Rodeo Legends: Shane
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Pamela Britton
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HarlequinChapter One
Kaitlin Cooper stared down at the plastic tube sitting on the counter of her bathroom, the twin lines of pink an evil eye that seemed to glare up at her.
“No,” she murmured, clutching the counter for support. But the two lines were unmistakable. Still, she picked the tube up, turning it this way and that, hoping against hope the pink lines were a trick of the light. They weren’t.
Pregnant. That was what the little diagram for dummies told her.
How did this happen?
She straightened, tipped her head back. Well, she knew how. But she took precautions. She had to take precautions. Stock-car racing was a male-dominated sport. All she needed were rumors of a pregnancy to unravel all the hard work she’d put into her career.
Pregnant.
Her fingernails started to ache. Only then did she take a deep breath, straighten up and firmly look herself in the eye. Her pupils were like tiny dots in blots of blue paint. Her blond hair, usually pulled back in a ponytail, hung loose around her shoulders slightly mussed, not surprising since she’d run her fingers through the long strands at least a half a dozen times while waiting for the pregnancy test to reveal its grim news.
Okay. So. She was pregnant. She’d figure out the pros and cons.
Pros: she now had an explanation for the sudden bouts of dizziness and the persistent stomach flu that had refused to go away. She wasn’t suffering the lingering effects of concussion. She wasn’t terminally ill. She was going to have a baby.
Con: she was going to have a baby.
Her sponsor would freak. She couldn’t race while pregnant, which meant she’d have to break the news to the team owner, who just so happened to be her dad, and she didn’t even want to think about how that little conversation would go. Plus she had a race in two weeks, the first race of the season. How would they find a replacement driver in time?
She leaned over the sink because she truly felt she might vomit.
How did it happen?
Duh. She’d had a quick fling with Shane Gillian, professional rodeo rider, a man she’d met in Las Vegas. He’d been there for the National Finals Rodeo. She’d been there to test her new car. They’d both been invited to the same party. They’d hit it off comparing notes about life on the road and the pitfalls of fame. Heck, they both had famous fathers, too, and, well, one thing had led to another, and she couldn’t even blame it on stupidity brought on by an overindulgence of alcohol. It had just...happened.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
She padded back to her bedroom. Her eyes caught on the massive bed in the center of the room. Her own little slice of heaven with its off-white bedspread and fluffy pillows. All she wanted to do was climb beneath the covers and pull them over her head. Her fingers shook as she automatically reached for the cell phone sitting on her nightstand. Still, she hesitated. She could always just deal with this on her own. Shane Gillian didn’t need to know. She could make an announcement detailing her need to take a break from racing...
She couldn’t take a break. People just didn’t quit for a year. What would her fans say? Scratch that. What would her mother say?
Her eyes began to burn, but she refused to cry. She hated crybabies. Race-car drivers were made of sterner stuff. She just needed to figure something out.
Her fingers scanned the contact list in her phone without her even thinking about it, and the name Shane Gillian appeared right there in black and white. She hadn’t called him...afterward. She’d assumed he, like her, had a busy life. He hadn’t called her, either. It’d been a fling. They’d both known that. Never mind the connection they’d had. Things might have turned out differently if they were different people with different careers and different lives. But they’d both known what would happen the next morning. No hard feelings.
She pressed the call button. It rang once before she hung up. This kind of news should be delivered in person. Maybe a video chat? she thought as she plopped down on the bed. Would that work? Beep. Beep. Guess what? We’re pregnant.
Her phone rang.
She about jumped out of her skin. A name flashed on the screen. He’d called her back.
Ignore him.
But she couldn’t. If she planned to meet with him, she would need to contact him sooner or later. So she took a deep breath, told herself to calm down, closed her eyes and said, “Hey.”
A deep baritone, the same one that’d sent chills up her spine the day they’d met, said, “It is you, isn’t it? I thought it might be. Recognized the area code.”
She gulped. What to say?
She opened her eyes. Stared out at the water beyond her single-story home on the shores of Lake Norman. A home she was proud of. A home she’d purchased on her own with the purse money from her first big win. It was beautiful outside. She could smell the blooms of the cherry tree from where she sat, although how the sun could still be shining when her whole world had just been turned end over end, she had no idea.
“Hello?”
“Oh, um, sorry. I didn’t mean to call. I mean, I did, I just decided I’d call you later instead.”
“Is this a bad time?”
