Dynomite: A Stepbrother Cowboy Romance Read Online Free PDF

Sequoia was collapsed like a priest in a strip club. The spectators were wanna-be jocks, the kind who liked to think they could compete professionally. They were just eating this shit up. They would’ve loved it more if it was me caved in on the ground like a pile of sugar.
    But they’d take the next fucking best thing, which was a drunken Indian, a cowboy-killer, a John Redcorn.
    “Whoo!” squealed that dick, Lawson Willard, the nozzle who’d run me off the road the other day. “Way to go, gut-eater! Hey! I’ve got a bottle of Jim Beam in my trunk if you want to celebrate your win!”
    Lawson and his buddies were crawling all over the fence on the other side of the chute. There was no purse tonight, aside from what Lawson and his crowd had gotten together to bet against me.
    I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of that rah-rah, April Pleasure. She sat above her boys in the VIP grandstand, poised and pretty. Tonight she was all got up in some powder pink fringed number, a shorty jacket—a wannabe buckle bunny. I’d pounded many of these chicks in my time down in Paducah, but for some reason the sight of this ice queen struck me clean to the bone.
    She just looked at me, her face dead as a mackerel. Her sky-blue eyeshadow made her look like a reject from an eighties aerobics class, and her feathered hair shouted that she wasn’t even ready for Charlie’s Angels. What the fuck was I doing, caring what she thought of me?
    I conjured up all the loathing and hatred I could, and let it show in my glance. It seemed to strike terror into her cold, hard heart. She gasped and turned her eyes straight ahead, like she was waiting for a nurse to give her a shot in her arm.
    “C’mon, Crooks!” This time I leaped off the fence and into the actual arena. A few clowns who had no face paint on tried to corral me.
    “Hey now!” one shouted. “Get the fuck out of the arena! Only contestants allowed!”
    “Yeah!” yelled another unpainted clown. “You know the rules!”
    The pickup man was handling Sequoia with disgust, like he was afraid to touch him. He lifted Sequoia’s arm between his outstretched fingers as if it was a turd.
    I got on the other side of the pickup man and slung my friend’s arm over my shoulders. I wondered how the hell I was going to get him home riding two up on my scoot. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
    “But you still have another ride,” insisted Sequoia. “I don’t want to fuck up your next ride.”
    That was true. There were only about five of us rookies out there that night. The director had told me I could have one more ride, and the next animal was a chute fighter. I was looking forward to showing up that Lawson jackhole. I still had no fucking idea why he ran me off the road the week before. We had no beef, at least that I was aware of.
    Up until now. As Sequoia and I staggered through the gate, Willard blared, “Hey, Smoke Signal! Hey, Wounded Knee Jerk! Let’s go down to the liquor store and get some Garden Deluxe!” Garden Deluxe was the godawful fortified wine Navajos made near Gallup.
    “Yeah!” goofed his buddy, a moron named, I thought, Hemp. “My mom’s got some Aqua Net!” He referred to some Indians’ habit of drinking hairspray.
    The words just spewed from my mouth. I hate when I spew without thinking. It never comes out witty. “Fuck you, asswads!” Oh, yeah. That was going to show ’em.
    But to my complete and utter shock, Sequoia busted free of me. He’d probably been used to taking a raft of shit from people. I know I was. Even back in Texas where I at least fit in with my clothes and my accent, I’d been harassed. Just for being “different.” What passed as “different” seemed to change from day to day. It was just something I could never bust free of. Sequoia’s difference was more obvious. He was a fucking blanket-ass. He could go, join the Army, come home a decorated hero, and still be a fucking blanket-ass. He must be permanently pissed