Dead of Winter (Battle of the Bulls #2) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,49
to be the one to propose?”
He grinned. “I will be a groomzilla.”
“Hellooooo!” Mom answered over the noise of a crowd.
“Dead said to call you and…wait—” She squinted as her mom panned her phone around the familiar looking arena. “Are you here? In Lubbock?”
“Yes!” She aimed the camera at Dad and Annabelle, who were waving from some very impressive seats. “Dead got us front row tickets!”
Annabelle leaned into the frame with mom. “And there’s a seat for you, too! He got us flights here!”
Mom chimed in, “And he’s taking us to dinner after his interviews! And he got us VIP passes! And—”
“Oh, my gosh, you’re really here!” Raven yelped. “My favorite people are here! Dead!” She offered him a wide-eyed look. “You brought my favorite people here!”
His smile was all mushy as he sat on the bench and pulled her onto his lap. She kept the camera angled at their faces. “Do you like the seats?” he asked Mom.
It was Dad who answered from the row above them. He was sitting next to a tall man in a cowboy hat. “You can’t get any better seats than these! We are right by the chutes! Your dad has been explaining everything to us!”
“Hey, Dad,” Dead said as the old cowboy tossed them a wave.
“That’s your dad?” Raven asked, completely stunned. “Hi, Mr. Dead. Mr. Winter? It’s so nice to meet you! I’ll come out and shake your hand as soon as Dead heads up to the chutes!”
Dead’s dad gave a chuckle and nodded. “Can’t wait to meet the lady behind that Hagan Heifer. Knew it would take someone special to get to Dead.” His voice was all gritty and had a deep southern accent.
“Okay, you wild things, I have a round of beers and hot dogs coming up to you any second now,” Dead told them. “I’m gonna get my head in the game, and me and the herd will hopefully put on a good show for you tonight.”
“Good luck!” Mom called.
“You’re going to do great!” Annabelle cheered from beside Mom.
“Are you wearing Team Dead shirts?” Raven asked, narrowing her eyes at the logos on Mom and Annabelle’s T-shirts.
“Oh, yeah, Dead had these waiting at will-call with our tickets,” Annabelle explained, pointing to the Dead is the horniest logo with a cartoon rendering of Dead’s bull, horns bigger than real life.
It was a ridiculous shirt. It was so…so…Dead.
“Oh, Lord,” she muttered through her giggling.
They said their goodbyes and hung up, and she immediately turned around and straddled Dead’s lap. She hugged him as tight as she could and blinked hard against the tears building in her eyes. “You do the best surprises. You think of everything.”
“Are you happy?” he asked.
“You know I am.”
He swallowed hard. “Yeah, but I like hearing you say it.”
“Dead of Winter,” she murmured, easing back to cup his face. She locked her gaze on his so he could see how truthful her words were. “You make me so happy.”
“I like that,” he said. “I like it more than I’ve maybe liked anything in my life.”
“Now,” she told him, trying to look stern, if one could even look stern with tears in her eyes. “You have a rider to buck off. You have work to do. You have a rank to fight for. It’s all up to you how tonight goes. How is your shoulder?” she asked of his sore arm. He’d hurt it a couple rodeos back and was still recovering.
“Feels good. I feel ready.”
“Damn right, you’re ready. How much time do we have?”
“Half an hour. Just enough time for you to keep my mind occupied and cut this mop of hair.”
She dismounted him and pulled him over to the small bathroom area near the shower. She placed a plastic chair under him and made him sit. A few test buzzes of the trimmer and a couple threatening snips of the scissors, and she asked him seriously, “Do you trust me?”
“What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Um, I have the guard too low and accidently trim your beard too short and you have to shave the whole thing off.”
Dead tensed. “Woman, don’t do that. My power is in my beard.”
She snickered and told him, “I probably won’t let you lose your hair powers. Hold still.”
Dead exhaled a nervous sigh and leaned his head back slightly, then closed his eyes. “I mostly trust you.”
“I mean, I wouldn’t, but you do you,” she muttered under her breath as she started trimming his nipple-length beard much shorter.
Raven was quiet while she worked,