Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance (23 page)

I grabbed Sequoia by the sleeve. He was holding a martini glass, chatting with some rodeo cowboys. His feet practically left the flagstones like in a cartoon when I hauled him off.

“Sequoia! Give me Dyno’s damned cell number.”

“You don’t have it?”

“No. He just verbally said he’d be here when he came by my office.” I was starting to panic the whole thing had been a farce, blowjob included. He’d just forced me to blow him to show his dominance. I’d stupidly complied, like a fucking heartsick sap.

Sequoia thumbed his phone, and I texted from there. Dyno would be more likely to answer if he thought it was Sequoia.

Where are you? We’re at the reception.

I stared at the silent phone for two full minutes, brushing off some women who wanted to know my thoughts on the bowling alley. My mood was ruined further when I saw Marcus come out back with his new wife, a size two rhinestone cowgirl. Of course he’d be at a party when the rest of society was there. But he hadn’t been under Hardscrabble’s roof that I knew of since that awful night he’d drugged me. Maybe my dad had actually
said
something to him. You know, stood up for me for once. Stranger things had been known to happen.

A text came.

In the front driveway. Have to park a mile away with all these fucking cars.

Relief poured off me. Shoving Sequoia’s phone at him, I started for the living room. Then I remembered. I shouldn’t look
too
eager. Dyno was grown up. He could figure out we were in the back.

There was a slight uproar when Dyno appeared at the back sliding glass door. He wore a black leather cowboy hat with a sterling silver and turquoise band. Set jauntily like that, he looked like he’d just come off the range, or from the arena. All that was missing were spurs. He even wore a fancy western shirt with skulls on the front yoke and dice on the cuffs. His lizard boots were so pointy they put Italians to shame.

I was fit to bust with pride that he’d gotten all dolled up for my event. He must’ve run out and bought those items because he sure as hell didn’t leave the navy with them. It flattered me that he did all this for me.
He must really like me.

And then. He stepped onto the patio, and talk about fucking rhinestone cowgirls. This bimbo behind Dyno had a pink cowgirl hat so heavy with bling
I
would have never even worn it during my rodeo queen years. Her baseball boobs were pumped with silicon, and she made sure to display them amply by only buttoning the bottom few buttons of her shirt, sort of the reverse style from Sequoia. Her lips were so glossy I practically had to put my shades back on, though the sun had gone down.

Yeah. Dyno had changed, all right.

Changed for the worse.

Of course, people conglomerated around the star of the shindig. I couldn’t get close, not even to catch his eye, and I angrily texted Sequoia.

You didn’t tell me he was bringing a fucking date.

Of course he is. It’s a social event isn’t it?

I was so angry I responded childishly,
Then why don’t you have a date?

Sequoia didn’t answer.

The crowd had parted by that time, people looking around for me. It was my party and my duty to chaperone him around, introducing him to people he might not know. I took a few steps toward him. My sister May took this opportunity to grab my arm.

“
Dayum
. He’s cute, April. He’s our stepbrother? Any more where that came from?”

“I thought you were a lesbian,” I shot at her. “Since when are you interested in men?”

She practically drooled. “Since they look like
that
.” Then she sneered at me. “And I’m not a lesbian.”

“Could’ve fooled me.” Breathing deeply, I finally went to meet Dyno.

He was playing the part of the rodeo star to the hilt. He’d barely been in town a couple months but his reputation had preceded him, especially when I’d told everyone about his SEAL exploits. Everyone wanted to be the first to congratulate him and thank him for his service—something he later told me he hated. He hated attention being drawn to his service. He didn’t want to be singled out when so many other people had served and died. So it took me awhile to get his attention.

“April,” he said grandly, as if he loved these sorts of social events. His Texas accent was even more pronounced all of a sudden, practically dripping with syrup. “I’d like you to meet Brianna Newman, Miss Coachella Valley.”

She leaned slightly in, the better for me to view her cleavage. “Two thousand fourteen.”

“That’s right,” Dyno said brightly. What sort of fucking drugs was he on? Since when had he dated plastic rah rah squarepants chicks like this? Couldn’t he see right through her shiny veneer to her soulless core? Oh, that’s right. Men were only concerned with looks. I’d almost fucking forgotten about that. Dyno had probably only liked me for my looks the whole fucking time.

