Last of the Red-Hot Cowboys (13 page)

Harper looked at Cameron. “You know you're walking on the wild side,
especially after last night.”

“Jake didn't have anything to do with that,” Cameron said, tying her cinnamon-red curly hair up on her head and reaching for some mugs. “Anyway, we're going skinny-dipping in someone's pond. Or river, I'm not sure. Bring a towel.”

Ava closed her eyes briefly. “I'm sorry—when did skinny-dipping become a date?”

Cameron laughed. “It'll be dark. Nobody will see a thing. This is perfect weather for it.”

Harper looked alarmed. “I'm up for a crazy-wild party or two until my son gets here, but skinny-dipping is out for me. That's all I'd need to do to get my ex-boyfriend screaming about sharing custody of Michael.”

As much as Ava might love the idea of skinny-dipping with Trace—she could only imagine his naked, hard body slick with water—she vowed to pack a swimsuit. “Who sent you the photos, anyway?” Ava asked.

“Jake did. He wanted me to know what had happened. Frankly, he was shocked that the sheriff was kissing someone. Thought maybe the sheriff and Judy were on the outs.”

Ava shook her head. “Dung beetles.”

“What's a dung beetle?” Harper asked.

“Someone who rolls around in other people's shit,” Ava said. “Steel and Judy are together. Where were you two last night, anyway?”

Harper and Cameron glanced at each other.

“Don't tell Judy,” Harper said, “but there was a huge party last night at Ivy's. Jake and Fallon invited us, and it was Friday night, so we figured we should get in a little fun time. We didn't figure it could hurt.”

Ava's jaw sagged. “Let me get this straight. After the sheriff went out to Ivy's to answer a call for rowdy behavior, you met the Horsemen there?”

They giggled. “It was so much fun!” Cameron exclaimed.

“So while I was over here, mopping up the drama Ivy created, the real party got started.” Ava considered that. “The whole thing with the sheriff
was
a diversionary tactic.”

“I don't know,” Cameron said, “but if you were ever worried that this was a boring little one-horse town, you can forget that!”

“It was fun,” Harper agreed, “and those Horsemen are
hot
.”

“Great,” Ava muttered. “This is just lovely.”

Harper pulled herself up on the counter and sat, taking the mug Ava handed her. “Don't be a sourpuss. We train six days a week. One night of fun isn't going to hurt anything. I won't be able to do any of this girls'-night-out bonding after my son arrives, and while I miss him and want him with me, this is my only chance to do what I never got to do before I had a child.”

“So what was the party all about?” Ava wasn't surprised that Trace and the Outlaws hadn't been invited.

“It was just wild.” Cameron giggled. “There was dancing and a live band, and people passing hookahs, and—”

Ava held up a hand. “I don't want to hear any more.”

“You have to go to the next party! Ivy told Fallon that her business is growing so much she's thinking about expanding—either opening a second location or enlarging the place she's got,” Cameron said.

“Back to those hot Horsemen,” Ava said, feeling like she should warn her friends, “you know Judy's going to frown on that.”

“But you're not going to tell her,” Harper said.

Ava sighed. “I'm not going to tell her.”

They beamed. Ava took her coffee and went into her room to get ready.

The last thing she'd wanted was to get caught between a rock and a hard place—but it looked like that was exactly where she was caught.

“It's worse than you think,” Ava told Trace when she walked into the training center at six
A.M.
sharp like he'd demanded.

He grinned at the dark-haired beauty whose kisses had robbed him of sleep last night. He felt great. “What's worse?”

She put her saddle on her horse, cinched it as he watched. “We're going skinny-dipping tonight.”

“That's a date? Cheap bastard.” Trace laughed. “That's just a way to get a woman naked and then have sex with her.”

Ava glared at him. “They won't be having sex, because we'll be there. And if one of your guys is interested in Cameron—and I'm not saying any are—he might want to enter the competition quickly. Anyway, I can't talk about it anymore. They rode out here with me for the training.” She looked at him, and his heart skipped a crazy beat. “Just thought you should know.”

