His single-minded drive had always been so attractive to me. From the time we were little, he’d known what he wanted to do. Which was why, besides his physical trauma, I’d been so worried about how he was doing mentally and emotionally. The rodeo hadn’t just been his job, it had been his life. I couldn’t begin to imagine how he was processing the loss of it.
Not able to shake Holden from my head, I closed the dating app and pulled up Instagram. My thumb hovered over the arrow icon and I thought about sending him a message letting him know that I saw him last night and didn’t get a chance to say hi, but I’d love to catch up if he was still in town.
No! I couldn’t go down that rabbit hole again. I’d slid into his DMs several times over the years and his responses had always been short and impersonal.
I’d ask how he was doing, he’d reply, “Just fine, thank you.”
I’d congratulate him on a championship, he’d say, “Thanks so much. Appreciate it.”
Never once had he asked me how I was doing or what I was up to. It was clear, he did not feel the same way about me as I did about him. And as much as his fall had pulled at my heartstrings, I needed to face facts. He had a girlfriend. He had a family and friends who loved him. And he hadn’t reached out to me, so obviously he didn’t need or want my support.
The best thing I could do for myself was to move on with my life. If I was ever going to have a healthy relationship, I had to get over him once and for all.
I pulled the dating app back up and forced myself to ‘heart’ several guys whose profiles didn’t throw up any obvious red flags, letting them know that I matched with them. Then, I set my phone down and resolved not to let Holden’s return derail all the work I’d put in lately on myself, specifically my openness to meeting someone.
With a renewed sense of determination, I finished my coffee and went back upstairs to brush my teeth, pull my hair up, and get ready for my morning yoga practice which I decided I’d be doing in the buff for the first time. Today was a new day, I was going to break down barriers and open myself up to new opportunities.
What better way to do that than sans clothes in downward dog? This time my inner voice sounded a lot like Molly.
But I didn’t let the thought dissuade me. Instead of pulling on leggings and a sports bra, I undressed and slid on a robe. Every step I took down the stairs, I could feel my bare thighs rubbing together and my pulse sped up. By the time I made it to the back door, I was in full panic mode like I was walking the plank on a pirate ship, which made zero sense.
I didn’t have to do this.
No one was forcing me to.
I’d decided to do this completely of my own accord, because I wanted to spice up my life.
I could change my mind, go back upstairs, and get dressed. There would be no consequences.
But something was stopping me from doing that. I needed to rewire my brain, to break the habit loops I was in. Nervously, I bit the inside of my cheek.
“I can do this, right?” I asked Channing for assurance.
His response was to curl up in his large bed and flop down for his first nap of the day which he always took right after finishing breakfast. He was snoring seconds after his head hit the cushion.
“Thanks,” I said flatly.
It looked like I was on my own. With a deep breath, I opened my back door and stepped outside. I shut the door behind me, turned, and looked around. I wasn’t sure what I thought I’d find, but I did a cursory search of my backyard. I’d had to install a twelve-foot fence after adopting Channing because he was an escape artist who hops like a vampire from Twilight. He could clear fences that were six and eight feet tall, even without having a running start.
I’d been advised to put up a ten-footer, but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry and gone for the twelve-footer. The privacy fence was just that. It was private.
The only way someone could see into the backyard was if they were looking out my bedroom or my brother’s bedroom window. Since his place had been vacant since he moved out, I knew that I had nothing to worry about.
No one could see me except God and the grass. So, without further ado, I took a deep breath and dropped my robe.
I expected to feel liberated. Instead, I felt cold.
Chapter 7
Holden
“The sun rises and sets every day whether ya feel like seein’ it or not.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
The alarm on my phone went off and I turned and shut it off. I didn’t know how long I’d been lying in bed staring up at the ceiling, but it felt like it had been hours. I couldn’t remember the last time the alarm had actually woken me up. Since my fall, sleep was hard to come by. It had been a little easier when I was taking the pain medication, but since I’d decided to stop, it had been more difficult.
I looked at my phone and saw that I had a message from Kurt. He’d set up a physical therapy appointment for me at noon in Parish Creek, which was about thirty minutes away. It was six a.m., which meant I had six hours to kill. Well, five and a half if I included drive time. The thought of getting into my truck again, even if it was only a short distance, sounded torturous. I figured that it might be worth it to take a hot shower and do some stretches before then.
But first, my thumb hovered over the icon of the video that I’d watched every morning since I woke up in the hospital. It was the video of my last ride. I’d seen it at least a hundred times in slow motion. I’d seen the millisecond that everything went wrong. I’d freeze framed on my expression the second I’d got in the chute, my gut told me to bail. But I’d never bailed my entire career. Pride. That’s what had caused me to give the nod. The nod that changed my life forever.
Everything would’ve been fine if I hadn’t got hung up. I would’ve been thrown, but it wouldn’t have caused the damage that had been done. My glove got stuck in the rope. I looked like one of those inflatable tube men as my body flew up in the air and flung down across the bull’s back. I bounced off his back two more times before my hand finally dislodged and I fell onto the ring floor.
