As Patience read over the next few pages, Addie and Lucky began traveling together, their friendship growing, two unmarried young women braving a world almost totally dominated by men. In Portland, one of the horses pulled a tendon coming down the homestretch and Addie's team lost the race.

Patience would have kept on reading if a knock at the door hadn't interrupted her. "Come on in," she called out, figuring it was probably Stormy.

She didn't expect to see Dallas Kingman's black hat poke through the door. He grinned when he saw her.

"I didn't know you wore glasses. Kind of reminds me of my fifth grade teacher."

Patience snatched them off her face and sat up a little straighter in the booth. "I usually wear my contacts."

He smiled as he pulled his hat off, ducked his head, and came in, absorbing the last of what little space there was inside. "Actually, that was a compliment. Mrs. Lovell was a total fox." He grinned. "I had a crush on her for years." He glanced down at the computer sitting on the Formica-topped table. "You working on your article?"

Patience gazed up at him, thinking how terrific he looked. "Actually, I was reading my great grandmother's journal. She was an early rodeo cowgirl."

"No kidding."

"That was back in 1912. I think she did a little trick riding once in a while, but mostly she competed in the cowgirl relay races."

The grin reappeared. "So you've actually got a little red, white, and blue rodeo blood pumping through you."

Patience set the tapestry-covered volume on the table. "I suppose so, though it's pretty diluted by now." Mixed with the ice water Tyler believed ran through her veins. Patience glanced up at Dallas, wishing the last thought hadn't popped into her head. "I didn't even know I had relatives in Oklahoma until last year."

"That must have been quite a shock for a Boston-bred, city girl like you."

He was laughing at her. She should have been insulted but his eyes were twinkling and somehow she wasn't. "Is there something you wanted?"

He fiddled with his hat. "Charlie's talking to a couple of old-time cowgirls over at the VIP stand. He thought you might like to meet them."

She brightened. "Definitely. I'll pack things up here and head over that way right now."

Dallas turned the hat in his hands. They were large and calloused but when he had held her, they had been gentle.

"I'll be flying out after the show. After I'm through in Cody, I'm headed to Calgary. I guess I won't be seeing you till we meet up in Sheridan."

"I guess not." After Shari and Stormy left Greeley, they were traveling to a Circle C rodeo down in Pecos. Afterward, Charlie was going home to his ranch in the Hill Country to see his wife.

"I got a whole week off," Charlie had said. "I been missin' my woman somethin' fierce. I can't wait to get back home."

Patience returned her computer to its usual spot on the table, then turned to Dallas. He was dressed for the evening performance, wearing his trademark blue western shirt and hand-tooled black and gold metallic fringed chaps. They rode low on his hips, framing the zipper on his jeans and a substantial male bulge that brought a rush of color to her face.

Dallas must have noticed. He made a rough sound in his throat and when she looked up, his eyes were a deeper shade of blue and even more intense. Her cheeks felt hot. She kept her gaze on his face.

Dallas's fingers tightened around the brim of his hat. "I...um...I better get going."

"Good luck with your ride."

He just nodded and turned to leave. She thought she heard him curse as he descended the steps of the trailer.

In Greeley, Dallas rode well and won some money. In St. Paul, he rode like a boob. He drew a good horse but got sidetracked on the first jump out of the chute, dropped a boot behind the horse's withers, and took a no score. In Cody, he was determined to make up for the poor showing in Oregon and made one of the best rides he had made all year. The good news was he took home first-place money, which was a respectable chunk in Cody.

The bad news was, his dismount was faulty and he went into the fence, wrenching his shoulder again and ripping the skin off the back of his hand.

His hand scabbed over. In Calgary the following week, he wrapped the shoulder in an Ace bandage and took a third in the overall. Roy Greenwood showed up and though he grumbled that the judges scored the ride too low, he seemed happy that Dallas had landed in the money.

After the perf, Roy took his entire entourage out to supper: three hot-looking Vegas showgirls who had accompanied him on his private jet-a sleek little Citation that Dallas had ridden in a couple of times-Roy's brother, Bob, always up for a party, and a small group of men and women who worked at a Greenwood Enterprises branch office in Calgary.

One of the showgirls, a leggy brunette named Cherry, slid into the red leather booth beside him at supper and Dallas saw Roy grin. Apparently, Cherry was a gift. She was nearly as tall as Dallas and built like the proverbial brick s-house. What was that old saying? Never look a gift horse in the mouth?

They went back to the River's Edge Inn where Roy had rented a bank of rooms, drank for a while in the bar, then Dallas and the brunette went upstairs.

She was good. He had to give her that. She must have sensed a hint of reluctance or indifference or whatever it was he was feeling, because the next thing he knew she was taking charge. Cherry knew what she wanted and she took it.

