First Chapter: Burning Season
About burning season:
The year is 1972. Dylan Chase is nineteen, and most days he’s lucky enough to ride a tough bronc, have a beer with his friends, and maybe even sleep under the stars on his family’s third-generation cattle ranch.
His life would be perfect if it weren’t for his forbidden itch. An itch he’s only scratched once… with Bo, a hitchhiker he never thought he’d see again. When Bo shows up as the new hire at a neighboring ranch, Dylan is sure his almost-perfect life is about to implode.
After the calves are driven out to the spring pastures, Bo will move on to California. Dylan just has to hold it together until then…if he can.
But Bo can soothe a restless horse with a touch and keeps a battered book of poems in his saddle bag. And the more Dylan learns about him, the more he wants Bo—and the less he wants Bo to go, damn the risk.
Burning Season is the third book in the Wild Ones series, but it can be read as a standalone story.
AMAZON (US) | AMAZON (UK) | AMAZON (AU) | AMAZON (CAN)
Dylan Chase stood outside the stout steel arena fence while the pickup riders chased the roping steers into the chute, marking the end of that event. Next up was the saddle bronc riding. Dylan’s event.
The sun had just tucked itself behind the scrubby tree line, while the humming electric lights kicked in to keep the arena bright as day for the spectators packed into the rickety wooden stands. In chute number one, the first bronc snorted, and a bang like a rifle shot sounded as a hoof struck solid wood.
Normally, when Dylan was waiting his turn to ride, he had nothing on his mind but anticipation of the moment he’d hear his name called and he’d crawl up onto the top of the chute to mount.
Tonight, though, his thoughts were far away. Miles away, down the dark highway he’d traveled toward Dallas the past night. Before he’d reached the city, he’d lost his nerve and turned back. He’d been midway between Mesquite and Dallas when he’d happened to catch sight of a figure in his headlights.
It had only been a moment’s glimpse, and yet it was etched perfectly in his memory: the image of a tall man, twisting at the waist to face the approaching car, his legs long even for his height, and the flash of his eyes in the headlights, beneath the brim of his brown felt cowboy hat.
The announcer’s voice came over the speakers with a faint crackle. “Sounds like our first saddle bronc of the night, one they call Fastback, is feeling frisky. Let’s hope Mike Parson has what it takes to handle him! Billy Tamlin is on deck, and Dylan Chase is in the hole.”
“You ready?” Glen Castigan, Dylan’s best friend practically since birth, slapped him on the shoulder. “I just saw Redhead in the pen. He looks good. Like he wants to buck your ass off.”
Redhead was the bronc Dylan had drawn to ride, and if he didn’t get his head on straight, Redhead would buck his ass off. He shook himself out of his memories. “Let’s hope he tries his damnedest,” he said with a grin, and then went down to the back of the chutes when one of the stock handlers called, “Dylan Chase, you’re on three!”
By the time Dylan was perched on the welded metal frame above chute number three, Mike Parson was picking himself up out of the arena dirt where he’d fallen after only about four seconds on his horse, and Billy Tamlin was astride the next bronc, jerking his hand against the wither strap once before giving the chute operators the go-ahead nod.
The wood and metal between Dylan’s thighs vibrated as chute number two was flung open on its squealing steel spring. A dark palomino mare shot out in two ground-covering leaps before she buried her head close to her knees and began to buck in earnest. The slow start wouldn’t help the score, but the horse was working hard now, uncurling her hind legs behind her in powerful thrusts like she wanted to kick the moon.
Dylan pulled his focus from the ride underway in the arena to prepare for his own. Redhead was a flaxen-maned sorrel gelding, and he’d thrown off five of the last eight cowboys who’d tried him. Sometimes the less experienced horses jerked away, struggled, or even tried to bite in the chute, but Redhead stood still, his pinned ears the only sign he objected to standing in the chute while the wranglers got him ready for Dylan to mount. Like most veteran broncs, Redhead knew that the fight he could win was the one in the arena, and he didn’t waste his energy beforehand.
