BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (71 page)

At this, I stopped short. Her words cut
through my heart like an arrow, passing straight through and leaving a massive
hole. I staggered back and breathed, “You…” but could not bring myself to speak
the rest of the question aloud. It was just too painful and I realized that I
didn’t even want to try to give her a chance to clarify, because if it hurt
this much now, I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if she actually went
through with the confirmation of it. I felt like I was going to be sick.

However, as I turned around, I heard my
phone ring. Desperate for a distraction, I picked it up without even looking at
the caller ID.

“Hello?” A woman said. As my brain made
the connection to who the voice belonged to, I found that I was completely
stunned. “This is Diana…Valerie’s mom.”

“Hi…” I answered, now really feeling like
I was going to be sick, “Yes...Of course…” My voice sounded lame, but that
didn’t seem to matter to my stepmom.

“Shawn, I know you are probably furious
with me, but I need you to tell me the truth.” She sounded as though she was
crying and immediately, I feared for her safety, since her voice was frantic.

“Of course. You’re family. What’s wrong?”

“Is Valerie with you? I have been trying
to reach her…but her phone has been off.”

“Yes,” I responded quickly, even though I
had a million questions flooding my brain at the moment. “She is with me. She
is safe. She is fine.”

“Oh, thank God!”

Chapter
31

Valerie

The second I slammed the door shut, I put
my headphones in my ears and focused on the music. At first, I allowed myself
to get distracted by Shawn, but after I had said my piece, I just turned the
music up louder and drowned him out completely.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t hear him.
I didn’t want to hear him. I was so fed up with him and with the course of my
life that I just wanted to leave everyone behind and never come back.

I checked my phone again and began to read
through past text messages that were now almost two weeks old that my mother
had sent me.

She still hadn’t sent me anything and I
was beginning to be far more hurt than I was angry. The more time passed, the
more that the phone calls and text messages began to represent a life that I
had a very long time ago.

Like many other things that had happened
before the night that Shawn had single-handedly ruined my life, the simple
pleasures of talking to my mother were a memory, at least for now. However, I
treasured the reminders of the experience that I had and knew that no matter
what happened, I would always have these memories.

I wasn’t quite sure what had happened with
my mother, since she of all people should have been able to understand. She had
watched me grow up with Shawn. She had seen how I looked at him, even before I
knew what I was doing. She had probably known, long before I even had a hint of
how I would grow to feel about him and yet, it still seemed that she didn’t
understand. What was worse, she didn’t even want to try to understand.

I just couldn’t get it. If I couldn’t talk
to Shawn, which I obviously couldn’t, then who else was I supposed to be able
to talk to? I was scared and I felt increasingly alone; didn’t she understand
that?

What hurt the most of the whole experience
was my mother’s betrayal. Sure, I was angry at Shawn for being an idiot and I
could completely understand why my mom and stepfather were upset. But at the
end of the day, the fact that I didn’t feel like my mother wanted me anymore,
that her marriage was more important, not the relationship that she and I had
as mother and daughter, was increasingly hurtful.

Every second that passed without her
calling, even to ask where I was staying, cut me deeper. I didn’t want things
to be this way, and the idea that this might go on indefinitely was almost more
than I could stomach.

I sighed and my mind inadvertently focused
on the fact that Shawn was still residing outside of my bedroom door, probably
begging to be in. I heard him knock a little and I heard his voice, but I had
no idea what he was saying and I didn’t care. The last person I wanted to speak
to at the moment was Shawn.

So, I just told him to go away again and
focused on something else in order to drown out the sound.

Eventually, he gave up I supposed, because
after a little while, I didn’t hear him any longer. I was glad.

I enjoyed the silence for a little while
before I finally had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to have to leave,
considering I knew that if Shawn was home, he would probably attack me as soon
as I walked out. Then again, I knew that I couldn’t stay in here forever, so I
slipped my phone into my pocket and made my way over to the door. When I opened
it, I automatically saw Shawn sitting there, staring at my door with a hard
glower, waiting for me.

I tried to walk past him, but he stood up
and grabbed my arm. He yelled something, but I had my headphones up so loud, I
couldn’t hear him.

However, he was insistent. He finally
pulled one of my earbuds out and before I could say anything, he yelled, “Your
mom called me.”

I opened my mouth to retort, tell him
something nasty in hopes that it would wound him bad enough that he would leave
me the hell alone, but then, my mind caught up with what he said, seeing past
the anger and feeling a sense of anticipation and excitement. “Are you
serious?” While I spoke, I popped the other earbud out of my ear and paused my
music.

He nodded.

“Why did she call you?” I demanded, easily
finding something to be angry at him about; all I wanted to do was be angry
with him. It made me feel even the slightest bit better and right now, I needed
all of the help I could get.

Seeming as though my snotty expression
didn’t bother him he answered calmly, “She wasn’t looking for me. She was
looking for you…”

At this, I was suspicious of him, figuring
he was trying to fool me. He probably had the best intentions, because it
wasn’t like Shawn, even when he was angry to be spiteful, but intentions were
worthless. I needed solutions. “Why would she call you?” I spat. “If she is
this angry at me, she must absolutely hate you.”

I could have sworn I saw Shawn flinch at
that, but instead of coming back with a retort he answered, “She wants you to
call her. She misses you. She was really worried about you.”

