The Bull Rider Meets His Match (5 page)

After setting the stew on the counter, Annie turned to him, brushing aside a hank of hair. “I'm not going to lie—having you here is a godsend. Not that you can't go back when it's time,” she added hurriedly. “It's just nice to have some backup for a while.” She turned to put the stew on the stove. “Once school starts, I won't have to worry about morning day care. Emily will pick them up after school and keep them until I'm off work.” She gave her head a shake. “Second grade already. How did that happen?”

“Time flies,” Grady agreed. Pretty soon he'd be too old to ride bulls and would have to look at a second career, and he was seriously considering something in the building trades. But he still had a few good years in him, and he needed to keep at the top of his game as much as possible, training when he had a free moment and spending more time at Hennessey's.

* * *

L
EX
DIDN
'
T
MAKE
it into the store on Thursday because of a dental appointment, and when she walked in the door early Friday morning, Danielle gave her the eye—the concerned friend eye—as she finished hanging a red gingham apron next to a display of red-and-white cooking implements.

“What?” Lex asked. She wandered closer and picked an apron out of the cardboard box sitting on the floor next to her friend. They were handmade, probably by one of her grandmothers, since Danielle concentrated solely on quilting. When Danielle didn't answer the question, she looked up again.

“Did you really kiss Grady?” Danielle asked in a voice pitched a little higher than usual.

“It was to make a point,” Lex said with an overly casual shrug before she handed over the apron she held and reached for the last apron in the box.

Danielle frowned at her. “And that point would be...?”

“The point was that he can't mess with me.”

“How was he messing with you?”

“He was kind of hitting on me.” She set the apron on the table next to her, ignoring the fact that it didn't belong in a display of Western wine racks. If she held on to it any longer, she might wrinkle it with a death grip.

Danielle's eyebrows arched. “Grady?” She plucked the apron off the table and draped it near a setting of Western table service.

“It wasn't for real. He was—” Lex made an impatient gesture “—he walked me to my car after we ran into each other at Shardlow's. Then he asked me to come and watch him practice, because he knew I wouldn't, so of course I had to.” She paused, realizing it didn't sound like all that much. “You had to be there,” she finished.

“Sounds like it.” Danielle nodded thoughtfully. “How about I stay out of this?”

“There's nothing to stay out of.”

“If you say so.”

Annie came in through the back door then, calling a hello as she hung her tote bag on the hooks near the door. She turned toward Lex and Danielle and smiled awkwardly. Lex had never in her life seen Annie do anything awkwardly. The woman was warmth incarnate, unless someone riled her. The only explanation was that Annie knew about the kiss, so Lex saw no other option than to take the offensive—for the good of the store, of course.

“Yes, I kissed your brother, but only to make a point.” There. Out in the open.

“I heard,” Annie said matter-of-factly. “Good luck with that point thing.”

There was a heavy silence, and then Danielle giggled from behind them. Both Lex and Annie turned to look at her; then a second later Annie laughed, too. Lex let out a breath and felt her lips begin to curve.

“That's out of the way,” Danielle said as she reached for the smock she wore while tidying up the store, “and if yesterday was anything to judge by, we have a full day ahead of us, so let's get at it.”

It was a full day. Tourists were on the road and many wanted to take home fun Western memorabilia, which was what Annie Get Your Gun was all about. By closing time they'd sold enough that Annie had started unpacking boxes from their new shipment ahead of time and Lex had made a long list of jewelry pieces she needed to replace.

“Grandma is going to be so thrilled about the aprons. I bet I'll have to drive her to the fabric store again this weekend.” Danielle finished refolding her remaining quilts and arranging them over the brass bedstead they used for display purposes.

“And you sold three quilts,” Annie said, sounding impressed. “That would be three, no, make that four, years of work for me.”

Danielle laughed. “Not if you take a shortcut.”

Annie frowned and Lex explained, “She pieces the quilt tops and then sends them out to be quilted by a professional.”

“I used to do all the quilting by hand, but that's not cost-effective unless you're making heirloom pieces.”

“I'd still be looking at the three-or-four-year range, even with the shortcut,” Annie said on a sigh. “Since the girls were born, I haven't had a lot of time to indulge in any kind of hobby.”

