Breene, K F - Jessica Brodie Diaries 01 (9 page)

“My goodness, is that a smug smile
you have there, sir?”

He winked at me. My spine went to
jelly.

“This is the first rodeo for these
bulls,” he said as he looked over his stock. “I’m not sure they’ll perform how
they should. This is their trial run.”

“And if it goes well?”

“I take ‘em to the bank. Big
redoes, hopefully, like in
Houston
.
Let ‘em circuit a while, then stud ‘em out."

“Success.”

His smile ate away my stomach like
acid. “Exactly.”

We held eyes for a silent beat,
before he said, “I’ve been rude. I’m William. Or Willie, if you prefer.”

I stuck out my hand. “Jessica.”

“And you’re from
California
?”

“Accent give me away? Or was it my
constant scowl?”

“A lot of women scowl when they
first see calves fall.” His twinkling eyes melted my pants. “No. There aren’t
many secrets in this town.”

“I didn’t realize it was that
small.”

“You’d be surprised.” A cloud
passed over his face again.

I wondered if he was a bit moody.
Not that I’d kick him out of bed for it. Or for anything, actually. Hell, I
might have to chain him to keep him put after I tricked him in in the first
place.

To keep things moving, I changed
the subject. “What else do you tamper with?”

He didn’t shift gears as fast as I
did. His eyes still delved into me intently. I felt that pull again, from the
center of my being. Like he was reeling me in with his presence alone. I
blinked a couple times, trying to clear my head before I did something weird or
embarrassing. Suddenly there was a very tight feeling in my groin. Tight and
wet.

Oh lord.

“Tamper with?” His voice was wispy.

“Tamper with. You know, play God
with. Take over for Mother Nature. I think you called it...breeding?”

His eyes grounded, digesting what I
said. Suddenly, his face lit up in a smile that nearly knocked me off my feet.

When was I going to get used to his
charisma? Surely I have not always been such a buffoon around pretty people. I
wasn’t even this bad when I met Brad Pitt at a club in his really hot days.

It was probably because of his
moods. Up, down, sideways, the guy had me on a carnival ride of expectation.
And I liked it.

“I breed dogs. Blue Healer and--”

“Willie!”

Eyes snapping into the most focused
I’d seen them since he started talking to me, he looked off in the direction of
the shout. When he turned back to me, it was with regret. “I’m sorry, I’m
needed. We’ll have to continue our lesson another time.” He winked and walked
away.

The ass on him just wouldn’t quit!

He abruptly turned, catching me staring
at his butt. With a knowing smile, he said, “Oh, and before the day is through
I will amend your drinking problem.” He nodded to my empty plastic cup. “I
wouldn’t want you to say I spilled your drink and didn’t refill your cup.” He
gave me a smile and a nod before he was gone.

I mentally wiped the drool off my
chin.

Back at the beer line, my head was
drifting. I went over every word we spoke in detail. Every look. Every weird
change of mood. I dissected everything, as one did with a new crush, and figured
that the weird up’s and down’s was probably stress. He had a lot going on, and
my yapping at him wasn’t helping.

Good talk, though. He might be
unreachable, but I had touched him!

Tee hee!

“Excuse me, ma’am?”

It took me a second to realize the
words were directed at the side of my head.

A decent looking man stood next to
me, awaiting my attention.

“Yes?”

“Well, it’s just that I was
wonderin’ what you was laughin’ at?” His lips curved into a smile.

The only reason I could fathom him
caring was to get me into bed. Still, he was attractive—I didn’t want to be
rude.

“Oh nothing. Just thinking.”

I turned my gaze, nonchalantly of
course, to a man flopping around on the back of a wildly bucking horse in the
middle of the arena. He didn’t have a saddle, and the way his legs were pumping
into the air, he looked like an upside-down leap frog. “Why does he kick the
horse as he hangs on?”

“Well, now, why don’t you just come
right down over here and I’ll explain to ya.”

“You don’t have to be so formal
about sitting, but okay.”

I followed him to the stands. Once
seated, he slid a little closer until his thigh was brushing mine. I noticed
what must be his friends off to the side, sitting in a group and looking down
at us with smirks.

I rolled my eyes. I hated when boys
ruined a good moment by trying to show off for their friends. Plus, there were
a lot of them, they were strangers, there was beer flowing, and I was alone.
This was not a good situation for me to be in. It was probably time to go find
my married friend.

“I must ask you, darlin’, why you
look like yer sweatin’ like a whore in church?”

My brain stuttered a moment. All I
heard was sweat and whore.

About ready to tell him where he
could shove it, I noticed his eyes glance down at my damp shirt.

