The Bull Rider's Plan

It wasn’t like they could march her to the altar and make her marry Darion, who would have a few things to say on the matter if it came to that. But they could make her very, very miserable. Darion had cut and run after they’d canceled the wedding, and was currently hiding out in Kalispell, but Em didn’t have that option. She had a job at the local café. She had no qualms about quitting, but she also had only a small nest egg to support her if she moved elsewhere—which left her at the mercy of Selma, the control freak.

There was a loud thump from the other end of the trailer and a muttered curse.

Jess, who’d given up his bed for her.

Well, he owed her for the crappy way he’d treated her in the past.

Em pushed back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting for her head to clear. Dear heavens, but she’d kill for orange juice.

Maybe Jess had orange juice.

She reached for her pants, which were in a heap on the floor, grimacing as she realized they were soaking wet. A memory started to crystallize...tripping, hitting the puddle next to the truck, going down...

Embarrassing.

She shook out the pants. There was no way she was pulling those clammy things up her legs, so she got out of bed and opened the closet. There, on a shelf, was a stack of neatly folded jeans. She’d been hoping for sweats, but jeans would do. Sitting back on the bed, she pulled on the Wranglers. Jess was lean, but the pants still hung low on her hips. She bent down to roll the cuffs and instantly wished she hadn’t as her head started pounding harder. Aspirin was also a necessity.

She looked around the bedroom for her purse and came up empty. Hoping against hope that she hadn’t left it at the Shamrock, she put on the sweater she’d worn the night before and then quietly opened the bedroom door and slipped into the bathroom.

Yes. Ibuprofen. An economy-sized bottle, such as one would expect to find in the medicine chest of a bull rider. Pain was part of the game. Her brother had ridden broncs and she knew about hurting. Em popped two pills, washed them down, then grimaced as she faced her reflection.

She put a hand up to her bed head and tried to push her long unruly hair into a less bent shape. After a couple of pats and pushes she gave up and pulled open the door. It wasn’t as if Jess hadn’t seen her at her worst.

Although...last night may have been her worst. She was a drinking lightweight. She blamed Jess and Len, who never let her go out with them. She’d never even been drunk until she hit twenty—only one year shy of legal age. As long as her brother and his friend were around, she was well managed.

Now, Jess’s twin, Tyler...he was fun. But he was also a friend of Len’s and made sure she didn’t get into trouble. Life after high school hadn’t been as much fun as it could have been.

The curse of being the only girl in a family of boys—although until her father had married Selma, she’d only been the youngest of two. After Len had died, she had only half brothers. Three of them. All younger and all firmly under Selma’s thumb. She’d encouraged them to rebel by setting an example, but they remained firmly managed—something she refused to be.

She headed toward the kitchen, a journey of about eight feet, past the bare bunk that Jess must have slept in to the main part of the camp trailer, wondering why she felt so stupidly self-conscious. This was Jess, after all. Worst-case scenario, he’d treat her like she was still fifteen. Best case... She wasn’t certain that there was a best case.

Jess stood at the counter staring down at the toaster. He was ridiculously good-looking. Dark-haired with sculpted cheekbones and striking eyes. Her friends had all been mystified as to why she wasn’t all over him. She assured them that it was because she knew him. It was his attitude. As in, he had this attitude toward her. So...she’d had an attitude toward him.

Yet here they were.

He suddenly looked up, meeting her gaze. Oh, yeah. Those were some eyes. Her memory wasn’t faulty.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” she echoed, wishing her voice wasn’t so thick.

His eyes strayed down to her legs. “Are you wearing my jeans?”

“Maybe?” She automatically hitched up one side as she answered. “You weren’t using them.” She indicated the duffels with a jerk of her chin. “And it looks like you’re packed for your rodeo trip, which leads me to believe you weren’t taking them.”

“Maybe I wanted something clean to wear when I got home. Besides, that’s not the point, Em.”

She leaned her elbows on the counter next to him. “What is the point, Jess?”

“The point is that you took my stuff without asking.”

