Unleashed: Volume 1 (Unleashed #1) (15 page)

Why had I done it? I
had a boyfriend who actually liked me and wanted to spend time with
me. Why didn’t I devote any time and energy to Bruce?

A date, I decided.
That’s what I needed. I’d let Bruce take me out. I’d get all
done up for him, see if I couldn’t breathe some life into what we
had between us. Anything to stop me from making even more of an ass
of myself for Declan.

§

“Princess! Bruce’s
here. Hussle up!” Daddy’s voice traveled up loud and clear from
the kitchen.

“Just a second,” I
hollered down from the bathroom. I still had some time. They’d be
fine. Daddy loved shooting the shit with Bruce, and Bruce loved it
right back. In fact he’d arrived early to pick me up for our date
so he could do just that. He was a natural politician, like his daddy
the mayor.

I was trying hot
rollers, my friend Mandy’s suggestion. Fixing them up in my hair
felt as easy as balancing giant water balloons in a tiny spoon. They
kept flopping around, falling off my head. Maybe it was growing up
without a mom or a sister, maybe it was just me, but I didn’t have
the knack for all the glamorous stuff. Mandy was always trying out a
new shade of lip gloss or a perfume she read about in a magazine, a
celebrity’s top picks. Sometimes I felt like there was something
wrong with me that I didn’t care about all that stuff. Most of the
time I just didn’t care.

It wasn’t that I
didn’t want to look good—I did. I wanted to look kick-ass. I just
didn’t enjoy taking all my time getting that way. Guess that meant
I wasn’t a girly-girl. Which was good seeing as how I lived on a
ranch.

I knew Bruce wasn’t
planning on a rancher’s life. Son of our town’s bigwig
politician, off to college in the fall, he was talking big. That was
fine, he seemed happy. I knew we probably didn’t have a future, but
that didn’t bother me much. He was good for here and now, seniors
enjoying our last month of school. People kept telling me he was such
a catch and I guessed they were right.

I looked in the mirror
and applied some mascara. Fluttering my lashes, I gave myself a sexy
look. Or what I hoped was sexy.

I wondered what Declan
was up to this Friday night. He’d probably head out to the local
bar. But I shouldn’t be thinking about him. I should ignore him,
the way you ignored a meteor that had shot into your kitchen and set
everything ablaze.

I couldn’t stop
thinking about that moment when I’d been washing my truck when his
gaze had nearly burned me. He’d told me to leave but the way he’d
looked at me. As if he might, too, somehow be wanting what he
couldn’t have.

OK, so if I couldn’t
stop thinking about him, I could be busy. Out and about. I was
popular, captain of the cheerleading squad with a gang of friends and
a handsome quarterback of a boyfriend. We were all about to graduate.
I had stuff going on. I’d been hanging out around the ranch way too
much, skulking around hoping he’d notice me. Not anymore. I planned
on living it up, celebrating the end of this chapter and launching
into the next. I’d hardly even have time to think about Declan, let
alone see him.

It shouldn’t matter
that right now he was probably standing outside the main barn
directly across from our house, wrapping things up with Bill and the
other guys. Quitting time on a Friday, they usually lingered, going
over it all. I knew that if I timed it right, he’d be there when I
came out of the house in full view.

I told myself I was
gussying myself up for Bruce. Tonight was Friday night date night,
after all. The Dairy Queen called. After that, one of Bruce’s
buddies on the football team was supposed to be getting a keg. Sure
as the month was May, we’d all end up tailgating in some pasture,
pickup trucks circled up, girls sitting and giggling in clusters,
boys horsing around, drunker by the minute.

Don’t get me wrong, I
loved my hometown and had no plans of leaving. But sometimes it did
feel like the same shit different day. The DQ and a keg didn’t
exactly inspire me to go all out.

But Declan. I wanted
him to see me looking good. He’d ignored and dismissed me so much,
wounding my pride. I wanted him to see me heading out into the night,
hand in hand with my boyfriend, enjoying life, not caring about him
in the least. I knew I wasn’t being cool. It was bitchy, but I
couldn’t help it. Declan did it to me, he made me crazy. And that
crazy part of me wanted it to play out like slow motion, him standing
there checking me out head to toe so he could see exactly what he
couldn’t have.