Luckily, the bullfighters were able to distract Punisher long enough for the medics to take me out on a stretcher. If there’d been less experienced men working the event that day, there was a good chance I wouldn’t have survived.
Instead of pressing play and watching the wreck, I set my phone down. There was no point in looking backwards. That wasn’t my life anymore, and the sooner I put it behind me, the better. Today felt like a new start. The problem with that was, I didn’t want a new start.
I lifted my arms and ran my fingers through my hair. Even that small movement caused my back to seize up painfully in protest. I flinched as I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Not able to move, I sat perfectly still, allowing myself a minute to breathe through the agony. As I did, I stared at the wall that Bentley had pointed out was shared by Olivia.
Was she lying in bed on the other side of it?
Growing up, she’d never been much of a morning person.
As I sat, trying to detach my brain from what I was feeling, I closed my eyes and a montage played in my memory of her walking into the kitchen on Saturday mornings. Her hair stuck up in all directions, she always had a crease across one of her cheeks, and her eyes were always puffy.
She’d pour herself a bowl of cereal, no milk, and sit and watch morning cartoons with us. She never spoke for at least an hour. She’d just sit quietly in the corner of the couch and eat her cereal.
I wondered what her morning routine was now. She wasn’t a kid or a teenager anymore. She was a woman. A woman who’d been dropped off by her date at midnight and gone inside her house alone.
I had to admit, it felt creepy that I’d waited up for her. I could hide behind the excuse that keeping an eye on her was what Bentley had specifically asked me to do, but that would just be a cop-out. I’d done it because I’d wanted to.
When my back finally began to relax, I gingerly rose to my fe
et, holding my breath as a flash of searing pain shot through me. The best way that I could describe this particular sensation was that it felt like someone’d stabbed a hot pitchfork into my lower back and twisted it. This particular pain usually passed fairly quickly, never lasting for more than a minute or two. When I felt it starting to subside to a bone-deep, throbbing ache, I exhaled.
I used to love mornings. Since I was a kid, I’d loved watching the sunrise. Whenever I’d spend the night at the Briggs farm, all the Briggs brothers would complain about the time that they were woken up to do chores, but I’d been raring to go. Seeing the first break of light coming over the fields had been like a religious experience to me. But any joy I had for the phenomenon was gone. Now the sunrise just marked the starting point of the marathon day of pain I had in store for me.
As I passed the large bedroom window that looked out over the open fields of Old Man Spratt’s farm, which butted up to the property line, I couldn’t help but glance outside of it. The sun was peeking up over the horizon and I could see the silhouette of cows off in the far distance grazing on the field. It was a sight I’d seen hundreds of times growing up.
Movement directly below the window caught my attention and when I looked down, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I blinked, and took a step closer to the window, sure that I must be hallucinating. But the closer I got to the pane of glass, the more certain I was that what I was seeing was real.
Olivia was standing on a blue mat in the middle of the grass, which apparently the duplex shared, because there was no fence separating the space, her arms were straight up in the air, and she was totally naked. She pressed her hands together and lowered them down to her chest. Then she released them, bent her knees, and circled them back over her head again as she straightened her legs. It took me a moment to recognize that she was doing yoga. I’d been too caught up on the fact that she wasn’t wearing any fucking clothes.
My head spun.
What the hell was she doing?
Why was she naked?
What if someone saw her?
Someone other than me, that is.
Those were some of the thoughts whipping around my brain, but they were competing with the visual information that my eyes were feeding my brain.
I stood frozen, unable to tear my gaze away. My eyes drank in the sensual curves of her hourglass figure. Her back was facing me, which meant so was her ass, which was a perfect heart shape. My eyes roamed over her slender, curved back, covered only by blonde hair that fell halfway to her nipped-in waist. They traveled over her flared hips, along her perky backside, and down her long, toned legs.
I watched, mesmerized as she lunged one leg back before twisting to the side and stretching her arms out. Her new position gave me a clear view of her full breasts, complete with raspberry shaded areolas tipped with hard pebbled nipples.
“Fuck,” I breathed out as I took one step closer to the window.
She was a masterpiece. I’d imagined and fantasized, more times than I cared to admit, what she would look like naked, but nothing I’d ever envisioned came close to reality. Her body was sensual and curvy. She’d joked about being a Greek goddess when she was younger, but even Aphrodite had nothing on her.
When she bent over in a pose that I recognized as downward dog my heart slammed into my chest. Her ass was up in the air on full display. In an instant, all of the blood in my body rushed to my groin. And when she lifted one of her legs in the air, giving me a peek-a-boo of her pink, feminine folds, my balls tightened against my body.
In the back of my mind, I knew that I should feel guilty for watching her and worse for getting aroused. But the truth was, I hadn’t had any movement in the southern region of my body since I’d woken up in the hospital bed. Not morning wood, nothing.
For the first few weeks, I hadn’t noticed it or cared. But lately, it had been weighing on my mind. I’d spoken to my doctors about it, and they’d said there was a chance that my back trauma could cause impotence. As if I hadn’t already felt like my identity was stripped, they’d basically told me that a bull might not be the only thing I’d never be able to ride again.
