Authors: Mandy Hubbard
I should be in the cabin with Bailey, sucking face with a Trenton brother and his crooked tooth.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I say instead.
He tips his head to the side, studying me with an unreadable expression. “I never claimed to be perfect.”
I don’t know what he means by that. His imperfection was dropping me the second his ex was willing to take him back. Yeah, I always wanted to be a Band-Aid for a guy who couldn’t hold himself together after getting dumped. “You were really going to swim alone?” I ask, trying to get the subject back on track. “That’s dangerous.” I sound stupid.
“Well, then, I’m lucky I don’t have to now,” he says, and with that he slips his jeans over his hips, revealing the royal-blue boxer-briefs that had been peeking out of his waistband.
My mouth goes dry. “I’m not swimming with you.”
“That’s a shame; what if I drown?”
“Then good riddance,” I say. “It’s your funeral.” I turn around, depressed that I seem to be getting run out of every safe haven at the ranch, and annoyed that every conversation with him gets so intense so fast. I’ve made it two steps when I sense he’s
closer now, and I have no time to react before his hands are on my hips, and he’s twirled me around and tossed me over his shoulder.
“Put me down, you idiot!” He’s half-naked, and from my perspective all I can see and feel is his bare skin as it curves down to his backside, to where flesh meets his boxers. His skin is hot to the touch, and his step is jarring as he walks toward the river.
“I swear to God if you throw me in …”
And then he’s dropping me and I’m on my feet again, but this time my hands are on his arms and the heels of my boots sink into the mud at the edge of the bank.
He smirks down at me, and I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes. “I’ll give you one minute to kick those boots off and strip down or you’ll go in fully clothed.”
“I am
not
going skinny-dipping with you.”
“It’s a bra and underwear. Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says, his lips curling into that stupid smile, the one that makes me think of kissing him. “As I recall, you did this quite willingly last year.”
“Oh, so you
do
remember,” I say, shoving his chest.
He doesn’t even flinch. “Thirty seconds and those god-awful boots of yours are getting the river treatment.”
“ ‘I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf.’”
“American Werewolf in Paris
,” he rattles off, without even pausing to think. “And stop distracting me. You’re not getting out of this.”
I gawk at him. “You are
not
throwing me in this river.”
“Fifteen seconds.”
Dang it all, I know he means it, that he’s not above tossing me in like a rat and ruining my boots. In an instant, I yank them off my feet. I look into his eyes to see if he’s still serious, and then grit my teeth and yank my shirt over my head, feeling a little thrill as his gaze travels downward. I can’t help but wonder if his cheeks feel as hot as my own.
Then, without taking my eyes off of his, with the most defiant look I can muster, I yank off my jeans, happy that at least I wore cute red bikini underwear and a matching bra.
But they were for snaggletooth, not heartbreaker.
Then without a word I turn away from him, walk into the river, and dive under the surface, hoping the water will conceal the sounds of my pounding heart. When I break the surface, I smooth my hair out of my face, wondering how well the red, blue, and blond go with the river and the moonlight.
I splash in his direction, although it’s fruitless because he’s still on shore. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?” I call out over the sounds of the water, watching him as he wades in, so slowly it’s like he’s doing it on purpose, wanting me to anticipate him.
It’s the smooth behavior I fell for so easily last year. A well-honed, practiced routine aimed at reeling me in and then moving on in an instant.
“You know you came here to swim,” he says. “I just made sure your pride didn’t get in your way.”
“My
pride? I don’t think it’s
my
pride that’s the problem,” I say, treading water, kicking slightly away from him as he comes closer, the water lapping at his shoulders.
I want him to fix it.
I want the last year to disappear.
I want it to be the summer I let myself fall for him. I want him to have a reason for everything he did to me. I want him not to have used me the way he did, as a placeholder when he missed his real girlfriend.
But no matter how much I want it, it won’t be true. I can’t be stupid and fall for the same old ploy all over again. Even if he is breathtaking in the moonlight, I can’t let him get that close.
“You’re the one intent on fighting. I tried to be nice this morning, help you with your stalls, and you went into attack mode.”
“We’ve both been here over a week and you didn’t talk to me until you knew we’d be forced to work together. I call that an ulterior motive.”