Ah, the spilled beer.

Still, what the f**k?

“Yeah, I spilled some beer on
myself," I answered, looking away with disinterest. "Well, someone
scared me, and I spilled on myself and him.”

“Ain’t that a bitch, huh? An’ he
didn’t buy ya another?”

“No. Well, anyway, I should—“

“Well, I am a far better gentleman
than that,” he cut me off, leaning closer, wanting to keep my attention. “But
it ‘pears you already got one so we’ll go back to bareback ridin’, though it’s
about done now.”

I did a double take, exit strategy
momentarily forgotten. “Did you say bareback riding?”

His eyebrows creased as he nodded.

I looked back at the arena in
slight disbelief, laughter bubbling up. “You call it.... you said... you call
it bare back riding!” I was doubling over in hysterics. It wasn’t really this
funny-- oh wait, in the land of the homophobe, it was. It was really this
funny.

I calmed down and caught him
looking back at his friends. When his gaze came back to rest on me with a
halfcocked smile, I explained, “Where I come from, we refer to bare-backing as
a....well, two dudes going at it without…ah...a raincoat.”

Confusion turned to disgust and he
turned away. Which shouldn’t have shocked me. Many men couldn’t handle speaking
about g*y men. I knew this. Gay women, oh yeah, they were all ears. It was a
stupid double-standard that irritated me. But my disquiet grew exponentially
with the level of hate and revulsion on this guy’s face. He wasn’t merely
uncomfortable, he was remembering where his white sheet and pointed hat were
kept. Time to go.

“No. That ain’t at all what we have
here. Not. At. All.” He tried to cover smoothly. About as smooth as a tidal
wave.

“Right. Got it. Anyway, I should
probably get back to my friends.”

He moved a little closer. “Oh no,
you can’t leave before the barrel racing. Then the bull riding. You don’t have
any double meanings for those, I hope?”

“Oh no, all clean there, but my
friends are waiting for me.” I got up to leave.

His fingers closed around my wrist
and brought me back down with a jarring bump. Warning bells started blaring
through my head, momentarily leaving me speechless. We were in a public spot,
albeit slightly removed. He couldn’t very well do anything here. Not without
someone noticing. My friends noticing, who must have missed me about now.

Just as I was deciding how to
proceed, I was jerked up by the shoulders from behind.

Cue friends, right in time.

“Ready to go, Jess?” JP’s eyes were
trained on the blond guy I was talking to.

He stood slowly, his eyes taking on
a vicious edge that said he wasn’t the kind of guy to stand down when his party
got busted up. His friends all stood with him.

Phil stepped forward, seeing a
fight brewing. Dave's eyes were darting back and forth, sweat standing out on
his face. He was planning an exit strategy. If a fight went down, it wouldn’t
be five against three, it would be five big guys, against two smallish ones.
And some girls. Not good.

I really wished Lump was with me
right then. She would know what to do.

Taking a deep breath, I moved to
the middle of the two factions, my back to the arena. I really hoped I didn’t
get pushed, because I would fall down eight steps, backwards. I had to step in,
though, I was the only speed bump to violence. I hope.

“Alright, just calm down, okay? I
was leaving, anyway,” I started in a calm voice, hands out in front of me.

“Says who?” the blond guy said with
claws imbedded in his words. His eyes raked down my front.

I heard rustling. One of the boys
was about to prove that testosterone made men stupid. Seriously, what could
this clown do? Kidnap me? Rape me? It was the middle of the day, in the middle
of some stands, with witnesses everywhere. Everyone needed to just scale it
back a notch!

Which was exactly what I opened my
mouth to say, when suddenly I was airborne. A second later, my teeth clicked
when my feet hit the level a step lower. Only then did I register I’d been
bodily picked up by a freaking titan and moved out of the way.

A large body stepped in front of
me, blocking me from danger. My legs started to wobble, when the ground fell
away a second time.

“What the—“ This time I stumbled
when my feet touched down. I felt like a freaking rag doll. I was over a
freaking hundred pounds and two guys now manhandled me as if I was a sack of
grain.

“Don’t fall, it’s a bumpy ride
down,” a short guy said to my right, his hand lightly touching my upper arm to
make sure I didn’t do a swan dive.

I tried to struggle my way back to
the front lines, but as I moved around the protective body blocking my way,
William reached out a large arm to keep me back.

“Dusty, git the hell outta here. We
don’t need yer kind ‘round here!” Apollo’s friend said with a thick Texan
accent. I couldn’t see the guy over the expanse of back in front of me, but
he’d been the second guy to lift me out of the way, so he was probably big.

