Buck Cowboys

by Elle Thorpe

  “Shep.” Her sobs drowned out anything else she was trying to say.

  The room spun, and I clamped my arm over my eyes. “Oh, fuck. No.”

  “Don’t swear! He’s good. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I mean he’s not. He’s beat to hell and had two surgeries, but he’s awake. He’s talking and he recognized me when they let me in to see him.” She sniffed, and her tears gave way to relieved laughter. “Oh God, Nate. I really thought I was going to lose him.”

  I collapsed back against my bed, relief loosening every tense muscle until I laughed with her. I’d never been so glad of anything in my life. My breaths slowly returned to normal, and I assured Jasmine I’d bring Molly up to the hospital to see her and Shep once she woke up.

  After I said goodbye, I lay quietly and listened to the silence, making sure Molly wasn’t awake. When there was no gurgling or crying from the nursery, I closed my eyes again. But the adrenaline rush of Jasmine’s call had left me wide awake, though I already knew I’d be flagging by early afternoon. But that was a problem for future Nate.

  My gaze flickered around my bedroom. It was exactly the same as I’d left it. I didn’t think Jasmine and Shep ever came in here, and I’d been away so long it was still a shrine to my teenage years. The bed still had the Atlanta Falcons bedspread, and my walls were full of photos and buckles from my early bull riding competitions. I stopped at the photo of me and Hallie sitting on the fence at the bull riding school where I’d done all my training. I smiled. It had been the beginning of our senior year of high school. I’d been doubling down on training, so she’d often come to watch, just so we could see each other.

  I realized now that the amount of time she’d spent out there with me wasn’t ‘normal’ friendship type behavior. But I hadn’t seen that at the time. I’d just liked being around her. And I liked riding bulls. I’d had the two things I loved the most, and I hadn’t thought about it any deeper than that.

  I should have seen her feelings had changed.

  But I hadn’t. Not until it was too late.

  Molly stirred in her crib, but this time I was grateful. It gave me a reason to walk away from the memories that were too hard to think about.

  Molly was a complete angel all day Sunday. She was in her element with both her parents around her again and had seemed completely unconcerned by their bandages and winces of pain, every so often, when she tried to climb on them. We hung out at the hospital from the minute she woke up, until dusk started settling and the nurses tossed us out. One pulled me aside at the nurses’ station and asked that we only come for half the day tomorrow, because they didn’t want Shep and Jasmine overexerting themselves.

  The bad mood that descended on the baby beast as soon as we left the hospital in Jasmine’s truck was just the beginning of the night from hell. Jasmine had been given the all clear to breastfeed during the day, which Molly seemed to prefer over the bottles and mushy baby food I kept offering her at home. She smeared food all through her hair instead of eating it, so I got a crash course in how to bath and wash the hair of a baby who hated your guts.

  That was fun. And the night was no better, with Molly waking every two hours, then taking forty minutes to resettle.

  By Monday morning, I’d sworn off having kids of my own. Ever. I downed two coffees in a row while the she-devil mouthed at a teething breadstick thingo that I’d found in the pantry. I skirted my way around where she sat on the floor, being careful not to get too close to her in case I set her off again.

  I’d planned on getting outside today and seeing what needed doing around the ranch. I knew Shep had just got in a big roll of fencing wire, making me think there might be fences down or in need of replacing, but I already knew from the last two days that Molly wasn’t going to let me do any of that. “Sorry, Shep,” I muttered to myself. “But until I can find someone to watch your daughter, the fences are just going to have wait.”

  The teething stick hit me in the back of the leg, and Molly’s accompanying cry of anger followed. I sighed, scooping her up from the floor, though that only seemed to make her worse. “Okay then. We need to get out of this house and kill some time before we go see your parents. Want to go see where Uncle Nate learned to ride bulls?”

  She squawked some more, but that was her response to everything, so I bundled her stroller into the back of Jasmine’s truck and made the short drive to the Hunt’s property. I’d been meaning to come out here and see my old coach ever since I’d gotten back, and now the familiar dirt track that led to his farmhouse was like coming home.

