he associated with. Everywhere he looked was leather and brown-and-white cowhide patterns. And the trophies . Jesus. She had a special lighted display case for them. He knew she rode horses a lot, but she must have been competing since she could walk to accumulate all of those.
Rows of them. Trophies. Medals. Framed pictures of her holding them as a snaggle-toothed little girl, then a gangly teenager, finally the gorgeous woman he knew. An older couple beaming with pride flanked her in most of them. Parents, probably. She bore a striking resemblance to the woman.
One picture in particular caught his eye. She was astride, turning a barrel in a cloud of dust. The photographer had caught the fierce, determined scowl on her face perfectly, and it didn’t do any favors for his current erection.
“I had no idea I was in the presence of the Queen of the Rodeo.”
“Obnoxious, isn’t it?” she asked, wrinkling her pert nose and tossing her purse on the pale leather loveseat.
“Oh, sure. Totally obnoxious,” he joked.
She laughed. “Well, I sort of…can’t bring myself to get rid of them. For a long time after I quit competing, I packed them away. I didn’t want to look at them, but in the end, I cracked. I guess it’s my inborn competitive streak—I have to have the reminder that I accomplished something. Silly, right?” She actually seemed to be blushing.
It was insanely sexy.
“I get it,” he said. “I feel the same way when I wake up and see the unconscious hookers and the tower of empty beer cans I built the night before. It’s so hard to let go.”
He struggled to keep the statement dead serious, and sure enough, he was gifted with an alarmed look from her wide hazel eyes.
Then, suddenly, she got it. Without him having to say a word or crack a smile, her body went off alert, and she laughed. “God, you’re bad.”
“So is there some reason why you quit racing?”
Her gaze flickered from the relics of her glory days to his face. There was a directness in that stare that threatened to undo him. “Candace never mentioned it to you?”
Racking his brain and coming up empty, he shook his head. “Nope.”
“I was competing in Conroe when I was eighteen. I’d just made the last turn when—I don’t know what happened. I don’t even remember. But apparently, something spooked my horse, and I was thrown. Cracked a couple vertebrae among a dozen other things. I was black and blue all over. Ten weeks in a brace, plus surgery and physical therapy…it was…scary. My mare, Sugar, broke her leg and had to be put down.” She nodded toward the picture he’d been contemplating earlier. “That’s her there.”
“Damn, girl.”
Her lip quirked. “After I came out of all that, I just didn’t have the fire for it like I used to. I still ride, still love it, but I’m way more cautious than before. In all things, I guess.”
“I can see how that would happen. Do you still have problems?”
“Sometimes. But overall I’ve been really lucky. Very lucky. So I don’t complain too much.”
He opened his mouth to say he found it pretty incredible she would even want to look at a horse after something like that, but then being pulled from the mangled wreckage of his parents’ car at six years old hadn’t made him swear off vehicles. Just the opposite, really. He spent his spare time trying to fix them. The bigger the job, the more he liked it. But he’d never be able to mold that shredded mass of metal in his memory into anything resembling an automobile, even in his dreams.
She had caught him. “Were you about to say something?”
“Just that”—he struggled to contain the emotion threatening to crack his voice—“maybe we can compare scars.”
There was little else he’d seen in his entire life more beautiful than Macy’s smile. Maybe that was because, now that he thought about it, it was a fairly rare thing. “You’ll show me yours if I show you mine?”
He winked at her. “That
Rows of them. Trophies. Medals. Framed pictures of her holding them as a snaggle-toothed little girl, then a gangly teenager, finally the gorgeous woman he knew. An older couple beaming with pride flanked her in most of them. Parents, probably. She bore a striking resemblance to the woman.
One picture in particular caught his eye. She was astride, turning a barrel in a cloud of dust. The photographer had caught the fierce, determined scowl on her face perfectly, and it didn’t do any favors for his current erection.
“I had no idea I was in the presence of the Queen of the Rodeo.”
“Obnoxious, isn’t it?” she asked, wrinkling her pert nose and tossing her purse on the pale leather loveseat.
“Oh, sure. Totally obnoxious,” he joked.
She laughed. “Well, I sort of…can’t bring myself to get rid of them. For a long time after I quit competing, I packed them away. I didn’t want to look at them, but in the end, I cracked. I guess it’s my inborn competitive streak—I have to have the reminder that I accomplished something. Silly, right?” She actually seemed to be blushing.
It was insanely sexy.
“I get it,” he said. “I feel the same way when I wake up and see the unconscious hookers and the tower of empty beer cans I built the night before. It’s so hard to let go.”
He struggled to keep the statement dead serious, and sure enough, he was gifted with an alarmed look from her wide hazel eyes.
Then, suddenly, she got it. Without him having to say a word or crack a smile, her body went off alert, and she laughed. “God, you’re bad.”
“So is there some reason why you quit racing?”
Her gaze flickered from the relics of her glory days to his face. There was a directness in that stare that threatened to undo him. “Candace never mentioned it to you?”
Racking his brain and coming up empty, he shook his head. “Nope.”
“I was competing in Conroe when I was eighteen. I’d just made the last turn when—I don’t know what happened. I don’t even remember. But apparently, something spooked my horse, and I was thrown. Cracked a couple vertebrae among a dozen other things. I was black and blue all over. Ten weeks in a brace, plus surgery and physical therapy…it was…scary. My mare, Sugar, broke her leg and had to be put down.” She nodded toward the picture he’d been contemplating earlier. “That’s her there.”
“Damn, girl.”
Her lip quirked. “After I came out of all that, I just didn’t have the fire for it like I used to. I still ride, still love it, but I’m way more cautious than before. In all things, I guess.”
“I can see how that would happen. Do you still have problems?”
“Sometimes. But overall I’ve been really lucky. Very lucky. So I don’t complain too much.”
He opened his mouth to say he found it pretty incredible she would even want to look at a horse after something like that, but then being pulled from the mangled wreckage of his parents’ car at six years old hadn’t made him swear off vehicles. Just the opposite, really. He spent his spare time trying to fix them. The bigger the job, the more he liked it. But he’d never be able to mold that shredded mass of metal in his memory into anything resembling an automobile, even in his dreams.
She had caught him. “Were you about to say something?”
“Just that”—he struggled to contain the emotion threatening to crack his voice—“maybe we can compare scars.”
There was little else he’d seen in his entire life more beautiful than Macy’s smile. Maybe that was because, now that he thought about it, it was a fairly rare thing. “You’ll show me yours if I show you mine?”
He winked at her. “That
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