Free Stranded and Straddled by Em Petrova

Stranded and Straddled
    All Rights Reserved
    Stranded and Straddled
    Copyright Em Petrova 2013
    Amazon Edition
    Editor Kierstin Cherry
    Cover design by Fantasia Frog Designs
    Electronic book publication November 2013
     
     
     
     
     
    Stranded and Straddled
    Born and bred Texan, Trace Allen knew tornadoes. And this was just like a tornado—without the lashing rain. He sat inside his toasty warm Ram truck, watching the snow and ice that pummeled his windshield. An eighty-mile-an-hour wind sliced across the rest stop, and the truck rocked under the assault.
    “Hell, when is this gonna let up?” His mutter was all but swallowed by the shriek of the wind. After forty hours of being stranded on the interstate just outside Oklahoma City, he was pretty damn sick of his own company. Who’d a thought a freak snowstorm in March could incapacitate the entire region? A hundred miles slowed to a halt.
    Thing was, the rest stop was bursting with other marooned cowboys on the rodeo circuit, along with their wives, groupies, horse wranglers, and even an Uncle Jeb or two. Which was why Trace liked the confines of his truck and travel trailer just fine.
    A dark blob suddenly appeared against the blinding white of the blizzard. Dumbass people were still walking around in this? Not a one of them was outfitted for inclement weather. The best Trace had was a drover coat and a pair of leather gloves, and he was lucky. For the twentieth time since the road had been closed, he thanked the higher powers his friend Mark had left with his horses hours before the storm hit. Caring for animals in this would have been impossible.
    The form moving toward him swayed as another gust of wind struck her.
    Trace squinted through the blowing snow at the insane female. Her hair flew wildly, the long strands made darker by wetness.
    “Jesus, Lacey.” Before he could think twice, his hand was on the door handle, and he jumped out into the frigid world. Storming across the knee-deep snow didn’t ease his anger, since he was doing more trudging than stomping.
    She saw him coming and flapped a hand from inside her thin cotton coat pocket to wave him away. Her words were snatched by the howling wind.
    “Like hell I’ll go away.” He caught her quickly, thanks to his long legs. Up close, her pixie features were chapped by wind, and ice clung to her arching brows and made her lashes spiky.
    “Turn right around and get back into your truck, Trace Allen.”
    That incensed tone wasn’t lost on him—his groin heated. It was a lazy heat that reminded him they were stuck outside of Oklahoma City together with a lot of time on their hands. Trace nudged the front of his jeans to ease the tightness.
    After breaking up and making up with her a few times, Trace anticipated her anger in an unexpected way.
    He glared at her. “What in fuck’s name are you doing out here?”
    Her grass-green eyes glittered. “What are you doing out here?” She didn’t seem any happier to be in that crowded truck stop than he was.
    He paused. He and Lacey had enjoyed more than one night in the solitude of his trailer, escaping the media and rodeo groupies. They’d lain in bed and dreamed of owning a chunk of land in the country.
    Well, that didn’t happen.
    He wrapped his gloved fingers around her arm and steadied her against his side before she was knocked into the snow by the brute-force wind.
    “I’m goin’ back to my car, you high-handed ass.”
    God, her sweet drawl was music to his deprived ears. One flare of his temper after he’d lost a big cash prize had sent her packing, and he’d regretted it every minute since.
    She and her father worked with some of the bulls on the rodeo circuit, and that put her right in Trace’s path more often than he was comfortable with.
    He shook his head to clear it and continued to haul her through the snowdrifts to his truck. She dug in her heels, but like the rest of the stranded travelers, she was wearing slippery cowboy boots, and