Buck ‘Em Cowgirl (Bucking Bulls #1)

Chapter 1

Fable Morris

“How much longer are you going to be in there?” my fiancé, Mike, called from the other side of the door.

“I’m washing my hands,” I singsonged back.

Damn it. I’d lost track of where I was and had to start over.

Happy Birthday to you. Happy—

“Fable, you’ve washed your hands three times today. Let’s go! We’re going to be late.”

I groaned, knowing I’d have to start over.

If I didn’t nail the rhythm perfectly, I’d spend the whole day spiraling.

I’d be worrying about germs, convinced I’d somehow caught norovirus or something worse.

And that would mean throwing up, which was my absolute worst nightmare.

Worse than that, it might mean a trip to the hospital—a place I couldn’t even bring myself to set foot in.

“I’m leaving for the rehearsal,” Mike shouted as I focused back on the sink.

Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Fable, happy birthday to you.

Grabbing a washcloth, I dried my hands, wincing as the coarse fabric scraped over my raw, calloused skin. Winters in Chicago were bad enough, but scrubbing my hands raw in the name of staying—okay, obsessing over being—clean made it so much worse.

I yanked open the door, and Mike was standing right outside with his arms folded across his chest.

“The fuck, Fable? We talked about this. You have to stop worrying about washing your hands all the time.”

I looked down and realized my hands were trembling.

The cracks on my palms throbbed with pain, and as I glanced at him, I felt an overwhelming urge to scream.

I wanted to shout that all I wanted was to stop washing my hands, to stop this endless cycle.

I wanted to tell him that I knew, logically, that what I was doing wasn’t normal, but I couldn’t stop.

The fear of ending up in that hospital again—alone—was enough to crush me.

“I-I’m sorry,” I stammered, my voice barely audible.

What else could I say? I stood frozen in the doorway of our shared bathroom.

“Do better, Fable. I told you, you need to be better. If I’m going to get famous, I need you to look the part and act right. Nobody wants a fiancée who’s a freaking weirdo about germs.”

“If . . .” I mumbled under my breath, but the words barely escaped before his hand shot into the air.

He raised it high, pulling back like he was about to bring it down hard. My heart leaped as I realized the only thing between his hand and me was the force of the blow.

I flinched.

We both stood there, locked in place. Time seemed to stop as I waited to see what he would do next. He never actually hit me, but he did this over and over, using the threat like a weapon whenever he thought I was “misbehaving.”

“Fuck it. I gotta get to rehearsal. You drive yourself to work.”

“I’ll get a ride from Harleigh,” I said as he turned around and slammed the door to our apartment.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, trying to steady myself. I couldn’t help but wonder if my fear—this constant worry that no one would ever truly understand me—was still the biggest reason I hadn’t left him. After everything that had happened to me . . . I wasn’t sure I’d ever recover.

When my anxiety over staying healthy began, Mike had told me no other man would ever love me because I was broken. And I believed him.

I still believe him.

With a heavy sigh, I stepped into our bedroom, the morning sun seeping through the window, and began rummaging around for my phone.

Our place wasn’t anything special—small, cozy, and tucked into the heart of Wicker Park in Chicago.

It was a few blocks from the music studio where Mike recorded and close enough for me to get to work.

“Where the heck did I put it?”

I threw off our dark blue comforter. In truth, the apartment looked exactly like Mike’s style. It was basic, boring and probably an ad for a department store. It had no personality or pizzazz, but Mike insisted that my style was too loud, and as an adult, we needed to tone it down.

“Aha!” I grabbed my phone, with its sparkly pink cover, and dialed Harl’s number, hoping she hadn’t left for the office yet.

“Hi, bitch,” she said cheerfully after the first ring.

“Help.”

“Please tell me he didn’t need to go to the studio even though he promised you a ride.”

I collapsed onto the bed, arms splayed out, my phone on speaker as I stared up at the textured popcorn ceiling.

“I can’t tell you that because he actually had to go to rehearsal for the event tomorrow,” I explained, my voice flat.

“Of fucking course he did,” Harleigh muttered on the other end.

I shut my eyes, hating every minute of this. Shame crept through my body, and I wanted to run away. I wanted to escape this.

“You know I can’t take the train or the bus,” I whispered. “Can you please bring me?”