“You’re up, son,” said the wrangler, looking up from the saddle rigging with a quick nod.
Dylan had entered his first rodeo at sixteen, and had never before experienced such an intense rush of anticipation as that day when he’d climbed into the chute. Now, three years later, his heart pounded just as hard as it had the first time. He pushed off the metal bar he’d been straddling, swinging his leg over the chute and then slowly lowering his ass into the spare, smooth saddle rigged to Redhead’s back.
Rodeo wasn’t all about luck, by any means, but a roughstock rider’s score was based on how hard the animal fought to get him off. Which meant that to get into the money, a guy needed a good draw. And Redhead was a good one. Dylan’s heart beat harder with anticipation and the determination to take advantage of his good luck tonight.
The buzzer pulsed in his ears as Dylan adjusted the brim of his hat. His competition on the palomino horse had held out for eight seconds. A quick glance told Dylan he must have been losing his seat by the end, though, because he’d slid off and hit the dirt while the buzzer was still echoing in the cool evening air.
In that same glance, Dylan saw a man leaning against the fence between the arena and the bleachers, so tall he could hook his elbows over the top rung, his brown felt hat pulled low.
He was too far away for Dylan to recognize him for sure, but another memory of the night before chose that moment to surface, and for a breath or two, Dylan was behind the wheel of the car as a tall man slid into the passenger seat with a grateful smile and a low, rumbling word of thanks.
The wrangler cinched the flank rope tight, and Redhead tensed in response, yanking Dylan out of the fogged-up cab of the car and back to the present.
He closed his calves against the horse’s barrel and felt Redhead’s powerful muscles tremble. A thrill that was one part fear and nine parts joy rushed through Dylan, and finally, his head was clear.
He slipped his gloved hand through the loop above Redhead’s withers, then wound the flexible rope twice—tight but not too tight—around his gripping fingers, binding himself to the horse.
The chute operator had his hand on the lever. Through small eyes crowded with wrinkles, he fixed Dylan with a serious look. “You all set?”
Dylan tugged on the rigging with his right hand, raised his left in the air, and gave a single, quick nod to the operator. Then he held on.
Before the gate had knocked back against the hinge, Redhead was already flying.
During a ride, Dylan didn’t think. His body reacted too fast for his mind to keep up. He made no decisions, just surrendered to the momentum of the strong, determined animal he was astride and to his own body’s constant adjustments to counter each vaulting buck and slinging twist. Redhead’s heels snapped so close to the chute that Dylan heard dirt clods thud against the steel panels while the wranglers scrambled out of the way. He was barely aware of the clamor of the announcer, fuzzy and drowned out by the guttural snorts shuddering through Redhead every time he hit the ground with his forelegs and then jammed his hind end under him for a split second so he could twist and buck again.
For Dylan, riding a bronc was like breathing—easy when you let it happen and hard when you tried to do it on purpose. He fell into the horse’s rhythm and curled his heels into Redhead’s shoulders to egg him on, and all the while a grin stretched his cheeks because damn, Redhead was worthy of his reputation, and still Dylan was riding him.
When the buzzer sounded he almost didn’t want to get off, but he also knew that every extra second he stayed on the horse was a waste of his good luck. Dylan quieted his legs and worked his right hand loose from the rigging. Knowing the show was over, Redhead settled down into a canter, though he still threw in a snort and a stray buck every couple of strides. The pickup men fell quickly into position, their bigger horses boxing Redhead in, one on each side. The man on Dylan’s left reached out to loosen Redhead’s flank rope, and the other waited until Dylan’s hand was free, then plucked him off the bronc with an arm around his waist. Dylan dangled briefly from his side while the horse cantered on, and then Dylan’s boots hit the arena dirt as the pickup man finished guiding him to the ground and let him go.