“And if I had wandered out in my underwear to ask permission...?” She gave him a how-would-that-have-gone-over look.

“You could have called from the bedroom.”

“Oh, Jeh-ess...can I wear your pa-ants?” She raised her eyebrows in a mock innocent expression. “Like that?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

This felt like old times, when Jess would go all follow-the-rules on her whenever she came up with a great idea, like going out to party with him and her brother, even though she was underage, and she would argue with him.

“You want me to take them off?”

“No.” The word came out so rapidly that it was almost embarrassing. His loss.

“Then I guess I get to wear your jeans.” She looked around the trailer. “You have a clothes dryer here?”

“Yeah. Right.”

“They make those apartment-size things.”

“I go to the Laundromat.”

“Pity. Now I have to wear your jeans.”

He didn’t answer, making her think that he was simply making noise about the jeans. The toast popped and he set it on a plate, then put the plate on the table. Emma took the hint and sat down, even though she wasn’t the least bit hungry.

“We’re going to talk.”

“We are?”

“I brought you to my home rather than leaving you to the mercies of your mom. I want some answers.”

She narrowed her eyes, ignoring the fact that it made her head hurt. “What kind of answers?”

He set a cup of coffee on the table next to the toast and then leaned back against the counter, folding his arms over his chest. His expression was don’t-mess-with-me serious when he said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

“You want to know my business?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Em studied the table, debating. Other than Darion, no one knew the whole truth. She figured by this time, the conjecture was worse than what had actually happened, and far be it from her to disappoint the local gossips. She looked up at him. He had his stern brother look on. Somehow it didn’t seem as effective without Len there to back him up.

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Why are you really hiding from Selma?”

Emma planted her elbows on the table and pressed her fingertips to her forehead. Jess knew her family. Knew the dynamics. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have done the good-guy thing and taken her to his place instead of dropping her off at the motel where Selma would have had a fine old time making a scene. Em owed him.

“She wants me to marry Darion. She assumes Darion feels the same way.”

“He doesn’t?”

“No. We broke up by mutual agreement.”

“Tell her that.” Em leveled a look at him and he cleared his throat. “Right.”

“She honestly believes that if she strong-arms us into matrimony it’ll all work out. She thinks I have the jitters.”

“But you don’t.”

She gave her head a slow shake, because a fast one would have hurt. He looked like he wanted more information, but she’d gotten as personal as she was going to get. “She won’t let it rest. I thought moving into the motel would make my point.”

“How much are you paying to stay there?”

“Nothing. I helped Howie get through all his math classes from kindergarten on. He’s kind of indebted to me.”

“His folks know?”

“I think they think we should get married—Howie and I, I mean.” She let her head fall back, closing her eyes. “I need to escape.”

“Running doesn’t work.”

She opened her eyes. “How do you know? Have you ever run from anything?”

“Is this working for you?”

“I haven’t run far enough. I can’t afford to run far enough.”

“Is there such a thing as far enough when Selma is involved?”

“Maybe not.” She let out a breath and then took a small nibble on the edge of the toast. Her stomach told her to stop, and she did, setting the toast back on the plate. As to the coffee...she swallowed hard. She truly was a drinking lightweight. “Do you have orange juice?”

“No. I’m taking off later today, so I emptied the fridge. That’s why there’s no butter on your toast.” One corner of his mouth tightened. “You know...if you needed a place to stay, you could stay here.”

Emma stared at him. Selma would find her...but maybe not for a couple of days.

And surely she’d give up when Emma started paying her back for the wedding dress she hadn’t wanted, which had been a special order and couldn’t be returned.

“You know...I think Selma was trying to make sure I didn’t back out of the ceremony by buying me that dress.”

“What?”

Jess never had been that good at following her thought processes...but neither had anyone else. Her mind did tend to jump around. Even Len had problems and he was the person closest to her. She smiled at Jess—maybe her first smile in days. “I appreciate the offer.”

“I’ll be gone for the better part of the summer.”

“Hitting the circuit?” She remembered the rodeo purse.

