Whirlwind (The Champions 1)

“Damn it, woman,” Aaron muttered as he pulled her close. “I thought you’d never get here.”

Easing away from him, she went around the vehicle and climbed into the passenger seat. “We haven’t got much time,” she said. “I don’t want to be missed.”

“Hell, if you’d marry me, we’d have all the time we wanted. Now that Bert’s gone—”

“You know better than that. The house and the ranch belonged to Bert’s first wife. When Bert died, the property passed to their children, not to me. If we got married, you couldn’t expect to move into the house. I’d have to move out and live with you.”

“So?” He started the engine and turned the ATV around.

“Those girls are my family, Aaron. And that house is my home.”

“Yup. And they could kick you out tomorrow if they took a notion to. Hell, if they ever found out you were carryin’ on with me the whole time Bert was sick, they probably would.”

She reached over and laid a hand on his knee. “I needed you. Bert was impossible. He treated me like dirt after he got sick. Being with you was the only thing that kept me sane.”

“And now?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

He chuckled as he turned into the yard and pulled up to his boxlike, prefabricated house. “You’re here, all right, and I know why. It’s ’cause you like it. Never met a woman who liked it as much as you do.”

“And you think that’s the only reason I keep coming to your bed?” Callie shook her head. “I should’ve guessed that a man would see things that way.”

“Something wrong with that? Hey, I like it, too.”

“Don’t you see, Aaron? I care about you. And I like to think you care about me, too. If this was just sex, I couldn’t keep doing it.”

He came around the vehicle, helped her out of her side, and gathered her into his arms. “’Course I do, honey. Hell, I’m the one who keeps askin’ you to marry me. You’re the one who keeps sayin’ no. Now come on inside, and let’s make each other happy. Okay?”

“Okay.” She gave him a light kiss and allowed him to lead her into the house.

* * *

Two days later, after a restless night, Lexie woke before dawn, reached for her phone, and checked her texts and e-mails. Her spirits drooped as she failed to see anything from Shane—but then, after she’d made it clear that they had no future, what else could she have expected?

When he’d offered to let her know how Corey was doing, she’d secretly hoped that he was angling for a way to keep in touch with her. Whatever his motives, she’d jumped at the chance to give him her cell number and e-mail. Maybe she’d been too eager. Maybe it was time she faced the truth—as far as Shane was concerned, she was just another one-night stand.

Resisting the dark mood, she dressed in riding clothes, went out to the stable, and saddled her favorite horse, a buckskin mare named Sadie. An early-morning ride would raise her spirits, she told herself as she set out along the fence line. She could also make sure the cattle had weathered the storm—and hopefully that the mystery intruder hadn’t struck again.

The dawn air was cool, the wet earth smelling of rain. Petrichor. Lexie remembered the word as she filled her lungs—the fresh, clean fragrance of earth after a storm.

Behind her, the ranch was stirring to life. Lights had come on in the bunkhouse and in Ruben’s trailer. Tess and Callie had both been asleep when she’d left the house, but they would soon be waking to start the busy day. For now, Lexie would savor this peaceful, private time alone.

The eleven mature bulls were pastured closest to the house. As she rode along the fence, Lexie watched them with affection. They appeared to be in good spirits as they shook the wetness from their gleaming hides and nosed the ground for new grass.

Thunderbolt, the oldest, was a direct descendant of the great Oscar. Bert Champion had bought the retired black and tan bull, along with his half brother, to start his own line of buckers. Of the original bulls, Thunderbolt was the last one left alive. Crochety and arthritic, he was almost eighteen years old, ancient for a bull.

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Whirlwind and Whiplash were the offspring of his old age. Full brothers, they’d been born a year apart, from a fiery cow that, sadly, had since died. When it came to breeding, it was the bulls that passed on their strength and agility. But the cows gave their sons the fighting spirit to buck. Experiments had proven that a bucking bull bred with a cow that lacked the bucking lineage would not produce bucking offspring. But a cow with the bucking bloodline, even when mated with a non-bucking bull, had a chance of producing a bucker.

Bert had kept immaculate records of which bulls were bred with which cows, doing everything possible to avoid inbreeding. The pedigrees were registered with the ABBI, a national organization that tracked the bloodlines of bucking bulls. Bert had shared his complex methods with Jack, but now that both father and son were gone, the girls were on their own—and it was time to breed the animals again.

Watching the bulls now, and seeing the old bull stumble, Lexie remembered a conversation she needed to have with Tess. Her college courses had taught her about breeding and genetics. She knew that the Alamo Canyon cows and bulls were too closely related to safely breed again. The ranch was in desperate need of new bloodlines.

Unfortunately, to purchase a bucking bull with great lineage, even injured or old, would be expensive—at least $20,000, likely more. So would paying a stud fee for a top bull. Getting the money would mean selling off some of their own stock or getting a bank loan. The cheaper alternative would be to buy semen from quality bulls and inseminate the cows they had now—proven mothers that would be hard to replace.

Tess, like her father, believed that natural breeding was the only way to go. She hated the whole idea of artificial insemination. She was bound to dig in her heels when Lexie suggested it.