“Ain’t you got nuthin’ better ta
do, Adam? This’es got nuthin’ to do with you,” Dusty said, cool as a spring
day.

“Hell, Dusty, you always got
sumethin’ ta do wit’ me. You’re always causing trouble at my parties. Now, why
is that do ya reckon?”

“Your parties? That right? I got no
beef with you, Adam. Nor you, Davies. I just wanted to settle a little dispute
with my friend here.”

Dusty’s body crested William’s in
my line of sight, stepping toward JP and Phil. I only got a glimpse, though,
because William shadowed him, irritatingly lodging himself back in my line of
sight.

“Now Dusty,” Adam went on, “you
know we ain’t gonna let no fight happen in here. We got some bulls to run and
we can’t have no trouble.”

Judging by William’s movement,
Dusty took a few steps back toward his friends. He wanted the numbers. He was
probably weighing his odds and his groups' willingness. Finally, after what was
probably a stare-off, Dusty said, “Why don’t you let the lady decide? We was
havin’ ourselves a nice little chat ‘afore you all showed up.”

Bodies parted slightly as William
angled his body, moving just his substantial width of shoulder. A glare of
hatred hit me as I met Dusty’s eyes. A creepy smile slithered up his face.

“I’ll be seein’ you around,
darlin.”

My foot took an involuntary step
back with the force of his glower, catching the bench, throwing my balance off
kilter. As I teetered, arms wind-milling, Adam and William were already in
action.

As Adam said, “that about does it—“
they had him clutched between them, jerking him around by the arms and shirt,
forcing him roughly down the stairs.

A mountain stepped in front of me,
then, but I couldn’t marvel at its size. I was toppling, heading backward in
what I knew, I just knew, would hurt something awful.

“Hang on there—“ The smaller man
grabbed me around the waist, using all his strength of keep me from
somersaulting end-over-end down the steps.

“Jessica!”

That screech could only belong to
Candace.

Sure enough, another, softer body
barreled into my back, helping the smaller man with momentum if not strength.
Arms like thick cables despite his small stature, he got me on my feet, his
steadying hand welcomed.

As I teetered to a stop, I saw one
and a half things. The first was the mountain range. And it was huge.

Six-foot-four at least, he towered
over me. Huge broad back, tree trunk arms supporting more than one tattoo, and
not an ounce of fat that I could see, he was a giant brick of solid muscle.

Behind him was the half of crowd,
shifting and sticking hands in pockets, left in Dusty’s wake. The other half
was probably there, too, but damned if I could see them around the mammoth in
front of me.

The boys got a look at him and
shrugged. They lost the desire to fight almost immediately, choosing instead to
skulk off down the stands. I didn’t blame them.

Andre-the-freaking-Giant turned to
me. “You alright? We wasn’t gonna let him hurt ya.”

I smiled in relief. “Thanks a
million! I really appreciate it!” Then, thinking I might offend my crew, I
added, “We definitely needed the numbers. Candace and I wouldn’t have been much
help, and these guys were only three against five. Or was it six?”

The giant looked around at the guys
I came with. Then the littler dude stepped up, smiling like the whole thing was
some big joke. Little did he know, the joke was the two of them standing
side-by-side. A short, wiry guy and a thick tree trunk of a man. I was sure
there was a cartoon somewhere made of this pair.

The little guy stuck out his hand.
“Hi. My name’s Clayton. People call me Ty.”

He had a lower voice than I would
have thought. It was quite low, actually. No accent, either. He had trimmed
eyebrows, a short nose that had been broken a couple times and not set
properly, and dark brown eyes. His hair looked shaggy but it was hard to tell
because he had a Yankees ball cap on.

“Oh, hi. My name
is...ah...Jessica.” I smiled and sighed. “Sorry, my adrenaline is up.”

He smiled back, showing a pretty
smile marred by a couple chipped teeth. “No harm, Jessica.”

He scanned the area, completely at
ease. His gaze touched each of the boys, Sara for a half second longer, then
lingered on Candace.

“Oh sorry, these are my friends...”

Ty nodded with each introduction,
but paid special attention to Candace, who responded with an embarrassed look
at the ground. I smirked.

Ty turned to the mountain. “This is
Moose. Well, his real name is Carl, but we call him Moose.”

“Did you say Carl, or Lennie?” I
quipped, then instantly regretted it. I hoped no one would catch on that Lennie
was the large, lumbering “Of Mice and Men” character that had the strength of
three men but the brains of a flower pot.

Ty looked at me with a furrowed
face.

Please don’t get the reference.
Please don’t get the reference!