No strings attached.

Not like the Boston blonde he had left in the tiny trailer. Sex with her would be ridiculously complicated. She'd want promises he couldn't give. Commitments he couldn't begin to make.

He didn't know how much time passed, but when they were finished, Cherry smiled, pleased with the job she had done.

"Anything else I can do for you, cowboy?"

He wanted her to leave. His shoulder was aching, she had done her work, and he had to get up early in the morning. And all the time she had been working him over, he had been thinking of Patience. "Tell Roy I owe him one."

She looked up at him through heavily mascared lashes. "Are you sure you don't want me to stay?"

Dallas shook his head. "Sorry, darlin'. I got work to do tomorrow."

He sent her away, thinking of Patience, wishing she had been the woman in his bed, cursing the fact that he wanted her and didn't really understand why. She was getting under his skin and he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't afford commitments, couldn't afford to get involved with a woman. Romance didn't fit into the life he led, the plans he had made for the future.

From this moment on, he told himself, he wasn't going to think of Patience Sinclair. When he got back to Sheridan, he'd do whatever it took to get her out of his system for good.

Dallas rolled over in the bed, exhausted but oddly restless, even after his bout with the brunette. Spotting the bottle of whiskey she had left on the nightstand, he reached over, unscrewed the cap, and took a long drink, hoping it would help him fall asleep.

Dallas woke up with the mother of all headaches. He groaned as he cracked open his eyes and tried to will away the pounding between his temples. The alarm clock was buzzing. He grimaced as he leaned over to shut it off.

Six a.m. Roy's plane would be leaving at eight, giving him a first class ride to Sheridan, and Dallas needed to be on it. He rolled toward the edge of the mattress, fought down a wave of nausea, and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

At least he was alone.

He didn't remember what time the showgirl had left, but he was damned glad she was gone. He didn't realize he had drunk so much. Now he was stuck with one helluva hangover. He swallowed against the bile that rose in his throat and forced his feet to move toward the bathroom. He grimaced when he looked in the mirror, stared into his whiskery face and bloodshot eyes.

Fleetingly, he wondered how much longer he could keep up the pace.

Long enough to get what you want.

To win the All-Around title again in December and a good chunk more money stashed away toward buying his ranch.

Aside from that, getting more rest would help. He could sleep on the plane, be rested by the time he got to Wyoming. As he turned on the hot water in the bathroom, drew the curtain and stepped under the spray of steaming hot water, a couple of things were clear.

He was through partying for a while.

And it was time he started focusing on his work.

Which meant he was going to do everything in his power to avoid Patience Sinclair.

"God, I hate to leave." Charlie tightened his hold on Annie. They were standing in the kitchen, in front of the old white enamel stove that his father had bought his mother when Charlie was a kid. It sat next to the big white side-by-side refrigerator he had bought for Annie for Christmas last year. She was baking an apple pie, his favorite, with others and the fragrance of apples and cinnamon filled the cozy kitchen.

"I wish I could go with you," Annie said, "but the way things have been going, I think I'd better stay here."

When they were younger, Annie had traveled with him all the time, but in the last few years, the constant moving, the uprooting every week to head off for another rodeo, had just become too much for her.

Annie preferred to stay on the ranch, to tend her chickens and grow things in her garden and generally keep things running smoothly at home.

"I hated to see you sell those horses," she said, her arm around his waist. "They were some of our very best."

"Yeah, I know. Lem paid top dollar for them, though."

"He and Jack still after you to sell?"

Charlie chuckled. "They've never really stopped. We beat them out of the contract for the Greeley Stampede this year. I think it rankled them plenty."

Charlie released his hold so Annie could check on the pies. When she bent over, he noticed the curve of her hips beneath her jeans, felt the twinge of desire he always felt for her, and found himself smiling.

"The sheriff says he'll keep an eye on things here while I'm gone," he said, though so far no more Circle C stock had been stolen in the time he had been gone.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you. Sully called about an hour ago." Malcolm Sullivan was their nearest neighbor, the owner of the four-thousand acre spread, the Double Arrow, that bordered the Circle C.

"What'd he want?"

"Wanted to talk to you about those cattle thieves. He's been out of town, I guess. Wanted to know if you'd talked to Sheriff Mills lately and if he'd turned up anything new."

Charlie hadn't lost any more cattle, but according to Mal, the Double Arrow had lost some twenty head. "Mills hasn't found anything that I know of."

"Sully's cows turned up missing about a week after ours. Nothing's happened since then. Maybe whoever did it has headed somewhere else."

"I sure hope so."

Annie turned off the oven, pulled out two golden-brown apple pies, and set them on top of the stove. Charlie walked over and inhaled the cinnamon fragrance, then turned and kissed the side of her neck.