  I bypassed the house and drove around to the back, skirting the bull pens to park the truck with a row of other vehicles outside the training arena. Frost looked up from his perch on the top of a fence and held a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. Summer and her mom waved us over, and the three of them got down as we approached.

  Kai, my old coach, who everyone called Frost, gave me one of his rare smiles and stuck his hand out. “Long time no see, kid.”

  His eyes were even bluer than mine were, and despite his almost always sober expression, his eyes turned up at the corners. I was glad to see him, too. He’d been my first coach and the man who’d got me to the WBRA. I owed him my career, but he’d taught me so much more over the years. My dad had passed when I was fourteen, and Frost had stepped in and taken on that mentor role for me.

  I repaid him by working hard and abiding by the one rule he’d set.

  No fooling around with his daughters.

  It hadn’t been a problem for me. I had my eye on the prize, and girls hadn’t really been something I’d been paying much attention to. Frost’s younger daughters were too young, and Summer was my age but more like a sister to me anyway. She was just one of the guys, working and training at the ranch like the rest of us. I certainly hadn’t seen her in that light.

  I hadn’t seen anyone in that light. Not even when someone had been right under my nose.

  “Nate Mathews! What on earth are you doing here after all these years?” Mrs. Hunt strained up onto her toes and kissed my cheek, smiling at me fondly, her dark eyes shining. She hadn’t changed a bit since I’d been gone, her brown skin barely showing a wrinkle, despite the fact she had to be close to fifty. “And you brought our Molly girl. Hey there, sweetheart.”

  Molly gave her a gummy grin. Typical. She smiled for everyone but me.

  “Good to see you, Mrs. Hunt.”

  She tapped me on the shoulder. “You’re a grown-up man now. You can call me Addie.”

  I nodded, but we both knew I wouldn’t. She’d always be Mrs. Hunt to me.

  “Hey, again, Nate.” Summer had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Get back from the hospital okay the other day?”

  I tried to fight back a smile. “Yes, thanks. It worked out well.” Sort of. At least it had until Hallie had run off.

  Like she’d read my mind, Summer raised an eyebrow. “Did you know Hallie works here?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We missed having her around the place after you went on tour. So we gave her a job.”

  My heartbeat picked up. I had definitely not known that. How would I? Hallie had no social media under her legal name. I’d checked regularly over the years, as realization of my true feelings for her had grown. I’d asked my sister about her once or twice when I’d called, but she hadn’t known anything. I’d fought off the urge to ask her to find out.

  I hadn’t expected to see Hallie today. But now I knew it was a possibility, I was going to make it happen.

  “Uh, Frost?” a timid voice interrupted.

  A trio of Frost’s bull riders stood off to one side, their hats in hands.

  “Uh-oh,” I said with a laugh. Because I knew that look. These kids had to be no more than sixteen or seventeen, and it hadn’t been that long since I’d been the one in their position. They had that air of fear about them, the one teenagers got when they had royally fucked up and were now having to face the music.

  F
rost knew it, too. “What have you done?”

  “There’s a bull out.”

  Frost’s growl kinda scared me, and it wasn’t even aimed in my direction.

  Summer narrowed her eyes at them. “Which one?”

  “Grave Digger.”

  “Fuc—” Summer shot a glance at Molly and gritted her teeth. “Bucking cowboys.”

  Bucking cowboys, indeed.

  9

  Hallie

  There wasn’t enough work to be done. I’d gotten to work early and had been flogging myself half to death all morning without stopping for a break. Who needed breakfast, when breakfast meant stopping for long enough that you had time to think about the stupid mess you’d made at Nate’s place on Saturday night?

  I couldn’t stop thinking about the way his fingers had slid between mine. Such a simple gesture, and yet it had been ginormous to me. I was sure we’d held hands from time to time during high school. Surely I’d tried to drag him somewhere and had grabbed him by the hand to do it. But if I had, I couldn’t remember it. And it couldn’t have felt the way it did on Saturday night.

