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Chapter One
“AEBR fans, get on your feet for our Portland, Oregon’s winner this year. Cash Hunter.”
His song, “Fields of Glory” by Kenny Chesney blared. Red, white and blue fireworks burst out of tubes lining the indoor arena in the Moda Center, and the fans were already standing, shouting his name and doing the signature up-and-down move—four times to the beat—like they were at a Vegas slot machine chanting, “Chi-ching, chi-ching, chi-ching, chi-ching.”
Damn. Never got old.
But it was perhaps a little silly now that he was twenty-five and a man, no longer a cocky kid with a big mouth and a bigger attitude—far bigger than his skill level had been at the time. Definitely the AEBR intern this season—Madelyn Ramone “don’t call me Maddy”—was not impressed by him. Still, she stood a little outside the huddled group of local dignitaries and tour staff, all waiting for him in the winner’s circle. She was the only one not talking. She faced him, one hand holding the AEBR phone that she was constantly using to catch videos of the riders interacting and palming her phone in the other where she’d take candids.
He hated to admit it, but Maddy knew how to tell a story even when he was trying not to tell her anything or only show her what he wanted. Made him think that she was wasting her time interning on tour. She definitely didn’t want to be man-noticed—witness her boring wardrobe that was a crime on a woman so young with glossy dark hair that she always sleeked back into some kind of a fat roll that made him want to tug it free to reveal her true nature—whatever that was.
She wore what she’d worn all season—a shapeless synthetic trouser suit. She had four of the sad unmemorable suits that she rotated. Navy today with a black stretchy tank, but because the suit jackets were always buttoned, even the stretchy fabric did nothing to enhance her long, slim body.
The applause swelled and people began to stomp their feet. See, that was something Maddy with her long oval of a golden-toned expressionless face didn’t know how to do—work a crowd. Be noticed.
Ironic that he continued to notice her. Probably because she didn’t like him. And Cash was used to being liked.
“Another day, another win,” Cash Hunter—not his real name, but he’d been dreaming big and gunning for the American Extreme Bull Riding circuit when he’d been eighteen—said. He tipped his hat, then held it up high and grinned the grin that advertisers always wanted when he hocked their products.
Then he swaggered across the dirt and sawdust to join the award ceremony. He high-fived the second-place bull rider, who probably wanted to knock out his expensive teeth. One more thing earning bank had transformed about him.
The interviewer asked the usual questions. And he rolled out his “aw-shucks, I’m so modest” answers, already thinking about the month-long break before the finals in Vegas. The local television crew was here, the cameraman angling in. Cash shifted imperceptibly so the camera got a better angle of his jaw, his profile, his longish dark hair with the copper highlights that had been a gift from God and his love of being outside.
He saw one of Maddy’s naturally arched brows lift. Cynical for someone just starting out in the profession, but then he’d never been able to get a read on Maddy. She’d shut him down hard and early when he’d just been being friendly—he didn’t play where he worked—but the force and the cool, aloof regard that bordered on disdain still burned a little—when he let it. He’d yet to make her smile, but after the finals, she’d go on her way with the boost to her résumé and a shiny letter of rec or whatever the AEBR promised one marketing college graduate from a state school at the beginning of every season.
He took off his hat, ran a lean hand through his hair so it feathered around his face and fell to his shoulders, and then he put his black Stetson back on.
The daughter of somebody important audibly sighed, and he shot her a small smile. Too young so he didn’t go full amp.
He’d been here many times. It was a stage, a performance like all of life, and he was one hell of a performer cowboy. Maddy moved a little closer. Her Madonna-esque face was serene but focused. Clearly, she had a plan, and just for a second, he angled toward her and winked and kicked up a half smile. Her large, midnight eyes that could swallow a man widened before she killed her reaction, but it felt like a score for him.
Yeah, I’m messin’ with you, girl.
Safe here.
