Last of the Red-Hot Cowboys (8 page)

Trace may be a snake, too, but I'd be too blinded to see it
.

“Anyway,” Judy said, “back to the problem at hand.”

“Give Trace's idea a go,” Hattie advised. “What can it hurt? A team is a fluid thing. It changes and grows as everyone on the team learns to trust and rely on each other.”

“I think Hattie's right, Judy. What can it hurt to let Trace guide us for a bit?” Ava said. Especially now that they'd learned that the mayor couldn't ride herself. She'd come all the way from Virginia to train under a woman with no plan. But when she'd checked
Judy out, every single person she'd talked to said that Mayor Judy was the backbone of Hell.

Even her parents had thought it was a great chance for her to start over.

However, putting herself in Trace's hands seemed like a bad idea—because she knew how much she was attracted to him.

I'll give this gig another week. If Judy can't pull this team together by then, I'm going back to Virginia and my job at the paper factory
.

She looked at Cameron, thinking her teammate was probably making a huge mistake going out with Jake. Still, it was Cameron's business.

But I can't afford those kinds of mistakes. Dark-haired, god-bodied types of mistakes
.

Like Trace
.

* * *

Cameron settled in between Harper and Ava in the front seat of Ava's truck as she drove them back to the Hell's Outlaws Training Center. “Fair warning, I
am
going out with Jake. And I guess you're the sacrificial lamb.”

Ava shrugged. “It's your business.”

Harper fixed her blonde hair in the tiny truck mirror, trying to tame it under her straw hat. Ava continued, “One date can't hurt. And maybe you could gain some insight as to why the Outlaws and the Horsemen don't get along.”

“I couldn't care less about that,” Cameron said.

Ava heard the note of rebellion in her team member's voice.

“Jake's
hot
. I've trained since I was in junior high, hard, to get to this level. While other girls were out going to proms and finding themselves in trucks with the class president or the class pothead, I was training. Competing and showing.” Cameron took a deep breath. “I'm not saying it wasn't worth it. That hard work got me a scholarship to college. But I want a chance to walk on the wild side now. And Jake looks pretty wild to me.”

“I understand how you feel,” Harper said. “I fell in love with my high school
sweetheart. Now I have a son but no husband. What I always had going for me was my riding. I love my little boy, but sometimes I wish I'd played my cards differently. Marriage, for example.”

Besides training and competing, Ava had worked at the paper factory to help out her folks with the expense of her horse and her training. Her mom and father worked at a towel plant, making beach towels, bath towels, and dish towels—money had been tight. Judy's team had seemed like a golden ticket to a life doing what she loved, which was rodeo. If Judy's plan fizzled, she understood why Cameron might want something to show for it.

“We'll all go,” Ava said. “It's no big deal. One night out of our schedule.” Besides, it would give her a chance to see Trace—not that that should matter a bit.

“Thanks,” Cameron said gratefully. “If this adventure doesn't pan out, I really don't want to go back home to six siblings and babysitting duties without finding out what a guy who pretty much reminds me of James Dean in
Rebel Without a Cause
kisses like. I get shivers just thinking about it.”

Ava wished she didn't understand exactly what Cameron was talking about. She'd had her fair share of shivers from the moment Trace had turned their team down.

Once he'd kissed her, the shivers had turned to desire. Longing.

It was hard to go back once that first kiss changed your life.

* * *

“You're late!” Trace bawled at the team when they finally flounced into his training center five minutes past the agreed-upon time. “If you can't get saddled up and in the ring when I say, I don't have time to train you.” He glared at the three women.

“Judy called a meeting,” Ava said.

“That's Judy's problem, not mine.” Trace glared at Ava for good measure. He couldn't get soft around her just because he wanted to get into bed with her. That was a dishonorable thought, but it was true. The night he'd rescued his truck keys from her, landing himself on her to teach her about messing with a man and his truck had been a dumb idea.

Really dumb. He'd had a hard-on for the past week that wouldn't quit.

