sprinted on, following the exact path he would have marked in the dirt for her if he’d have had the time. As if they’d mapped it all out ahead of time on a chalkboard or a secret playbook.

Inwardly, he cheered Janna on. Outwardly, he went on hissing and snapping the bandana at the bull.

Two dark eyes and the points of two very sharp horns swung his way, and the bull snorted. It might as well have rubbed its hooves together and chuckled,
Now, now. What’s this?

Cole pulled up in his tracks and looked the bull square in the eye, challenging it.

This is where you need to attack.
He whistled in a way even the stupidest bull would understand.
Come and get me.

The bull snorted, lowered its horns, and charged.

Elation briefly coursed through his veins, and he nearly pumped his fist. He’d gotten the beast away from Janna and the child!

The icy truth belted him a second later. Two thousand pounds of angry bull was heading straight his way, and it was going for the kill.

It was exactly the situation he’d willingly put himself in thousands of times, back when he was still doing the job he loved. The rush, the edge, the split-second timing. The battle of wits, of man versus beast. He could saddle up tired trail horses in his sleep. But this kind of all-or-nothing duel…

Nothing came close. Nothing.

He balanced on the balls of his feet, waved the bandana as far from his body as he could, and counted down the inches between him and the colossus. If he had his fellow bullfighters to help out, this wouldn’t be half as suicidal. Teasing a bull wasn’t as crazy as people imagined if you worked with a good team. And he and Frank and George had been the best. Forming a triangle, taking turns drawing the bull away from the man closest to its horns. Knowing just when to jump in and when to dart the hell away.

A team gave you the edge you needed. A team gave you a chance.

Which meant he was screwed. Well and truly screwed. He was alone. A single target for a single, raging bull. No triangle. No padding, no armored vest. And no backup, except for Rosalind’s hysterical mutt, yipping madly at the bull’s heels.

The bull thundered up, and Cole reached out as if to catch it. He wheeled at the last second, missing the horns by a hair. Darting left before the bull could bulldoze under him, he got clear while the animal’s momentum carried it away.

A breather. He had a half-second breather in which to figure some way out of a mess no sane bullfighter would ever find himself in — namely, in the middle of an open paddock, with what seemed like miles to the nearest fence he might leap over. No chute to trick the bull into, no mounted backup. No one there to count on but himself. He glanced left and spotted Janna, closing in on the fence and safety. Thank God for that.

The bull bellowed and came around for a second charge. A bull who didn’t like losing, from the looks of it.

Cole kept his left shoulder to it and sidestepped away. Slowly, because it wasn’t about outrunning the bull. Just about timing. Perfect timing. He didn’t bother with the bandana this time, because the bull would see past that trick.

“Right here, mister.” He could see the whites of the bull’s eyes, the pink flare of its nostrils. “Right here.”

The ground rumbled as the bull closed in. Cole gathered his weight on his right foot and stretched out his arms. Warding off a bull as heavy as that would never work, but it would give him a sense of the animal’s momentum and help him adjust.

The bull grunted and lowered its horns. Sneaky bastard, going for Cole’s feet. It practically plowed a line through the dirt, kicking up dust as it chose exactly the right moment to pop up.

Cole was faster by a hair. He spun away fast enough to miss being gored, but not fast enough to miss altogether. The bull smacked his ass with the flat of its forehead and lifted him clear off his feet.

Airtime. Cole splayed his arms, trying to control his flight. He felt suspended in space and time, watching it tick slowly by. He kept his feet under him because landing this wrong would make him dead meat.

Jesus. This wasn’t just airtime, but
major
airtime, giving him plenty of time to think. About life, about death. About the bull waiting to finish him off.

The ground grew closer…closer…

The air left his lungs as he hit the dirt running. Snorting like a bull, because the air was full of dust churned up by four massive feet.

He cut out of the way just as the bull came charging again, and this time, the bull turned on a dime. Jabbed its horns, curved past, then raised its hips…

Cole saw the bottom of the beast’s curved hooves, aimed for his skull. The air whooshed over his head as he ducked instinctively. Ducked his whole body, turtling his head in, because the hooves were sweeping right over him now. Fifteen hundred pounds of beast swept an inch above him in a merciless kick aimed to shoot Cole right off the planet and into outer space.

Whoosh!

Cole backpedaled just in time to see the bull’s hoof slice the air in front of his face.

Holy shit. The bull had missed by a hair. The thinnest hair ever.

Woof woof woof woof woof!
Pip barked hysterically, buying him time to get away. If he survived this day, he’d get that dog the biggest damn bone any canine had ever seen.