Unridden: A Studs in Spurs novel (5 page)

At the other end of the chain of linked bodies Slade came. Putting aside thoughts of Tulsa for a moment, Mustang let himself follow right behind.

Chapter Four

“Mustang Jackson has drawn one rank bull for the long round, JW. Ballbreaker is out of B&G Stock Contractors and he sure is doing them proud. He’s unridden in sixteen times out.”

Jenna perched on the edge of the hotel room bed, transcribing every word the television commentators said. Well, most of the words anyway. These guys talked
fast
. Throw in the thick cowboy drawl on the one guy, and her job of capturing their conversation word for word got even more difficult.

But who was she to look a gift horse in the mouth? She knew she’d lucked out when she stumbled upon bull riding on one of the many,
many
sports channels on cable in her surprisingly nice Tulsa hotel room after she checked in for the romance convention.

“You’re right, Jim. This bull sure is rank. He’s up for Bull of the Year, but if Mustang Jackson can stay on him, he’ll ensure his place in the short round and could take tonight’s competition.”

“What’s your prediction, JW? Will Jackson ride this bull tonight and break Ballbreaker’s perfect record of buck-offs?”

“Well, Jim, Mustang has a habit of getting into his hand a little bit so I don’t know.”

“One thing we do know, JW, is that Mustang Jackson can’t afford to make any mistakes here tonight in Kansas City, the last stop before next week’s championship in Tulsa.”

Jenna frowned. What did they mean next week in Tulsa? The competition was this week. In fact, she had already spoken to the concierge and found out the time and place and how much a cab would cost to take her there tomorrow night.

The men continued to chatter on the screen while Jenna switched to her web browser and did a television listings search. And
dammit
, while she did, they were saying all sorts of good stuff she wanted to write down.

“It seems they’re having some trouble getting Mustang settled on Ballbreaker. He’s up and off him again, so we’ll go on over to Slade Bower, already in the chute on top of Ace In the Hole. Who are you picking in this match up, JW?”

“Slade sometimes has a habit of getting just a little bit leaned back, Jim. I don’t know enough about this bull to say for sure, but this close to the championship, Slade needs to focus and ride every bull.”

“You’re right, JW. Mustang Jackson’s been chasing Slade Bower in the standings all year and, as you said, every bull counts here tonight with Tulsa just a week away.”

Trying to memorize the key phrases like “leaned back” and something about being chased in the standings until she could jot them down, Jenna found the show she was watching listed on the program guide.

“Encore presentation!”
Double dammit.
No wonder. The show was a repeat. She switched back over to the document on her computer screen and began to type frantically again, pissed she’d missed good dialogue, just as the phone rang.

“Shit!”

Writing this stupid cowboy book was going to kill her…or at least give her an ulcer. Jenna reached for the room’s phone on the nightstand and almost dumped her laptop on the floor in the process.

“Hello?” She fumbled with the receiver on her shoulder and tried to listen, type, and talk all at once.

“Hey Jenna. It’s Barb.” The chipper voice of one of her closest author friends came through the phone line. “I’m in the bar with a few of the other girls and we’re about to head into the Wild West Welcome Dinner. Are you coming down?”

Jenna sighed, torn between starvation and television rodeo research. Hunger eventually won out. Besides, she’d more than likely get all she needed tomorrow night at the rodeo. She hoped…

“Yeah, I’m coming. I’ll meet you in the ballroom I guess.”

“Are you getting dressed up? It’s cowboy-themed attire, remember.”

God help her, why did every meal at these conventions require some sort of ridiculous costume on the part of the authors? Jenna spied the boots she’d thrown in her suitcase to wear to the rodeo, figuring she’d look inappropriate in high heels amid the cowgirls and cow dung. After checking in and unpacking, she had already changed into jeans from her traveling sweat suit. Those, combined with the boots, would just have to do.

“Um, yeah. I’m dressed.” Put like that, Jenna didn’t consider it a lie at all.

“Okay. Good. We’ll save you a seat at the table. You can’t miss me. I’ll be the one in the pink cowboy hat with a blond Dolly Parton wig.”

Jenna giggled at that image. “Thanks, Barb. See you in a minute.”

