Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance (6 page)

I found Lawson stalking around the alleyways behind the bleachers. He had a clod of horse shit smashed to the back of his head and various pieces of hay clung to his elbows and ass. He glared at me.

“Where you been? I been sitting here dangled like a marionette at the hands of that blitzed John Redcorn and you’re nowhere to be found!”

The truth was, I’d been extremely turned on by my encounter with my stepbrother behind the bleachers. Even as Lawson yelled at me, my pussy lips bloomed with desire. Yes,
desire
, plain and simple! I tingled all over, up and down my spine. It stiffened my nipples, sending a wave of goose flesh across the surface of my ass. I was
on fire
, and it wasn’t for this clod, that was for sure. Dyno “Dynomite” Drummond had done his best work on me. And I was ashamed I was falling for it.

I had to brush it off. “I’m sorry, Lawson. I had to pee.”

But I wasn’t his chief concern. He kept glancing over to the parking lot, sort of looking over his shoulder behind some stables. Were they doing something to poor Sequoia Crooks? I frowned.

“What are you up to, Lawson? Where’s Sequoia?”

Lawson grinned sheepishly. “Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head over that ol’ buffalo jockey. He’ll be fine.”

Olivia came trotting up. “April! Where’d you go with that hellafine piece of man candy? He’s about to ride that nasty chute fighter! See?”

We rushed back to the bleachers nearest the bucking chute. “I told you,” I said breathlessly, “he’s my fucking
stepbrother
, Olivia. I don’t want to hear any grossness coming from your mouth, like that.”

“Oh, man.” With arms crossed under her shelf of boobs, Olivia admired the way the rag doll that was Dyno held onto the bareback rigging. “He’s one tough customer.”

The plank of wood we stood on thundered with each buck of that bronc. The gate hadn’t even been opened yet, and it was a fearsome sight to behold. The sheer power of the gelding. Knowing it could just kick out a section of fence at the drop of a hat. One mighty kick in the head and it was all over. The pickup man, the clowns, the hazers actually had the most frightening jobs of all. Actually, the bareback bronc rider was undeniably the most admirable athlete in all of rodeo.

Some people liked the steer wrestlers, the bulldoggers. That’s okay. It takes a lot of muscle mass and pure strength to drag that big thing to the ground, and a lot of risk for the cowboy. But I’m telling you, there’s nothing to beat sheer manliness as bronc riding, especially the bareback variety. This was the sport that had made me a buckle bunny to begin with.

And Dyno was out of the chute like a shot!

I don’t remember what I was screaming. I was just glad that Lawson wasn’t within earshot. I definitely recall hearing Olivia shriek, “Go, Dyno! Stay with ’im! Ride ’im hard!”

Dyno was in fine form. Both his spurs were touching the gelding’s shoulders, and his free hand flailed almost gracefully. He thrashed like a jackhammer, taking the brunt of the abuse on his arms and back. Bareback bronc was the most physically demanding “rough stock” event in all of rodeo, and the danger added to the thrill.

I shrieked so loudly it gave me a sore throat.

It was the most exciting fifteen seconds in all of rodeo. I was vaguely aware that Lawson, Kemp and the others had hit the fence to our left. Of course they were bawling stupid shit like, “Bail! Bail out!” and the ever-witty “Fag!”

The fringes of Dyno’s chaps whipped to and fro. His hat bounced off his head around the six-second mark, but he stayed on him. The pro riders I knew vaguely from last year were whipping their hats around and yee-hawing, and even the rodeo queen was jumping up and down.

Eight seconds!
He kept riding! Olivia and I clung to each other’s leatherette sleeves. We saw daylight, of course, between his ass and the horse. This gelding was a real rank animal, snorting like mad but sort of trashy, with no predictable pattern of behavior.

That made it even more miraculous that Dyno stayed on as long as he did. When he finally swung out the back door over the horse’s hindquarters and landed on his feet, he shook off the pickup man’s assistance with pride. He stalked with head held high back through the gate, and Olivia and I raced to be the first to greet him. Dyno already had fans, some wannabe buckle bunnies, and we had to get there first.

