The Rodeo Cowboy’s Baby Read online

  They obviously made men talented in Marietta.

  “I’m a bit wrecked actually,” Evie said, trying to keep the strain out of her voice.

  While she was totally over her divorce, she did not have any desire to be cast in the role of giant gooseberry. Awkward or what?

  “I’ll probably duck out after the picnic if that’s okay.” Which she was only attending to add more color for the column.

  She was already freaked out at the thought of all the families that Charlie had told her would be there tonight. Six of the guys from the calendar were in loving relationships, some with babies already. While seeing people in couples and family groups with their kids didn’t bother her as much as it once had—after a year of therapy—that didn’t mean she wouldn’t rather be somewhere else this evening.

  She felt the gaping space in her stomach that had tormented her for so long. And ignored it.

  She’d had to stop thinking about that fictional bundle of joy she’d once imagined would be hers, just because she wanted it so much. Two years of trying to have that fictional baby—the endless rounds of clinic appointments and invasive investigations, the extreme hormonal shifts caused by treatment that made her feel fat and frumpy and not herself, all those secret resentments she couldn’t voice because the doctors had never been able to pinpoint a cause for their infertility—hadn’t just sucked the joy out of her marriage, it had also sucked the joy out of her life. And the one thing she didn’t want to be anymore was that joyless woman who couldn’t seem to stop obsessing about the one thing she couldn’t have. Especially now that she knew the fault had been hers all along.

  She’d bored herself as well as everyone else around her. No wonder she’d managed to bore her readers, too.

  But that didn’t mean that tonight wasn’t going to suck quite a lot. Following the picnic-style family barbeque with a bar hop flanked by two loved-up couples was going above and beyond the torture required to resurrect her column, surely.

  “Up to you,” Charlie said nonchalantly, but Evie saw the flicker of sympathy in her eyes and tried not to wince.

  Charlie read her column. She must know all about the failed fertility treatments, the divorce, the shock of Dan’s baby news, but she’d been surprisingly sensitive—for Charlie—happy to talk in platitudes as they caught up on the last eighteen months since they’d seen each other during the drive from Bozeman airport and then the hours watching the parade and the opening ceremony.

  But just when Evie was sending up a prayer of thanks that all the epic sex Charlie was getting must have softened some of her blunt edges, her friend plonked the tea down in front of Evie, far too decisively.

  “All right, I know I shouldn’t ask this…” she opened. “Given all the stuff with Dan and the baby making…”

  “Then don’t,” Evie said, her stomach clenching painfully. Forget pang, she felt as if her guts had been twisted up and stuffed into her throat.

  “But exactly how long is it since you last got laid?” Charlie said anyway.

  Evie sputtered tea all over the butcher block table. “What?”

  “Come on, Evie. We’re mates. And you know I’m not the polite, subtle type. How long? Because your column’s super vague on the details. Has there been any post-Douche shags or hasn’t there?”

  “Dan wasn’t a douche,” she said, trying to grasp hold of the one part of this conversation she was prepared to have. “We just… The stress of the fertility treatment was too much for our marriage.” A marriage she had come to realize, during the course of the treatment, had never been all that strong in the first place.

  She and Dan had had different agendas: she’d wanted a baby, and he’d wanted… Well, she’d never been all that sure what Dan wanted, but whatever it was, it had turned out not to be her.

  “It’s invasive,” she added. “He had to take antibiotics, and having to inject me for ten days straight got old.” Plus she had become more and more obsessed with the outcome. And he hadn’t. She wasn’t even sure he had ever been. He’d been doing it all for her. And the fact he’d gotten his new girlfriend pregnant after telling her as much only made the feeling of inadequacy worse.

  Having a baby with Evie had become too much of a chore for Dan, which had pretty much summed up their whole marriage. While things had been easy, Dan had been happy to go along with what she wanted, but he’d been increasingly less keen once the going had gotten tough. And the truth was so had she. She’d had to ask herself eventually whether she’d been viewing Dan as a sperm donor, more than a partner… And the answer had been… Well, inconclusive enough to have something else to be ashamed of when they’d parted ways.

