Cowboy's Christmas Rodeo Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, OCTOBER 2020

  Copyright © 2020 Relay Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Mary Sue Jackson is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Romance projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.

  Cover Design by Mayhem Cover Creations.

  www.relaypub.com

  Blurb

  Axel King has always been hot headed, something that’s created a heap of trouble on the rodeo circuit. The rodeo is a tough life and this cowboy is ready to settle back home, buy the old family ranch, and live quietly without the wildness of his past. All he has to do is win the Pride River Christmas Rodeo, but to do that he’s got to stay out of trouble. Trouble he very nearly finds by getting into yet another bar fight, stopped just in time by Belle Manning, his childhood friend. She always kept him out of hot water when he was a kid, with her calm support and friendly smile, and though it’s been years since he’s seen her, Axel’s never forgotten the first girl he kissed. And never forgotten how her daddy warned him to stay away from her. Troublemakers like him just aren’t good enough for someone like her…

  Belle never forgot the sexy cowboy who stole her heart when they were kids. So when he approaches her with a proposition, she’s ready to listen. Axel wants her by his side so she can keep him out of trouble until the Christmas rodeo. In exchange, he’ll give her a plot of land so she can build her occupational therapy clinic. It’s a stunning proposal and one Belle can’t refuse. Her dream of using horses to help people heal is finally coming true. And, bonus, running around town with Axel will keep her matchmaking mother off her back. She’ll think about a relationship after her practice is up and running. Once Axel wins the rodeo, they can go on their merry ways. But it doesn’t take long before their fake relationship takes an unexpected turn toward real, throwing Belle off kilter. Is it possible Axel could turn into the Christmas present she didn’t know she wanted all along?

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  End of Cowboy’s Christmas Rodeo

  Thank you!

  About Mary Sue Jackson

  About Leslie North

  Sneak Peek: Cowboy’s Convenient Marriage

  Also By Mary Sue

  One

  "So this is it, huh?" Jared asked, a hint of amusement and perhaps even disbelief in his voice. "This is the place responsible for the legendary Axel King."

  "Well, I don't know about that," Axel replied with an easy chuckle. "I give my parents some of the credit, too. The bar didn't exactly raise me, if you know what I mean."

  Jared looked at Axel and frowned for a second, and Axel could see him trying to work out what he meant. Jared was a decent guy and a hell of a rodeo rider, but he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. He almost always got there, though, and this time was no exception. After another moment or two, the frown lifted, and Jared rolled his eyes, punching Axel in the biceps.

  “Hey, man!” Axel exclaimed, rubbing his arm and making a big show of being injured. “What do you want to do a thing like that for?”

  “Because you’re being a smart aleck, that’s why,” Jared answered promptly, then jerked his head toward the door of the bar and reached for the handle. “And you’re keeping me out in the freaking snow while you’re doing it.”

  “Would it help if I said the first round’s on me?” Axel asked with a smirk. He knew his friend well enough to know that offering to buy the booze was almost always the way to Jared’s heart. Jared’s self-satisfied grin told him that this time was no exception.

  “I guess you’re all right,” he said, holding the door open and allowing Axel to step inside first. The door swung closed again, pushed by the wind as much as the spring. “Even if you did grow up in a tiny, freezing town.”

  Axel had nothing to say to that one, mainly because it was true. Pride River, Colorado, was the kind of small town a young man couldn't wait to leave, and he found it strange to be back now. He had always intended to return, though, which he had only recently discovered about himself. He'd gotten a bee in his bonnet about buying back the family ranch, which his parents had been forced to sell several years ago, and the kind of money to be had from the Christmas Pride rodeo would allow him to do just that. He hadn't been back in a long time, but if he won the funds to put a down payment on the ranch, Pride River would once again be his home, and he could hang up his rodeoing days before he sustained the kind of injury a man couldn't walk away from. Now seemed like as good a time as any to get used to being in town again, and the Pride bar seemed like as good a place as any to do it.

  “Come on, man, stop dragging your feet,” Jared demanded when Axel took a little too much time surveying the still familiar layout of the bar. “I don’t think there’s a man alive who’s more ready for a drink than I am.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Axel said with a wry smile, although, in truth, he did.

  Jared was a good enough friend, but he wasn’t exactly the type of person a man could talk to. Axel didn’t even consider telling him that he was more than ready for a beer at the moment, too, let alone the reason why.

