Seduction of Saber (Saving the Sinners of Preacher's Bend #3) (13 page)

First, he had to keep his ass on a very mean bull, the
meanest thus far, for the full eight seconds. He had to live up to his namesake
and draw in the points for getting his butt shit-whipped. Anything less than
eight seconds and he’d never live it down. Nor live down the good-nature jibes
from his testosterone cohorts.

The promoters had scheduled him to ride last, as
always. That meant he would have to wait a good two to three hours before he
could see what Ms. Hillard was made of. Steel and stone? Or all soft and sweet
on the inside?

Once that particular endeavor completed, the glory and
praise given over to him on a silver platter, plus the recognition of riding
the meanest, nastiest bull alive…Julia Hillard would literally be putty in his
hands. There wasn’t a single woman alive that could resist the charms of an
accomplished Bull Man. Patterson had never met one before.

And if there was one thing in his life he knew he
could do, and do well, it was keeping his ass on a roped bull for the full
eight seconds just to please the masses. If lucky, he’d do his eight; react to
the adoration of the crowd, then startle this woman right out of her boots by
claiming her as his. It shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish if turning on the
charm.

He sat down on the bed, putting real thought to how
this charm would come out.

There was a lot to be said about the complexities of a
small town. An awful lot most city folks simply ignored.

Monday morning the rodeo trucks rolled in, dragging in
the dirt, dust, grime and heat, along with their big eighteen wheels. Julia
spent the entire day washing windows, floors, and rugs, trying to keep as busy
as she could inside the boarding house, with hopes to keep her mind off Friday
night’s rather unexpected turn of events.

Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Theodora Rosebud started her
Bitch
Day
cycle a full six days early. She came straight over to the Tressle
Boarding House quite early in the morning to warn Julia of the terrible dangers
of so many men showing up and surrounding an unprotected single female. And, to
tell Julia what she should actually do to protect herself from the likes of any
one of them. Namely, have a loaded shotgun in the near vicinity of her bed.

She’d reiterated all women should know how to use one
under duress.

Theodora had said, “One can never be too sure when it
comes to rowdy, sweaty men,” as if she knew anything about such things.

Late Wednesday afternoon, while taking her morning run
down Main Street, purely because her day had started out so poorly and it was
the first and only moment she’d gotten to do her daily run, Julia witnessed two
police vehicles, eight rodeo men, and numerous spectators watching, with
interest, the escape of a very mean two thousand pound bull. Its name…White Hot
Lightning. There wasn’t a stitch of black hair on the creature’s hide; an all-white
hide, and horns that were at least four feet in length.

It took five full hours to catch the beast. Moreover,
when they had, the bull turned even meaner. Theodora’s patch of lettuce would
never be the same. And a few of the old woman’s prized rosebushes got crushed
under the weight of the animal’s hooves.

If Officer Wesley hadn’t been close to shooting the
animal, just to get it to turn its head in the right direction and go back from
where it came from, Ms. Theodora Rosebud would have. She’d been nurturing one
of her rose bushes over the last few months in order to take it to the local
fair come late August, and hopefully win first place for her efforts. Nothing
was to mess with a prized winning rosebush with Theodora’s name on it. Not even
a rodeo bull on the loose.

Officer Wesley had given the man in charge of the
animal a hefty fine for endangering the lives of the many citizens of Preacher’s
Bend. No amount of bribery could be done to get him out of five hundred dollars
he’d surely not counted on losing, especially when Ms. Rosebud got riled up
into angry. The owner of the bush wanted the man thrown in jail. Regrettably,
the holding cells were temporarily occupied by a few of the more rowdy of men
in town.

Luckily Thursday quieted down a bit; a more usual
routine, with normal activities taking place. Folks were milling about, doing a
little grocery shopping, and a little catching up with the gossip over a cup of
coffee down at Rachel’s. With only a few late-niters coming out of the police
station, yawning; everything was as it should be.

Amazingly, an entire rodeo had been set up on the
outskirts of town by late Thursday afternoon. The animals were where they were
supposed to be. And each of the four hundred men already tucked in motels,
hotels, and trailers that ran down a stretch of wooded highway nearly fifty
miles long, behaving, with not a single woman in sight harmed.

