Gringo Rider

By L.R. Starr

Clyde has his back up against the wall, his Mama needs a kidney transplant, his Daddy’s gone, and his eight-second heyday in the bullpen ain’t working out so good these days.

When a bailout from a cashed-up arena owner at a Mexican ranch calls, then Clyde follows.

Problems arise at the ranch due to a sultry fatal attraction that could mess up this gringo’s plans.

Ann Marie – the dark-haired beauty and daughter of the arena owner is off limits, and for good reason.

Oh, the secrets that are etched in the deep burn scars of her flesh, and the sorrow housed in her eyes.

She’s hiding from someone or something, and Clyde’s about to get a rude awakening as to what this is.

Will Clyde and Ann Marie be able to handle the heat when her past returns to haunt? Or will Clyde wind up on his last ride?

Buy now to experience another page-turning Starr mystery series suspense.

This one’s sure to be a wild ride, because don’t you know?

Wild ones can never be tamed...

• Language: English
• Publisher: L.R. Starr
• Release date: Jul 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215114346

L.R. Starr

Welcome to L.R. Starr's author page. She is a romantic suspense writer with a penchant for private investigator heroines, assassins, and complex hot baddies who you hate to love.L.R. Starr is a lover of mysteries, witty dialogue, suspense, romance, and fantasy. If you like to travel through your books strap in for the ride she'll take you across the country.When she's not writing she's usually exploring, and coming up with yet another devious plot or pursuing her other love which is painting and drawing. Enjoy the bedlam friends!If you want to join in the hijinks follow her here onFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/L.R.STARR1/BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/l-r-starr

Book preview

Prologue

Heat .

Blistering skin.

The lick of the tangerine flame blazing dangerously towards the left side of my swollen face. Burnt flesh and singed hair bloomed in the night air.

I’m going to die in here. This is it. Besar a los caballos, father.

Blood drizzle.

Keep your eyes open, don’t let them close.

Head strike.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Breathing in thick, arid smoke, I worked for every uptake of oxygen. The side of my cheek numbed, unable to register the pain after a while. It was secondary compared to the 40-year-old barn blazing in all its glory around me.

Events unfolded in a violent blur. It began with a double slap ricochet. My face jerked sideways as if it were on a hinge, my jaw cracking like a whip. Talon’s love tap - fueled by a bottle of Doublewood 12-year-old Single Malt Scotch Whisky. Only to be escalated by the Mexican fire in my lungs. A prelude to catching him with a whore from the tavern in my horse’s stables.

Estúpida! I screamed, watching his round, muscular ass cheeks clenching and unclenching with loud primal groans. His Levi 301’s with cowboy buckle were parked around his ankles, his cock ramming itself deep in another woman’s hole other than mine.

The edge of his temple was marked by a thirsty vein, sex sweat dripping down his prickly face as he almost pushed the woman's head into the hay.

Yeah, you like that? You came here for this. Oh yes you did! This is how I ride that bull at the rodeo. Get a taste of the champion gal, he hissed at the ass up woman who clearly was a yoga enthusiast. She easily clutched at the golden straw on the barn floor.

"Give it to me Talon. Come onnnn!" The thirsty whore dragged out a long, seductive moan.

I blinked hard through my drunken haze, Scotch bottle in hand, unable to focus on her finite features like I wanted to. Talon had been gone a little longer from the main house than I expected, so I’d come looking for him.

He pumped hard, her plump ass slapping against his thighs. I was standing in the middle of the barn while the horses casually ate hay, ignoring the taboo entertainment. I flicked on the light in the barn, revealing the unclothed perpetrators.

A thick boom pounded through my head. My eyes taking in his sweaty flesh slapping together from the back of the whore’s tight ass, which might have had something to do with it.

Who the fuck is she? I screamed, wet moans flowing from the bitch’s mouth. Talon’s thrusting was too much to handle, and hard enough that the woman’s breasts flapped while her downward dog body absorbed his pussy pounding.

Wild with alcohol induced rage, my bottle raised above my head ready to pitch it at his temple. An ex Mexican bull rider with an adoration for the sauce. Talon and I were both wild, restless, and reckless and I’d encouraged our toxic engagement. You couldn’t take the Spanish fire out of my veins, but Talon possessed a violent temper when things didn’t go his way. He’d lost his bull ride, an old stead bucking him off at the four second mark and leaving him injured.

"Shut up! I thought I told you to wait in the house," he gritted, annoyed I’d interrupted his favorite vice – a woman’s pussy. I swaggered, pilfering the bottle at the lady's head. The bitch shrieked, ducking for cover as she disentangled from Talon’s hard on, yanking up her G-string and jeans from around her ankles.

