Fearless Read online

  At least she cussed at me.

  She never yells at her horse when Aston Magic starts being moody, and she lives her life by the motto “Kill ’em with kindness.” I’ve seen her bite her tongue so many times, she shouldn’t have one left. But none of that restraint ever seems to apply to me, and the moment I get downgraded to the sweet-pea public persona, I’m calling in the big guns.

  Two more circles, and her colt’s hooves have firmly buried my medal beyond sight.

  Stick to Plan A, I tell myself. Act like it didn’t happen, and maybe it didn’t.

  “He’s looking good,” I muse mostly to myself. “He from Buddy Holly’s line?”

  “Goddamn it,” she mutters, pulling her horse to a stop and dismounting. “You just can’t leave me alone, can you?”

  I risk a smile; it’s been a hell of a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of her riding my ass about something, and I missed it more than she’ll ever know. “No, ma’am. Apparently not.”

  She feeds her colt a treat before leading him toward the gate. I hurry to open it for her and wait while she leads him through, my eyes stealing a quick peek at her curves in her jeans and her long blond braid swishing from under her cowgirl hat. Damn, I missed her.

  I remember to latch the gate once I get my blood flowing back above my belt line, turning to find her already walking away. “Aw, come on, Taryn. I know you’re mad, but—”

  She whips around, and I’m struck dumb at the pain sparkling in her blue eyes like she’s moments away from crying. And Taryn isn’t a crier. “I’m not just mad, Billy. I’m done. And I told you that. So stop torturing me by showing up here and calling me all the time, and find a way to get it through that thick head of yours. It’s over.”

  Her voice wobbles on the last word, and it’s left me no kind of man. My head hangs, every endless prick of pain she’s feeling cutting me a thousand times over because I caused it, and she’s the only one who can make me feel better about it.

  Her boots shift in the fresh dirt beneath her, but she’s not walking away yet, and I risk a small step closer while she’s giving me the chance. I’d bet my bike she doesn’t want to be broken up any more than I do. But lines in the sand have a bad habit of shifting, and it isn’t always easy to see where they land.

  When Taryn shifts again, my gaze lifts to her hand fisting by her side, her other grasping desperately to the reins. One more step, and I breathe deep the call of leather and sunflowers, peach shampoo and lavender bug spray.

  My eyes finally dare to meet hers, simmering sapphire and begging me for a thousand things I don’t know how to give her when I can only think about the one thing I want. The one thing I shouldn’t have done and all the soul-twisting reasons I’d have to do it again if faced with the same decision.

  “I’m sorry,” I croak out, her eyelashes fluttering closed as I run a knuckle down her cotton-soft cheek, only a breath away from kissing her. I’ve done it so many times, and it’s not fair that the last time, I barely brushed my mouth against hers before I’d sprinted out the door. I can’t let it end that way. “I’m so sorry, honey.”

  She shivers, a small noise that threatens to crack my heart right down the middle escaping her parted lips. Then she reaches up, barely covering my mouth with her fingertips, stopping me. “No, Billy,” she whispers. “I can’t do this anymore. You’ve already broken my heart once. I won’t let you do it again.”

  Two tons of guilt and a sharp buck of fear lock my words in my throat, and she spins to her colt and leads him away. Back to the barn and her truck and her family’s farmhouse ten miles down the road. And I know it’s supposed to be hopeless, because she told me it was, but I can’t help it.

  Nothing in me knows how to hang it up and walk away. Not even when I’ve only got three months before the winter break melts into next season’s testing, pulling us to the opposite ends of the earth along with it.

  I love that woman, and I’m not giving up on day one.

  “I missed you!” I call after her.

  “Missed you, too.” Hope sparks in my chest as she peeks over her shoulder with a look that takes everything funny out of her words but, for some reason, still gets me going. “Had you right in my sights, and the damn wind shifted.”

  Jesus. Maybe day two will go better.

  Chapter 2

  Taryn Ledell—Back Then

  There wasn’t anything special about Billy King. He was just another cowboy.

  At first, anyway.

