are you heading out again?” Even though they each had four older siblings of their own, she and Max had been close as thieves their entire lives. Didn’t hurt that their mothers were sisters, so they’d been raised more like brother and sister than cousins. Now, when Max wasn’t out at some rodeo, he stayed with his folks, Mae and Larry. Billie had a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Austin, into which she was still moving her stuff from Houston.
She opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet and tucked the picture of Max inside. She’d leave it there, where there would be no chance of her newest client spotting it.
It was pretty unlikely the rodeo star would care that she had a photo of the young man who’d bested him in El Paso, but she wasn’t going to take chances.
Nor was she going to take chances that Max would learn the identity of her new high-profile client. After what had happened earlier that year, he’d consider it treason.
“Coleman starts the day after Selena’s deal, so we’ll drive over once it looks like I can git along without Mama getting ticked.”
“Travis going?” When Max’s buddy Travis Conrad wasn’t competing in tie-down roping, he hazed for Max.
“Yeah. Hopefully, we’ll still have enough time to catch some z’s before slack.”
“Slack,” she knew, was the time scheduled for overflow contestants to compete, because they couldn’t all be scheduled into the regular nightly performances. It was generally free to get into, whereas the performances were not. Fortunately for the competitors, a slack event counted just as much as a performance event. Like Max said, the paycheck was the same whether there were paying crowds in the grandstand or not.
Of course, a lot of times that paycheck was a big fat zero. Considering the entrance fees, as well as the cost of getting themselves, their gear and their horse, if they even had one there in the first place, rodeoing often meant cowboys headed on down the road already in the hole. Max loved it, though.
Personally, Billie liked having a bank account that wasn’t always in need of life support.
She turned back to face her desk. “And after Coleman?” She tapped her glass keyboard, systematically printing off the listings Grayson had liked, as well as a few more to recommend if needed.
The Fourth of July was less than a month away and she knew Max would be particularly busy. “How many rodeos are you packing in this year?”
The few weeks in and around the Independence Day holiday were affectionately known as Cowboy Christmas because of the sheer number of opportunities a person had to enter the most rodeos for the most money.
“Long as my truck, trailer and gear hold out, seven, including Reno. Got three saddle bronc riders plus Trav hitching rides with me. Helps a lot on expenses and the driving when we’ll be covering some four thousand miles.”
She grimaced, just thinking about five men packed into such close confines. She remembered one year after he’d returned from Cowboy Christmas. Ripe didn’t even begin to describe the state of his truck. She wondered if Grayson would be caught up in the frenzied schedule, too. If he were, it would definitely put a crimp in his availability to see listings. “Going to Calgary?”
“The earnings don’t count toward the standings. Cowboy Country’s will. So that’s where I’m planning to be. You gonna make it over for the rodeo?”
Her fingers paused on the glass. Cowboy Country USA was a popular Western-theme amusement park in Horseback Hollow, where their mothers had grown up. It was a good five to six hour drive. “Depends on work.”
Max made a sound. “Everything depends on your work. You’re gonna get old and dull, Bill. You need to get out and have more fun. And by fun, I mean sex.”
Her fingers paused. “And the last time you had some fun?”
He snorted, laughing. “About a week ago. A chick I met at Twine.”
“Obviously, you’re not still brokenhearted from Bethany.” Bethany Belmont was the barrel racer Grayson supposedly stole from Max back in March. Max claimed Bethany had been the love of his life until Grayson lured her away. It was then that Max had made it his goal to unseat the reigning rodeo champion.
“Being brokenhearted ain’t got diddly to do with sex.” Max’s voice had gone flat.
She rolled her eyes and started typing again. If Grayson were still involved with the woman, he’d given no indication of it that morning. And she found it difficult to believe that her cousin had been as gung ho over the barrel racer as he claimed, since Max fell in love more often than Billie bought shoes. “I can’t believe that of the two of us, you are the romantic.”
“Yeah, well, you ought t’ try it sometime. At least go out and drink a little. Dance a little. Never know where it might lead.”
“Yeah, well, you know how I feel about that,” she returned calmly. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in love. Her parents had been inseparable since being childhood sweethearts. Billie just wasn’t willing to sacrifice everything she wanted out of life because of it. She wanted her high-rise apartment that she could barely afford. She wanted her nice clothes and her interesting career and—one day—a bank account that allowed for more things than just the minimum daily requirements. So far, any relationships she’d had of the romantic variety had been decided letdowns in comparison.
“Look, Max, I’ve got stuff to do. Don’t forget to bring Selena an appropriate gift. A bottle of hooch for a thirteen-year-old won’t cut it.”
“You give me no credit. Last time I did that was for Audie’s eighteenth.”
“Eighteen was still underage, Max,” she reminded him before hanging up and turning her attention fully to the property listings once more.
When she met with Grayson in the morning, she wanted to be completely prepared. She’d been told to close the deal quickly, and that’s exactly what she intended to do.
When the phone rang a few seconds later, she grabbed it up again. “If you’re calling to ask me to buy Selena’s gift for you, the answer is still no.”
A feminine laugh answered her. “Actually, I was calling to see if you were going to be in Houston this Friday.”
Billie’s fingers relaxed on her glass keypad again. “Well, if it isn’t the soon-to-be Mrs. Zach McCarter.” She grinned. “Or after enduring Schuyler’s wedding last month, are you calling to tell me you and Zach decided to forgo all the hoopla and elope to Vegas?”
Maddie Fortunado laughed in her ear again. “We’re still planning a wedding,” she assured her. “So don’t think you’re getting out of attending. But I guarantee it won’t be quite as over-the-top as my sister’s come-one, come-all grand affair. So, are you going to be in Houston on Friday? We’re trying out a new restaurant and I wanted to let you know in case you’re able to join the gang.”
Maddie was the newly crowned president at Fortunado Real Estate in Houston along with her fiancé, Zach, where Billie had gotten her start. She’d also been the one to invite her to join the “gang”—a group of young real estate professionals who met routinely to talk business and socialize.
“I hope to be,” Billie