  Axel had too much pride to admit it, the irony of which wasn't lost on him, considering the town's name, but he was nervous about being in his hometown again. He had left at eighteen without any intention of coming back. There had been a girl he needed to get away from for her own good, and he'd been too wild and ornery to stay in one place for long anyway. Now the town that watched him grow up was going to see what he could do. Not only that, but the results of this rodeo mattered more to him than any of his previous rides. He would never get a better shot at enough money to buy back the ranch and take care of his parents the way they deserved. He had too much riding on this for him to make mistakes, and knowing that made him feel like an animal trapped in a cage.

  All these thoughts and more were racing through Axel’s mind as he and Jared approached the bar, and he was more than a little grateful for the first sip of cold beer passing his lips. The relief was short lived, however, because in the next instant, he heard a voice he knew too well.

  “They said you were coming for this one,” said Ford Carlisle, speaking so that Axel could hear the sneer on his face before he turned to see it for himself. “Everyone on the circuit has been whispering about it. They’re all waiting to see if you can keep your cool this time, or if you’re going to get yourself banned from rodeo for good.”

  “Nice to see you, too, Ford,” Axel said stiffly, shrugging off the warni
ng hand Jared was already placing on his shoulder. “I was wondering if you were going to be a part of this one.”

  “Wondering if I was going to be a part of it?” Ford asked with a snort of derisive laughter. “That’s great. No, I mean it, man, that’s really rich, coming from you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Axel asked, bristling at the condescension practically leaking out of Ford’s ears.

  The thing was, he knew exactly what it meant. For as long as Axel could remember, he’d had a quick temper, and he had always struggled to keep it in check. He’d gotten in more fights than he could remember before he even hit his teens, and by the time he’d left Pride River, he’d left quite the reputation behind. In ten years of working the rodeo circuit, it only seemed to have gotten worse. In high school, Belle had looked after him, helped him keep himself in check, but out on the road, he hadn’t found anyone with the same magic effect. Only Ford, who did just the opposite. At this point, he’d been in so many fights that he was on the verge of getting the boot. Ford knew it, too. It was why he made a point of trying to get under Axel’s skin every chance he got. The two of them were fierce competitors, and getting Axel out of the way would mean easy money for Ford every time the chute opened.

  “Come on, sugar, don’t get your panties in a bunch,” Ford said now, heckling Axel as he stepped closer, invading Axel’s personal space. His skin crawled at the other man’s proximity. “I’m only messing with you. Besides, it’s not me that needs to worry about you being here, is it?”

  “Come on, Ford,” Jared said disgustedly, although he didn’t get so much as a glance from Ford for his troubles.

  "It's all the pretty ladies that need to do the worrying, right? Them and their daddies," Ford said in a sing-song voice that set Axel's teeth on edge. "That is if there's any of 'em that you haven't already run through, which seems like a pretty big if to me."

  This was enough to get the drunks at the bar beside them muttering and laughing, which only pissed Axel off more. Ford was using his other reputation—as a player—against him too, and although it was easy enough to do, especially in Axel's hometown, it was also a cheap shot. The man was clearly enjoying himself. He was enjoying the way he was making Axel's blood boil, and he was far from finished doing it. He stepped even closer, standing so near to Axel now that no culture on earth would have deemed the proximity socially acceptable. Before Axel could point that fact out, one of Ford's hands darted out low, so that nobody would be able to see it. He jabbed Axel hard, right in the side where his latest injury had been. Axel gave a grunt of pain mingled with surprise, and then he saw red.

  “Ah,” Ford said quietly, all the feigned cheerfulness absent now. “I knew you weren’t as strong as you used to be. Looks like you’re just about used up, from where I’m standing. Hell, you’re too washed up to even fight back.”

  Axel wasn't going to be able to stop himself from throwing a punch. He knew that he needed to, knew that he had to keep himself in check if he wanted to be allowed to compete at least one more time. But understanding what you needed to do and being able to see it through were very different animals, and Axel could feel his legendary lack of control coming over him like a tornado. He was going to throw the first punch, and then he was going to keep right on hitting Ford until somebody pulled him off his rival. By that time, it would be too late. His ship would be sunk, and there would be no going back.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder, pressing down in a way that was somehow both gentle and firm. It wasn’t Jared. He was as sure of that as he was of his own name. Even after ten years, he recognized the whiff of perfume that came wafting up to him, just as he recognized the light pattern the fingertips on his shoulder made. He knew exactly who it was stepping in to save the day.

  This is real, Belle Manning told herself, fighting the urge to pinch herself, just to make sure. Axel King is back in Pride River, after all these years, and he’s still looking for a fight.

