Page 29 of The Cowboy's Downfall
“But it’s crying. What if it’s hurt?”
She was a city girl, he reminded himself, and they were a whole different breed—like those Tennessee Walkers Ryan raised. Pretty to look at but built more for pleasure than practicality.
Except there’d be no more pleasure tonight. Not with him covered in grass stains and mud and smelling like he’d rolled in manure—which he undoubtedly had. “It’s not hurt, it’s hungry. And mad. And it’s wild. It’ll be fine once I unload it. Levi’s dad is the night manager on duty, and he’s nursed plenty of orphans.”
He stood for a moment, stretching his back, working the kinks out. Lifting close to two hundred pounds of irate animal wasn’t the workout he’d planned.
“I’m sorry about this evening,” he said, “but thanks to Hermione here, we’re going to have to turn back.”
“You’ve read Harry Potter?”
Her surprise about that amused him. “When I was a kid, yeah. The first couple of books. I don’t remember much about them, other than the cute, bossy girl with the name I had to look up to find out how to pronounce it.” And didn’t it figure that Hermione was the one character he could recall?
Shauna ignored the mud and dirt and the way he smelled. She cupped his face. Her fingers were warm, and unlike him, she smelled delicious.
“You’re going to get dirty,” he warned her, but the way she was looking at him made him not care.
She kissed him as if she didn’t care either. She tasted as good as she smelled, and maybe his knees weakened a little. He briefly considered suggesting sex right there, on the tailgate of the truck, despite Hermione looking on, because he wanted her that badly, and wondered if she’d buy in. She’d managed to surprise him once or twice.
But then she shivered, and tucked her elbows between them for warmth, and he realized how much the air had cooled down. The night was a bust.
“There’s no need to be sorry,” she said. Her breath tickled his throat, just under his ear. “I’m having a wonderful time.”
Maybe not a complete bust. “I suppose watching me land on my ass in the mud and then wrestle a calf might be considered a good time by some.”
“Actually, women find men who are good with babies hard to resist.”
He felt the same way about bossy women with a good sense of humor, but he kept that thought to himself. “I’ll make tonight up to you,” he said.
Hermione took that moment to recover some strength and renew her cries of displeasure. The truck bed bounced as she struggled against the rope binding her legs. Shauna patted his chest, then walked to the passenger side of the truck. She smiled across the shaking truck bed at him. That smile went straight to his heart. She could be sweet when she wanted.
“I’m not the one you’ll have to make tonight up to,” she said.
Chapter Nine
Shauna
Thursday afternoon, Shaunadashed out of the office during lunch to do a little shopping.
Dan had invited Taryn and her to the ranch for Saturday movie night with the boys. Taryn was going, but Shauna used a project she had to complete by Monday morning as her excuse to stay home. A very brief phone call with Nix—the man needed to get himself a cell phone, and soon—established he’d be at her house by eight.
Watching Nix work with the orphaned calf had been an eye-opening experience. She’d known ranch hands did more than ride around on horses all day—she hadn’t spent summers in Oklahoma without learning a few things—but her grandparents lived in Oklahoma City, and there weren’t many ranches near their Nichols Hills home.
She liked him, she discovered. But they’d agreed on a relationship that involved only sex, so no matter how much she liked him, sex was as far as it went. She was happy with that. He had relationship issues, and that was a bad long-term investment. As for her part, she was dull, dependable, responsible Shauna…
She got a thrill of excitement from breaking out of that mold. Sex in a semi-public place. And with a hot cowboy, no less. She would have had sex in the work-stained cab of his truck if he’d wanted, too. Or in the grass on the side of the road. And Nix was the only one who would ever know.
She was beginning to understand why Taryn did stupid things.
The waterfront boardwalk was busy with the day’s lunch traffic when Shauna stepped outside. Grand Cooper and Nash owned prime real estate on the Yellowstone River with a dock at their back door. In days gone by it was likely a steamer stop for the courthouse and jail.
The sun was warm, with only a slight bite to the wind off the water. The first snowfall rarely occurred before mid-October, still a few weeks away, but winter didn’t really set in until late November or early December. Even then a lot depended on weather patterns in the mountains. Her destination was uptown from the river, but no more than fifteen minutes away, so she decided to walk.
The boutique operated out of a small strip mall across from the town’s main grocery store. A discreetly lettered sign in the window proclaimed it Mayhem’s Private Moments, but its location put the lie in its name.
The location itself was marketing genius. The strip mall housed a children’s clothing store, and a place called the Rage Room, where people—mostly young mothers—paid money to smash things.
The Rage Room provided a momentary distraction. Shauna’s footsteps slowed as she walked by. An activity like that might do wonders for the strained relationship between Taryn and her. An evening of breaking things might help them bond—although she wasn’t sure arming her angry little sister was wise.
