How to Kiss a Cowboy (10 page)

Brady fished his cell phone out of his pocket and said a little prayer. It seemed like every able-bodied cowboy in the area had taken off for some faraway rodeo and taken his horses with him. His last hope was his friend Justin, who rode locally as a pickup man but didn't compete. Scraping riders off the backs of bucking broncos after the eight-second buzzer blared wasn't easy, and the horses used for the job were usually tall, handsome, and highly skilled.

Justin Brown was rarely serious, but he lived by the code of the cowboy, same as Brady did. Sure enough, he was willing to help a friend in need.

“Yeah, I can get a horse for you,” Justin said as soon as he heard what Brady wanted. “What are you looking for?”

“It's for a Lariat ad, so he's got to be good-looking,” Brady said.

“Is he going to have to wear one of those dumb-ass Lariat shirts? Because I don't mind loaning you a horse, but that would have the animal cruelty folks on my ass so fast, they'd have me naked on a street corner before I knew what hit me. Those shirts are so ugly, it's a crime.”

“Very funny.”

“Seriously, I've got just what you need. I can't get out there, but I'll have my little sister drive him out.”

“Okay.” Brady was starting to feel a little nervous. Justin might take this as an opportunity for a practical joke. “Remember, he has to look good. Don't send me some old nag.”

“I promise, this horse is so purty, you'll probably want to marry him,” Justin said. And before Brady could say another word, he hung up the phone.

“Hey, wait,” Brady said into the empty air. “I'm going to rope on him. Make sure he's got some roping experience, okay?”

He shoved the phone in his pocket, disgusted with himself. Is that what it had come to? That he cared more about how a horse looked than what it could do? That was how careers got ruined.

He'd better make sure he wasn't turning out to be just as superficial as people thought he was.

* * *

Justin's shiny new F-250 pickup swung into the lot a half hour later, hauling a clattering rust bucket of a horse trailer behind it. The driver was barely visible above the truck's looming dashboard. All Brady could see was a high ponytail bobbing in the breeze from the open window.

Justin's little sister, Carly, had to be at least fifteen, or she couldn't have driven the truck. But when she slid out of the driver's seat, Brady thought she looked about twelve.

“Don't be mean to Dandy,” she said, trotting around to the back of the trailer. “He's my favorite horse. And don't ride him too hard. He doesn't like it if you kick him.” She turned to face Brady and held up one finger like a schoolteacher. “If your heels even touch his flanks, he'll blow up on you. Remember that.”

“Okay. I'll remember.” She was a cute kid, but Brady was starting to get a bad feeling about this. He'd wanted one of Justin's horses, not one that belonged to his little sister.

She pulled back the latch on the trailer, then stopped to offer more advice. “Keep his tail wrapped when he's not working, okay? He hates to have it brushed out, and besides, I want him to look his best. I'm so excited he's going to be in a magazine! Which one, do you know?”

“Not sure,” Brady muttered. “Can we get him unloaded, please? I'm kind of in a hurry.”

She had a few more words of advice before she opened the door. Dandy liked this, and Dandy didn't like that. Dandy needed leg wraps, and Dandy needed a wool saddle blanket, only wool. Before long, Brady felt kind of sorry for Dandy. But he felt even sorrier for himself.

By the time Carly finally let down the ramp, Brady was actually nervous. And he was never nervous. At least, not until today, which seemed destined to be the day of his first nervous breakdown.

The inside of the trailer was dark. After squinting into the sunlight on the pale dust of the arena, he could hardly see anything when he peered inside—just tiny Carly, hauling on a lead rope.

“He won't come.” She pulled on the rope with every ounce of her ninety-three pounds, but the horse wasn't budging.

She rolled her eyes like only a teenaged girl could.

“First he doesn't want to get
into
the trailer, and now he doesn't want to come
out
of it.” After one final tug, she dropped the rope and stormed off, stamping her feet on the metal ramp so it clanged against the pavement. “Stupid horse.”

Brady grabbed the rope before anything bad could happen. If Carly was Dandy's trainer, that might explain his reluctance to do as he was told. She'd given up before she'd tried anything but manhandling the animal—even though she was hardly big enough to manhandle a house cat.

