by Kennedy Fox
“By your standards, no one will ever be good enough for me, and I’ll die single and alone with fifty horses,” she says, looking into my eyes, and I swear she can see right through me. Not able to stand there another second, out of fear of doing the unpredictable, I turn on my heels and head through the corral toward the barn that’s set in the back. I hear her groan behind me, and it actually makes me smile that she gets just as frustrated as I do.
Once we’re inside the barn, Kiera falls in step beside me. We walk to the last stall where I locked up the new horse that needs to be trained, and I lean over the stall door and give Kiera the rundown on him.
“He’s almost three years old and was doing halter training with his previous owners. His name is Chief, and he’s pretty good at longing. I haven’t tried to saddle him yet, so I think that’s probably where you’ll want to start after building that trust,” I explain, but she already knows all this. Though I’m more than capable to train the horses on the ranch myself, I send them to Kiera because she’s good at what she does, and it allows me to see her. Plus, I don’t have a lot of time with helping run the bed and breakfast, giving lessons and trail riding, then acting as a backup for the ranch hands when Dad is shorthanded.
She glances at Chief, then back at me. “I love quarter horses.”
“I know.” I smile, but I don’t dare tell her that’s the reason I keep buying them.
Kiera opens the stall, walks in, and holds out her hand where she’s tucked a treat. Chief immediately zeros in on it and lazily walks over to her. Once he’s close, she runs one hand over his fire engine red coat and says sweet things as he takes the treat from her free hand.
“You’re gonna be a good boy, aren’t ya?” She clips the lead rope on the bottom of his halter and looks over at me and smiles.
“How long do I have?” she asks, opening the stall door.
“As long as you need to do your magic; you know that.”
“I can have him ready in a few months as long as he cooperates,” she tells me as she leads Chief out of the stall and through the barn. I follow on the other side of the horse, wishing our time wasn’t so rushed and we could go back to the way things used to be, but that’s wishful thinking.
Once we’re across the pasture and walking through the main barn, I go to the horse trailer and open the door. Kiera leads Chief inside with no problems.
After he’s situated and Kiera comes out, I lock the door while she wipes her hands on her jeans and lets out a deep breath. It’s awkward for a moment as neither of us really knows what to say. Ever since she started dating Trent last year, it’s been like this between us. The tension is so thick it could be cut with a dull butter knife.
“Okay then. Well, I guess I’ll call you if I need anythin’,” Kiera finally says, but before she walks away, I grab her arm and pull her back to me.
“Do ya love him?” The words slip out of my mouth before I can stop myself. My heart races as I search her face, and I wait with bated breath. She hesitates for a moment, and it feels like the world around us freezes. I want her to say no. I want her to tell me she’s just dating him because I’m too much of a bastard to admit how I feel, how I’ve always felt about her. I want her to tell me the truth because when I look into her eyes, I know it. I know she doesn’t love him. Not the way she could love me.
She sighs and then almost forces herself to smile. “I do.”
I give her a look, begging her to admit the truth.
“You really do? You see yourself being with him for the next fifty years? Trent’s your future?”
She stands there and tucks her hands into her back pockets. She pinches her lips together and nods.
I shake my head. “If he ever hurts you, I’ll fuckin’ kill him,” I add, before walking back toward the barn. Moments later, I hear the truck start and the rattle of the horse trailer making its way down the gravel, and all I can think is how I deserve to see her with another man. That’s what I get for believing she’d be by my side, and that maybe one day, she’d be mine.
The rest of the day, I’m in a piss-poor mood, and to make matters worse, Alex gets the same stomach bug John has and is puking his guts up, so I have to go fill in for him after lunch.
As I make my way over to my parents’ house where Dad is gonna pick me up, I look up at the dark clouds rolling in. I park the truck and get out and walk inside. Mama is rocking Riley to sleep. She sees the scowl on my face and shakes her head.
“Now what?” she asks quietly.
“Nothin’,” I sharply tell her. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “This have somethin’ to do with Kiera and Trent?”
