Read And Then You Dare (Crested Butte Cowboys Series Book 5) for Free Online Page B

coffee, her hands no longer
shook. Bullet lost his charm, on a number of levels.
    “Sorry cowboy, I wish you the best of luck out there.” Tristan
looked at Lyric. “Give me a half hour to check in with the office, and get my
notes together?”
    “Sounds perfect.”
    Tristan went downstairs without looking back.
    ***
    “I’d say you’ve been dismissed.” Lyric said to her brother.
    Yeah, he sure had, and it stung. He could read the thoughts as
they ran through her mind. Not good enough. That’s what it boiled down to. He
wasn’t a good enough bull rider for her brand, and he wasn’t a good enough man
for her. He saw the light turn off. It was that quick.
    Bullet went outside without another word. What had he been
thinking anyway? The last thing he had time for was a woman. Even on a
temporary basis. He kicked at the dirt, furious with himself for not being able
to keep his head on straight.
    It was way past time for
him to grow up. He had a child, and not just one.
    Bullet walked into the barn
and started mucking out a stall. If all else failed, a stall always needed
mucked.
    ***
    1961
    Instead of staying in the bunkhouse with the rest of the
cowboys, Clancy told Bill he’d have a room in the main house with him and his
brother. Clancy was building a second house, and when it was finished, they’d
both move in there. Clancy’s brother, Clive, was getting married and soon his
wife would be living on the ranch full-time as well.
    Bill figured that was the main reason Clive had been looking
for a partner in the dude ranch. There were times during the year that he and
his mama and sister rarely saw his daddy. Running a ranch was hard work, even
if you could afford a lot of help.
    As far as he knew, Clancy hadn’t married yet either. “You got
kids?” he asked one night, thinking that might be easier to ask than if he had
a wife.
    “Nope. Not that I know of anyway,” Clancy winked at him.
    “So no wife either?”
    “Nope. No wife either.” Clancy stood and poked at the fire.
“Here’s the thing. Women like the idea of a cowboy. They want to catch ’em,
kind of like a wild horse. Soon as they got ’em caught, they wanna tame ’em.
Soon as they got ’em tamed, they don’t want ’em anymore, so they go off in
search of another cowboy.”
    Bill didn’t think his mama ever tamed his daddy, but he
couldn’t say for sure. Clancy reminded him a lot of his father. They were close
in age, and had a similar build—tall, with broad shoulders that came from
working a ranch every day.
    Clancy got a lot of attention from the women who vacationed at
the dude ranch. Even the married ones, especially when they heard he was
single. They were fascinated by his bright green eyes, and wanted to run their
hands through his ginger-colored hair. There were times Bill felt embarrassed
for him, but it didn’t seem to bother Clancy.
    “So anyway, I let ’em think they got me caught and soon as I
see any sign of them trying to tame me, I end it. We both stay happier that
way.”
    Clancy sat back down. “Gotta say the one thing that bothers me
about it all is that I don’t have any young-ens.” He studied Bill. “I figure
since your pa passed away, you don’t have a daddy either. We’re a pair, ain’t
we?”
    Bill nodded his head. The last few weeks at the ranch Clancy
had looked out for him. He gave him free rein, but never enough that he could
get out of hand. Bill worked hard, like he promised to. At the end of a long
day, he liked to go back to the house, where he had his own room. Some nights
he fell asleep before he finished the letter he tried to write his mama every
day. If he did, he’d finish it the next night. They didn’t go to the post
office in town that often, but he mailed every one of them in a separate
envelope.
    Clancy was in charge of sending Bill’s pay. He’d get a money
order at the bank in town for half of Bill’s earnings. The other half he
deposited in Bill’s account. Bill would’ve