Colby (BBW Western Bear Shifter Romance) (Rodeo Bears Book 3) (2 page)

She refused to dress for it.
 
Not that anyone had asked her to.
 
Refusing just made her feel better.
 
She wore ballet flats because she wasn't going to ruin heels or trip over things in the murky barns or arena.
 
She wasn't going to wear even her nicest heels because of the horse manure and the hay and the muddy stalls and because even her fanciest boots might be misconstrued as western boots.
 
She seriously wasn't admitting she was doing this.

So when she went she wore lightweight off white slacks and a light blue shell to combat the heat.
 
Her long brown hair she piled up in a tortoise shell clip and let the stray wisps that always got free frame her face.
 
She carried her cassette recorder, phone, notebook, pens, smart phone, questions and the intention to be there and be gone without ever seeing a single bull ride or a calf roping or a single rodeo clown.
 

Unfortunately it was beginning to look like she was also going to leave without seeing Wally Wold or Owen Hutch, neither of whom had been anywhere near where they were supposed to be.

Or maybe she was the one who wasn't where she was supposed to be.
 
Even growing up in cowboy country Gemma hadn't spent time hanging around cowboys or their games.
 
She had no idea what the main pavilion in the fair grounds rodeo area was, or how to find it.
 
Her plan had been to either pick up a flier with a map of events when she got her ticket at Will Call, or to ask someone.
 
Only there hadn't been any maps.
 
Attendees were expected to just enter the auditorium and sit down, not wander around.
 

So far there'd been no one to ask except a couple very drunk looking cowboys.
 
She could hear the announcer in the arena, calling out whatever was going on there.
 
Clearly the day's
events weren't over yet.

Clearly they were for the guys she'd already seen.
 
The drunk ones.
 
Though she could hear the crowd and the announcer, she couldn't see anything.
 
Somehow she'd gotten herself lost behind the arena.
 
Here a series of fences opened into nowhere places, little pens where horses or bulls or something might be kept but, right now, weren't.
 
The heat was stifling, as was the smell of animal droppings and hay.

What she wanted to do was snarl "Fuck this" and go home.
 
Couldn't though.
 
She had exactly two magazines she wrote for regularly anymore.
 
The occasional extra assignment for the local foodie mag and the local alternative newspaper weren't enough without the lifestyle mag.
 
Inheritance from her great-grandmother had paid for the condo but there were other expenses.
 
She needed to work.
 
That meant she had to persevere and find where she was supposed to be.
 
She needed to find the poet and the shifter.
 
Then she could go.

Gemma turned around fast.
 
She'd retrace her steps.
 
Once outside at least she'd be far enough from the convention center to figure out where she'd gone wrong.
 
Other than answering the phone when Marla had called.
 
If she had to, she'd go back to the ticket office.
 
If someone there couldn't give her directions, she'd ask for security to escort her.
 
She was press.
 
That had to still count for something.

Moving fast, because she wasn't quite late yet, Gemma rounded the corner where a series of stalls blocked her view of any upcoming junctions of stalls.
 
The sound of the crowd grew louder.
 
Good.
 
She'd head that way.
 
Maybe there'd be signs then pointing to the stall where she was supposed to meet Owen Hutch.
 

Running, Gemma emerged from between two horse stalls, turned toward the sound of the crowd and the illusion of sunlight.

Something came flying along the same path and hit her hard.
 
No.
 
She was the one moving.
 
Clearly there was a wall there.
 
Something huge and dark and sudden.
 
Gemma said, "Uff!" loudly and sat down in the dust.

Her cream colored summer linen pants would be ruined.

Her instant reaction was to shoot up as fast as humanly possible.
 
As if that would keep the dust off her.
 

Her next thought was blinding panic.
 
She couldn't breathe!
 
One hand flew to her mouth.
 
She dropped her phone, her bag, and clawed at her throat with both hands.

A voice said, "Easy, darlin'."

The hell with that!
 
There was no air!
 
She was going to die!

The voice of reason, buried way under the panic in her mind, said she'd had the wind knocked out.
 
Gemma wasn't interested in reason.
 
She was interested in breathing.

The owner of the voice was scrabbling near her.
 
Gemma raised one hand to bat him away.
 
She already couldn't breathe.
 
She didn't need someone hot touching her and –
 

Forcing her down?
 
Gemma panicked, trying to pummel the guy with both fists.
 
Her lungs heaved.
 
Black spots floated in her vision.

The voice came through slowly.
 
"I'm not going to hurt you.
 
Lay back.
 
It will help you breathe."

Gemma went instantly limp, letting herself fall back onto the dirt.
 
The little air she'd managed jolted out of her again.
 
Panic set in harder.

Then a hand gently pushed her left shoulder down while fingers tucked themselves under the waistband of her pants.

He'd said he wasn't going to hurt her!

She didn't have enough energy to fight the hand.
 
She went limp, and the voice said, "Good, relax," and the hand on her shoulder stayed there and the one at her waist gently pulled her up, arching her back, pulling her hips up.

"Breathe, darlin'," the voice said.
 

If she could have, she would have screamed at him.
 
What did he think she was trying to do?

But air started flowing back into her lungs.
 
