Page 35 of My Cowboy Trouble
The barrel racers laugh, but it's not a nice sound. "This should be interesting," one says. "Gavin, you letting her use your horse?"
"Why not? Whiskey likes her." Gavin winks at Kenzie. "Doesn't he, princess?"
"Stop calling me princess."
"Would you prefer 'queen of the rodeo'? Because that's what you'll be after you show these ladies how it's done."
I want to grab her and shake some sense into her. Or maybe just grab her. Either way, this is a bad idea. "She's not ready?—"
"I'm standing right here," Kenzie interrupts. "And I can make my own decisions."
"Bad decisions."
"Maybe. But they're mine to make." She takes a long pull of her beer, then looks me dead in the eye. "Unless you think I'm too fragile to handle it?"
Fuck. She knows exactly what she's doing. Knows I can't back down from that challenge without lookinglike I'm trying to control her. Which I am. But not for the reasons she thinks.
"Fine," I say. "But when you fall on your ass, don't come crying to me."
"I never cry."
"Everyone cries their first time at a rodeo," one of the barrel racers says. "It's tradition."
Kenzie's smile is sharp as glass, just like her voice is. "Guess I'll be breaking tradition, then."
The crowd around us is growing, word spreading that the city girl's going to ride. Money's already changing hands, bets being placed. Most of them are betting against her.
I pull out my wallet.
"Hundred on her to finish," I tell Billy, who's apparently become the unofficial bookie.
Kenzie looks at me, surprised. "You're betting on me?"
"Someone has to."
"Make it two hundred," Asher says, adding his money to mine.
"Three hundred," Gavin adds. "And another fifty says she beats at least one of these so-called professionals."
The barrel racers stop laughing.
Kenzie's looking at us like we've grown extra heads. "You're all insane."
"Probably," I agree. "But we're your kind of insane now. So try not to embarrass us."
"Or yourself," Gavin adds helpfully.
"Or the ranch," Asher chimes in.
"Or the entire state of Montana," I finish.
"No pressure though," Gavin grins.
She flips us all off, but she's smiling. "Where's this horse I'm supposedly riding?"
WatchingKenzie try to mount Whiskey in front of a crowd is like watching a baby giraffe try to ice skate. She's determined, I'll give her that, but determination doesn't make up for complete lack of experience.
"Wrong foot," I say, standing close enough to catch her if she falls. When she falls.
