Chapter Two- That Girl Is A Cowboy

Broken Hearts and Rodeo Dreams

That Girl Is A Cowboy

Edward

Waking up on Sunday, I was still tired as hell. We had been working around the farm all day yesterday, cleaning and getting everything ready for the arrival of Chief Swan's daughter Isabella. It was about a week ago when we found out she was moving back after twelve years. I couldn't help but wonder if she was the same little girl that used to love horses. No, probably not.

I was warming up my horse, Jack, when I saw Chief Swan walking into the arena and the first thing to go threw my mind was, "Ah shit what did I do now?", but from the look on on his face, he was to happy and excited for me to have done something. Huh, that's a new look for him.


"Edward, do you know where your father is? I need to talk to him about some business," he all but chocked out threw a smile so wide, I knew I should be worried.


"Uh, I think he's in the house, I'll call him," I said as I pulled out my cell phone to call my father. He answered on the second ring and I asked him to come to the barn, Chief Swan wanted to talk to him. And of course, the only thing out of his mouth was "Edward, what the hell did you do now and how much is it going to cost me? Tell him I'll be right down."


"Chief Swan, he said he was on his way down. If you'll excuse me I need to get back to warms ups." He nodded to me and I nudged Jack back into a walk. I saw my father walk into the indoor arena, and I tried like hell to ignore them. I had a team roping clinic coming up I needed to focus on.


"Well hello there Charlie, what did Edward do this time?" I just looked at him and flipped him off when he wasn't looking. Damn jackass didn't believe me when I told him I didn't do anything.


Chief Swan just chuckled and answered "Edward didn't do anything this time that I am aware of," he shot me a dirty look. Well what the hell! "As you may have heard my daughter, Isabella, is moving back home," my father nodded, hmm I wondered what this visit has to do with his daughter? "What you may not know is she is also bringing her horse with her." Hmm interesting! "She will need a place to board her horse, and keep her horse trailer, along with a place for her to practice for her events." I guess she is still into horses.


"She barrel races correct?" My father asked Charlie. How in the hell did my father know that? Charlie nodded, "I thought so, as I recall she's in the top ten in the state of Arizona along with the youngest in that top ten correct?" Again Charlie nodded, and I was in shock. Wow, that means she's probably still just as stubborn as when we were five. "Well we don't usually board other horses, but I do have a couple stalls open that she would be able to use. When will she arrive?" Ahh, that's the million question.


"She is expected to arrive on Sunday with her horse and trailer. Thank you Carlisle, she will be very happy to be able to have a place to keep her horse and continue rodeo," and with that they shook hands and Chief Swan left.

"Edward! Get your ass out of bed. We gotta clean stalls and get ready for Isabella to arrive!" Rosalie yelled. I don't know where she got her attitude, both of our parents are laid back and hardly ever yell. Not Rose, she's a spit fire. Groaning, I rolled out of bed, got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast.

"Rose, Edward, Charlie just called and said that Isabella will be here in around twenty minutes. Please make sure to do your chores, and stay on your best behavior!" My mother scolded us. I just rolled my eyes and walked out to the barn. This was one of my favorite places on the property. The barn and the indoor arena where beautiful and top of the line. I guess when you have more money then you know what to do with, you can have the best. I still remember when my father had this barn built, we were all excited to be able to ride any time we wanted and not have to worry about mud. Forks was one of the greenest and wettest places you could ever go to.

Alice, Emmett and Jasper came over to ride so often, they just started keeping their horses here to save on gas and trailering. Now we ride six days a week and since we didn't ride yesterday, that was our one day off. My group of friends are good at what we do and work our asses off to get there. Emmett, Jasper and I are the team ropers out of the group, and we host many clinics, one of which is coming up in a week. Alice and Rose, well they did the whole rodeo queen shit. As I was finishing up chores I heard a truck pull up and peaked my head outside to see Jasper's truck pull up.

You could see Alice sitting in the front seat almost bouncing around in the cab. As soon as Jasper had the truck stopped she jumped out and danced her way to her horse's stall. Alice was small maybe five foot, with short black spiky hair. When she was on Fame, her horse, she looked like a pixie she was so small and he was a huge dun gelding. I'm still not sure how Jasper can put up with all the energy his girlfriend has.