Bingo. Mama can see right through my moods. “No.”
“I love you, son, but you’re an awful liar.” She loves calling me out on my shit.
I plop down in the recliner and wait for Dad to arrive, hoping he’ll get here before Mama dissects my heart to pieces.
“You’re so damn stubborn, Jackson. I don’t know why you don’t just finally admit how you feel before it’s too late. We’ve been tellin’ you this for about two decades, and you’ve done nothing but deny it. You’re not a teenager anymore. Denying crushes isn’t cute. If you keep it up, she’s always gonna be known as the one who got away. You know her mama called me the other day and told me Kiera still talks about you?”
My interest is piqued, but I try to seem uninterested, though I’m failing. “Yeah? What’d she say?”
“What do you think she says?” Mama rolls her eyes at me, stands, and gently places Riley down on the couch with a blanket. She sits and puts her hand on him, so he stays right where he is.
“You should come to the cakewalk at the church on Valentine’s Day.”
I shake my head. “Not happening. I’d rather shovel shit for twelve hours straight.”
“I might be able to make that happen,” she gets in right as Dad opens the front door. I’ve never been so happy to see him. I give Mama a smile, Dad gives her a wave, and we make our way down the front steps.
“Imma need some help branding all the new calves over on the east side. You up for it?” Dad asks with a grin. I give him a head nod and don’t speak on the ride over. It’s okay, though, because Dad isn’t a man of many words, which I’m happy about at the moment.
I stare out the window and think about all the times Kiera and I rode four-wheelers all over the ranch when we were teenagers. We spent every single day together, attached at the hip and inseparable, but all that seemed to change when she started dating my best friend, Tanner.
She had picked him, or it felt that way. Even though I never came out and told her about my true feelings or made a move, I thought about it many times. The three of us were all friends, and as soon as they got together, things got awkward and tense. How could she pick him over me? I thought, but deep down, I knew. She deserved a guy like him.
Tanner came from a family of unlimited money and could afford to do the nicest things for her. His parents took them on ski trips to Colorado, flew them to New York City to explore Times Square, and on expensive dates— all things I’d never be able to do. After I saw how happy she was with him and because he was my best friend, I’d considered her forbidden territory. I’d never be good enough for Kiera and denial took over. Hell, it’s still here. After they broke up, she left for college, making it impossible for me to tell her how I felt. I’d never be the man to hold her back from her dreams, and her happiness is all I’ve ever wanted. Even she knows that.
Before I can get too lost in my thoughts, we make it to the east side of the property where the cattle and calves are being held in an open, fenced-off space. There are over a dozen people on horses keeping them within the perimeter. We started doing it this way instead of corralling so the herd would be less stressed.
Shadow, a large Arabian horse Courtney trained before she moved to California, is saddled and waiting for me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Alex played hooky becau
se he knows I’m better at roping cattle than any of them, but then again, branding is what we live for. I’ve been so lost in my own world lately, I totally forgot this was happening. They’ve been getting up close to three in the morning to get this done and will for the next few days. I secretly hope he’s sick tomorrow, too, so I can come out here again.
Once we’re parked, Dad gives me a head nod, and I get out of the truck and walk over to the horse and check the cinch strap to make sure it’s tight. Once I confirm it is, with one swift movement, I put my foot in the stirrup and grab onto the horn, then position myself on the saddle. Dad walks over and hands me some leather gloves, and I thank him because I don’t want my hands to be torn up from the lasso. There’s a handful of ranch hands scattered all around. Some are on horses, and others are branding the calves with the ranch logo, which is basically like a return address if these little assholes wander off.
As I look at my surroundings, a smile covers my face because I’m happy to be here doing this. It’s part of that cowboy culture I crave every once in a while. It’s easy to take this all for granted, but when I’m helping brand, it reminds me of old ranch traditions Dad keeps alive. It makes me so damn proud to be a Bishop.