  I groaned and leaned against one of the horse stalls that I’d just cleaned out and lined with fresh straw. “Why am I so bucking useless around him?” There was no one around to hear me, and I snorted on a laugh that I’d said bucking instead of cursing. It had a ring to it. And hey, it fit my surroundings.

  The clip-clop of horse’s hooves on the wooden floor stopped me, and I stuck my head out of the stall, wondering which horse it was and who was bringing it back. Smoke break wasn’t over for another ten minutes, and while the ranch hands were hard workers, they weren’t that eager.

  I counted the horses as I went, mentally ticking off the list. The ranch only kept a handful, since their primary business was bull riding and cattle. Six heads hung over their stalls, staring at me curiously. Weird. They were all here and accounted for. But maybe we were babysitting a new horse. The Hunts had a lot of land here, so sometimes we took in boarders, when other locals were having trouble feeding or housing their animals.

  I brushed off my hands on my jeans and tried to straighten my shirt. There wasn’t much I could do about the dirt, but I could at least try to appear presentable if there was a new owner here with their animal. I strode around the corner, ready with a smile to greet them.

  “Whoa. You’re not a horse.”

  The massive bull looked up from the small pile of feed he’d found on the ground. His big body blocked the main entrance to the barn almost entirely, with only a sliver of space either side.

  Definitely not enough room for me to try to make an escape.

  I frowned at the beast who was eyeing me curiously. “What are you doing out of your pen and all alone? Those dumbass cowboys leave your gate open again?”

  Grave Digger snorted.

  I cringed. That didn’t sound like a friendly sort of greeting. “I really hope your name is only for show. It is, right? You aren’t gonna put me six foot under?”

  His foot stamp and the annoyed toss of his head didn’t instill much courage in my theory. Okay, time to get the hell outta here. I reversed, walking slowly backward through the space between the horse stalls, aiming for the rear entrance. “Nice bull,” I said quietly, adrenaline spiking as he pawed at the ground. “No need for charging. You just—”

  I grunted in surprise when I backed right into something solid.

  “Having a nice chat with your pal there?”

  I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments when I recognized Nate’s voice. Then realized that was a very dumb idea, when I was facing off with a bull who was thinking about mowing me down.

  “We’re just getting to know each other. Slightly too intimate a setting for a first date, though, if I’m honest. The guy is kinda all up in my personal bubble.”

  “Mind if I join in?”

  “Actually, I think it’s time to dine and ditch. My date is a bit of a dud.” I strained to keep my concentration on the bull in front of me. But it was hard when I kept getting distracted by Nate’s body pressed against my back. I could feel the rise and fall of chest, and his fingertips glanced over my hips, like he was ready to hoist me up and over his shoulder at any second.

  Grave Digger put his head down, his huge horns scraping along the sides of the barn walls like nails down a chalkboard.

  “Buck,” Nate muttered. His fingers encircled my wrist. “Run.”

  We spun in unison, Nate dropping my wrist only long enough for me to turn before he picked it up again. We both hauled ass down the passageway, legs pumping. Grave Digger’s snorts and hooves echoed off the rafters, instilling a fear in me I hadn’t even known before. “This is not how I expected to die!”

  I pushed my legs harder, gunning for the back entrance, but the bull was surprisingly quick for a great hulking animal, and it gained ground rapidly. A bucketful of feed fell from a post as we ran by, clattering to the ground beneath his hooves but did nothing to slow Grave Digger down.

  My life flashed before my eyes, but it was all images of Nate and me. The two of us at a rodeo. Him swimming at the dam. That night at prom where I’d ruined it all.

  I wished I could take it back.

  It would have been better to have had him as friend all this time than to have lost him the way I had.

  “Nate!” I yelled, no idea what I was actually going to say next. I love you? Did I? I had, once upon a time. I felt like I had to say something if this was how I was going out, gored to death by some asshole bovine who would have been better off as steak.