Emmett crawled out of the back seat on the truck, and I do mean crawled. He was so huge, I didn't think he could even fit in the back seat. Emmett stood about six foot five inches, blonde curly hair and built like a linebacker. Most people were afraid of him, but he was as gentle as a teddy bear unless you pissed him off.

Jasper strolled in as Alice was taking Fame out of his stall. Jasper was the calmest out of all of us. Whenever he entered the area, you just couldn't help but be calm. Jasper was built a lot like me. Both of us stood at six foot three inches and were built but not over doing it, with Jasper just a little bit thinner then me.

"Hey Edward! We gonna ride or what's going on?" Alice bounced around, all I can say is poor Fame. That horse has to be going nuts with all her jumping around.

I let out a sigh and responded with, "Yes Alice, we are going to ride. But Jasper, Emmett and I need to practice roping. We have a clinic coming up. I'll get Rose to ride the 4-wheeler and roping dummy." We went to get our horses while Alice saddled up, with us following shortly after. When we were finally saddled and walked into the arena to warm up, I heard my father talking but just ignored him. Doing a couple of circles, Carlisle walked in with Chief Swan and two women. One was older with dark blonde hair, must be his ex-wife.

The other women was younger, I'm assuming Isabella, was petite. Maybe five foot four inches with beautiful brown hair flowing down her back. She wasn't the clumsy little five year old girl anymore.

I could hear my father talking, "This is the indoor arena, you'll be able to ride in here, just let us know when you would like to, I have an understanding that you compete in barrel racing?" Yep, this must be Isabella, she just simply nodded looking around. When she looked at the end we were riding, her eyes glanced over me. "The people riding in here, I'm sure you'll get to know well, that's my son and daughter along with some of their friends, they also rodeo." I looked behind and noticed Rose standing beside Emmett talking, just as Carlisle led the rest of them out.

"Who was that?" Emmett boomed, hasn't that dumbass ever heard of inside voice? I looked at him and just shook my head. He better be careful or Rose was gonna kick his ass.

"That was Isabella Swan," Rose sneered. Wasn't like her to act like a bitch to someone she didn't know, wonder what got up her ass. "Let's get this over with!" We started to practice and finished within a couple of hours. I was putting Jack away when I noticed a horse I didn't know walking into a stall. He was a good looking bay with flaxen in his black mane. You could just tell how much power he had in his muscles when he walked. Must be Isabella's horse, at least she still has a good eye for horses. Duh dumbass, she would have to have a good eye to get a powerful horse to become top ten in Arizona for her barrel racing! I couldn't help but chuckle to myself.

The next morning I woke up and headed to the barn. On my way I noticed a nice trailer by ours and walked up to it. It was a nice 2009 four horse trailer with living quarters, on the outside by the neck of the trailer I saw a decal that said Bella Swan with a barrel racer. Walking back to the barn I couldn't help but wonder if she still preferred Bella over Isabella. Damn Cullen, why do you care? You have enough shit going on right now. Stop worry about a damn girl you barely remember!

I started in on chores my mind thinking about the clinic coming up and how we were gonna do teams this year. Emmett and Jasper both wanted to rope together which left me with finding a partner, which wouldn't be hard to find someone who would want to. No, the hard part would be finding someone good enough to keep up. That may make me sound cocky, but I don't wanna team up with some pansy ass that complains about practice times. Who the hell you tryin' to fool Cullen? You are a stubborn, cocky son of a bitch! Hah, yeah I guess I am. Jasper's past words filled my head "Man, I feel sorry for the girl you end up with. But I hope she puts your ass back in your place." I'd really like to see a girl catch my attention that would be able to do that!

Grabbing Twister, my back up roping horse, I saddled him up and started leading him to the indoor arena. When I walked in, I stopped dead in my tracks. There in the arena was Isabella on her horse, and I really gotta say this once, D-A-M-N, she looked hot riding her horse. She had a strong seat and you could see the pride in her controlling a huge animal. My mind drifted off to a small little girl on a horse.

"Edward, I don't know how to ride, I don't want to fall," whined a little girl.


"Don't worry Bella, I won't let anything happen to you." I said as I sat in front of her on the old horse, her arms around my waist hanging on for dear life.

Yeah, not the same little girl that was hanging onto me for dear life at the end of the area.

