Cowboy Crush : A Small Town, Enemies-to-Lovers YA Romance (Sweet Oak Teen Ranch Book 1)

by Lacy Andersen

  “Who’s playing?” Cassidy asked, pausing next to the couch.

  Rhett didn’t even glance away from the TV. “Royals and Cleveland Indians. Royals up by three runs.”

  She smiled down at him. “Are you a Royals fan?”

  He grunted in response. Anyone who knew Rhett knew he breathed everything baseball. Especially the Royals. But I had to give it to Cassidy. A lot of people were way too intimidated by Rhett to even strike up a conversation. She’d gotten further than most.

  “You don’t want to watch some boring old baseball game.” Eric slid out of his chair, his eyes sparkling with mischief as he rushed to Cassidy’s side and gave her one of his boyish grins. “Come play cards with us.”

  I got the instant urge to put myself between them, but I resisted and stood still next to the doorframe, my arms crossed over my chest. Eric was a charmer. He had neatly trimmed blond hair, blue eyes, and was a little too aware of his good looks for his own good. Normally, his antics didn’t bother me much, but right now it was setting my teeth on edge. Especially when his hand found its way to Cassidy’s lower back and he steered her in the direction of the table.

  “What are you playing?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.

  “Rummy.” He pulled out the chair for her. “Keith can deal you in.”

  Keith eyed Cassidy nervously, a slightly red tint appearing on his olive skin. The kid was quiet enough, but around girls, he hardly uttered a sound. Apparently, it had taken him a good two months to say his first word to Mary when he’d arrived here. Put a pretty girl like Cassidy in front of him and he was liable to stop breathing. And sure enough, he sat there frozen in front of her for so long, I was starting to think he really would pass out.

  “I’ll deal,” I said, crossing the room to come to his rescue.

  Keith gladly abandoned his seat to go plop on the couch with a book. Sliding into the chair, I made eye contact with Cassidy. She grinned approvingly and then turned to Eric.

  “How do you like your new school, Eric? You’re new, right?”

  He gave her a dimpled smile. “It’s a lot better than my last one. At least we don’t have to walk through metal detectors to get to class here.”

  Cassidy’s eyes widened. “They made you walk through metal detectors? Where are you from?”

  “Kansas City. Just like Graham.” He held up the cards I dealt him and scanned them over. “You couldn’t pay me to go back there. I like the country better. I’m not sure why Graham wants to go back so bad. He should take getting kicked out of that city as a sign to stay away. I am.”

  I felt her gaze land on the side of my face. Keeping my eyes firmly on the cards in my hand, I tried to focus on the pairs and runs.

  Thankfully, Cassidy didn’t ask any more questions. Ken and Mary eventually joined us in the living room, and it started to feel like a typical evening at the ranch. We played Rummy with Eric for an hour, until Rhett shot off of the couch, yelling angrily at a call during the game and giving us all heart attacks. When she’d finally recovered from the shock, Cassidy glanced down at her phone and grimaced at the time.

  “I should get back, my dad’s getting off a shift in a few minutes,” she said.

  Ken nodded from his blue La-Z-Boy recliner in the corner. “Wouldn’t want the sheriff to think you’d gone missing.”

  “It was so nice to have another gal over tonight,” Mary said, lowering her book to her lap as she beamed at Cassidy. “Come back again, anytime. Graham, walk the young lady out so she doesn’t disappear in one of those ruts in the driveway. I nearly killed myself bringing in some groceries the other night.”

  I got up from my seat and followed Cassidy toward the door. She thanked Mary for the food and said goodbye to the boys. Rhett grunted a response. Keith hid behind his book. And Eric had the audacity to give her a flirtatious wink that made me want to throw Keith’s book at him. All the while, I could feel Ken’s heavy gaze on me. Just before we left, he cleared his throat loudly.

  “Don’t spend all night out there,” he warned.

