but time just got away from me. I’m supposed to leave for Europe on vacation this Tuesday. I’ll be gone for three weeks, but—”
There were no buts. She’d do anything for Tom and Andy. After their mother and father died in a terrible auto accident when Tom was a senior and she was a freshman in high school, Tom assumed the role of parent even though they lived with their grandparents. It was Tom, the champion bull rider, who’d helped her with her college tuition. It was Tom who loaned her the money for a down payment on her house when she got her teaching job in Phoenix.
And Andy was the sweetest nephew an aunt could have, and Jenna knew that Tom needed the extra money. Besides, she didn’t want Andy to have trouble in school.
She sighed. Her European vacation was spinning down the toilet, but her family needed her. Still, she held on tighter to her itinerary, not wanting to part with it.
“Sis, I understand. I can make other arrangements.”
“Don’t you dare,” Jenna said adamantly. “I can postpone my trip.” She’d waited this long to spread her wings, she could wait a little longer. “And I took out travel insurance, so there’s really no problem.”
She stared at the new clothes that she’d bought throughout the year, just for this trip. The clothes were totally inappropriate for the summer at Tom’s ranch in Tucson. She’d need old shirts, old shorts and even older jeans. And her beat-up old cowboy boots. If Tom wasn’t going to be around, she’d probably have to do some work around his ranch, too. And she sure as hell didn’t need her new navy raincoat in the Arizona desert.
“A week from today, then,” Jenna said. “I’ll drive down in the morning, and get there around noon. Is that okay?” Instead of flying to Europe on that day, she’d be driving to Tom’s ranch.
She could hear Tom let out a relieved breath. “I can’t thank you enough. I really appreciate this.”
“It’ll be great to spend time with Andy,” she said, meaning every word. “How long are you going to be gone, Tom?”
“As long as I can. And as long as Andy is okay with me being gone. He’ll be thrilled that you’re going to come for a visit, so he won’t miss me all that much. I had a little talk with him and prepared him in case you said yes, and he understood. He said that he was going to root for me and Uncle Dustin on television.”
“Uncle” Dustin Morgan wasn’t Andy’s real uncle. He was an old friend of Tom’s from high school. The two had been traveling together from rodeo to rodeo for years.
Every time she talked with Andy, most of the conversation centered on Dustin, a man she’d thought about with steady frequency since she’d first laid eyes on him in algebra class in freshman year at Catalina High School in Tucson.
“Uh … um …” Tom began. “Speaking of Dustin, I invited him to come and stay at the ranch when he’s released from the hospital. He needs to heal up a bit from his accident.”
Jenna knew from watching the Albuquerque event on TV that Dustin seriously injured his ankle when a bull stepped on him. She worried about his injury and worried even more when the sports medicine doctor for the bull riders stated that he was being taken to a nearby hospital for emergency surgery.
But wait … was Tom expecting her to take care of Dustin? He couldn’t possibly think that she’d know what to do. She was a teacher, not a nurse.
“Tom, you asked Dustin to stay at the ranch?” Her heart began racing when she realized that Dustin Morgan would be living under the same roof with her.
“Yeah. He’s going to stay here with you and Andy and look after the ranch for me. He won’t be any trouble for you.”
What she remembered about Dustin from high school was her intense crush on him, but she’d been too much of a geek to even relax around him. She’d longed to date him, but he was way too popular, and she was way too much of a bookworm for them to have anything in common.
The only thing they had in common was Tom, and Jenna couldn’t wait until Tom brought Dustin over to their house.
Then she remembered the sadness she felt when he was offered a full ride—a complete, four-year scholarship to the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Instead of accepting it, he’d hit the circuit to compete with the Professional Bull Riders. He never graduated with their senior class.
What a waste, she thought, although he made a small fortune riding bulls.
“Dustin can help you out with Andy, too,” Tom added.
She was about to tell him that she didn’t need any help with Andy, and that she’d feel uncomfortable practically living with Dustin Morgan, but it sounded like a done deal.
No trouble?
She doubted that.
“Thanks again, Jenna. You know I appreciate this, and so does Dustin. Andy will, too, when he passes to fifth grade.”
“No problem, Tom,” she lied. “See you next Monday.”
They hung up, and Jenna just sat, reeling.
Looking down, she saw that she was still clutching her itinerary. Soon, she’d have to call and cancel her wonderful trip.
After a while, she lovingly placed the item into her brand-new tomato-red, twenty-nine-inch upright with the 360-degree wheels.
Maybe she had to cancel for now, but as soon as possible, she’d reschedule—just as soon as Tom figured out when he’d return. She was needed by her family, and that was okay.
But it seemed as though she was always needed, mostly by those she called the “four Ps”: her pupils, their parents, the principal or her peers, and she always had to postpone her dreams of romance and adventure.
She sighed. Now, Dustin Morgan, fresh from the hospital, needed her.
Then she smiled as she began to pick up her clothes. She might still be a geek, and Dustin might be one of the most popular bull riders in the PBR, but maybe her stay at the Bar R would somehow give her a chance to spread her wings, just like she’d planned to do on her European trip.
And maybe … Just maybe … Dustin would turn out to be the adventure of a lifetime.
Chapter One
Dustin Morgan struggled to get out of a taxi in front of Tom Reed’s ranch house.
He tugged his crutches out of the vehicle and positioned them under his arms while the driver unloaded his duffel bag.
Unfortunately, in the short-go round in Albuquerque, a bucking, whirling, two-thousand-pound Brahma named Cowabunga bucked him off, then stomped on his ankle, crushing it. After surgery, Dustin sported a massive amount of hardware to keep his bones together, along with a heavy cast.
Damn it.
Thanks to Cowabunga, he’d have to skip the usually profitable summer circuit.
After a couple of years of always being a bridesmaid, he’d finally hit number one in the rankings, and now he couldn’t ride. While he sat at home and watched the Professional Bull Riders on TV with his leg up, there’d be several young guns who would jump over him in the standings. But maybe, if everything went as planned, when he got back he could move up again in time for the PBR World Finals in Las Vegas in early November. Fingers crossed.
He paid the taxi driver, turned toward the house and took a hearty breath. He could smell the scent of animals on the air. Damn, how he loved that smell!
He was itching to do something where he could work up a sweat, but his surgeon had told him to take it easy. Dustin couldn’t grasp that concept. There had never been a time when he’d taken it easy.
When he was younger, he entered junior rodeos and rode anything with fur. As a sophomore in high school, he played football and caught rodeos every chance he could. When