“This cowboy knows the sport inside and out, honey,” Debbie said. She turned back to Luke. “Will you be at the after-party? I can get off early.”
“I’ll be there—come along and take a number,” Luke said with a grin.
“Oh, you!” She smacked him lightly with the big leather-bound menu. “Enjoy your steaks.”
A waitress set salads on the table; Luke smothered his with blue-cheese dressing and speared a tomato with his fork. “You must get paid pretty fancy for your writing if you can afford to live in New York City,” he said.
“I couldn’t swing it on my features alone,” she said. “I also write copy for an ad agency in Manhattan, and I edit other writers’ manuscripts to prep them for publication. Plus I work part-time for my mom. She’s a stager for real-estate agents. She pretties up homes before they go on the market so they’ll sell faster.” She flexed her arm to make a muscle. “Painting and scrubbing and lugging furniture around keeps me lean and mean.”
“Got a roommate? Boyfriend?”
Jo laughed. Maybe she should find Luke’s questions invasive, but he was so open with his nosiness she couldn’t take offense.
“I live with my mom, sort of. She sold the family farm to my uncle after my grandfather died and bought a hundred-year-old fixer-upper in Brooklyn. I helped her rehab it—we’re both pretty handy. She has an apartment plus an office on the ground floor and I have my own living quarters upstairs.”
“Sounds like a good deal—I still live with my folks. I guess I could build somewhere else on the ranch if I ever get married, but that won’t happen till I can find somebody who cooks as good as my stepmom.” He smacked his lips. “Cajun-style—Shelby’s from Louisiana.”
“The arrangement with my mom has worked so far,” Jo said. “I don’t throw loud parties and she doesn’t go through my underwear drawer. Plus she takes care of my cat when I’m on the road.”
They dug into their steaks; Jo sat back at last with a groan. “I won’t eat for a week,” she said.
Luke chuckled. “I thought you were going lick the plate after you finished your pie.”
“Please! I won’t be able to zip my new jeans if I keep eating like this. But everything was delicious. The best steak I ever tasted.”
“We keep the good stuff for ourselves west of the Mississippi—you should taste the beef my dad slaughters and ages himself.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, that’s a great idea. Come visit the ranch. You can see what a first-class grazing operation looks like.”
Luke’s enthusiasm was contagious, but Jo held up a hand. “I’m not sure if Tom would be thrilled about my following him home. I don’t know yet if this project is even a go.”
His face fell. “Well, dang! Seems like you’d fit right in—I just figured...”
Jo looked at her watch. “You probably need to get back, and I want to get some writing done before I go over to the arena.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” The grin resurfaced. “I’ll blow you a kiss from the dirt.”
“WHERE IS SHE?” Tom stuck his phone back in his gear bag. Paula, the staffer, had already called twice wondering if Jo planned to sit above the chutes again tonight.
“Can’t tell you,” Luke said. “I dropped her off at the hotel maybe two hours ago. She said she needed to work on her writing.” He strapped on his protective vest and covered it with his electric-blue jersey. “She knows how to tell time—she’ll turn up before the show.”
Tom’s phone rang.
“All’s well,” Paula said. “She was up on the concourse talking to fans and lost track of the time. Good luck tonight.”
Tom muttered a curse and keyed off. His dad had warned him taking on this project might be a distraction, but he hadn’t known he’d have to keep track of Jo like a strayed calf. Be-damn if he’d let her break his concentration. As winner of last night’s round, he would ride late in this evening’s competition—he still had plenty of time to loosen up after the opening ceremonies.
He put Jo Dace out of his mind, almost, but he couldn’t help flicking a glance up toward her seat next to the broadcast booth when it was his turn to ride. She hadn’t seen him climb up to the walkway, so he took a moment to study her as she leaned over the railing, her face alive with interest. From her articles and in the short time he’d known her, he had come to admire her intensity; she approached her work the same way he went at bull riding—flat out, with nothing held back.
She turned toward him as if she felt his gaze and gave him a thumbs-up for luck.
He saluted her with a touch to his hat brim and climbed down to straddle Bovinator, a bull with the ugly trick of flinging his head up as soon as his front feet hit the ground. Tom had ridden him a couple of years ago when he’d still been using a helmet with its face mask, but his hat wouldn’t be much protection if the bull decided to pull that stunt tonight. He put the thought away from him; fear led to disaster.
He nodded for the gate just as he heard Luke say, “Be ready to move in, guys.”
The next seconds were a blur, a balancing act between staying centered on the bull’s back and avoiding the massive head that slammed toward his face like a wrecking ball. He didn’t even hear the buzzer and loosened his hand only when Luke yelled at him to let go. Bovinator flung his head up one last time, actually brushing his cheek with a long ear as Tom dove to one side. The dirt came up hard; Luke leaped over Tom’s body and smacked the bull on the nose to lure it in the other direction.
The crowd’s roar almost drowned out the announcer’s voice as Tom climbed to his feet, dragging air into his lungs.
“How’s that for a 90-point ride, folks?”
* * *
LUKE CUFFED TOM’S shoulder as they passed in the locker room shower. “Good ride, little bro—you got something to celebrate at the after-party. You do remember you promised to meet Jo there, right?”
“I guess.” Tom skipped the noisy bar scene more often than not. “I don’t suppose you—”
“Not me, buddy—I stood in for you last night, and I’m already triple booked if Debbie from Cattlemen’s Steakhouse shows up.”
Tom knew Luke’s refusal was only fair—his project, his responsibility. His mom had been raised in Georgia and had drummed gentlemanly behavior into him and Luke. He sighed and pulled on a fresh blue-and-red plaid shirt and jeans not decorated with bull slobber and arena dirt.
He didn’t immediately spot Jo seated just outside the hotel’s cocktail lounge; in her new boots and jeans and pearl-snapped shirt, she could have been a ranch girl from back home. She looked up with a quick smile and slipped her phone into her shoulder bag.
“Still a fan of bull riding?” he asked as she rose to meet him.
“Oh yes! I was just texting my mom about it. But I have so many questions. Why do some of the bulls have horns and others don’t? What breeds are they? How many countries do the riders come from? Why do you wear spurs? How many—”
“Whoa, that’s way more than we can cover right here. Let’s hit the party. I’ll sign a few autographs and then we’ll find someplace quiet where we can talk.”
Tom escorted Jo into the lounge and spotted a dozen or so other riders inside, all surrounded by fans. Luke stood by the bar with a beer in one hand and his arm around a curvy brunette. A woman in jeans and a fringed vest scurried forward, her smartphone at the ready, and Jo stepped aside while Tom signed her program and then posed with