  I wasn’t sure what he thought I was going to do—hold her hostage? But the silent way Mary shushed him and the knowing grin on Eric’s face made the back of my neck heat up. Thankfully, Cassidy was already at the door and putting her shoes back on, so she’d missed the drama.

  “That was great,” Cassidy said when we were finally outside. “Best supper ever. I’m pretty sure Mary’s cooking beats a frozen meal any day of the week.”

  It wasn’t totally dark yet. The sun had set just beyond the bluff in the distance, painting the sky with brilliant oranges and pinks. I shoved my hands in my jeans pockets and walked silently beside her as we made our way over to her car. The horses whinnied in the distance, but the rest of the evening was pretty quiet. Including us. It was a comfortable silence. Not at all weird like the previous times we’d walked like this for the interviews. Cassidy eventually smiled up at the sunset, the light landing on her face and making it glow.

  “Pretty,” she breathed.

  “Yeah.” I kept my gaze on her. “It is.”

  Her eyes swept over to meet mine and I didn’t miss the sudden coloring of her cheeks. Forcing my attention down to the dirt road, I focused on putting one boot in front of the other until we’d arrived at her driver’s door. Cassidy took the keys out of her pocket and played with them in her hands.

  “They’re nice. Your foster family.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  There were worse places I could be right now. I was smart enough to recognize that. But that didn’t lessen this aching in my gut to be home. I didn’t belong here. Not even a nice evening on the ranch could make me forget that.

  She shifted her feet and I couldn’t help but look up at her. She had her lower lip between her teeth, an unsure expression on her face. She wanted to ask me something, I was sure of it. If I’d learned anything about Cassidy over the past week, it was that she couldn’t hold her curiosity back for very long. It was what made her a great interviewer. And probably part of what made her into one of those decent people she was talking about. She genuinely cared.

  “Okay, what’s your question?” I asked, leaning against the body of her car. “Out with it.”

  She swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You’re dying to ask me something. And I’m giving you permission. What do you want to know? I’ll run through the list of typical questions people usually have for us Oakies. No, we don’t all have criminal records. No, not all of us are orphans. Not all of us are foster kids, either. And no, this isn’t some secret school for spies.”

  Her lips quirked. “Do you really get asked if it’s a school for spies?”

  “No.” I grinned. “But sometimes I wish I did.”

  She tipped her head back to laugh and something in my chest pulsed with need.

  “Did I answer your question?” I asked as her laughter died and she began to wipe under her eyes for stray tears.

  Her expression became more somber and she shook her head. “No, actually, it was something else.”

  “Shoot.”

  She looked over at her car and inhaled slowly. “What happened to bring you to the ranch? Eric said you were kicked out of Kansas City. Is that true?”

  My throat immediately thickened, blocking my ability to talk. I stared at her, waiting for the feeling to pass. The truth about what had brought me to the ranch was hard to put into words. I’d spent hours going over every detail in my mind, wishing I could’ve changed one thing. One single thing about that day.

  It was my fault. Everything was my fault. If I hadn’t been so self-involved and selfish, the police never would’ve shown up on our doorstep. Mom never would’ve gotten in trouble. And my brother wouldn’t have landed hours away in some home on the other side of the state.

  How could a girl like Cassidy ever understand my story?

  When she looked up and met my gaze again I felt something shift inside of me. Maybe Cassidy wou
ldn’t understand. Maybe she’d hear my story and decide I wasn’t worth the effort of her charity. Still, it didn’t dampen my sudden and strange need to spill my truth to the girl standing in front of me. If anyone in this world would believe me, she would.

  “I stole a bike. On a dare.”

  She frowned, a series of emotions flashing through her eyes. “You got sent to the ranch because you stole a bike? That seems harsh.”

  I gulped, trying my best not to let emotion enter my voice. “That wasn’t the whole reason. It was the reason that cops got sent to my home, though. Believe it or not, I haven’t always been this charming. I didn’t have the easiest time making friends back at home.”