“From what I hear, the time comes all too soon,” Danielle said.

“You're right. They're in second grade. Can you believe it?”

They'd been five when Danielle broke up with Grady, three when they'd started dating.

“No,” Danielle said simply.

After closing, they tidied up the store. Then before heading out the door, Annie said to Lex, “Please, no matter what happens with you and Grady, never feel like you have to be awkward around me. Grady can handle his own life.”

“And vice versa,” Lex said. “But I think Grady and I are done lobbing volleys at each other.” As things stood now, she was the winner and she wanted to keep it that way. Why start another battle she might well not win?

“Yeah,” Annie said, slowly, sounding like a sister who knew her brother well enough not to partake in Lex's fantasy. “Maybe.”

Danielle simply lifted her eyebrows.

And Lex got the idea that maybe the battle had been won, but the war was not over.

Chapter Five

Saturday morning Lex was up early, grooming the mares she was taking to Jared's riding lessons. Rosie, Daphne and Lacy were all over twenty years old, with quiet temperaments suited to beginners. Daphne had been her father's backup horse when he wasn't riding cranky old Snuff, and Rosie and Lacy had been her 4-H and rodeo horses. All three were now retired from ranch work but were perfect for her cousin Jared's purposes.

She pulled into the fairgrounds a little before 8:00 a.m. The lessons started at 9:00 a.m., but Jared wanted the high school students who would help him for the next six weeks to warm up the horses.

“Lex, thanks for doing this,” he said as she got out of the truck. He introduced his crew of four helpers to her, then sent a couple of girls to unload the mares.

She shaded her eyes as she looked at the stands. “I think I'll hang out. Make sure everything goes all right. And if you need an extra pair of hands, I'm here.”

He smiled at her. “Always glad to have some backup.” He shifted his weight and cocked his head. “So, what's the deal with you and Grady?”

The curse of close relatives who'd helped you through the roughest time of your life. They tended to ask direct questions instead of wondering what was going on.

“Nothing. Just—” she shrugged as casually as she could “—a long story. Not very interesting.” She smiled brightly, and Jared took the hint.

“Yeah. Okay...” He took a look around the fairgrounds. His crew was mounted, and he walked over to open the gate so that they could ride the horses around the small arena where he'd be giving lessons, warming them up before the students arrived.

“I'll be in the stands,” Lex called after him. She went to the truck and pulled out her hat and her phone and then climbed the bleacher stairs to a seat high enough to see clearly but low enough that she could help if there were any unforeseen problems.

An unforeseen problem arrived twenty minutes later in the form of one cocky bull rider. Lex practically smacked her forehead as Grady's truck pulled up and two little girls with bouncing pigtails got out. Of course Annie's twins would be taking lessons. And of course Grady would bring them here because Annie was running the store.

Yay.

Grady helped one of the little girls adjust her belt, kneeling and fiddling with the buckle, which was nearly as big as the kid. When he stood, the other twin grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the arena fence. Jared intercepted them, had a brief discussion and then the girls raced back to the truck and came back with helmets.

Lex pulled her hat a little lower over her eyes, as if it would make her invisible. It didn't work. When two more cars showed up and four more kids joined Annie's twins, Grady turned toward the stands. And even at a distance, she could see him smile. It wasn't a friendly smile, either.

Lex shifted in her seat as he said a few words to Jared before making a beeline toward the stands.

He walked up the steps and took a seat a few feet from Lex.

“Morning,” he said as he settled, leaning back on his elbows on the seat behind him.

“Yes,” Lex agreed. She did her best to ignore him, but it was like trying to ignore a panther sunning himself nearby. His sheer proximity made her edgy, and it irritated her. “There's a whole lot of bleacher here,” she finally said.

“Do you want me to move?”

“Maybe I don't want people to keep questioning me about you.”

“Whose fault is that?” he asked mildly.

“Mine. But you were asking for it.”

“I was asking you to kiss me?”

Lex wasn't about to be put off by an innocence act. “You were trying to provoke me.”

“You made first contact.”

“If you're not careful, I'll make second contact.”

Grady's eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and it was all Lex could do to keep from swallowing drily. But she wasn't going to look at his mouth—even though she wanted to.

