Page 6 of The Cowboy's Downfall
The crowd of boys had whittled down to forty or fifty. She and Taryn were now the only females in the gymnasium, and the hot cowboy wasn’t smiling at her. Her ego wasn’t huge—she wasn’t curvy and blonde, and she was wearing a bland business suit, not a tight, trendy knit dress—but it was as if she didn’t exist. She had to hustle Taryn out, but without embarrassing her in front of her new peers.
She coolly ignored the man and the boy behind the table and spoke quietly to her sister. “Are you ready to go? Aunt Freda is waiting for us.”
Taryn, however, refused to be rushed. “In a minute.”
“You must be Taryn’s mom,” the boy said to Shauna. He leaned across the table to shake hands. “Remi Forrest. No need to worry about her.” He smiled at Taryn, who smiled back. “I’ll make sure she gets to the right classrooms next week.”
Shauna’s jaw tightened. She didn’t bother to correct his assumption that she was Taryn’s mother, although she felt a whole lot less sorry for him, and a whole lot sorrier for herself.
Only three months until Christmas.
She could do this.
*
Nix
No way wasthis woman the flirty little blonde’s mom.
That they were close relations, however, went without saying, despite the differences in coloring and height. They had the same facial features, and they moved the same way—the tilt of the head. The bend of the arms… Sisters. Maybe cousins.
Nope, sisters.
Nix had noticed the gorgeous brunette the moment she walked through the double gymnasium doors. He’d noticed the long legs, the business attire that didn’t hide a narrow waist and great breasts, the high cheekbones. He’d noticed the confidence in her walk, the way she held her spine straight and her chin up. He’d noticed the way she’d looked at him—checking him out.
He’d especially noticed the exact moment she’d dismissed him as unworthy of her. Which he probably was, but there was no need for Ms. Too Good for a Cowboy to be so obvious about it. No need to crush him.
The way perky little blonde Trouble, here, was going to crush Remi. According to the signup sheet, her name was Taryn Morris. She was the type of girl who liked flirting with danger, and she’d stumbled across the baddest boy in school on her very first day.
Bad boy Remi had just met his match. Most life lessons were learned the hard way, however, especially the ones about women—as Nix could attest—and he’d let Remi learn his.
Besides, he felt somewhat sorry for Trouble. That she was new in town was obvious by the way she was dressed. And that she was going to be a big hit with the boys in Grand was a no-brainer if he read the room right. But the local girls were unlikely to view her arrival with as much favor. He didn’t feel sorry enough for her to want her in one of his clinics, however. That didn’t spell Trouble—that spelled Disaster.
“Are there many women bull riders?” Trouble asked, her innocent query not fooling him for a second. Signing up for the bull riding clinic was her way of winding up Ms. Too Good, who looked wound too tight already.
Since Trouble was highly unlikely to get anyone’s permission to ride, especially if Too Good had any sway, Nix didn’t mind plucking at Too Good’s gonads a bit too. “There are,” he said. “They have their own professional bull riding association—the WPBR. As a Texan, I’m partial to Catalina Langlitz and Katie Moore. Those girls got game.”
He greatly admired women who rode. Their sport was finally beginning to grow. There’d been complaints, mostly because the bulls women rode weren’t of the same caliber as men’s, but from a spectator perspective, the differences were too slight to matter. The women’s sport drew large crowds because it was equally exciting to watch.
Too Good raised a professionally groomed brow. Her expression stopped a hair short of a sneer. She was too well-bred for that. “Didn’t Catalina Langlitz get stepped on by a bull and almost die?”
Nix wasn’t fazed—much—by her question. “She still competes. Women who ride professionally face the same risks as men. They know and accept them.”
Too Good’s other eyebrow shot up to join its twin. “Do they make the same money for facing those same risks?”
Nix’s eyes narrowed. One of those women, was she? The type who expected men to change the world overnight because she’d decided how it should be? He’d been married to a woman like that, but not anymore.
“There’s strength in numbers, ma’am,” he replied. “The more women who participate in male-dominated sports, the more seriously they’re going to be taken. Take US women’s soccer, for example. They’ve come a long way, and they should be proud of what they’ve accomplished. Same goes for bull riders. Any girl who wants to sign up for the clinic is welcome to do so. We might not get enough interest to form a separate team for them yet, but you can bet they’ll receive the same training as the boys.”
The room had gone quiet. The boys were listening to them with interest and the odd smirk or two. Color flushed Too Good’s cheeks. Trouble looked far too smug over her big sister’s discomfort. Now Nix was embarrassed. He’d taken out his issues with overbearing women on one he didn’t know.
And that, gentlemen, was a lesson in how not to speak to the ladies if you want to impress them.
Good thing he had no burning desire to impress Too Good, no matter how pretty she was or how long her legs were.
“Thank you for the edification,” Too Good said.
His embarrassment diminished in proportion to the poke at his pride. Now she was putting him in his place by using words she didn’t think he’d understand, was she?