“We're here now.”

“All right then,” he said gruffly. “Warm up. Around the ring, nice and gentle. You know the drill. The horses need time to get used to working out here. No fancy stuff.”

He really did sound like a drill sergeant. Ava shook her head, but she was used to tough instructors and went through the paces. She could feel him watching her, testing her, picking at her form with a testy eye.

“You ladies have had some decent training, but not enough,” Trace said as they went by. “I can't imagine what makes you three think you want to be bullfighters. A decent seat on a pony doesn't make you tough enough or strong enough to be a bullfighter—even if you were males, which you clearly aren't.”

Ava let that pass for the moment, gritting her teeth as she cantered. Trace getting under her skin wasn't a recipe for success. He was every bit as cantankerous as Miss Judy was airy-fairy, and of the two, only Trace could get them where they wanted to go.

“So what was this all-important meeting about?” Trace demanded after he'd waved them to the middle of the ring.

“Cameron has a date with Jake the—Jake Masters,” Ava said.

Trace glanced at the beautiful redhead with the big eyes and the mysterious expression. Sexy, but not his type—he had to go for the spunky, dark-haired one with the sassy, loud mouth. “How the hell is that my problem? Dumb idea, by the way,” he said to Cameron.

“It's not your problem, Trace. We won't be late again,” Ava said.

“It is your problem,” Harper said, “because you're going with us.”

Ava's gaze met Trace's, and he felt sparks run all over him, snapping and hot.

“Why in holy hell would I give up two seconds of my time to babysit a dumb redhead doing a dumb thing?”

“Trace,” Ava said, “Judy thinks it's a good idea if you go.”

“I'm not a nursemaid.” Recognizing the mayor trump card being played on him, Trace glared at all of them. “If you ladies are just in Hell to find men, then there's not a chance that you're serious about being a team.”

“Get a grip, Trace,” Ava said. “It's a night of beer drinking and maybe some pool
playing at Redfeathers. That's all you're going to have to do, which is what you do on most of your evenings anyway, isn't it?”

He moved his dark brown cowboy hat back on his head, eying Harper. “Why are you so quiet? Don't you want to pipe in?”

“No, thank you,” Harper said stiffly. “I'm not walking the plank on this excursion.”

Trace's gaze landed on Ava again. “Why are you involved? Are you Judy's head busybody?”

Ava shrugged. “I guess I am.”

He scoffed. “I've met three-year-olds more serious about riding than you ladies.”

“Are you going to get on with the lesson or gripe all day?” Ava demanded. “I haven't seen any indication you even know how to teach riding, much less seen an outline of your plan of how you think our team can achieve Mayor Judy's goals.”

He stared at her. “Fair enough. Let's get these horses around some barrels.”

They did exactly as he asked without further blowback. Trace sighed, watching Ava's fanny move up and down as she worked her horse out. She had a sweet, sweet motion; a lot of long hours had gone into her training, and it showed in her movements and the way she treated her horse—not to mention the hot, tight curves of her ass.

Trace had a bad feeling that the hard-on he'd been wearing for the past week wasn't going away anytime soon.

Ava heard a knock on her bungalow door that night as she was getting ready to meet the team for dinner, and somehow she knew who it was. She put down her hairbrush, put a light pink gloss on her lips, and went to the door.

Trace stood outside, just as she'd hoped. “Hi.”

He looked at the powder-blue dress, which floated above her knees, and the tan-and-brown cowboy boots she wore with it. His gaze met hers. “Going out?”

“Is it any of your business?” Ava asked.

“Actually, no. Got a second?”

She wasn't about to let him in. He was her wildest temptation, and she planned to treat him like Eve's apple—no biting. “Not really. I've got to meet the team for dinner.” He perked up. “Redfeathers?”

“Not tonight, no. Judy's cooking for us around her pool.”

He grunted. “You're in for a treat.”

“I hope so.”