  She had come to the Pride to blow off some steam with some friends who were back in town for the Christmas holiday and the rodeo festivities. It was a welcome distraction and sorely needed; she had been spending a lot of extra time with her mom lately because of the holidays, and as much as she loved her, the woman was driving her insane. Ever since Belle’s father had died of a heart attack a few years back, her mom had been overly invested in Belle’s love life. It seemed like she piled on the pressure a little more with each passing day, finding truly ludicrous and bizarre ways to bring up men she considered suitable. It didn’t matter how many times Belle told her she wasn’t looking to be in a relationship, let alone a serious one. Her mother was on a mission, and God help the person who stood in her way.

  Belle most definitely had not been expecting to see Axel standing at the bar. It was her turn to buy a round, and she had been on her way over from their table when she swore she heard his voice. She shook her head, reminding herself that Axel hadn't come home in almost ten years, and there was no way he would turn up now. It was the time of the year that made her think of him, that was all. The last time she had seen him was on Christmas Eve, a magical, snowy night when he had kissed her on the porch and brushed snowflakes off her lashes, telling her he would see her in the morning. The next day, Christmas Day, he was gone. There was never a call, and he did not return to Pride River. After all this time, there was no reason to believe that he would be back now.

  It was a certainty that was proven false almost immediately, when she caught sight of his familiar stance, the cock of his head, and she didn't have a clue what to do. Part of her wanted to march right up to him and ask him what gave him the right to be such a terrible friend. They had been friends, good friends, on the verge of becoming more, right up until the day he disappeared. She understood on an intellectual level that she didn't have the right to tell him to get out of town, but that didn't mean she wasn’t tempted.

  Another part of her, though, was excited by the idea of seeing him again. The speeding up of her heart was proof enough of that, whether she liked it or not. She might have stood there trying to decide what to do about it for the rest of the night if she hadn’t seen the old, familiar tightening of the muscles in his back. Next came the raised voices, and she knew what would follow. She’d seen it enough times to have the sequence cemented in her memory. What she didn’t know was whether she still had the ability to stop the violence before it started. She wasn’t sure of that until the moment she placed her hand on his shoulder, tapping her fingertips in the same pattern she had always used when they were younger.

  “What the—?” He turned to face her so quickly that it almost made her jump. She didn’t break contact, though, and she couldn’t help but be a little bit delighted by the look of surprise in his eyes when he realized who had the audacity to interrupt his rampaging.

  “It’s you,” he said, his mouth hanging open in disbelief.

  If she didn’t know how much he hated being laughed at and how heated he already was from some drunk guy poking the bear, she probably would have laughed. As it was, she only smiled, removing her hand from his shoulder and placing both hands on her hips.

  "Hey there, stranger," she said, cocking an eyebrow in the same way that had made him chuckle when they were teenagers. "Long time, no see."

  Two

  Axel’s first thought, before she spoke, was that he had to be hallucinating. There was just no way that he would run into Belle on his first night back in Pride River. The town was small, but it wasn’t happen upon everyone you’ve ever known in a day small. Besides, Belle had never been the type to party. She was always a focused, driven girl, far more interested in building herself a future than having a drink. He couldn’t believe that part of her would ever change. It was written in her DNA, as much a part of her as her heart and lungs.

  On the other hand, ten years was a long time. It was certainly enough time for a person to change almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Also, she was a grown woman now, twenty-sev
en, to be exact; she could hang out in a bar if she wanted to. And he was mighty glad she was there, too, because she had just stopped himself from making a mistake he wouldn't be able to recover from.

  “Just like the old days,” he mused, shaking his head and uttering a chuckle of disbelief. “I didn’t see that coming.”

  “No,” she said with a smirk, chewing on her bottom lip the same way she had when she was seventeen. It had driven him crazy then, and he was mildly astonished to find that it still drove him crazy now. “It doesn’t look like you did.”

  “I’m glad to see you, though,” he added quickly, removing his hat and holding it in front of him like a piece of armor that could save him from sounding like a buffoon. “Don’t get me wrong. You’re one of the people I was hoping to run into while I was in town.”

  “Sure,” Ford said sarcastically, rolling his eyes with such exaggeration that, for a moment, Axel could see nothing but the whites. “I just bet you were. And I’m sure she’s the only one you plan on saying that to, right?”

  “I’m sorry, but do you mind?” Belle said with her best look of withering contempt. “He and I are old friends, and I’d like to catch up. You, on the other hand, I have zero desire to get to know.”

  The same men who had been laughing at Axel earlier turned their bleary-eyed attention to Ford now. It was clear to see that they were equal opportunists when it came to their heckling, and although he knew it shouldn’t, it gave him a flicker of satisfaction. Not that he felt like devoting any energy to Ford right now. What man in his right mind would when he had Belle Manning standing in front of him?