JP, jelly to my peanut butter,
tried to stifle his chuckle so as not to give me away, but Ty caught it. He
looked back at Moose for two beats, before he doubled over, screaming with
laughter. His body heaved, hands on his stomach, guffawing in the stands.
Everyone else, not having got the joke—story of my life—adopted the crooked
grins and random chuckles usual when someone was laughing so hard tears were
coming out of his eyes.

After a moment, when Ty got his
bearings, he straightened up, took a look at Moose, was received with a “What’d
I miss?” and then doubled over again.

“What’s up?” Adam asked, coming up
the bleachers, Apollo following along behind.

Ty just pointed at me, shook his
head, and said, “Better watch her.”

The barrel racing was finished and
people were getting ready for the next event, which was bull riding. Judging by
the crowd, this was the highlight of the day.

Adam, Moose and lastly Apollo
followed Ty down the stands. I walked to JP and was just about to say a big
thank you to all the boys when Ty yelled up, in a thick, cartoon-like accent,
“Hey! Ain’t y’all cumin’?”

All four of the retreating men
stopped at ground level. Adam asked, “Y’all want to watch the bull fights from
our gate? Ty here is gonna ride.”

I shot a startled glance at lit up
faces. Dave looked like he was going to pee himself he was so excited. Candace
looked really red, (haha!) and JP was looking at me intensely.

Before I could ask JP why the
scrutiny, we heard, “I still owe you a beer.”

My feet were moving before my brain
could process the wonderful tickle down my spine. Which was actually bad news,
because while it felt like I was floating, what I was actually doing was
stumbling. Apparently the day would not end before I bounced down a flight of
steps.

After a walk in which JP basically
escorted me like a senior citizen with a cane, the procession stopped beside a
white, new-looking trailer attached to a gigantic, shiny, midnight-blue truck.
One of the truck tires came up to my mid-thigh! I had seen a lot of this sort
of thing in the parking lot, but not quite this glossy. Did rich rednecks
exist?

“Like it?” Apollo asked beside me
as the others wandered toward the arena fence.

“Uh...it’s fine. I dunno. Why?”

He turned his gaze on me. “It
looked like you were inspecting the truck.”

“Oh. Well, it’s big. Tall, I mean.
You know, the tires. Is there a reason it is this big? Tall? How do people
actually get into it?”

“Very carefully.” He smirked.

“How old are you?” I asked with
sarcasm.

He looked surprised and shuffled
his feet.

“Because of that joke, I mean,” I
said in a hurry. I didn’t want the guy thinking I was planning to stalk him or
anything. I was, but I didn’t want to be anticipated. “My grandparents used
that one all the time...”

He threw his head back and laughed.
“Ah. Got it. Yeah, mine did, too. Guess it fits.”

“Is this your trailer?”

“Yup.”

“It’s nice. Big. It looks
luxurious.”

“Luxurious?”

“Yeah, like on Lifestyles of the
Rich and Famous, Country addition. It looks like a yacht on wheels.”

He laughed again and grabbed my
hand, starting toward it.

I soared at his touch! His hand was
course, but gentle. In size, it was like a Kodak Grizzly bear paw compared to
mine. What affected me most was the electric current running through his skin,
my hand, and directly into my mid-section, collecting in a puddle of sex in my
groin. My lady bits answered with a purr.

With a fluttering stomach, I
allowed him to lead, stopping shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the trailer
door. He looked at me with a huge smile, as if I was still included in the
joke, his flawless features closer than they had yet been.

My brain shut off, allowing my
animalistic senses to fully feel the connection that body contact afforded. I
was mesmerized. All my focus was on him; on his impossibly broad, beefy
shoulders; on the muscles moving in his arm as he held my hand; on his deep
blue, glittering eyes.

His brow scrunched up as his smile
slipped, his eyes roaming my face. The deep blue became hypnotizing as they
looked deeply into mine. Into me. They started to pull me in, reaching ever
deeper into the center of my being. It felt like he physically clutched my soul
with his dominating presence. The world condensed into that one moment, my
spectra of view down to this one person and the proximity of his radiating
body.

I got light-headed. My feet felt
like they were lifting off the ground. The only things I could focus on was
that touch. His hand on mine. The searing heat in my groin. The angel kisses on
my heart. The overwhelming urge to fall into him.

His hand gently squeezing now.
Shaking slightly?

Suddenly, without warning, a void
replaced feelings so powerful I didn’t feel grounded. Cold air replaced his
warm hand. Sunlight replaced his well-built body. It was like the world went
from an explosion of color, to white-washed.

He had stepped away, and was now
looking around us distractedly. The hand that had been holding mine was in his
pocket. He cleared this throat and wiped his nose.

Well, that killed the mood.