Maddy reminded him of one of the women in the Renaissance paintings—long, oval face; high forehead; regal, narrow features; and compelling eyes that were always looking slightly away from the viewer as if mortals bored her. And then there was her body that even the cheap suits couldn’t hide—tall, athletically slim coupled with her tucked-in waist, and high rounded breasts that many of the riders had openly speculated—real or fake—was enough to make any man still alive and pumping any testosterone, stupid.
Looking at Maddy was like looking at a supermoon, coupled with the retina-frying power of a solar eclipse.
Cash kept thinking that if he looked his fill, he’d get over her. But not yet. And wasn’t that the biggest hands-off sign a man like him could get. He still had a list of goals before he turned thirty, and he had a feeling Maddy wouldn’t be easy to forget but far too easy to hurt. But maybe he was protecting himself instead of the both of them by being a dick.
She had a warning label.
Touch and you’ll lose a hand and other body parts.
Touch and you’ll never be the same. Never.
Touch and no other woman will do it for you. Not ever.
And Cash wanted to touch a lot.
But he wanted to win more. Amass more money. More endorsements. More business investment opportunities so that when his time on the circuit—hopefully years away—came to an end, he’d never ever have to scrounge for change in a couch or, like he sometimes did when he was younger, stay the night with a woman because he didn’t have a place to sleep, again.
Maddy faced him as he stared her down and took a shot, just as he started thanking all the sponsors by name—thank God for his photographic and sharp memory. And then everything slipped surreally sideways.
A ripple of noise rolled through the crowd. He heard his name shouted with several curse words attached and then “deadbeat dick of a daddy.” More noise from the crowd, and Cash spun round to see a beyond buxom blonde in clingy sweatpants, a rodeo T-shirt and stained yellow hoodie bearing down on him. Her mouth spit out insults and her eyes aimed at him like lasers.
“Cash Hunter, you think you’re so hot. You think you’re all that? You’re as fake as your name. You’re done running.” She sped toward him holding something small in her arms, still spewing creative insults, her eyes narrowed and sparking and furious. Her blonde hair was up in one of those messy buns so many women wore effortlessly and that were incredibly sexy, except not this woman. Half of her straw-yellow hair was up, but half hung down in limp chunks—revealing inch-long dark roots.
He’d never seen her before.
He told himself to move. To intercept her. She could be dangerous, and he needed to protect everyone around him, but his limbs felt like they belonged to someone else.
Of course, Maddy defied whatever inertia laws existed. Still holding her cameras, she moved to intercept, and he managed to follow, stepping forward with the probably lame idea that he could protect her from the avenging diminutive harpy.
“Ma’am,” he started—aware that the TV camera man now flanked him.
“Save your ma’ams for old ladies needing help across the street and your charm for someone who gives a sh…,” the rest of the word was lost when she shoved at Maddy, who kept her footing, but instead of coming back at the woman, which seemed like a logical Maddy thing to do, she looked at whatever the woman held in a stained yellowish blanket, then looked at Cash and took a step back.
“Ma’am, I mean miss,” Cash said, noticing for some bizarre brain burp that she was wearing yellow rubber flip-flops. “Please, no cursing—the AEBR is a family event.”
Was she crazy? Off her meds? Dangerous? His mind raced. And then she cackled like a witch. She was possibly all three, and he needed to get her to a less public area for her all too public meltdown. He didn’t want anyone hurt, and he didn’t want his name associated with tanking the ratings for one of the top professional bull-riding tours in the world.
“Can we call someone for you? Family?” He reached for his phone, feeling like an idiot, and wondering where security was. The crowd was rumbling but eerily quiet—not good quiet, uneasy. And he was sure her creative cursing of certain parts of his anatomy and personality had been picked up by the TV crew, and who knew how many cell phones.
“Family,” she screeched. “Family. You’re so high on family, you deal with family finally.” Then she shoved the package at him, and instinctively he took it, and as he realized what it was, she laughed.
“Think you’re so hot, Mr. Entitled. Nothing sticks? Think again. Tag, baby daddy, you’re it.”
