Before he could toss off a sexy remark, she said, “Besides, I’m only in Wyoming temporarily. You need an assistant who’s sticking around for the long haul.”
“Why’d you go to school in the first place? Weren’t you already on the circuit?”
She wiped the condensation from her glass with a napkin. “I raced on weekends. I hadn’t gotten into my groove yet and my dad wanted me to have some sort of skill, so I chose a two-year degree. After I finished a year, I rewarded myself by attending a private barrel racing camp. That’s when everything changed.”
“How so?”
“The woman who ran the camp hadn’t personally won any world championships, but several of her students had. She was this wonderful, grizzled old cowgirl who knew horses and barrel racing. She lived it. The first time she watched me run barrels, she told me why I wasn’t increasing my time. One little trick of hers and I shaved seconds off my time.”
His eyebrows rose. “Full seconds?”
“Yep. She took a serious interest in my riding style and made me unlearn everything and start from scratch. It worked. I learned so much from her—first off that the horse does matter. Shitty horse, shitty time. When my folks picked me up, she took them aside and gave them the hard sell about letting me compete full-time because I had the talent. Offering to train me exclusively.”
“You jumped at the chance?”
“Yes, and I haven’t looked back. She tracked down my first competition-grade horse.”
When Tanna pursed her lips around the straw and sucked, Fletch’s c**k stirred. What she could do with that mouth . . .
Focus, man.
“I immediately started winning. I moved up in the standings and people—meaning sponsors—began to notice. By the time I was twenty-two I was ranked top ten in the world and by twenty-nine I’d won back-to-back world championships.” A fleeting smile crossed her lips. “I was so thrilled she was in the audience in Vegas when I won. She and I went out and got rip-roarin’ drunk. It was a blast and a little bittersweet to think back on now, because the next year she died from a brain aneurysm.”
“So it’s not like you can go to her, return to basics, and get your riding mojo back.” He spun his cup around and decided head-on was the best approach with the fiery cowgirl. “I read about what happened to you last year.”
“Where?”
“Online.”
Tanna’s eyes became guarded. “You could’ve just asked me.”
“I figured I needed to suss out some details before I’d know what to ask.”
“So what do you want to know?”
Fletch picked up her hand. “Everything.”
“That’s a pretty broad subject.”
“You’re a pretty broad.”
She laughed softly. “You don’t ever react the way I expect you to.”
“I hate to be predictable.” He grinned. “Start talking, barrel racer.”
“How far back do you want me to go?”
“To when everything fell apart.”
“That’s easy to pinpoint. When my mother died.” Tanna took a long drink of iced tea. But she didn’t let go of his hand. “Now I see how spoiled I was. Of course, I took it all for granted then. I never bothered to move out on my own. Why should I? When I went home between events, I had a mini-suite to myself with a big bed, a big screen TV and a bathroom. I had home-cooked meals, someone to do my laundry, a place to train my horse. I had someone to talk to who thought I hung the moon and stars.”
He threaded his fingers through hers. Tanna’s hands weren’t pampered; hers bore the marks of hard work, like his did. But her fingers looked delicate in his big paws.
“I’ve always been a mama’s girl. My mother, like so many Texas mothers, had dreams of her daughter bein’ a beauty queen. She entered me in my first and only pageant when I was eight.” The corners of her lips turned up. “I got last place. Mama claimed it was because I hadn’t grown into my looks. But I knew even then that big-haired blondes with blue eyes would be crowned the winner. I’m too ethnic-looking for some things and not ethnic-looking enough for others.”
“Astute observation.”
She shrugged. “My mother was half-Mexican; my father a white Texas good old boy. Anyway, I’d only agreed to the pageant because I’d struck a deal with my mom. I’d compete in the pageant if she let me sign up to learn to barrel race at the fairgrounds.” She snickered. “I’m sure she thought I’d win the beauty contest and I’d forget all about barrel racing. But I won and was hooked. On the back of the horse and in the arena, it didn’t matter if I was dark skinned or light skinned—it was about skill.” Her gaze locked on to his. “I don’t need to explain ethnic issues to you.”
“No, you don’t. My mother was Native. My dad is white. I never spent time on the rez. There weren’t any Indian kids at our school. Eli and I suspected we would’ve been thrown together even if we hadn’t been related.”
“Wait. You and Eli are . . . ?”
“Cousins. His mom and my mom were second or third cousins. Although, I didn’t meet Eli until he moved in with his aunt and we started goin’ to the same school.” That was a situation she’d have to ask Eli about. “Has your family always been in Texas?”
“I’m . . . third generation? My grandfather and his brother ran away from their family in their late teens and crossed the Mexican border into Texas. They became U.S. citizens and worked any and every job they could until they earned enough to buy a small ranch. My grandfather was quite the vaquero. He caught the eye of my grandmother Bernadette, a white girl. They married against her father’s wishes and she gave birth to my mother, Bonita. Bernadette died when my mother was eleven. My mom took over running the household.”