Julia was among those individuals not harmed. She’d
done her best to stay clear of the west end of town and kept to the running of
the boarding house. She had no great desire to come face to face with a large
loose bull again. Her father kept a few bulls over the years on his farm, but
nothing quite like White Hot Lightning. Just the creature’s name tightened her
gut.

Saber Patterson, however, virtually disappeared from sight.
Julia wasn’t aware if he was still offering what he’d asked of her, or not. So,
come Friday evening she wasn’t ready when her came calling to her door.

Dressed in raggedy old jeans and a horribly stained
T-shirt, she caught sight of the man standing on her front porch with a large
bouquet of roses in his hand. His presence stunned her speechless.

“You’re not dressed?” Saber raised a brow to her
battered attire as she opened the door.

He had on a very nice looking red silk shirt and new
blue jeans. With a jet-black cowboy hat on his blond head to match the
jet-black cowboy boots on his feet, he looked delicious.

She unconsciously licked her lips, expecting tonight’s
dessert to be so damn fine.

“Dressed for what?”

Julia stepped aside as he entered the Tressle Boarding
House. Saber could come and go at will. Tonight he’d chosen to ring the
doorbell, as a gentleman should when asking a woman out. He removed his hat
once inside.

“For our date.”

“You told me it wasn’t a date, that I would be your
guest, nothing more. I was going to meet you there.”

“It is a date and I lied, and you’re not dressed
either way; guest, date, and everything in between.”

Julia took the flowers Saber held out to her and
sniffed them appreciatively. “Thank you. But I wish you would have told me what
it really was. I wouldn’t have put most of my day into painting the den with
two different colors or cleaning up all the dust.”

First eyeing the flowers, then Saber, she added, “You
didn’t steal these from Theodora Rosebud, did you? She’s pissed enough about
the rodeo. I hate to see what happens if one from that rodeo swipes her
flowers.”

Saber grinned, shaking his head. “No. I didn’t steal
them. They came from a florist down in Sparta. I tried callin’, Little Darlin’.
You wouldn’t pick up the phone.”

“Didn’t hear it ring,” she supplied, moving toward the
kitchen with the unexpected, delicate bouquet. She’d never been given roses
before. It made her all a quiver. “Besides, don’t you live here, temporarily?
You could have stopped in at any time today and said
‘Get a move on it
,
Julia
.”

“
Get a move on it
?” he mimicked, watching her
arrange the flowers into a glass vase and then set them out on the kitchen
table. “Should I have said that to you?”

She took another appreciative sniff. She loved the
scent of roses. A few stems of freesia were mixed in the bouquet to give it
more color. He’d spared no expense.

“You know what I meant, Mr. Patterson.”

He moved closer to her body, stalling the rest of her
coming thoughts. “Do I?”

“Yes,” she whispered toward his face.

“Please stop calling me Mr. Patterson. It makes me
feel old.”

Julia took a deep breath, and regrettably had to admit
to missing the smell of this man. Leather. Musk. Old cigar. The way his dimples
came about? She missed that too.

She’d missed a whole lot about the incredible Saber
Patterson while he’d been helping set up the rodeo with the other men. And
she certainly should not be missing anyone. Not at her age. Not when she’d
already convinced her body she didn’t need a man in her life in order to make it
happy.

As his hands found their way to the side of her head,
and he suddenly kissed her, savoring the taste of him inside her mouth, Julia
groaned. She wasn’t happy without a man. How the hell did she think she’d
believe this lie?

“God, I missed that—and you—over these last few days,”
he said, pulling away, almost as if he could read her mind.

Julia licked her lips. She was much too afraid to
speak, yet found voice to say, “How is that possible? You and I barely know
each other. You can’t miss someone you barely know.”

She was trying to make her point come across about
this sad fact, but nothing seemed to work.

“No? Then why is it I can’t think straight when not
inside this boarding house with you? A man has to think straight to be able to
ride bulls, Little Darlin’. You, my dear, are messing with success. Not a good
thing.”

In response, she carelessly shrugged her shoulders;
though his hands were still at either side of her head and felt so great there.

