Heidi Hormel - The Bull Rider's Redemption

Was this what she’d pictured when she’d smiled for the camera with her new MBA diploma in hand? She was no closer to a position of real responsibility than a polecat with a ten-foot pole. Of anyone, her mother should be able to understand Clover’s ambition to be more than a clothes hanger with breasts. Clover wanted to be the kind of businesswoman her mother was, one who made her mark on an industry.

Why did she have to explain anything to her mother? Clover shouldn’t have been forced into the gown and into a position that should have been filled by an intern. The jet flew through the darkened sky and Clover made a decision she’d been working up to since her father had tempted her with a dream job: CFO of Van Camp Worldwide. She’d be second only to her father in power. But it wasn’t just the power that mattered—it was also the fact that the position as chief financial officer would allow her to finally use her crazy fast and nearly supernatural ability to look at numbers and see where the problems were. She was done with fashion and more than done trying to please her mother and her Texas-sized ego. Why had she ever imagined that her mother would loosen her grasp on the reins of Cowgirl’s Blues?

* * *

CLOVER SHOVED HER foot hard into the stiff boots she hadn’t worn since...well, since that summer, the one where she’d met Danny Leigh, lost her virginity and had her heart broken all in the space of a few weeks. Ahh, youth was wasted on youth. She grinned until she remembered her mission. She’d accepted her father’s challenge, after two weeks’ notice to her mother, who told her to leave immediately and not let the door hit her on the way out. Clover’s job over the next few months for her father was to prove her worth by convincing property owners and the town council that creating a resort out of Angel Crossing was the best way to save the Arizona town.

She checked over the packed luggage—jeans, cowgirl shirts and plain white undergarments. She needed to dress her part from her skin to her hat. Sure, the town would know her and her purpose. After all, Danny was the mayor now. She wondered if her father had sent her here because he remembered her relationship with the junior champion bull rider. Maybe. Her genius with numbers was matched by her father’s photographic memory.

Clover didn’t care. She was on her way, and if she needed to use an old relationship to get what she wanted? So be it.

* * *

“HEY, BIDDER, BIDDER.” The auctioneer started his patter as the sun beat down on Danny’s cowboy hat. He was waiting for someone to start the bidding. Then when it looked like the property was ready to sell, he’d jump in. The buildings at the very end of Miner’s Gulch, Angel Crossing’s main thoroughfare, were perfect for his plans because they were cheap, on large lots.

The crowd was sparse. Good. Probably meant the price would be even lower than he’d hoped. Finally the auctioneer accepted a bid. Danny held his number at his side. He didn’t want to jump into the bidding too early. Someone behind him and to the left upped the price by $2,000. The auctioneer looked pained.

“Come on, folks,” he said. “These properties are worth a whole lot more than that.”

That little push got another person to up the price. Then Danny nearly bid when the auctioneer looked like he was going to call everything done.

“You’re making me work for my money, aren’t you? I see John back there. Are you bidding?” Silence. Danny saw the auctioneer lifting the gavel to start the count down.

Danny held up his number and nodded. He was sure he’d be the winning bidder now... Then a feminine voice said, “$155,000.”

That put the properties near the top of his price range. He and the all-male crowd looked around for the woman in their midst. Though he was tall, all he saw were hats. The high desert where his town sat might not get boiling temperatures—except in the dead of summer—but the sun was just as fierce as anywhere else in the Grand Canyon State.

“Mayor?” the auctioneer asked. Danny nodded and gestured that he’d match the bid and add $1,000. The bidder’s voice sounded familiar but wasn’t an Angelite.

“It’s back to you, Mayor. The little lady does seem determined.”

Danny nodded and added $2,000 to her bid of $166,000. He’d already gone beyond what he had to spend. She must have nodded because the auctioneer pointed at Danny again. Damn. If he begged friends and family he might be able to cover the check. He did more calculations in his head. Could he still come out with a little bit of profit after converting the properties? He had to shake his head no. Converting the old warehouses into homes might put money in his pocket in the long term and make Angel Crossing a better place, but he’d be in the red on the project for longer than he could afford. Maybe if he was still bringing in the big purses from his bull rides. But not now.

“Sold,” the auctioneer said. “To the lady in the pink hat.” Now Danny saw her. About the same height as the men around her, although she’d still be shorter than him. He had to know who’d just bought a chunk of his town. He quickly moved toward her as she walked to the legal eagles ready to sign over the properties as is.

“Pardon, ma’am,” Danny said, raising his voice a little to catch her attention. She turned and he stopped. Hells no. “Clover?”

She smiled, her perpetually red lips looking as lush and kissable as they had been during that rodeo summer. The one where he’d won his buckle, lassoed a beauty queen and lost his virginity.

“Hello, Danny,” she said, a light drawl in her voice. “I heard you were mayor here. Congratulations.” She smiled again. Not the real one he’d come to love, but the staged one that stretched her lips, lifting her cheeks but never reaching her bluebonnet eyes.

“Why?” he asked, not exactly sure what he meant.

“Good investment.” She turned back to the paperwork.

Danny wouldn’t be dismissed this time. He’d let her take the lead when they’d been teens because she was older than him by two years. He’d seen her as a woman of the world. Not now. Not all of these years later. He wasn’t a horny sixteen-year-old with more hormones than brains.

“What exactly do you plan to do with the properties?”

She continued to sign where the official from the county tax sale office pointed but didn’t answer.

“I’m mayor and chair of the revitalization committee,” he added. True, though the “revitalization committee” was just him. He wanted Angel Crossing to thrive and he had plans that built on some of the changes that were already taking place. He didn’t want any of that to be ruined.

Clover nodded but didn’t turn. He was starting to get annoyed. He didn’t expect her to fall all over herself for an old boyfriend or even because he was mayor. He did expect her to be courteous enough to answer his very legitimate questions. He wasn’t moving until she did. Folding his arms over his chest, he stared at her...hat—not her jean-clad rear and long legs. It didn’t look like she starved herself anymore. Her mother had been big on her daughter becoming a model for her clothing line, so Clover had watched every morsel that passed her lips. He remembered her almost drooling while he’d eaten a greasy, powdered-sugar-covered funnel cake. It had taken the enjoyment out of eating it.

Slowly, deliberately, he thought, she put down the pen and took the papers before turning to him. Her expression was pleasant even without her wide smile. “What did you need, Danny?”

“I don’t need anything. I would like to know your plans for the properties, strictly as an official of the town.”

“I don’t think so.” She looked him in the eye, nearly his height in her impractical pink cowgirl boots, matched to her cowgirl shirt—probably one of her mother’s designs. She looked the same, yet different. A woman grown into and comfortable with her blue-blood nose and creamy Southern-belle skin.