Peering inside the trailer again, Brady caught sight of a narrow, dished face; a wide, long-lashed eye; and enough hair to top six or eight normal horses.

“What is this? Barbie's Dream Horse?”

“He's a purebred Anglo Arabian.”

Brady was pretty sure an Anglo Arabian was a half-breed by definition, but he wasn't about to argue with Carly. She might stamp her foot again, or roll her eyes at him. Her temper tantrums were legendary.

The horse shrank back into the darkness of the trailer until nothing showed but the white rim around its rolling eyeballs.

“Come on, darlin',” Brady said. Women hated to be called that, he'd noticed, but horses usually loved it. He made a kissing sound and the horse took a step forward. Carly folded her arms over her chest, disgusted.

“He's a
boy.
Quit calling him ‘darlin',' and he might do what you want.”

Ignoring her, Brady stepped into the trailer and stood quietly, stroking the animal's neck. “Hey, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Aren't you pretty?”

The horse was good-looking, all right. He couldn't complain about that. But he probably should have stressed the roping angle a little more.

Like, maybe
mentioned
it.

He finally convinced the horse to take one step forward. Dandy flinched when his shiny black hoof hit the metal ramp, and a shiver ran the length of his body, from his tiny teacup nose to the root of his tail, which was tied up in a bag and topped with a bow. He was a beautiful animal, and probably valuable, but he spooked at the slightest thing. Brady could just see what Dandy would do if he tried to twirl a rope from his saddle.

“Just be real careful with him, okay?” Carly walked up to the horse and cupped his muzzle in her hand, giving it a kiss. “He's my big fuzzy-wuzzy sweetie, isn't he? He's my boogie-woogums.”

Dandy took that single step back, hiding in the darkness of the trailer. Brady figured he was probably afraid some other horses had heard he was a boogie-woogums and would make fun of him.

“Quit calling that poor animal names,” Brady said as he coaxed the horse down the ramp. “Bad enough you named him Dandy.”

“Oh, it's
Jim
Dandy,” she said.

“Great. I'll call him Jim.”

“You can't. He's a show horse,” she said. “You have to use his full registered name. He's Little Lula's Jim Dandy. See, his dam was Little Lula and his sire—”

Brady cut off the pedigree recitation. “How come you called him your boogie-woogums?”

“That's different.”

“Right. And it's different when I call him Jim. You show him yourself?”

Carly nodded, beaming with pride.

“He win much?”

“He sure does.” She looked as satisfied with herself as boogie-woogums, who had finally left the trailer and was standing at the foot of the ramp, squared like a stud horse posing for a marketing photo.

“What classes do you compete in?” If he could figure out the animal's strengths, he could probably find a way to make this work.

“Oh, just halter so far. I want to do Hunt Seat Equitation, but he's just too nervous. That's okay for showing at halter, though. I just have to jerk his head a little and he storms around and acts all fiery and wild. The judges love it.”

“Yeah. That's great.” He gave the lead rope a faint tug and the horse stamped his foot and rolled his eyes just like Carly.

Brady had seen some Arabian halter classes at one of the big stock shows. Some folks seemed to think that nerves strung tight as a sopranino banjo meant good breeding, and eyes that rolled around in their sockets like greased marbles were a sign of high spirits rather than imminent nervous prostration. As far as Brady was concerned, all it meant was that you had a horse you couldn't do much with. If you put old Jim in a calf-sorting pen, the horse would probably kill himself trying to climb the fence and get away from the bad, scary cows without penning a single one.

Brady had seen some terrific Arabians that could do just about anything, bred by responsible breeders who valued temperament over looks. Unfortunately, Dandy wasn't one of them.

For now, the horse stood quietly, the only clue to his temperament the faint shivers that rippled across his back. Watching him, Brady got a funny feeling.

“You ever ridden him?” he asked Carly.

“Nope,” she said cheerfully. “But you don't care about that, do you? Justin says you're a bronc buster, so you can ride anything.”

Brady winced. Broncs were bred for bucking. Horses like Jim couldn't be bucked out; it would ruin them for life. Then the
humans
would be bad and scary.