  “Admit it,” Holly was saying, nuzzling kisses onto my horse’s nose while I relaxed in Aston Magic’s saddle. “After winning this morning, you’ve completely run out of room on your trophy shelf and have taken to stuffing your barrel racing medals into your underwear drawer.”

  “Come on! Just a couple in my nightstand.” I winked off the compliment, patting my mare’s neck. We were smack-dab in the middle of traffic between the warm-up pen and outdoor arena, people coming and going from one rodeo event after the other. But I hadn’t seen Holly since Fort Worth, and I’d really missed her.

  It didn’t help that the annual Starry Nights rodeo—where, in true Kentucky tradition, they scheduled everything backward—was the last rodeo I was able to attend before starting the long back-and-forth of the international Superbike circuit.

  Holly shook her head, widening her eyes at Aston. “I know, girl. I hate her, too.”

  A genuine laugh from too many years of friendly competitive banter rang through my heart, Holly leaving another kiss on Aston’s nose before she stepped toward me, stretching up as far as she could to hug me as I carefully leaned down from the saddle, breathing in her curly hair tickling my nose. “I love you. Been way too long.”

  “I know, and we all miss you so much. But we’re so proud of you.”

  “Thanks,” I mumbled, wondering if she’d still say that if she actually googled me.

  It hadn’t always been this bad. In the beginning, racing was a dream after the nightmare of leaving sports medicine. But under my new publicist’s slimy hands, my racing image had become less about my placements and more about my photo shoots. Now, every fan in the sport knew my face, my bra size, and not a damn thing about where I stood, on or off the podium.

  “Hon, I mean it,” Holly said. “You may be famous over there, but to me, you’ll always be the same lanky beauty queen who couldn’t rope if her life depended on it.”

  Everything in my heart squeezed as I held Holly tighter, and I wished so much that what she said was true, that the people who knew me really were proud of me. At the very least, I was back home where the world smelled familiar: like fresh dirt, stiff hay, old ropes, and Old Spice.

  Old Spice?

  “Pardon me, ma’am.”

  I lifted my head, finding a jean-clad knee next to my face and a cowboy smiling down from a golden horse like he was waiting his turn for a hug, tall and lean in a black competition shirt, a Stetson to match, and his voice just as dark and deep as both. He was also paying no mind to the fact that traffic was now even more blocked with two horses standing side by side, and people were starting to grumble as they passed by. Jackass.

  I looked at Holly questioningly, but her bunched-up eyebrows said she had no clue who the guy was. He couldn’t possibly have recognized me from my racing photos. No one in America gave a flip about Superbike, seemed like.

  I looked back to the cowboy, telling myself to be brave. Assertive. Fearless. “Can I help you?” I asked, bleeding Southern politeness through my tone.

  “Oh, Gidget wanted to come say hi. He saw your mare when you were barrel racing and thought she was real agile. Pay me no mind.” He sat back in his saddle, his hands crossed on the saddle horn as he started whistling a tune that was far too relaxed to be believed while his stallion tried—and failed—to get the attention of Aston Magic, swishing his tail into hers and bumping her nose.

&n
bsp; Okay, so definitely not a racing stalker or an immediate threat.

  The knot in my stomach slowly unwound as Aston snickered, then nipped at his stallion. Served his horse right. I arched my eyebrow in the cowboy’s direction, a sugary smile curling around my double entendre. “Doesn’t seem like she’s interested.”

  He kept grinning away under his black hat, the rim so wide it was almost as broad as his shoulders. “Well, Gidget’s real nice, but he gets excited when he finds something he likes, and that can take some getting used to.”

  Holly let out a sharp laugh. “You sure we’re still talking about your horse?”

  I looked away to hide my snicker. Damn, Holly.

  “Yes, ma’am, certainly.” He sounded a little offended, but the slight touch of ire faded instantly from his voice. “And since I already interrupted y’all’s conversation, if you don’t mind me saying…”

  “Go right on ahead, honey,” Holly told him. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  I looked back to Holly, but this guy apparently had guts of steel. He was staring straight at me. “Congratulations on winning, miss. Even though I think that other girl ran it a little cleaner.”

  My eyes popped in disbelief, darting to Holly and back to him. “I’m sorry, what?”

