tan Stetson back a bit, revealing more of his close-cropped auburn hair and light eyes. “Travis Shepard.”
“Oh, hey.” She smiled and moved in for a quick hug, noticing that Travis had changed a good bit since she’d last seen him. Taller, built more like a man than a teenage boy, and, wow, he’d certainly grown into a looker. Suddenly feeling uncharacteristically awkward at that thought, she stepped back from him. “How long has it been?”
“A while.”
Several years, in fact. She hadn’t seen him since right after he’d gotten married and was about to ship out with the army overseas. A lot had changed since then. He’d lost his wife and had traded the military for a private investigator’s license. A flicker of something in his eyes made her wonder if he’d just had a similar thought.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
He nodded toward the arena. “Came to watch my niece Hailey. She’s riding in the mutton busting.”
“Really? Last time I saw her and Rita, Hailey was still a baby.”
“She’s six now, and Rita’s pregnant again.”
Abby cleared her throat, drawing Savannah’s attention. When she saw the look of appreciation on Abby’s face, Savannah fought the unexpected urge to step in between her two friends, to protect Travis even though from the looks of him he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. After all, he’d been a soldier.
“Travis and I went to high school together,” Savannah said.
She shifted her gaze to Travis, who had taken a couple of steps closer, allowing her to see his eyes better, remember the pretty pale blue. Even when he’d been an awkward teen, he’d had those striking eyes.
“Travis, this is my friend Abby. She’s another barrel racer.”
Travis smiled and nodded. “I think I’ve seen you ride before.”
“You go to a lot of rodeos?” Abby asked, interest in her voice.
“A few, the nearby ones when Hailey is riding.” He shifted his gaze to Savannah. “I won’t be surprised if she follows in your footsteps. That girl came out of the womb loving animals and not afraid of anything.”
“Sounds more like my sister Carly than me.”
Travis grinned. “I don’t know. I seem to remember you having no fear getting on a horse that was twice as tall as you were.”
He remembered her that far back? Guilt squirmed inside her that she couldn’t remember him earlier than their sophomore year. Of course, she’d been all about rodeo then and probably wouldn’t have noticed him if he’d strolled by her wearing blinking lights.
The announcer welcomed everyone to the night’s events and got the ball rolling with the opening ceremonies. As Abby and Savannah turned toward the arena for the national anthem, Travis took up a spot next to Savannah. While she should be concentrating on the words to the song and the gently waving American flag being held by the rodeo queen in the middle of the arena, she caught herself glancing out of the corner of her eye at Travis. They’d known each other for years. Why was he suddenly making her all jittery? That was just weird.
She couldn’t be attracted to Travis.
Well, why not? She’d been attracted to plenty of guys and never let them know. And though she’d only been talking to him for a handful of minutes, one glance had been enough to show her that the grown-up Travis Shepard was going to turn a lot more female heads than the teenage Travis Shepard ever had.
When the flag bearers left the arena, Savannah shifted her weight. “We should go get ready for our rides.”
Instead of moving toward where they’d left the horses, however, Abby propped her foot up on the lowest rail of the fence surrounding the arena and shot Savannah a knowing grin. “We’ve got plenty of time. We’re next to last.”
Left with no choice but to join her friend or be obvious about the fact she was trying to get away from suddenly-too-attractive Travis, she leaned her arms along the top of the fence and watched as the little kids were led out on the opposite side of the arena.
“Hard to believe we were ever that little, isn’t it?” Travis said from beside her.
“Yeah.” Wow, way to be a sterling conversationalist, monosyllabic and everything. But how was she supposed to think clearly when she’d swear she could feel his body heat radiating toward her? She was going to kill Lizzie for putting all those gooey, romantic thoughts in her head.
And then it got worse when Travis leaned close and pointed at a little girl wearing a lime-green Western-style shirt and a mini white cowgirl hat.
“That’s Hailey.”
“Aww, she’s adorable.” Look at that, an actual coherent sentence. Maybe the shock of seeing the grown-up version of Travis was beginning to wear off.
They all watched as the first little boy started on his sheep ride only to fall into the dirt about a second later. The next boy did a bit better but not much. The story stayed pretty much the same through three more kids, and then it was Hailey’s turn.
“Come on, Hailey,” Travis called out then whistled.
Savannah couldn’t help but smile at Travis’s obvious support of his niece. If Corinne had lived, would he have some little tykes of his own by now? She shook off the sad memory of Corinne’s death and refocused on Hailey. The pint-size girl dug her fingers into the sheep’s wool and hugged her body close to its back. As soon as the man holding the sheep let go, the animal took off in an attempt to rid itself of Hailey. But unlike the kids before her, Hailey stuck like glue the full eight seconds and even a few more before she let go. When she hit the dirt, she rolled back up onto her feet and waved at the cheering crowd.
Abby leaned forward and spoke past Savannah to Travis. “That girl’s got spunk.”
Travis smiled wide, every inch the proud uncle. If he’d been good-looking before, that smile made him devastatingly handsome. Either a miracle of genetics had happened in the past few years, or Savannah had just been blind to anything but her twin goals of good grades and top rodeo times back when she and Travis had crossed paths every day. He hadn’t been ugly, but she’d had no inkling that he would one day steal her breath.
They all clapped when Hailey got her blue ribbon.
“Well, I owe a little cowgirl a congratulations kiss,” Travis said as Savannah stepped back from the fence.
Damn if her gaze didn’t go right to his lips, and her mind to wondering what they would feel like against her own.
Travis met her gaze just as she jerked hers away from his lips.
“Good luck with your run,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“What, I don’t get a ‘good luck’?” Abby teased.
Travis broke eye contact with Savannah. “Good luck to you, too, but I gotta admit I’ll be pulling for my hometown girl.”
A
