The Cowboy Next Door. Marin Thomas

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      Chapter One

      On a hot, mid-August Saturday Johnny Cash stood in the cowboy ready area of the Butterfield Stage Days Parade and Rodeo in Gila Bend, Arizona, and watched the fireworks display between lady bull rider Shannon Douglas and all-around rodeo cowboy C. J. Rodriguez.

      The hand-gesturing and boot-stomping drew a lot of notice and Johnny edged closer, ready to intervene if the argument quickly went south.

      “You’re supposed to be my man, not Veronica’s,” Shannon said.

      No surprise that the notorious buckle bunny Veronica Patriot had sunk her claws into another cowboy. The woman was hell on boot heels and took what she wanted—mostly cowboys in committed relationships. If that was the case, and Rodriguez had cheated on Shannon, then Johnny felt bad for her.

      Shannon was his sister’s best friend and Johnny had known her most of his life. Nine years her senior, he’d been a big brother to the little girl who’d spent countless afternoons playing at the Cash pecan farm or trailing after him at her father’s spread where Johnny worked as a seasonal ranch hand.

      Rodriguez jabbed his finger in the air. “I can’t help it if I attract women everywhere I go.”

      Hands fisted, Shannon stood her ground. “You’re ticked off that I won last week.”

      “You didn’t beat me.” Rodriguez glanced at his competitors, who pretended not to listen.

      Shannon laughed. “You’re sore because fans are finding out you’re not the superstar you claim to be.”

      The feuding couples’ audience showed no signs of intervening. Pretty soon the rodeo officials and cameramen would notice the confrontation playing out behind the chutes and broadcast the lovers’ spat on the JumboTron.

      “Shannon.” Johnny stepped from the shadows and touched a finger to the brim of his black cattleman’s Stetson.

      She flashed him a grateful smile.

      “Well, if it ain’t the Man in Black.” Rodriguez snickered.

      Johnny’s hackles rose. What the hell had his mother been thinking when she’d named him and his brothers after country-and-western singers? It had been bad enough that they’d all been fathered by different men. From the day Johnny entered kindergarten, he’d been teased—not that his mother had cared.

      When his biological father, Charlie Smith, had split after Johnny’s birth, Aimee Cash had become an absentee mom, gallivanting across the Southwest, searching for the next Mr. Right. She hadn’t been there when Johnny had come home from school with his first black eye—Grandma Ada had hugged him and insisted there was room in the world for two Johnny Cashes. Eventually he might have learned to turn the other cheek, but every year or two, another brother had been born and saddled with a moniker that needed defending until he grew old enough to fight his own battles. And Johnny had made his fair share of trips to the principal’s office during his school career.

      “Back off, Rodriguez.” He leveled a sober stare at the cowboy.

      “This is bullshit.” Rodriguez threw his gear bag over his shoulder and stomped off. The onlookers dispersed.

      “You okay?” he asked Shannon.

      “Yeah. C.J.’s just frustrated with his riding, that’s all.” She rolled a clump of dirt beneath her boot.

      Johnny noticed she wore Dynasty Boots. He glanced at her gear bag—that, too, sported the Dynasty Boots logo. The last he’d heard, Wrangler Jeans was promoting Shannon and Rodriguez’s cross-country tour, highlighting women’s bull riding. He motioned to the boot stitched on her shirt. “I thought Wrangler sponsored you.”

      “They did.” She watched the rodeo helpers load a bull into a nearby chute. “Dynasty Boots offered me and C.J. a better deal and bought out our contract with Wrangler.”

      “What kind of better deal?”

      “If C.J. and I continue to compete against each other and keep up our sham of a romance—fans love that we’re a couple—” she said, rolling her eyes “—we—”

      “You’re not a couple?”

      “Not anymore.” She shrugged. “Anyway, whoever has the most wins after the Tucson rodeo in January earns a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus.”

      Johnny whistled between his teeth. “Where does the score stand between you two?”

      “Dead even.”

      “No kidding?”

      “Did you think because C.J.’s a man he’d be ahead of me in the competition?”

      “No...I...” Johnny shrugged. In truth, he believed bull riding was best left to cowboys, but if there was ever a cowgirl who could go the distance with the men, Shannon Douglas was that girl.

      “If I want to win the title of Cowgirl of the Year, I need to beat C.J.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, clearly agitated. The hotshot cowboy had rattled her.

      “You sure you’re okay?” His gaze roamed over her body.

      “Why are you looking at me like that?”

      “Rodriguez must be blind.”

      Her cheeks flushed pink. Even though Shannon was a tomboy, the subtle signs of a pretty woman were evident. Her turbulent green eyes, fringed with thick black lashes, glowed with a vibrant, determined spirit. Then there was her mouth, plump lips that begged a man to... Startled by his train of thought, he cleared his throat. What the heck was he doing—cataloging his sister’s friend’s body parts? At least he’d stopped before he’d checked out her—

      “I got to the rodeo late. Did you ride this afternoon?” she asked.

      “Sandpiper tossed me on my keister.”

      “Did any of your brothers compete?”

      “The rest of the gang stayed behind to work on the bunkhouse.”

      “I heard Dixie threw all of you out of the farmhouse after she and Gavin married.”

      “You heard right.” He nodded at C.J. “Was that your normal warm-up routine?”

      “Hardly.”

      “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to kick off the men’s bull riding event, СКАЧАТЬ