Chapter One
Chase Walker knewthat horse was trouble the minute he saw her. Sugar Lips—what a name for a saddle bronc—wasn’t new to the pro rodeo circuit but he’d never drawn her before. He’d heard rumors about her. Lots of them. She was wily. Unpredictable. She didn’t have one or two moves. She had too many to count. And she could throw them all into an eight-second ride.
She ought to be good for one hell of a score, he thought as he climbed into the saddle. Sugar Lips, naturally, didn’t cooperate. Why would she? It had taken twice as long as usual to get her saddled. She tried to ram him every which way in the chute, but he finally got adjusted without more than a few bumps and bruises. Making sure he was set, he gripped the rope, and said, “Let her rip.”
Sugar Lips shimmied out of the chute, threw a good-sized buck and then holy hell broke loose. She twisted and turned; she corkscrewed and bucked. Then she dropped—stiffening her front legs and double kicking with her hind legs, with a body twist thrown in, and Chase went sailing through the air and smashed into the dirt. He lay there stunned, gasping in pain, no more capable of getting up than if he’d had a cement truck parked on his chest.
Sugar Lips stepped on his chest. And that’s all she wrote.
When he came to he was being carried out of the arena. He tried to tell them to leave him the hell alone, that he could walk out under his own power, but he couldn’t get any words out. He found his voice when someone grabbed his left shoulder and he cut loose with every cuss word he knew. Damned if he didn’t nearly pass out again.
Two hours later he was at the hospital waiting for test results and stewing about the possible end to his season. Chase hadn’t been thrown so quickly since he first learned to ride broncs. He’d won the freaking Saddle Bronc World Championship for the last two seasons and was well on his way to winning this season’s, and that she-devil had thrown him as easily as if he’d been a rank amateur.
Dr. Mathews, an older man who’d been treating rodeo cowboys and cowgirls for close on forty years, and who Chase had known for at least ten of them, entered the room just then. “Well, Chase, I see you haven’t managed to kill yourself yet.”
“Ha-ha. What’s the verdict, Doc?” Maybe it felt worse than it was. Maybe his shoulder was simply dislocated and the doc could pop it back in and he’d only be out for a couple of weeks.
“’Bout the only thing you didn’t break is your head, but since you’re such a damn hardheaded cuss, that’s no surprise.” He put a film on the light box and flipped on the light. “You’ve got a fractured shoulder.” He pointed to an area that even Chase could see was bad. “You’ll need surgery for it. Then,” he said, exchanging one film for another, “there’s two cracked ribs. Lucky neither one punctured your lung.”
Shit. He’d had broken ribs before. They hurt but he could come back from them. Worst case he could strap them and ride. But a broken shoulder and surgery… “How long before I can get back, Doc?”
The doctor turned and stared at him. “You cowboys are all the same. No more sense than God gave a goat.”
“Come on, Doc. What’s the time frame?”
“Ten weeks. Twelve weeks. Or you could be out for the season.”
“The season? No way.” Ten or twelve weeks was bad enough, but the doc could be overestimating how bad it was.
“We’ll see. Them’s the breaks, cowboy.” He laughed like he’d said something uproariously funny.
Ha. Ha. Out for the season? No way in hell.
*
For a coupleof weeks after his surgery, Chase was in a lot of pain and wasn’t much use. But then he started feeling better and he tracked down his brother Marshall to ask him what he could do to help. Obviously, mucking out stalls, which was what he found Marshall doing, or any kind of physical labor was out. “Where’s Stewart?” he asked, referring to the teenager who usually mucked out stalls.
“Out sick. Hopefully, he’ll be back in a couple of days.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Feeling better, I guess?”
“Yeah. Going stir-crazy too.”
“I’m glad you asked,” Marshall said, pausing to lean on the shovel. “We need a manager.”
A manager? “You haven’t found a replacement yet?” Chase knew they’d fired the last manager when Marshall caught him stealing from them and manipulating the books to cover it up. But that had happened months ago.
“No, and Damaris and I are drowning in the work. We’re damn sick of doing that job and ours too. So, how about it?”
“Ranch management isn’t my forte.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand.
“Learn,” Marshall said shortly. “You asked and that’s what we need.”
“You, Mr. Has-his-finger-in-every-pie, want me to manage the ranch? You’ll second-guess me every step of the way.”
“Not if you do a good job.” Chase snorted. “You should be glad I do pay attention,” Marshall continued. “Otherwise who knows how long our last manager would have gone on stealing from us.”
