BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (18 page)

“I know
what you mean as far as feeling like
you’re
being
unfair to Mark, but you said no to him in the first place for a
reason, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I
told him it was because I wanted to focus on my career. Now, it feels like no
matter what I do, I turned him down for no reason because part of me
wants
to be in a really solid
relationship to help myself get through the stresses of the business. And
nobody understands them better than
Mark
because he lives them daily. And, since he’s loved me for who knows how long,
the reality is he’d be willing to tough it all out and stick with me. But I
can’t shake the feeling that there’s just something there with Noah, there’s
just this spark. I don’t know him
nearly
as
well, but the fact that I don’t want to forget about him in comparison to Mark
feels like it means something. What do I do?”

“Honestly,
I think you should pick Noah.”

“Well,
that was blunt. Why?”

“You said
it yourself; you can’t get yourself to forget about him, even up against
someone you’ve known for over a decade. And, if things don’t work with him,
Mark will probably still be there in the end.”

“So you’re
saying that Mark should essentially be a
backup
plan?”

“Kind of
sounded that way, but not really. I’m just saying that if Noah is this
important to you, you shouldn’t just forget about the relationship you guys
have. Talk to him,
see
what he has to say
for himself. Things might work out. If they don’t, he’s not the only fish in
the sea, is what I really mean. I’m a firm believer in what’s meant to be will
be. If by some chance Mark is the one you’re meant to be with, that will come
back around. If it’s Noah, you don’t want to write him off before you give him
a chance.”

Just as
she finished saying that, Mark and Jack started out of the water toward me. I
told Emily she was a genius and that I’d call her later and hung up.

“Who were
you talking to that you had to hang up so fast?” Jack questioned.

“Well,
Mister Nosey. It was
Emily,
if you must
know.”

He eyed me
suspiciously and then said, “I’m starving, and since Noah left with the food,
our only option is to go home to eat.”

“So soon?
We’ve only been here
like
twenty
minutes!”

“Food
comes first,” Mark cut in. They both stood there, dripping wet and staring at
me.

“What are
you looking at me like that for? Get your towels and get on the horses, then!”

A few
hoots and hollers later, and we were all mounted and riding back to the ranch.
I wasn’t looking forward to dropping Ella off at Noah’s ranch, but I didn’t
intend to actually see him, just let Jack put her in the stable then go.

Along the
way, I thought about what Emily had said. “Mark will probably still be there in
the end.” Did it make me a terrible person that I took solace in that? It was
nice to think that even if things didn’t work out with Noah, I could still have
someone to lean on when all was said and done.

I guess I
had my answer.

Chapter Sixteen - Noah

Waking up
is never an easy task, and it’s all the more difficult when you’re waking up to
how much of an ass you’ve been. I had no idea what had come over me when I lost
it, but I just couldn’t stop myself. Even the possibility of a chance that Mark
was getting some kind of special treatment that I wasn’t boiled my blood. In
reality, deep down I knew it wasn’t true. After all, he’d only been there for
less than a day when I flipped out, and he’d only been alone with Laci for a
grand total of maybe half an hour while I was outside with Jack. She hadn’t
said or done anything to make me believe she was going to do anything with him.
In fact, it was just the opposite. She had reassured me that nothing was going
to happen with him, so I shouldn’t have had any inkling that things would. I
still couldn’t describe what had come over me, but she brought out the jealous
beast in me.

I guess it
was one of the many signs that proved I felt
different
about her than I’d ever felt about a girl before.

When I’d
gotten home after my little explosion, I unpacked the food from the saddle bags
and laid it all on the island in the kitchen, and then I spent some time pacing
like a maniac, trying to calm myself down. After about ten minutes of feeling
like a caged animal, a sudden calm swept over me and that’s when I woke up to
how much of a jerk I had been. I knew I needed to make it right. Seeing tears
roll down Laci’s cheeks was enough to rip my heart out, but when she told me I
was scaring her, I could have sworn someone had stomped my heart into a pulp
and lit it on fire. The last thing I ever wanted to do was scare someone I care
about with my anger. Mom always told me when I was growing up that a real man
kept a woman safe, he never made her fear for her safety–and I had done just
that. I rode away to keep from scaring her more, which is what had brought me
to the kitchen where I
paced
.

When I
finally felt calm, I went back out to get on Simon and head to the lake to
apologize. Just as I was buckling his saddle around his midsection, though,
three horses trotted into view and I saw they were coming back. Jack and Mark
seemed to be just fine, and even Laci looked far less troubled than she did
when I had left, but she still looked like there was something scrambling her
brain. I stepped into the sun and watched them approach the barn. Jack jumped
down and walked up to me, asking if I wanted him to put Ella up. When I told
him I could handle it, he immediately asked where the food was from the
saddlebags.