“Hitting it hard. I have to decide whether to go pro this January. Time is running out for me.”

“I see.” She studied the table in front of her, wondering what her next move would be now that Selma had ferreted her out at the Starlight and had brought Wylie along for backup. She’d eventually find her here. Her life would be hell for the next few weeks. Darion would be no help, because Selma thought he also had cold feet and would be as hard on him as she was on Emma if he was foolish enough to come back to Gavin.

Neither of them had the jitters—they had each chosen the wrong person and were doing something about it before it was too late. Selma didn’t see it that way, which made Emma wonder about her marriage to her father.

Had they settled? If so, they seemed happy, which only gave Selma ammunition.

If only Darion had cheated on her...or done something outrageous. Then maybe Selma would back off.

“Em...?”

She raised her gaze, met the eyes of the man that she trusted most in this world—even if he did piss her off most of the time. He was the closest thing she had to her brother and right now she needed her brother.

“Take me with you.” The words came out before the thought was formed.

The look on his face was priceless. It also ticked her off. “I’m not kidding.”

“You can’t come with me.”

“Why?”

“For all the reasons I’ve given over the years when you wanted to come along with me and Len.”

“I’m not underage anymore.” She was twenty-five, but he probably didn’t realize that. He started to speak, but she interrupted. “I can drive part-time, which will come in handy if you get yourself all beat up, which is a very real possibility.” He opened his mouth again, and again she jumped in. “I have a little money socked away. Not enough to start a new life, as I’d hoped, but enough to buy food for myself for four weeks.”

Jess eyed her, obviously waiting for her to run out of steam before telling her no way.

“You can buy the gas, because you’d be doing that no matter what.”

Jess waited a few more seconds, then said, “Are you done.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Waiting to hear all the reasons that this is a no-go,” she said mildly. “Although, you know that Len would have taken me.”

“How do I know that?”

Her tone became low and serious. “Because this isn’t a matter of me being capricious. This is something I need to do. Selma is breaking me, Jess. I don’t want to run forever...just until I can get my equilibrium back.”

He was wavering. He, who took the hard line whenever she’d come up with some scheme to include herself in his and Len’s adventures.

“I lost my brother a little over a year ago, Jess.” Nineteen months, actually. “I’m not one hundred percent. And I think Len’s death is affecting Selma, too. I just...want to get away.”

He lowered his eyes. Tapped his fingers on the table a couple of times. Em held her breath. Waited. “What about your job?”

“There’s a stack of applications in the office. Skye will understand.” Jess’s sister-in-law was now managing the café where she worked. She was a friend. “Don’t make me beg.”

He met her gaze with a frown. “You are begging.”

“Don’t make me beg super hard, then.”

Jess scrubbed his hands over his face, and Emma let out a silent sigh of relief. She’d won. She was going to get her reprieve. “Only if Skye will hold your job for you.”

“What?”

“You have to make a living when you come back.”

“That’s not your concern.”

“But it’s my condition...that and a rodeo-by-rodeo assessment. If this isn’t working, then the deal is done.”

Emma wished her head wasn’t hurting so much. Yes, that seemed fair enough...except for the rodeo-by-rodeo thing. She did have a way of triggering Jess.

Well, she’d just have to figure out a way not to do that.

* * *

JESS THOUGHT BACK over his rides at Hennessey’s practice pens the day before. He hadn’t hit his head, so he couldn’t blame anything but himself for agreeing to let Emma ride along with him on his rodeo tour.

The change in her expression when she’d realized he was about to say yes had been profound and drove home the point that Emma, who had the ability to bounce back from any and all situations, was not bouncing back from the death of her brother and her broken engagement. Throw in a controlling stepmom and...well, he’d said yes.

He hoped he didn’t regret it.

Of course you’re going to regret it.

Okay—he hoped he wasn’t going to regret it too much.

“I need to go to the motel and get my stuff.”

“Do you have enough to travel?”

“I’d better, because I’m not going back to the ranch to pick up more.”

“But you will tell them you’re leaving.”

