Beauty and the Bull Rider (Hotel Rodeo #3)(20)

Shit! Shit! Shit! This was far beyond anything she could handle alone. If there’s anything you can’t or don’t want to handle, Delaney, I want you to call me. Zac. She needed Zac.

Sliding her phone out of her pocket, she hit her call history and dialed.



Zac had just pulled out of his drive headed for Delaney’s place when his phone rang. Although she’d refused his help, there was no way his conscience would allow him to go all the way to Laredo without checking on her first. He plucked the phone from his pocket and stared at the number. It was Delaney. Was something wrong? They’d spoken less than an hour ago.

“Zac here,” he answered tersely.

“Zac? Thank God I got you!”

The urgency in her voice hit him straight in the gut.

“What’s happened? Are you okay?”

“I’ve got a bad situation,” she said. “One of my bulls is tangled up in barbed wire. I need some help. Are you still around or can you send somebody?”

“I’m here. I was just headed to your place. You got tools to cut it?”

“Yes,” she replied, “But I can’t get close enough to do anything.”

“The best way to do this is to tranq him, but I don’t have any drugs. Do you?”

“No. I don’t. I called Kevin, but he’s on another emergency call on the other side of Duncan. Even if he left now, he’s still over an hour away.”

“Kevin?” Zac repeated with a frown. “Who’s Kevin?”

“Kevin Clarkson,” she replied. “He’s my vet.”

“That bull’s not gonna stand there and wait on him.”

“I know that.” She gnawed her lip. “What can we do?”

“Hang on until I get there, okay? We’ll figure it out. Just promise me you won’t go near him, Delaney. I know you’ve been handling them for a few years, but bad shit happens even to the most experienced ranch hands when it comes to bulls. Promise me you won’t put yourself in danger.”

“I promise, Zac,” she sighed. “I know when I’m in over my head.”

“I’m coming now. Just tell me where you are,” he said, whipping the truck around. The only safe way out of this predicament was with the help of another cowboy and a coupla solid roping horses. Seconds after getting her location, Zac was pounding on the bunkhouse door.

“C’mon, ol’ timer,” he called out to Bart. “Get your gear. We got us a bull to rope. And bring a shotgun . . . just in case.” He hoped they wouldn’t need it, but with an injured bull, they had to be prepared for anything. Bulls were unpredictable under even the best of circumstances. Injury made them even more dangerous.

Zac then headed straight to the corral. It wasn’t hard to pick his horse from the bunch. The star-shaped scar on the bay’s ass told him the old gelding had experience with bulls. He’d know better than any of the other horses not to turn his backside to one. Zac was already tightening the saddle girth by the time Bart appeared with saddle slung over his shoulder and rifle in his hand.

“Where’s the fire?” the old man mumbled as Zac grabbed the shotgun.

“It’s gonna be under your ass if you don’t move it along,” Zac shot back. Ignoring the old-timer’s grumbling about whippersnappers, Zac slid the rifle into his saddle holster. “Can’t wait on you, old man. Catch up quick as you can, okay?” Bart grunted back something unintelligible as Zac threw a leg over his horse. Plying a spur to the bay, he rode out at a full gallop.

Twenty minutes of hard riding had Delaney’s ATV in sight. It was parked along the fence, but he didn’t see her. Where the hell was she? He prayed she’d heeded his warning. He exhaled in relief when he spotted her about ten yards south of the vehicle, standing maybe twenty feet from the tangled bull, wire cutters in hand. She turned her head slowly at his approach. He was glad to see she had sense to keep her body positioned toward the bull.

Although the animal was still standing, which he’d initially taken as a good sign, on closer inspection he found the bull wide-eyed and panting with blood dripping from his rear legs, where the wire was coiled tightly around its canon bones and pasterns.

“Zac! You’ve got to help him?” Delaney cried tearfully. “Caesar retreated with only a few scratches, but Romeo’s all tangled up. Thank God he hasn’t panicked yet.” She darted a worried look to the bull. “He’s bleeding pretty badly, Zac. What are we going to do?”

Rubbing his chin, Zac appraised the situation. The animal’s back legs were bound together with tangled wire, which hampered his mobility, but Zac knew not to underestimate his strength. If he had Bart, they could rope his head and front legs from horseback, and take him down that way, but he didn’t have Bart. He squinted at the horizon, looking in vain for a sign of an approaching rider. “That ol’ man better get the lead out of his ass. We need him now.”

“Bart?” she asked. “Where is he?”

“He was supposed to be right behind me.”

“What do you need him to do?” she asked.

“Rope the front legs. The way I see it, I’m gonna have to put the bull on the ground and hold him while Bart cuts the wire off.”

Delaney’s brows furrowed. “How the hell are you going to do that? Wrestle him down?”