“Nice to meet you, Brianna. Have you met my uncle, Marcus Seaver? He basically runs this ranch when my dad’s traveling the continent.” I said “the continent” like a total fucking snob.

For once the sleazy confidence dropped from Dyno’s face. “Marcus is here?”

“Yes!” I cried brightly, taking Brianna’s stupid arm. “He’s right over here. He
just loves
meeting beauty queens. Doesn’t he, Dyno?”

“I reckon…”

Dyno trailed us while I introduced Brianna to Marcus. As I predicted, Marcus latched onto her and wouldn’t let go. She must’ve been all of seventeen—the perfect age for my uncle.

Evil satisfaction filled me to the brim when Dyno tore me away from the crowd. He practically lashed me like a lasso over to a reflecting pond. I half expected him to throw me in.

“Look,” he snarled. “You owe me one, April. I agreed to show up for your shitty fucking cocktail party, so you’ve got to back off.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Back off? What’m I doing? I just introduced your little girlfriend to my uncle. He can take her places. She obviously wants to go places from the looks of all her plastic bling. Where’d you find her, the flea market? She’s got more Teflon than a Tupperware party.”

“Look,” he boiled, “you forced me to come to this fucking party. You know I can’t stand crap like this. Now you’re gonna get pissed at me for bringing a date?”

He was right, of course. I should’ve expected this. I huffed and puffed, tried to calm down. “Of
course
I expected you to bring a date. What are you so mad about?”

He seemed to calm down too, but he kept his eyes narrowed at me. “I don’t know what you’re up to. I don’t know why you concocted this party for me in the first place.”

“You need to meet these people, Dyno. A successful rodeo star isn’t just all about riding. It’s about schmoozing, who knows who.”

“My event results stand for themselves.”

“Maybe. But you never know what’s going through the judge’s minds when they score you. It’s all arbitrary, Dyno. It helps to be someone who’s well-liked, well-regarded in the community.”

He snorted, running his fingers along his hat’s brim. “And thanks a lot for latching Brianna onto that predatory creep of an uncle of yours.”

That was my crowning achievement so far that night. “He can take her far. And she doesn’t seem like your type anyway.”

“Who’s to say who my type is? Do I have a type?”

“Well,
me
, for one! I know you don’t like me anymore, Dyno, but back in high school you have to admit we had chemistry. You had a thing for me in some way, shape, or form, and I’m nothing like that plastic beauty queen!”

“Oh yeah? You think you’re so different from her at the same age? Who the hell ran out and became Last Chance Queen the second I shipped out to boot camp? Who used to run around in bedazzled fucking fringed jackets and that T-shirt that said “this cowgirl knows how to load more than a dishwasher”?

I narrowed my eyes so hard I could barely see him. “Your
type
was more multi-layered than that shallow piece of trash. You dated artists, hipsters, Goth girls, hippies. You turned down Olivia because she was too shallow, and now you’re dating her clone.”

“You don’t know me, Miss Last Chance. You don’t know me at all.”

I stormed off. I had to paste a smile on to meet and greet a judge who had just arrived. I knew Milt from way back. He and my dad used to swap horses back and forth to increase the strength of their herds. We talked about my dad’s trip in Europe—embarrassing, since I didn’t even know where he currently was, so I just said Milan—before turning to the subject at hand, Dyno.

Milt said, “I scored his ride the other night. The horse was a real arm-jerker. His spin and kick were outstanding.”

“Dyno!” I called. Dyno was stuck talking to Marcus, which must’ve been the most uncomfortable scenario in the world. Brianna was still glued to Marcus’s side, so Dyno had no choice. He looked relieved to come over my way. “Milt here was one of your judges the other night.”

“Outstanding, son,” said Milt. “I gave you almost the full twenty-five points. That other bastard Sam Brady was the one who marked you down, said you didn’t counter the horse’s moves, didn’t have full control.”

“Well, thank you,” Dyno said lamely.

I took the bull by the horns. Maybe I was pissed at what had happened in my office. Dyno had forced himself on me, then left me literally sitting on the ground. Or just now. He’d brought a bimbo to
my
party, when he should’ve been doing everything in his power to show his gratitude to me for even throwing the damned party to begin with. That damned thing cost me a pretty penny. That chicken satay didn’t just skewer itself.