“My daddy rode him, though. Couple times.”

“Well, that's good.”

As he helped Carly uncouple the trailer from the truck so she could drive off on some mysterious errand, Brady wondered if Justin knew his sister wasn't staying to watch the photo shoot. He figured probably not, but hey, it wasn't his day to watch her, and Carly seemed like a sweet kid whose idea of rebellion would be going to Starbucks when she was supposed to be at the library. Since he was pretty sure Justin had stuck him with boogie-woogums on purpose, he'd let the guy look out for his own darned sister.

As Carly blew him a kiss and drove off, Brady looked at the horse, who was sneaking glances at him out of the corner of his long-lashed eyes, like a coy seventh grader at the spring dance.

Great. He was about to meet Suze and Speedo with a horse that acted like a teenaged girl—temper tantrums and all.

“Boogie-woogums, huh? Maybe I'll call you Booger.”

The horse stamped one front hoof and thrust out his lower lip in a pout.

“I know it's a plain old ordinary name,” Brady said. “Maybe it'll help you act like a plain old ordinary horse. All this show horse stuff has gone to your head.” Brady clicked his tongue and led the horse forward.

“All right, Booger,” he said. “Let's get to work.”

When Brady got back to the arena, Stan nodded toward a beautifully tooled prize saddle that was perched on the rail. A silver-mounted bridle was draped over the seat.

“Suze left those for you. You find a horse?”

“Sure did,” Brady said.

“It's not some old nag, is it?”

“Nope. Definitely not.”

Brady had left Booger in the trailer. The horse was ridiculously reactive, flinching at a candy wrapper, a stray leaf, even a plane passing overhead. When he tried to turn inside out at the approach of a fly, Brady had led him back to the dark, safe depths of the trailer.

“Really, Booger,” he said to the horse. “You never saw a fly before? She must keep you in Barbie's Dream Stable.”

The horse stamped his foot and rolled his eyes, but allowed Brady to saddle him and took the bit placidly. It was clear he'd done it before, and Brady wondered if Carly had the same sense of humor as her brother. Maybe she'd been teasing when she said the horse had barely been ridden. He managed to exit the trailer without any drama at all. Mounting was an issue, but Brady just shortened one rein, forcing the horse to spin in a tight circle that actually helped him swing into the saddle.

He warmed up a little, loping Booger up and down the alley, and discovered he'd guessed right; Booger had actually been fairly well trained, and as long as things were quiet, he performed pretty well. Once he'd been introduced to the rope, he even allowed Brady to throw a loop or two from his back without shying—much.

And he
was
pretty. There was no denying that. Hell, the dudes that bought the fancy fringed shirts would probably be more impressed by Jim Dandy's aristocratic profile and high-arched neck than Speedo's muscle and brains. The thought made Brady laugh out loud.

Booger, startled by the noise, arched his back and blew up. Bronc buster that he was, Brady could barely hang on as the horse pitched and yawed like a ship in a storm. He could swear steam came out of the horse's nostrils. He was like a cartoon horse, having a cartoon temper tantrum.

Once he had Booger under control again, Brady pushed the horse into a lope, letting him run out his nerves while Brady invented some creative new swear words to use on Justin next time he saw him. The horse performed far better at speed, even allowing a bird to flit up from the fence without so much as a flick of his ear.

“We'll do fine,” Brady said, allowing the animal to slow. “We'll just keep you moving, okay, buddy?” He reached down and patted Booger's neck.

Big mistake. The horse reared up on his hind legs, then slammed his front hooves to the ground and took off running, only stopping after Brady forced him into a circle so tight he had no choice.

“Can we cut the drama?” Brady murmured the words as if they were endearments, knowing the horse read his tone but not his meaning. “Your little mistress might like that stuff, but I go for the strong, silent type. In horses, anyway.”

He wondered how Booger would deal with flashbulbs going off, Stan shouting instructions, and Suze and Speedo doing their best to outride and out-rope Brady. Hopefully Booger was one of those horses who liked to compete.