She reluctantly clicked off the television set just as the cowboy, Slade What’s-His-Name, hit the dirt.

Slade…
Good name. Jenna would have to write that down to use in her book.

———

Camped out with the conference itinerary, Jenna slumped in a chair in the hotel lobby, her head spinning.

Barb plopped down heavily into the chair next to her. “I’m exhausted already.”

With a sigh, Jenna agreed. “I know. Do you think there’s coffee somewhere?”

“There’s a break after the next session. Soda and cookies.”

Jenna groaned. Great. Another conference where she’d come home heavier than she arrived. She dropped the itinerary into her lap, unable to look at it any longer. “Where are you going now?”

“I have an editor appointment. I’m pitching them my new book. Hopefully, they’ll request the full manuscript.”

“What kind of book is it?”

“A multi-partner, dark urban fantasy.”

Jenna raised a brow. “Really? You’re writing a threesome?”

“Foursome actually, but only three of them are human.” She grinned. “What are you working on?”

Next to Barb’s book, Jenna’s seemed downright boring. She felt embarrassed even answering the question. “Um, just another contemporary.”

Barb shook her head. “Don’t say it like that. I loved your last book.”

Tell that to my agent
. “Thanks, Barb.”

Barb pointed to the abandoned conference program in Jenna’s lap. “Where are you heading now?”

Jenna sighed. “Good question. I’m torn between
The Inside Scoop on Future Publishing Trends
and
Sex it Up—Adding Heat to Your Writing
.” Sadly, it was apparent she needed both sessions equally.

“My friend is on the panel for the future trends session. She gave me her handout. I’ll copy it for you if you want to skip that session and go to the other one. She said what editors are looking for nowadays is mostly cross genre. Nothing straight genre anymore unless it’s got some niche appeal.”

“Hence the multi-partner, dark urban fantasy you’re writing.”

“With a little bit of bondage thrown in.” Barb grinned.

Bondage again?
Shit
. Jenna had better throw something extra into this cowboy book of hers or risk it being rejected. But what? She knew less about bondage than she did about horses.

“My friend also said publishers want heat. The hotter the better. When you think there’s enough sex, add some more,” Barb added.

With that, combined with her recent book review describing her too few sex scenes as boring, Jenna’s decision of which session to attend was made. “I guess
Sex it Up
it is then.”

Barb laughed. “Let me know how that goes.”

Jenna scowled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be taking notes.”

“Oh, before I forget. One of the authors we ate breakfast with is local and she gave us the name of a great restaurant within walking distance of here. I have to call to make reservations. I figure we’ll head over about seven so we have time to change after the last session. You in?”

The rodeo started at eight and Jenna had to take a cab there and, she assumed, buy a ticket when she arrived. “Actually, I’m going to…”

Before she could finish the sentence, Lizzie Lundgren turned the corner. A fake smile crossed Lizzie’s face as she saw Barb and Jenna and made a beeline straight for them.

A sudden warning bell went off in Jenna’s head and she cut off the rest of what she had been about to say to Barb and instead forced a smile of her own. “Hi, Lizzie.”

“Jenna. Barb.” Lizzie looked down her nose at them. “What are you two up to?”

Amazing how a spot on the
New York Times
Best Seller list came along with a stick up the ass and a superiority complex. Only two years ago Lizzie had been just like them, making a living by writing but stuck in semi-obscurity. Then she got lucky and signed a contract with a huge publisher in New York and that was it, she hit it big. Not Nora Roberts big, but big enough to make Jenna green with envy and have to swallow the acid in her throat when she saw Lizzie’s new release hit the Best Seller list.

Lizzie’s latest book had been a contemporary western. It went straight to the Best Seller list just like her first, whether it was crap or not. Not that Jenna had actually read the whole thing. She wasn’t about to buy a copy and add to Lizzie’s sales. But the excerpt and the blurb had made Jenna roll her eyes at the absolute absurdity of the plot and characters. No surprise, all the reviews were raves. They never called Lizzie’s sex scenes boring.

It might be petty, but Jenna would be damned before she let Lizzie know that she’d found out there were real live cowboys camped out on the other side of the city and she was going to interview them for her next book that very night. Let Lizzie do her own damn research for her next bestseller. The rodeo cowboy angle was Jenna’s and, selfish as it may be, she wasn’t sharing. Every author for herself and she needed any advantage she could get.