Her throat ached, like she'd swallowed something too salty or choked on something sharp.
 
But there was air again, and the spasm in her body started to relax.

Gemma took a long experimental breath.
 
The air went in and out again.

"OK?" the voice asked.

She didn't have the air to agree or disagree.
 
She nodded, her hair in the dust.

"Couple more breaths," he said.
 
"Then I'll let you up.”

Normally sarcasm would come to her rescue, even if only internally.
 
What if I want to be let go of right now?
 
She did, actually.
 
But the air going in and out was too nice, even air reeking of animal waste and hay and cowboy.

Three breaths later he lowered her gently, let go of her shoulder, and extended a hand.
 
"That was so not what I meant to do."

Her mind was clearing.
 
She couldn't make out what he'd said, though.
 
What he had meant to do?
 
She'd run into a wall.

Gemma blinked.
 
Her eyes watered and cleared and she looked at the guy who was squatting in front of her.
 
When he saw her take him in, he stood easily, brushing his hands down his Wranglers.
 
He extended one enormous hand.

Gemma put her hand out uncertainly and the giant paw engulfed it.
 
He pulled her up easily, set her on her feet, and looked her over.

"Could've been worse."
 
He wore a cocky grin and a ten gallon hat.
 
The hair escaping out from under the hat was a reddish brown mass of curls.
 

It was easy to see how she'd mistaken him for a wall.
 
He was big and broad as one.
 
Gemma started at the top.
 
Hat, mile wide.
 
Dusty, dirty and dilapidated.
 
Real cowboy hat.
 
Then the curls, amazing color.
 

She got as far as the cheekbones – sharp and angular – and the mouth, sensual rounded lips that were quirking up in a grin as he watched her – before she went back to the eyes.

Deep honey golden.

Shifter.

Chapter Two

He wasn't Owen Hutch.
 
That was clear.
 
After her confusion about senators and cowboys, Marla had suggested she look up the superstar hotshot cowboy.
 
Owen Hutch was built like the bear he was, massive with a broad chest and dark good looks.
 

But there was only one family of shifters she knew of who would be in the billionaire Ray Chaudett's rodeo circuit, the one run by father and daughter team of Mary Beth and Ray Chaudett, and that was Owen Hutch himself.

The Tyrell clan.
 
Still controversial, the idea of shifters in rodeos.
 
Various circuits and a whole lot of riders and other cowboys kept trying to ban it
 

Probably because the Tyrell's kept on winning.

Which was why she was here.
 
To interview the superstar, champion bull rider, as well as Wally Wold, cowboy poet and bronc rider.

She'd gone too long without speaking.
 
Hell, she'd gone too long staring.
 
He was grinning at her, a big lopsided grin that pretty much summed up,
Yeah, I know I'm good looking
.
 

Gemma cleared her throat.
 
"I'm looking for Owen Hutch."

He
 
thrust out a lower lip in an exaggerated pout.
 
"Now that's a shame.
 
Could I interest you in his cousin?"

"Not if she has any sense," said a voice from beyond the wall and Gemma craned her neck to see around her attacker and rescuer.

Now that, that was Owen Hutch.
 
Even unwilling and uninterested in the whole rodeo thing she'd had to admit that Hutch was beautiful.
 
Broad shouldered, thick chested, dark and smoldering.

But the Wall wasn't bad either.
 

Before heading off to the rodeo, Gemma had done her research on the Tyrell clan and Owen Hutch, as well as Wally Wold.
 
Wally was a cowboy poet and bronc buster, a grizzled veteran of rodeos, and not tied into the clan at all.
 
She'd thought he'd be the easy interview until she tried to set it up.
 
Marla was right – the man was infuriating and stubborn.
 

Hutch, on the other hand, was a cousin of the Tyrell clan brothers, known shifters who competed in the circuits.
 
This year Hutch was competing in Ray Chaudett's series of events, like the other Tyrell shifters.
 
Hutch had long been associated with the billionaire's circuit, almost a son to the billionaire.
 

Only now he was son-in-law. He'd married Ray Chaudett's daughter Mary Beth.

She blinked at him as she stood in the shadowy barn, still a little winded.
 
Too bad he was off the market.

Gemma mentally shook herself.
 
She wasn't looking.

Beside her Colby dusted his hat against his dustier Wranglers and held out a hand.
 
Gemma took it uncertainly.
 
Colby neither kissed it nor shook it.
 
He held her hand and grinned at her, cocky and hot.
 

"I've got a bull waiting for me," he said.
 
"I've got to go ride."

Eight seconds of glory.
 
At the end of which the animal might throw him, gore him and possibly kill him.
 
She shuddered.

He saw it and laughed.
 
"I can tell you're a true fan, Miss - ?"

"Gemma Thomas," she said.

He nodded acknowledgment.
 
"Know you were looking for my cousin.
 
Questionable choice."

"Hey, now," Owen said good-naturedly.
 
He might as well.
 
His star was firmly risen.

"When you're finished with him, and I'm finished with my date with 2,000 pounds of beef on the hoof, could I buy you a drink?"
 
He quickly lowered those amazing gold eyes and said, sounding almost shy, "By way of apologizing for stompin' you, ma'am."