Brady petted the horse again and was relieved when Booger just bent his pretty head low so he could peer back at his rider. Brady could swear the horse smiled. It might have been an “I'm starting to like you” smile, or even an “I'm sorry” smile. But Brady was pretty sure Booger took after his teenaged mistress, and it was a “wait till you see what I'm going to do next” smile.

* * *

Suze was feeling good. She was high in the saddle on Speedo's back—the one place in the world where she felt completely at ease. She was fooling with her rope, getting the feel of it, while she chatted with Stan about photography. He was explaining the concept of apertures when Brady stormed into the arena on the back of a hurricane. His mount was a whirling mass of mane and tail, and it wasn't until he stopped that she managed to sort out the whirlwind into a very attractive but high-strung Arabian bay.

“Wow,” Stan said. “Good job, Brady. That animal is
gorgeous.
This is going to be great.” He glanced over at Speedo, then back at Booger. “They didn't have any more like that, did they?”

“Trust me, one's enough,” Brady said.

Suze laughed. It was obvious that Stan knew as much about horses as she knew about apertures. One look at the quivering mass of horseflesh under Brady's borrowed saddle told her this was going to be a disaster.

“You shopping in the ladies' section now?” she called across the arena.

“Oh, yeah,” Stan said. “It
is
more of a woman's horse, isn't it? How 'bout if you ride that one, and Brady rides Speedo, Suze? You'll look great on—what's his name?”

Brady was moving pretty fast, but Suze could still tell he was blushing. “Booger,” he said.

“Booger? Stupid name for such a looker.”

“Yeah, what's his full name?” Suze knew the horse had to have more of a name than that. The animal was definitely registered and probably had a name as long as her arm.

Brady just kept moving, loping the horse from one side of the arena to the other.

“So, Suze, what do you think?” Stan asked. “Can you ride that thing?”

“I could,” she said. “But I think we should let Brady do it. I like the contrast: the macho man on the delicate little sissy horse, and the woman on the powerful take-charge racehorse. If you want to appeal to strong women, that's the way to do it.”

“Yeah, I'll bet you like the contrast,” Brady muttered. She wouldn't have heard him except that his circuit of the arena happened to take him past her at that moment.

“I don't know.” Stan was looking from one horse to the other, tapping his teeth with his index finger the way he did when he was worried. “I'm afraid it won't look right.”

“But my hair matches Speedo's mane,” she said.

“Oh.” He cocked his head and eyed her and Speedo. “You're right. That's kind of a nice effect.”

Stan busied himself with a light meter, checking various parts of the arena. Brady passed him a few times. He'd toned things down a bit and was only trotting the Arabian, but Stan still looked annoyed and Suze couldn't blame him. “Can you hold up for a minute, Brady?” Stan asked. “You're making me dizzy.”

“Okay.” Brady reined in the horse, which stood quivering beside Suze and Speedo. Suze had gone through a brief phase as a little girl when she'd longed for an Arabian, but she'd known enough not to voice that desire around the barrel-racing arena. It was all quarter horses, all the time in her world. As she'd grown older, she'd fallen in love with the breed's dependability and athleticism, and now she wouldn't trade Speedo for all the Arabians in the world.

She started to ask Brady about the horse's lineage when a leaf blew across the arena. It flipped its way toward Brady and Booger, and judging from the way Brady was watching it, things were about to get entertaining. He turned the horse away from the leaf's trajectory, but it was too late; Booger had caught sight of it and was rolling his eyes so the whites showed.

A moment later, Booger leaped into the air, his four skinny legs pointing north, south, east, and west. The formerly graceful neck thrust sticklike from his body, his mane flew straight up in the air, and his tail did the same—but with more purpose as he dumped a steaming heap of panic onto the dirt. Suze was pretty sure his eyes turned into little pinwheels of fear before his back hooves hit the ground and he started walking around on his hind legs, waving his forelegs around and screaming.

Brady looked like the Lone Ranger up there. Fortunately he rode as well as any ranger, lone or not. The effect was actually kind of impressive, but Booger was the sort of horse who didn't know when to quit. He started bouncing down on his front legs and rearing up again, bouncing and rearing, until he finally reared himself ass over teakettle and lay kicking in the sun-warmed dirt like an overturned turtle.

