A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (2 page)

Thank God, there hadn’t been actual sex
because the kissing and groping had been enough to make them both act stiff and
awkward for a week. Lord only knew how much worse sex would have made it.

For her daughter’s sake, Georgia had forced herself to get past it. Daniel, too, had relaxed, and things went back
to normal. At least on the surface. Under the surface, Georgia wasn’t sure what was going on. She almost wished they’d taken the next step that night, but
she hadn’t known yet that the incident with the third-grade bully would have
her thinking about the family patterns she was passing on to Eden.

The life she had wasn’t what she wanted
for her daughter, and Daniel was her prime candidate to remedy that. He didn’t
know it yet, of course, and whatever moves she needed to make to change their
relationship would have to wait until she got back, which might not be until
fall. That sucked, but the last thing in the world she needed was to get what
her mama called “all stirred up” before she headed home to Hero Creek because “all
stirred up” was too dangerous to put in the same room with her ex-husband.

Daniel sighed. “I’m going to miss you. We
feel almost like a family when we do things together with the girls.”

Which was exactly what she wanted. It
couldn’t be all that hard to turn “almost a family” into an
actual
family, could it?

Lydia
leaned in, bringing her lips close to Georgia’s ear. “Who’s that?” she asked in
the same breathy voice Georgia remembered all too well from their junior
college days. The one that meant she’d spotted a man she’d like to know better.
Usually a lot better.

“Who’s what? Where?” Georgia asked, almost yelling to be heard over the rodeo announcer’s distorted voice. Why was it
that rodeo producers seemed to think their fans were not only half deaf but
hadn’t considered putting fresh batteries in their hearing aids?

“Him. There.” Lydia pointed over the
arena railing. “Beside the bull chute. The black hat on the side of the chute,
pulling on the bull rope.” She fanned her face. “Seriously hot. He could eat
crackers in my bed any time his little ol’ heart desired.”

Georgia
frowned. “That’s Sol McKnight.”

“McKnight? You’re related to him?”

“He’s Eden’s daddy.”

“
That’s
your ex-husband?” Lydia stared at her open-mouthed.

Georgia
nodded. “Yeah.” Her tone was dry.

“You let a hunk like that get away?” Lydia’s gaze was locked on Sol again. “What
were
you thinking?”

“I was thinking I didn’t want the door to
hit me in the ass on the way out.” And she’d been almost fast enough to get
away unscathed.

“Good heavens! Why? He’s grade A prime.”

Yeah, well . . . Looks
aren’t everything.” And if looks were all Sol McKnight had to offer, Georgia would long ago have relegated him to lessons learned.

Unfortunately, in the twelve years since
their divorce, she had, on rare occasion, not been averse to letting him eat
crackers and a few other delectables in her bed—something she always regretted
afterward.

“Would it be too weird if I checked that
out for myself? I mean, since you don’t want him and all.”

Weird? No. Tacky? Yes. Their friendship
had been little more than superficial in recent years. It had grown out of
convenience and shared classes in their junior college days, back when Georgia had set her sights on earning her teaching certificate. For some unfathomable
reason, Lydia had made the effort to stay in touch. She’d also gotten her
certification three years before Georgia and landed a job a couple of towns
over from Hero Creek. Close enough that Georgia had felt compelled to call her,
asking Lydia to meet her at the rodeo, when she’d succumbed to Bethany’s persuasion. Coming to the rodeo alone had just felt too pathetic.

Not wanting to examine why Lydia’s request sowed a seed of anger in her chest, Georgia kept her eyes on the action in the arena
and forced a casual response to Lydia’s question. “Sure. Why not?”

“Could you introduce me to him?”

Georgia
did glance at her then. Lydia didn’t see it; her gaze was locked greedily on
Sol as he bent over the chute to steady the cowboy on the restless bull’s back.

The seed of anger threatened to sprout.
Forcing herself to ignore it, Georgia said, “Later. I’ve got a favor I need to
ask of him first.” Which was the only reason she was there at all. God Almighty,
but she hated watching Sol ride.

She shifted her gaze to the action at the
chute where the rider who was about to give the nod for the gate to open. Sol’s
jeans stretched tight across his behind as he reached into the chute, and Georgia had to admit Lydia at least had good taste. With that lean build typical of rodeo cowboys,
her ex-husband was still a hunk. Georgia shook her head. Such thoughts could
cause a girl to make stupid decisions. Lord knew she’d already made too many of
those where he was concerned.

