Dixie Lynn Dwyer (2 page)

“Shit, Vic. I’ve been there before. Remember that guy, Ralph, that kept bothering Elise, but we didn’t find out until we forced the info from Juliet?” Vic nodded.

“Well, notice that he no longer comes into town, never mind into Dixie Chix. I went to see him. Threatened to beat him down and leave him in the field for the animals to have their way with him. He saw that look in my eyes. You know, that look that tells anyone with any common sense that I’ve killed before. I was so worried about Elise. I want to protect her, but I’m also afraid of smothering her, too. If she becomes our woman, I don’t know if I’ll be able to let her out of my sight, never mind work at Dixie Chix.”

Vic chuckled.

“We’ve stopped ourselves. We’re getting better with time and maybe being with Elise will help, too. I’ve fucked around long enough, Vic. I want more.”

“So do I. So I guess we’d better start working on breaking down those walls Elise has built up.”

“Now that is going to be a challenge.”

Elise Ross was bending over trying to restock the bottom shelf with some glasses when she heard the whistle. She knew her blue jeans were tight and hung below the waist, hugging her hips and revealing a bit of hip bone, but it was the attire most of the staff wore. She also wore a tight fitting black T-shirt that stopped at her midriff and had the words “Dixie Chix” done up in rhinestones. She ignored the whistles until she heard the commotion of more than a few men at the bar.

She glanced up and shook her head, eyeing Ben and Quinn, who ran the electric bull, along with Gus and two other guys she didn’t know. She placed her hands on her hips.

“Okay, who’s the wiseass?” she asked, and they laughed. But she noticed the one guy, with the dark hair and big brown eyes, was absorbing her body. She could tell immediately he liked what he saw, and she winked at him.

“Aww, come on, Elise, with that fine body of yours, what do expect us to do?” Gus asked with a smile.

She threw the bar rag at him and the others laughed.

“So, who are your friends?” she asked and tried not to make it obvious that she was checking out the cutie with the brown eyes dressed in a dark green cowboy shirt and tight fitting black Wranglers. Man, was he sexy.

“This is Carver and Tagart. They’re visiting from Tennessee,” Gus told her, and she immediately felt her heart race. She was from Tennessee and Tagart had her full attention.

“Where in Tennessee are y’all from?” she asked.

“Livingston? How about you, honey?” Tagart asked.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Honey, from one Tennessean to another, we can tell by your accent. Whereabouts?” Tagart pushed.

She smiled. “Nashville.” He reached his hand out to shake hers and he held it a moment as he squeezed her hand. Oh yeah, he was definitely interested.

“So we have everything set for the first contest. Are you going to be giving it a whirl tonight, Elise?” Gus asked her. She felt her cheeks warm. She got really excited just thinking about riding the bull. Back home in Tennessee, she worked on a dude ranch and taught tourists how to ride the electric bull. With Ben and Quinn at the controls of good old “Hurt So Good,” the name she and the girls had given the bull, it could make for some real fun.

“Well, let’s see what type of crowd you draw and take it from there,” she stated.

“You ride, darling?” Tagart asked her as he looked her over for the umpteenth time.

“Can she ride? Shit, boy, she’d give you a run for your money,” Gus stated.

“Oh, stop teasing him, Gus. He’s a wrangler from Tennessee. I bet he can ride just fine and hell of a lot better than little ol’ me.” She winked at Gus and really laid on her Tennessee accent. He seemed to know where this conversation was headed.

“Really now. You being sarcastic, honey?” Tagart asked.

“Me?” she replied with her hand over her chest, which only drew his eyes toward her bust. Not that he hadn’t been looking.

“How good is she, Gus?” Tagart asked but never took his eyes off of her. She held his gaze as her belly tightened in complete awareness of his flirtatious technique.

Gus raised his eyebrows at Elise, but she held Tagart’s gaze.

“Real good, cowboy.”

The hoots and hollers filled the air around them, and Elise blushed as Tagart licked his lips and smiled at her.

