Page 4 of Rogue Cowboy (Montana’s Rodeo Cowboys #3)

Riley tried to channel some cowgirl sass.

She used to have it—buckets of it. She had to defuse the situation between Cole and Rohan.

She had to get Cole to keep his mouth shut.

Get on his way. What was he doing here? The thoughts spun round and round like they were in her Ninja Blast portable blender.

“You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay,” Cole intoned, and she wondered who he was trying to reassure—her or him. But why would he care? He could have come back any time over the past five-plus years. But nope. Not that she’d wanted him to.

“Breathe. Remember how to count? In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.”

He pressed her hand against his chest and matched his breathing to his slow words. He repeated. Again. Then again.

“I can’t,” she confessed even as she tried, but kept tripping up and she was practically hyperventilating.

His large hand cupped the back of her head.

“Breathe, Riley. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. Tell me about your tree.”

Her shoulders hurt from her trying not to let them bounce up and down as she attempted to suck in air.

“Breathe. You told me about your tree on the ranch. The special one. The ponderosa pine that was in the small grove of silver maples. The one you’d ride out to picnic under. Climb to catch the glimmer of sun on Miracle Lake.”

“How the hell do you know this?” Rohan’s voice was tight.

“Get the kit. We’re crowding her. She needs air.”

Rohan must have listened because the energy around her settled.

“Close your eyes. See the tree. Feel the bark. Rough? Smooth?”

She clung to his voice. He just felt so calm, so strong in the storm that even she wanted to do what he said.

She closed her eyes to stop the humiliating tears.

Cole was the kindest man in the world. Maybe even kinder than her father.

And he’d mostly seen her at her worst. Of all the times for him to show up—and she’d fantasized about a reunion plenty—this was not the smoothly sexy ‘look what you passed up’ of her dreams.

She could listen to that low sexy rumble of a voice forever. Had briefly fantasized that she could.

Childish idiot.

“Rough,” she whispered, picturing it, remembering. She put her hand out, Cole’s palm was rough against hers. Warm. Strong.

Safe.

But men were not safe. She’d learned that.

Cole had saved her. But then left her alone.

“What did you smell? Remember. You told me.”

She opened her eyes. She knew he wasn’t here to stay.

She’d known this day was coming. Was shocked it hadn’t come years ago.

But she was a Montana cowgirl. She’d once rode with the wind.

Stood on the back of a horse and done tricks.

She’d once sung on stages to ten people and then ten thousand.

She could do anything. She just had to believe it. Believe in herself again.

“I smelled wood. And pine. Earth. Hint of animal. And snow from the Copper Mountain, snow in the air, water in the breeze cool across my cheeks.”

She kept her eyes open this time, not wanting to miss the way his straight thick brows could be so expressive with their own language. And she’d always loved his eyes. Deep blue and yet with yellow and black flecks that reminded her of a wolf in the woods, watching out for her.

Yeah. She was still that girl rockin’ the fantasy that her white-hat cowboy would come and ride to her rescue.

“You’re wearing a black hat,” she noted, wondering if she should read something into that—maybe she’d better, when her cheek stopped screeching.

“I got it.” Rohan flung himself on his knees beside Cole like he was sliding into first base, and Riley realized her father and several of the rodeo committee weren’t far behind.

Riley scrunched her eyes shut again. “Fabulous.”

Could she look any more like an idiot damsel in distress? If she still had a media presence, she’d be canceled big time for being the epitome of the anti-cowgirl.

And here came Connor McFarland with a full medical kit.

“Eyes on me, Riley,” Cole said, his voice a lullaby in between the sharp explanations and questions, and she felt the band constrict around her chest again, and her stomach churn.

She was going to throw up. She’d been fighting it since the hit.

And why not. Give Cole a repeat of the first time he’d saved her because no good deed, right. Remind him why he left and stayed gone.

“I got you.”

She didn’t see his lips move. But she heard him. Maybe they had telepathy.

Yeah, and Cinnamon can become a unicorn and fly.

Cole snapped the cold pack, and she sighed as he placed it against her cheek and looked at the badass watch that looked like it could command a mission to space.

“Hold that,” he said, his eyes a deep well she could swim in. “Can you take a look at the back of her head? She might need stitches.”

It was only then that Riley realized Cole had been holding a bandana to the back of her head, and when he gently removed it so Connor could take a look, she saw it was drenched in blood.

“Sorry,” she whispered.

“You owe me,” he deadpanned. “It was my favorite.”

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Riley promised.

“No, I will,” Rohan said. “I was the hothead.”

“We dating now?”

Rohan snorted. “You could have texted you were coming for a visit, Cole. Last time I saw you you had a full beard and hair down past your shoulders like a girl.”

