I blew the piece of hair out of my face as I was mucking out the stalls. I was sweating because of my hard work on this morning. I had already picked the garden, fed all the horses, fed the cows and chickens, and milked the cows. Why do these horses have to crap so much?
And to help it, Caleb wasn't even helping me. And I was working quickly because I had to go help organize the rodeo in the next town over, Smallsvielle. My dad was suppose to get everything organized for the rodeo but he "forgot" about it, so know I have to do it. I mean I shouldn't be complaining about it, he does this to me all the time.
Smallsvielle is only about twenty minuets away and it was bigger than Hudson by a couple thousand people. And it was a lot bigger rodeo than Hudson and others combined. I will be competing and so will Taylor and the girls, and unfortunately so would be Avery. I can't wait to beat her.
After I was done mucking the stalls I quickly put the fork away. When I was hustling I tripped over my boots and landed in a wheel barrel. Why is this wheel barrel here? Oh no, it's a wheel barrel full of cow shit. I'm going to kill Caleb!! He was suppose to get rid of this! Now I'm covered in sweat and poo. I pushed myself up and out and then I sprinted to the house. When I got in I kicked off my muck boots and I ran to the bathroom in my room but I couldn't get in because the door was locked. I pounded on the door, "Caleb!!!" I screamed, why the hell is he in my bathroom?
"What?" He yells back.
"Why are you in my shower?!" I yell at him, I'm so irritated at him right now.
"Rusty and Jake are in the down stairs shower!!" He yells back at me, what are they doing here? You know what, I probably don't even want to know..
"Ugh!"I screamed. "I'm covered in cow shit that you didn't take care of!!" I complained to him.
"Oh and DaKota?!" He says ignoring my complaint, "Can you make breakfast for us?" Is he joking? I praise Ashley for keeping up with him, and good luck to her when they live together.
"Are you serious, Caleb? Where's mom and dad?" I ask him as he is still showering.
"They went Jamestown for the company." He yells at me.
"Fine!" I roll my eyes and then I run back down stairs and start my slaving for the boys.
So far I have made omelets and french toast with Texas toast. I have also cut up some deer sausage and some fruit. I know what the boys need to fuel up for the rodeo. I heard a door close and out came Rusty with wet hair, he looked up at me and stopped. "Hey DaKota..." He says looking me up and down. I can sense he's noticing my great appearance.
"Hi Rusty." I say as I bring over the big plate of french toast to the table and set it down in the center, "Come and eat." I smile the best I can right now. I can tell he can sense my stench but he doesn't say anything.
"Whoooo!! Something smells good!!" Jake screams in the house and uses his socks to slide against the wood floor. He's not wearing a shirt, shocker, and his jeans and belt buckle. "What's cookin' good lookin'?" He smoothly says as he pulls out the chair and sits down. Jake has always been the joking flirting type with me. It seriously means nothing, he just uses pick up lines all the time.
"French toast, your favorite." I say as I pat his shoulder.
"Your cooking is the best! Your smell.. Not so much.." He says as I begin to walk away but then I stand in my tracks and slowly turn around.
"Well if it wasn't for your ass, I wouldn't smell like this!!" I smacked the back side of his head and Rusty chuckled. "Just shut up and eat your breakfast." I say to both of them, hearing Caleb's footsteps coming down the stairs. Finally, I get to go take a shower.
*************
After my shower I left on my towel and started to get my outfit on my bed. Hmm, what barrel racing shirt should I wear today? I think I'm gonna wear one of my Cinch shirts. I walked over to my closet and started to rummage my clothes. Ah-hah! I really like this one.
I pulled the burgundy shirt off the hanger and throw the shirt on the bed and then I go to my jean drawer and pull out a pair of my nicer Wrangler Jeans. I squat down beside my bed and pull out my glass case of my barrel racing belt buckles. I decide to wear the biggest one I have, oval shaped at least. After that I sit down at my makeup table and begin to do my mascara.
Before leaving my house for the rodeo, I made sure I had everything and I looked okay. I put the duffel bag strap and put it on my shoulder and then grabbed my steel colored Brim hat and opened the door and headed to my truck and trailer.
*************** COOPER ******************
We all choked when we all breathed as one, and now we were rolling down the windows. Jake had just ripped a nasty one and Rusty and I were disgusted. Jake had the nastiest farts. "You're sick." I yelled at him in the back seat.
"Blame Wolf Girl, she gave me blackberries!!" He says while sitting forward and putting his head between Rusty and I. Wolf Girl? Oh ya, DaKota.
"Why were you with DaKota?" I ask him raising my eyebrow at him.
"Well Rusty and I were helping Caleb with some work and we got all dirty so-"
"Get to the point." I said to him as I turned onto the rodeo grounds.
"She made us breakfast, you should of seen her man.. She was covered in shit." He laughs sitting back into the seat again.
