Country Heaven by Ava Miles Page B

keep her feeding him for the rest of his life.
    But he wasn’t ever getting married. Was never planning on letting another woman have the chance to control and manipulate him day in and day out like his mama did to his daddy, and to him growing up. And Tory was definitely the settle–down type.
    They’d just have to be friends, and wasn’t that a first for him with a woman?
    ***
    Hours later, after admitting defeat when Rye wouldn’t end his campaign for her to join the festivities, she was leaning against a wooden beam in the dark, smoky Cowboys Red River bar. Well, Rye had been right about one thing. She was fascinated. And downright appalled.
    A hoard of scantily clad women had cornered Rye near the entrance to the fenced off bull ring. Cleavage was at a premium. And Rye was eating it up like a sultan prince.
    Watching these women ride the enormous robotic bull—with a fake head and horns and everything—was like watching that old John Travolta movie, Urban Cowboy . Most wore jean mini–skirts, making Tory wonder about chafing. She winced each time one of them took a tumble onto the squishy black gym mats, their breasts bouncing. Of course, the men just hooted and laughed.
    Including Rye, and unease began to spread over her. She’d become used to seeing a different side of him in the privacy of the bus, one she liked. This Rye? Well, she didn’t care for him at all.
    She tried to take the high road, using her anthropological tool kit to analyze this strange mating dance in front of her. But she couldn’t keep it going. As the women wove out of the ring, she only had one academic conclusion: whiplash and alcohol did not mix. One poor beauty queen lost her dinner on a handsome cowboy.
    The serpentine line to the mechanical bull dwindled as the night went on. Rye stood at the entrance to the ring with Clayton, who was in charge of the stopwatch and writing down the final time per rider.
    “Can you believe this?” said an older man to Tory’s right. “I come from a pretty small town and a very different generation, and I have to say I’m a little shocked by all this.”
    Tory angled her head. The man was in his fifties, a bit portly, and had on a John Deere baseball hat. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
    “I’m Luke,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m one of the crew. Lighting.”
    “Oh. Hi, I’m Tory.”
    “Yeah, everyone knows about you. You’re cooking for Rye and reforming him, right?” he asked.
    How was she supposed to respond to that? “I just work for Rye.”
    He smiled easily. “You know, you remind me of my eldest daughter. She doesn’t like to talk out of school either. I can’t wait for the tour to be over so I can visit her.”
    “That’s nice,” she responded.
    “Clayton mentioned you’re from Lawrence,” Luke said. “Great town. Love the Jayhawks. My daughter lives in Kansas City. Hey, I’m heading back to the buses now. Do you want to catch a ride with me? Seems we’re both a little out of our element here.”
    It was true, and she wasn’t having much fun. “Sure.” It was nice to talk to someone. She’d been on her own for most of the night, without anyone approaching her for conversation. At first she’d assumed it was because she didn’t look like one of them, but given what Luke had told her about Rye, she wondered if they were staying clear of her because they thought she was some boring Mary Sue bent on changing their bad–boy hero. The people here wouldn’t want that, and it explained some of the hostile looks she’d received from the women in the bar.
    As she was weaving her way through the crowd, a hand grabbed her arm. When she looked over her shoulder, Rye tipped back his black Stetson. “Your turn, honey.”
    Luke continued to make his way to the front of the bar, and there were too many people in between them for her to stop him. Stuck, her eyes swept to the ring as another woman took a dive off the bull.
    “Not in a million years,”