Tina Leonard | Q&A with PBR Rider Reese Cates

Harlequin books has teamed up with the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) to revive four romance titles by USA Today bestselling author Tina Leonard, featuring four unique, but equally blush-inducing bull riders! Each collector’s edition book showcases a real-life PBR rider—Matt Triplett, Reese Cates, Harve Stewart and Zane Lambert—on the cover! The books are exclusively available for purchase at Walmart during May.

Read the Q&Q with PBR Rider Reece Cates below!

- So, Reese, how and when did you start bull riding?
I started riding bulls at a very young age. My dad and my granddad both rode bulls. So it was something that I grew up around. Something that I knew I wanted to do. I got on my first calf when I was three years old, and I had already been riding horses and stuff since before I could walk, and I just fell in love with it. The adrenaline rush, the idea that I could make a living doing something that was so fun. I was mesmerized by the sport. I did high school rodeo, college rodeo and worked my way up into the PBR—and here I am today living my dream.

- How would you describe yourself to your fans?
Wow, that’s a good question. I think a lot of people misinterpret bull riders and have this assumption that we are all cocky, arrogant guys that are too full of ourselves. But there really is a lot to bull riders. Whenever you’re getting on an animal that weighs between 1500-1800 pounds for a living each and every week, you kind of have to have a little bit of cockiness or arrogance about you. But we are really and truly a bunch of small-town guys who grew up hard-working, and I think the same holds true for me.

- Do you find you get nervous on competition nights?
I think that nerves and adrenaline can be misinterpreted as one or the other, and it can make you perform fifteen percent better or fifteen percent worse. If you interpret it as nerves, then it’s going to cause you to perform worse, and if you interpret it as adrenaline and you harness it and use it to your advantage, you are going to compete even better. So, yeah, there are butterflies there, but you know it’s the same way with Peyton Manning or Michael Jordan whenever he was playing basketball. The greatest athletes in the world know how to harness that and use it to their advantage. And that is what we are trying to do.

- What do you see as the ideal romantic night?
I think for me it’s not so much about what you do or where you are at, it’s about who you are with. I’ve heard a lot of stories about finding a good woman and how she makes you better but I think the best one was: there was a mayor and he and his wife were eating dinner and they walked by this construction site and this man said hello to the mayor’s wife as they passed by. And the mayor asked who was that and she let him know that was a guy she dated in high school and he told her, well, aren’t you glad you didn’t marry that guy, you would be married to a construction worker, and she informed him very quickly that, no,, if I would have married him, he would have been the mayor. I think there is a lot of truth in that. I think the woman makes the man. I think that the couple makes the date; it doesn’t matter whether you are taking a long romantic walk on the side of a beach or whether you are having a nice dinner with a glass of wine or if you are sitting in front of a fire. If the chemistry is there it’s going to be amazing either way.

World Finals Qualifications: 3
Hometown: El Dorado, Ark.
Residence: El Dorado, Ark.
Height: 5-9
Weight: 155
Born: 1/12/89
Riding Hand: Right
BFTS Season: 8th
Career Earnings: $449,167
High-Marked Ride: 91 points on Firewater at Built Ford Tough World Finals on Nov. 2, 2008

* 2008 Rookie of the Year

Personal
A third-generation bull rider (his father and grandfather both rode professionally), Reese says he was riding horses before he could walk (his mother, aunts and grandmother were all barrel racers). Growing up and rodeo-ing with Chase Outlaw, the two are still the best of friends and now compete in the PBR together. During his first couple years on the BFTS, Reese attended and graduated from Panola College in Carthage, Texas with an Agriculture Business Degree. After suffering multiple debilitating injuries during the 2013 season (three crushed ribs, a collapsed lung, a dislocated shoulder with torn ligaments), Reese says he learned so much about medical procedures he thinks he might have liked being a doctor if he weren’t riding bulls.

When he is touring, there is one thing he always has to have with him…his Tempur-pedic travel pillow. “I like my sleep”, jokes Reese, who says he could easily snooze for 10 hours if given the opportunity. After appearing on The Rachel Ray Show a few years ago (he tested a portable washer/dryer for the show), Reese admits he is now a fan and also regularly watches Dr. Phil. When he’s in top form, Reese sometimes hangs out and trains with Chad Mendes and Urijah Faber (top UFC fighters who are also PBR fans), and says that Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) workouts help keep him in shape for bull riding. In his down time, Reese likes hunting with Chase and San Diego Padres pitcher Andrew Cashner, fishing and spending time at home with family in Arkansas. Follow him on Twitter at @reesecates

2014 Highlights
Earned a ninth place finish in Chicago, Illinois, going 2-for-3 during the event…landed a fourth place finish in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, covering three of his four bulls…competed in 10 events before dislocating his shoulder while in Phoenix, Arizona…missed six months of competition after undergoing shoulder stabilization surgery…returned to competition in Nashville, Tennessee…placed 13th in Oakland, California, as his last Built Ford Tough Series event of the season.

Giveaway

Readers, who's your favorite bull rider? Leave a comment below for a chance to win a stuffed bull, plus the collector's editions of HEART OF A BULLRIDER, A FAMILY FOR THE BULL RIDER, ONE WILD BULL RIDER, and THE BULL RIDER'S TWINS by Tina Leonard!

Visit Harlequin.com to enter the PBR Sweepstakes for your chance to win a trip to Las Vegas and a VIP package to the PBR Built Ford Tough World Finals!

About Tina Leonard

USA Today Bestselling and award-winning author Tina Leonard has sold over 2.6 million copies of her titles. She has made the USA Today Bestseller, Waldenbooks, Bookscan, and Ingrambook lists, and has written and contracted seventy-one books and special projects. Her work has been published by Harlequin, Samhain Publishing, Robinson Scarlet, and most recently Random House Loveswept contracted for a single title trilogy project, Hell’s Outlaws. Leonard was chosen to be among the first authors published for Robinson’s Scarlet line, writing four single title novels for that imprint. Not long after, she sold on proposal to Harlequin American, where she has since written several popular series, most notably the Cowboys By The Dozen, Morgan Men, and Callahan Cowboys series. Her newest single title project, HER CALLAHAN MAN, was published in January 2014.

Leonard is known for her fun sense of humor, endearing communities, snappy dialogue, and memorable characters.

About HEART OF A BULLRIDER

The Billionaire: When New York billionaire John Carruth is summoned to No Chance, Texas, to save the local rodeo, he has no idea he is going home. Now the long-lost twin to the town’s favorite son is determined to win over the people he left behind—and capture the heart of Chloe Winters, a Texan who has her own ideas of what it means to be part of a small town!

The Bull Rider: Jake Fitzgerald, champion bull rider, didn’t know he had another half. John may be kin, but he’s still a stranger in these parts. With his billionaire brother hell-bent on changing Jake’s world, Jake knows he has to take a stand. Will he choose family—or will he take a chance on Erin O’Donovan, a woman who has always meant family to him?

Read an excerpt