“Dyno here was blown off a rooftop in Baluchistan,” I told Milt. “He was injured by shrapnel, but he just kept going.”

Milt, his wife, and the other couple expressed admiration for Dyno. But Dyno himself was steaming with barely-concealed rage.

“It wasn’t nothing,” he said modestly. “I fell through the roof and on top of a bunch of brothers in my unit.”

I said, “He kept returning for tour after tour, like a bad penny.”

Milt said, “You enlisted in oh-seven, right?”

“Right, sir,” Dyno said. “Takes a couple years of training to be given a mission.”

Milt’s wife said, “I’m sure he’s not allowed to talk about it. Top secret, right?”

“Well—” Dyno started to say, but I butted in. I was on a roll.

“Oh, they’re trained to slice and dice every artery. That’s why some terrorists are found hacked to smithereens. Yes, can you imagine, Alice? They carry these hatchets around with them that’re straight from that movie ‘Last of the Mohicans.’ Dyno’s squadron went into sub-Saharan Africa dressed as natives.”

“Well.” Alice smiled uncomfortably. “Just one look and they’d stand out a mile away in Africa.”

There were polite twitters, and Dyno shot me one of his most malevolent glares yet. He said through gritted teeth, “How’d you know about that, April?”

“Google. I’m not saying you personally dressed like a tribesman. Just that your squadron did. Black Squadron, right? They snuck into villages planting cameras and recording devices—”

“Eyes and ears,” said the other wife. “I saw that on TV.”

“—interviewing residents before a raid, so they knew who to hit. It’s all very spy-like. Dyno, did you ever pretend to run a commercial fishing boat off the coast of Somalia? I know you were there, sky-diving into enemy territory.”

Dyno finally did grab my arm. I fucking admit, I deserved it. I deserved the bum’s rush out of there. “Excuse us, Milt.”

“I’m right, aren’t I?” I continued to blab mindlessly. “You were pushed by the wind over the border.”

“That’s none of anyone’s fucking business,” he growled under his breath as he led me into the house. But he didn’t use the busy living room door. He violently rolled open a slider that he knew led to a little-used master suite. I think Nixon was still denying knowledge of Watergate when he last stayed here, that’s how unused it was. It had a flocked paisley bedspread and groovy shag carpeting. The furniture was all that delicate Danish Oriental style that would splinter into smithereens under any kind of force, but Dyno flung me back against a low dresser anyway.

“Listen here, bitch. Why you riding me like this? Why you trying to get me all worked up?”

“I didn’t realize I was,” I lied.

He pressed me so far back against the dresser, the crown of my head practically touched the wall. He whipped off his cowboy hat and spun it behind him just so he could put his face closer to mine. He even started unbuttoning his shirt cuffs as though he intended to whale on me. “You know you’re riling me,” he growled. He stamped one boot between my high heels, so he was boldly straddling my thigh. “You’re talking about stuff that shouldn’t be discussed. Not now, not ever. No one wants to remember stuff they did in a combat situation. No one. It’s a whole different can of worms out there, April. And you don’t wanna go opening it.”

I had to back down out of respect for his military service. “Okay,” I said meekly.

But he wouldn’t let up. “You got me fit to be tied, April.” He began unbuttoning his jeans. “I never know if I’m coming or going with you. You just fucking pole-axed me, woman. You stand there in this flimsy see-through dress like the stunning looker you are, pretending not to notice every last man jack in the place staring holes through it.”

“They’re all staring at Brianna.”

“Hell no, woman. It’s you. You’re the curviest stunning looker on this entire fucking ranch. Brianna is a pale comparison next to you. You’re right. She’s as shallow as piss on concrete. I just brought her here to rile you. Looks like it worked.”

“It worked,” I admitted. He had his enormous dick in his hand now—I could feel the heat of it against my lap through my transparent dress. He was right about that, too. I
had
chosen a dress of such a light fabric you could see my slip and probably even my nipples through the diaphanous push-up bra. “I hate that fucking plastic bimbo.”

“She’s no one,” Dyno murmured against my mouth. He fumbled around down there, and I realized he was tearing open a condom packet. “You said I need to play the part of the rodeo star, so I am.”