That meant I had to
look good. My closet had plenty of tees and tanks. Tonight, though, I
thought maybe I’d rock a sexy little halter top. Backless besides a
narrow neck strap, it had a deep V-neck front, showing generous
cleavage. I’d have to deal with Bruce’s roaming hands later on,
but if I timed my exit right I’d give Declan a show. I wanted him
to see me looking so hot I left a trail of flames down the stairs
behind me. Plus I wanted him to get a nice, clear image of Bruce’s
arm around my waist as I headed off with him and him alone. Take
that, Declan.

I pulled on my favorite
pair of skinny jeans, then searched for my boots with the 3-inch
heels. They made my legs look about a mile long.

“What are you doing
up there, sewing your own clothes from scratch?”

“Very funny,” I
yelled down. My dad loved to tease me, but he never really got mad. I
had him wrapped around my little finger. But he had me wrapped around
his, too. We were a tight family, the two of us.

“Are you going to be
ready tonight or should I have Bruce come back tomorrow?”

“Down in a second!”

A few moments, later, I
bounded into the kitchen with my big, bouncing curls. I’d slipped
on a cardigan sweater at the last minute so my father wouldn’t have
a heart attack. The cleavage in my halter top really didn’t leave
much to the imagination.

“Hey, mop top!” My
father gave me a kiss on the forehead like I was five years old. Mop
top. Not exactly the look I’d been going for, and in the mirror
upstairs I’d thought I looked pretty cute, soft flips and dips in
my hair framing my face.

“You look amazing. As
always.” Bruce gave me a kiss on the cheek. So chaste around
Harlan. He turned it up when it was just the two of us, or at least
he tried to. We hadn’t gone all the way yet, but he was gunning for
it to happen on prom night. Around my father, though, he played the
choirboy. He knew my daddy wasn’t the type to just threaten about a
shotgun. He had one hanging right by the front door.

“You be a gentleman
now tonight with my baby.” Daddy gave Bruce a warning look.

“I will, sir.”

He still talked tough,
but I knew Bruce was exactly the type of guy Daddy wanted to see me
with, from a good family with a promising future. I’d heard the
speech many times. Sometimes I wondered if I were dating Bruce more
to make my father happy than myself. It wasn’t like it was torture
or anything, but that was the problem: it wasn’t anything.

Bruce took my hand in
his and I felt… fine. I smiled up at him. Like I’d smile at a
brother if I had one. If Declan took my hand, I was pretty sure it
would feel different. Not that he ever would. But still.

“You two have fun
tonight.” Daddy cracked open a can of beer and headed toward the TV
room. He’d find a game to watch and probably still be there when I
got home. I worried sometimes about him being lonely, but he never
seemed sad, just solitary. I was the same way, come to think of it. I
didn’t mind time on my own. It suited me fine.

But not tonight.
Tonight I was going to be Out and About.

“I’ll take good
care of her tonight, sir,” Bruce assured my father.

I had to make myself
not roll my eyes at the ‘sir.’ I liked him being respectful to my
father and all, but sometimes Bruce laid it on a little thick.

“Come here.” Bruce
pulled me in close and gave me a kiss.

I swatted him away.
“Not in my daddy’s kitchen.”

“Then let’s get out
of here.”

I followed after him,
slipping off my sweater as I did. I was going for the full effect.

Out on the porch, I saw
him. Bill was walking away, slightly stooped over as he headed toward
his cabin in the remaining sunshine. Declan still stood by the barn,
listening to one of the other ranch hands talk.

He looked so rugged,
long and lean, his legs in his worn jeans, his belt slung low across
his hips. He had a thumb hooked in his front pocket, weight to one
side. He looked like an ad for cologne or beer, some product sold by
sex. One look at him and you’d buy whatever he was selling. Those
broad shoulders, that strong chin. I put my hand down on the railing
to steady myself.

He looked up and met my
gaze. Soon as he did, everything else melted away. It was just him
and me, standing there for each other. He drank me in, slowly as if
savoring every inch, caressing my curves, down to my boots and on up
again. When he looked back into my eyes, heat flooded his gaze,
intense and locked in on me. I could barely breathe. I felt glued to
the spot, yet wanted to run, fast as I could, straight to him and beg
him to take me somewhere we could be alone.