  He scratched at his jaw, rusty with dirty-blond stubble. “Tonya Ladle, I think her name was? You’re real fast and all, and your quarter horse sure seems to know what she’s doing. But I just thought that other girl’s turns were tighter.”

  Holly’s face flushed and deepened in color, and I sat up straighter in my saddle, my feigned indifference churning into fast-growing irritation. “I’m Taryn Ledell. Not Tonya Ladle. Leh-dell.”

  His hand shot out toward me across the space between our horses, his grin bigger than ever. “And I’m Billy King. Nice to meet you.”

  “Oh wow.” Holly burst out in laughter. “Taryn, honey, since you’re fine”—she tried to contain her chuckle but couldn’t, making eyes at the cowboy and then at me—“I’ll, uh, head on out. It was good seeing you.”

  She couldn’t be serious. “Holly, really—”

  “Really.” She winked, already backing up into the crowd and disappearing within the camouflage of Wrangler jeans and pressed shirts, waving over her shoulder. “Congratulations again!”

  I looked at the reason my friend just bailed on me, and Mr. Wearing Too Much Old Spice was still grinning from his saddle and reaching toward me over the lariat he had strapped to it. Heat flooded a bunch of parts of me that shouldn’t have been affected by just a damn smile, and I mentally refused to shake his hand.

  Why in the hell were the most annoying cowboys always the cutest? Especially with lopsided smiles and teeth that were pearly white but just a little bit crooked because he hadn’t been forced to suffer corrective braces like I had.

  My gaze drifted as far from his easy country grin as I could stand, landing on his horse’s golden mane. There was hardly anything there. And his muscles were all uphill and forward built. Not the level or even downward build of a quarter horse.

  But a lariat was strapped to his saddle horn…

  A whole lot of something wasn’t right.

  “Where’d you get this horse?” I asked, inspecting his stallion more closely while my mind raced to put the pieces together.

  His arm pulled back. “Huh?”

  Aston Magic was beautiful, but this guy’s horse had no equal at the rodeo. And if I wasn’t mistaken, not only was it the precious gold of an Akhal-Teke, but with the guy’s telltale Memphis twang, it should have a brand in the shape of—

  “Oh my God!” A couple walking by jumped and stared at me, but I couldn’t do more than gawk in utter astonishment. It was right there, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “This is a Hargrove horse!”

  A funny smile crept across Billy’s lips. Like he was impressed and still not the slightest bit guilty. “You from Memphis? What a small, funny world it is.”

  “No, it’s not,” I snapped, way past seeing him as a potential distraction and closer to imagining what he looked like in handcuffs. The police kind. “And he’s for dressage, not for roping. Where’d you get him?”

  Billy’s nose scrunched up like he couldn’t believe I was accusing him of doing anything wrong. Wonder how long that had been working for him? “I borrowed him.”

  My eyes nearly flew out of my skull. “You borrowed him?”

  There was no way Lynn Hargrove knew about this. I didn’t exactly know her, but I knew about her, and she didn’t just let farmhands take her prize stallions to rodeos in Kentucky because they wanted to have some fun on the weekends. He’d probably stolen a fifty-thousand-dollar horse.

  “Yes, ma’am, I borrowed him,” he drawled, starting to sound a little indignant about the accusation. “And it’s been real nice talking to you, but Gidget and I gotta—”

  “Oh, hell no. You’re not going anywhere. Give me that horse.” I went for his reins, but he’d already sidled them out of my reach, allowing a new flow of traffic to fill up between us.

  “Now, hold on just a minute—”

  “Come back here!”

  More people turned to stare, and I would’ve too if our situations were reversed. But they didn’t realize the magnitude of what he had done. Especially when he was laughing at me about it. “Wish I could, honey, but I gotta go rope. I’d love if you’d come watch me, though. And it was nice meeting you.”

  With one touch of his finger to his hat, he was gone, trotting his “borrowed” horse toward the arena, his lasso ropes thwacking against his jeans with the motion.

  No sight had ever pissed me off more.

  I gave two clicks to Aston Magic, urging her to go after them. But we never caught up.