The bull rider’s hat bobbed, the gate
swung away, and the bull shot into the arena.

Even to Georgia’s less-than-discerning
eye, the bull under this cowboy seemed to buck in an easy rhythmic pattern. She
glanced back to the chute, but Sol had dropped out of sight. Ignoring the
eight-second buzzer, she scanned the men hanging on the rails.

The crowd’s collective gasp jerked back
to the arena. The rider had made his ride, but his gloved hand had hung up in
the bull rope during his dismount. His feet bounced over the ground as the bull
continued to buck. The flopping cowboy at his side energized the bull, and he
bucked harder and more erratically than he had for the ride.

Bull fighters in their clown makeup and
bright clothes rushed in to distract the bull. Other cowboys jumped off the
railings. They crowded around the bull, reaching over the bull’s back, trying
to release the taut rope that had the cowboy’s hand trapped. Seeing Sol in
their midst had Georgia’s heart pounding like a sledgehammer against her ribs.
She’d hoped the injury that had taken him out of the PBR cup tour two years ago
would convince him to quit the bulls, but that had proved an empty fantasy
because there he was, risking his life, crowding a disgruntled bull, to save a
fellow rider.

It seemed to take forever to get the
cowboy loose. In reality, it probably wasn’t even ten seconds, but that was a
long damned time to be flopping around beside an unhappy bull. Miraculously, no
one looked damaged except the rider, who cradled his abused arm close to his
body as he hobbled out of the arena to find the rodeo doctor.

The extra adrenaline was still rushing
through her system a few minutes later when she realized Sol was in the chute,
mounted on a bull. On those rare occasions when she sat in the stands, she
usually discovered a desperate thirst just before he rode. She was about to
make her excuse to go to the concession stand when Lydia grabbed her hand. In
her excitement—and maybe the fear that if something bad happened she wouldn’t
get to meet him—Lydia squeezed Georgia’s hand too tightly.

Before she could pull free, Sol’s hat
bobbed and the gate opened. Her throat closed up. The announcer’s voice blurred
into a loud buzzing in her ears. She looked at the announcer’s box perched
above the fans at the end of the arena then at the crowd below him. If the
sound system had developed a problem, no one else seemed aware of it. Her gaze
flickered to the clock with its large digital numbers. It changed from 3.2 to
3.3 as she watched. Ten seconds later, it read 3.4.
Dear God. The clock’s
broken.

She made the mistake of looking into the
arena as the bull spun hard to the right. Sol’s right arm swung through the
air, counterbalancing the bull’s forward lunge. Georgia’s free hand clenched
the railing while her knees threatened to buckle.

She looked back at the clock: 5.2. At
tenth-of-a-second intervals that seemed to last minutes, it clicked over a
number. 5.3 . . . 5.4 . . . 5.5.

She locked her jaw, trying to convince
her supper to stay in her stomach. The bull switched directions, but Sol stayed
with him.

At last, the whistle blared. The bull’s
front hooves hit the ground, its rear hooves rising to the apex of a kick as
Sol jumped from its back. It was as clean a dismount as Georgia had ever seen, but his momentum still pushed Sol to one knee. She took a shaky breath as he
scrambled away from the still bucking bull.

The bull quickly calmed and trotted
placidly toward the exit gate. The buzz in her ears faded, the announcer’s
voice, only slightly garbled now, rose through it. “. . . and
that’s a good eight-second ride for Sol McKnight on Thunder Alley!”

###

The bars always filled up after the
rodeo. The cowboys walked in, looking to make up for lost time, followed
closely by the buckle bunnies. It wasn’t hard for Georgia to find Sol’s truck
at a local watering hole.

A sea of cowboy hats filled the room. She
scanned the space around her while Lydia waited at the bar for their drinks.
Finally, she spotted Sol near the pool tables.

“Hey, Sol,” she said as she came up
behind him.

He turned, his face registering surprise.
“Georgia.”

She hadn’t been able to tell from across
the arena, but she saw with astonishment he was sporting a neatly trimmed
mustache. Very Tom Selleck, she thought.

Someone bumped Georgia from behind. The
small step forward she took to keep her balance brought her close enough to
feel the heat from Sol’s body. Had he changed his aftershave, too? She liked
the unfamiliar, musky scent.

Sol took her arm. “C’mon. Let’s find a
less crowded spot.”