The cloud of dust that formed as the horse struggled to rise parted occasionally to give Suze a few brief glimpses of Brady. First his hat flew out of the mix, and then she caught sight of a leg. It was still wearing its boot, which seemed like good news. Next was a shiny hoof, then Brady's arm, and then the boot again.

Finally, the bundle of grunting and whinnying and swearing and snorting straightened out and there was Brady, covered with dust, his fancy shirt torn and his hat trampled. But he still had hold of the reins. Beside him, the horse trembled like the aspen leaf that had started the whole thing.

Stan was standing protectively in front of his camera equipment, looking alarmed. “What just happened?” he asked.

“Brady's horse blew up.”

“He exploded?”

“Sort of.”

“Dammit, I didn't get any pictures.”

At this point, Brady, Suze, and the two horses were all covered in a fine coat of dust. Stan had somehow escaped unscathed.

“Guess we'd better go clean up.” Brady brushed off his seat, which bore an arena-dirt imprint that reminded Suze of a tractor seat.

“No, wait. I like this. We were looking for authentic, and I think we've found it here.”

“You want me to get back on that animal?” Brady looked like he'd sooner ride a rodeo bull in his birthday suit than get back on Booger's back.

“He was doing okay before,” Stan said. “What happened?”

“He saw a leaf.”

Suze had to give Brady credit. A lot of cowboys would have been furious with the horse, and would have taken out their frustration by jerking his head around or worse. But Brady was doing his best to soothe poor Booger, and while she and Stan watched, he put his foot in the stirrup and swung back on board. He looked like he was about to ride to his own hanging, and Suze took pity on him.

“Long as Booger's moving, he's too busy to look around. And if he doesn't look around, he doesn't get scared and blow up,” she said. “So let's figure out a path and stick to it. We wanted an action shot, right?”

After a little discussion, she and Brady began racing from one end of the arena to the other, occasionally waving their lariats over their heads. It was a lot more fun than kneeling at Brady's feet, that was for sure. Suze found herself egging Speedo on, pushing him to beat the surprisingly fleet-footed Arabian.

Then they changed it up, running full-tilt toward each other and veering off just in time to avoid a collision. Brady had been worried this would be too much for Booger, but the horse took it all in stride—as long as he kept moving. Suze loved it. It was like playing chicken on horseback, and she made darn sure it was always Brady who turned chicken.

Still, watching him pound toward her across the dirt of the arena, his eyes intense as a hawk's as he crouched over the horse's neck, gave her the willies—the good willies, the ones that start in your chest and shimmer all the way down to your unmentionables.

As Brady passed her for the tenth time or so, he gasped out, “Let's get back to running together. I'm worried this guy won't turn when I tell him to.”

“Chicken?” Suze grinned.

“On this horse I am.”

Suze could understand that. In fact, it was probably a smart and safe decision. She had a tendency to try to prove herself. It had gotten her in trouble a few times, and she had the scars to prove it.

At the end of the arena, she stopped Speedo and waited for Brady to catch up. Speedo had caught the spirit of the afternoon and kept prancing in place like he was gearing up for a race.

As soon as Brady reached her, she spurred Speedo into action and the two of them took off at top speed, their horses churning up dust, their ropes whistling in the air over their heads.

After a few more shots, Stan waved them to a stop. Brady climbed down and held the reins, stroking Booger's neck in a gentle, almost tender way that made Suze feel flushed and warm.

“I'm not quite getting what I want,” Stan said. “It's just two people riding, you know? No excitement. How about some stops? You know, those sliding stops the cowboys do?”

“Those are reining horses,” Brady said. “Speedo might be able to do it, but Booger isn't going to give you a flashy stop. He's just not made for it.”

Suze grinned. “Scared?”

“No.” Brady didn't look very happy. “With my luck, I'd snap one of his skinny legs. I hate to think what Carly's dad paid for this horse.”

“You're chicken,” she said.

“I'm sensible, that's all.”

She laughed. She couldn't help it. Brady was the least sensible person she knew. She also figured he was probably the most competitive person she knew. Being the youngest of three brothers, he'd always worked twice as hard as the other boys to keep up.

If she made him a dare, he'd do it.