  “I know all that,” Charlie replied. “I read your column, remember. How you managed to find the humor in all that I don’t know. But Dan was still a douchebag in my book. What kind of guy dumps his wife just when she needs him the most? And then goes and shacks up with someone else and gets her pregnant less than a year after the divorce?”

  “He didn’t dump me. It was a mutual split. And he told me the pregnancy was accidental.” Which she suspected was true, but somehow only made the situation worse.

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “Is this an Irish thing? Because you’re beginning to sound like a martyr.”

  Evie glared at her friend, feeling under siege. “My marriage broke up and I discovered I can’t have kids. But don’t worry, I did not become Mother Teresa while you weren’t looking.”

  “Well good,” Charlie said, the sly look making Evie realize she’d just walked into a trap. “Because I have the perfect guy for you to break your drought with.”

  “I don’t want to break my drought.”

  “So you admit there has been one?” Charlie said, the ah-ha look in her eyes forcing Evie to admit the truth.

  “Yes, there has, and that’s the way I want to keep it. I’m not ready to start dating again.” Why did she have to keep saying this to people? Hooking up was not the be-all and end-all of life.

  “Who said anything about dating? What we’re talking about here is getting back on the horse.”

  “I’m not doing that either. I’m not ready.”

  “You will be when you meet Flynn,” Charlie cut back in, apparently completely undeterred by Evie’s reticence—so much for her friend’s new improved sensitive side. The woman had about as much sensitivity as a steamroller.

  “Charlie, please.”

  “He’s one of the hands here. Twenty-eight, very easy on the eye, with a butt that’s a work of art in Wranglers. Solvent, thanks to several very lucrative years on the rodeo circuit. In fact, his calf-roping skills are only surpassed by his skills in the sack—and he’s the hot ticket to win the tie-down roping, so there’s that. The man is what you Irish girls would call an absolute ride.”

  “You are actually serious about this?” Evie said, wondering if all the hot sex Charlie was having had melted her brain cells.

  “Just let me finish, Evie. I’ve been doing some research ever since you emailed last week to say you were coming. And Flynn is the perfect guy for douchebag-rebound sex.” She lifted her hand and began counting off this mythical calf roper’s assets on her fingertips. “One, he always puts out on a first date. Because that’s the only date he does—so, two, you don’t have to worry about commitment issues.”

  “Fabulous, he sounds like a man-whore.”

  “Not at all. He’s selective and exclusive. He just doesn’t do long term. And, best of all, I guarantee he will rock your world.”

  “How do you know that?” For feck sake, she was starting to feel a bit sorry for the guy. Did he know Charlie was busy pimping him out? “Does Logan know you go around checking out other guys’ sex moves?” she added, starting to feel even more sorry for herself.

  “I have reliable sources about Flynn. And no, Logan does not know, because he’s just enough of an unreconstructed cowboy to get mad about it. But what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him—and it could very well help you a great deal.
You need to get your mojo back, Evie.”

  Where had she heard that before? She was thoroughly sick of everyone sticking their noses into her mojo.

  Evie rolled her eyes so hard she nearly dislocated her eyeballs. “When exactly did you become as much of a pimp as Janice?”

  “When one of my best mates turned up in Montana looking like she hasn’t smiled—or had a halfway decent shag—in well over a year,” Charlie shot straight back, the sincerity in her voice making the ache in Evie’s stomach throb.

  “I’m not shagging this guy, however fabulous his calf-roping skills,” she said eventually, but her anger had dissolved into a pit of humiliation.

  “Why not?” Charlie seemed flummoxed.