“The beauty of texting.”

“And talk to Skye.”

“I’ll do that today before we leave.”

“Are you leaving her in a lurch?”

“No. It just occurred to me that Chelsea wanted to ease back into part-time now that she’s had the baby, so this will work out well.” She shrugged. “It’s almost like it’s meant to be.”

He didn’t know about that, but he was certain that now that he’d said yes, there was no way he could say no—at least not until they started wrangling with one another while on the road.

“I’m driving to Union City tonight.”

She gave him a small smile. “We can pick my stuff up on the way out of town.”

Chapter Three

Jess didn’t have a lot to say when he drove, so Emma read on her phone and left him in peace. Len had always wanted to get into his head before an event, and she figured Jess was the same. And even though she was being the perfect cab-mate, riding in silence, Jess kept cutting looks her way as if expecting her to speak.

What was she supposed to say? Thank you for taking me with you? She’d already said that, and Em wasn’t a big believer in repeating herself.

On the fifteenth or sixteenth look she finally broke.

“Nice day for a drive.”

He frowned at her.

“You wanted me to talk, right?”

“I was wondering why you weren’t talking.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

He gave her an I’m-not-falling-for-that look. Fine. He didn’t have to fall for anything. She went back to her phone. He wasn’t going to be able to complain that she was distracting him from mentally preparing for his ride.

“When did you become so quiet?”

“When I figured out that listening was as valuable as talking.” She scrolled to the next page.

“When did that happen?”

She gave a small shrug. “Years ago.”

“Not that many years ago.”

She couldn’t help scowling at him. “I was in college.” She’d dropped out shortly after Len died.

“Ah.”

That shut him up. Good. She wanted to read...except now she couldn’t focus. She turned off her phone, set it in the door compartment next to her. Union City wasn’t that far away and once they got there, they’d set up camp. Jess had a camper on the back of his truck that he’d borrowed from Gus. Since Em was short, and grateful to be along for the ride, she’d volunteered to sleep in the truck, thus giving him privacy.

They pulled into the Union City rodeo grounds a little after seven. Jess leveled the camper while Em rolled out her sleeping bag in the rear seat of the truck. Once the bag was in place she walked back to the camper and knocked on the frame of the open door. Jess was already testing out the stove. They’d agreed to take turns cooking on the road and tonight it was his turn.

In Emma’s mind, he was lucky to have her along. He didn’t have to partner up with anyone to share the driving and he was assured of a decent meal after competition. If he ended up in the hospital, he had someone there to watch his back. Though, honestly, after losing Len, the idea of anyone being in the hospital kind of froze her up.

Emma shoved the thought aside and stepped up into the cramped confines of the camper. Jess continued fiddling with the cooktop, so she stepped to the opposite side and scooted behind the built-in table, the upholstery on the bench catching her jeans and making it hard to slide properly. She propped her elbows on the table as Jess lit a match to test a burner—something she was certain he’d done before they’d left, because he was that kind of guy. He’d no doubt changed the oil on the truck and had the tires rotated, too.

“A little cozier than your last place.”

“The price was right.” After the burner caught, he leaned back, turning the knob to adjust the flame from high to low before turning it back off again. “Gus Hawkins used it when he was on the circuit.”

“Before he came to his senses and started tending bar?”

He gave her a sour look that made her want to smile, but since she was taking pains to steer them away from their old roles—Jess, the rule guy, versus Emma, the rule breaker—she settled for a mere twitch of the lips. Although she’d noticed on more than one occasion that Jess wasn’t so much about him following the rules, as he was about Emma following the rules.

Whatever.

“Since the stove is working, can we make some coffee?”

He sent her a look. “And stay up all night?”

“Coffee doesn’t affect me that way.”

“Then I’ll make you some coffee.”

“Going to have trouble sleeping?”

“Not if I don’t have coffee.”

“You don’t have to make coffee for me. I can do it.”

She started to slide out from behind the table, but he shook his head. “Stay put.”