That’s right, put your clothes on hay wench.

Are you nuts? The whore exclaimed, her eyes wide like saucers. She had the nerve to talk back to me. Me! On my father’s land. The horses agreed with me as one of them neighed in defiance, stomping its hooves deep in the barn dirt.

Tigerlily, my favorite midnight beauty, was my wild spirit, and she was sounding off with snorts of derision.

I made a half assed attempt to follow her out, but Talon caught me placing a forceful hand around the middle of my waist. His forearms were thick and sinewy from cowboy life, and I didn’t stand a chance of getting away. My five-foot six frame wrestled to escape his hard grasp.

If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to skin you alive, whore! I swung out at the half-dressed woman, scrapping like the chaotic firestorm I was back then. I found a nice globule of spit in the back of my throat, collecting and hurling it in her direction.

Narrowly, I missed as the blonde-haired mystery fuck scuttled through the shadows of the barn to the exit. She tugged her flannelette shirt together while I wrestled Talon off to get at her.

Settle down. You know what? I should make you do something with this cock since you wanna ruin the little fun time I’ve been having, he scowled darkly.

Get off me, puta! I tried to break my arm free, but his vice-like grip proved too strong, and inebriation already had a hold over my jangled spirit. It’s over. I’m sick of your shit. Might have been the burn in my system, but the words tumbled freely from the hip.

You’re not going anywhere. You bitch, are going to burnnn for me. I’ve been wanting to do this for the longest. Since you wanna spout off at the mouth, let me wrangle you like I do them bulls at Cresco.

Estadio Cresco was Mexico’s largest multi-purpose stadium venue and had been in operation for more than fifty years. Owned by none other than my billionaire father.

Talon’s forced retirement from bull riding changed him, or maybe I never wanted to believe how bad it was. Darkness fueled the man’s soul, and I’d done nothing but enable the beast. One look into his soulless eyes and anyone could tell he was playing house with his own inner demons.

One arm free. I flailed around furiously, kicking up ochre dust with Tigerlily smacking against her barn door, threatening to burst free of her stable.

The other horses bared their gums, but not my Tigerlily. Her nostrils flared, the scorched air making her panic. My hair stuck to my face from the humidity of the balmy Mexican night, and only groves of light shone in the dark spaces of the barn.

Poker. There’s a steel poker in the corner. Stab him with it.

I stumbled free, unable to feel my arm. Yes. He’d numbed it from his grip. He had a rope. Lassoed around my head. My eyes shifted in multiple directions, making sense of things, but I couldn’t do it fast enough.

Before I had enough time to regroup from my slow reaction, Talon lassoed me around the waist, fastening my hands, landing a backhander across my heated face.

Lights out. Night night.

I ended up trapped in my own horse stable with my favorite creatures surrounding me, flames licking the insides of the barn doors, and now my face.

My hands were promptly hog-tied in front of me with thick corded rope to a kitchen chair from the main house.

The nostril burning stench of kerosene ignited intense nauseum in my body. Angry flames rip roared making light work of the golden straw of the barn. A halo of fire licked the legs of my chair, but all I worried about was my horses.

Save them. Don’t worry about me. The horses!

I sensed their fear, hooves kicking against their stable doors, wanting to bust free. I wanted to soothe them and let them know not to fret over me, but my hands were tied. Literally.

Black shaded over my eyes as I struggled to remain conscious. A roundabout of agonizing motion sickness whirred in my brain, my waist bound to the chair and minimal movement. My body convulsed as I doubled over, sure the end of my life near. Only the saving grace of an angel rescued me that night.

Ann Marie! A large silhouette through the ring of searing heat caught what was left of my impaired eyesight. I expelled smoky air from my scorched lungs, driving the words from my lips, but they seeped out in a spluttering mess. S-s-save me! Hur-help.

My body wouldn’t compute my brain’s desires, but the rope burns eased, as my body weight changed as I recognized being hoisted over a broad shoulder. Redemption from a savior.

I’ve got you now Ann Marie, he croaked, coughing with a deep inhale. Creaks from splintered wood peeled off the wooden barn forcing my heavenly father to drop and roll me onto the damp grass.

I coughed hard, while balled up in the fetal position.

Three years past, and in them, I’d collected a jar of scar tissue, and unfortunately it had wrapped so tightly around my heart chambers I thought it would never dissolve.

Chapter

One

Clyde

Eight seconds. About the same damn time you got to swat these here fat blood sucking Virginia mosquitos outta your face. Them there eight seconds on a bucking steer with some juice are the