  Her lips hinged into a teasing smile. “Oh, is this you being charming?”

  I chuckled, even as my insides felt like they were twisting up. “Yep. This is me being charming. But one day, at my old school, a kid from school came up to me. Liam Paine. He was a senior and a football star. He had lots of friends. And money. His parents were rich. I wanted everything he had. He and his friends used to give me crap, but out of the blue, they invited me to hang with them. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. I mean, what other chance do I get to cruise the city in an Audi with a bunch of the popular kids?”

  “Let me guess, they were the ones that told you to steal it?”

  Bile filled my mouth. “Yep. I didn’t tell my brother. I knew he’d say I wasn’t thinking this through, and I didn’t want him ruining this for me. So we went driving and eventually they drove me to a little suburb and dared me to take this old bike off a porch. I thought it was just a silly prank at some random house. Turns out, not so random. It was our principal’s house.”

  Sympathy filled Cassidy’s eyes. “You got caught?”

  “No, actually, I got away. Drove that thing all the way home and abandoned it in the bike rack at our apartment building. I thought I was so smooth. It was just a pathetic bike. The chain kept falling off and the rear fender was dented. Who would care? But what I didn’t know was that our principal had a security system and got a clear picture of me on his porch with his bike. Didn’t take him long to figure out who I was. The cops showed up that night, when my mom was having a few friends over.”

  This part of the memory brought extra pain for me. It was the moment everything in my life had changed. My breath hitched and I clenched my fist on the top of Cassidy’s car.

  “What...what happened?” she asked in a low voice.

  I looked her in the eyes, willing my lungs to work. We’d come this far. I might as well tell her the whole story. “The cops busted in, making a mess of things. My mom’s friends had some illegal stuff on them. She was too drunk to tell them it wasn’t hers. They tried to arrest her, but she was screaming that they were hurting her. I jumped in to make them back off. To tell them to take it a little easier. And that’s when everything went wrong.”

  The scene played vividly in my head. I could still remember the scent of alcohol heavy in the air, even from where I sat in the bedroom Nash and I shared. When Mom had guests, we usually kept to ourselves. It was better that way. But that night, the sound of the sharp knock at the door had been loud enough to make me pull my earphones from my ears. The shouts that followed had me bolting from the room, with Nash hot on my tail.

  We’d both panicked when we saw Mom being pushed up against the wall by a cop. Her screams of anger and pain. Nash wasn’t a fighter. Never had been. He’d gone straight into negotiation mode, trying to talk to the officer near us into calming things down. Me? I’d gone straight to the source of the problem, grabbing the wrist of the officer man-handling my mom.

  “They thought I was attacking them,” I continued. “Two of the cops wrestled and pinned me to the ground, slapping cuffs on me. My brother was yelling at them to stop. They threatened him, too. We were all hauled in and the court decided my mom wasn’t a fit enough mother. They took us away, split us up, and I got sent here.”

  I waited for the revulsion to show in Cassidy’s eyes. For the slightest hint of fear after listening to my story. I couldn’t blame her. On the police report from the incident, the cop had said that I was non-compliant. That I had assaulted them. That was all the world would expect of me from now on. But all I’d wanted to do was save my mom. I got written off as a lost cause. A menace to society. And the Liam Paines of the world went on without any consequences. Just like Derek Cook and his dad.

  “Graham, you made a mistake.” Cassidy’s eyes were wide and filled with emotion as she looked up at me. “But you can’t blame yourself for everything that happened that night. Just like you can’t let guys like Mr. Cook get to you. He’s wrong for judging you.”

  I tore my gaze away, staring off into the nearby field. How many times had Mom warned us about bringing trouble into the house? But I’d brought it right to our doorstep. How could I not be to blame for everything that night? It was all my fault.

