Beauty and the Bull Rider (Hotel Rodeo #3)(8)

“Just ’cause the tree’s full doesn’t mean the fruit’s any good.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“It means I’ve had my fill of that kind of woman. I don’t want ’em anymore.”

“And I suppose now you’re looking for the right one to settle down with?”

“Something like that.”

Delaney gave a snort of disbelief. “Does that line really work for you, Zac?”

He met her gaze, unsmiling. “I’ve never had to resort to pick-up lines, Delaney. If I want a woman, I just say so.”

“Really?” she scoffed. “It’s that easy for you.”

“Yup. Pretty much.” He looked away as if embarrassed and drained his glass. “I don’t deny there’s been a lot of women, but I’ve never made it out to be more than it was with any of them.”

“So you never wanted to settle down?”

“Didn’t say that, but even if I’d wanted to, I wouldn’t even have tried. My lifestyle made it impossible. How can you be a husband and father if you’re on the road nine months out of the year? ”

“Bull riding is why you didn’t marry?” she asked.

“Partly.” His intense deep green gaze held hers for several heavy heartbeats. “The other reason is the only one I might have wanted was already taken.”

A long silence filled the space between them.

She ran a finger slowly around the rim of her glass. She looked up to find him watching her. “Why would you just give the heifer to me?” she asked, still suspicious. “What’s in this for you?”

“I want to help you,” he said. “I don’t want you to blame me anymore for your unhappiness.”

“Who says I’m unhappy?”

“I don’t need to hear it from anyone when I have eyes in my head. When was the last time you went anywhere? Had any fun?” he asked.

“I went to Vegas just a few weeks ago,” she replied too defensively.

“That was business, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t have time for fun, Zac. I have a ranch to run.”

His brows drew together in a frown. “You shouldn’t be running that ranch by yourself. You need some help.”

“I’ve been doing just fine on my own, thank you very much.”

“Damn it, Delaney! I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying you’ve taken on too much for a woman all alone. What are you trying to prove?”

“What am I trying to prove? How about that I actually have a brain in my head, that I can make my own decisions, that I can even run a business successfully.”

“All right.” He nodded. “Why bulls?”

“Why not bulls?” she countered. “When Ty and I first married, I always assumed I’d work behind the scenes in his stock contracting business. Although he’d sold most of the livestock before he left for Vegas, we still had a number of decent cows, so I saw no reason I shouldn’t give breeding a go.”

“It just all seems out of character for a woman like you, unless you’re just trying to spite Ty.”

“It that what he thinks?”

“Pretty much.”

“Ty’s wrong,” she said. “Maybe it started out like that, but that’s not how it is now. I’m not just fooling around here. My first two bull calves, Caesar and Romeo, are entered in the futurity and I have a dozen cows that I’m going to breed to champions. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but I’ve learned a lot too. I’m serious about this business, Zac, and I intend to be taken seriously. If anyone takes issue with that, it’s their problem, not mine.”

He slouched in his chair and pushed back his hat. The action revealed a small white scar just below his hairline. “Sweetheart”—his mouth curved in a subtle smile that made her go warm all over—“if anyone around here takes issue with that, their biggest problem is gonna be me.”





CHAPTER THREE


He’d thrown her off balance. He could see the confusion flickering in her baby blues. Good. He needed every advantage he could get. For weeks since his return to Oklahoma, he’d been trying to come up with some plausible excuse to “happen by” Delaney’s place, only to get cold feet every time. Now here she was. He still couldn’t believe his luck in running into her at the bucking stock sale. Better yet, he actually had something she wanted.

He’d spent double what he’d planned to on that heifer, but would likely have paid many times more for the bargaining chip if it had come down to it. He knew she had little reason to trust him and he was desperate to change that. He’d wanted Delaney from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her at the Houston Livestock Show when he and Ty had crashed a private party in one of the VIP pavilions. She’d been surrounded by people then, all decked out in a skin-tight sequined dress and wearing one of those rhinestone beauty-queen tiaras. When she smiled, she hadn’t just lit up the tent, she’d set the damned thing ablaze. Looking at her now, he was pretty certain she hadn’t had reason to flash that heart-skipping smile in quite a while.

She reached for her wineglass and took a sip, watching him intently over the rim. She set the glass down, looking like she had something more to say but didn’t know how to say it.