“It’s on then, doll. You and me. Whoever lasts the longest. Gus, you make sure that Ben and Quinn hit us equally with their moves on the controls,” Tagart said.

“Is this a go, Elise?” Gus asked.

She looked Tagart over and smiled. “It’s a go. Just let me get coverage for the bar here. Clara should be over in ten minutes.”

* * * *

“Hey, Vic, Tommy, what’s going on?” Mason asked as Vic and his brother approached the main bar in Dixie Chix.

“Not too much. How’s the SWAT thing going?” Vic asked Mason as he ordered a couple of beers from Juliet.

“It’s going great. Thanks for asking.”

“Hi, guys,” Juliet said as she handed over the bottles of beer.

“Hey, Juliet. Big crowd tonight, huh?” Vic asked.

“Sure is. They’re having the first of five bull-riding contests tonight. The winner with the highest score takes home a nice sum of money,” Juliet stated.

“Really? How much is it at now?” Tommy asked.

“Four thousand.”

“Wow.” Tommy replied.

“Well, Susanna thinks it will easily reach ten before we get to the final round in December. It’s right before Christmas,” Juliet told them.

“Hey, you guys are coming over for Thanksgiving tomorrow right?” Juliet asked Vic and Tommy. They looked at one another and shrugged their shoulders as they took slugs of beer. Often, they did a lot of things at exactly the same time. It was part of being twins.

“Is that a yes? It better be. I expect some of that homemade Native American cuisine you’ve dropped off to Carl and Richie.”

“Hey, is this some sort of insulting comment because we’re Comanche and the pilgrims ate with Indians for Thanksgiving? I’m not dressing in my tribal wear, Juliet. Thanks a lot,” Tommy stated and Juliet’s mouth dropped.

She grabbed Tommy’s arm. “Oh my God, no. Please don’t think that. I just meant I loved the vegetable pie and that other corn meal dish you and Vic made for the guys. I swear,” Juliet said, and Vic laughed as he saw Juliet turn a bright red.

“I’m just messing with you. Of course we’re coming over. The guys are like our only family,” Tommy added. Juliet shook her head then walked away.

“That was good,” Mason told Tommy. Tommy smiled then turned around to take in the large crowd of people. He could hear Gus, the DJ, getting some music going and he was talking on the mic.

Vic was looking toward the left of the room, not too far from where they stood. He gave Tommy a tap.

Tommy looked over in the direction Vic was nodding toward and he felt his stomach clench. Elise was standing in front of the bar talking to some tall cowboy he didn’t recognize.

“Do you know him?” Vic asked Tommy.

“Nope.” Vic watched at the cowboy touched Elise’s shirt that barely covered her belly. He knew she wore a belly ring, and he also knew she had a tattoo on her hip bone of an iris that led with vines below her jeans. He imagined that it went from her side, down her hip, to nearly her ass. It wasn’t huge and from the quick glimpse of it, it seemed colorful. Vic swallowed hard. He felt his blood pressure rise. He would lose it if Elise were dating someone.

“He lays another fucking hand on her and I’m going over there,” Tommy stated, sounding like he was spitting venom.

“Slow down, brother. She doesn’t belong to us.”

“Fuck that, Vic. I want her, you want her, so what the fuck are we waiting for?”

“We don’t have time to court a woman when we’re spending all our time working as deputies and training our cousins in bull riding over at Dudley Farms. We talked about this. A plan needs to be made.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. I won’t stand by and let another man sweep her off her feet and away from us. We’re thirty years old. We aren’t getting any younger and neither of us has been with another woman in over a year. Not since we set eyes on Elise,” Tommy admitted firmly, never taking his eyes off of Elise.

Vic knew his brother was right. He was getting tired of ignoring his feelings for Elise and they discussed this on the farm. But now he was getting nervous. What did he have to offer her? But then he wanted more. He wanted a woman he could hold and share things with. Especially while seeing all their friends around them pursuing their women with success. Any time there was a situation, he and his brother immediately took over protecting Elise.

