BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (17 page)

“Alright,
you guys go get your swimsuits, and I’ll get mine and meet you guys at Sara’s.”

“Okay!”
Jack chimed in, starting to ride and beckoning Mark and
me
to come along. A few minutes later, I had put my purple and blue
bikini on underneath my tank top and shorts, Jack and Mark had put on their
trunks, and we were waiting for Noah to come over so we could head out. After
what felt like forever, Simon trotted into sight; there were saddle bags
attached that normally weren’t there.

“What’s
with the saddle bags?”

“Lunch,”
he replied with a smile. “You guys ready?”

After a
group nod, we set off at a slow pace, Jack in the lead because he “knows this place
better than the rest of us.” What a little ham. I assumed Mark wanted to keep a
bit of distance from Noah—probably to keep him from getting too jealous—because
he was sticking close to Jack instead of back with Noah and me, which gave us
the chance to talk.

“You know,
you’re really weirding Mark out,” I mentioned.

He glanced
at me. “That’s not my intention, but don’t you think I have the right to be a
little weirded out by him?”

“I’m not
saying you don’t, but that doesn’t mean you should be so passive aggressive. He
is
still a very close friend of mine,
you know. Just because you’re a little jealous of him doesn’t mean you have the
right to be a dick.”

“Woah,
that’s taking it a little far. Why would I be
jealous
of him? Is he getting something I’m not?”

I cut my
eyes at him. “You know I didn’t mean it like that,” I hissed.
God,
men,
can be so defensive sometimes
. There may have been a touch of attitude in
my tone because, frankly, I was kinda irritated. Okay, I was pissed. Not
because he was jealous—even though he said he wasn’t, he definitely was—it was
what he insinuated with his question.
“Is
he getting something I’m not?”

“What
‘something’ are you referring to, Noah? Sex? Because if you think I’m the type
of girl who will date someone and have sex with someone else behind his back,
why the hell would you want to be with me?”

He sensed
the attitude and responded in turn.

“How am I
supposed to know that? I’m just a dumb bull rider, anyway.”

“Noah,
quit being
ridiculous. Mark and I have been friends for as long as I can remember. Don’t
you think I can tell that makes you feel threatened? Every damn time he says
two words to
me,
hugs
me
, or calls me ‘Lace,’ I see the way your jaw
tenses up like you’re trying to hold back from kicking his ass. Pardon me if I
don’t want the drama. Or if I don’t want to have to tiptoe around the subject
that one of my closest friends came to visit me.”

As far as
I was concerned, nothing I said was out of line or wrong in any way.
Apparently, Noah disagreed because he blew his top. His face got all red and he
pulled Simon to a complete halt. “Are you kidding me right now? What is your
problem, Laci?” His tone changed from the hushed murmurs we had been using to
avoid being heard into a full-out bark. “I have had nothing but bad experiences
with women—especially with city girls! So,
pardon
me
if it’s difficult for me to trust random strangers that stroll into my
life and make me feel like my newfound relationship is about to go down the
shitter!”

“Noah,” I
said, my voice shaky. I may have a sassy mouth and the ability to shoot it off
at the worst possible times, but I’m not one to air my confrontations where
others can hear. It can be rather uncomfortable, and at the
moment,
I was exactly that. “Noah, please stop
raising your voice at me.” Tears sprang to my eyes, and I suddenly wanted to
gallop off somewhere nobody could see me. Crying in front of people has never
been my favorite thing to do.

I didn’t
realize that Mark and Jack had come back to us until I heard Mark’s voice: “Woah,
man, there’s no need to talk to her like that. I’m not trying to cause any
trouble here. Lace and I have already dis-”

“Oh for
Christ’s sake, drop the good guy act, pretty boy! Anyone with eyes can see that
you’re in love with her. I mean, you don’t even attempt to hide it, do you? The
very first thing you saw when you got here was that we were together and
holding hands. And, you still did everything in your power to make me feel
threatened! Well, guess what? It’s working! You happy?”

He
finished his tirade and slid off the horse, panting in anger. I sat there,
completely dumbfounded at what he’d just said. I knew he tried his hardest to
keep up the tough guy
ruse
and tamp down
the jealousy, but he just admitted that he was feeling threatened by Mark—and
directly to his face, no less.

I
dismounted and walked over to him. I tried to lay a hand on his shoulder, but
he shrugged it off angrily. This type of angry confrontation was more than I
knew how to handle. The blind fury he was demonstrating was more than just
uncomfortable, it was terrifying. “Noah,” I started hesitantly. “Noah, you’re
scaring me.”

When he
heard those words, his whole demeanor changed from fuming and practically
smoking at the ears to a look of utter defeat. “I’m
scaring
you?” he whispered, rubbing his jaw—no doubt from the
extreme tension that was built up in it. “I…” He shook his head without saying
another word. Then, in one swift motion, he mounted the horse and rode away. I
stood there in stunned silence, crying as I stared
after
him. A moment later, I felt a small hand on my shoulder.

“Laci,
come on, let’s go to the lake. It’ll make you feel better. Don’t worry about
Noah. Take it from somebody who knows him—he’ll get over it,” Jack insisted.
“Just give him some space. Let’s go.”
How
did my little cousin get so wise?
I wondered.

Numbly, I
crawled back onto the horse and followed behind Jackson until we got to the
lake. Mark rode silently beside me. Jack used his favorite trick to keep the
horses where they belonged when we arrived: he took out three heavy-duty
carabineers and clipped the reins of each horse onto a small guard rail nearby.
The guys tried to get me to jump in the water as soon as we got there, but I
told them to go ahead and enjoy themselves. I just wanted to lie in the heat of
the sun for a little while.