I mounted onto Twister and tried to get him through his workout without paying attention to Isabella, and it was really... fucking... hard. I don't know how long she was riding or for that matter how long I was even riding, before she got off and started leading her horse out of the arena. Shit, she's walking towards me. Grow some balls Cullen, it's just a fuckin' chick!

"O, hey, sorry I didn't know anyone was riding in here," she barely squeaked out. Yeah, that's right, I have that effect on people. Like I said, I was cocky.

"It's fine. You probably don't remember me, Isabella, I'm Edward," Damn she's gotta nice body up close. Edward! You need to think of that scared five year old little girl! "You have a nice looking horse, do you use him for any events?" This I knew the answer to, but hell, it was something to get her to talk.

"Yes, I use Sunny for barrel racing, and please call me Bella. Isabella makes it sound like I did something wrong." Damn what was that feeling I had going on right now. O that's right, the feeling of a hot girl in front of me. Time to step it up a notch.

"Ok, Bella, you can ride good. Get a little better and maybe you can ride with us sometime," I couldn't help the smugness in my voice. Yep that did it, Bella stood a little straighter and rose her chin up. Wow, ok, so maybe not the same scared five year old little girl.

"I can probably out ride you any day of the week. And as I recall you do not have your name anywhere within the top of any state in any event for rodeo. So maybe when you get a little bit better, you can ride with me!" And with that she walked out of the arena. That just pissed me the fuck off. Who the hell does she think she is? I worked my ass off for people to know my name in the horse business. But just because you worked your ass off, and people know your name, don't mean they respect you!

I decided to switch horses and get ready for the group to show up. Walking Twister down the isle, I noticed Bella leading her horse outside. I stood there shaking my head as Emmett walked in.

"Edward, man, what's up?" He has a smile on his face I wasn't sure about.

"Why are you in such a good mood?" I asked putting Twister in his stall and walked one over to get Jack.

"Well, I think we found you a team roping partner, but I'm not going to tell you who it is yet," Emmett scuffed as he grabbed his horse. I just shook my head at him. Jasper finally walked in and we all got saddled up and headed into the arena. Alice showed up and turned on the radio in the arena with a weird look on her face when the song started and she looked straight at me and winked.

It was a hundred and seven

We werer heading to town

She had her sleeves rolled up

And the windows rolled down

That girl is a cowboy

Robert Earl was singing out

The "Buckin' Song"

With every word that keen was bringing

She was singing along

That girl is a cowboy

(Chorus)

Sometimes the best cowboys

Ain't cowboys at all

She's got my back

Even when it's against the wall

When I need a friend

She's the guy to call

'Cause sometimes the best cowboys

Ain't cowboys at all

So i took her out to show her

How to rope and ride

I can't believe that is was me

That wound up broke and tied

That girl is a cowboy

So that night I decided

We should paint the town

I made it home although

I really don't remember how

That girl is a cowboy

(repeat chorus)

There's just something that a cowgirl has

Ain't no coboys got

Man she's something when she's one of the boys

But something else

Anytime she's not

We were done with warm-ups and I had just backed into the box when Bella walked in. This can't be good. I watched as she walked up to up Emmett, and Emmett got off his horse. O shit, this really can't be good.

"What the hell is going on? Emmett get back on your horse so we can fuckin' practice!" I yelled. Bella just looked at me and scowled. O yes, really not good! She started walking into the roping box for the heeler, and I couldn't believe my eyes! "What the hell are you doing Bella?" She just glared at me so I looked at Emmett who had a smug smile on his face. Run, run far away Edward. This can't be good!

"Shut the hell up Cullen, and lets go!" Bella had a smug smile on her face. Today we were using steers instead of the dummy, so I nodded for Emmett to let the steer out. Jack leaped forward, I start to swing my rope and caught the steer, from there it was all down hill. I looked behind me and saw Bella throw her rope and she fucking caught the hind legs! I whipped around and we pulled the steer and I just stared at her.

"Edward, meet your new roping partner!" Emmett's voice boomed from the roping box. I couldn't believe what I just saw, and Bella just stared at me. Looking into her eyes, I almost got lost. There was so much pride in them, and nothing in them reminded me of that scared little girl.

Everything left my mind but one thought, fuck, Bella Swan is gonna give me a run for my money!