Back on earth, Dylan took a couple of stumbling steps, the howls of the small but enthusiastic Mesquite crowd in his ears, his veins full of fire, his heart hammering.
He checked the scoreboard. Eighty-one. High enough to put him in the money. Not bad for a kid from Nebraska who only got entered up on the occasional weekend. He grinned with satisfaction and tipped his hat to the audience, then broke into a jog to clear the pen for the next rider.
He climbed the fence and dropped to the grass on the other side, nodding to the people still clapping for him in the bleachers.
Then, he couldn’t help scanning the entire crowd.
But he didn’t see a single brown felt hat, nor the tall, distinctive silhouette he couldn’t get out of his head.
Maybe he’d imagined the man who looked so much like his hitchhiker, standing at the arena fence right before he’d ridden.
He turned back to the arena when the announcer’s voice invaded his head again, working up the crowd with the credentials of the next rider. Dylan paused to watch that cowboy, a guy not much older than him and even scrawnier than he was, ride the tail off of his own draw, a flat hellion and the best horse in the contractor’s string—Oklahoma Red. When the scoreboard lit with an eighty-six, taking the lead and pushing Dylan out of the payout, he still joined in the applause, shaking his head with grudging respect as he found his way back to Glen.
Glen was standing on the highest bench in a set of rickety wooden bleachers by the holding pens, but he plopped back down on his butt when he saw Dylan, grinning. About a dozen cowboys congregated there, the ones who’d already competed distinguishable by their dirt-stained shirts and the fact that they were already holding beer cans.
Dylan caught the beer Glen tossed him from the collective cooler, opened it, and took a sip as he walked up the benches to sit by Glen.
“Not bad out there, Chase.” Glen’s event was the bulldogging, but he’d had to scratch from it because the horse he’d arranged to use had gone lame. If Dylan had come all this way and then been unable to ride, he’d have been in a foul mood, but of course Glen had shaken it off with seeming ease. Nothing got Glen down for long.
“They barely got my name on the leaderboard before it got knocked back off,” Dylan groused mildly, but he didn’t really care. Redhead had given him a good ride, and Dylan had ridden as well as he could; there was nothing more he wanted or needed from the night, even if he wouldn’t have turned down a paycheck.
He nursed his beer and listened to guys he didn’t know that well shoot the shit with each other. The group included Glen easily in their back-and-forth, but didn’t speak directly to Dylan, only glancing at him as if unsure whether he belonged there with them. Dylan had that effect on people. Strangers didn’t seem to know what to make of him, and he didn’t know what to make of them either, whereas Glen made friends in a half-hour or less, everywhere they went.
After the bronc riding was done and a fuss was made over the winner—the same ride that had come right after Dylan’s—Glen crunched the can of beer he’d just emptied and raised an eyebrow at Dylan. “You want another, or…?”
“I’m good,” Dylan said, shrugging. “But I’ll sit here as long as you want.”
“Nah.” Glen slid off the rough wooden plank, wincing as he dusted the seat of his jeans with the back of his hand. “Fuck. I think I just put a splinter in my ass.”
The men around them overheard the remark and laughed.
“That’s what Travis’s girlfriend says when he tries to stick it in the back door,” one of them snickered, and the group burst out laughing again.
“No she doesn’t, you guys. Don’t be assholes,” another raised his voice to interject, then grinned. “It’d have to be big enough for her to notice it and wake up and complain.”
While the group howled, Glen rolled his eyes, waving over his shoulder without turning his head. “See you, guys.”
Paul, the big, blond guy who owned the lame horse Glen had been signed up to ride, stood up and planted his hand on his hip. “Castigan, the fuck you’re going?” He pointed with his chin toward the arena. “The show ain’t even over yet.”
“We got a long drive first thing in the morning. If I don’t get home by Monday night, my dad’ll kick my ass.”