“So maybe that
is
what convinced me to finally talk to you again,” he says, standing still on the river bottom as he stares at me, his eyes hooded in shadows. “But it doesn’t make it an ulterior motive. It just means I didn’t have the guts last week, and I finally forced myself.”
Him not having the guts to talk to a girl is preposterous. He really does know how to manipulate people. “I think you’ve spent too much time on the ranch, because you’re full of crap.”
He laughs, and God, is it sexy. “Can’t you just cut me a little break? Have a nice swim for old times’ sake?”
Images of the two of us last summer, as we kissed for the first time, right here in the swimming hole under the light of the stars, flood my vision. I force the thoughts away. “If you hadn’t dumped me in favor of that
perfect
little girlfriend of yours, it wouldn’t be old times.”
“Jealous?” he asked, something flashing in his eyes, something I can’t read in the moonlight.
My laugh is sad and bitter. “I can’t do this, Landon. I can’t. I’m not going to be there for you every time you’re lonely. I can’t put myself through that again.”
I lean forward, meaning to swim to shore but he grabs me, pulling me up against him. My feet barely brush the bottom if I put down my tippy-toes, but he has a good eight inches on me, so his feet are firmly on the ground.
“It’s not like that.”
I shove his chest and he loosens his hold so that I’m not pressed up against the length of him, every inch of his legs, his hips, his abs, hot on mine … but he doesn’t completely release me. He has no right to be so touchy-feely. I’m not his anymore.
“What is it like then, huh? What did you think we were
last year?
I’ve been waiting all these months for some kind of magical answer, so why don’t you give it to me?”
He swallows, then opens his mouth as if to give me the answer I want, but he just snaps it shut again.
“Don’t think I don’t remember how it felt to be swept aside like yesterday’s garbage. I deserve better than that, and I won’t let you do it again.” I draw in a shaky breath, desperate to rein myself in, to find the composure I thought I could maintain around him. I swallow down the feelings growing in my throat. “Just answer me one question,” I say.
“Of course,” he says, and by the softness in his voice I almost believe I’m getting to him, almost believe he regrets what he did to me.
Tears, blast them, glimmer in my eyes, and I pray he thinks it’s just splashed water. “When you said good-bye to me that last day at the ranch … when I told you …” I stop for a second,
hating what I’m about to say, before taking a deep breath and surging forward. “When I told you that I loved you and you kissed me, did you know even then that you were going to choose her?”
His arms slacken more, and it’s all the response I need. I shove myself away, the water sloshing up around my shoulders.
And in the moonlight, he says the word I’m waiting for. “Yes.”
“I’ll kill him. With my bare hands, I’ll kill him,” Bailey says as we sit on the top rail of the arena, our ankles hooked underneath the pipe railing one row down.
“You have my permission,” I say drily.
“What is he doing? Does he get some sick pleasure from toying with you?”
I blow out a long, slow sigh, brushing back a loose strand of blue hair sticking to the sweat on my temple. “Heck if I know. How am I going to hold it together? I already have PTSD from last summer.”
“That’s it!” she says, brightening. “We treat this like war, and we use an IED.”
“Whoa, I’m not trying to blow him up. And I don’t even know where you’d find the materials for that.”
“I mean, not him, obviously,” she says, slapping my knee. “Maybe his truck. He’s kind of in love with it.”
“Um, maybe we can come up with a plan that doesn’t involve a felony,” I say, fighting a smirk.
“Yeah, yeah. Party pooper,” she says, waving me away. “This blows. I can’t believe he’s acting like you’re going to be a doormat and just be his summer hookup again.”
I purse my lips, nodding. “Yeah, that pretty much seems to be what he’s thinking.”
“What a jerk.”
I laugh. I’m glad Bailey is my friend, here to think dark thoughts with me. She’d totally make a voodoo doll of his hair if I had any, and she’d stay up late so we could invent some freaky ceremony to curse him.
“Hey, Mack,” a voice calls out. I turn around to see Adam pushing a big wheelbarrow with shovels in it.
“Oh, hey, Adam,” I say. “Looking for mushrooms?”
