Espino, Stacey - Hogtying the Cowgirl [Ride 'em Hard 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (3 page)

The rain storm had passed as quickly as it rolled into their town. The morning sky was a robin’s-egg blue, and the land still glistened with the memory of rain. Wyatt was the first cowboy she saw, cutting across the yard toward the barn. As soon as their eyes met, she cursed. It was time to face the music.

He approached her when she hopped down from the driver’s seat. “If you’re here to make trouble, I suggest you get your little ass back in the truck and head out.” Wyatt was all business, always had been. She’d be a fool to fuck with him.

“I’m just looking for Landon.” She adjusted her Stetson. “I’ve already apologized for the whole Samantha incident. Besides, you have her back. How long can you hold a grudge?”

He had a coil of rope in his hand, which he flung over his shoulder before charging forward. Wyatt pinned her to the side of her truck, his eyes as lethal as a cobra’s. “If you fuck with my wife, I’ll make you pay, whether your brothers know or not.”

She shrugged him away. “
Relax
. I thought she was using you. I was trying to help, not make trouble. Can we just leave the past in the past?”

He pointed to the large barn. “He’s mucking out. Make it quick.”

She didn’t waste any time in dashing to the barn. Angel called back over her shoulder, “I’ll make it up to the four of you. I promise.”

The
Carson
farm was almost as familiar as her own. It hurt that the brothers she’d grown up with now saw her as a home wrecker. She’d only been looking out for them and still wasn’t one hundred percent sure their wife was with them for the right reasons. It was her nature to be suspicious. Trust had to be earned.

The interior of the barn was dim, the hay dust thick. She heard the scrape of a shovel on the concrete floor in one of the far stalls. “Landon?”

His dirty-blond head peeked over the top of a stall. With his height, he had no problem spotting her as she approached despite the six-foot-high partitions. “What are you doing here?”

“No, what are you doing mucking out for the
Carsons
? They shouldn’t be giving you the shitty work when you offer to help out.”

He shook his head, using the back of his forearm to wipe his brow. “It’s paid work.” He leaned the shovel against the wooden stall boards and used one curled finger to signal her closer. She stepped into his personal space as requested, and they shared a platonic kiss. “They know you’re here?”

She dismissed his question. “What do you mean paid work? Why?”

“Angel, my parents are going through a rough time. The feed store is suffering now that one of the big boys has moved into town. They can’t compete with a giant.”

“I didn’t even know. I still go by every week to get my supplies. They never said anything to me.” Landon’s parents were like family. His mother often invited her over for dinner, saying she missed not having a daughter of her own.

“They’re proud. You know how they are. God willing, things will settle out, but for now I need cold hard cash.”

She felt bad for the Wilders and wished there was something she could do to help. Angel would hand over her fifty-five hundred in a heartbeat, even if it meant never getting her stallion, but she knew Landon would never take it. He was a proud cowboy, born and raised on the prairies, like her. “You should have called me.”

“For what? I’m just doing what needs to be done, is all. Now, why’d you come down here? Ain’t you still on unfriendly terms with the
Carsons
?”

“Not for too much longer, I hope. I came to find you, but I feel bad asking anything of you now.” She’d tell her mother and Aunt Wendy about his parents tonight. They’d stir up some action in the community to help out the older couple.

He reached for his white T-shirt hanging over the stall divider. He mopped his slick chest and shoulders. “Angel, you’re pissing me off with the pity talk. Now what are you here for?”

She took a breath. “I went to the auction yesterday morning to bid on that stallion I had my eye on. But some new money outbid me.” Angel reached out and touched his arm, not expecting it to feel as hard as iron. “Landon, I have to have that horse.”

“If you were outbid, what do you suggest I do?”

“My brothers have a lot of weight in the community. If one of them went to reason with him, he may just see the logic in selling the horse back to me.”

“Uh-huh?”

“Well, I can’t very well ask one of my brothers to do it. They’re already furious I took the trailer. There’s no way in hell they’ll help me.” She bit her lower lip. “That’s where you come in.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna like this.”

“Please, please, please. He’s new. He won’t know you from one of my dumb brothers. Come on, do me this favor and I’ll muck out the rest of the barn, no charge.”

He was quiet for a while. When he finally smirked, she knew he was on board. “You best get to shoveling.”

* * * *

Clay attached a training lead to the stallion and led him to the ring next to his new barn. He should be learning the lay of the land and unpacking, but all he could think about, besides the little spitfire from yesterday, was the horse awaiting his instruction.

He spent hours with the horse, using a combination of treats, praise, and skilled discipline. By the time he heard a pickup truck rumble up his private drive, he’d worked up a sweat, and the deep blue sky was now lit by the full strength of the sun. Time flew by when he enjoyed what he was doing.

The truck doors slammed, one after the other. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and his personal address wasn’t listed at the distribution center. Then he saw the gleam of the sun on that familiar blonde hair. There weren’t too many women with hair that blonde, a mix of honey and gold. He chuckled to himself, interested to see what offer she had for him today. Maybe he should ask the little brat to muck out his barn. That should turn her off in a heartbeat.

But she wasn’t alone. A tall, well-muscled cowboy came up alongside her, his face stoic. His size made Ms. Garner look like a child as she walked next to him. He’d wager the man was nearly as tall as he was, which wasn’t an easy task.