But it looked like once again, I’d defeated the odds. My eyes shot down and I saw that it was standing at full attention, tenting my Calvin Klein’s.
“Fuck,” I cursed again, this time stepping back from the window. My chest was rising and falling in short pants and I could see that there was a damp spot on my light grey boxer briefs. I was about to come in my shorts from just the sight of Olivia Calhoun naked.
There was no way that I could let that happen. In an instant I recognized that my behavior was not okay. I felt like more of a creep than I had when I’d waited up to make sure that she got home last night.
I’d planned on taking a hot shower to help alleviate some of my back pain, but as I stepped into the master bathroom, I decided that cold was the way to go. I turned the water on and without waiting for it to warm up at all, I stripped out of my underwear and stepped inside.
The freezing spray hit my warm skin and bounced off my rock-hard erection, still jutting painfully from my body. As I stood being pelted by ice cold drops of water, I tried to think of things other than Olivia’s ass, the pink folds between her legs, her cherry tipped full breasts that would fit so nicely in the palm of my hand. But there was no way that I could erase those images from my mind.
Unable to stop myself, I gripped my shaft and began pumping it up and down. My jaw clenched as I imagined driving into her from behind. Her ass slamming against me as I buried myself in her warm, tight passage. The sound of her thighs slapping against mine as my fingers dug into her hips was the soundtrack playing in my mind.
Within seconds, my knees locked, and my jaw tensed as I came in a hard, jarring release. White stars appeared behind my closed lids as a harsh groan of satisfaction ripped from me as lightning bolts of pleasure shot through me. The entire thing probably lasted less than thirty seconds but it felt like much longer than that. When my dick twitched with the final aftershock, I rested my forehead on the cold tile and turned the nozzle to hot.
When I floated back from the cloud of bliss that had overwhelmed me, I realized something; I hadn’t felt any pain since I’d looked out the window. It was the only relief I’d had in the past two months. Apparently, a naked Olivia Calhoun was more potent than Fentanyl.
Chapter 8
Olivia
“If your plan isn’t working, then ya might wanna change your plan not your goal.”
~ Maggie Calhoun
I was running late when the bell dinged over my head as I entered The Greasy Spoon. The smell of coffee being brewed, onions grilling, a freshly baked apple pie chilling, and bacon frying wafted through the air. It didn’t matter what time of day it was, morning, noon, or night, the Spoon smelt the same. That constant had always been comforting to me, but even the familiar scent wasn’t enough to calm the butterflies that had been throwing a rave in my stomach since I’d left to come here.
Was Holden still in town?
If he was, would I see him?
If I did, would I have the nerve to speak to him?
I kept telling myself that it didn’t matter because I needed to get over him. But that was obviously going to be a lot easier said than done.
“Well don’t you just look cuter than a june bug in a jumpsuit.” Tami Lynn, who was in her sixties and had waitressed at the Spoon since before I was born, winked at me as she smacked her gum. She was as much a staple of Wishing Well as the well that the town was named after, which sat in the center of town square.
“Thanks!” I beamed.
Even though I’d told myself it wasn’t the case, the truth was I’d gotten dressed with one thing, or should I say one person, in mind. I had no idea if Holden was still in Wishing Well, but if he was, it was a small enough town that I felt like my odds were good at having a sighting. I’d say I had a fifty-fifty chance.
Which is why I’d grabbed my new, off
the shoulder, red and white floral crop top and cutoff jean shorts. I’d taken the extra time to blow out my hair and give myself beach waves, which I’d had to look up how to do on YouTube, thank you very much. I’d slathered on my favorite lotion that smelled like cinnamon and berries. I’d spent a good hour making sure that my makeup looked natural and basically like I wasn’t wearing any—again, I’d gotten assistance from a YouTube tutorial. I’d even painted my nails and toes. Not that you could even see my toes because I was wearing white sneakers.
It was more trouble than I’d gone to for any of my dates over the past couple of months. And chances were, the man wasn’t even in town. And even if he was, I needed to stay away from him. But those facts hadn’t stopped me from trying to look my best.
“Maisy’s already here.” Tami Lynn pointed a long, red acrylic nail to the back of the diner. “And she ordered, so you gals are all set.”
“Thanks.” I’d messaged to let my friend know that I was going to be a few minutes late. She’d said she was starving so she was going to go ahead and order for us.
A niggle of disappointment sparked in my chest as I walked through the crowded dining area and did not spot Holden. Maybe he’d already left. Maybe I had missed my chance. But I reminded myself, what chance did I actually have?
There were really only two options, Holden had either found the letter I’d snuck in his bag all those years ago, read it, and never said anything about it. Or he’d never found the letter, but also had zero desire to know me as an adult. I wasn’t sure which scenario would hurt worse, but both of them definitely stung.
The man had shown zero interest in me since we were in middle school, yet for some reason, I still held out hope that there was something there. Being a hopeless romantic was definitely not all it was cracked up to be. I envied Molly for her more pragmatic view on…everything.
“Hey there, hot stuff!” Maisy’s eyes lit up as she slid out of the booth and pulled me into a hug.
Educating Holden (Wishing Well, Texas Book 11) Page 5