Chapter 10
LAINEY
I wasn’t nervous before competing. Not usually.
I loved riding. I loved going fast. So did Junior.
Pops had me in front of him in a saddle when I was old enough to walk.
Hell, maybe before. With several older brothers, I tried to keep up, even atop a horse.
None of us were reckless with our animals, for their safety and ours.
Cam was a vet and Trig a rodeo champ, but I was the one who took to the horses.
I competed for the first time at five in the leadline class, with Pops holding a lead as we went around the barrel racing course.
When I was eight, Pops got to sit in the stands and I competed solo. He’d told me that the entire experience was supposed to be fun and nothing more. When it wasn’t fun was when it was time to give up the saddle because that meant I wasn’t taking care of my horse the way I should.
I wanted to win. Every time I was at the starting area I wanted to do my best. I earned an income through the family ranch–cattle, leasing fields for agriculture, horse breeding–but the prize money bulked up my bank account.
Not like Trig’s huge purses for bull riding, of course, but winning felt good.
Especially with so many brothers where I could barely keep up, let alone compete.
Barrel racing was a women’s event, so of course they couldn’t compete.
But I was good at it. Faster in the saddle.
More adept with the listening and feeling a horse beneath me.
The only other person who came close was my BFF Katie.
She didn’t race, but she boarded horses and was known around town as the horse whisperer.
So it wasn’t an issue that I was distracted before the evening event. By distracted, I didn’t mean the roar of the crowd from the stands above, or the announcer through the speakers around the staging areas. Or other competitors. Bulls. Sheep. Kids. The scent of popcorn and manure. Any of it.
I was distracted by thoughts of Beau and my sore pussy. Just as he’d said, I was going to feel him when I rode. He was a vigorous lover which had me thinking about how he’d worked my body like he knew exactly what it needed even better than I did.
Even my bottom was a little sore.
“You okay, pumpkin?”
My dad’s question had me flush. I was thinking about Beau’s thumb in my ass with my dad beside me and calling me by the endearment he’d used all my life.
I gave him a legit smile and wiped my hands on my jeans. “Yeah, I’m good.”
I was. Totally good. I had a man who wanted me. Told me I was his. Told my brothers I was his and didn’t die. He’d given me a slew of orgasms, spanked my ass and–
“I always like this rodeo since all of us can watch you compete,” he said.
While I stuck to events in Montana, the state was huge, which meant not everyone in the family came to every race. Tonight, though, the whole crew was here.
Ma, Trig and Ellie, Cam, Bray and Katie, Hayes, Buck, Shep, and Zeb took up an entire row. Colt and Molly were in attendance, but working the event and weren't in the stands with everyone else.
Pops and I were in the back lot where all the horse trailers were. Just the two of us because having my huge family mill around was ridiculous, and there was no space for them. I knew the mutton busting was first and the little kids were always fun to watch.
Had it only been the previous night that Beau had rescued me from this exact same area from that asshole Gil? I was parked in a different spot tonight, closer to the arena, and there were people milling around this time, either finished competing or waiting for their turn like I was.
And Pops was with me.
The back of the trailer was flipped down into a ramp and I’d just put Junior’s saddle on. While it was dark out, the space was lit. The air was warm, although a passing storm had come through in the late afternoon which made everything a little muggy.
“I’m glad you’re all here.”
“Seems like there’s one extra now,” he said, offering me a shrewd paternal look.
Just shy of his sixtieth birthday, he stood as tall as his sons.
The only giveaway to his age was his salt and pepper hair and lined face.
While my hair was fair and I was small like Ma, I looked the most like him.
As his only daughter, he’d always been protective in a less brutal, overbearing way of my brothers.
I nodded. “Yeah.” I wasn’t going to play coy or dumb. Not with Pops.
“Beau seems like a solid man,” he offered.
I glanced away, shrugged. “I really like him,” I admitted and felt my cheeks heat. My entire body, actually.
He laughed, which had me meeting his gaze. “That’s good because I think he really likes you, too. He pulled me aside earlier and told me he was marrying you.”
My mouth fell open. Junior nudged my shoulder with his nose and I absently reached up to pat his snout. “He… what?”
“Told, not asked.”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”
“Pumpkin, look at me.”
I opened my eyes and looked up into his. Junior knickered and shifted his back legs, hay crunching beneath his hooves. “I’ve been waiting for the right man for you to come along. No man should ask me for your hand. He should ask you.”
“My brothers don’t agree,” I muttered. “And he hasn’t asked me.”
“Well, it’s only been a few days. Give him another day or two.”
My eyes widened and then I laughed. Humor crinkled the corner of his eyes. “Okay, Pops. I’ll give him a couple more days.”
Pops checked his watch. “You’ve got a few more minutes.”
“I’ll run to the bathroom,” I told him. This was my normal routine and he knew it. While I wasn’t nervous, I liked to step away from the insanity for a minute. Look myself in the mirror–even if it was a cracked, old one in an aging arena–and give myself a little pep talk.
He patted Junior on the head, then ducked under his lead and went to check my saddle again as I made my way inside. When I came out of the bathroom two minutes later, Beau was leaning against the wall, Stetson on his head, competitor number affixed to his protective vest, waiting.
God, he was hot. And the way his gaze heated and raked over me, I had a pretty good feeling I was his.
“Hey, love.”
I smiled and I took his offered hand. He pulled me close, leaned down and kissed me.
It was ridiculously chaste in comparison to what we’d done in his hotel room earlier.
“Let’s get you back to your daddy and Junior.”
He knew my routine, gave me and my father the time we often shared before events. I appreciated the sweetness of that. While he was so possessive, he was willing to share me with the ones I loved.
“Then I’m gonna watch you from the chutes and think about how I’m gonna fuck you later.”
We walked with our fingers linked back to the trailer.
“I’d like that and I’ve been thinking about–”
My words died when we rounded the back and found Junior wild eyed and skittish, tugging against his lead, my father on the trailer floor, unconscious.
“Pops!”