  Apparently, that was the moment when the whole freaking world needed to talk to me, and there were too many people crowding and blocking us, stopping me to say congratulations, welcome back, and asking where I was riding next.

  By the time I got to the outdoor arena, I couldn’t find him. All I could hear was his damn name blaring through the speakers and echoing on the wind.

  “All right, folks,” the announcer boomed. “Next up for calf roping, we have Billy King. If that last name sounds familiar to you, it’s ’cause his baby brother, Mason, took first in the bull riding showdown this morning. Them King boys are ones to watch, I tell you. Let’s hear it for Billy!”

  The crowd cheered like they knew him, and despite my temper sparking, I couldn’t help sitting up a little higher in my saddle. Peering through teased high hair and black and tan Stetsons, I finally saw him: sitting atop that golden horse with his heels sunk in his stirrups, the sun shining off his belt buckle, and a fearless grin beaming from behind the rope he had clenched in his teeth.

  I narrowed my eyes. He probably wasn’t any good. And the second he was done, I was reporting him. To…somebody.

  God, what was it about this guy that had pushed all my freaking buttons?

  At the harsh sound of the buzzer, a calf was loose and running. But Billy’s horse bolted faster and he was already there, his outstretched arm casting a lasso that found its target with ease, his stallion instantly pulling to a stop and backing up while Billy swung off his saddle.

  Fine, so maybe he trained the horse for roping, too.

  Faster than a wink, Billy ran up to the calf and grabbed it and flipped it—and those calves are freaking heavy. But it was already done, Billy whipping the rope from his mouth and twisting it around the calf’s ankles, then leaping up from the ground with his hands in the air.

  Damn…

  The fans shot to their feet, their cheers a blast of sound that reminded me again of the Superbike circuit. I took a steadying breath and promised myself I wasn’t going to worry about it. Not the coming press shoots, the pressure, or the insinuations about my greasy-handed teammate,
Colton.

  None of it.

  “And that’s how it’s done, folks!” the announcer hollered. “That man is slicker than snot on a doorknob. Whoo!”

  Billy flipped his hat into the air, and I slowly clapped along with everyone else. Under protest. And maybe I whistled a little, too. But only because he was…he was really something.

  I should’ve known better than to draw attention to myself. The jackass saw me, smiling even wider as he pointed in my direction, then did one final wave, his hands blinking at the crowd instead of hitching at the wrist like he was Lane Frost reincarnate before he collected his hat and his horse.

  The crowd got ready for the next calf roper, and I turned away from the arena, swearing to myself ten times over that temptation could fuck right off. I had a job, and it wasn’t at rodeos anymore. After tomorrow, I’d be leaving for Australia. For the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit and testing ahead of our first race of the season. I had things to focus on, and I’d never see this cowboy again.

  Which is exactly why I never should’ve walked Aston over to the arena exit, where I knew Billy would be waiting. Right then, he was still no one. Just another stranger, a name I’d be able to forget if I tried. And I needed to get Aston brushed and back in her trailer.

  But temptation also knows there’s a devilish part of me I can’t deny—the part that did it right and got her degree, then flipped it all off to race motorcycles for a living—and she loves breaking the rules.

  Billy started scrambling the second he saw me coming, dusting off his shirt and tucking in the back, then showing his teeth to his horse like he was asking if something was stuck in them. His horse pulled back his lips and did the same, and I couldn’t help smirking a bit, they were so cute. It was also a relief: they clearly knew each other, borrowed or not.

  Maybe reporting him wasn’t necessary. Lynn Hargrove must have known he was here with her horse. No one from Memphis would ever risk crossing her.

  “Don’t embarrass me now,” Billy was whispering to Gidget when Aston and I walked up to the arena exit, my temper and tongue firmly in check. When he turned toward me, he took a long time tilting his eyes up to mine, like I was miles above him. But he skipped over the parts where other men usually lingered. “Well, hi there,” he drawled. His horse snorted and nosed him in the back, making Billy stumble, and it took all my experience training colts not to laugh and encourage the stallion’s bad behavior. “Damn it, Gidget,” Billy muttered before looking at me and resuming his smile. “Thanks for bringing me all that good luck.”