Taming Rafe Read Online Free Page B

what a fake he’d become. The image shone for thirty seconds, then flipped to an advertisement of America, Now! magazine, on which Rafe’s face graced this month’s cover.
    They’d airbrushed the growl right off of him, made him look downright tame. But Rafe knew the truth. Inside that GQ image of a man who wrangled two-thousand-pound beasts for a living was a rough-edged, broken cowboy just trying to keep up with his press. He’d been living for the last six months on the notion that if he rode hard enough, played fast enough, even risked enough, he could drown out the howl inside and fool everyone into thinking he was fine.
    Even himself.
    But no matter how many women, bulls, cars, or even occasional shots of Jack Daniels filled his life, he could still hear Manuel Rodriguez’s low moan of pain as he lay dying in the dirt.
    Manuel hadn’t even lasted long enough for the other bullfighters to corral PeeWee, the killer bull, and send the medics out with a stretcher. By the time they took him away, Manuel’s blood covered Rafe’s hands, his chaps, his soul.
    He knew he’d never, ever be fine again.
    Rafe ran a hand through his dark, unruly hair and stared at himself in the rearview mirror. He needed a shave. And if the guy behind him didn’t lay off his horn, he might just get out and—
    The light changed, and he surged forward into traffic on Forty-second Street. Heat slithered into the cab of his 1984 Ford pickup, the air conditioner barely able to stay ahead of the furnace outside. It was the heat wave of the century in New York City, and he’d agreed to appear at some hoity-toity charity event.
    How he hated this town and the smells of grilling beef from the gyro stands, cigarette smoke, trash fermenting in the piles of black bags on the sidewalk, bus exhaust fouling the air. He hated the sounds of brakes squealing, cabbies arguing for space, the cheeps of pigeons fighting for crumbs. The few times he’d been here, he cut his trip short, needing open spaces like the rest of the city needed air-conditioning.
    He cut a left at the next light, then slammed on his brakes before he plowed over a couple of fast-walking suits arguing into their BlackBerries.
    Rafe took a deep breath and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel. The truck still smelled of hay and dust, despite the fact that it hadn’t been on Manuel’s farm since Rafe had traded it for his late-model Silverado with Manuel’s widow, Lucia. She needed something dependable. He’d spent a month there after the funeral, helping Manny Jr. cope with his father’s death. At leastManuel had lived long enough to see his son’s leukemia go into remission. Trading the truck felt like the least Rafe could do, especially if he hoped to purge from his mind the haunted look in Manny Jr.’s eyes.
    “I know that you’ll be the man I taught you to be. A Noble man.”
    Rafe felt so far from his mother’s prophecies that it made the hollow place inside him throb. He found solace only in the fact that she hadn’t lived to be disappointed.
    Fatigue put a rasp into his voice, betraying the way he’d spent the better half of the night remembering the premonition he’d had the night Manuel had died. He should have forfeited his ride, but he’d wanted the prize—again—the proof that he was the best. Apparently, it was something he’d never prove to anyone, not his sister and brother and especially not himself.
    The light changed, and he drove past Radio City Music Hall, hoping he was headed in the right direction. But he’d rather be dragged behind a herd of rampaging Angus before he’d ask for directions.
    For a month or so after Manuel’s death, he’d entertained the idea of going home, of pitching in at the ranch and investing in the life that the rest of his family loved. But a trip home to his brother’s wedding fixed that. One look at Nick’s beautiful life—his wife, Piper, who obviously adored him, not to mention his dreams to resurrect and