“It’s all
inside on the island. Go ahead and help yourself,” I told him. He danced away,
and I looked at Laci and Mark. “Do you think we could talk?”

Mark
nodded. “That
depends
. As long as you’re
not planning on biting any more heads off, I don’t see why not.” He then
glanced at Laci and raised his eyebrows as if to ask if she was going to join
us.

“Yeah,
that’s fine,” she said slowly. “Come with us to put the horses away. We’ll
talk, then come back for Jack.”

“Are you
sure we should leave him alone that long?” Mark asked.

“With the
appetite that kid has, he won’t even notice we’re not there,” I confirmed.
“Besides, it’s not like it takes
that
long
to put the horses away. Worst case scenario, he’s eaten half of the food by the
time we get back. No big deal, it’s not like there isn’t more.”

“Fair
enough,” Mark agreed. “Shall we?”

The three
of us walked over toward Sara’s ranch,
Mark
and Laci guiding the horses along while I kept my hands stuffed into my
pockets. I didn’t know how to go about apologizing for being a complete and total
ass, so I decided to start from the beginning.

“I don’t
really know where to start, so I’ll begin with I’m sorry. To both of you.” I
turned my attention to Laci. “You know, Lace, I really care about you.”

Her stare
focused on me. “You’ve never called me ‘Lace’ before. It’s always been my full
name. Why the sudden change?”

I wasn’t
quite sure why myself, but I did my best to give her
a reason.
“I guess I just figure that people who call you that are
the closest to you, and that’s what I want to be.”

A faint
smile touched her lips; it was nice to see those soft, perfectly-shaped lips
curl up instead of down.

“Anyway,”
I continued, “if I frightened you, I never meant to. I just want to make sure
you know that it wasn’t because I was trying to. It was because you make me…I
don’t know. Crazy. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before, and the
thought of losing you is, well, it’s a really unpleasant one.”

“What made
you think you were losing me? I told you that I was with you.”

I glanced
over at
pretty
boy. I was still convinced
he was in love with her, and they had a connection. “This guy’s more
intimidating than I thought he’d be. Not just because he’s a good-looking guy,
but he also likes the same stuff you do, and you’ve known him for a billion
years.”

“Funny, I
didn’t realize we’ve known each other that long,” Mark laughed. “But seriously,
Noah. It’s clear that she likes you a lot. And yes, I do have feelings for her,
but I would never interfere with any kind of relationship you two have.” He
shifted his attention from me to Laci. “I respect you too much for that, Lace.
I want to be with you, but I’m not going to destroy your relationship in order
to do it. I want to be with you because you chose me, not because I broke you
two up.”

Damn, he was good
. Or he was really a good guy like Laci had
said. Either way, I felt threatened. Any sane man would.

“That’s
good to know,” she said to him.

I didn’t
want their moment to last any longer than necessary. I was trying to apologize,
not give Mark more room to push me out. “Anyway, I guess what I mean is that
I’m sorry for all of this. I shouldn’t have gotten angry and blown up on you,
and I shouldn’t have left. It’s just that I didn’t want to scare you in any
way. I never, ever want to make you feel afraid again. That guy is not me,” I
assured her. “And if you’ll give me a chance, I want to prove that to you.” We
reached the barn and led the horses to their stalls, then put away the saddles
and started to walk back to my house. “So, are we good?” I asked both of them.

“As long
as you treat Lace the way she deserves to be treated, yeah,” Mark said,
extending a hand for me to shake.

I looked
at Laci, waiting for her response. My gut twisted in knots.

“We’re
good,” she said before pecking me on the cheek and taking my hand. The three of
us walked quietly until we reached my house and went inside to find Jack
gnawing on
corn
on the cob like he hadn’t
eaten in weeks.

“Geez,
kid, hungry much?” Mark asked.

“Told you
he wouldn’t notice we were gone,” I chuckled. “Did you leave any for us,
squirt?”

He
inclined his head to the food at the other end of the island and
grunted
. I followed his gaze to find that he’d
literally eaten almost half of the food that was sitting there, and then gotten
into the fridge for the corn, which I guessed he heated up in the microwave.
The three of us who hadn’t eaten yet settled down on stools around the island
and dug in. As the four of us ate, I felt like everything would be just fine.

The rest
of Mark’s visit went by without a hiccup.

***

Things
really heated up after Mark left. Laci and I seemed to pick up where we’d left
off the moment he called to say he was at the ranch: a hot and heavy make-up
make-out session. I assumed she had held back a little bit so as not to rub it
in Mark’s face, but it seemed like she was making up for lost time after he’d
left. She didn’t do a thing without wrapping her arm around me or laying her
head in my lap. I had to admit, it felt damn good to have someone want to be
with me as much as I wanted to be with them. We spent every waking second of
the next two weeks together–two weeks that led to what I’m fairly certain was
my favorite moment of the entire summer: we went skinny dipping.

