And pretty much everything else about this side of his bull-riding career, if he was honest, as he powered through what he was determined would be his last year on the circuit. But the promotional gambits were the worst.
Even at his most charming, Cody was not the kind of guy other men wanted to hang out and have a beer with. He wasn’t easygoing. He’d never learned the intricacies of small talk and shooting the shit. Cody was more about hard whiskey than artisanal microbrews. He was the guy other men wanted at their back when the bar fight broke out, because he was afraid of nothing and impressed with even less than that, and it showed in every line of his body.
He might as well be a billboard for bad decisions with inevitably painful outcomes.
Which was the trouble with promo opportunities like this stupid sponsorship game he was playing today in Billings. Cody wasn’t all that great at hiding the fact he’d rather be in a fistfight than at a picnic, and that made it tough to convince folks that he was the American Extreme Bull Rider they wanted to splash their company names all over while he was out there pitting himself against the rankest bulls in existence and trying not to die.
The fact he tended to score high and win a lot had done his talking for him all these years, but Cody wasn’t a young man anymore. He wasn’t eighteen and cocky, unable to imagine any outcome but total domination. He’d broken just about every bone in his body more than once, torn ligaments and shoulders alike, suffered concussions and been rushed to hospitals all over the country and these days, his battered old body let him know it with every step. He was scarred and scuffed and nowhere near as shiny as he’d been back when.
Hell, his boots were shinier than he was.
You could try smiling, he reminded himself as he stood in the middle of a Fourth of July party in the crowded backyard of one Billy Grey, self-proclaimed sporting goods king of the west.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. Maybe Grey Sports was bigger than Cody was giving it credit for. Lord knew it was the only thing that had impressed his mother in years. Meredith Devine didn’t care that Cody was famous in some circles. She didn’t care that he was the reason she got to keep living her sad little life in the South Dakota town where Cody had grown up, clinging on hard to the terrible marriage she still refused to leave.
Mama didn’t mind spending his money, of course, but she always acted like she didn’t know how he’d come by it. Cody understood that, as far as he understood anything his mother did. He knew full well that if that asshole Todd, her husband for way too long now—and Cody refused to use the word stepfather—had to think too hard about how Cody’s mom afforded their life outside of the money Todd drank away, it wouldn’t end well for her.
That was something Meredith chose. Over and over again, no matter how many times and how many ways Cody had tried to save her. There was a point at which he had to stop giving a shit or lose his own, and he’d reached that point a long time ago. But his half-sisters were another matter. Kasey and Kathleen didn’t deserve Todd as a father any more than Cody had deserved that punk as his only male authority figure after his own dad had died. Kasey and Kathleen had kept Cody in it, tethered to his mama’s bad choices for the last twenty years no matter how much he wanted out.
His mother was real good at pretending. That she was happy. That she enjoyed the crappy little life she’d carved out with Todd after they’d lost Cody’s father. She even pretended that she didn’t know what was in the checks that Cody wrote her, every time he handed her one. But Grey Sports, for some reason, had made her light right up.
Who doesn’t like Grey Sports? she’d asked, then pinched up her face as if she regretted showing that much emotion.
Last weekend the tour had been in Deadwood, which meant there was no way for Cody to avoid a little family reunion, since he’d grown up within driving distance.
We wanted to come see you ride, his half-sister Kathleen had told him. In a whisper, behind her hand, because Kathleen was seventeen years old, almost free like her older sister, and knew better than to attract Todd’s dark, seething attention. We were rooting for you.
Cody went out of his way to avoid South Dakota and his family as much as possible. His entire life, in fact, was carefully constructed to keep him as far away from his family as it was possible to get, something he was willing to throw money at when necessary, as long as it maintained that distance.
Hell, he rode bulls for a living. It was entirely possible that one of those glorious bastards might take him out one of these days, and if that kept his family away from him for good, he’d probably enjoy it.
That was why it was so strange that his mother had been impressed that he was going up early to Montana this week to make nice with Billy Grey ahead of the Billings rodeo. She’d not only heard of the chain of stores, she’d also heard of Billy Grey, personally.
He does those ads, she’d said, and had actually looked almost pretty again. The way she had when Cody had been a kid and his father was still alive.
Meredith acted like she’d never heard of Ty Murray, granddaddy of the PBR and one of Cody’s personal heroes. But she sure knew Billy Grey.
Because Billy Grey was exactly the kind of guy who other guys wanted to have a beer with, Cody saw as he watched the older man work his own party. He was charming. A salesman from head to toe. He lived in a nice house with a great view, up on a hill overlooking the town of Billings. He had a hot, young wife, and two little twin girls running around in case anyone doubted his virility. Cody knew the type.
And he also knew his job, for all that he was often a grumpy dick while doing it. This was his last year. He didn’t think his body could take much more, and he didn’t want to go out on a gurney. He’d told Meredith that last week, flatly, in case she’d missed it all the other times he’d said it.
I don’t know why you keep telling me that like it’s up to me what you do, his mother had said around her latest cigarette.
