Quickdraw Slow Burn (Battle of the Bulls #3) - T. S. Joyce Page 0,3

her sides. Slowly, she forced her attention from the door to the envelope sitting on the table.

She didn’t have to take a test right away. It was her choice to wait. To not get her hopes or fears up. She didn’t have to tell Quickdraw right away either. She could see him and talk to him and gauge for herself whether he would be any good at this.

And if not? Then at least she knew. She could come back home and prepare a life and do her best alone.

Either way, Rork was right.

She wasn’t one to live on what-ifs.

Chapter Two

I’ll be there.

Quickdraw read the text for the twentieth time. It was real. He hadn’t imagined it, he hadn’t made it up, and it was right there on his phone.

He sat in front of the Terminal A arrivals in Casper, Wyoming, nervous as a virgin on prom night.

What the fuck was wrong with him? His hands were even sweating.

Quickdraw rubbed his palms on his jeans, and then gripped the wheel in a choking grasp. Everything was fine. All he wanted was to get to know her a little better, and that little she-wolf was playing hard to get. She barely responded to him, and maybe that was part of the draw.

He was the number one bucking bull shifter in the world right now. He could have any buckle bunny he wanted, but he’d never been interested in easy. He was a worker, and Annabelle? She was work.

Her flight had landed twenty minutes ago, and she would be walking through that sliding glass door and out to his truck any moment.

In front of him was a Mercedes, behind him was an Audi, and his mud-splattered, jacked-up Chevy stuck out like a sore thumb.

In his defense, he’d washed his truck yesterday because he was nervous as hell and wanted everything to be perfect for her. And that’s when the what-the-fuck-was-wrong-with-him took over because he didn’t normally do this. He didn’t get nervous. Not talking to girls, not talking to interviewers, not being on TV, and not when he bucked in front of thousands in rodeo arenas every couple of weeks. It just wasn’t him. He was Steady Eddie. But this girl? This werewolf? One night with her had drawn him up and changed his whole way of thinking.

She was special.

He’d washed his truck, but then Dead had stolen it, gone mudding, and left it in the woods for him to find because Quickdraw was “being weird,” according to Dead of Winter-the-Asshole.

When the sliding glass doors of the airport opened, Quickdraw sat up straighter, studying the crowd that meandered through and spread out like cockroaches across the sidewalk.

A family of four, then two dudes wearing brand new designer cowboy hats and Wranglers that had never seen a speck of mud, probably some city-slickers here for the rodeo, followed by a four-pack of ladies in their early twenties, a harried mother, two more pretend cowboys, and then…there…following them up was Annabelle.

Every part of Quickdraw froze—all but his hammering heart.

She was even prettier than he remembered.

Annabelle stepped out into the cold breeze and pulled her long pink and black plaid peacoat tighter around her waist. She looked around, but she didn’t see him right away, so he got the chance to drink her in. Her hair was a deep burgundy that looked red in the sunlight but brunette when she was inside. Her eyes were hidden behind a pair of oversize sunglasses, and her full lips were painted the same color as the pink in her coat. She was tall and had those soft hourglass curves he loved.

When he rolled down the passenger window and called her name, a smile took her face, and his heart pounded even harder. God, she was a stunner.

He shoved open his door and jogged around the truck to help her with the pink suitcase she dragged behind her. He tossed it in the bed and then opened her door, but she hesitated there.

He couldn’t be sure since she still wore sunglasses, but she seemed to study him. “Hi.” Her voice was so soft, so pretty. She probably sang well with a tone like that.

“You’re here,” he rumbled, way lower than he’d intended. Fuckin’ bull was right at the surface. “I thought you wouldn’t come. Again.”

She offered a crooked smile. God, she was pretty. And unique. There was this cute little gap between her two front teeth.

Annabelle took his offered hand and crawled up into his lifted truck. He resisted the