Catching Calhoun. Tina Leonard

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СКАЧАТЬ little mother would make a nice painting. He wondered what color her nipples were. Were they the shade of her lips, which had been a nice blush, or the deeper brown of her hair underneath the blond highlights? He loved nipples—they added an element of surprise. You never knew what color they would be. A lot of other things on a woman made sense; you could figure them out in advance. But nipples were dependent on the shading of the body, individual and unique to every—

      “Cowboy, have you sent your brain to space?” someone called. “Earth to Calhoun, earth to Calhoun.”

      “Very funny.” Calhoun slid off the rail. “I was thinking up my strategy.”

      “Really,” another cowboy said, pinning Calhoun’s number on the back of his vest. “From the stupid look on your face, we thought maybe you were daydreaming.”

      “About women,” someone else said, and everyone laughed. “Sex-dreaming. About all the women who are going to want you after you tame this bounty bull.”

      “Nah, sex was the furthest thing from my mind,” Calhoun said, lying through his teeth. “All my attention’s on Bloodthirsty Black.”

      Except that small piece that had leaked out for a moment of fantasizing, Calhoun thought, glancing toward the children who watched his every move. It was so unlike him to find a woman in the flesh who stayed in his thoughts longer than his paintings did. Dang, he was going to have to be careful around those children. They had a smokin’ hot mama—and that was the last thing he needed to be fantasizing about. There were too many surprise kids who had recently turned up in the Jefferson family tree.

      He wasn’t planning to add a branch. Or even a couple of twigs.

      “You can do it!” he heard a little voice call.

      “Cheering section?” someone asked.

      “No.” Calhoun turned to look at the children briefly. “Who are they?”

      Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at him.

      “Barley’s daughter Olivia’s kids. Barley the rodeo clown. Tough character, Barley Spinlove. No one except a brainless wuss would ever think about dating his daughter, or marrying into Barley’s family.”

      “Barley used to date Marvella,” someone else explained. “Think he married her, but it didn’t last long.”

      “And that’s a bad reference right there,” Calhoun said.

      Marvella had a tough enough rep of her own. The owner of another bounty bull, Bad Ass Blue, and the Never Lonely Cut-n-gurls Salon in Lonely Hearts Station. Everyone had had a run-in with her at one time or another.

      “Barley makes it known that he wants no part of a smooth-talking cowboy hanging around his daughter—she’s got two kids from just that same incident. Cowboys can’t be trusted—and Barley doesn’t differentiate between us. We’re all bad as far as he’s concerned. None good enough for Olivia and his grandkids.”

      “Uses himself as an example of why women ought not date cowboys,” someone else offered, and everyone went back to whatever they’d been doing.

      “Great,” Calhoun said. “Guess that means I won’t be painting her.” Or getting her clothes off. Or going out with her. And marriage was definitely out.

      Marriage? Why had that thought floated through his brain?

      “Of course anyone with a half cup of sense knew Olivia’s marriage wasn’t going to last. She married a first-class jerk, but that doesn’t mean anybody else is going to get a chance,” a cowboy muttered.

      Calhoun looked up at the four faces staring at him. “Oh, don’t tell me,” he said. “I’m standing in the middle of the Olivia Spinlove Fan Club.”

      “It’s Members Only,” one of his buddies said glumly. “Outsiders Not Welcome. So you have a better chance of staying on Bloodthirsty Black than you do of ol’ Barley letting you take a walk with his daughter.”

      For some reason, Calhoun thought as he tugged on his creased, well-worn leather riding glove, that challenge just made him determined to be the one who took Olivia Spinlove for a moonlight stroll.

      IN ACTUALITY, that stroll would have to be postponed.

      Calhoun limped from the arena after Bloodthirsty tossed him to the ground with a flare of outstretched hooves and a ha-ha! attitude. He took stock of his body after he eased onto a barrel in an abandoned stall. Spleen rearranged, armpit felt loose, knee seemed dicey—perhaps a cranial dislocation. Damn, he was seeing stars.

      “You okay, cowboy?” he heard a worried child ask.

      And his two new friends seemed to be anxious to stick to him like gum on a boot heel. “I’m fine,” he gasped out. “You two run along.”

      The girl looked at him curiously. “You don’t look fine. You look like you might need a cup of hot tea. That’s what Momma always gives us when we’re not feeling ‘up to par.’”

      He groaned. “Well, now,” he said, stripping off his glove and swallowing a pained groan. “I’d have to say I’m about three strokes shy of par.”

      “Not your best day,” the boy said. “You’ll play better another time.”

      “There won’t be another time.” Calhoun wished they’d go find another time in the next county and leave him to his busted pride. “Hey, you kids beat it for now, okay?”

      With some guilt, he watched the little boy’s eyes fill with tears.

      “Oh, come on,” Calhoun said grumpily. “You can’t expect me to be friendly right now. My tongue’s lodged somewhere behind my ears and my teeth seem weirdly disconnected.”

      “Kenny just wants an autograph,” the little girl said, her tone mildly reproachful. “At least you tried to ride that bull, and that oughta be worth getting an autograph from you. So we can say we met the cowboy who tried.”

      Calhoun perked up. “An…autograph?”

      The boy nodded, his eyes round and huge with either adoration or hope.

      Calhoun’s chest puffed out a little with male pride. “No one’s ever asked me for an autograph before.”

      “You stayed on for three seconds,” the girl said. “Kenny’s easily impressed.”

      “Hmmph.” Calhoun gave her an assessing eye. “You’re too young to be sarcastic.”

      “Sarcastic?” Her eyebrows raised.

      “Never mind.” He scribbled his signature on the number he’d been wearing and gave it to Kenny, who seemed astonished over the gift. The little boy clutched it to his chest as if he feared Calhoun would change his mind and take back his number. “Now what? Don’t y’all have someplace to be?” He eased himself into a different sitting position, wondering if he should take off his shirt to inspect his rib cage when there was a young lady about.

      Probably not.

      “Well, since the show’s over,” Minnie СКАЧАТЬ