Without missing a beat, she responded, “Obviously. I still hate Mike.”

I hate Mike, too.

“I’m still marrying him.”

“And I still hate it,” Harleigh bit back unapologetically.

I sighed, sitting up. “Gotta get dressed. See you in ten?”

“See you then,” she replied and hung up.

I had to wonder if every single morning for the rest of my life was going to be like this. Was it going to be this hard to get out of bed and not worry about something most people never fret over—germs? Was Mike right and I was completely unlovable? He was the best I was going to have?

“It’s better to be alone with no one,” I muttered.

Mike had most of his stuff in the other bedroom since he had transformed it into a mini-recording area for him so I was grateful I had this space, though not much, but it was mine.

Hanging on the rack, taunting me, was my rodeo outfit.

Truthfully, Harleigh and I had a blast picking it out at a nearby tiny Western boutique last weekend.

I had been excited about it at the time, but when I sat and thought about it, the idea of being crammed into a stadium with thousands of people made my skin crawl.

The bull riding tour didn’t come to town often, and since Bucking Energy was a sponsor—and I was the project marketing manager for the entire event—it was my job to show up.

That meant taking a VIP tour backstage, shaking hands with the cowboy riding people we sponsored, and pretending I was perfectly fine with it all.

I didn’t want to shake anyone’s hand. I didn’t want to stand in a stadium filled with dirt and sand, kicked up into the air, surrounded by animals that could carry who-knows-what diseases.

On top of my work sponsoring it, my up-and-coming country singer fiancé was the evening’s entertainment, which meant I had no choice but to go twice over.

I put on a pair of wide-legged khaki pants with a white sweater and headed to the bathroom to put on my makeup before Harleigh came.

I leaned over the sink, reaching for my makeup bag. As I caught my reflection in the mirror, I froze. The person staring back hardly looked like me. My jawline was too sharp and hollow. My shoulders were frail, the bones more prominent than I wanted to admit.

Before the . . . accident . . . I’d been a completely different person. Vibrant. Full of life. In the mirror, my once-thick blonde hair was noticeably thinner. My green eyes had dulled, weighed down by exhaustion.

I sighed, closing my eyes.

Get it together.

Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “Nothing a little concealer can’t fix.”

I worked fast, layering foundation, brushing color onto my cheeks, and dabbing concealer under my tired eyes. By the time I finished, I looked passable enough; maybe Mike would approve of this version of myself.

I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs. Halfway down, a thought flickered in my mind.

Did I turn the stove off?

I groaned and turned back, rushing up the stairs and into the apartment. My heart raced as I double-checked and confirmed what I already knew. It was off. It had been off all along. I hadn’t even turned it on.

Still, my mind refused to let it go until I saw it with my own eyes.

What if Mike turned it on to make his breakfast?

He hadn’t. I let out a deep sigh of relief and went back downstairs, where I saw Harleigh parked in her large red truck.

She waved and held up a coffee for me. I laughed and ran over toward her, making sure not to slip on any ice as I made my way to the curb.

“Hi, slut,” she said and handed me my iced coffee.

Yes, it was winter. Yes, I was drinking an iced coffee. So what?

“Hi, ho,” I responded and buckled into the truck as she pulled out. “When are you going to get a normal car?”

“Can take the girl out of the country, but can’t take the country out of the girl. I will go to my grave driving this.”

I laughed. Technically, Harleigh worked for me as my assistant, handling the managerial tasks that kept me extra organized.

Over the last year, our working relationship had grown into a close friendship.

She wasn’t only my right hand; she was also the reason I was leading this new project for our company.

Her connection to the rodeo world ran deep.

Her dad used to be a stock contractor, providing bucking bulls for the tour, though he’d since retired.

When Bucking Energy got the opportunity to sponsor the tour last year, I pitched the idea of managing their marketing efforts—from social media to advertisements at the event.

Harleigh helped me put together a killer proposal, and all those late nights working on it only brought us closer.

Physically, though, we couldn’t be more different.

Her hair was jet black, always styled into some intricate updo that looked straight out of a tutorial I’d never have the patience to try.

Her eyes were an electric blue, so vivid against her dark hair that she looked like she’d stepped out of a fairy tale. A real-life storybook character.

“What did Mike do this morning?” Harleigh asked as she turned down the road toward our offices in the Loop.