The Bull Rider Wears Pink (16 page)

John wasn't sure if he needed to
defend himself or shut up. All this had most definitely caught him off guard.
But maybe he could turn it around. He just had to think how.

“And I know he's going to Mike
Shannon to get pills for his problem,” Kevin continued, “because he can't
control his libido when he's around you.” The boy's body shook as he spoke,
hence the curtain shook too.

Damn, the kid had one hell of an
imagination or maybe that was chicken pox fever talking? Then again, in theory
the kid was right. John couldn't keep his eyes off Cassidy's breasts or her
butt and he was having a tough time controlling himself around her. The example
that kept coming to mind was love making without birth control.

Cassidy harrumphed while John coughed
into his hand. Then, she lifted her chin and pushed the hair out of her mouth.
It seemed Cassidy was going to address these concerns of her son’s. But not
before she tugged on the edge of her T-shirt and rolled her shoulders back.

Damn it, the woman made John look
at her breasts again.

“If I tell you—” she started.

John interrupted. “Holy shit,” he
announced, he turned to Kevin. “How the hell did you figure me out?” he asked
the boy. He would continue to play the fool. He had an investigation to finish and
he didn't need Cassidy telling her thirteen year old son all about it just
because the kid thought John was a degenerate.

“I'm not stupid,” Kevin told them.

“Fuckin’ A.”
John slapped his thigh. “You are not.” He turned to Cassidy with his hands out.
She looked suspicious. “I can't believe a thirteen year old figured me out,” he
told her. “Then again, it's probably logical,” he started, “I mean I began
looking at breasts when I was—”

“I don’t care,” the kid interrupted
John in a low voice. “Just stop staring at my mother. It's not right.” Kevin
searched his brain for an insult, “It's perverted.”

“Kevin,” Cassidy snapped. “Don't
say those things. That’s not the way it is between John and me.”

John sat on the bed. There was a
means to an end concerning all of
this,
he just had to
take another hit to get there. “All right,” he said slowly, he put his hands on
his thighs. “Since you know everything about me, would you do
me
a
favor
and let that curtain
go?” John gestured with his hand.

“No,” Kevin replied.

“Please,” Cassidy begged.

“Promise me, you'll stop looking at
my mother,” Kevin demanded. The kid could set his terms with the best of them. “And
don't touch her either,” he added as he eyed John suspiciously.

“Okay,” John agreed. “Just let the
curtain go,” he requested again. Within a minute the fabric fell back into
place and John Risk knew he would be celibate for the rest of his life. This
business of loving only one woman and especially one with a prudish kid could
get painful for a guy.

Chapter Ten

Cassidy woke up to the high pitched
voice of a woman screaming about stupid, stupid clowns. She sat up in bed and
glanced at Kevin sleeping next to her. Most of the calamine lotion was off his
face and on the pillow but he was still sleeping. Through the darkness she
could hear John shift on the cot. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.

Before he could reply, the woman
yelled. “Why don't you just take that red nose of yours back to the rodeo and
stop bothering me?” It was the inn keeper Mary. Cassidy really hoped this
wasn't escalating into a domestic violence situation.

“Ah crap,” John moaned as they
listened to the threatening sounds of Mike Shannon's muttered response.
Obviously John was thinking the same thing.

Mary shouted, “Go to hell.”

“Do you think she's okay?” Cassidy
whispered at John. The man didn't answer. But the cot springs squeaked.

“If you so much as lay a finger on
me, Mike Shannon,” Mary threatened, “I will cut off your balls and bury them
out back where nobody can find them.” Those words were followed by the thud of
something slamming. Hopefully it was the inn keeper's door and she was throwing
the deadbolt. Best way to not be a victim of domestic violence was to keep the
perpetrator out. Yes, much easier said than done.

“You've been saying that for years,”
Shannon
replied with way too much confidence for a man about to become a eunuch. “You
never follow through,” he added. “You know, your follow through has always
sucked.”

“Go to hell,” Mary suggested.
Unfortunately her voice was clear. She probably opened the door again.
Stupid, stupid woman.
Cassidy glanced at John as he stood
and pulled on his jeans. With his belt hanging at his hips, fly undone and
muscles flexing he looked like one of those blue jean models in Times Square.

“Maybe if you dedicated yourself to
a specific goal,” Shannon
continued sounding like a demented career
counselor
, “you'd
have a more successful life.”

Jeez, Mike Shannon had no right
lecturing Mary about her life. If a man tried to do that to her, Cassidy would
definitely consider burying his private parts outback. She glanced over at John
again,
he was on his knees and looking for something
under the cot.
Most likely his T-shirt.
His smooth,
bare back gleamed in a slice of street light coming through a gap in the curtains.

