Unridden: A Studs in Spurs novel (21 page)

“
I’ll
never forget this week because of you, darlin’
…” Slade did a less than flattering imitation of Mustang.

Shaking his head, Mustang said, “That wasn’t a lie, Slade.”

Slade snorted. “Oh, come on, Mustang. You say that to all the girls we’re with.”

Not
all
of them, but still, Mustang didn’t bother to deny it. “Yeah, sometimes I do, and most times it is just a line to keep them happy, but this time it wasn’t a lie. Jenna was…
is
special, and you know it as well as I do.”

“So what exactly are you saying?” Slade asked accusingly.

Mustang shrugged. “I’m not saying anything, Slade. Just that Jenna is different.”

“So you mean you want to see her again?”

“Hell yeah. I’d love to see her again and I hope we will both get to when we’re in New York.” But right now, he’d simply like to keep his promise and call her.

Slade narrowed his gaze menacingly and it suddenly struck Mustang—Slade was acting insane because he was insanely jealous of him. Not only that, Slade was afraid Mustang was falling for Jenna too. Well, that explained quite a bit.

Armed with that knowledge, Mustang could deal with Slade a little better. “You know what, I don’t need to call her. Why don’t
you
call her?”

“Haven’t you been listening to me at all? I’m not calling her. You’re not calling her. Nobody is calling her. Besides, I ripped up the damn number and threw it out.” Slade picked up his beer again and looked away.

Mustang shook his head at Slade’s stupidity. What would happen when Slade eventually got over whatever had crawled up his ass? When he changed his mind and wanted to call Jenna, what was he going to do since he’d thrown out her number?

In the meantime, Mustang had promised to call her and now he couldn’t. He knew which carrier she’d flown, and what time they’d dropped her off. It probably wouldn’t be too hard to call the airline, track down her flight number, and then confirm that the flight had landed safely. It would be a hell of a lot of work to go through just because Slade was an ass and Jenna would still think Mustang hadn’t kept his promise to call her. Perhaps he could track down her number through information.

Mustang took one more look at Slade’s stone-like expression. He was seriously considering suggesting they drive home to Texas the next day separately, but decided to leave well enough alone. It was going to be one hell of a drive in the morning, Mustang feared. The cab of his truck was much too small and Slade’s mood far too foul for Mustang to escape the trip unscathed.

Maybe Slade would come up with the idea on his own and offer to drive home in the car while Mustang drove the truck. Slade could drive from Oklahoma to Texas by himself. It wasn’t like they were attached at the hip. Slade was a big boy, though he wasn’t acting like it now.

But more pressing than tomorrow’s drive was that Mustang still had to pee. He sighed and rose from his chair. “I’ll be right back.”

Slade shrugged, his voice sounding flat. “Yeah. Fine.”

Mustang shook his head and turned for the back of the bar. Yup, this was sure gonna be one hell of a drive.

———

Jenna wrote until the plane landed in New Jersey. She retrieved her car from long-term parking and though she had to drive, she still couldn’t keep her brain from thinking about writing the entire distance home from the airport. When she got to her condo, she dumped her suitcase by the door and opened the laptop.

Reliving every moment of the last week, Jenna laughed and she cried. The book, much like her life the past few days, was an emotional roller coaster. She giggled out loud at the scene where her heroine asks the two heroes if they wear a cup when they ride, remembering the looks on Slade and Mustang’s faces at that question.

Jenna laughed, knowing she would just as easily cry later on when she wrote the part where the heroine had to leave, but it was okay. Writing this book was kind of like therapy. Being busy kept her mind off missing them. She needed a distraction from the fact they had not called to make sure she’d made it home okay. More than likely they would never call her. She’d never hear their laughs or feel their touch again.

Jenna pushed those thoughts and the pain they caused, aside. She sat up and worked on the book until late into the night, or actually, early the next morning. She stopped only to make a cup of tea and then, pee.

She wrote until her wrists ached, her back cramped and she couldn’t sit any longer. Even then, she put the laptop on the kitchen counter and stood to type for another hour. She only stopped when her eyes finally gave up and refused to focus on the words on the screen any longer.