One of my good friends, Colton, makes his way over to me wearing a shit-eating smirk. He’s been working on the ranch for the past year, and we’ve gotten into plenty of trouble together. It all started when I moved into the ranch hand living quarters. He was the Robin to my Batman, and we drank enough to drown Gotham City.
“Wonderin’ when I was gonna see ya again, ya bastard,” he says with a chuckle. He’s probably still pissed about all the whiskey I made him drink at my last party.
“The only bastard I see here is you,” I throw right back at him with a grin. I lean down. “Are you the one who smells like shit out here or what?”
He grins. “Get off that horse and say it to my face, ya pussy.”
My head falls back, and I burst out into hearty laughter before shrugging. “I am what I eat.”
Once he’s called over to help wrestle a calf to the ground, I get to work. Riding through the herd, I rope calf after calf with beautiful loops. I pull them out into the opening, and they’re branded in less than a minute and running back to their mamas. This process goes on for hours, and I lose track of time, thinking about nothing but this. Thankfully, it’s the only thing that gets Kiera off my mind—for now.
Chapter Five
KIERA
Even after all this time, Jackson continues to get under my skin. As Trent sits in front of me at the diner, all I can think about is Jackson’s question.
“Do you love him?” His words echo in my head.
Of course, I love Trent. We’ve been living together for seven months, and he’s quickly become my other half. But when Jackson asked me, I hesitated, and I don’t know why I would even pause for a second.
Ever since Alex’s wedding, Trent and I have been inseparable. Though I wasn’t looking for a relationship at the time, I gave him a chance. I walked out to the old barn with him just to chat, and all we did was discuss horses as we lay on the grass. Honestly, I did it to make Jackson jealous at first, hoping he’d see me leave with someone else, but what I didn’t realize was he didn’t even notice I had left. Figures. But that night, Trent and I shared something magical under the stars at the Bishop ranch. For the first time since returning from college nearly a decade ago, I let go of the what-ifs, and I ended up meeting the most perfect man in the whole state of Texas.
Trent treats me the way I’ve always deserved, and it’s hard not to be madly in love with him. Somehow, he manages to say all the right things at all the right times, making me feel as if I’m the center of his universe. And he’s not afraid to tell me how he feels, which is completely the opposite of Jackson. Without a doubt, Trent’s the one for me, and one day, I hope to get married and start a family with him. However, even as I sit here, trying to think of all the happy moments Trent and I will make together, I can’t stop thinking about Jackson and the way he looked at me today. My skin still burns from where he pulled me back to him—and has all morning. I try really hard to push Jackson out of my thoughts as I twirl the spaghetti on my fork, but it’s useless.
“Are you okay?” Trent asks as he takes a sip of coffee. He’s been talking for the past five minutes about a horse, and I feel guilty that I haven’t listened to a word he’s said, so I hurry and give him a smile.
“Yes, of course. Just thinking about all the things I need to do back at the ranch. The horses that were recently boarded, the ones that need rehabilitation therapy, and those that still need training. Making a mental list, that’s all.”
He places his hand on mine and squeezes.
“Have I told you that I love you today?” he asks with a wink. He tells me every morning when I try to sneak out of bed for work. Since I need to be at the ranch around five in the morning to help feed the horses, I’m usually up before him, unless he has an emergency call. But starting and ending our day with an I love you has become our routine since I moved in with him.
“I love you, too. Thank you.” I squeeze his hand back.
“For what?” he asks, noticing how disinterested I am in my food.
“For always keeping me grounded.”
He gives me a smile, then continues talking about a horse and putting shoes on, and this time, I really try to pay attention to him as I finish eating. He’d already eaten before arriving and just drank coffee the entire time. Once he pays, we get up to leave, and he takes my hand. Trent walks me out to the truck and pins me against it, his hot lips mingling with mine. I melt into his kiss as my back presses against the cool metal. Moaning against his mouth, he takes it as a cue and tugs at my bottom lip, then sucks on it.