He stared at her while she laughed with the new guy. The cowboy was dressed in designer jeans, designer cowboy boots, and he looked at Elise like she were his next meal.

As they watched the cowboy walk away, Vic saw Elise turn and fan herself as Carla smiled wide then gave Elise a high five. Fuck if that guy was going to get into his woman’s pants. Not if Vic and his brother had a say in it.

* * * *

Susanna met Elise in the back room at Dixie Chix as Sally walked out of the bathroom.

“Geeze, honey, you don’t look so good,” Susanna stated.

“I just threw up. I think the food I ate at lunch didn’t agree with me.”

“Do you want me to call Juliet at the bar? Mason and Steven are there,” Susanna told her.

“No. I’m fine now. Thanks anyway. So what’s going on over by the bull-riding booth? I heard there’s some special challenge ride?” Sally asked and Elise shook her head.

“You met Tagart McKeiver and Carver Jackson, Elise?” Susanna asked.

“I sure did. Very good-looking man, that Tagart cowboy is,” Elise said as she fixed her hair and her lip gloss.

“He’s a big shot from Dallas, originally from Tennessee. He’s visited before but not Dixie Chix. Anyway, he’s been a friend with Gus for years. He helps with promotions and Gus told him about our little bull-riding contest. We’re going to need some cool judges and that’s right up Carver’s and Tagart’s alleys. Gus wants to impress them with the crowd response.”

“Well, that hottie, Tagart, just challenged me to a time contest on Hurt So Good.”

“Really?” Sally asked.

Elise smiled.

“This could be great. I mean, just the fact that one of our own Dixie Chix is an entrant in the contest,” Susanna began to say.

“Whoa, slow down, Susanna. I can’t be a contestant. I work here and it may look bad. Besides, Gus and the guys have a good group of men riding that bull for the grand prize.”

“But throw in a female contestant and hot damn, the excitement around this event will explode,” Sally added.

“It would be great for Dixie Chix and great for you, too. I know you miss riding,” Susanna told her.

“I do miss it, but that’s why I left Tennessee. I don’t mind helping out, but competing again?”

“It’s not really competing. You’re on an electric bull. Just do your best and if you get beat, so be it. But hey, the longer you last the better it will be for this contest. Or maybe, you could just be the entertainment part of it. I’ve seen you slow move on that bull, too,” Susanna stated.

Elise smiled. She felt so alive and comfortable on the bull. She did really miss it. “Why the hell not? It’s not like I’ve got anything else going on in my life.”

“Okay. I’ll go tell Gus and the guys. He’ll get things started and let Tagart go first.”

“Sounds good. I’ll be out in a minute.”

Sally and Susanna left the room, and Elise looked into the mirror. She thought about Devlon, her best friend and first and only lover. They had done everything together. They even worked side by side on the dude ranch. He had come to mean so much to her as they planned on getting married and making their dreams come true. They were young. She was nineteen and he was twenty. She felt her chest tighten. How did things go so wrong? Why had he let his need for money rule his mind? He felt that he was nothing without it. Nothing but a stable cleaner, a worker for the wealthy, and eventually his gambling habit cost him his life and Elise her freedom. Just thinking about Tysler Cobbs made her stomach ache and her heart race. That mean, rich bastard was the reason why Devlon died.

She took a deep breath, knowing that she was safe here in Texas. She’d paid off Devlon’s debt with money instead of her body as they had suggested. Sure she stole one of their prize calves and sold it right under their noses to their competitor Bryce Rutherford, then used their own money to pay them and they were none the wiser. Working on the ranch had taught her life lessons and ultimately survival. She chuckled to herself. By now, the calf was full grown and showing signs of being from the champion bloodline. She had a feeling that Bryce knew exactly where she had gotten the calf, but he didn’t care. His hatred for Tysler Cobb went back years.

She fixed her hair and smiled into the mirror. It was time to show that Tennessee cowboy Tagart how a real cowgirl could ride a bull.

* * * *