“This can’t be happening.” Cash paced the floor of the backstage office. “That did not just happen.”
Oh, it happened.
Madelyn battled with her swinging emotions, none of which were particularly professional. Part of her wanted to laugh. Served Cash Hunter right that one of his weekend hookups had hunted him down with the consequences of his habitual blowing off steam and flexing his charm and ego as he swaggered through America’s heartland. And then there was the unseemly, excited ambition that burned to take on the challenge. Spin this very public accusation so that the golden boy of the AEBR remained shiny.
Not that he deserved to. But it was still her job until after the finals to support the story that AEBR bull riders are all-American, down-home heroes brushed by a patriotic love of God, country, and family with a hint of sexy wild west renegades. One of the riders getting called out as an oversexed, careless dirtbag would not sell tickets and merch, and it would upset sponsors.
She planned to make a career in a major American metropolis at a consequential PR and marketing firm on the top floor of a high-rise where dirt, sawdust, animal stink, Stetsons, and boots were not a part of her world ever again. So today presented an excellent opportunity to spin a crisis into a win, and she couldn’t wait.
Only her boss Suzette and her assistant Jeffrey huddled together with no ideas or instructions, only handwringing and blessing themselves and muttering.
Not helping.
“And it was all caught on camera. On TV. Live!” PR director Suzette Lungstrom moaned.
Despite the PR disaster, Madelyn secretly gave props to the woman. The visuals and timing had been epic. She’d looked like she’d crawled out of a packing box backwards—frazzled, disheveled, and dirty, and there had been Cash blathering on “humbly” about the team, and the tour and the fans. Blah, blah, blah.
And then slam. Mic-drop moment. She shoved a baby at Cash who held it like it was a bomb.
And it was. The baby was probably going to explode in glorious Technicolored poop that would make bull manure smell like eau de country cologne. Ha. Maybe Cash could sell that now.
The baby mama had to have planned it. Masterful. Peak timing—everyone’s cell phones out. Cameras rolling. Barely born bobblehead baby handed off like a classified document. Then the mad dash across the arena and ducking through fences like she was being timed on an American Ninja Warrior competition. Security staff had still been blinking sleepily at the unexpected tableau.
And then the pièce de résistance: a Tweety Bird flip-flop left in the arena by a modern-day small-town Cinderella after an escapade at the beach. Of course Maddy had gotten that photo. Too bad she wouldn’t be hired to do a roast video of Cash Hunter. She had endless reputation-ruining footage.
Inwardly quelling her smug snarky visuals, Madelyn spared a moment to acknowledge her surprise. She’d never seen Cash do more than nurse one whiskey or a beer at a sponsor event, and he usually left it more than half full. Still, he must have been plastered when he hooked up with his baby mama. Not his type at all.
He usually charmed the tall, curvy, and heavily TikTok-beauty-curated women who looked like they spent more time at Sephora than at home. But not this woman. Pity warred with amusement. She couldn’t think of anyone who deserved the public slap harder than Mister Never Once Kept it in His Pants, when the most casual invitation was issued. Nope. Yet still Cash had maintained his squeaky-clean image—something she’d helped with this season.
But there was the third unwanted emotion. Empathy. Dang it. Cash still held the baby out in front of him like it was a bomb. He hadn’t once looked at it, though to be fair—and why should she—he’d become viral for the worst reason. Maddy’s lip curled even as her heart stuttered. She knew what it was like for babies and young kids to be unwanted. And this baby had just lost its mother—even if it was temporary. Or a setup?
Please let it be temporary.
A moment of postpartum crazy that would be resolved with a kind intervention, therapy, a supportive family …
And probably drugs.
“Oh my God.” Cash stalked over, holding the baby even farther away from him, and by one sniff, she could tell why. “It just did something.”
She looked up from the doom scrolling of all the videos and comments of his viral moment of infamy.