She almost laughed. Hysterical laughter. Instead she said, “No, no. I can talk.”
Pregnant.
Silence again. She took the plunge. “I’ve, ah, been thinking about you. And, um, I have some free time this weekend. I was wondering if maybe you and I could get together?”
She could perfectly picture his blue eyes. The dark hair. The sideburns. Heck, even his smile. He had the sweetest smile. It emphasized the cleft in his chin, which always seemed to be covered by the faintest hint of a beard in the pictures she’d seen of him online.
“What did you have in mind?”
Surely he could hear the panic in her voice? Or her harsh breaths? She felt on the verge of an anxiety attack. This wasn’t just a mistake. This was a disaster. Potentially a career-ending disaster. She needed him to know. Needed his help.
“I could fly out to California...”
She left the rest of her words unspoken. She knew what he would think. That she wanted to see him again for another wild night of debauchery. What he couldn’t know was that their night together had been a complete aberration. She didn’t just fall into bed with complete strangers. She couldn’t afford to do that.
“That sounds great.”She could hear the smile in his voice. “I can show you my hometown.”
He was the son of a famous team roper. That much she knew. Some kind of multiple world champion. She’d done a little bit of Googling after their night together. She also knew he was a bull rider. And that he was good. As good as she was at driving a race car.
No driving anymore.
Despite her best efforts, she felt a knot build in her throat. It made it hard to say, “It won’t be an imposition?”
“Not at all.”
She found a pen and paper, scribbled down the details, her hands shaking so badly she doubted she’d be able to read it later.
My mother is going to kill me.
She would deal with that later. Right after she talked to Shane.
Shane.
The drop-dead-gorgeous cowboy who had rocked her world.
And gotten her pregnant.
* * *
“YOU SURE YOU don’t want to head out to the Silver Spur later on?”
Shane glanced at his brother Carson and shook his head. Hotrod, the horse he’d been riding, liked to bloat his gut whenever he cinched him up, and Shane could see the damn leather strap was hanging like an empty noose beneath the horse’s belly. Son of a—Good thing he hadn’t fallen while they were out checking the new calves. Too damn distracted thinking about her.
“I hear Amber’s going to be there,” Carson teased.
Amber Jamison was a woman who wasn’t exactly well-known for her upstanding moral conduct and who’d been chasing after Shane for as long as he could remember.
“Got plans,” he told his brother, glancing at the dark-haired mirror image of their father. “Friend coming from out of town.”
“Friend?”
Carson was grinning at him with a suggestive look in his eyes. His dad, Reese, had sired five Gillian kids. He came from a large family, even though his mom had died seven years ago. He had four cousins, too, not to mention assorted step-cousins thanks to his uncle’s first, failed marriage to a woman with kids of her own. All of them, even the ones not related to him by blood, seemed determined to see him settle down. Little did they know. The one woman in the world who’d ever piqued his interest, someone he’d never thought he’d see again, would meet him at her hotel in less than an hour. God forbid she come here. All three of his brothers and two of his cousins shared the ranch-hand quarters, and he didn’t need them to catch wind of his fling with Kaitlin Cooper.
“What’s her name?” Carson asked, one of his thick brows lifting in a teasing way. Shane slipped the bridle off his sorrel’s head. The horse tried to soothe an itch on Carson’s arm.
They stood out in front of a single-story twenty-four-horse barn made to match the ranch house a quarter mile down the road. They raised cutting horses and every one of the horses lived like a king in a Spanish-style barn with a terra-cotta-tile roof and a stucco exterior that reflected the sun’s rays, making Shane squint beneath his cowboy hat.
“None of your business.”
“None-of-Your-Business?” His brother hooked the bridle on the horn of the saddle. “I’ve met her before. Has a brother named Stay-Out-of-My-Business.”
“That’s the one.”
The Gillian families shared a large area of acreage, which meant keeping a secret would be next to impossible. Everyone knew everyone’s secrets when you were constantly under each other’s feet. His uncle and his cousins lived off to the north, but they shared in the duties of caring for five hundred head. The land had been bought with money won at numerous rodeos, including the National Finals. His dad and his uncle had been famous team ropers. Hell, they were still famous, and they’d been smart enough to invest in land and cattle back when it’d been cheap in Via Del Caballo. He planned to settle down on a portion of it, but his dad didn’t believe in simply handing things to his kids, so he was doing his best to make his own way.
You need to earn it, boy-ah.
