Unridden: A Studs in Spurs novel by Cat Johnson Read Free Book Online

and Jenna had to take a cab there and, she assumed, buy a ticket when she arrived. “Actually, I’m going to…”
    Before she could finish the sentence, Lizzie Lundgren turned the corner. A fake smile crossed Lizzie’s face as she saw Barb and Jenna and made a beeline straight for them.
    A sudden warning bell went off in Jenna’s head and she cut off the rest of what she had been about to say to Barb and instead forced a smile of her own. “Hi, Lizzie.”
    “Jenna. Barb.” Lizzie looked down her nose at them. “What are you two up to?”
    Amazing how a spot on the New York Times Best Seller list came along with a stick up the ass and a superiority complex. Only two years ago Lizzie had been just like them, making a living by writing but stuck in semi-obscurity. Then she got lucky and signed a contract with a huge publisher in New York and that was it, she hit it big. Not Nora Roberts big, but big enough to make Jenna green with envy and have to swallow the acid in her throat when she saw Lizzie’s new release hit the Best Seller list.
    Lizzie’s latest book had been a contemporary western. It went straight to the Best Seller list just like her first, whether it was crap or not. Not that Jenna had actually read the whole thing. She wasn’t about to buy a copy and add to Lizzie’s sales. But the excerpt and the blurb had made Jenna roll her eyes at the absolute absurdity of the plot and characters. No surprise, all the reviews were raves. They never called Lizzie’s sex scenes boring.
    It might be petty, but Jenna would be damned before she let Lizzie know that she’d found out there were real live cowboys camped out on the other side of the city and she was going to interview them for her next book that very night. Let Lizzie do her own damn research for her next bestseller. The rodeo cowboy angle was Jenna’s and, selfish as it may be, she wasn’t sharing. Every author for herself and she needed any advantage she could get.
    “We’re making plans for dinner.” Barb hesitated, then added less than enthusiastically, “You’re welcome to join us if you want.”
    “Thanks, but I’m having dinner upstairs in the four-star restaurant on the top floor of the hotel with the managing editor from my publisher. Their treat.”
    Of course Lizzie was being treated to a four-star dinner by her publisher. Bitch.
    “Okay then. Jenna? You coming?” Barb turned toward Jenna and rolled her eyes so Lizzie couldn’t see.
    “Um, no. I can’t. I have ah…um…some cousins who live nearby. I promised I’d have dinner with them.”
    Barb raised an eyebrow with interest. “Cousins? In Tulsa? Male or female?”
    Hmm, this lying was going to get Jenna in trouble eventually. But one glace at Lizzie, still hovering, and Jenna launched into another doozy of a fib. “Both. I mean, my cousin and her husband…and their kids. You know. One big happy family.”
    Jeez. This was getting more complicated by the minute. Soon she’d have to start taking notes to keep her lies straight.
    The rodeo was comprised of three competitions spread out over four days. Hopefully she would get enough information tonight to finish the book and not have to see her cousins twice more over the remainder of the conference. All this deception was enough to give a girl indigestion.

Chapter Five
    Evaluating that night’s possibilities, Mustang’s gaze swept the females in the stands until it landed on one woman who made him stop dead in his perusal.
    He jumped up onto the rail of the chute and hissed to Slade, “Second section, fourth row back, reddish-brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, black turtleneck.”
    In the process of tugging the rope that stretched beneath the bull and winding it once around his gloved hand, Slade frowned up at Mustang from the animal’s back. “I’m in the middle of taking my wrap and you’re pointing out some woman to me? In a turtleneck, no less? Since when are you interested in women whose tits aren’t hanging