Desert Heat Read Online Free PDF

engine.
    Dammit, she didn’t know a blasted thing about engines. She’d once considered taking a class in auto repair designed especially for women and now she wished she had. Knowing it probably wouldn’t do any good, she climbed down from the truck, went around to the front and lifted the hood. The radiator smelled hot, and gurgling sounds came from somewhere down inside. She wondered if she should unscrew the cap, but a little voice warned her not to.
    Of all the luck! She had her cell phone, of course, but there wasn’t a town for miles and it could take hours for a tow truck to get there. Swallowing an urge to swear, Patience stared up the long stretch of road and walked back to her cell phone, resigned to a long wait in the broiling Texas sun.
     
    Dallas followed the ribbon of highway heading toward Llano. There were other, bigger rodeos, shows that paid a lot more money, and if he wanted to wind up in the top fifteen and qualify for the National Finals in Las Vegas in December, he needed to be competing in those. But he was worried about Charlie and he wanted to be around to help as much as he could until things straightened out.
    Charlie Carson, his mother’s brother, had practically raised him. Dallas had been twelve years old when Jolie Carson Kingman had died. It was Charlie—not Dallas’s father—who had stepped in and helped him through the worst time of his life. It was Charlie and his wife, Annie, who had been there when Dallas needed them, and Dallas would never forget what they had done.
    After that, Dallas had spent every summer until he was grown on the Circle C Ranch, eight thousand prime, cattle-raising acres southwest of Bandera, in the fabulous Texas Hill Country. It was Charlie who taught him to ride, Charlie who instilled the love of ranching and rodeo that made Dallas the man he was today.
    But lately, things hadn’t been going so well for Charlie.
    Dallas thought of the string of bad luck that seemed to be following the Circle C Production Company. Stock truck breakdowns, drivers not showing up to haul their loads, the PA system going down. Those things happened, of course. It was just part of the business. Still, the problems were beginning to wear on Circle C finances. Even Charlie’s usual optimism was starting to wear thin, and Dallas was beginning to get worried that something more than just bad luck was going on.
    Hopefully, things would return to normal and Dallas could get back to serious rodeoing. Some of the biggest shows in the country were coming up this summer and he intended to be there, to win as much money as he could. At year’s end, based on their total dollar earnings, the top fifteen cowboys in each event were chosen to compete in the National Finals Rodeo. The big money was paid in Vegas, and as he had for the past two years, Dallas intended to win.
    He was thinking of Llano and the rodeo coming up in a couple of days, when he spotted a brown Chevy pickup and little white travel trailer stalled in a wide spot on the road. He might not have stopped if he hadn’t seen the sticker on the bumper—RODEO ROCKS—and noticed that the driver was a woman.
    Checking his wristwatch, hoping he wasn’t going to be late for the show, he pulled over behind the trailer, turned off the engine of his big black Dodge dually, and cracked open the door. In the horse trailer behind him, he heard Lobo whicker and reminded himself to check on the three horses inside before he pulled out again.
    He was smiling as he approached the rolled-down window of the Chevy, until he caught sight of the woman’s face.
    Sonofabitch.
    Until that moment, he’d been thinking how pretty she was. Yesterday, her blond hair had been mostly hidden by her hat. Today she wore it loose, down past her shoulders. It wasn’t curly, just kind of soft and ripply. Her lips were lush and a nice shade of pink.
    But her smile slid away as she recognized who he was, replaced by a look of grudging relief tinged with a