“I can skinny-dip with the best of them,” Trace said, “but it doesn't seem like first-date stuff.”

Ava slipped a bridle on her horse. “Cameron's pretty excited about it.”

“It's that red hair. It always tells.”

“Generalization,” Ava said. “That'd be like me saying that since you're a hardheaded SEAL, you're probably a real hard-ass.”

He grinned. “I am a hard-ass.”

She patted Mack's nose, telling him he was a fine, big boy, totally unfazed by the comment. Trace went to check on the other riders, shaking his head at Cameron when he saw her leading her tall Appaloosa out. “Skinny-dipping? Really?”

Cameron smiled. “Sounds like a refreshing thing to do on a hot August night, doesn't it?”

It did, if he was alone with Ava. He glanced over at Harper, busy with her chestnut, and said, “I heard there was an extra party last night at the Honky-tonk.”

“Ava has a big mouth.” Cameron glared at him. “I don't have to tell you that Judy—”

He held up a hand. “I know Judy better than you, and she'd definitely send you packing, at the most, and suspend you from the team, at the least. The deputies told me.”

She went back to readying her horse, clearly annoyed. “It's no one's business what I do.”

“Just a friendly warning,” Trace said. “You haven't been in Hell long enough to get naked with strangers.”

He barked at his three riders to be in the arena warming up in ten minutes, and went to find his brothers.

Declan was going over the books, and Saint stared morosely at his boots as he propped his feet on Trace's desk. “Date night, dudes.”

“At least we have one,” Saint said, still wearing last night's hickey, a little larger than Steel's, “sort of.”

Declan snorted. “We're the babysitters. It's no date for us.”

“This is true,” Trace said, “but there's no reason to let the Horsemen run off with the new girls.”

“They're big girls—they can do as they like,” Saint said. “They're going to do what they like anyway. Women do.”

Trace moved to his well-worn leather chair behind the massive steel desk and examined his friends. “You weren't this cowardly in combat. Why are you afraid of a couple of little women?”

“We don't see you asking Ava out for a date,” Declan said. “We're sort of following your lead. Hands off the new girls in town, especially since we're training them. It's best to have a professional relationship, particularly as we stole the team's practice time from the enemy camp.”

This was where they were being outplayed, Trace mused. As usual, they were relying on expertise and professional metrics. While the enemy camp decided to win the real prize, which was women. Sex.

And here they all sat, no dates, and certainly no sex—but definitely with their principles intact.

Worse, he
hadn't
asked Ava out. He could hardly gripe at his buddies for playing it slow, when he wasn't exactly fast—and hadn't he just called Jake the snake a cheap bastard for not taking Cameron on a real date?

All I've done is tried to inhale Ava every chance I've gotten—which pretty much puts me in the cheap-bastard camp, too
.

“Fair point,” he said, getting up from his desk. It was time for the lesson.

“You always said professionalism was key,” Saint pointed out.

“People trust us, that's why we get so much business,” Declan reminded him.

“That's all true,” Trace said, and went to the arena feeling guilty. He had to think about this some more, when his mind wasn't so fogged by Ava's kisses.

Okay, he hadn't been professional at all last night, a fact he wasn't about to share with his buddies. He felt bad with them loafing in the office licking their wounds.

Before the Belles had come to town, he'd had a lot more answers. Work, work, and more work.

Now I just want to make love to Ava
.

* * *

“Trace!”

He heard Judy call his name as he was about to step into the dirt-floor arena.

The mayor came to stand beside him, all six feet of her, in all her Judy-glory, platinum hair piled high and fluffy and a scowl on her heart-shaped lips. He recognized annoyance emanating from the mayor and braced himself for incoming. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Things are getting a little pear-shaped in Hell.”

He couldn't argue with that, although he thought Judy was putting it mildly. “There's a lot going on.”

“I trust you to make sure Steel stays safe when he has to go to Ivy's.” She held up a hand, warding off his rebuttal. “I realize that what happened last night wasn't your fault. Everything went down really fast. But my sheriff is wearing Ivy's mark and I'm not happy.”