  A sharp tug on my wrist had me falling to the right. Down I went, crashing into Nate, who fell hard into the ground. I squeezed my eyes tight and braced myself for the impact of Grave Digger’s horns through my spleen. Did you need a spleen to live? I had no idea. Even if you didn’t, this wasn’t going to tickle.

  A moment passed, and the pain didn’t come. I opened one eye.

  With a bellow of rage, Grave Digger stormed past the horse stall Nate had pulled me into, the one I’d just spent twenty minutes cleaning out and filling with fresh straw.

  I sucked in a deep breath, grateful I still could and that my lungs hadn’t been turned into Swiss cheese. My heart rate slowed, and it was only then I realized I was lying fully on top of the man I’d had a crush on for the past four years.

  Aaaand back up my blood pressure went.

  I rolled off him quickly but only got as far as the straw beside him. I couldn’t bring myself to get up. My heart pounded so hard the effort of standing would have surely made it explode.

  “What were you going to say?” Nate asked, breathing hard.

  My eyes widened, and I remembered I’d almost blurted out my feelings. Fear of being jabbed in the ass cheek with a horn had that sort of effect on me apparently. “Nothing! I was just going to point out this empty horse stall here would be a good diversion, but you knew what you were doing. No need for me to say anything.” I laughed, but it wasn’t lost on me that it sounded slightly hysterical. Whether that was because of the near organ skewering, or because I was lying so close to Nate Mathews, I had no idea. I was acutely aware that our arms were touching, and the pulse I felt from the places our skin met had me tingling.

  I needed to make that stop before I opened my big mouth again. “I suppose we should get up and alert the others that there’s a bull on the loose.”

  I tried to sit as Grave Digger’s hooves disappeared into the distance, but Nate’s fingers were still wrapped around my wrist. He pulled me back down, his breath a sharp inhale.

  Surprise ricocheted through me. “Uh, Nate?”

  He stared straight up at the rafters. “Hallie.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “They already know about the bull.”

  “Okay, but why are we still on the ground?”

  His head swiveled in my direction, and his gaze froze me in place. There was a heat behind it I’d never seen before, and it kindled something inside me that burn
ed away my fear, leaving nothing but a smoldering need.

  What the hell was going on here?

  His gaze dipped to my lips, just like mine had with him on Saturday night, and my mouth fell open. I put a hand up and clapped it over his eyes. “Whoa. What the hell are you doing? Don’t do that!”

  He chuckled and pried my fingers away from his face. “Do what?”

  “You looked at my mouth!”

  “Yeah, so?”

  Yeah, so? What the hell? “Do you not know that’s the universal signal for ‘kiss me’?”

  He screwed his face up. “It is?”

  “Yes! And you just did it to me!”

  His gaze dropped to my lips again. “Like this?”

  “Yes! Stop it!”

  His mouth turned up at the corners, and that smirk that drove me a little bit mental curved his lips. “What if I don’t want to?”

  Irritation spiked in my blood, and I tried to sit up again. “Stop it, Nate. It’s not funny. Don’t make fun of me.”

  The amusement fell right off his face. “Hey, I’m not.”

  I shoved at his chest, trying to put some distance between us, but he was like a trampoline and bounced right back into my personal space.

  This was mortifying. “I know I made a fool of myself on Saturday night. Just like I did at prom. Apparently, it’s just something I do around you, no matter how old we get.”

  I pushed to my feet, but Nate was quicker. He shot up, his big body blocking the only exit to the stall, much the same way Grave Digger had. Only this time, when Nate advanced on me, I didn’t move back.

  “Hallie. Look at me.”

  I couldn’t do that. I refused to let him see how much his actions had hurt me. Embarrassment had my blood hot, and all I wanted to do was sink into the floor.

  His finger traced down the side of my face and trailed beneath my chin, forcing it up.

  It only pissed me off more. Couldn’t he just go let me lick my wounds in private?