Free Desert Heat by Kat Martin Page B

and he didn’t want to.
    He tried to convince himself she’d get over it.
    But it didn’t make him feel any better.

CHAPTER 6
    The Silver Springs Rodeo was part of the small town’s annual summer festival, which included a big flashy carnival with games and rides. A neon-lit Ferris wheel turned in the distance. Patience walked past the Scrambler, the Hammer, and the Tilt-A-Whirl, remembering times when she and her sisters had gone to the big state fair with their father.
    She had always loved a carnival. She loved to ride the scariest rides, would have gladly climbed aboard any one of them that afternoon if she’d had someone to go with her. But Shari was getting ready for the show, and even Wes was busy. Patience wandered over to the section of the grounds where the carnival games were played, tried her luck with a beanbag toss, took a turn at the shooting gallery, then strolled back to the arena.
    When she climbed the stairs to the narrow raised platform where the riders had begun to collect for the rodeo, the crew was still setting up, running the broncs into the chutes and the calves into the trough at the end of the arena. A couple of cowboys sat in saddles resting on the ground, their legs stretched out in front of them, boots in the stirrups, an exercise to limber up the muscles in their calves and thighs.
    She didn’t see Dallas anywhere around, thank God. She didn’t want to see him. She had nothing to say to him and anything he might have to say to her was no longer of interest.
    It was crowded up on the platform. The holding pens were below, one full of broncs, the other holding a herd of huge, sharp-horned Brahma bulls. Patience watched the bulls for a while, milling and blowing, stomping and slobbering and rolling their eyes. Their muscles lengthened and bunched beneath their thick skin and she wondered what possessed a sane man to climb up on the back of such a big, brutal creature. It was the danger, of course, the adrenaline rush cowboys craved.
    From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Charlie Carson walking in front of a group of riders. He climbed the stairs along with the men, waved at Patience and she waved back. The riders walked toward her, crowding the platform even more. She didn’t want to get in their way so she took a step backward. Someone brushed against her, bumping into her as he passed.
    Patience heard herself scream as she started to fall. The ground came up hard, jarring her teeth and bruising her hip, knocking the air out of her lungs. She must have hit her head. For an instant, the world went black.
    Her skull was pounding like blazes when she opened her eyes. Then it all came rushing back and she knew that she was in trouble. She was lying on the ground inside the pen behind the chutes and five furious Brahma bulls were staring her in the face.
    “Don’t move,” a man’s voice said softly. It was Cy Jennings, the bullfighter, and she was never so glad to see anyone in her life.
    “Can you stand up?” another, more familiar voice asked, and she realized two men had jumped into the small, fenced area that held the bulls.
    She nodded, but had no idea what would happen when she did. She sucked in a breath and started to move. She felt Dallas behind her, his arms under hers, helping her to her feet, but the bulls were standing in front of the gate and they weren’t budging, and there was no other way out. Climbing over the fence wasn’t going to be easy with her head spinning and her legs shaking the way they were.
    Cy Jennings kept the bulls’ attention fixed on him. “Move around behind me. I’ll ease them away from the gate.”
    Dallas urged her slowly in that direction, moving himself a little in front of her, and she had to admit she was glad he was there. One of the bulls lowered his head and snorted at him, a big iron-gray beast with long, sharp horns that started pawing the ground, throwing up dirt with his heavy front hooves. Cy used his hat to regain the