After
reassuring Mark that I was fine what felt like a hundred times—I could tell he
still didn’t completely believe
me,
but
didn’t want to press the subject—they both peeled off their shirts and shoes
and went sprinting for the cool water. A bunch of splashes later, and I was
finally able to tune out all of the noise and lie back on my towel in an
attempt to loosen my tense muscles. I shimmied out of my shorts and t-shirt and
lay there, soaking in the warmth.

Then, my
mind drifted to the oh-so-lovely Noah Tucker—or, as I saw him at the moment,
the not-so-lovely Noah Tucker. I couldn’t make any sense of what had just
happened. Granted, I may not have known him for particularly long, but I hadn’t
thought he’d have such a hot temper. From the way he interacted with his mom
and with Jack, he had always seemed to be gentle in nature, even if he had a
dickish act to hold up. But in reality, it was just a tiny little thing that
took him from mildly irritated to full-on
Hulk-smash
,
and that scared me.

If he
couldn’t handle a challenge as small as my best friend giving me a hug and
calling me by a lifelong nickname, how was he going to handle being several
states apart while I acted and probably had to kiss other men for my job? Was
he going to come barging in stage left and land a right hook square on the
other actor’s jaw? Whether the second question was serious or not, the fact that
it ran through my head at all raised a red flag. I still believed that Noah
would treat me right. I had no reason to believe he’d ever lay a hand on me;
after all, as angry as he seemed, he never made a move toward physical
violence, but if he had a temper like that normally, how long could we expect
things to stay intact before they totally imploded?

That
brought another important question to mind: if things, by some miracle, didn’t
implode, where was this relationship going? I was by no means looking to get
married and settle down in the near future, but I am at a point where I
definitely don’t want to be in a relationship if I don’t see it going anywhere.
Considering how close my career was to taking off, a serious relationship was
the only kind I wanted. Some people may say that’s
counterintuitive
because a relationship might be distracting if I
want to focus on my career. They would suggest I date around and keep my
options open. No strings. However, that’s just not my style. I want to be with
someone who’s going to support me through all of the challenges of the business
and wants to stick with me.

Call me
entitled for thinking that way, but my parents always told me to never settle
when it comes to a man; now more than ever, I wasn’t going to disregard their
advice.

Speaking
of advice, there was one person I could definitely get advice from that I still
hadn’t spoken
to.
Emily. I reached under
the towel I was lying on and grabbed my phone, going right for my favorites tab
to click on the name “Emmy-Wemmy.” (She hates when I call her that, so
naturally, I saved her number under that name in my phone.) After four rings, a
breathless Emmy-Wemmy answered.

“Well,
long time, no hear,” she huffed.

“Why do
you sound like you’re exercising? You never exercise!”

I heard
her gulping water before she answered. “Yeah, and this is no exception. I just
carried a shit ton of groceries in from the car. I didn’t realize that I could
be so out of shape and still fit into a size four.” She sighed. “Anyway, to
what do I owe the pleasure, ranch girl?”

“Can’t I
just call my Emmy-Wemmy to chat?”

“Shut the
hell up with that nickname and tell me what’s going on. I can hear it in your
voice.”

“I need
advice.”

“Well,
lucky you, because I’m a treasure trove of advice. Shoot.”

“It’s a
long story. Are you sitting down?”

“Woman, do
you know me at all? My ass met the couch the second I plopped the groceries
down. Mother Langer is putting the groceries away herself.”

“You’re so
classy. Tell her I said hi!”

“Mom, your
second daughter says hi!” A second later, I heard her mom saying something in
the background, then Em’s voice said, “She says hello and she loves you.
Anyways, get on with the story.”

“Alright,
here goes nothing. So, you remember how I told you about Noah, right? How he’s
an asshole, and I wanted to punch him in the face?”

She
gasped. “Did you do it? Please tell me you did it!”

“No.
Actually, it’s the opposite. I…umm…kissed him in the face, instead. We’re kinda
sorta together now.”

“What the
hell? How’d
that
happen?”

I rattled
off the first part of the story in what I swear was one breath.

“Well, I
wasn’t expecting that. But alright. What do you need advice about?” she said.

“That’s
the tricky part,” I told her. “Mark’s here.”

“Oh boy.”

“Yeah.
And, you know how he is. Let’s just say that Noah is less than thrilled about
him being touchy-feely. At first, I felt like a total ass for turning
Mark down
only to end up with a guy I just met
a few weeks later, but there’s just a spark there, you know? Like, I gotta do
what makes me happy, right?”

“Girl, do
your thang!” she said in that Rosie Perez way of hers.

I smiled.
I knew she’d respond like that.

“Good, I’m
glad you agree. But Mark, Noah, Jack, and I were all riding to the lake when I
mentioned to Noah that he was kind of weirding Mark out, and he flipped his
cap. He got loud, saying that he wasn’t jealous, and he implied that if I
thought he was jealous, I had to be doing something behind his back to make him
jealous. So then, he blew up on both me and Mark, and you know how I am about
that; it freaked me the hell out. I told him he was scaring me, and he just
completely deflated and went home without another word. Now, I’m laying out in
the sun while Mark and Jack are in the lake, and I have no idea what to do.
Like, I can’t just discount the relationship because I feel like there’s
something there, but what he did was really shitty,
y’know
?”

“So, tell
him that. Tell him that you think you guys could have something, but what he
did was really shitty. I don’t know why you insist on making things so
complicated.”

“But it
makes me question things. Should I really be with someone whose temper freaks
me out like that? Mark has never done anything like that to me. He’s never
scared me or made me worry that things might not work out. It just feels like
I’m being
unfair to him. Dad always told me not
to settle.”

“Huh.
That’s a sticky situation. What’s your gut telling you?”

“I don’t
know! That’s why I’m asking you,
damnit
!
Help!” I begged.