  No way could Evie divulge the real reason why not—that her confidence with men was so far down the toilet, it would take dynamite to retrieve it—because that would make her feel even more pathetic than she did already. So she seized on the only other reason she could think of. “Because cowboys are really just farm boys with sexier hats, and I have in-depth knowledge of how farm boys fuck.” She winced at the deliberate crudity, but as Charlie’s eyebrows launched up her forehead, she decided the shock value was worth it, to finally shut her friend up.

  “Explain,” Charlie said.

  “You’re forgetting, I spent the formative years of my sex life in rural Kildare—where my mammy was keen to tell me at every available opportunity that boys were only after one thing. I’m not a free spirit about sex like you are, okay?”

  “But you were on Tinder?” Charlie cut in, looking confused.

  “Which was for the column, and did not involve as much action as you obviously think. The fact is, I’m not wild or untamed or easily aroused. I need finesse, and sensitivity to get off. Which means I need a nice metrosexual guy who I’ve dated more than once.” Or more like several months. “And who has a slow hand, and is willing to take instructions. My experience of farm boys is that, like alpha guys the world over, they don’t take directions well. On top of that…” she added warming to her subject, because her few experiences of farm boys in the sack had not been exactly memorable. “They couldn’t find a clitoris if you gave them a road map. And they won’t give head either, even if you put a neon sign on your poonani saying ‘Lick here.’ Which means they suck when it comes to sexual healing. And not in a good way.”

  “Logan’s not like that,” Charlie said, when she’d finally managed to lift her jaw off the floor.

  “Then you lucked out. But at the risk of sounding like my mam, can we end this conversation now, because getting a blow-by-blow from you about how your boyfriend screws is way too much information. Especially as the three of us are going to be sharing a house for the weekend.”

  Charlie lifted the tea and took a long swallow, her cheeks flushing a deep dark red. As Evie had never seen Charlotte Foster blush before, she considered it fitting payback for the blush that was currently incinerating her own face like the fallout from a nuclear explosion.

  “Okay, I’ll shut up about Flynn,” Charlie said carefully. “But I still think you’re missing out on a surefire way to get your smile back.” Her friend’s lips tilted, the wistful expression making Evie want to cry. “And I always loved your smile.”

  “We’ll just have to agree to differ on that,” Evie said, her hands shaking as she picked up her cold tea and gulped enough down to ease the boulder of grit lodged in her throat.

  She didn’t just feel wrecked now, she felt flattened. But if it meant Charlie wasn’t going to try hooking her up with a cowboy again, it was worth it.

  Now all she had to do was get through this evening’s family picnic without bursting into tears. After coming out of the why-don’t-you-screw-a-cowboy-showdown on top, that should be a doddle.

  *

  They won’t give head even if you put a sign on your poonani saying “Lick here.”

  Flynn O’Connell leaned back against the hallway wall and rubbed the hot knot pounding in his chest—not sure whether he was mad, embarrassed or turned on. Because with the hot throbbing in his groin joining the knot of irritation in his chest, he felt like a combination of all three.

  He shouldn’t have listened in on the conversation. He wasn’t the kind of guy who skulked around in hallways. And gossip and girl talk gave him a headache. But he’d been heading down from Lyle Tate’s old bedroom upstairs, which he’d moved into yesterday until they fixed the leak in the bunkhouse that had trashed his bunk, when he’d overheard Charlie say his name in that smoky British accent he’d always found kind of hot. That she’d then listed his assets in that same cute accent, as if he’d been a candidate on a TV dating show, had been more weird than hot—he’d never gotten any come-on vibes from Charlie at all. And he sure as heck hadn’t looked for any, because Logan Tate would probably have killed him, then arrested him. Plus, everyone knew Charlie was way off limits, because Logan and her were stuck on each other like superglue.

  But it wasn’t Charlie’s weird-ass listing of his assets that had turned him on. It had been the other woman’s voice, soft and lilting, the Irish in it weaving through her words like a summer fog and speaking directly to his cock. Until he’d actually registered what she was saying. And that was when things had gotten extra freaky.