“I am
so
going to bang that cowboy,” Olivia panted, practically clawing me out of her way to get down the three stairs.

“You are
so not
,” I snapped back. I won the upper hand, squeezing between Olivia and a rail, and I hurtled ahead like I was the one leaving the bucking chute.

“Why do
you
care?” was the last thing I heard Olivia say.

I was just in time to catch Dyno as he breezed past me. “Wait!” I called, lamely.

“Why?” he shot back. He even brushed off the bareback director, who presumably wanted to congratulate him on the ride, probably even offer him a starting position in the annual roundup.

“I don’t like how we left things,” I tried to say, but Dyno wasn’t interested.

He kept sailing straight ahead, not even stopping to take off his spurs. He didn’t look at me but held up a hand of protest against me. “You won’t see me around Hardscrabble, guaran-fucking-teed.”

“But—
oh God!
”

We were out in the parking lot by now. As though he’d known what was occurring outside, Dyno had made a beeline directly for the fight. As I’d suspected, Lawson, Kemp, and their band were out there causing shit. Luckily Sequoia was nowhere to be found—I later found out Dyno had hidden him in the arena office until he could drive him home—but they were throwing rocks at Dyno’s Harley. Big rocks, too. Big enough to leave dents in the gas tank and fender.

Honestly?
Lawson was eighteen years old and he was
throwing rocks
at someone’s ride?

I slapped my hands against my thighs. “Lawson! For God’s sake! I need you to—”

But my words caught in my throat as Dyno strode directly over to Lawson, the tallest football player. Before Dyno even reached him he had his hand up in a U-shaped vise, and he jammed it around Lawson’s throat.

I didn’t blame him. Lawson had pretty much goaded him to the point of intolerance.

But Dyno had no one to back him up, and I’d seen these idiots fight before. They fought unfairly, using implements, tools, whatever they happened to find lying around. And they ganged up, they sucker-punched, they piled on. Dyno had no one on his team.

The ball players spread out quickly like ants when Dyno attacked Lawson. Lawson even seemed kind of unprepared for it. He made an exaggerated face of shock that would have been funny under other circumstances. He clutched at Dyno’s horseshoe-like hand as Dyno ploughed him backward, up against a muscle car.

“Oh,
wow
,” marveled Olivia. “Fight, fight! Are they fighting over
me
?”

“Sort of,” I said. I actually liked to think they were fighting over
me
.

As Dyno pinioned Lawson against the car, it looked like he was saying something to him. What I would’ve paid to be a fly on
that
wall! But it was too dangerous to climb into the ring, especially since Kemp was now running toward the men hefting a bronc saddle over his head.

Shaping my hand into a funnel, I bellowed, “Dyno!
Move
!”

Quick as a whip, Dyno twirled around, saw the menace, and deflected him. He held Lawson up as a shield, my boyfriend taking the brunt of the blow directly to the face. Saddle straps went flying, and it looked like a buckle smacked Lawson dead on the nose. A gusher of blood spewed forth under the fluorescent parking lot lights, splashing the saddle’s seat. Dyno leaped to one side unharmed, and
I was glad
.

Whose side was I on, anyway? I was extremely conflicted. I was
glad
that my hateful stepbrother had escaped unharmed?

And it was
definitely
unfair when Dyno twirled right around with some kind of flashy kickboxing move and belted Lawson in the jaw with the heel of his boot, maybe even his spur. Hell, Lawson was already at a disadvantage. His best friend had just brained him with a saddle.

Lawson got Dyno in a chokehold, and they fell to their knees as one unit. Kemp kicked Dyno with his pointy-toed boots while the other players huddled around like they were on the playing field.

“Oh God!” cried Olivia. “Dyno needs help!”

“That’s
your
boyfriend kicking him,” I reminded her, just as much as I was reminding myself.

