Beauty and the Bull Rider (Hotel Rodeo #3)(34)

“’Bout two hours.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. McDaniel. That won’t work. We need it within an hour of emission to get an accurate analysis.”

“This is damned awkward, Miss . . .”

“Wanda,” she supplied. “Don’t be too concerned, Mr. McDaniel.” She offered a reassuring smile. “It’s not at all unusual for men to suffer performance anxiety in this setting.”

“Performance anxiety?” He shook his head with a snort of disgust. “That ain’t it at all. I got no problem getting it up, ma’am. I just got distracted.”

“There’s a simpler way to do this if you want to bring your significant other next time,” she suggested.

“How’s that?” Zac asked.

She opened a drawer and fished out a package with a telltale disc shape. “It’s a collection condom. They’re specially designed for this.” She nodded to a couple who’d just exited the exam room, both looking rumpled and smiling sheepishly. “It usually does the trick.”





Delaney slammed her cell phone on the counter and threw herself into a chair, where she finally gave in to the fit of angry tears. It was all Zac’s fault. Since that damned cowboy had walked into her life, all of her plans had gone to hell in a handbasket. Nothing was happening the way it was supposed to. First, her baby plans and now her calves. Her only consolation was that it was at least a bucking bull and not one of the longhorns that had busted in and ravished her heifers. Of course the shameless hussies had been perfectly happy to lift their tails and squat.

Her only hope was that they were too early in the cycle for fertilization. As long as Zac removed the bull before he got another go, maybe she could control the damage. She poured a glass of wine and waited for Zac.

Her nerves had begun to settle by the time she poured her second glass.

It would be at least a week before she could do any preg testing on the cows, but it actually wasn’t quite the disaster she’d first thought. The bull had bred her recipient cows but not the egg donor. Thank God, Diamond was still in her own pen and not turned out with the others.

She downed her third glass and then poured another.

She was feeling dangerously mellow by the time Zac pulled into the drive. She met him at the door, opening before he had a chance to knock.

“I’m damned sorry about this, Delaney,” he said. He stood there with hat in hand and apology on his lips. She focused mostly on the lips. She loved the shape of Zac’s mouth and the feel of it even better. “I’m confounded how he got out,” he continued. “It wasn’t negligence, I swear. He’s got an injured hock and I had him in a six-foot pen. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“I’m sorry for lashing out at you on the phone, Zac. I know it wasn’t your fault. These kinda things happen sometimes.”

He looked surprised. “So you’re not all pissed off anymore?”

“I still am,” she confessed with a hiccup. “But maybe not quite as much as before. Did you come to get your bull?”

“Already did,” Zac said. “I called Bart the minute I got off the phone with you. The bull’s already loaded up and on the way home. He didn’t fight us much.”

“I don’t imagine he had the energy,” she said dryly. “All that humping must have worn him out.”

“So he got to all of them?” Zac asked.

“Let’s just say he didn’t overlook any who were willing. I’m very disappointed with the low moral caliber of my cows.”

“Given that breeding is what you bought them for, you should be happy how eagerly they embraced the job,” Zac replied with a twitch of his fascinating mouth.

“But they aren’t supposed to breed indiscriminately. I had the studs all picked out before your cow-seducing Casanova came along.”

Zac cocked a brow. “Maybe they wanted to know the baby daddy instead of some anonymous stranger. Maybe they thought they’d be happier humping than taking a semen injection by syringe.”

“Point taken,” she said softly. “The idea of a syringe isn’t very appealing. Neither is a battery-operated vibrator.”

He cocked a brow. “That’s mighty illuminating.”

Her gaze locked with his, she licked her lips. Would he take it as an invitation?

“Did you get your testing done today?” she asked.

His gaze focused on her mouth and then darted over her left shoulder. “Mostly.”

“Mostly? What do you mean? Is something wrong?”

“I was at the clinic when you called. I had the full physical, the DNA, and the blood work. I even paid extra to get the results expedited.”

“Great,” she said. “When will they have the semen analysis back?”

His color deepened. He shut his eyes and blew out a breath. “I couldn’t give it to them.”

“What do you mean, ‘couldn’t’?”

“Shit, Delaney. The whole thing embarrassed the hell out of me. They gave me a little container and sent me into a private room to jack off. It was really hard to do that knowing they all knew what I was doing in there. It was damned distracting and then your call came at the worst possible time.”

“Really?”