Tina Leonard - The Twins' Rodeo Rider

Just plain ol’ Frog now. “I apparently am the frog that got put back in the pond,” he said, turning on some country-western tunes to commiserate with him as he sang his way into New Mexico. He’d start off in Santa Fe, work his way into shape.

Thought about Suz’s swimming skills a lot on the way, and how happy she’d looked rising out of the water, victorious. The blue-haired sylph had put a lot of effort into refining her stroke over the week, and a little shame crept into him that he’d doubted her.

That was not hero material. No wonder she’d not even glanced his way at the finish line.

So tonight was his first ride. Frog got his number pinned on, went to shoot the breeze with the fellows. It wasn’t going to be easy to establish the kind of friendships he had with his team back in BC. But when you were a renegade persona non grata, you bucked up and moved along.

“How you doing, buddy?” Someone clapped him on the back, but Frog didn’t see who it was as they went by. He waited for his name to be called, rode a respectable ride, but without a decent enough number to make it into the next round he pushed on to the next rodeo.

Two weeks later, the blue-haired angel of his dreams appeared beside the chute in Arizona where his bull was about to be loaded. “Suz!”

She nodded. “Yes. You big chicken-hearted weasel.”

“I suppose I deserve that.”

“You do deserve that.” She glared at him. “After you ride, I want to talk to you, buster.”

Gladly was what he wanted to say. His eyes ate her up. “Okay. I’ll be out in eight,” he said, posturing a little.

She scoffed and went to the grandstand. He grinned. “Things are looking up, ol’ buddy,” he told the bull being loaded. “Look out for me. My name is all over you.”

The bull thought little of his comments, and tossed him in under two seconds—well, maybe two seconds, but the guys later said it was doubtful—and stomped him a little just to make his point. Frog writhed in the gritty arena, helped out quick by a couple of bullfighters.

Suz met him, her eyes huge. “Are you all right?”

“Except for a missing gizzard or two, I should be fine. Maybe my stomach muscles are papier-mâché, but they should strengthen back up eventually. A year from now,” he said, falling with a groan into the chair the bullfighters steered him to. A rodeo doctor ran over, checking him out, proclaiming he just needed rest and TLC and maybe some kisses for his ouchies.

Nobody laughed. Even Frog knew it had been a near thing.

“Come on, you big baby.” Suz helped him to his feet. “Where’s your room?”

“I sleep in my truck,” he said, feeling pain radiate from the roof of his mouth to the soles of his feet.

“Well, we’re getting a room.”

“I like the sound of that,” he said, meaning he could use a lengthy lie-down in a real bed to try to get his innards back to 3-D shape and regular form rather than smashed flat as peanut butter.

“Settle down, cowboy. I’m going to nurse you back to health, and that’s it.”

“Thank you,” he managed to gasp out as she folded him into a human accordion into his own truck and drove to find a hotel. “What are you doing here?”

“I told you. I came to bless you out for being such a faithless knucklehead. I’m not surprised at all to see you in this shape. You’re clearly a man who doesn’t learn easily.”

“This may be true.” He caught a whiff of perfume and something else sweet, like sexy woman, something he hadn’t smelled in his truck in a long time. “That’s the only reason you’re here? You could have blessed me out by cell phone.”

“Not near as satisfying as in person.” She stopped outside a cozy B and B and looked at him. “Looks like doilies for drapes. Can you handle this much toile and chintz?”

“All I do is toil and whatever else you said.” He felt like he was time traveling out of his head a bit. “Good luck finding a room.”

“Be right back.”

He sighed when she left because the intoxicating scent went with her. God, he was glad to see her. Shocked as all get-out, but glad.

And that’s when it hit him like a bundle of thunderbolts sent from above: he had a thing for Suz Hawthorne. And not just any old thing—he was head over heels for her. Irretrievably and irrevocably. From the stiffy in his jeans to the grin on his face when she was around, he was in love with that little fireball.

She tore open his door, jumping him clean out of his stupefied reverie. “She has one room. For the record, we’re married.”

“Hot damn.” She helped him out of the truck, a slow, painful effort on his behalf. “I knew you’d get me one way or another. That swim must have worked, after all.”

“Just keep walking to bungalow number three, and if you could turn the motor off your mouth, it would be ever so nice.”

“That BC shtick knew you were meant to be mine,” he said, groaning torturously when she helped him to the bed. He climbed in ungracefully. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be able to provide you with any marital bliss at the moment.”

She laughed, and it kind of flattened his ego again.

“I’m going out to get us some food. Lie there and don’t do anything else stupid.”

Suz flashed out the door. Frog tossed his hat away. “Stupid?” he asked. “Anything else stupid?”

What had she meant by that? He couldn’t remember doing anything stupid. She hadn’t put the remote by him, and he was too sore to reach the cell phone in his back pocket, so he lay there like a suffering succotash until he awakened, realizing she was back in his room, and he smelled the delicious fragrance of home-cooked food.

“You shouldn’t have, beautiful,” he said.

“Shouldn’t have what?”

“Cooked for me.” He sniffed the air again without opening his eyes. “Smells like the Hanging H in here. I’ve missed that place.”

“That’s nice. Try to get some of this soup down your fast-talking gullet.”

Well, that didn’t sound very nice. Frog started to question her comment, realized the soup was quite tasty. “Why are you really here?”

“I told you. I want a baby.”

Alarm bells sounded in his head. He sat up, pushed the soup away. “Wait. I don’t remember any conversation about a baby.”

She laughed. “Just seeing how out of it you really are.”

“I’m not that out of it.” In fact, not only was he in pain right now, he was good and rattled. “Wait a minute, you’re not here on a baby-making mission, are you? Because that’s what Jade did to Ty, you know, and before he knew it, he was...”

She looked at him and his words trailed off. “He was what?”

“Well, married. First he was a father, of course, which he was the last one to know about, and then he was married.” Now that he thought about it, that string of events actually had a nice ring to it. “Hey! I didn’t like you kissing Squint! It looked a little enthusiastic to me, especially for a girl who’d just swum a race and should have been lacking oxygen.”

She gave him a look he would distinctly term as disbelieving. “Don’t be an ape. I don’t ask who you kiss.”

“I haven’t kissed anyone! Not since Ty dragged us all to BC for brides.” He frowned. “Now that I think about that, that’s unnatural. Kiss me.”

“I don’t think so. Eat.”

“You kissed Squint.” He didn’t want to eat. What he wanted was Suz’s mouth, and she didn’t seem too inclined to share those sexy lips of hers. “That doesn’t seem right. You would have kissed me, if I’d been at the finish line.” He experienced some serious regret that he’d had such little faith in his blue-streaked bombshell. “And you didn’t seem too pained about kissing him, either.”