  Because he’d gotten mad and turned on at one and the same time. And that had never happened to him. Not ever. He’d never lost his temper with a woman in his entire life. He adored women, their scent, their softness, that thing they did where they checked out the size of their butts in the mirror. Just every single sweet thing about them.

  Of course, he’d never stuck around long enough with any one woman to get past the honeymoon stage in a relationship. Which meant he’d never gotten invested enough to have a disagreement, let alone an actual argument. He was always real careful to make it crystal clear that hookups with him weren’t going to lead to anything other than short, hot, sexy times. Mutual pleasure and mutual respect.

  But if he had ever had an argument with a woman, he would have expected to find it the opposite of sexy. His gut tightened, as the memories he’d kept buried for years scraped at the surface of his consciousness, pulling him back to the darkest days of his childhood.

  Yeah, not going there.

  The woman was still talking in that sultry Irish brogue, the strains of it still licking at his crotch. But the ball of outrage was still lodged in his larynx, too.

  He considered himself a pretty alpha guy—he sure as heck wasn’t no metrosexual, whatever the hell that even meant. But he took instructions in bed just fine. He liked to dominate, what guy didn’t, but he could take a back seat if it was required.

  He sure as heck wasn’t a misogynist jerk like that dickbag Dean Maynard who had turned up in Grey’s this afternoon while he’d been hanging with Cody and Boone and Shane.

  Maynard had a nasty streak, and he didn’t like women. He seemed to have taken an extra-special dislike to the cowgirl who had entered the saddle bronc event this year, which was a clear sign of Maynard’s prejudices to Flynn’s way of thinking.

  It was guys like Maynard that gave rodeo cowboys a bad name—because they were assholes. No one was disputing that.

  But what about guys like Shane Marvell and Boone Telford? Good solid guys who you could always rely on in a crisis, and who were always polite to women—just like he was.

  Heck even Cody Starr, the bull rider with the bad-boy rep, was a good guy in disguise when it came to women. Hadn’t they all just discovered that very afternoon in Grey’s that Cody had tipped a pretty little waitress thousands of dollars in prize money so she could get her son a heart op? Cody hadn’t looked too happy about the news getting out when Dean had shown them all the Twitter storm triggered by town gossip Carol Bingley in the bar that afternoon. And Cody had looked even less happy when he discovered the waitress and her son were in town to thank him personally for the gift.

  But Cody hadn’t been able to deny he’d done the good deed, either. Heck, the a
ttention was already ripping his bad-boy reputation to shreds.

  All of which just went to prove, as far as Flynn was concerned, that most rodeo cowboys weren’t jerks like Dean.

  And okay, maybe Flynn liked his relationships simple and fleeting…but he still knew how to treat a lady right. He knew every woman was different. And when it came to sex, he was more than happy to tailor his technique accordingly. Because the most important thing to his mind was that the woman got off, too. And he was confident he’d never left a woman unsatisfied. Sure, he knew some women faked their orgasms—he’d been subjected to that ancient eighties chick flick and had his nut sack shrivel to nothing during the scene in the diner like every other guy—but he was as confident as he could be that none of the women he’d hooked up with had ever faked an orgasm with him. Because, unlike the arrogant little dude in that chick flick, and dickwads like Dean Maynard, he always paid attention during sex.

  And Charlie’s reliable sources were verifiable proof of that. Damn it.

  Tearing himself away from that sultry voice, the continued ache in his crotch starting to bug him, he crept back down the hall to the rear door of the ranch house. Opening and closing the screen like a damn thief in the night, he sunk down on the back porch and pulled on the boots he’d taken off when he’d entered the house half an hour ago to shower and change for tonight’s event in Crawford Park.

  Slicking back his damp hair, he plunked his hat on his head, feeling antsy and ornery and out of sorts.

  He never got pissed with women, never lost his cool, but as he headed over to his truck, he had to admit he was feeling pretty darn frustrated right now with the woman who owned that sultry accent. And he’d yet to lay eyes on the chick.