“You’re blowing up,” she deadpanned, knowing how carefully Cash cultivated his online presence. He was constantly texting her with an idea—often after midnight, likely on his way home from whatever hookup he’d been rocking—of a way to raise his profile.
“And your baby just had a blowout. Congratulations.”
“A what? How do I fix it?”
“Diapers,” Madelyn said, wrinkling her nose and looking away from his stunned navy-blue eyes and desperate expression.
Nope. Not getting sucked in again.
She’d left babies, children, poverty, and constant demands, and time and soul sucking behind when she had been seventeen and had earned a full ride to Western Montana State. Not her first, second, or third choice. But the school had been free—books too—and she’d received a work-study stipend, and the block system had made it easy to manage a near full-time job. Plus Dillon, Montana, was cheap so it hadn’t been a bad deal. She was debt-free.
Still, she’d busted out the day after graduation—not with a dream job, but a paying internship, that while it didn’t get her to New York, did get her out of a small town and on the road visiting some big cities. Nothing glamorous, but the work was interesting and varied and her living expenses were covered so the stipend was banked—except the four suits and ankle boots she’d bought at a thrift store. They were boring, but practical, never wrinkled and were easy to clean in a hotel sink and hang in the shower, and then they’d be dry by the morning.
When the tour finished, she was going to burn them, though she doubted they’d light—just melt.
“Where? How …” His voice was clipped. No charm. The real Cash. Cash full of fear. “Where do we buy diapers? Are they in women’s restrooms free like tampons and condoms?”
What bathrooms had he been in? Nothing for women was ever free.
“No.”
She wanted to savor Cash’s discomfort, though it was mean. But this was more about the baby than him, and the baby would need not only its mother, but also diapers, formula, and so much more soon. Jessie Green, VP of community relations, and Bob Lanfry, the AEBR Tour manager, both arrived looking red-faced and flustered.
“Security’s got nothing,” Jessie said, shaking her head at the incompetence or maybe at the whole unbelievable scenario.
No one seemed able to cope. Madelyn had used the AEBR credit card to online-order a nursery worth of baby supplies—they might need them, but if not, the AEBR could donate the supplies to the baby mama or a local women’s shelter with a sweet speech that she’d write, Suzette would approve, and someone would read with straight-faced sincerity.
“Huddle up,” Bob said. “Countdown in five to Zoom with Bruce.”
The CEO.
Not good.
But this was a chance to meet him, finally. And with Suzette still looking like a deer in headlights, Madelyn saw a chance to step into the void. Ironic as hell since she’d spent the last six years running from her past. Still, she’d never dropped an opportunity. The guidance counselor at her high school in Marietta, Montana,—Mr. Lane—had been a big Steve Jobs fan and had always wistfully quoted something about connecting the dots of one’s experiences.
“Madds, I need help.”
“Madelyn. And why ask me? Because I’m a woman? My estrogen spews maternal feelings?” His baby mama hadn’t been feeling all that maternal. “Am I magic, and I can snap my fingers and produce a diaper?”
She hadn’t snapped, exactly—at least not loudly.
“Does my DNA grant me knowledge of baby care?”
“Cut me a break, Madds.” He was as close to whining as she’d ever heard.
“Don’t call me Madds.” The pungent smell triggered memories, and Madelyn felt ill, trapped, and she broke out in a cold sweat. The baby started crying—howling miserably.
“Do something,” Cash pleaded, pushing the baby closer. “I’ll pay you.”
“I already have,” she said coolly, finally looking at him, but not the baby. She couldn’t. So tiny, helpless, abandoned. She stomped down on her stupid soft heart. “And you owe the AEBR over a thousand dollars.”
“What?” He paled beneath his tan, his cheekbones in sharp relief as if he’d lost weight in the last ten minutes.
She held out her phone that showed her order from a local box store.
“Diapers, wipes, Diaper Genie, car seat, Pack ’n Play, onesies, bottles, bottle washer, bibs, burp cloths and a few receiving blankets, and a mobile and a few toys and other accessories, including a stroller and BabyBjörn. It will all be delivered in”—she broke off, looked at the time—“less than an hour.”