He could perfectly hear his dad’s blustery voice. So he had to win a national championship first. And pay his dad for the land. He was almost there, too, but he’d drawn a dink in the last round of the finals last year and lost the average by a hair. He’d still won a bag of money, but not enough to pay his dad for the land and to build his dream home out in the south forty. It’d about killed him, too. He’d been drowning his sorrows when he’d met Kaitlin in December. She’d walked into the NFR after-party, and he’d been blown away because, of course, he had recognized her. He’d been a fan of stock-car racing ever since he was old enough to watch TV.
“Heellooo.”
A hand blocked his view. He realized he’d paused with his hands on the saddle, one on the cantle, the other on the pommel, and with what was no doubt a bemused smile on his face.
“Okay, spill.” Carson slipped between him and his horse. “Who is she and where’d you meet her?”
Shane sidestepped him, moving to the other side to take off his saddle. The smell of the animal’s wet coat filled the air.
“Can you leave me alone?” He hid his eyes beneath the brim of his black cowboy hat. “I’m in a hurry here.”
“Come on, man.” Carson followed him for a step or two. “I’m dying to know.”
He wouldn’t tell him. Carson would tell his dad, which would result in a lecture from dear old Dad on the importance of keeping your eye on the goal.
Carson followed him into the barn and to the tack room to the right.
“For the love of—” Shane set the saddle down on one of the saddle racks. The room held dozens of them. Championship saddles, all of them. The Dynamic Duo had been his dad and uncle’s team nickname. Rodeo legends, the both of them.
“You don’t need to know who it is. Besides, she’ll be leaving almost as soon as she arrives, and I doubt I’ll hear from her afterward. Not for a while, at least.”
But if anything, the words made his brother seem even more curious. Shane refused to talk about Kaitlin, though. Just as he hadn’t told Carson about the night he’d met her. They’d both done a good job keeping their one-night romance out of the limelight. He planned to keep it that way.
Still, he kept a watchful eye in his truck’s rearview mirror as he drove away from the ranch a half hour later. He wouldn’t put it past his brother to follow him. Carson was that way. Not a serious bone in his body. The thing was, and it irked the hell out of Shane, life just seemed to fall into place for Carson. He was a team roper like Daddy and Uncle Bob, but had he set a goal to try to make it to the NFR? Hell no. And then when he’d gotten there through blind luck, he’d just lackadaisically roped his way through each round, coming within a hairbreadth of winning the whole shebang. Meanwhile, Shane had twisted himself into knots until that final round in his event. Then he’d had the rotten luck to draw Dingo. Some things just weren’t fair.
He’d traveled halfway to town before he realized the motel was only a few miles away. He’d purposely given her the name of a place on the outskirts of Via Del Caballo. The fewer prying eyes that spotted the two of them together, the better. He loved his hometown with its rolling hills—they were green this time of year—and picturesque downtown, but the thing about Via Del Caballo was that everyone knew who everyone was. Still, he felt a little guilty as he pulled into the single-story Spanish-style motel with a wooden railing and doors that opened to the parking lot. He felt about sixteen again, like a kid sneaking out to a party.
Nervous.
He had to wipe his hands on his truck’s steering wheel. Crazy how many emotions were coursing through him. Excitement. Curiosity. Anticipation.
He would bet it was her rental car he’d parked next to. Sure enough, as he walked by he could see the rent-a-car sticker in the front windshield. He didn’t even need to knock, either, because her motel door opened and there she was, his all-American girl with her blond hair and blue, blue eyes.
“Hey there,” he said.
She smiled, but it was a forced grin, and that was his first clue that something wasn’t quite right. He’d expected a sultry grin, maybe even a flirtatious comment, but instead she stepped aside, allowing him access to her room without so much as shaking his hand.
“Sit down.”
His heart pumped double-time then, but not for the reason it’d been pounding earlier. Something on her face told him this was not a social call, and if wasn’t a social call, that meant she had news to share, and there was only one kind of news he could think of that would be responsible for wiping the smile off a beautiful woman’s face.
“Why do I have the feeling you’re about to tell me something I’m not going to be too happy to hear?”
She motioned toward the bed, and he felt his mind start to detach from his body in the same way it did right before he climbed atop a bull. She stood there, her hair loose and long around her shoulder, a red T-shirt hugging her curves, plain jeans revealing the shape of her hips, and he knew, he just knew.
“I’m pregnant.”
Good thing she’d told him to sit down.
