Phantom's voice. His hand between her shoulder blades, steering her toward me.
"My daughter, Dakota. Just in from Odessa. She took the barrel race last weekend. You two ought to get along." He looks right at his daughter, "Dakota, this is our new patch. Cade Holloway. Goes by Spur."
She sticks out her hand.
"Spur," she says. Tasting it. "That's on the nose."
"Didn't name myself, darlin'."
She takes my hand.
The grip is stronger than I expected. She doesn't let go on the beat I try to pull.
One second.
Two.
Holds me the way a woman holds a rein she isn't sure about.
"So, you're the new patch," she says. "Pops says you were a hell of a bull rider. What happened?"
"Got careless."
She tilts her head. One degree. Two.
"You don't look like a man who gets careless."
"Got careless," I say again. Quieter.
"That's not a story."
"No, ma'am."
"Are you going to tell me the story?"
"No, ma'am."
Her mouth does something—the crooked smile again, but this time it's slower, and it has an edge on it I'm not ready for.
"Good," she says. "I'd hate to think you were one of those men who hands out his whole life in the first handshake."
Something under my sternum rearranges.
Not desire.
There's desire in it, she's grown and gorgeous in the way a woman raised on a ranch is gorgeous—but desire isn't what shocks me.
What shocks me is that it took her four seconds to see straight through me.
To the part I don't show anybody.
The part that knew it was going to get on that bull in Laredo and chose to anyway.
The part that isn't careless.
The part that's what got me on the bull in the first damn place.
Ten seconds in, and I know I'm in fucking trouble.