“Mr. Roberts. I was hoping I could have a word with you.” She was wearing tight blue jeans, which hugged her generous hips. Her T-shirt molded over her full breasts and read “Cowgirls do it better.” He could imagine. His cock twitched under his belt.

“Who’s your friend?”

“This is my brother, Matthew Garner. He’d like to speak with you about the mix-up at the auction.”

“Mix-up?”

The little spitfire couldn’t control her temper. She scowled and clamped her jaw down tight. “You have my horse, Mr. Roberts. That stallion was supposed to go home with me yesterday. I’ve been saving for the day he went on auction, and then you just came out of nowhere and pulled the rug out from under me. That’s not the way we conduct ourselves around these parts.”

He wasn’t giving up the horse. They’d already bonded in the span of a few hours. You couldn’t buy a connection like that. Nothing that Angel Garner or her brother offered him would be enough.

“How’d you get this address anyway?” He walked away from his uninvited guests, closing the paddock and hanging up his training lead on the end of the fence. The heat was already becoming unbearable, and the day was young. He needed to get his outdoor work done before the weather demanded he work indoors out of the heat.

“My brothers have their ways. Surely you’ve heard of them?”

Should he have? “Like you’ve said, I’m new in town. I don’t know your brothers from Adam.” Clay took measured steps onto his wraparound porch. The house may have been old, but it certainly had its charm. He saw the potential the moment he’d come with the real estate agent to look at it.

When he turned, Angel was elbowing her brother in the side. “Mr. Roberts. Would you consider selling the horse back to us? We’d give it an excellent home, and it’d mean the world to my little sister.”

Clay laughed out loud. “Your
little sister
needs to learn she can’t have everything she wants in life. That stallion is mine, legal and binding, and he’ll remain so.” She looked back and forth from Matthew to him, almost frantically. The other man appeared at a loss for words for either of them.

“Landon, do something!” she hollered when Clay opened the screen to the house.

Ah, she was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. He should have guessed the strapping young man wasn’t her brother, but a lover. The way the cowboy acted wasn’t consistent with a brotherly love.

“I thought your brother’s name was Matthew, darlin’. Either you need your head checked, or you’re trying to swindle me into selling my horse.”

She pointed her finger at him. “You’re being unreasonable.”

He shook his head, unbuttoning his shirt. His day was already disrupted, so he may as well shower and head into town to check on his operation. “No, I’m a very reasonable man. You’re just a little monster in need of a spanking.”

Her boyfriend choked back a chuckle, which earned him a punch in the arm from an irate cowgirl. “Damn you both. I won’t be made a fool of.” She stormed back to the truck, revved the engine, and then barreled off the property, leaving her lover literally in the dust.

They both stood there, not moving or speaking for the longest time. “Your girlfriend seems to be a bit off her rocker.” He didn’t expect the other man to refute him, not when he was standing miles from civilization with no ride.

“She’s not my girlfriend. Angel’s just a friend, and right now, I’m not even sure about that.”

Knowing they were just friends satisfied Clay in a way he hadn’t expected. It’s not like he was foolish enough to court a woman like Angel. He’d be better off stepping on a finishing nail than dealing with that devil of a cowgirl. Then why couldn’t he stop obsessing over her? She was an unrefined, no-apologies kind of girl. He’d like to bridle and brand the feisty little filly and ride the attitude right out of her.

“Tell you what. If you can hang around for twenty minutes while I take a quick shower, I’ll drive you into town myself.” No sense making the man’s shame worse. Clay didn’t have to be told Angel Garner was one hundred percent responsible for the lies and surprise visit. It would be difficult for a flesh-and-blood man to refuse the blonde beauty, so he couldn’t blame Landon.

“I suppose I don’t have much choice unless I want to spend half the day walking.” He tilted his hat in thanks and then came to sit on the porch steps.

* * * *

He was going to kill her when he saw her next. It was one thing to throw one of her usual tantrums, but to desert him way out here with no way to get home? He was doing her a favor, taking time off from a paying job to help her weasel some new guy out of his horse. If he had to take a side, he’d be beside the dark-haired cowboy. He seemed reasonable and even offered to drive him into town after being tongue-lashed by Angel.

Some days he didn’t know why the fuck he put up with her, and then he remembered the sweet girl locked up behind skin as thick as old leather. She may be nice to look at, but below the surface was a turbulent mix of emotion so unsettled it could scare off even a full-grown man. The truth was she’d been there for him when it counted, which was why he stuck around. With the Garner brothers being his good friends, it was automatically his job to keep a look out for Angel. Sometimes he may have took the job a little too much to heart.

While others couldn’t stand her abrasive personality, he saw the softer side. When she was seventeen, she came to him in tears, insisting there wasn’t another person in the world she could confide in. Always a do-gooder, she stepped in to help the
Carson
brothers when one of the money-hungry industrialists tried to take over their farm after their momma died. The
Carson
brothers still had no clue the sacrifice Angel made by agreeing to hand over her prized stallion. Her father gave her a beating to remember for supposedly selling the valuable horse, and she yearned for that black stallion ever since.

Knowing what he did, he kept her close, maybe coddled her too much. He’d helped to create a monster, as Clay had said. Maybe it was time to take that monster by the horns, rather than permitting it to wreak havoc on everyone in its path. She’d been hurt in the past, but after five years, it was time to move on.

Chapter Four

“So…” They drove in awkward silence over the uneven dirt roads leading into town. “How long you know Angel?”

“All my life. We’re a small community, and most of us grew up together.”