Handful of Sky by Tory Cates

was lucky I drew your top bronc. I needed a good ride. Needed it bad. Just me and an honest horse. Not Hunt McIver, one-time bronc-busting champion with a couple thousand fans waiting to see if he still had it or not. For one afternoon I wanted to be any cowboy putting down his money and taking his chances. I wanted to rodeo, pure and simple. To get down into that chute without feeling like I had a business manager and contracts for commercials and offers from Hollywood and a big, fat, bloated reputation all riding on my back. Just me and a good horse, that’s all I wanted. Can you understand that, Shallie?”
    “I think anyone who really loves rodeo can understand.” Shallie’s tone spoke more than her words about the bond of understanding between them. It was a bond forged by a mutual love of the raw heart of rodeo which had much more to do with the sport’s beginnings on a forsaken prairie somewhere when men and mountsfaced one another in contests played out for survival, not for the cheers of crowds seated in concrete arenas.
    “Good,” Hunt boomed out with a heartiness that sounded forced to Shallie’s ears. “Now that we’ve got that all squared away, I’m taking you to meet my grandfather. He heard you were pretty and—” Hunt stopped. He scooped Shallie off the fence and into his arms. “I want to show him that the rumors were true.” He held Shallie against his chest, his arm crooked around the swell of her buttocks. The combination of being swept off the railing and feeling the hard press of his body against hers left Shallie temporarily short of breath.
    He grinned triumphantly up at her, his full lips split by the gleam of solid, white teeth. It was a smile that Shallie reckoned a goodly number of women had succumbed to over the years. She put her hands on the broad muscles of his shoulders to steady and to lever herself away from him. He lowered her slowly until his taunting lips were level with Shallie’s breasts. If he were to turn his head to either side their tips, pressing against the thin cotton of her blouse, would be at his mouth.
    A scuffle and the snort of unsuccessfully suppressed laughter burst from the darkness behind them. Shallie distinguished Wade’s dumpy form in the shadows. Once again he’d caught her in a less than authoritative position. She tried to reclaim what shreds of dignity she might have left by demanding icily, “Mr. McIver, if youwould be so good as to put me down, I would appreciate it greatly.”
    With an agonizing slowness he lowered her, managing to graze every inch of her body with his own during the descent. When she was finally on the ground, Hunt turned his attention to the intruder lurking behind them. In two surprisingly swift steps he had closed the distance between himself and Wade and was confronting him face to face.
    “Who the hell are you?” he roared at the eavesdropper. “And what are you doing prowling around like a thief?”
    “He works for me,” Shallie interjected.
    “Are you in the habit of peeping on your boss, mister?”
    “Nuh-nuh-no,” Hoskins stammered meekly. “I was just looking to find out what I should do with the steers we brung.”
    “What do you think you should do? Serve them all punch in demitasse cups?” Hunt’s sarcasm bit like a whip. “Get the stock unloaded, man. My livestock superintendent will tell you where the stock tank is and show you where you’re bunking tonight. And, as long as you’re on Circle M property, don’t go sneaking around like some damned sewer rat. Is that understood?”
    “Yuh-yuh-yessir.” Hoskins sounded like a frightened bully called up in front of the principal. As he turned toleave, however, he slashed Shallie with a glare burning with smoldering resentment.
    “Can’t say I’m too impressed with your hired help,” Hunt announced.
    “We can’t afford to pay much,” Shallie admitted. “We take what we can get.”
    “Well, you don’t have to take weasels like him. Come on,