you two.” She smacked her forehead in exasperation.
Jonah Yates, the obnoxious bastard, was bad enough, but Riley Backstrom was near intolerable.
“Yeah, babe, it’s the men of your dreams.” Jonah flashed his perfect white teeth, set off by his day’s growth of beard.
“More like the men of my nightmares, Yates.” She rolled her eyes.
“We can be that and more.”
“Why don’t you park that piece of shit on the other side of the grounds?”
“No can do, darlin ’. We like this spot. Don’t we, Riley?”
“Yup.” Riley didn’t look her way, just stared straight ahead. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Just once.
“Sorry, honey. You’re stuck with us. Besides, is that any way for a national rodeo queen to talk?”
“Wearing a crown doesn’t mean I have to put up with the likes of you.” She glanced at Riley then addressed Jonah. “You need to cultivate a better class of friend.”
“I like my friends from low places. They make life a hell of a lot more fun.”
Riley still wouldn’t look at her. Well, fuck him. She didn’t need him or his obnoxious buddy. “You two deserve each other.” Mitzi growled and turned back to her trailer.
“And aren’t you the lucky one to have us watchin ’ out for your best interests all summer?” Jonah’s smooth voice reached her ears.
Mitzi halted and spun back around. “What did you say?”
“Why, honey, didn’t your daddy tell you?”
Mitzi glanced from one to the other, not appreciating their knowing smirks. “Tell me what?” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Why, he’s hired us to be your bodyguards this summer. We’ll be snuggled right here next to ya , you lucky little lady.”
“Not if I can help it.” Mitzi stalked into her trailer and slammed the door behind her as she dialed her cell phone. Her father’s foreman answered on the first ring, as if he’d been waiting for her. “Scott, is my dad around?”
“Sure, honey, but wouldn’t you rather talk to me?” The edge in Scott’s voice raised the hairs on the back of her neck. He’d been coming on to her for years, but lately he’d ramped up his campaign. She didn’t like his ever-increasing innuendos, which bordered on inappropriate.
Biting back a smart retort, she forced sticky, sweet syrup into her voice. “As much as I’d love to shoot the breeze with you, Scott, I really need to talk to Daddy. It’s important.”
Silence followed, long and thick with tension. Mitzi frowned into the phone and wondered if they’d been disconnected.
“How’s my little girl?” Steve Garrison’s deep voice floated to her over the miles.
“Not happy. How could you do this? Daddy, I told you I don’t need bodyguards. Especially not those two.”
Her father chuckled, not the least bit moved. “Now, baby girl, you know I worry about you.”
“I know, Daddy, but I can’t have them following me around. I’ll take my chances with the stalker.” Mitzi hated the childish tone her voice took on every time she talked to her father. Yet she didn’t have a clue how to prevent it.
“Sorry, they’re sticking to you like glue until I’m satisfied you’re safe, and that’s the last I’ll hear of it.” Her father dismissed her, just like he always did. “I have another call coming in. Behave yourself. ”
Just like that, he hung up. She debated on calling him back, but he rivaled her for stubbornness. So instead she threw herself on the bed in frustration.
This could not be happening to her. Jonah, she could handle if she had to, but Riley Backstrom bugged the hell out of her, like a burr under her saddle. Last summer they’d spent one unforgettable night screwing each other’s brains out in her trailer’s gooseneck bed. Hot, sweaty, messy, wild, frenzied sex. Sex like she’d never experienced before. The kind of sex which ruins a woman for anyone else. And it’d done just that.
Riley battered down her carefully constructed walls and touched her deeper than any other