“Damned if I know why you can’t think straight,
cowboy? I’ve certainly been able to do so.” She made a move to step away, out
of his very dangerous reach, hoping to hide another whopper of a lie.

He released her face, but his arm snaked out to grab her
by the wrist. “Oh, you know, Little Darlin’,” he warned. “You know perfectly
well what you’re doin’ to me. And why.”

“Do I?” Her eyes widened, Julia yanking her arm to get
her wrist out of his grasp; failing pathetically.

“Yes. You do.” His promise more as a threat as he
pulled her closer. “After the rodeo ends tonight, you will be makin’ up for it,
in spades.”

Julia balked.
Says who?
No one should be so freely allowed to tell her what
she is expected to do.

“Mr. Pa …um, Saber …what if I say no to this?” She
raised a brow, baiting the man. “Then what?”

He grinned dangerously, but dropped her arm. “You
won’t say no.”

“I won’t?” she questioned.

“No. You won’t,” he repeated. “Get dressed, Ms.
Hillard. I’m takin’ you out on the town tonight, first to one damn fine Rodeo,
then to dinner. After that, we’ll just have to see what happens.”

“You’re telling me what to do again, Mr. Patterson,”
she warned. Her tone of voice not quite matched to the widening of her eyes or
the heat inside her cheeks.

“Then do it.” He turned her body and playfully slapped
her on the behind. “I’ll sit right here and wait for you to get yourself
gussied up for our date.” He took a seat at the head of her kitchen table.

“Wouldn’t you be a bit more comfortable in the other
room?”

This raised the cowboy’s brow. “
What
other
room?” he asked.

“The living room, Mr. Patterson…you know, the room
with sofas, and where most gentlemen usually wait for their guests to get
themselves dressed for a night out on the town.”

“Why, Ms. Hillard, for a moment I had thought you
might want help in that getting dressed department—or undressed.” He hung the
rest of this very suggestive words wide open as thick sexual tension filled the
air.

It took Julia less than two seconds to hightail it to
her bedroom and get ready for her…well,
non-date
, so to speak, without
any of Saber’s help. She ripped apart her closet trying to find that one
perfect outfit, that one pair of perfectly matched panties and bra of black
lace, that one perfectly sexy blouse with the gold buttons. It was almost as if
she was dressing for sex.

And that was what it would be. Saber all but
insinuated the
after
part of their evening would be eventful. She wanted
it. He wanted it. Moreover, neither could deny what was going to happen—eventually.
Sex would be inevitable.

Twenty minutes later, Saber whistled under his breath
as she glided into the living room. She wore a newly purchased pair of blue
jeans, her favorite purple and gold blouse, a pair of cowboy boots she rarely
put on her feet, and a good covering of makeup. It wasn’t as if she did this
every day, but it was like riding a bike. Once you’d done it, it all came back
quickly.

“Now you look like a girl who’s goin’ to a rodeo,
Little Darlin’.” The man stood up swiftly, deep appreciation for what he saw
mirrored in his silver-blue eyes. He handed her one of the roses pulled from
the bouquet.

She took a brief sniff and smiled. “Then it’s a good
thing that it’s exactly where I am going, Mr. Patterson.”

“Too bad we can’t just skip the bull riding part of
our evening,” he grinned, his eyes swimming with promise, his tone equally so.
“And just get to the good stuff.”

“Would you even do such a thing?” she asked, holding
her breath as he moved closer still. His hands were maneuvering her body to his
warm chest, her fingers splayed against the heat of solid muscle.

“No. Not this time, Little Darlin’. I am under binding
contract. And the promoters want
Eight Second Wonder
to strut his
stuff.” His voice had lowered to a heavy rasp. “They want a performance, Julia.
And that is exactly what they will get. But once it is all over, my full and
undivided attention will be on you and no one else. I promise.” He leaned down
and kissed her, then drew back. “I have to please the masses. Not just please myself,
I’m afraid.”

Julia’s senses were reeling. She didn’t care if he
pleased the masses. All she wanted was this man to please her. And he was.
Tenfold. For an accomplished Bull Man, Saber Patterson had the softest lips of
any man and she suddenly could not get enough of him, reaching for his face.