“You know it,” he says, chuckling. “I’m hoping for fire-breathing superpowers.”
“That’s totally from the fire flower plant thingy, not the mushrooms, the mush—”
Bailey elbows me, hard, in the stomach.
I wince and elbow her back. “Uh, anyway, have you met my friend Bailey? She works in the spa.”
“Nope. Hi, Bailey,” he says, reaching out his hand. She shakes it.
“Hey, yourself,” she says, holding his hand for a moment longer than necessary.
He drops the handshake and turns to me. “I gotta go fix a creaky step on cabin twenty-seven, but I’ll let you know if I see any mushrooms along the way.”
“Perfect,” I say, and we exchange awkward little waves as he walks away.
“What the heck was all that talk of mushrooms?”
“Uh, I might have told him he looked like Super Mario.”
“You did not!”
“Did too.”
“You are so weird,” Bailey says.
“Am not.” I twist back around so we’re facing the ring again.
“Yeah, you definitely are. But he’s super cute, don’t you think?” she says.
I snicker. “I guess.”
“You don’t think so?”
I shrug. “He’s okay. Not really my type.”
“Good. I call dibs,” Bailey says. “Anyway, back to the task at hand. I think we should at least swap out Landon’s shampoo with Nair or something,” she says, drumming her fingers on her knee.
“His hair is his greatest asset, after all,” I agree. “All thick and blond and spiky or whatever. Gives him that whole tall, handsome vibe.”
“Really?” She stops drumming her fingers, genuine surprise in her eyes. “Because I thought he’d be such a good kisser, with those full lips of his. …”
“Don’t go there,” I say, shaking away any memory of
that
variety. “So not discussing it.”
“Fine. It’s not like you have a scale for comparison, anyway,” she says, pursing her lips and nodding in a strangely solemn way, like it’s really important to rate his kissing ability.
“Please tell me you don’t have a scale,” I say, sitting up again and fanning myself with my hand, though it does nothing but make me even hotter.
She grins, that familiar wicked gleam in her eye. “Sure. I
like to know how great a guy is on a scale between Trevor Greenwood and Patrick Burrows.”
“Patrick Burrows?” I ask, thinking of the boy from my homeroom class, the one who spent the whole time creating anagrams from SAT words. “Really?”
“Yep. Best kisser by far.”
I shudder. “I can’t believe we’re best friends.”
“I know, you’re so lucky,” she says, and we both laugh, knocking shoulders. Then she clears her throat. “Oh, speak of the devil.”
“Patrick Burrows?” I ask, shielding my eyes from the sun to see in the direction of Bailey’s nod. “Oh.”
“Is his horse always that hyper?”
Storm is dancing at the end of the reins, but Landon just maintains his solid grip and walks as if it’s no big deal that a thousand-pound horse is hopping around like a bunny on crack. “Yeah, pretty much. He’s got his roping saddle on and Storm knows it. He’s a total hothead for roping.”
“Oh.”
“Should we bail?” I ask. “I mean, I don’t know the rules of engagement. Without the aid of explosives or whatever.”
“First, no, you do not let him run you off, and second,
dude
, explosives! We could blow up his junk.”
I laugh. “I wish.”
We don’t move from the fence panel, which thankfully is at the far corner of the arena, one of the few spots with shade. Another rider on a horse appears, as do a couple of other guys who walk over to the chutes.
“He must be practicing for the upcoming rodeo,” I say. It’s not really a high-stakes rodeo—more of an expo, really, in which
some of the locals and the hands run through the usual events. It’s kinda silly, since they don’t get too competitive about it, but it’s easily the biggest draw of the summer for our guests. A real live rodeo, right outside their log cabins.
The cabins are already sold out, which makes this lunch break all the more important. Bailey and I have been working like crazy all morning, and I’m not eager to go back to work twenty minutes earlier than I have to.
As for the rodeo, I’m in it too. I’m running barrels. I’m not any good at it, but neither are the other two girls, so the guests never seem to know the difference. Half of them think that a fast lope and a gallop are the same thing, and who am I to point it out? Everyone gets a bonus at the end of the summer if the comment cards are 95 percent satisfactory or better, so we’ve learned to fake it.