With every kick, Dyno’s entire head snapped back against the Mustang’s tire. All I could think of was the injuries sustained by bronc riders. They often got whiplash or spinal flexion-extension injuries. There was scuttlebutt that some of them even suffered brain injury, like combat vets did, but without the medical insurance to diagnose it.

“Well, isn’t it unfair?” Olivia snapped at me.

She was right. Especially when I saw the team’s fullback Troy rushing at the knot of guys with what looked like a hoof rasp. A hoof rasp is a heavy-duty metal file. This particular one had a point at the end, and Troy hefted it overhead as he ran with gnashing teeth. This was not going to end well.

“What the fuck!” I found myself screaming, and I barreled even faster than Troy toward the melee.

I was totally uncaring about my own safety. I’d witnessed plenty of rumbles with these overgrown boys I hung out with. They were constantly picking fights with weaker or lesser boys. I’d always sat back and laughed, verbally encouraging them. Suddenly I was defending the loser? I barely knew myself anymore. Who had I become?

It was all a blur as I rushed at Kemp, tearing him away from the Mustang. My next task was to kick my own boyfriend a dozen times in the ribs and thighs—I believe I was screaming, “Stop it! Leave him alone, you fucking bully!”

By the time Troy reached us, I was acting as a shield for Dyno. Lawson was on his feet yelling “What the fuck, April!” and Kemp and Olivia were having it out, too. Troy stabbed the air over my shoulders in his attempts to get at Dyno, and I was shouting, “Dyno! Get the fuck out of here! I’ll take care of Sequoia!”

Dyno did, probably realizing the imbalance of power in the fight, because he didn’t strike me as a coward. But he raced off to his dented Harley with spurs jangling, sort of cripping along as though injured, holding a hand to his head.

Lawson gripped me by the upper arms and shook me like a snow globe. “What the fuck are you thinking, April? Why the fuck did you butt into man’s business?”

“You don’t fight fair!” was all I could think to say.

But Olivia apparently didn’t have enough on her hands what with shoving, and being shoved by, Kemp. She craned her neck far around her wide boyfriend to shriek at us. “She’s defending him because her dad married his mom! Wouldn’t
you
defend your own stepbrother? Oh, probably
not
, knowing what backstabbers you all are! Come on, April. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I’d never heard a better fucking idea. We scurried to Olivia’s car, leaving a bunch of shocked, aghast football players standing with hands at their sides.

Lawson didn’t recover enough to shout until we were driving out of the lot. “Really?
Really, April?
That douchemonkey is your
stepbrother
?”

I was so mortified, I just rolled up the window.

DYNO

I
didn’t go
to school the next day. My ribs were so bruised it blinded me with pain just to get up and pee. I could take a couple days off and still graduate. It was kind of a given that I wasn’t going to Yale anyway.

I was bored at the Searchlight Motel with no computer and only basic cable. I was the type who got easily bored. I needed action, even if it meant something outside my comfort zone. I was always looking for danger.

So I managed to ride out to Sequoia’s place to check on him. As my only friend and sort of disciple, I needed him. I had lots of hot chicks on the line—including April’s friend Olivia, and I think that irked April—but I’d never hung out with another guy. It was part of maturing, I guess. There was no law etched in acid that I had to be a lone wolf forever.

Damn, his house was pathetic. Twenty-year-old waffle irons with frayed cords still plugged into the wall, that sort of thing. His father had an old-timey bar with a lit beer sign, the kind where the waterfall moves. He actually had
swizzle sticks
, whatever
those
are, and old cocktail glasses with recipes for things like a Tom Collins and a Manhattan.

And there were cobwebs
everywhere
. I went to his medicine cabinet to get an Ace bandage to wrap up my ribs, and there were cobwebs
inside
the cabinet. Of course there were no drugs worth taking, just a nearly-empty bottle of Old Spice and a used bar of hotel soap. Man, that place was pathetic. I wondered why Mr. Cliff Pleasure didn’t provide his employees with better living quarters. Then again, what exactly
did
Mr. Crooks
do
? I’d never seen him around the ranch portion of Hardscrabble. Maybe he worked in the big house, where I’d never been.