It started
out as an innocent ride in my truck up the mountain to enjoy Make-Out Point,
but it quickly took a turn. We were in the bed of my truck, getting sweaty
pretty quickly in the hot and sticky night air. Lace pulled away and said,
“Let’s go swimming.”

“Okay,” I
agreed. I probably would have agreed to anything she’d said at that moment.
“But do you really want to have to go get our swimsuits looking like this?” I
indicated our sweaty, ruffled clothes that were all messed up in just the wrong
places. Whoever we encountered would certainly realize that we
weren't
particularly innocent. Not to mention
the fact that I had a raging hard-on, which was highly evident through my
shorts.

A strange
grin spread across her face as she asked, “Who says we need our swimsuits?”

“Are you
serious?”

With an
oddly seductive grin and a giggle, she leaned close to me and gave me an
excruciatingly slow kiss. When she pulled away, I felt myself lean after her
with my lips still puckered and my eyes still closed.

“Don’t
leave me hanging!” I protested.

“Well, do
you want to go swimming or not?”

“Is that
even a question?”

“Then get
your ass up here!” she called, climbing through the window and plopping herself
into the driver’s seat.

“Who says
you can drive my truck?” I asked, not really minding it, but wanting to give
her a hard time.

“My driver’s
license,” she replied simply. “Oh, shit! I’m coming between a man and his
truck!”

“Count
yourself lucky,” I sneered. “Nobody else besides my dad has ever had the
privilege of driving Sheila.”

She
snorted in laughter. Normally, that would be a huge turn-off, but somehow, she
made even the least sexy things sexy. “You call your truck Sheila?”

“Sure do,”
I told her, patting the side of the truck out the window. “Now, let’s get going
before I change my mind.”

Laci gave
a short salute and a nod, then said, “Aye, aye, Cap’n!” She turned the key in
the ignition and the engine roared to
life
.
I was surprised to find out that she knew how to drive a stick shift and
handled the size of my truck rather well. I gaped open-mouthed at her while she
maneuvered the truck in an easy three-point turn and started back down the
mountain.

“Look out!
City girl knows how to handle a truck
and
drive stick!”

“Damn
right, I do. My first car was a ninety-eight Ford Taurus. You think they made
those bad boys in automatic? I don’t think so. And, I worked at the stables
back home in the summers, so I’m used to moving the trailers around and
whatnot.”

“You just
keep getting sexier and sexier,” I growled, gripping her kneecap and kissing her
cheek.

She needed
a little bit of direction to find her way to the lake from the mountain in the
dim light of dusk, but all in all, she pretty much knew her way around
Stevenson. When the tires of my truck rolled to a stop, she opened the door and
bounded out with much more energy than I originally expected her to have—then
again, I had a renewed sense of energy, as well.

As with
any good lake, there was an area that had a low bank that led right into the
water and a hill that had a rope swing hanging from a tree at the top.
Remembering that we didn’t have any towels, I grabbed the two blankets I kept
stowed under the driver’s seat and followed her up the hill. In a matter of
seconds, she was unhooking her bra and sliding the straps gracefully down her arms
and wiggling out of her shorts. Her back was turned to me and she stuffed her
phone
into
the pocket of her shorts and
hung her clothes neatly on a low branch of a nearby tree before taking a few
steps closer to the rope swing. She glanced over her shoulder at me, raised her
eyebrows, then ran up, grabbed the rope, and swung out over the water. Her
perfect little butt cheeks jiggled in just the right way as she approached the
rope, and
of course,
I couldn’t help but
stare. She let go and splashed into the water. I watched the bubbles come up to
the surface of the water and her head emerged a few seconds later, her hair
slicked away from her forehead and breathing slightly heavy.

“Well, are
you coming in or not?” she yelled. Realizing I was standing there like an
idiot, fully-clothed and holding two blankets as I gaped at my ridiculously
hot, naked girlfriend, I hastened to strip down like her. I haphazardly threw
my clothes and the blankets at the roots of the tree, then mimicked Laci by
grabbing the rope, swinging out, and letting go with a whoop. Not to be
outdone, of course, I twisted my body to allow myself to land in a perfect swan
dive and splashed into the water to Laci’s applause.

“Impressive!”
she laughed. “You must do this more often than you’re going to tell me.”

“Not the
skinny dipping part,” I told her. “Usually with trunks on. But I’ve been coming
to this lake ever since I was pretty young. So, naturally, I’ve been doing
tricks as long as I can remember.”