This was a habit she needed to break. Especially when it seemed totally possible that Grady was reading her mind. Why else would that mouth have formed an ironic curve when she lost her battle with herself?

“No. You won't.”

And there he had her. No. She wouldn't. The element of surprise was gone, as was the shock factor.

“You're right,” she said casually. “I don't like to repeat myself.”

Grady snorted, then lifted his chin as the high school kids helped the students mount.

“I take it your nieces haven't ridden much?”

“No. Something I'm hoping to rectify. I'm glad Annie signed them up for lessons.”

“So
you
didn't sign them up just to come here and annoy me?”

“Didn't even know you'd be here,” he said, keeping his eyes on the arena. “Do not overestimate your own importance.”

Lex managed not to elbow him and instead followed his gaze. One of his nieces, mounted on one of Jared's horses, was sitting tall and confident, but the other little girl, riding gentle Daphne, was practically curled over the saddle horn.

“She'll probably relax as the lesson progresses,” Lex said.

“I hope so.” Grady once again leaned back, making a show of being unconcerned, but Lex could feel tension radiating off him. His niece unfurled a bit as the lesson progressed, and Grady leaned forward, watching as the kids slowly rode in circles, then reversed and rode the other way. The high school kids would occasionally bring riders to the side and reposition their feet or hands.

The lesson lasted another thirty minutes, during which time Lex and Grady maintained a mutual silence. He was too focused on his nieces to banter with her, and she was too busy wondering how it was that she was sharing an empty grandstand with Grady Owen.

Life was strange sometimes.

After the lesson, Grady's nieces rushed him, and Lex saw that they were both wearing silver championship bull-riding buckles on their pink belts. The kind of buckles the average bull rider coveted.

“Hey, guys. You did great.” He pointed behind them. “Looks like there's a meeting. Come on.” He took their hands, and they went to where Jared was speaking to the parents and riders.

Lex headed around her trailer and found her mares tied there and a teenager busily unsaddling them. Lex said hello and helped, carrying the lightweight nylon saddles to the equipment trailer hitched to one of the trucks.

Before driving away, Lex took one last look at Grady and his nieces. This was a side of him she hadn't expected. The Grady Owen she knew was totally self-centered. He didn't go all tense because one of his nieces was having a bad day on horseback.

Lex turned onto the road leading out of the fairgrounds, glad to be putting distance between herself and a certain bull rider. She wasn't going to spend the next six Saturday mornings in the grandstands with Grady, but then again, she wasn't going to hide out in her truck, either. So the solution was...

To put the situation out of her mind until next week.

* * *

A
FTER
L
EX
GOT
HOME
, she unloaded the horses and gave them a small portion of grain. She gave the goat and donkeys even smaller portions, handed out treats to all the dogs, then put everyone back into their respective yards, kennels, corrals and pens so that she could drive back to town and get the supplies for the new jewelry designs knocking around in her head.

“You'll be out before you know it,” she told Dave the Terror when the little terrier protested being shut up in the yard so soon after being released. All she had to do was to hit the grocery store and the hardware store and then check in with Danielle at Annie Get Your Gun before heading home again. All in all, not too bad as far as errand day went. Or so she thought until she spotted a familiar truck parked in front of the hardware store after pulling into the lot. Todd Lundgren. She'd rather cozy up to Grady in the bleachers for a couple of weeks than come within fifty feet of Todd even once.

For a brief moment, she considered swinging the truck in an arc and coming back later.

Except that she was no coward.

During high school, she and Todd hadn't paid much attention to each other. He'd been busy commanding the social scene and captaining teams, while Lex had been more of a get-the-job-done-and-graduate person. Their paths rarely crossed, but when Todd returned to town to take over the family business six months ago, he suddenly seemed to realize that Lex existed. And apparently she was supposed to be pleased about that.

He'd zeroed his sights in on her one night at Shardlow's Bar, bought her a drink, which she accepted out of politeness, and then, after some amount of flirting and casual boasting, had asked her to leave with him. Lex politely declined his offer. She'd been amazed he'd even made it on such a short acquaintanceship.

