Texas Wide Open by KC Klein

Author:KC Klein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2012-10-18T10:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Katie lay on top of her comforter and watched the ceiling fan lazily move through the thick air. The last few months had been tough. Since the kiss on Prom night, her relationship with Cole had been strained.

The last few weeks there’d been groans from him and exaggerated sighs from her, but the other day things came to a boil. Cole had snapped at her. She’d been helping to wash one of the new stud stallions. There’d been some comment about her not listening, not doing what she was told and forging ahead, regardless of the consequences. He’d told her she had no business taking care of the horses if she wasn’t going to respect him as her boss. There’d been a few other words hurled back and forth, and it wasn’t long before it escalated to a full-out fight.

“Screw you!” Katie had yelled. For emphasis she threw the cloth she’d been using into the bucket of soapy water by her feet. Water came up and sprayed her neck and arms. “I’m out here working to save your butt and this is the thanks I get?”

Cole’s face had gotten a hardened look; the muscle in his jaw twitched. “I don’t need you to save my anything. And if you don’t watch that mouth of yours, I’ll take that rag and wash it out for you.”

Speechless in her fury, she watched as he’d turned and walked away. Typical Cole, he thought the conversation ended when he wanted it to.

Cole had left without another word, and yet there was so much more Katie had wanted to say. She wanted to tell him he couldn’t dismiss her anymore, and she was sick of being ignored. Instead, Katie had calmly walked out, but not before she kicked the bucket of water across three stalls.

Katie hadn’t been able to avoid the stables altogether. Star was there, and she still had to take care of her, but now the silence between Cole and Katie was worse than the arguing.

Katie rolled over on her side to check the clock on the bedside table—11:42 P.M. The house was quiet, her father having gone to bed long ago. Before he had kissed her good night, he’d joked with her. “Tomorrow’s the big one-eight,” he said. “You should check for gray hairs in the morning.”

Katie had rolled her eyes and kissed his weathered cheek. Now eighteen wasn’t tomorrow; it was less than twenty minutes away.

Cole hadn’t come to her graduation, and that alone told her everything she needed to know for tonight. If he’d showed up with the half grin he reserved especially for her, she wouldn’t have had the courage to do what she wanted to next.

After her graduation ceremony she’d chosen to come home and have a quiet dinner with Pa, instead of going out with her friends. Katie had noticed for the first time the lines around her father’s face and the redness in his features that never went away. Her father never dated, that she was aware of.

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