Emma shrugged and scooted back, where she leaned against the upholstered foam cushion behind her. Darion would have stepped back and happily allowed her to make coffee. Darion probably wouldn’t have minded being in that tight space with her. Jess, on the other hand, had never liked being too close to her—little sister cooties or something.

She let out a low sigh. Why couldn’t things have been...better...with Darion?

“You okay?” Jess frowned as he filled the small coffeepot. He must have heard her sigh. Well, there were sighs and then there were sighs. This was a sigh of frustration, not a sigh of unhappiness, but she saw no sense in trying to explain that to him.

“I’m fine.” She spoke lightly. “Just going over some things in my head.” He scooped coffee into the basket, then set the pot on the burner. “What’s the schedule tomorrow?” she asked.

“I ride. We leave.”

“That’s what I thought.” So much for making conversation, but as awkward as this felt, it was nine hundred times better than dodging her mother and brothers. Not that her brothers were that much of a problem, but they were being nagged by Selma, too. And things would start to feel less uncomfortable between her and Jess as they put more miles behind them.

She tapped the tips of her fingers together as she tried to remember a time that things had been good between them. Couldn’t come up with one, which made her wonder why she trusted him so implicitly.

Maybe because he was the one guy she’d never been able to pull one over on?

Or maybe because he was such a Dudley Do-Right, as opposed to his twin, Tyler, who looked for and found trouble on an almost daily basis?

Did it matter?

Silence hung until the coffee started perking and Jess filled a ceramic mug up to the brim.

“Thanks.” She wasn’t about to ask for cream, but she’d be buying some tomorrow.

He nodded, then seemed to be at a loss as to where to perch himself in the confines of the camper.

“Do you want me to take my coffee to the truck and drink it there?”

“Why?”

“You look uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable. Just...cramped.”

“If I went to the truck—”

He let out a pained breath, which seemed to be his favored way of communicating with her, and then sat down on the short L of the bench around the table so that they were perpendicular to one another. She smiled at him over the top of the coffee cup.

“You make a decent cup of joe.”

“Thanks.”

She sipped, reminding herself again not to do what came naturally and trigger him. She owed him for this opportunity to escape, and since he’d said they would evaluate the situation rodeo by rodeo, she didn’t want to screw things up too early.

“I brought cards,” she said. “I assume that strip poker is out, but maybe cribbage?”

“Did you bring a board?”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. Selma was an amazing cribbage player—something to do with her utterly controlling personality, no doubt—and she’d taught all of her children to play and play well. There had been no allowing the kids to win in order to build their confidence in the Sullivan house. Definitely a dog-eat-dog card-playing world that Jess had been introduced to when he’d become Len’s friend.

“Stupid question,” he muttered.

She reached for her giant Western purse with the silver and the fringe and the bling and pulled out a folding cribbage board made of bird’s-eye maple. Jess reached out to run a finger over it.

“Len made it for me.”

“I remember.” A shadow crossed his features, but Emma pretended not to notice. Grief had been her partner for too long and, while she acknowledged it, she no longer let it take over her life—for the most part, that is. There were always weak moments, but she wasn’t going to let this be one of them.

She pulled the cards out of her purse, shuffled once and set the cards between them. Jess cut a deuce, she cut an ace and picked up the deck. “I think we should play for money.”

“You don’t have any money.”

“Exactly. I need some.” She picked up her cards, quickly choosing two for her crib. Jess debated, chose his cards, then cut the deck. She turned up a jack and pegged two points. “A dollar a point?”

“No.” He played his first card and Emma paired it, pegging two more points. And so it went. They played two games, with Emma continuing to have crazy luck. After pegging her last point and skunking him, she drained the last of her coffee.

“This is good,” she said as she gathered the cards and put them back in the box. “You used up all your bad luck tonight, so you’ll have a good ride tomorrow.”

He didn’t look convinced.

Emma reached out to lightly pat his face, as she would have done with Darion or one of her brothers, only realizing as her palm made contact that this was Jess, not Darion or one of her brothers. Dear heavens. What was she doing?