Still frowning, Paul nodded reluctantly. “All right, asshole.” He plopped back down on the bleacher and sipped from his beer. “See you in Oklahoma in July?”
“Maybe,” Glen said, noncommittal, but Dylan knew exactly what was left unsaid. Whether they could get to rodeos in the summer depended entirely on what the weather did and how the grass grew, and therefore, on when it would be time to put up hay.
The contestants’ parking area was spread out haphazardly, consisting mostly of trucks and horse trailers, with a car here and there. Glen had parked his car clear at the back, worried as ever that the shiny new Chevelle his parents had given him a few months before might get nicked by someone’s door or a passing horse.
As they walked, the arena lights at their backs, Dylan felt an itch between his shoulder blades. Had his eyes been playing tricks on him when he’d thought he’d spotted Bo at the arena?
He wanted to turn around, walk straight back onto the grounds, and search the bleachers, concessions, and everywhere else until he knew for sure. But even if he gave in to that urge, and even if he was right and by some twist of fate Bo was there and wanting to be found, what then?
Nothing, that was what.
On the roadside, they’d…connected. God. Dylan shuddered at the thought of Bo taking his mouth, then giving his mouth to Dylan. The act was one that had consumed his imagination for years, and yet he’d never seriously believed it would ever happen to him. He’d only let it happen because he was so far from home, he could pretend he was on the moon, and no one in his real life would ever know.
So seeing Bo on the crowded grounds, with Glen looking on, would be a collision of the unreality of the past night and the reality of Dylan’s actual life. Maybe it was intriguing to imagine, but it shouldn’t happen.
A red pickup and a beat-up stock trailer were parked closest to the Chevelle, with two saddled roan horses tied to the trailer slats, dozing. Their tails didn’t so much as twitch as the two of them walked past.
Dylan tried to shake off the lingering feeling that he was walking away when he should be turning around. He slumped against the passenger door while Glen unlocked the car.
“Did you get any sleep at all last night?” Glen asked him.
“Not really,” Dylan muttered, and as he dropped into the passenger seat, he realized that about twenty-four hours before, Bo had done the same thing while the rain had started to pelt. A gust of air had filled the car when Bo had gotten in, bringing with it the smells of wet leather and rain, but something else too. Something that had ignited Dylan’s senses like never before.
Glen shook his head. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty. We have to get going by five, but I can get a few good hours of sleep at the motel. Maybe since you’re this tired, you’ll sleep too.”
They drove back to the motel, and Glen yielded the first shower to Dylan. When he’d toweled off and flopped into the bed, he quickly realized that any drowsiness he’d felt back at the rodeo grounds was gone. He was tired, sure, but that never made sleeping any easier for him.
***
He managed to drift off a few times, including the half-hour or so before Glen’s alarm went off. Silently, they went about brushing their teeth and throwing their stuff into their bags, a rote routine at this point after years of traveling to rodeos together, waking up early in dive places just like this one, and preparing to hit the road.
He was startled when Glen spoke in the quiet room. “Damn. I can’t find my wallet.”
“Oh shit.” Dylan stood up from where he’d been bent over his own luggage.
“Yeah,” Glen agreed. He checked the bathroom again, then got on his hands and knees to check beneath the bed. “Maybe I dropped it at the rodeo grounds.”
For some reason, as they got into the car, Dylan was yawning again. He took the back seat and stretched out.
“I’m glad you’re not worried about this,” Glen muttered. “I had a hundred bucks and my license in there.”
“I’ve got some money in my pocket,” Dylan replied around another yawn, refusing to miss the chance to fall asleep if his body was offering it, and settled back with his hat resting on his chest. “And if you follow all the rules, nobody will stop and ask you for your license either.”
Glen grumbled a reply Dylan didn’t hear. He was already drifting off. In the last few moments of consciousness, he felt the ghost of the sensations from the other night, when he’d lowered his mouth over the hitchhiker’s unzipped jeans, and a big, strong hand had slipped into his hair.