“Did you buy the store? A thousand dollars,” he began. “I don’t even know what half that stuff is—”
“You’ll learn,” she interrupted the ignorant idiot. “And that’s a bargain,” she said cheekily. “And if you’d been paying attention and being responsible, you would not only know what these items are, but you would have purchased them for your child and hired a nanny so your baby mama could shower and go to a salon for some me-time pampering.”
“I don’t even know that woman. This is not my baby.”
He sounded on the edge. Good. Because his attitude was putting her there as well. She kept calm even when her silence felt alive and angry. Her own sperm squirt had probably had the same reaction to her existence … before ignoring her permanently.
“All of these things are necessary, I assure you.”
“How can they be necessary? It’s like a whole … whole … What is that word for a baby room?”
“Nursery,” she said coldly, not that any of the kids who rotated in and out of her charge in the foster home had ever had a nursery.
“I’m not keeping it,” he said. “It’s not mine. That woman was … crazy or a plant or playing a joke.”
The room went electric quiet.
“You’re going to get rid of the problem?” Madelyn repeated, feeling as if her blood had become a wildfire raging through her veins. “The baby is a human being, not a shirt that doesn’t fit right that you can get some underling to take back to the store,” she said, fisted hands on her hips, and for a moment she pictured herself popping him in the nose.
She needed self-control and a glowing letter of rec, but his attitude spiked her temper. She spoke from experience because he’d asked her to do that twice. But her fury and his pushback gave her an idea for rehabbing his immature, irresponsible image, that she didn’t think anyone else on the team had thought of yet, as they still seemed to be in limbic fear mode. She quickly typed a few things on her phone’s note app.
“Madds, chill,” he said. “I’m not going to drop the baby off on the side of the road on my way out of town.”
“Am I supposed to cheer?”
“It’s not my baby,” he said, voice strong as if he could will the facts to match what he wanted.
“Quiet.” Jessie’s voice was a whip.
Both Cash and Madelyn snapped their mouths shut.
“This is a crisis, and you”—Jessie pointed to Cash—“are the daddy until a DNA test proves you aren’t.”
He opened his mouth.
“Yes.” Jessie’s light blue eyes were icy and diamond-hard. “Cash, don’t play victim with me. You want your adoring fans to know that you publicly rejected your child and shoved it on social services on your way out of town instead of taking responsibility and finding the baby mama and ensuring she’s safe and healthy and taken care of?”
Cash looked like he had been punched.
“Keep running your mouth and see what happens.”
The tension was as thick and hot as an award-winning chili.
“Jessie,” Cash said, not flashing his smile, nor did his dimple pop. “I really don’t know that woman. I didn’t have sex with her. I didn’t father her child. She was just …” He trailed off as if he couldn’t fathom why a woman would put herself in such a bad light unless she was desperate or mentally ill.
“We will solve this pro … mystery,” Jessie said coolly, “as a team, and I can count on you being a team player, Cash, or your position in this organization will dramatically change.”
Jessie’s message hit home with the power of a thunderclap, and Cash staggered over to a chair as if his legs had started to dissolve.
“That is not how you hold a baby.” Madelyn couldn’t take it anymore.
She pushed him into a more reclined posture in the chair, moved his arms into a more cradling position, and tilted the baby until it was cuddled closer to Cash’s chest.
“Like that,” she said.
The baby stopped crying and began rooting around Cash’s chest.
“What’s it doing?” Cash’s eyes rounded in alarm.
“The baby’s hungry. Shouldn’t be too long,” she said, smoothing one finger through the wispy reddish curls, and then she softly stroked the baby’s cheek and forehead. She couldn’t help but note that Cash too had coppery streaks in his silky hair, all protesting denials aside.
“Boy or girl do you think?” Cash asked, his gaze tangling with hers, and Madelyn forgot how to breathe.
End of Excerpt
