Title: Rough Stock (Small Town Southern Boys, #3)
Author: Deanndra Hall
Genre: Small Town Western Romance/Later in Life Romance
Hosted by: Buoni Amici Press, LLC.
Positions as an instructor and rodeo coach at the local university in South Carolina aren’t enough to keep Jensen Strader in town after he’s abandoned at the altar, so he grabs a trailer and his horses and heads out on the rodeo circuit. Buckles? Sure, he’d love a few. Buckle bunnies? Not interested.
That changes when he meets Shyanna Owens. She’s been picked on, spat on, cussed out, slapped, and punched by people who were supposed to love her, and by male competitors who feel threatened by her. All she wants to do is ride bulls and broncs, and she’s made it clear that no one will run her off. She’s never been tossed one scrap of respect as a human being. Fortunately, she finds a different kind of cowboy in the kind, gentlemanly Jensen. Together, they form the perfect team … and the perfect couple. It’s an alliance that buys Shyanna friends and camaraderie within the rodeo association, safety, and a love that’s true and deep.
But just as Shyanna begins to get the recognition and respect she deserves, one of them stumbles into something dangerous and sinister within the association. It’s no longer about competition. It’s about bitterness and corruption on a collision course with death, and it could stop the beating heart of their relationship unless a determined rough stock rider has her way.
Well, you know what they say: Cowgirl up, ladies—the rodeo is coming to town.
The Small Town Southern Boys series is a collection of independent novels, each in a different southern state with its own flavor and designed so you can jump in anywhere. Discover a world of hunky home-town sexiness that just won’t quit and see for yourself why the temperature’s always hellahot when there’s a drawl coming from those lips with a slow, charming smile.
“Hey,” he said, using his friendliest tone, “I haven’t seen you around. My name’s Jensen Strader.” He extended his hand and waited.
She glanced at his gesture and ignored it as she growled, “Whaddya want?”
Jensen pulled his hand back, afraid she might slap at it. “Just wanted to say hello. I try to get to know as many of the guys on the circuit as I can.”
“Do I look like a fucking guy to you?” she snapped, then took another sip of whiskey.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like … Look, I just wanted to come and say hello, welcome you to the circuit, that’s all. Sorry if I bothered you,” he said. The bartender brought his bottle and he decided maybe it was time to give up and move away. She obviously wasn’t interested in getting to know anyone, and he couldn’t blame her after some of the stories he’d heard.
Just as he turned to go, he heard her say, “Yeah. Run. Just like all the rest of these fucking yellow-bellied cowards.”
A frisson of fury bolted through Jensen’s body as he spun back toward her. “I’m anything but a coward, but if you’ve got to be so god damn rude, I’m leaving. I’ve learned over the years that there are some people you just can’t be nice to because they’re such assholes.”
“So now I’m an asshole?” she asked, but there was a different quality to her voice. It almost sounded like she found it funny.
“I dunno. Do you wanna be an asshole? Because if you don’t, there are some things you should change pretty fucking fast,” he pointed out.
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. You know who I am. Why the hell would you come over here? Do your little friends over there know where you are?” she asked, tossing her head toward the other guys.
“Oh, yeah. They told me not to come over here but, of course, I ignored them. I’m my own dog. I don’t usually take cues from the people around me, especially if they’re fucking yellow-bellied cowards,” Jensen quipped.
To his shock, a tiny smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “How would they take to you calling them that?”
“If it’s true? Don’t see that they’d have a say in it,” he said, trying hard not to chuckle.
“And you’d take a punch for that?”
“Fuck yeah,” he answered. The only thing he couldn’t fight was the grin that spread across his face.
For the first time since he’d been standing there, she looked up at him and grinned herself. He was shocked again when she held out her hand. “Shyanna Owens.”
The grip she gave him when he took it was a surprise―firm and yet soft. “Nice to meet you.”
About Deanndra:
Deanndra Hall is a working author living in the far western end of the beautiful Bluegrass State with her husband of over 35 years and small menagerie of weird little dogs. When she’s not writing, she’s editing. When she’s doing neither of those two things, she’s having dinner with friends, spending time with family, kayaking, eating chocolate, drinking beer or moonshine, or looking for something that she put in the wrong place and can’t seem to find (which is pretty much everything she owns).
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