She let him steer her to a corner where
the bar had shoved extra tables to open up the dance floor. He settled one butt
cheek on the corner of a table and leaned back. An Ace bandage was wrapped
around his left hand. Bull riders rode hurt more often than not, so that might
not be new. He hadn’t been injured on Thunder Alley, but it could have happened
in the short round; she’d gone to the concession stand rather than watch him
ride again.

“I was sorry to hear about your mama,”
Sol said. “How’s she doing?”

Ensuring she’d keep her hands to herself,
Georgia tucked her fingers into the rear pockets of her jeans. “It’s tough.
The doctor says the stroke could have done a lot more damage, but if she works
at the therapy, we should see a full recovery.” Georgia stopped there. She didn’t
want to share her frustrations with Sol. Her mother’s verbal skills had taken a
bad hit. She seemed to know what she wanted to say, but the right words eluded
her. Even when she found them, they came out garbled. Communicating with her
mama had turned into a not-very-amusing game of charades—a game Georgia had never been good at.

Sol seemed to know she was holding back;
his gray eyes grew sympathetic. “How’s your daddy doing?”

It was nice of him to ask. Her parents
had never liked Sol—a fact not lost on him. “Not well. You know how Mama always
does everything for him.”

Sol’s eyes lightened and a smile tugged
at his lips. “I bet your poor daddy wanders around the kitchen, trying to
figure out how to feed hisself.” He grinned widely and chuckled. “And I can
just picture him trying to do his own laundry.”

Georgia
couldn’t hold back the airy pfft of disbelief. “Then you’re the
only
one
who can picture it. I’ve come for the summer to help out—”

“You have?”

His attention sharpened but Georgia didn’t like the look in his eyes. If she hadn’t known better, she’d have called it
a “what’s in this for me” look.

She took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “I
need a favor, Sol. You know there are no kids near my folks’ place for Eden to hang out with. She really wants to come out to the ranch.”

Sol’s body stiffened and his eyes
darkened again; Georgia had to fight the instinct to flinch. In spite of how
difficult it was asking him for a favor, she’d thought he’d be happy to have
the standard six weeks he had his daughter turn into the whole summer. Unless
having his daughter for so long was going to create problems with his love
life.

He pushed himself upright. “You’re asking
if Eden can stay at the ranch, and you call it a favor?” He shoved his cowboy
hat back on his head and hit her with a scowl of disgust. “Dammit, Georgia. She ain’t no shirttail relation no one wants to own up to. She’s my daughter.
Anything she needs from me she can have without asking.”

Georgia
squared her shoulders. “Well, pardon me for not wanting to sound like a
demanding ex-wife.”

“Where Eden’s concerned, there ain’t no
demands. When have I ever not been there for her?”

Lydia
’s
voice behind her saved Georgia from having to admit he never said no when the
subject was Eden. Never. Not even when he should.

“There you are! I was wondering where you’d
high-tailed it off to.”

Georgia
turned as Lydia came up beside her. Her friend had two longneck beers and fresh
lipstick on her mouth.

“Hiding in a corner with the best-looking
man in the place.” Lydia tsked as she handed Georgia a beer. “I thought friends
were supposed to share.”

“Sol, this is Lydia.” Georgia sounded sulky even in her own ears.

Sol turned off his anger to acknowledge
the introduction. “Hey, Lydia.”

“I was so impressed when you rode that
big ol’ bull. I swear I nearly stopped breathing when he busted outta that
gate.”

It was all Georgia could do not to roll
her eyes.

“Some folks see bull riding as
irresponsible.”

Georgia
didn’t miss the flick of his eyes toward her. Her mouth dropped open. She had
never called it irresponsible. Not exactly. What she’d said was it was hard to
explain to Eden why her daddy risked life and limb for something that didn’t
pay squat.

Before she could defend herself, Lydia closed the distance between herself and Sol and slipped her hand around his arm. He
bent his elbow so her fingers lay lightly inside the crook of his elbow.

“You shouldn’t pay attention to folks
like that. They’re just jealous.” Lydia flipped a wave of chestnut hair over
her shoulder and looked up at Sol. Her voice dropped into a sultry register. “I
think it’s brave. How do you ever find the courage to get on those bulls?”

Sol’s eyebrows rose as though he was
surprised to discover a buckle bunny among Georgia’s friends. Georgia could have told him Lydia didn’t give a damn about championship buckles; she was into tight
male asses and always had been.