“We’re making plans for dinner.” Barb hesitated, then added less than enthusiastically, “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

“Thanks, but I’m having dinner upstairs in the four-star restaurant on the top floor of the hotel with the managing editor from my publisher. Their treat.”

Of course Lizzie was being treated to a four-star dinner by her publisher.
Bitch.

“Okay then. Jenna? You coming?” Barb turned toward Jenna and rolled her eyes so Lizzie couldn’t see.

“Um, no. I can’t. I have ah…um…some cousins who live nearby. I promised I’d have dinner with them.”

Barb raised an eyebrow with interest. “Cousins? In Tulsa? Male or female?”

Hmm, this lying was going to get Jenna in trouble eventually. But one glace at Lizzie, still hovering, and Jenna launched into another doozy of a fib. “Both. I mean, my cousin and her husband…and their kids. You know. One big happy family.”

Jeez.
This was getting more complicated by the minute. Soon she’d have to start taking notes to keep her lies straight.

The rodeo was comprised of three competitions spread out over four days. Hopefully she would get enough information tonight to finish the book and not have to see her
cousins
twice more over the remainder of the conference. All this deception was enough to give a girl indigestion.

Chapter Five

Evaluating that night’s possibilities, Mustang’s gaze swept the females in the stands until it landed on one woman who made him stop dead in his perusal.

He jumped up onto the rail of the chute and hissed to Slade, “Second section, fourth row back, reddish-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, black turtleneck.”

In the process of tugging the rope that stretched beneath the bull and winding it once around his gloved hand, Slade frowned up at Mustang from the animal’s back. “I’m in the middle of taking my wrap and you’re pointing out some woman to me? In a turtleneck, no less? Since when are you interested in women whose tits aren’t hanging out?”

“This woman’s different, Slade. I can tell.” The bull hopped once in the chute and Mustang quickly reached over and grabbed the back of Slade’s vest, steadying him on the animal’s back.

“Dammit, Mustang, quit distracting me,” Slade growled. Settling himself again, Slade gave a nod and the cowboy on the ground swung the gate open to release both bull and rider into the arena.

“Talk to you more when you get off,” Mustang called after him, then watched his friend disappear into a cloud of dust.

Chase Reese, one of the younger bull riders, who had been favored for Rookie of the Year until he hit a dry streak, hopped up onto the rail next to Mustang. “Slade’s amazing. It’s like he’s glued onto that bull. I wish I could do that. I went two for ten last series.”

“You look down,” Mustang said simply, following Slade’s progress as the bull spun around to the left without deviation, from one end of the arena to the other.

As the eight second buzzer sounded, Slade released the rope wrapped around his hand. He jumped off the bull, hit the ground with his shoulder, then rolled to avoid a hoof to the ribcage before the bullfighters redirected the charging animal away from him.

“I do what?” the rookie asked.

Seeing his friend was safe, Mustang finally looked at Chase and answered his question.
Damn!
Had he ever been this young? The kid probably didn’t even have to shave once a week.

“You’re looking down at the ground. If you look there, you’re gonna end up there. Now, ‘scuse me. I gotta talk to Slade.”

Leaving the kid standing there with an amazed expression on his face, like he’d just been handed all the secrets of the universe, Mustang jumped down to go meet Slade behind the chutes.

“Hey, man. Good ride. That bull was one hell of a spinner, huh?”

Slade laughed and pulled off the tape from around his wrist where it held the glove on his riding hand firmly in place. “Hell yeah. They weren’t kidding when they said he came out of the spinner pen. Felt like I was on a ride at the county fair.”

“So we have to formulate a plan,” Mustang began.

“For what?”

“To reel in that woman I told you about.”

“Just do whatever it is you usually do.”

Mustang shook his head. “The usual bullshit isn’t going to work on her.”

Slade sighed. “Where did you say she’s sitting?”

Ha!
Slade had given in and was actually showing some interest. Smiling, Mustang narrowed his eyes and easily found her again in the stands. She was writing feverishly, while trying to watch the rider in the arena at the same time. He tilted his head toward the section directly behind them. “Far end of the fourth row.”