"In shit?" I clarify to them and they both nod. I could just see it. DaKota with dirt and shit hinted on her face, a little sweaty, her cute little muck boots, and her hair in a messy ponytail, what a cutie.
I turned my truck into the designated parking area for the competitors and I felt myself getting excited. I loved to compete, especially bulls. Bulls was definitely my favorite, but that doesn't mean I don't love bull-dogging, but I know I'll go far with bulls.
I was gaining more and more points and pretty soon I'll be competing in CBR, if I keep riding like I am. That means I'll be traveling more, going to bigger rodeos. That's my next step to my biggest goal, PBR.
"Here we go boys." Rusty said as we all opened our doors and stepped onto the dirt.
***************
I had took the top time for bull dogging and earned a paycheck for $5,500. Bull ridin' is the the last event, right now it's team roping. I'm just walking around, trying to find familiar faces to talk with. It's a packed rodeo, I don't think there's one seat in the bleachers that isn't taken.
As people walked passed me, I gave some a small grin. I saw a lot of girls lookin at me when they pass by, some of them were cute, but I don't think they were named after a state. "Cooper!" I knew who said my name, but I kept walking. "Cooper! Cooper Blackwood!" I stopped walking and took in a deep breath.
I turned around and saw Avery walking towards me. She was wearing jeans tighter than tight and a shirt a little too shirt for her, making her stomach show. She did look pretty good I have to admit. "Hey Avery." I say to her and she sends me a smile.
"Whaddya doing by yaself?" She says and then sticks her hands in her back pockets and starts walking beside me.
"Look for a friendly face." I reply kindly to her and adjust my hat.
"Well now ya got one." She bashes her eyelashes, and while saying it she puts her hand on my arm for second, or maybe longer. I didn't say nothing back to her, I just kept walking. "Congrats on the win, Cooper." She says and then nudges me with her arm.
"Thanks Avery. Have you seen the Jones'?" I ask her, turning my head to look down at her. Her usual smirk turns into confused frown.
"I guess I saw them over by the kid's chutes." She said quietly and then I stopped and turned my head in that direction. I focused my eyes around the chutes and there they were, DaKota and her dad. DaKota had her arms crossed and talking about something to her dad, who looked like he wasn't even paying attention.
"Well I gotta go, see ya later Avery. Always a pleasure talking to you!" I turned towards Avery while walking backwards and tipped my hat at her.
I walked over to the chutes where DaKota once was, and I looked around for her. Then I saw her laying on the side hill by herself, what the hell is she doing? As I got closer to her I saw that she had her hat tipped over her face and her eyes closed. Just laying on the hill she still looked good. Now I'm right next to her, deciding to lay down next to her. "What are you doing?" I whispered in her ear and she shot up quicker than a bull out of the chutes.
She was holding her chest and had her head hung down. "God damn it Cooper." She chuckles and then puts her hat back on. I sit up along with her and use my arms to hold me up, my left arm is behind her back. "You scared the hell out of me." She said making eye contact with me, her eyes held something of sadness and amusement. Why could she be sad now? I'm here for Gods sake.
"I didn't think you were scared of anything." I say to her, but when I'm done saying it she breaks our eye contact and looks the other way. I notice what her hands are doing, her right hand is hovering over her right hip and looking at it weird.
"So what's up." She says in voice she usually doesn't use. But I remember her using it once when she avoided talking about her past.
"Just saw you over here and wanted to talk to you." I say to her and she nods and looks at me again.
"Oh my gosh! I just had a great idea!" Her green eyes lit up and turns her torso towards me. "Do you wanna do a favor with me?" She asks me with a begging smile on her face.
"Yeah sure, what is it?" I ask her and she squirms while sitting down.
"Yay!! Oh my gosh you're the best!" She says with a very bright smile that could of made the atmosphere lighter.
"DaKota what are we doing?" I chuckle at her excitement, but I'm curious on what the favor is. I noticed her smile fade a little, making me more curious. "Kota?"
"Helping me with the chicken chase.." When she said that I stood up and really started to rethink my answer to her.
"Woah now. The chicken chase?" I look down at her and she throws her head to the side and groans.
"C'mon Cooper! It won't be that bad." She begged while standing up in front of me.
"I don't know DaKota." I say and scratch the back of my neck..
"Oh pleeeeaaassseeee Cooper!" She says and puts both of her hands on my arms, now getting my attention. "I'll return the favor! C'mon for meeeee!" She pleads to me. God dammit, why does she have to be so adorable...
"Fine.. What do we have to do?" I give in to her and she jumped up a little.
"Okay! Come with me!" She grabbed my forearm, just above my wrist and she started to drag me with her. While we were walking I heard her spurs so I looked down, oh my I wish I didn't look down..