When Jenna gave in and went to bed, her head continued spinning with snippets of dialogue. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed sleep to come but her whirling brain wouldn’t let it. She fought the temptation to get up again and jot it all down. Finally, she realized it was no use. Jenna did get up and scribbled a few lines, and then left the pen and pad of paper next to the bed just in case inspiration struck again during the night…err, rather morning.

Jenna finally fell asleep just as the sun began to creep through her window blinds.

It seemed as if she’d barely closed her eyes when an obnoxious sound, which her exhausted brain took far too long to identify as her cell phone, intruded on her rest. What had she gotten, maybe ten minutes sleep? It certainly felt that way. She could barely focus to see the name on the caller ID.

Thinking it could possibly be the boys calling her, Jenna gave up trying to see who it was and just flipped open the phone instead, but when Jenna heard Astrid’s annoyed voice, she couldn’t help regretting her impulsive choice. On practically no sleep, Jenna was not in the mood to be yelled at by her best friend.

“Why have you been avoiding my calls?”

Jenna stifled a groan as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Her voice sounded scratchy when she answered. “I haven’t. I left you messages.”

“Yeah, on my work phone when you knew I wasn’t at work.”

“Oh, did I call your work number? Sorry, I just hit your name on my call list. I thought it was your cell.” Jenna felt the urge to check the sky out the window for lightening bolts at that whopper of a lie. Although, she was pretty impressed with herself for coming up with it so fast, especially given her current, sleep deprived state.

Jenna could practically hear Astrid’s frown through the phone. “How come you never answered when I called you?”

“I’ve told you what these conferences are like, Astrid. I can’t answer the phone in the middle of a session or a speech, can I? They keep us on the go from early morning until late at night.” Not to mention the extracurricular activities that Jenna had managed to fit in on her own in the off hours.

“Did you at least get out to see Tulsa? One of my co-workers told me there are some beautiful art deco buildings downtown. There’s supposed to be a Frank Lloyd Wright house too.”

Normally, Jenna would have been into all of that, but this trip, she was more into seeing her country boys than seeing the country. “Nope. The only sightseeing I did was what I saw from the back seat of a cab between the airport and the hotel.”

“Oh really? And yet you managed to go out and meet those two bull riders on your birthday. Which you never told me about, by the way.”

Jenna sighed and got ready for another round of stretching the truth. “I went to the sports complex to watch the bull riding competition for my book research and then I met them at the place across the street afterwards to get back my manuscript, which they had fact checked for me. I had exactly one drink. That’s it, Astrid.”

Jenna eyed the original manuscript, the one Slade had corrected for her. It lay on the table where she’d left it after going through and highlighting any bull facts he’d penciled in that she thought she could use for the new book. In between the romance she did want to include some bull riding, and Slade had given her some great details, not to mention his soul touching recollection of his first ride. That was definitely going in the book.

“And? How did you leave it with your two rodeo cowboys? Are you going to keep in touch with them to get more stuff for your book?”

“I didn’t get either of their phone numbers.” Jenna pouted because amid all the lies she’d been spewing recently, that part was, sadly, the absolute truth.

“You let them go without getting their numbers? Oh my God, Jenna! Have I taught you nothing?”

“What was I supposed to do? They didn’t offer to give me their numbers.” But they did have her number. Although, since they hadn’t called to see that she landed safely like they’d promised, if they called her at all it would be a miracle.

With that depressing thought, Jenna listened to Astrid lecture her some more while she pulled her laptop from under the bed. Snuggling under the covers she booted up and opened the file for her new book, typing as quietly as possible while, hopefully, responding with an occasional
mmm hmm
or
you’re right
at the appropriate times during Astrid’s monologue.

Chapter Twenty-three

The phone rang and Jenna saw her agent’s name on the caller ID. Heart pounding, she answered the call with hands that trembled. “Hello.”

“I love it.”

The breath Jenna had been holding whooshed out of her in one huge burst. “You do? Really?”

“It’s exactly what the publishers are looking for. Cowboys, lots of hot sex, a Male/Female/Male ménage. It’s perfect.”

Thank God.
“Thanks, Marge.”