  My chest tightened slightly with regret. I’d just spilled everything to Cassidy that I’d been keeping inside of me for the past year and a half. Maybe I was just repeating the same old mistakes. Inviting trouble into my house. She was the sheriff’s daughter! If Mom knew what I was doing, she’d have told me off.

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t repeat this story to anyone,” I said, my voice thick. “Especially your dad. I don’t need any more trouble.”

  “I won’t.” A line appeared between her eyebrows and she wet her lips. “But even if my dad found out, he wouldn’t hold it against you. He believes in second chances. So do I.”

  The tension in my chest eased a bit as I allowed myself to fully look at her again. “Really?”

  “Yeah. Definitely.”

  She moved closer, her gaze taking in every inch of my face. Hesitation appeared in the lines around her mouth before she placed her hands on my shoulders, rose up to her toes, and brushed her lips gently against my cheek. That touch jump-started a blazing fire in my gut and I was afraid to move, or else it would be released like wildfire throughout the rest of my body. Instead, I stood stock still as she pulled away and gave me a shy smile.

  “Thank you for sharing your story with me.”

  I nodded uselessly, my brain disconnected from my body. “Yep. No problem.”

  “And for inviting me to dinner, even if you did it against your will.”

  Rapping my knuckles against the top of her car, I grunted. “Should do this again, sometime.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Which part?”

  Heat flared inside me once again. “The dinner, I mean. The other stuff, too, I guess. If you want. Or not. It doesn’t matter.”

  I sounded like a blabbering fool. It was going to take a miracle to shut me up. Fortunately, the sound of the front door swinging open and Ken’s footsteps on the porch snapped me out of it. We both looked over to see him standing in the semi-darkness with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.

  “Time to come in, Graham.”

  “I’d better go before I get you in trouble,” Cassidy said quietly. She smiled at me one last time and then slipped into her car.

  I backed away toward the porch, watching her silver car make its way all the way down the drive and onto the highway. When I finally turned back to the house, I realized Ken was still standing there, his dark gaze squarely on me.

  “I don’t think I have to remind you that Sheriff Redmond and I didn’t pair you on this project for things to get out of hand,” he said.

  Plowing my fingers through my hair, I laughed nervously. “I’m not sure what you mean. Nothing’s getting out of hand.”

  His frown deepened slightly. “Hmmm. And I’ve got a bridge to sell you.”

  I shook my head and walked past him into the house. Ken was crazy. There was nothing getting out of hand here. Cassidy and I were just friends. Did friends kiss each other on the cheek like that? I wasn’t sure. I’d never really had a close friend that was a girl. Maybe that was standard for Blue River. Maybe this molten lava feeling in my gu
t was standard, too.

  Maybe this wasn’t what Ken and the Sheriff had planned when they’d put us together, but for once, I wasn’t taking the blame on this one.

  It definitely wasn’t my fault.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cassidy

  It wasn’t usually this hard to focus on my lunch. Chili and cinnamon rolls was my favorite meal they served at Blue River High School. But today, I simply stirred my chili and kept glancing across the crowded cafeteria as Hannah talked on about the latest drama in her choir class.

  “And then Emma totally choked on the soprano part, which served her right for giving Allie the evil eye during her audition,” she said, flipping her hair. “But then my part came up and...Cass, are you even listening to me?”

  I blinked over at her, desperately trying to comb my memory banks for what she’d just said. “Um. Yeah. You were talking about Alex dumping Sarah during class?”

  Her eyes widened with disbelief. “I talked about that ten minutes ago! What’s got you so distracted over there?” She twisted in her seat and her mouth immediately formed an O shape, before she turned back to me with a devious grin. “I see, now. Someone’s got a certain cowboy on the brain.”

  Blood rushed to my cheeks, making them burn. I ducked my head and took an oversized bite of my cinnamon roll. It was true that Graham was sitting in the general direction in which I’d been staring all lunch period. And it was also true that I’d been thinking about him nonstop over the past three days since having dinner at the ranch on Saturday. But that wasn’t the only reason I was distracted.