*************
"Final call for the chicken chase!!" DaKota's voice boomed from the microphone as she looked into the crowd. Her cheeks were getting red from all of the attention from the crowd, I thought it was cute. She handed over the microphone to the announcer and then started walking over to me.
I looked behind me, holy crap there are a lot of other kids here. It kind of made me sad because I started to think about Reese. If it wasn't for my little brother I would be a total mess, or worse be like my father. Reese has given me so much inspiration during his treatment for his cancer and how he still looks at life, overcoming every obstacle. "Ready Cooper?" DaKota's voice perks up from behind me.
I turn around and head over to the chicken cages, three cages, each have 5 chickens in it. They were stacked on top of each other and I bent over and picked them up and carried them over to the middle of the arena. I dropped the boxes carefully and they were still going bat-shit crazy, making me glad to drop them.
DaKota comes over to me and stands right next to me, our arms slightly touching. Why is she standing this close to me? We're the only two people around the arena. Believe me, I'm not complaining that she's standing so close, but makes me curious. I start to grin down at her as she was looking around at the kids. She looks up at me, but I don't stop smiling because her eyes were sparkling in the sun. "What?" She asks me while blushing a bit.
I bent down a little so my mouth was right next to her ear, "You look real beautiful today." I complimented her, I was so close her, I could hear her breath hitch. I regained my position and noticed her blushing a lot more now and she started to look at the dirt.
"Thanks Cooper." Shy shyly says making me smirk. Then she brought the microphone up to her dark pink lips and took a deep breath, "Hi everyone!! Y'all ready for the chicken chase?" She says and then turns on her heal to look at everyone in the stands.
The crowd cheered loudly at DaKota's question and she smiled brightly at them. "Alright!" She said and then turned towards the kids. "Okay, Cooper here is going to let the chickens loose when I count to three and say go. Also you guys will go also when I say go, okay?" She explains to them and some of them cheer. DaKota looked at me, and started to speak, "Okay Cooper.. 1..2...3..Goose!" She totally faked the kids out and everyone started to laugh.
She looked a little embarrassed from all the attention but then she looked a little more serious, "Okay, 1..2..3.. GO!" As soon as she said go I let the chickens loose and the kids went a flying. DaKota stood closer to me as kids were pushing and shoving each other in order to get a chicken. Even through the loudness of the crowd and the kids, I could still hear DaKota laugh and giggle at the kids. She had the prettiest laugh I had ever heard.
************ DAKOTA ***********
It was dark out and the rodeo was finished and I had taken first in the barrels, Pharaoh had a perfect run with a time of 14.54! Jessica and Molly took second and third, we all had close times. I was taking Pharaoh back to my trailer, I was actually hoping to see Cooper, I needed to thank him for earlier. Cooper was so nice with the kids and I actually think he had fun doing it.
I reached my trailer and I tied Phar's halter rope onto the loop of the trailer and I went to the back door and opened it. I walked back to Pharaoh and I saw a figure walking towards me, but I ignored it. I started to undo the cinch and then I heard, "Excuse me?" It was a masculine voice but I didn't know who they belonged to.
"Can I help you?" I ask the man who got closer to me so I could see his face, and I couldn't complain. He had a well structured face and looked very rugged, very attractive. I was still untacking my horse, while keeping eyes on the stranger.
"I don't mean to be a bother, but I was wondering if there was any restaurants around here? I'm new around here and I'm real hungry." He said to me as I slid down the saddle.
"Just one second." I say and then carry the saddle to the tack closet and put it correctly back. I quickly walk back to the cute stranger. "Well how hungry are you? I know a really good place about twenty minuets out." I say to him.
"Very." He chuckles.
"Well it's in Hudson and it's called DaKota's Diner. It's famous for it's homemade ice cream!" I smile at him, but slightly smirking.
"Sounds good! Excuse my manners, my name is River, River Haynes." He says and takes off his cowboy hat and sticks out his hand for me.
I hesitate but then stick out my hand, "DaKota Jones." I introduce myself with a smile. After I said my name he had a weird smile on his face, like he was trying to put the pieces together. "Wait, like the diner?" He smiles kindly.
"Yup, I own it." I say proudly while I scratch Pharaoh a bit.
"Well now I'm definitely going," He says and I automatically start to blush. "Can I tell you something?" He asks me.
"Sure, I guess." I tell him, slightly looking at him.
"You have a pretty rockin' smile." He compliments me again, making me blush more.
"Thank you!" I smile and then I stand in front of my horse, having Phar's head over my shoulder. "Well I hope you like the diner, I think you'll love it though.. Have a good night." I smile at him as I untie the halter.
"I can tell I already like it," He says and then looks me up and down and smirks, "Have a good night, DaKota." He says flirtatiously and then walks away. I bit my lip watching him walk away and then I pull Pharaoh to the back of the trailer and load him up.