“None of us are.”

“I'm going out of town for a couple of days,” Judy said, “and I want to know that things will be in good hands while I'm gone. Most of all, I want you to get my Belles out to Judge Rory Nunez's.”

The judge bred bulls the rodeos loved to have at their events. Rory had some rank bulls, and a couple of bounty bulls. “Judy, it's not time. The Belles aren't ready. They don't know me well enough yet as a trainer. These things take time.”

“I never thought I'd say this,” Judy said, “but you're slower than molasses at Christmastime, Trace. Too cautious by far.”

He crossed his arms and stared Judy down. “Now, look. You're the one who took the girls to the Horsemen. If you hadn't, we wouldn't be going skinny-dipping tonight, Judy. Much of this drama that's hit Hell ever since the girls arrived can be placed at your door, Mayor, because you're not cautious
enough
.”

She raised a slim brow. “Skinny-dipping?”

Shit, he hadn't meant to say that. “Something like that. Maybe it was frog-gigging. The point is, you're rushing too fast.” He glared at her. “And what the hell are you going out of town for again?”

“It's none of your business,” Judy said, “but I'm looking over a couple of new recruits, in case these don't work out.”

He looked out at the arena where the Belles were riding, in almost perfect Western form. Hellfire, if Judy was recruiting, this bullfighting thing wasn't a twinkle in her eye that was going to go away. “Judy, give the girls a chance.”

“I am.” She sounded surprised. “But there's a thousand reasons why one of them might quit. They could fall in love. They could get injured. They could get homesick.” She looked at him. “They might get tired of waiting on what they came here for, which was to learn how to bullfight.”

She had him. He had been going at a measured pace, trying to think of a way to get out of bullfighting and steer the team into something more … ladylike. Traditional.

Less injury-prone.

“You just don't want to be a laughingstock,” Judy said, “and I don't have time for your tough-guy ego.”

He sighed. “Damn it, Judy, you're enough to drive a man insane.”

“And my girls better not be taking off any clothes,” Judy said, frowning at him, “particularly not for men I consider only one rung above snakes.”

He figured Cameron had already stripped bare, could feel the water on her skin in her mind. He didn't think there was any way he could stop that train—which was going to put him in the doghouse big-time with Judy.

“I moved the Belles out here because you said you could train them,” Judy reminded him. “So far, I haven't seen much training, and my sheriff's got a doozy of a hickey. Exactly why I put my faith in you at this point, I'm not sure. I hope you have things under better control when I return.”

A bad thought hit him. “When are you leaving?”

“Right after this lesson.”

“But it's Saturday.”

“Airplanes fly every day of the week, Trace.”

“But tonight's date night, isn't it?”

She looked at him. “First of all, this team is important to me, Trace. It comes first. But as for Steel's Saturday night, if you think I'm going to kiss my man with another woman's mark on him, you're out of your mind.”

“But you said last night—”

“I'm not angry with Steel,” Judy said. “I know Ivy well enough to know what she's up to. But that doesn't mean I'm going to be in the mood for kissing up my sexy sheriff when I have to look at the fact that another woman had her claws in him. Next time I suggest you think faster on your feet.”

She left and went to sit on a bleacher to watch the lesson. Trace's heart sank. He understood Judy's position, but it sucked for Steel.

And it's not much better for me
.

* * *

Ava was nervous about tonight, even if she wasn't going to be walking on the wild side. She and Harper could stick together, and Trace could stand guard and make certain nothing happened.

Except things happened before they even got to the road that ran through the town and split the county in two. Cameron saw the obvious mark that Saint wore from the previous night, deduced he'd been with one of Ivy's girls, and immediately gave him the cold shoulder, believing that he'd been flirting with her at Judy's—which he had been—and that it hadn't meant a thing.

Ava knew she would have felt the same way—but Cameron practically glued herself to the swaggering, good-looking Jake the snake after that, and the evening pretty much looked to be a disaster. Cameron didn't leave any stone unturned in an obvious quest to let Saint know she had other suitors, and Saint looked plain chewed up.