It Takes a Cowboy

The teasing quickly faded from the embrace. Scott’s mouth was hungry against hers, almost fierce as he claimed her lips and then urged them apart. His hands were warm through her ‘neat blue lawyer suit’ as they swept her body from shoulders to hips. They stood thigh-to-thigh, so that Blair couldn’t help but be aware of Scott’s reaction to the contact. His arousal only fueled her own.

Blair’s breathing was unsteady when Scott finally lifted his head. His was ragged-edged, his face a bit flushed, his eyes glittering. “Do you know what I would really like for dessert this evening?”

Reluctantly, she drew herself out of his arms. “You’ve already had your dessert,” she reminded him firmly. And then some.

He drew a deep breath. “I suppose it will have to do—for tonight.”

He left unsaid the implication that there would be other times when neither of them would want to stop with a kiss. Though she still doubted the wisdom of this course she was taking, she was beginning to accept its inevitability. Scott didn’t linger long after that interlude. He said good-night to Jeffrey, who was still damp from his bath and dressed in Star Wars pajamas, his bruised face looking sweet and innocent. And then Scott kissed Blair’s cheek. “Seven o’clock Saturday evening?”

She nodded. “Pick me up here?”

“Right. I’ll be counting the minutes,” he murmured as he stepped away.

So would she, Blair thought in resignation.

*

IT WASN’T a major rodeo event Blair and Jeffrey attended Saturday morning. The competitors weren’t big stars in pursuit of a heavy rodeo-champion belt buckle. This event was to benefit a local charity, and the entrants were area ranchers and teenagers, some former rodeo competitors, a few young Shane Daniels wanna-bes and others who were simply competing for fun and charity.

The audience consisted mostly of local families out for a good time on a beautiful spring morning. Dress was western casual—which meant Blair blended in well enough in her denim shirt with a red plaid yoke, comfortably loose-fitting jeans and the leather hiking boots she’d worn at Scott’s cabin. In his baggy jeans, oversize jersey and black basketball shoes, Jeffrey looked more urban than western, but he seemed intrigued by the new experience.

He tossed his shaggy hair out of his face and glanced around the crowd, studying the boys who were close to his age. “Maybe I should get a cowboy hat,” he muttered.

Blair rested a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you should.”

A pretty little girl with long brown hair and big brown eyes passed them with her parents. She smiled shyly. “Hi, Jeffrey.”

Jeffrey straightened his shoulders. “Hey.”

“Who was that?” Blair asked, noticing that Jeffrey watched the little girl walk away.

He quickly turned his gaze forward, feigning indifference. “That’s Casey. She goes to my school.”

“She seems nice.”

“She’s okay. For a girl.”

“Of course. We’d better go find a seat. It looks as though the stands are filling up quickly.”

The seats they found were in the center of the stands, surrounded by a noisily enthusiastic crowd. Jeffrey ended up sitting next to another student from his school, a boy who was in the fifth grade. Blair watched as they greeted each other with nods and mutters. She wanted to nudge Jeffrey and encourage him to make conversation with the other boy, who looked quite nice—but she knew her interference would only be counterproductive. As much as she wanted Jeffrey to make friends, she knew she couldn’t make them for him.

The rodeo got under way with the calf-roping event. The audience cheered and laughed as young competitors pitted their skills against fast-moving, feisty calves. Sometimes the cowboys prevailed and sometimes the calves loped away untouched, but it was all quite entertaining. Blair was concerned at first for the animals’ safety, but she soon relaxed, realizing that the calves were occasionally annoyed, but unharmed.

“No, ma’am, they won’t hurt them calves,” the portly rancher sitting elbow-to-elbow beside her commented. “Rodeo comes from real ranch work, you know. Part of the skill is to handle the animals without damaging them.”

From that point on, he seemed to think it was his duty to educate Blair on some of the finer points of each event. He kept up an amusing running commentary, including dry comments about the competitors, giving her an impromptu lesson on how to tell the real cattlemen from the city dudes. She noticed, to her satisfaction, that Jeffrey had begun to talk to the boy from his school.

&n

bsp; Though all the events were rough-and-tumble, it was the bull-riding event that really made Blair wince. “Now, this looks dangerous,” she murmured to the congenial cattleman next to her.

“Oh, no, ma’am. Them bulls are tough. They don’t get hurt.”

She gaped at him. “I wasn’t talking about the bulls. I meant the riders. And those guys in the silly clothes and makeup who keep running in front of the bulls.”

“They’re called clowns, ma’am. Their main job is to try to keep the bulls off the riders once they’re down.”

She grimaced when a would-be rider went hurtling through the air to land hard in the dirt. The bull immediately turned, lowered his head and made a valiant effort to stomp the fallen cowboy, but the clowns’ interference gave the cowboy time to scramble to his feet and over the fence. “You aren’t telling me those guys never get hurt?”