“Have you taken a good look at Steel? Does he look like he isn't being taken care of?” He looked wistful. “I wish Judy had invited me to that meal, instead of the one tomorrow night.”

“The date-night dinner.”

“The dumbest-thing-I-ever-heard-of dinner. Why does Cameron want to go out with Jake?”

“I didn't ask. It's not my problem.”

He shook his head. “It's our problem, all of us. It makes things complicated, and I hate complications. Let's ditch them and go fishing.”

She looked at Trace. “Is that your answer for everything? Going fishing?”

“Is there a better answer?”

He looked long and sexy hovering in her doorway, and Ava was so tempted to take up fishing. Anything to be alone with him. “I wouldn't know. I didn't have a lot of
time for fishing.” Or anything except training, and working part-time through high school, then community college, then working full-time.

“Anyway,” Trace said, “what I came to tell you is that I wasn't in the best mood today.”

“So?” She frowned. “I'm not paying you to be in a good mood or a bad mood. I simply want your expertise. What your mood is doesn't concern me.”

He took that in. “Good.”

“If you had to apologize to me every time you're a bit of a toad, wouldn't you be on my porch every night?”

A reluctant smile tugged at his lips. “Not necessarily.”

“But probably.”

“Possibly.”
He laughed. “Where'd you get all your spark?”

“You stick to coaching, and whatever else you do. I promise to be a hardworking student. That's the sum of the information we need from each other.”

He sighed. “You're still mad about the day by the pond.”

“I'm not mad, I'm forewarned. At least you knocked on my door today, instead of pulling a prank on me just to see if you could make me scream.”

“Yeah. You didn't.”

“Cameron and Harper are in the other rooms. They would have come running if I had. I make no promises for the future. So you're going to have to be more of a gentleman.”

He didn't look too pleased about that. “I am a gentleman.”

“We'll see.”

He shook his head. “So anyway, I've got tickets to the rodeo tonight in Austin. It starts at eight. How late are you going to be at Judy's place?”

“Later than that.”

He looked disappointed. “You don't make it easy to make amends.”

“Last-minute plans are rarely a good idea. Besides,” she said, softening, “you know Judy's not going to let us have too much time on our hands. She's really unhappy that one of the Horsemen managed to chat up one of her team when she took her eye off the ball for all of three seconds.”

“It's really dumb. But I guess it's true: They say women really go for the bad boys, and Jake sure fits that description.”

She thought Trace had “bad boy” written all over him. And he was right: She did go for it. “I have to go. Judy insists that we be punctual.”

He closed the door behind her when she stepped out. “On that one thing, the mayor and I completely agree.” He glanced around. “Where are the other two Belles?”

“They went on ahead. I wanted to take a quick shower.”

He walked her to her truck. “It paid off.”

“Is that your awkward way of saying I look nice?”

“No,” Trace said. “If I wanted to say you looked nice, I would have said that.”

He was the most annoying man. She slid into her truck, switched it on. “Goodnight.”

“You know, men outnumber women in this town five to one.”

She stared at him, a brow rising. “And that means what to me?”

“That Judy knew that if she brought in three hot ladies, she'd get whatever she wanted. That the men in this town would be eating out of her delicate little hands.”

Ava looked into his deep, dark eyes and smiled. “What's your point?”

“After some reflection, it seemed to me that the mayor sent you my way pretty quickly.”

“The point, please?”

“I think you were intended to get me to go along with Judy's ridiculous scheme. I guess I'm wondering why she picked you to do her dirty work.”

“It wasn't dirty work at all. It was like taking candy from a baby.”

She backed up the truck and drove away, sneaking a peek at him in the rearview mirror. He stared after her, his hands in his jeans pockets, looking delicious and like something she should be driving away from as fast as she could.

Maybe that will take that giant ego of his down a peg or two
.

* * *

Trace watched Ava go, laughing to himself, noting that she checked her rearview mirror
as she drove away. She wasn't as immune to him as she claimed—but he'd definitely gotten off on the wrong foot with her.