I looked around us, too, figuring
someone called his name or had a damn good reason for ruining the perfect
moment. To my horror, I didn’t see anything or anyone with a vengeful vendetta.
I blinked a couple times, and then shook my head like a wet dog wanting to be
dry.

Then I laughed. I couldn’t help it!
What just happened was just so intense! I wasn’t even sorry it ended. Not
really. Having never felt anything like that before, I almost vowed to give up
drinking. In the next thought, I almost vowed to drink forever if I would feel
that over and over when I got close to him.

Chuckles still coming, the
seriousness of life and my current situation completely forgotten, I noticed
that he was now looking at me with the cutest lopsided smile I have ever seen.
He looked half-way between an embarrassed little boy and a confident, grown
man. It was so odd and so endearing that I laughed all the harder, jubilant.
Loving the crazy awkwardness of the situation.

I was so far out of my league it
wasn’t funny. But guess what, those were thoughts for
L.A.
.
Here, in
Texas
, at a rodeo with a
bunch of cowboys, how could I possibly give two shits, when fitting in would be
as easy as keeping a tan in
Ireland
.

I laughed all the harder; big body
wracking chuckles. Not ladylike, but I didn't care. I wiped the streaming tears
out of my eyes, and tried to gain control. I leaned up against the trailer and
fanned my face with a sweaty hand.

I looked over at William with a
Please forgive me! smile. He smiled back and gestured for me to enter the
trailer ahead of him. No contact. Safer.

“Willie, it’s about t—“

Adam was cut off by a booming voice
over the loud speaker.

“We might have to continue this
another time. The bull riding is about to begin,” William said as he motioned
for me to follow him to the side of the ring.

Easily hiding my disappointment in
a blasé attitude, I moseyed over to Candace, who was waiting for me with an
excited smile. “Ty is going to ride! Isn’t he cute?”

“What is with the nickname? How
does one go from Clayton…to Ty?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t get to talk
to him very long ‘cause he had to go ride. He drew one of Davies’s bulls. It
looked like he was getting really nervous. They are sure big. I hope he’s
okay.” She turned back to the arena.

“S’cuse me, ladies?" William
stepped closer to the arena fence, "I thought I might talk you through
what bull riding is about. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea about it.”

In reality, I didn’t much care, but
to him, I was all ears. And body parts if he wanted to demonstrate…

“Why is your face red?” Candace
asked me with a mother’s concern. “Are you hot? Do you want some shade from the
trailer? I can move over..."

“If you can see,” William, head
turned toward the rider on a bull, missed the naughty thoughts on my face.
“Right now the rider is getting ready in the chute. He sits on the bull and
wraps his hand into the bull rope.”

“Chute, as in…slide?” I asked, not
quite sure how the rider and bull got from their makeshift prison into the
spacious arena.

William turned his whole body and
stared down at me for a blank-faced moment.

“Yeah, that was a dumb question, my
bad.”

“I’ll say,” Adam mumbled from the
other side of William, watching the rider get ready.

“A chute can be a slide, yes.”
William‘s eyes sparkled while his words mocked. “Also a cascade, channel,
shaft…”

“I said it was a dumb question—“

William laughed, turning back.
“Okay, here we go.”

Someone yelled, followed by a loud,
metallic grate. The fence swung into the arena, allowing the confined beast to
burst out into the space with a weirdly bouncing cowboy on his back.

“Why the hand in the air?” I asked
over the din.

The hand not roped in to the bull’s
back was high up, over his head, sometimes swinging, sometimes knifing the air.

“Balance,” William said, relaxing
somewhat against the fence.

“He doesn’t have much of it. He
won’t make—“ Adam stopped talking as the cowboy whipped down, over the bull’s
back, then sorta tumbled off and landed flat on his back.

“Gate’s dirty, Jessica, and you are
wearing white!”

I ignored Candace as the cowboy
scrambled up and hightailed it to the side of the enclosure. The bull, rid of
his charge, did a couple more jumps before it got bored and jogged to another
gate newly opened. That was probably the way back to his pen.

“That was a pretty anti-climactic
ride, but it gives me an opportunity to talk about points." William turned
to face me again.

Speak away, good sir, while I ogle
you! I stared at his handsome face, pretending to be in rapt attention.

“The judges will give points to the
rider based on the style of the ride; how in sync the rider was with the bull,
if he was in balance, things like that. The bull gets points for how hard a
ride they gave the rider. If they throw the rider off before eight seconds,
they give the bull points for that. So the rider gets extra points if he stays
on a hard bull.”

“So he didn’t do too well with points,”
I surmised, still staring.

“No, and neither did the bull for
that ride.”