“If you keep that up, you might miss your next appointment,” I tease, feeling his growing erection against my stomach. All he does is chuckle.
“Mrs. Hanson would call my mama if I canceled. See you tonight around seven. Love you.” He gives me one more kiss before he forces himself away. I lean against the truck as I watch him walk to his, reminding myself that this gorgeous man is mine and perfect for me.
“Love you, see you then,” I tell him before I hop in my truck. As he backs out of the diner, I blow kisses at him, and he pretends to catch them. I crank the truck, turn on the heat because it’s cold as hell, and sit there thinking about my day. It’s gone from bad to good in about thirty minutes, and I’m half tempted to drive over to the Bishop ranch and kick Jackson in the balls because he deserves it for making me second-guess everything. Anytime I’m around him, this happens, and I hate it. He always throws me off my axis, and I have to figure out how to turn it off—how to stop him from affecting me. Trent and I have been together for almost two years, and while we’ve had our ups and downs, it’s been nothing short of a fairy tale.
After five minutes have passed, I decide to call my cousin, Addie, to have her talk me off the ledge. She’s been by my side for as long as I can remember and knows all my history with Jackson. If anyone understands my frustrations, it’s her—she’s heard them all.
The phone rings, and she picks it up after one time. Last year, she got married to the love of her life and found out soon after she was pregnant. She only has a few weeks until the baby is due and has been put on bed rest until then, which means she’s available anytime I need a quick chat.
“Thank God. I’ve been wanting to call you all morning,” she says breathlessly.
“So why didn’t you?” I ask her, wishing she would have.
“I looked down at my vag, and I swear to God, Kiera. It’s a fucking jungle down there. I can’t take it anymore.”
I burst into uncontrollable laughter, and I’m so happy I’m not driving because by how desperate she sounds, I might have lost all control. “Then shave it. It’s simple.”
“I had to use a mirror to see if I still had one. How the hell am I supposed to shave it? My stomach is so big there’s no wa
y I could even reach it very well. I need it waxed, today. And I need you to help me.”
“Nope. No way. I love you like my sister, but there’s no way I’m getting that close to your lady bits. No, ma’am. You better ask Landon.” Now I’m the one with the serious tone. Her husband needs to help her out. It’d be too weird for me.
Addie starts laughing.
“What?” I finally ask her.
“I don’t need you to help me actually do it. I need you to drive me there. I made an appointment at three. Pretty, pretty, pretty please. If I don’t go, I may transform into Cousin It, but the pube version.”
My mouth falls open. “The visual I just had, so disgusting.”
“I’m desperate. So desperate. I’ll even pay for yours too.”
I stare out at the gray colored sky. “I’ve never done it before. Does it hurt?”
She giggles. “Only the first strip. I used to get them done religiously; like it was on a calendar just like my cycle, but then I got pregnant, and everything has been thrown off. Please? Pretty please. Like I will love you forever. I’m almost willing to promise you my firstborn.”
I let out a sigh. “Okay. I gotta run back to the house and change clothes, and then I’ll be over. Deal?”
“I love you. Oh my God. I love you so much.” She makes kissy noises in the phone before we let each other go. I’m usually not scared of anything, but getting my crotch waxed kinda scares the crap out of me. I have to try everything once, I suppose.
After I make my way back to my house, I text my assistant trainer, Alexis, and let her know I’ll be gone the rest of the afternoon. She’s really great at making sure everything runs smoothly when I’m out on calls and understands and accepts my hectic schedule. Thankfully, Trent’s house is pretty close to everything. Once I drive up the road and make it home, I hurry and wrap my hair up in a tight bun, then jump in the shower and change into some fresh clothes. Addie and Landon recently built their dream home close to my parents’ ranch, so we’re practically neighbors now. As soon as I turn down the dirt road that leads to her house, my heart begins to rapidly beat. This happens to me anytime I randomly think about Jackson, and there’s one person to blame. Just the fact he still affects me makes me hate him. It’s so frustrating.