We don’t need your charity, boy, Todd had chimed in, all bluster and bullshit, sitting in a house with no mortgage payment thanks to his stepson’s charity.
Which Cody had ignored. Because this was it. His last tour. His last ride. And if he wasn’t going out crippled, he wasn’t going out on an assault charge either. No matter how much Todd deserved to get a beatdown at last.
And once he was no longer on the tour, who knew what the hell he’d do? Cody had no clue, because he hadn’t thought beyond bull riding for years now. Whatever he did, he couldn’t wait to do it far away from his mother and her bad choices, which he never planned to get close to again. In the meantime, he had to cozy up to salesmen like Billy, because he had two college educations to pay for.
When really, what he wanted to do was find the girl who’d answered the door and then disappeared.
It was dark by the time he managed it. The party was still going on in the light of about a million lanterns, plopped on tables and nestled in the grass. The nice thing about the dark was that it was harder for people to corner him, so Cody found himself on the outskirts of the big yard, where the manicured lawn gave way to a little bit of wilderness and the slope of a hill. Not real Montana wilderness, but the suggestion of it.
He figured the girl was long gone. She looked like picket white fences and photogenic babies in matching outfits, and that wasn’t Cody. It never had been. He figured it never would be, because he was no good at the things women like that seemed to need. Like wanting that kind of quiet, settled life in the first place.
Or fidelity. Not that he’d ever tried.
He found her right about the time he’d given up on seeing her again, sitting there on an old picnic table more in the woods than out. She was sitting on the top of the table with her feet on the bench seat, holding a bottle of water between her palms.
And when she saw him come toward her out of the dark, she smiled.
There was no reason that should have rolled over Cody the way it did, like she was something dangerous. Some kind of summer storm, just sit
ting there.
She was way too pretty. And prettier the longer he looked at her. She had dark brown hair cut into one of those sharp, layered looks that only seemed to draw his attention to the lushness of her mouth. Her smile was a little crooked, which sank through him like its own kind of heat. And her eyes were shadowed in the light of the flickering mosquito candle on the table beside her, but he knew they were blue. He remembered. Just like he remembered that they’d looked haunted when she opened the door, and then heated up in the next moment.
Oh yeah, he remembered entirely too many details about this one.
“You’re missing the party,” she said, in the same sweet voice she’d used before, with a hint of the South shading her words. “I’m pretty sure they’re throwing it just for you.”
“You got that backward. I’m the entertainment, that’s all. I might as well be a clown.”
She had a delicate little nose and she wrinkled it then. “Oh, I hope not. No one likes a clown. Not really.”
Cody wasn’t shy. He was used to the effect he had on women. And he knew this one wasn’t his typical buckle bunny. For one thing, she wasn’t trying to climb him like a tree. She was still sitting there, her dress pulled over her knees like she was demure. Ladylike, even, which wasn’t a word he could remember using before about the women in his sphere. Or at all.
And he was enough of a bastard that all he wanted to do was mess her up.
Cody moved closer, until he was standing directly in front of her. He watched the way she flushed, red and hot, as if she had no control over herself. It made him even harder than he’d been when he’d spotted her sitting over here in the first place. Her blue eyes were wide and trained on his. That mouth of hers, temptingly crooked, was slightly open, as if she was having some trouble breathing. He aimed to make sure she did.
He reached over and settled his hand in the place where her neck met her shoulder, so he could feel her pulse go wild beneath his fingers.
“Holy shit,” she whispered.
“Tell me what you want,” he drawled, aware it was an order. And that he wasn’t as relaxed about this as he usually was. But then, he was used to sure things. “Who knows? I might just grant your wish.”
She blinked. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Darlin’, it’s only complicated if you make it complicated. My advice? Don’t.”
Her skin was so soft. This close, Cody could smell her shampoo, and a crisper scent he thought was soap. No perfume. No pretense. She wasn’t even wearing too much makeup, just a little bit of mascara. She was fresh. Pretty in every sense of the term.
Definitely not for you, a sneering little voice inside of him chimed in. It sounded a hell of a lot like that douchebag Todd.
But all Cody wanted was a taste.
And he’d never paid much attention to Todd.
“Well,” she said, drawing the word out. She tilted her head back a little, and that dazed look was fading. Replaced by something that made a dark, low fire kindle inside of him. Then begin to glow. “As it happens, I have quite a few wishes that need some granting.”
“Hit me.”
“I mean, you are a celebrity. This is like a grown-up Make-A-Wish situation, isn’t it?”
“Very grown-up,” he agreed, and saw her smile.
“My brother is getting married in a few weeks,” she told him. “I really need a date. And I’d prefer that it was someone who didn’t know anything about me. Interested?”
“I’m not good date material,” Cody said, concentrating on the way her skin kept getting hotter and her pulse beat faster. “I have a tendency to horrify family members. My own as well as everyone else’s. It’s a gift.”
“That would make you excellent date material for me,” she said, but there was nothing particularly serious in her voice. Maybe that was why he hadn’t already walked away. “My family could use a little horrifying.”