Sometimes I felt like I
was making everything up, that there was nothing between us and he
was as indifferent to me as a rock. Sometimes, though, it all felt so
real I could taste it. How taut and rigid he was holding his body,
the fierce intensity in his eyes, as if electricity hummed and
crackled between us. I knew he wanted to grab me as much as I wanted
to rush over to his arms faster than I could think.

Then Bruce’s arm
snaked around my waist. He bent down and planted a big, wet kiss on
my cheek. Claiming me. Because he was my boyfriend. I looked down,
forcing myself to stay by his side.

“Let’s get a move
on.” Bruce grasped my hand firmly in his own and moved me down the
porch steps. I focused on my boots, moving them down, taking in a
breath, letting one out.

He let go of me to open
up the door of his truck and climb into the driver’s seat. Alone
for a few seconds as I rounded the truck, I looked up again. Declan
was gone.

It took a while to get
set right again. I wasn’t used to this kind of crazy. I’d always
been the level-headed one, the one who rolled her eyes as her friends
blabbered all boy-crazy. This felt different from that, though. It
didn’t feel giggly and bouncy and fun. It felt like getting leveled
by a Mack truck.

Thankfully, Bruce
didn’t notice. He was happy to blast his favorite tunes, windows
rolled down, cute girl in the cab of his truck until we got to the
DQ. Once there, he joined his buddies, I mine, clustered together as
always in the parking lot.

“Got your favorite.”
Mandy handed me a small vanilla shake. I nodded my thanks. “Dale
got three kegs, one for tonight then two for tomorrow out by the
lake.”

“Cool.” I used my
shake as an excuse to not talk, letting the joking and flirting of my
circle of friends waft over and around me. I had to snap out of it, I
knew that, but I couldn’t. Something was happening to me, I just
didn’t know what. I’d been shaking like a leaf ever since I’d
seen Declan. What the hell was wrong with me?

When I saw him stroll
through the parking lot, at first I thought it was my imagination.
What was Declan Hunt doing at the Dairy Queen at 6 o’clock on a
Friday night? I’d never seen him there before. And believe me, I’d
done my time in that parking lot.

But in my fantasies, he
always walked straight up to me and whisked me away. He might first
profess his love, he might passionately kiss me, or simply scoop me
up in his strong arms without a word. What he absolutely never did
was have his hand on another girl’s ass. That’s how I knew I
wasn’t dreaming.

“Holy hell that guy’s
smokin’ hot,” Mandy swooned by my side. I wished I could stop
watching, but I couldn’t. “Is that Alyssa with him?”

“Mm-hmm.” It was
all I could manage in confirmation.

“She’s such a
slut.”

“Mm-hmm.” Alyssa
had worked her way through the boys in our high school before she’d
dropped out as a senior a couple of years back. She was the kind of
girl your daddy warned you about becoming, the cautionary tale. How I
wished I were her. Declan had his long arm stretched across her back,
his hand casually cupping her ass which happened to be hanging out of
the shortest pair of Daisy Dukes I’d ever seen. She might as well
have saved herself the trouble and just worn a thong.

“Who’s that?”
Kaylee, another friend sidled up to me and Mandy, all of us with our
eyes glued to the man candy. “I want me some.”

“It’s Declan,” I
mumbled.

Mandy elbowed me sharp
in the ribs. “No shit!” she shrieked so loud I elbowed her back.

“You don’t need to
scream!” I whispered. Thankfully, Declan kept heading toward the
storefront. All I needed was for him to turn around and see me
giggling and squealing about him with my dumb-ass high school
friends.

“Who’s Declan?”
Kaylee drooled.

“He works on Kara’s
ranch!” Mandy exclaimed.

“I want to work on
your ranch,” said Kaylee.

“I’m coming over
tomorrow,” Mandy declared.

“No, no you guys.
He’s an asshole.” I scooted quick over to Bruce’s side,
snuggling up to him and landing a kiss on his cheek. He was deep into
some story with Dale and his football buddies, re-living some trick
play from their season. I closed my eyes for a second, willing my
body, my mind, everything to cleave to Bruce. He was there with me,
for me. He was my boyfriend. At least for another month or so.

I half-listened to the
patter of their talk, so familiar, so safe. I knew this. I’d been a
part of this world for my whole life. Declan meant something else
entirely, I didn’t even know what but it didn’t matter—he
wasn’t right for me and he certainly wasn’t into me. No use
batting myself like a moth again and again against a glass window
trying to get at the light.