A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) Read Free

well . . . Looks
aren’t everything.” And if looks were all Sol McKnight had to offer, Georgia would long ago have relegated him to lessons learned.
    Unfortunately, in the twelve years since
their divorce, she had, on rare occasion, not been averse to letting him eat
crackers and a few other delectables in her bed—something she always regretted
afterward.
    “Would it be too weird if I checked that
out for myself? I mean, since you don’t want him and all.”
    Weird? No. Tacky? Yes. Their friendship
had been little more than superficial in recent years. It had grown out of
convenience and shared classes in their junior college days, back when Georgia had set her sights on earning her teaching certificate. For some unfathomable
reason, Lydia had made the effort to stay in touch. She’d also gotten her
certification three years before Georgia and landed a job a couple of towns
over from Hero Creek. Close enough that Georgia had felt compelled to call her,
asking Lydia to meet her at the rodeo, when she’d succumbed to Bethany’s persuasion. Coming to the rodeo alone had just felt too pathetic.
    Not wanting to examine why Lydia’s request sowed a seed of anger in her chest, Georgia kept her eyes on the action in the arena
and forced a casual response to Lydia’s question. “Sure. Why not?”
    “Could you introduce me to him?”
    Georgia did glance at her then. Lydia didn’t see it; her gaze was locked greedily on
Sol as he bent over the chute to steady the cowboy on the restless bull’s back.
    The seed of anger threatened to sprout.
Forcing herself to ignore it, Georgia said, “Later. I’ve got a favor I need to
ask of him first.” Which was the only reason she was there at all. God Almighty,
but she hated watching Sol ride.
    She shifted her gaze to the action at the
chute where the rider who was about to give the nod for the gate to open. Sol’s
jeans stretched tight across his behind as he reached into the chute, and Georgia had to admit Lydia at least had good taste. With that lean build typical of rodeo cowboys,
her ex-husband was still a hunk. Georgia shook her head. Such thoughts could
cause a girl to make stupid decisions. Lord knew she’d already made too many of
those where he was concerned.
    The bull rider’s hat bobbed, the gate
swung away, and the bull shot into the arena.
    Even to Georgia’s less-than-discerning
eye, the bull under this cowboy seemed to buck in an easy rhythmic pattern. She
glanced back to the chute, but Sol had dropped out of sight. Ignoring the
eight-second buzzer, she scanned the men hanging on the rails.
    The crowd’s collective gasp jerked back
to the arena. The rider had made his ride, but his gloved hand had hung up in
the bull rope during his dismount. His feet bounced over the ground as the bull
continued to buck. The flopping cowboy at his side energized the bull, and he
bucked harder and more erratically than he had for the ride.
    Bull fighters in their clown makeup and
bright clothes rushed in to distract the bull. Other cowboys jumped off the
railings. They crowded around the bull, reaching over the bull’s back, trying
to release the taut rope that had the cowboy’s hand trapped. Seeing Sol in
their midst had Georgia’s heart pounding like a sledgehammer against her ribs.
She’d hoped the injury that had taken him out of the PBR cup tour two years ago
would convince him to quit the bulls, but that had proved an empty fantasy
because there he was, risking his life, crowding a disgruntled bull, to save a
fellow rider.
    It seemed to take forever to get the
cowboy loose. In reality, it probably wasn’t even ten seconds, but that was a
long damned time to be flopping around beside an unhappy bull. Miraculously, no
one looked damaged except the rider, who cradled his abused arm close to his
body as he hobbled out of the arena to find the rodeo doctor.
    The extra adrenaline was still rushing
through her system a few minutes later when she realized Sol was in the