Then she laughed. And there was something about the way she did it. As if she hadn’t done it in a long time. As if the laugh itself was rusty, and surprised her, somehow.
Cody had no idea why the sound of it seemed to hang there inside of him, then grow. As if her laughter was taking hold of him, gripping him, changing him—
But that was ridiculous.
And he didn’t know what was going on with this girl. He didn’t know why he’d walked out of a party filled with other, far easier women to find this one sitting by herself in the dark. That wasn’t how he normally rolled. Cody liked it easy. He was a hard man by trade and inclination, with coal where his heart should have been according to entirely too many wannabe exes, and he was a little too calm about the fact he spent most of his days this close to his own death.
When it came to women, he never had to work too hard. He liked party girls and they really, really liked him. And bull riders got through the demands of their lives in two ways. They were either drunk on Jesus, or they were drunk, full stop. The godly folks tended to come with wives and kids, giving them that much more to pray for. Cody, meanwhile, came with a whiskey bottle. He was always up for a good time and he liked the girls who wanted to give him one. Buckle bunnies who knew their place. Here today, gone tomorrow, and maybe, just maybe, back for a second round next year when the tour rolled through again.
No drama. No haunted eyes, for Christ’s sake. No sitting all alone on the edge of a big party, clearly with way too much going on for a man like him, who opted not to care about anything. Especially not dates to weddings.
“Let me guess,” he said, and he should have moved away from her, but he didn’t. He kept his hand where it was, then let his thumb stroke its way back and forth along the line of her throat. He felt the shudder she tried to repress, rolling through her like a quiet sort of thunder, the hint of another storm. And he couldn’t have said how exactly he moved even closer, until his hips were almost between her knees. “You’re a good girl.”
There was a hint of that crooked smile. And a hint of that haunting, besides. But if there was extra emotion in the blue sheen of her eyes, it didn’t seem to bother her. So Cody told himself it didn’t bother him.
“The best,” she whispered. “I’m practically a saint.”
“Nothing I like better than desecrating something holy, darlin’.”
He felt the way her heart jumped at that. The way her pulse kicked into a higher gear. He expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.
She didn’t.
“I was hoping you’d say something like that,” she murmured instead.
Cody held her gaze. He reached up and took his hat from his head, and set it down on the table. He put his finger and thumb against his mouth, wetting them. Then he reached out to the little bucket candle beside her, and extinguished the flame. With a pinch.
Leaving the two of them alone in the dark, no flickering light to give them away.
Then Cody indulged himself and did exactly what he’d wanted to do since the moment he’d found her over here. Hidden just inside the tree line, with the party a good distance below them. It was a perfect spot, really, for all kinds of things the good folks of Billings, Montana, wouldn’t want to look at directly.
He told himself that was why he was so interested in her. Because she seemed a little complicated on the surface, sure, but she’d set this whole thing up beautifully. Because she was making it so easy it was like she was just another girl in a bar, easily digested and forgotten.
Because she aimed that crooked smile at him and it made him crazy.
Cody moved so he was between her knees. Then he picked her up with an arm around her, shifting her as he moved forward so he could lay her flat on the tabletop. Then he followed her right down, settling himself between her thighs, snug up against her, as if the table had been made to hold them just like this.
Her breath went out in a shudder that was half a laugh. He could hear her nerves, and he shouldn’t have liked that. It told him she wasn’t like his usual girls who did this sort of thin
g all the time.
Maybe he was tired of usual. It’d been the same old, same old for so long now, Cody only knew where he was when they yelled out the name of the city as he walked into one dusty arena after the next. He only knew who he was with his hand roped tight against a bull’s back. The mighty animal beneath him, more powerful than he could ever dream of being, made his head go clear. Calm.
As if the only thing in the world that could ever matter were those eight sweet seconds he needed to score. The most dangerous dance on earth.
But maybe she was the next best thing, something inside him whispered. Because stretched out over her, here in the dark, he felt that same intense calm creep over him. Settling him.
She didn’t push him off. Or giggle in that cloying way he usually had to block out with the girls who chased him around because of what he could do on a bull. He could feel her shivering slightly, as if she was having trouble controlling her own excitement. Or nerves.
She shifted a little below him, but it was only to accommodate him more. And she was so soft. Her thighs gripped him, and he wished he wasn’t wearing jeans.
But he could feel her breasts, sweet little curves pressed tight against his chest. And he could feel the way her arms came up to hold on to his waist with a surprisingly hard grip.
And it wasn’t so dark that he couldn’t see her face, even prettier up close.
Everything about her was pretty. It kept catching at him, like one of these times it might stick.
“You got here fast,” she said, laughter in her voice and something he couldn’t read in her gaze. He concentrated on the heat. “You could give a girl whiplash.”
“I’m a bull rider, baby,” he drawled, and he nearly smiled as he said it. “You’d be amazed what I can accomplish in a few good seconds.”
She laughed again. He didn’t know what it was about that laugh. It was so different from the calculated giggling he knew too well from all those bars, from across pool tables and huddled in dark corners. It was an entirely different animal, light and tempting.
It did things to him he didn’t understand.