Cowboy Fever by Joanne Kennedy

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    â€œGlad to be home? Me too, buddy,” Jodi said, giving him an affectionate pat. “But you’re going to have to stop that dancing around. You’re not a barrel horse anymore, okay? You’re a therapy horse.”
    She led the horse into his stall, then headed for the trailer. It was a remnant of her queen winnings, a gift from one of her sponsors. It had space for two horses, along with a cubbyhole for tack and feed and small but comfy living quarters at the front she’d called home through many a rodeo. Everything was fitted out like a super-deluxe yacht on wheels with polished wood and brass hardware. She cared for it like it was a yacht too, keeping the two stalls sparkling clean, the wood polished, and the brass shining. She didn’t use it much, since it was a bugger to tow with the Ranger, but the transport company she’d hired to haul Eightball had been happy to hook it to a diesel and haul it home.
    She was clearing out the last of the dirty straw from the trailer when Teague’s truck pulled into the drive. Looking up from her work, she watched him slide down from the cab and felt a flutter in her stomach. He wasn’t dressed quite so much like a dude today. His jeans were a little faded, his shirtsleeves rolled up to expose tanned, muscular forearms. He was pure cowboy, and her heart did a happy little jitterbug at the sight while her body warmed and urged her closer.
    She scanned him from hat to toes, looking for something to distract her from the way his shirt tapered from broad shoulders to slim hips, and decided his boots were a little too polished and his shirt was too crisply creased at the collar.
    But finding flaws didn’t do any good. Teague’s style of dress might have changed, but his walk was still a loose-hipped swagger that made her heart dance in her chest. She remembered how he’d looked in the dim light of his bedroom, how his muscles had gleamed in the half-light from the window, and she had to take a deep breath to stop her hands from shaking. She felt suddenly self-conscious remembering the last time they’d been together, but she needn’t have worried. Teague shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the barn, the horizon, everything but her.
    â€œTroy around?” he asked.
    Evidently, it was business as usual for him. He was going to pretend their little roll in the hay hadn’t happened.
    Fine. She was fine with that. He’d hurt her once, but she wasn’t going to let it happen again. This time, she’d known from the start that sex with Teague was just that: sex. Great sex, incredible sex, but nothing more. Not love. Not romance.
    It was liberating, she told herself. She felt strong. Powerful. It was like being a man, taking what you wanted and refusing to let anyone put reins on your heart just because you’d shared your body.
    Something in the back of her mind was nagging her, though, saying it hadn’t been just her body she’d given. It had been something more—a meeting of souls as well as bodies. Hadn’t Teague felt it?
    Probably not. She was just being a girl. She’d been raised to think sex meant love, but it didn’t have to. Sometimes sex was just sex.
    She looked up and caught him eyeing her with a subtle sideways glance. There was a hint of yearning in his expression—just a hint, but unmistakable. Good. She was still ahead then.
    â€œTroy’s stringing fence.” She stopped sweeping and leaned the broom up against the wall, then gestured toward her new employee, who was pounding another metal post into the ground halfway down the fence line.
    â€œBy himself?”
    â€œLuna’s with him. But yeah. He’s good at it.”
    â€œI know. I taught him. But aren’t you watching him?”
    Shoot. She’d barely had time to appreciate Teague before he ticked her off. She grabbed a mop out of a bucket of soapy water and pulled the lever that