Too Hot to Ride by Andrews & Austin

Author:Andrews & Austin [Andrews]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781635557770
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2020-08-16T22:00:00+00:00

* * *

The following day, we all drove to Stillwater to an arena near the university to watch the junior cutting-horse event for young riders and their horses. I’d agreed to go, on the spur of the moment, not because I cared about Belle’s participation or the amateur sport, but simply to be with Jane.

In the loping ring adjacent to the performance ring, Belle was proudly warming up the horse of one of the teenage contestants. The big smile on her face and the jaunty angle of her hat said she was really enjoying her work. Cal snapped photos of her, as proud of her as a mom would be. Belle was her project, and it seemed to be going well. Despite that, I didn’t see Cal smiling that much in general. It was more like she was just going through the motions and had something else on her mind.

Margaret Windom had already located Wiley and cut him out of our human herd, hitting him with a barrage of questions: Shouldn’t Sara Belle hold her hands higher? She seems a bit slouchy, and posture should count in any discipline, shouldn’t it? What is the next step up for her?

Wiley kept his bouncy attitude and big smile and said, “Mrs. Windom, Belle couldn’t be doing better. I’m so proud of her!” Wiley knew the truncated name for her beloved daughter wouldn’t sit well with Margaret Windom, which I knew was exactly why he’d slung it out there. Wiley was a good-natured needler.

Mrs. Windom followed up with questions about the young boys in the ring. “Are there any from families I would recognize?” she asked, obviously scouting for a suitor for Sara Belle, and sussing out who among the skinny youths might have money or name recognition. Wiley played dumb, saying they were all upstanding, hardworking young men. I thought “all” was a bit of a stretch, but Mrs. Windom seemed to like it.

In between dealing with Mrs. Windom and Belle, Wiley kept craning his neck to get a look at Cal and trying to get her attention, but she ignored him as if she didn’t know him. I watched the action for a while, at first believing that Cal didn’t see him, but it didn’t take long to figure out that she could see him, all right, but simply didn’t want to. I leaned in to Cal and asked how things were going. “Looks like if it gets any colder between you and Wiley, he’ll have to knock the icicles off his ass.”

“He has a wife,” she said, and I jumped back before I could contain myself. “Yeah. Small detail he forgot to mention.” She gave me a steely smile.

“A wife, and he didn’t tell you? Well, that’s just shit on top of chicken shit.” I snorted, feeling sorry for Cal.

“I told you that’s why I don’t trust cowboys.”

I left the topic alone after that. Seemed like everything on the Barrow ranch was hot and sexy, and glitzy, and pre-owned. In fact, had multiple owners.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.