"Charlie!"

He grinned at the flush that rose into her cheeks. They only had one night left and he meant to make it a good one. They usually ate early. After they were finished and he'd had time to let his pie settle a little, he intended to take her upstairs and spend the evening showing her just how much she meant to him.

"I wish Dallas could have come home with you," Annie said wistfully. He was the son she never had and though the boy called at least once a week, Charlie knew she missed him.

"He's been busy. Maybe he'll come home with me next time."

She untied the apron around her waist and tossed it onto the table. "I worry about him. He works too hard. He tries to ride in too many shows and then he still has to do all that darned publicity. He needs to come home and rest for a while."

"What that boy needs is a good woman," Charlie grumbled. "By the time I was his age, you and I had been married four years."

"I think he'd make a really good husband. He loves kids and he's good with them, and you taught him the right way to treat a woman."

Charlie grunted. "If he ever makes up his mind to settle down with just one."

Annie shoved the pies a little farther back on the stove. "He just hasn't met the right girl, that's all."

"I guess not." But an image of Patience Sinclair flashed in his head. She was not the sort of woman Dallas usually went for, the flashy types like Jade. She was sweet and thoughtful and sincere. She was intelligent, too, the way Dallas was.

Still, they didn't have much in common. A high-tone Boston gal would hardly make a suitable wife for a Texas cowhand. And that was all Dallas ever wanted to be.

Charlie thought of his sister, Jolene, and her ill-fated marriage to Dallas's father, Avery Kingman. The pair was doomed from the start, no matter how much they were in love. Avery came from old-money Houston society while Jolie was raised on a ranch. Though they never divorced, in the years before Jolie died, they grew further and further apart and neither was ever truly happy.

Charlie sure didn't want that to happen to his boy.

"Supper's almost ready." Annie pulled open a drawer and started taking out silverware for the table. "Maybe we'll go for a ride or something after we finish eating."

Charlie flicked her a look and his eyes twinkled. "Yeah, maybe we will."

Patience couldn't stop thinking about him. No matter how hard she worked, no matter how deeply she immersed herself in her thesis, Dallas was always there, hovering at the edge of her mind.

At first she told herself she was acting like a fool. She wasn't the kind of woman who went for guys like him. Guys who wanted only one thing from a woman and made the fact more than clear. No-strings sex was fine for Dallas, but for Patience, sleeping with a man without any sort of relationship was out of the question.

Or was it?

Day and night, the notion haunted her.

The hard truth was, she wanted to sleep with him, wanted it more than anything she could remember in a very long time. She began to think, why shouldn't I? She was a modern, liberated woman. Besides, traveling the rodeo circuit was supposed to be her grand adventure. Why not just give in, go to bed with him and get it over with?

She remembered the way it felt when he had kissed her. No man had ever stirred her that way. Dallas knew women. He had made love to dozens of them. He would know how to make a woman respond. She thought of the men in her life. In high school she had been the shy, bookish Sinclair sister with short hair and glasses. Hope had had to bribe a friend to take her little sister to the prom.

In college she'd had a couple of dates, then began to see a guy in her psychology class. She was tired of being a virgin, the last one at the U., she began to believe. Danny Shepard wanted to make love to her and eventually she said yes. The first time had hurt and the second time wasn't much better. Danny was gangly and not much fun. She wasn't really that attracted to him, so she had ended the affair.

Her relationship with Tyler wasn't much better.

But Dallas...Dallas was the sexiest man she had ever met. Her heart started knocking the minute he walked into the room. Her legs felt shaky when they danced. Maybe with Dallas it would be different. Maybe afterward, she could banish her low self-image where sex was concerned, go out and find a man who was right for her.

By the time Dallas rejoined them in the little western town of Sheridan, Wyoming, Patience had made up her mind. She was going to bed with Dallas Kingman. If one night was all he wanted, well, there was every chance one night would be more than enough for her.

"You hungry?" Shari stuck her head inside the trailer. They had arrived at the fairgrounds late in the afternoon. It was nearly seven o'clock in the evening and her stomach was making an embarrassing rumble.

"I'm starved."

"You might want to grab a sweater. As hot as it was today, this high up in the mountains, sometimes it gets cold in the evenings."

"All right." She reached into the tiny closet next to her bunk and dug out a lightweight cardigan, reached over and grabbed her purse. "We're out of here."

They weren't going far, just over to Kendrick Park to the rodeo Welcome Barbecue being given by the local Kiwanis Club. She was hungry enough to eat roast mule, and besides, Dallas would be there, or so Stormy had said.

Patience's stomach contracted. She wasn't sure she could go through with this. It wasn't her nature to be aggressive when it came to men, but this was different. Dallas had made the first move. The next move was up to her.