Buck Cowboys by Elle Thorpe

Author:Elle Thorpe [Thorpe, Elle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: www.ellethorpe.com
Published: 2020-11-13T18:00:00+00:00

12

Hallie

In a funk of my own creating, I got to work early the next day, needing the distraction from my own thoughts. I knew there’d be coffee in the main house. Addie always had a pot brewing for us, but I knew they’d all be asking how my night with Nate had gone and I just couldn’t think about that anymore. I found Frost out in the barn and was grateful he wasn’t the sort of guy who liked to chitchat.

He took one look at my face, though, and concern furrowed his brow. “Do I need to kill him?”

I’d forgotten how perceptive Summer’s dad was. I guessed you got used to reading women when you had three daughters. “Not just yet. But I reserve the right to take you up on it at a date to be determined.” I gave him a half smile. “What needs doing?”

“All the usual morning routine, but then I’m going to need you in the training ring. You good to be my rope man?”

“Of course.” I smiled at the fact he hadn’t changed the job description just because I was a woman. I’d known nothing much about bull riding when I’d started hanging out around here to watch Nate, but now I knew all the terms. You needed somebody at the top of the bucking chute to help tighten the ropes around the bull’s middle. That was the rope man. And you needed someone else to pull the gates. Frost had taught me years ago how to perform both roles, and though I had no desire to get on the back of a bull myself, I was good for the support crew.

I busied myself with feeding and watering animals, mucking out stalls, cleaning hooves, and sweeping out the trailer. It was good, honest work, and the morning sun beat down on my back, soothing the stiffness in my muscles I hadn’t been able to shake since last night.

They’d locked up the moment I’d truly realized I was nothing more to Nate than a potential one-night stand. Of course, I’d tried to warn myself that he was only in it for a couple of days, but as soon as someone had said it out loud, something inside me had died.

It was only then I realized I’d been hiding a tiny flame of hope.

So stupid. I shoved aggressively at a pile of dirt I’d made at the back of the trailer, pushing it over the edge with a savage stab of my broom. Of course he was going back on tour. So what else could I be to him, other than a good time? Last night had been fun. I loved being in his company again. Then he’d kissed me, and everything had just ratcheted up a notch. It felt so natural and easy with him. He’d played my body like he knew it intimately. Like he knew me. And for a bit there, I’d lost my head to the fairy-tale dreams I’d been harboring for years.

I should thank the Shepherds for interrupting and bringing me back down to earth.

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