Roses and Rodeo (Rough and Ready) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Ambassador Baxter in his box at the ballet Friday night,” he said. “I’d like you to go.”
    When she’d first started dating Barry, she hadn’t really paid much attention to how he threw around names of those he considered important and influential, and flaunted his connections, but it had become increasingly annoying.
    “Sorry.” She mentally ran through excuses. Bathing a cat would be more fun than going with Barry to the ballet. “I’ve got something going on Friday night. In fact, the whole weekend is packed.”
    “What do you have going on?” he asked in a tone that told her he didn’t believe her.
    Clip my toenails, floss my teeth, and clean the toilets, any number of things that would be more exciting than spending time with you.
    “A big project for work is going to take some overtime.” Stretching the truth was better than spending another minute with Barry since he couldn’t seem to take a hint. She added, “Missing a couple of days at work has put me behind.”
    “What were you doing in Las Vegas this weekend?” he asked, sounding perturbed.
    With a sigh, Danica said, “I went to a bull riding event with Kelsey.”
    “Why the hell would you want to go to a rodeo?” He sounded condescending as he spoke and she wondered why she had ever thought he was a great guy. “I thought you left all that behind when you moved here.”
    Danica frowned. “No, I didn’t, Barry. I may be in a large city, but I’ll always be a country girl at heart.” She pushed her hand through her hair. “Got to go.” She glanced into the kitchen at the cold stove. “My dinner is almost finished.”
    “I’ll give you a call this weekend,” he said. “We can do something next week.” He made it sound that it was a foregone conclusion that she would go out with him.
    She gritted her teeth then took a deep breath before saying, “Goodbye, Barry.”
    In an irritated tone he said goodbye and disconnected the call.
    This time she did groan aloud. She’d told him not long ago that she wanted to be friends and that was it, but he kept calling. In Barry’s privileged life, he wasn’t accustomed to rejection and he wouldn’t leave her alone until she got it through his thick skull that she wasn’t interested in him anymore.
    Well, he was going to have to get used to her saying “no.” She broke up with him once. It looked like she’d have to sit down and have another talk with him sometime soon and do it again. She didn’t want to deal with that right now and she needed to do it in person.
    She went toward the kitchen to prepare dinner. Her thoughts turned back to Creed and she found herself smiling again, which was utterly crazy. She wasn’t going to date the man.
    But then, instead of going to the kitchen, she found herself stopping then digging her laptop out of her backpack and booting it up. Once she had connected to the Internet, she went to Google and typed in Creed McBride . Immediately a screen came up with the first page entirely filled with links to information about him. The top link was to his personal website.
    She clicked on the link, which greeted her with a photograph of Creed on the back of a bull. Creed gripped the bull rope while holding his free hand up as the bull kicked high with its rear legs. Creed’s masculine grace and the ferocity of the bull were captured in the snapshot that was a fraction of a second in the life of a bull rider.
    The links included a page of upcoming competitions he would be going to; his biography; and a page filled with photographs. She perused his bio and learned about the rodeo championships he had won as a teenager, his experience, and the type of training he undertook that prepared him for his career in bull riding.
    His bio referenced his idol, seven-time world champion, Ty Murray, one of the greatest champions, if not the greatest, known to the sport of bull riding. Creed had studied Ty’s career and emulated him as he grew up. Creed credited his idol