“Then why didn’t she call my phone? I’ve
only been staring at it every second I am alone…” I wasn’t sure if I was angry
or just fed up with the situation, but either way, I didn’t need this right
now. I felt my eyes well up with tears. This was the absolute last thing I
needed today. I didn’t want to have him or anyone else meddling around in my
business and now, it just seemed like every day, someone somewhere knew more
about me than I even did. This whole situation was so majorly screwed up! I
just couldn’t take it anymore.

“She doesn’t know! She tried to call you,
but she says your phone has been off every time she has tried to call and her
texts are never responded to.” At first, he was yelling over me, but when I
stopped to actually listen to him, Shawn lowered his voice and squinted his
eyes in a confused manner. “And one more thing. She didn’t know anything about
the note.”

Chapter
32

Shawn

After I finally was able to tell Valerie
what her mother had told me, she raced off to call her mother, just as confused
as I was. I had no idea what was going on. It didn’t make any sense to me that
Valerie’s mother wouldn’t have been able to get in touch with her daughter.

Diana said that she had tried to call her
daughter many times before, but she was always unable to reach her. Since I had
no idea what was going on, I just answered her questions as best as I could. I
tried my best not to embellish, because I knew that I wasn’t entirely sure what
I was talking about and so, I didn’t want to do or say anything that would make
things worse for the two of them.

However, I was happy. I knew that if
Valerie was able to start talking to her mother again, the wounds might begin
to heal and life might eventually go back to normal, at least for Valerie.

I was happy for that and for once, felt no
jealousy. I had learned my lesson about that, or at least I hoped I did. I
certainly didn’t want to end up bitter and miserable. I had eluded that fate my
entire life. I would hate to have to start such an exhaustive, thankless and
demeaning lifestyle now.

Therefore, when her mother asked me if she
could speak to her, I told her the truth, that Valerie would be extremely happy
to hear from her mother once she spoke to me long enough for me to tell her.

When her mother seemed confused, I
explained that even though she was here and she was safe, she was ignoring me
at this particular moment. I was going to have to try to tell her that she was
looking for her as soon as I possibly could, when she stopped being so
stubborn, but as we both knew, that might take a while.

Confused as I was, when I got off of the
phone with her mother, I was very pleased by the result of our conversation. In
addition to Diana wanting to work things out with Valerie, she also didn’t seem
to be all that angry with me either. At the very least, she didn’t threaten me
and she actually spoke with me, even after I assured her that Valerie was safe.

At the end of the conversation, my
stepmother even went as far as to thank me for taking her in and ensuring that
she was okay.

I told her that she knew I would do
anything for Valerie and even though she seemed slightly weird about her
answer, she agreed that was one thing that she never had to worry about, which
made me happy, despite the strange situation.

Now that I had delivered the important
message that I had for my stepsister, I imagined that Valerie would want
nothing to do with me anymore, but for now, that was okay. At least I was able
to help her reconnect with her mother. That was something after all and I was
sure that once she stopped wishing that she could kill me with her glower, she
would find it in her heart to be somewhat appreciative.

Perhaps then, she would want to talk to me
a little bit, but after the fight that we had earlier in the afternoon, I
certainly wasn’t going to hold my breath. However, not too long after I finally
relayed my message to Valerie, there was a knock at the door.

Unless she got drunk and lost her key
again, I seriously doubted it was my mother, but at this point, I didn’t really
care who it was.

I opened the door without giving too much
care to who was behind it and as soon as I did, I felt a hard swing to my face.

Bracing myself against the door I
staggered backward, but before I could recover, I felt myself get pushed inward
and a guy quickly pounced on top of me.

I immediately knew that my nose was
bleeding, but before that could completely register, I felt hands grasp at my
shirt, pull me up and then slam me back down. “Where is she? What did you do,
you sick pervert!”

Immediately, I put my hands up to block my
face while I tried to see through watering eyes who it was that had attacked
me.

However, when I saw that the man was about
to hit me again, I quickly rolled my head away, andhe smashed his hand against
the floor.

I heard him yell and I took the
opportunity to force myself up and push the man back. I ran after him, grabbed
his shirt and got a good punch into the square of his jaw.

The guy’s head whipped to the side, but
when it swung back around, I could tell that it was Zachary.

Not wanting to really hurt him, or anyone,
I backed up and demanded, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Where’s Valerie?”

“I don’t know,” I lied, defensively
putting my hands up to cover my face. I wasn’t about to tell him anything about
her while he was acting crazy.

“Oh, don’t even try to lie, you piece of
shit,” Zachary screamed as he got back to his feet and began to come toward me
again. “Dalilah told me everything!”

“Dalilah?” I growled hatefully. The malice
that I felt must have distracted me though, because I was sure that I felt my
hands drop slightly, before Zachary pushed them completely out of the way and
hit me again, this time in the exact same place that I had smacked him.

He grasped my shirt again and ran me into
a nearby wall. I winced, but I didn’t want to yell out, because I didn’t want
to alert Valerie. I wanted to keep her away from this psycho, if it was the
last thing I did.

I took a deep breath and pounded my fist
into the side of his head. He staggered back slightly, but then returned with a
vengeance grabbing my fist next time I tried to get another hit in and twisted
it around, so that I had no other choice but to collapse onto the ground. He
put a knee into my back.

Suddenly, I felt as though I couldn’t
breathe. I tried to wriggle free, but he had a tight hold on me.

“Dalilah, you know, your ex-girlfriend
that you attacked, right after she found out what you did to your stepsister?”