“I would make one suggestion, though.”

Here it comes.
Jenna’s heart fell as far as it had lifted just moments before. “What’s that?”

“I’m submitting this one to the publisher as it is, but you might want to consider making it a true ménage for your next book.”

She stowed the rejoicing over Marge’s talking about her next book and frowned. “What do you mean a
true
ménage?”

There couldn’t be much more sex in there. She had the characters doing pretty much everything possible. Parts lower warmed at the memory that she too had done pretty much everything possible with her two cowboys in real life. Damn, she missed them.

“You know. Male/Male/Female. The hottest sellers right now are books where the men have a sexual relationship with each other, as well as with the woman.”

Jenna felt the color drain from her face as she considered what Slade and Mustang would think if she wrote a sexual relationship for their two characters in the book. She didn’t think their reaction would be pretty.

“Uh, okay. I’ll keep that in mind. Maybe for the next book…” One about totally fictional cowboys, not real bull riders who would be very unhappy with her.

“Good. Because I think you’ve got the beginnings of a whole line of rodeo-themed, western romance ménages here. Your details are great.”

“It’s not a rodeo.”

“Hmm?”

“It’s not…” Jenna heard the rustling of papers on Marge’s desk and realized the limited window of Marge’s attention span had expired. “Never mind. Um, so what’s the next step?”

“You get to work and start writing the next book. I’m confident this manuscript will not only get contracted, but they’ll probably want to contract the next one or two in the series in advance. Can you come up with stories for the side characters?”

“A contract for a series? Wow. Yeah, sure I can come up with more stories.”

“Great, because there’s a good chance this book will be a bestseller for you.”

Bestseller.
Jenna’s heart sped at the words.

“Listen, my other line is ringing. I’ll get the contract over to you to sign the moment I receive it.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

As Marge hung up, Jenna wanted nothing more than to call Mustang and Slade and tell them about the book and her agent’s reaction to it, but she couldn’t. They hadn’t called her, and she couldn’t call them. That overshadowed everything else.

———

Frustrated, Mustang gripped the phone tighter and tried to reign in his annoyance with the operator on the line. Who would have thought finding one little phone number could be so hard?

Chase rounded the corner and donned a huge smile. “Hey, Mustang! Can you believe we’re actually in New York City?”

Showing Chase the receiver of the pay phone he held to his ear, Mustang frowned at the rookie and held one finger up against his own lips just as the operator’s voice came back on the line and asked him to spell Jenna’s name.

“Jenna Block. B-L-O-C-K… No, I guess I’m not sure which city she lives in. I’d thought it was New York City… No, I didn’t know there were five different boroughs in New York City. Can’t you check all of them? Or actually, you better check the whole state.” Maybe she didn’t live in the city. She’d never actually said she did, he’d just assumed.

Mustang stared impatiently at the scratches in the acrylic partition surrounding the hotel lobby’s pay phone as he waited. For some reason, Chase stood there and waited with him. Mustang opened his mouth to ask the kid why just as the patronizingly helpful voice on the other end of the line gave him an absurdly high number of J. and/or Jenna Blocks living in New York State and what little hope he had of tracking down Jenna while they were in New York faded.

Mustang ran a hand over his face and resisted the urge to beat his head against the wall “Oh. That many, huh? Okay. Never mind. Thanks.”

With a huge sigh, he slammed the receiver back onto the cradle with more force than was necessary and, at a loss what to try next, turned to go back up to his room only to find Chase watching him.

“Doesn’t Slade have Jenna’s phone number?”

“It’s complicated, kid.” Mustang walked away, but Chase followed. Puppies and young bull riders tended to follow Mustang around. He’d never quite understood why.

“What happened? Did Slade lose her number? Oh, man! Is she gonna be pissed off at him.”

More likely Slade was gonna be pissed at Mustang, possibly enough to beat the crap out of him, when he found out about Mustang’s meddling.

Slade had torn up and thrown away Jenna’s phone number for a reason, though most likely not for the reason Slade had given. He’d said it was so Mustang couldn’t call Jenna and give her false hope. Mustang had another theory. He was convinced Slade got rid of that number because he was too tempted to call her himself.