Cole had had long hair? It was clipped close now, highlighting his high cheekbones like blades and his strong jaw. She wondered if he had a picture.

“I’m waiting for an explanation, Rohan,” their father snapped.

Riley’d never heard that tone from him, and she continued to focus on her breathing since she had such an avid audience.

Tried to think of something jokey to say to calm everyone but came up blank.

Cole communicated quietly with Connor but continued to tap out a count of four on her thigh like their own private Morse code.

“I can clean and glue it,” Connor said. “But she should go to the hospital and get a CAT scan for a concussion.”

“I’ll take her,” both Rohan and Cole said at the same time.

Rohan frowned. “She’s my sister.”

Her father’s suspicious and still angry stare burned back and forth between Rohan and Cole.

Double fabulous. At least Cinnamon had calmed, though she snorted her disapproval of the crowd.

“I’m fine. I’m not going to the hospital. And no, you’re not shaving my head so you can stitch or glue or whatever.”

“Is that a medical term I missed?” Connor’s smile was easy, but his gaze was far too assessing, and Riley wanted to stand up. Get some space. As if reading her mind, Cole lifted her up, held her loosely against him.

“Hey, I’m still treating,” Connor objected. “How many of me do you see?”

“One too many. And why aren’t you off on a helicopter playing hero this weekend?”

“And miss the rodeo? Never. I’m moonlighting three shifts this weekend. First time I’ve been able to do it, as everyone wants to be where the action is.”

“Let’s not have any more action like this,” her father said sourly. “Rohan, Cole, a word.”

Connor sat her on a bench and gently probed her scalp with antiseptic.

She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out, and sat on her hands so she wouldn’t grab on to Cole when he stroked a hand down her arm and turned toward her father.

Connor rooted around his kit, and Riley resigned herself to treatment. She didn’t want to go to the hospital.

“Think, it’s going to be more than a few words,” Rohan groused.

“Your sister’s no longer nineteen.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Rohan turned toward him.

“Boys.” Riley pushed off the bench, fists balled and if she was bleeding more, so what? Someone had to have a cool head. “Stop acting like you’ve transported back to medieval times and I’m under your…your protection or whatever backward mind-set you’re rocking.”

“You are my sister,” Rohan insisted. “Of course I’m going to protect you.”

“Ugh,” Riley said. “Like Cole said, I’m not nineteen.”

“You’re mine to protect,” Cole said, making everything weird again.

She held up a finger—not sure that would shut everyone up.

“I’m sorry I hit you, Riley. I was aiming for Cole, even though I didn’t know it was Cole, but I do want to know what I walked into.

” Rohan looked obstinate. “I served with Cole. Faced life or death with him, but then he disappears off the radar. No word. No nothing. And then he turns up out of the blue and is stroking my much younger, sweet, fragile, innocent sister like she’s fabric he’s thinking of purchasing to reupholster a couch. ”

Fragile? Innocent? Riley felt like her brain was fizzing like those old-fashioned Zotz candies that the Scoop ice cream shop sometimes carried in the glass jars.

“Can I hit him now?” Cole looked at her, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Do you know my daughter?” her dad asked, once again sounding like he was reasonable and in charge.

“Hell, yes he does,” Rohan griped. “I asked him once to check on Riley when she had just moved to LA for the recording sessions, and my leave got canceled due to a deployment.” He glared at Cole. “You went. Said she was fine. I trusted you.”

Riley could practically see the alpha in Cole leap to get free.

“Stop being so medieval and dramatic,” Riley said. “Cole did come and play tourist. We had fun and he left.”

“How much fun?” Rohan glared at her.

“None of your business.” She rolled her eyes. It felt good to rile him up a little. At least she wasn’t prostrate panicking over nothing, forgetting how to do a basic body function.

“I want to know what your intentions are, Cole,” Rohan demanded.

OMG. Can this get worse?

“He’s recently retired from the army and works for Jameson Ranch stock contracting. He said the ranch is thinking about…” Her father paused, looked at her, then Cole, and his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What are you really doing here, Cole Jameson from Texas?”

Riley felt her stomach swoop. Cole was here on business? Not for her? Before she could wrap her head around that fact and how she should feel about it, Cole—the man she thought of as being quiet, reserved—was talking. Again.

“I suppose the proper phrase would be courting your daughter.”

Is it stalking to notice that you haven’t posted up any new music?

Riley didn’t answer for eight hours as she worked in the barn, completed three after-school training sessions with young barrel racers and played sous chef to her father’s steak, potato and grilled vegetable dinner.

Did it feel like stalking? Did Cole care?

Even though she’d been lying for months to her family about everything being fine, she told Cole the truth.

I don’t have anything new to say.

Neither did he. For nearly three weeks. And Riley didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.