For such a tough man, John always
had amazingly soft skin. But it wasn't natural. The man actually used
moisturizer. Not fancy stuff but one of those brands in the big white pump
bottle priced at three ninety-nine.

“Your shirt is on the television,”
Cassidy whispered at him.

“You have no right talking to me
like that, Mike Shannon,” Mary yelled again. However, the only way she was
going to prevent Mike from talking to her like that, was to not allow the man
to talk to her at all. Cassidy planned to have a chat about a restraining order
with the inn keeper tomorrow morning. “The money from the inn made you what you
are today,” she continued. “You wouldn't have become a rodeo star without me,”
she added.

John snorted, “The man's a clown.”
Now he was looking for his socks. But after a moment he gave up and slipped his
bare feet into his boots. “Why the hell can't she just ignore him?” John
muttered looking in the mirror and smoothing his hair down. “What's so damn
hard about not letting someone get under your skin?”

While John spoke such utter
nonsense—didn't the man know love and a thick skin were incompatible?—Cassidy
studied Kevin. Amazingly her son's jaw was slack and there was drool running
out of the corner of his mouth. The kid was sleeping soundly through all the
commotion, probably because of the medicine she'd given him for the itching. “She
loves him or she did love him,” Cassidy replied with an intimate understanding
of how Mary was feeling. Love made women do stupid things like open doors and have
unprotected sex.

“Well, it’s not a healthy love,”
John remarked.

“If he hits her,” Cassidy whispered,
returning to the issue she was most worried about. She climbed out of bed, but
before she had a chance to finish her sentence, she tripped over Kevin's
Converse sneakers. With a grunt she
dived
head first
toward John. He caught her as her hands plastered themselves against his chest.
They both glanced at Kevin to ensure he was still asleep. The kid offered a
little snore.

“Christ, you're like a bull in a
china shop,” John moaned. “Glad I never took you on any undercover missions.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist and helped her regain her footing. Then he
kicked Kevin’s shoes under the bed.

“Ha, ha,” Cassidy replied into his
chest. “You took me on too many undercover missions.” She eyed the bottom of
his chin as she thought about how dangerous the Highwaymen had become during
the two years Cassidy and John were involved. At first they worked locally,
mostly growing and selling marijuana but by the end they were dealing guns with
cartels in Mexico.

His face darkened in the already
dark room. “You should have told me you had a kid.”

Cassidy wasn't going to resume that
argument,
there were more immediate issues for them to
fight about. “If he hits her,” she started again. She knew she had to set some
conditions with the undercover cop. “We must stop it.” Yes, John was on an
active mission. And yes, this whole situation smelled a lot like what had
happened to them a year ago with the girl. But, there was a woman in trouble
and again John needed to make a decision about exposing his cover if the
trouble got worse.

“Oh shit,” John moaned. “Why? She's
already missing a few teeth.” He laughed sadly at his joke.

“I will pretend you didn't say
that,” Cassidy warned. She was still in his arms. His hand rubbing up and down
her back and dipping lower with each stroke. She took a step back and pealed
his fingers off of her body. She would have a talk with him later about
appropriate time and place.

“I'm not arresting him on domestic
violence charges when I'm this close to getting him on being a prescription
drug dealer,” John told her.

Cassidy shook her head.

“The number of cowboys at the rodeo
addicted to
OxyContin
is ridiculously high and I’m
sure this guy is their pusher,” John told her as he tucked himself in and
zipped up his pants. “We're talking two years in the slammer for domestic abuse
versus twenty-five for drug dealing.”

“You're going to sacrifice another
woman,” Cassidy accused. He did make a good point about the drug dealing and
addiction among the bull riders, but Mary the Inn Keeper was in trouble. Right
now, the bull riders took a back seat in Cassidy's mind.

“What about all those cowboys and
cowgirls who could die from the prescription drugs Mike Shannon sells them?”
John asked her logically. John always told Cassidy a good cop had to learn when
to cut his losses. It's a terrible way to look at things but it was for the
'greater good'. Yes, she was getting tired of that phrase.

She turned away from John and
looked for her jeans. After all she was having this conversation in her granny panties
and tank top. She had stopped wearing thongs after that horrible ride at Pikes Peak.

“Okay,” John conceded. “Maybe
tonight there doesn't have to be any loses, not like the last time. Mike
Shannon hasn't hit her yet, so let's wait and see what happens,” he suggested. “Sometimes
these things settle
on their own
.” He started digging
through the bed covers. “Where's my bracelet?”

Cassidy knew immediately what he
was talking about.
His good luck charm.
When he was a
kid, traveling through the west with his father, a Native American shaman gave
it to him. The healer told John it would shield him from harm and predicted
John would need lots of protection. Ever since John had worn it, except a few
years back he’d stopped sleeping with it on his wrist. The leather was wearing
out.