Todd had seemed mildly stunned at her refusal. Apparently thinking she was playing hard to get—because he was well-off financially, had played one year of pro baseball and was good-looking to boot—he gave her another chance. This time Lex was quite clear about the possibility of them going out—wasn't going to happen. She did it quietly, which she thought was rather decent of her. Quiet or not, Todd hadn't taken it well. So it went with spoiled golden boys. He wanted what he couldn't have.

Well, he needed to get it through his thick skull that he wasn't getting her.

When she walked through the automatic doors, Todd was standing near the checkout counter—tall and blond, with the perfect amount of scruff on his face—talking to one of the guys who'd been at Shardlow's the night she shut him down. So much for getting in and out of the store without seeing him. He smirked at her as she went by, and he was still at the counter when she came back with solder, wire and some copper sheeting. She wondered if it was her imagination, or if he was posing.

“Home repairs?” he asked.

“Something like that.” She dug through her purse for her bank card and paid for the items.

“Need help getting this stuff to the car?”

“Thank you, no.”
Do not engage. Do
not
engage.

Todd touched a finger to his ball cap, pushed off the counter and left the associate to load her purchases in a bag.

Lex gave a mental sigh of relief only to find him waiting for her just outside the door.

“I have this theory,” he said.

“Let me take a wild guess.” Lex palmed her keys, in case she had to deck him. “You think I secretly like you.”

“I don't think you're immune. I just moved too fast. You're not used to that.”

She smiled humorlessly. Refrained from saying,
Dream on.
He wasn't stupid or delusional. He was offended about being shut down, and to him, the ultimate victory would be for her to admit she'd made a ridiculous mistake.

That was her best guess, anyway.

“Have a good one, Todd.” She unlocked her door and got into her truck, and then, in an uncharacteristic but not altogether unwarranted move, locked it again. She wasn't afraid of Todd Lundgren, but she didn't want him climbing into her truck, either.

The one saving grace was that Todd's newly inherited ranch was closer to Dillon than Gavin, so he spent more time there. She only ran into him every now and again, and if she saw him in a bar, she left.

“Everything okay?” Danielle looked up from the catalogue she was perusing as Lex walked in through the back door. That was when Lex realized that she was frowning.

“Everything is fine, except that I ran into Todd at the hardware store. He's still at it.”

“I swear,” Danielle said as she closed the book. “You're his great white whale. He's not going to rest until he—”

Lex gave her a look. “Did you just call me a whale?”

“Symbolically.”

“Thank you for that small favor,” she said primly.

“Bad analogy.”

“Let's move on from Todd,” Lex said. “I have some ideas for some copper jewelry, which would be a lot more cost-effective than sterling. I'm going to work up some sample pieces today and tomorrow.”

“Great idea! We can set up another display area near the pottery. Kelly's behind on her schedule because of her new job, and that'd be a great way to fill that space.”

“Hey,” Annie said as she joined them in the back room. “I thought I heard you. How were lessons?”

Lessons. Right. Todd had blasted that stuff right out of her head. “The girls did great.” Lex would leave it to Grady to explain that one of the girls did better than the other. That didn't seem to be her place. “They rode for half an hour, and Grady was watching them like a mother hen.”

“I'm so glad it worked out. If he wasn't here, I don't think they could have made it.”

“He's a good uncle,” Lex agreed, rather proud of herself for being able to say something nice about the guy to his sister—and something true at that.

The bell rang in the other room, and Annie ducked out of the room to greet the customers.

“Hiring her was a good call,” Lex said.

“Yep,” Danielle agreed. “Sometimes you've got to move beyond the past for the good of everyone.”

Unless that past involved Grady or Todd Lundgren. There were limits to moving on.

* * *

G
RADY
KNEW
SOMETHING
was up when Kristen polished her cowboy boots on Friday afternoon and Katie didn't. Katie also mentioned about six times that her stomach hurt. Bad.

“Do you want to miss riding lessons?”

“Maybe this once,” Katie replied in a voice so low he could barely hear her.

“But you want to go back next week.”

“Maybe.”

And maybe he had a problem on his hands. “You want to talk?”

“No.”

“All right.” He had two choices. He could either let things be or see if Kristen had some information he could cajole her into sharing.