“Next to the sink in the bathroom,”
Cassidy replied while realizing how easy it would be to fall back into their
domestic routine. A routine she didn't necessarily mind except she wanted open
communication and no undercover work. Plus, there was a thirteen year old that
needed to be acknowledged regularly.

“I hope it didn't get wet.”

“Don't leave it there.”

“I thought it was safe.”

Before Cassidy could reply
something crashed and Mary shouted about Mike being a, ‘dirty bastard in polka
dot pants and she didn't have to store anything for him if she didn’t want to.’
Things were most definitely escalating.

Cassidy glanced at Kevin. Her son
still hadn't woken up. She put a hand on his chest to ensure he was breathing.
Yup, he was. She lifted the covers, resuming her search for her jeans.
Unfortunately, they weren’t there. She turned to John, maybe he knew.

But it didn't look like he'd be
helpful. The man was coming out of the bathroom with
smoldering
eyes and a sexy smile. As he admired her bare legs, arms, and shoulders, Cassidy
knew she would spontaneously combust if she didn’t make him look away. Good
God, they needed to focus on Mary. “You're not supposed to be looking at me,”
she chided him in a low whisper. “Remember what Kevin said.” Finally she found
her jeans. They were folded neatly on top of the night stand. She must have
done it last night without realizing.

“Your thighs are thicker,” John
remarked.

“Gee thanks,” she replied. She sat
on the bed and put her feet through the pant legs. She didn't need John Risk
judging her after she thought he was admiring her. “Haven't lost any of your
charm, have you?” she commented wiggling her jeans up over her butt.

“No,” he moaned. “Jesus Christ,
Cassidy. I don't mean it like that. Your muscles are beautiful. Your legs are incredibly
cut. Bull riding has built you up.” He smiled that sexy smile again.

“Nice save,” she said but she was
still hurt. She stood, tucked in her tank top and zipped up the fly. She
decided to not look at him.

“I mean it,” John stressed. “You
look good.” He actually seemed upset that he had insulted her. “I like the body
builder Cassidy.” He held his arms up in the air and flexed.

He looked good too.

“I had to get strong to ride the
bulls,” she explained, “especially my inner thighs.” Those squat thrusts had
been brutal day in and day out but when a bull is twisting to the right, then bucking
to the left, she knew she’d need her legs to stay on.

“Looks like your hard work paid off
in a
Xena
the Warrior Princess, ass kicking, ball
busting, teeth bashing sort of way,” he remarked.

Cassidy could feel herself blush. Awkward
compliments from John always left her flustered.
Before
Cassidy could come up with something just as clumsy to say back, Mary yelled,
“Get the hell off my land.”

Cassidy looked around the room. “We
have to help her,” she insisted while slipping her feet into her flip flops.
She needed a shirt. Then she remembered she had washed the one she was wearing
before going to bed last night. It was hanging over the shower rod, most likely
wet.

John wrapped his fingers around her
elbow. “No,” he disagreed. “They’re just arguing. Let’s wait a little longer.”

“Even though he hasn't hit her,” Cassidy
protested, “that woman is being abused.” She reached for one of John's T-shirts
bunched up in the top of his backpack. It was big, but it would work.

“What the hell?” he asked. “That's
my shirt. It's the only clean one I've got.”

“I washed mine and the rest of my
luggage is in the car,” Cassidy told him. “I can't go out there in this.” She
didn't have a bra on under her tank top and her nipples stood erect against the
thin fabric. Did she want to make that no looking rule of Kevin’s painful for
John? Yes, most definitely.

But he didn’t get a chance to look
because Mary yelled, “Don't you come near me, I've had enough of you, Mike
Shannon. I own this place now. I'm a respected member of the community, not a
woman to be used.”

“I'm not going to use you, I just
need a place to store inventory,” Shannon
told Mary reasonably. Which was the way they all sounded before the fists
started flying. “And I’d like to have a meeting here tomorrow.”

“No,” she replied.

Meeting?
Could that be with Mike's supplier? The guy John was really looking for.
Cassidy could tell her undercover partner was thinking the same thing because
his blue eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

“Absolutely not,” Mary stressed,
even more firmly. “Whatever you are doing, I won't be an accessory.” She added,
“All my rooms are booked, there’s no place for meetings or inventory.” That was
a smart move on Mary's part when she forced John and Cassidy to stay.

Then something made of glass
shattered against the pavement. Mike was reaching his boiling point. In
Cassidy’s experience when the beer bottles started to fly the fists were next.
But John wasn’t ready to give up. “Can’t we wait a little longer?” he begged.
“Technically he hasn’t broken any laws yet.”