1. Buck
Chapter 1
Buck
I shouldn't be here. Shouldn't be watching her. But promises are chains, and I'm bound by the one I made to her father.
"Keep an eye on her," he'd said before heading out of state for the annual sharpshooters challenge he’s won nine of ten years in a row. “She’s eighteen, but she’s still my baby. Our girl, right, Buck?”
Like I needed the excuse to keep an eye on her. Like I haven't been tracking Callie's movements since she blossomed into a woman right under my goddamn nose.
Fuck. Yeah. Right.
I nearly puked on my best friend’s boots when he said that feeling so fucking guilty about how I’d been jerking my dick raw thinking about his daughter since she turned eighteen.
The girl I helped raise, in my own way.
My knuckles whiten on the steering wheel as I watch her slip out of the ’65 convertible Mustang her father and I fixed up for her sixteenth birthday. She sashays across the parking lot and into the Rusty Spur, her little cotton dress riding high on the most tempting thighs this side of the Rocky Mountains.
Thighs I've imagined wrapped around my waist for longer than any decent man would admit.
But I've never claimed to be decent. Although, I’ve put on a good front for the last few decades. Cleaned up my act, all that cowboy rodeo wildness of my youth settled into the dusty cracks of my life.
Dust she’s kickin’ up inside me like an Oklahoma tornado.
I’m just a rancher now.
And a man obsessed with his best friend’s daughter.
“Fuck, Buck. What are you gonna do?” I grunt to myself, adjusting my hat before looking back in her direction.
The neon beer sign flashes, painting her golden hair red for a split second before the bouncer at the door let’s her inside without checking her ID. Fucker.
She’s eighteen, but you gotta be twenty-one for the Rusty Spur. She’s a fucking temptation I can't afford.
Why is she even here?
Alone to boot. I’ll bet horses to hogs she’s meeting that friend of hers I’d like to make disappear. The one that’s been around every time Callie’s gotten into trouble since they met in the fourth grade.
Missy Meyers. I bet she’s in there in shorts that make Daisy Dukes look like overalls shootin’ shots of Jack with a bunch of waggin’ dicks thinkin’ it’s their lucky night.
I remind myself it’s time for the talk I’ve been meaning to have with good old Missy once and for all. With shotgun in hand, I’ll show up in a dark alley where she’s slithering. Letting her know in no soft sided terms it’s time for her to find a new filly to befriend, because my Callie is about fifty pay grades above her troublesome ass.
My blood pressure spikes at the thought of Callie inside that dive bar, with its sticky floors and barely legal body surrounded by men who see her as easy prey. Wide eyes and a smile that would melt the blackest soul and raise a dick from the dead. I can see it now, their lust filled eyes lapping at her soft flesh. Thinking they have a shot at what’s mine.
My shotgun wouldn’t be used just for intimidation if anyone put their hands on her. Men who don't know she belongs to me, even if I've been too much of a coward to claim her.
I told myself I could ignore her. Let her be. But I'm not a strong man. Not when it comes to her. Never have been. Something primal roars inside me whenever she's within fifty feet—this need to shelter, to possess, to make damn sure nothing and no one ever hurts my girl.
The protective instinct has been there since day one—since Jim found her on his doorstep at eleven years old, a kid he never knew he had. Her mother dropping her like unwanted baggage before disappearing forever. He was drowning, clueless about raising a girl, and I stepped in--not that I knew a damn thing either, except I’ve raised a lot of feisty filles into damn good horses.
I watched her transform from that angry, distrustful brat into the beautiful woman who now has me wrapped around her finger.
Twenty years separate us. Two decades of life that should mean something. Her father's friendship that should mean everything. But when she sways those hips or flashes that smile meant just for me, those years evaporate like morning dew. All that's left is this driving need to protect what's mine. To keep her safe. To punish anyone who'd dare lay a finger on what belongs to me.
But that’s not all. I want to fuck her rotten . Bending her over every surface in my house until having me dripping from her is her new normal. Filling her up morning, noon and night until that cute belly of hers pops out with my spawn rooted inside her. I want her to make fucking babies for me. A bushel full.
I slam my fist against the dash so hard it sends a shot of cheap whiskey morning-after pain up all the way to my shoulder.
But it’s not enough to stop me from getting out of my truck, boots hitting the gravel with military precision.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Three steps and I stall, knots tangling the muscles in my back and down into my gut.
Sweat trickles down my spine. The summer night air chills the dampness covering my skin.
The need to march in there, throw her over my shoulder and carry her out is grabbing me by the balls and pulling hard. But I restrain myself. Barely. I don't go in. Just stand in the shadows, watching the door like some obsessed guardian. Or predator. Both.
Time drags. My jaw aches from clenching. The neon buzzes into the calm night air.
Then an impossible gravitational pull drags me from the shadows, and I’m heading toward the door as the flashing beer sign turns my vision red.
A stream of light and sound emerges as the door cracks open, then she’s there, walking out on a slight stumble. She’s wearing the Tony Llamas with the pink hearts I got her for her eighteenth birthday.
Fuck me. Just knowing she’s sliding her cute little foot into something I gave her has me ready to double over as my cock thickens to the point of pain.
She’s alone at least. Relief lifts some of the weight from my shoulders thinking she’s come to her senses and is heading home, but the feeling doesn’t last.
A man with a death wish is following her. Young. Drunk. City slicker in a cheap felt hat and vinyl boots.
I nearly snap a molar when he reaches for her arm.
Fire and brimstone boil my blood. He’s about to meet God, but he’s going to meet the devil first.
Conscious thoughts are left in the dust. I’m moving.
Crunching on the gravel faster this time, arms swinging with balled fists for ballast. For a split second I rethink my commitment to wearing flannel shirts all year long, because I’m sweatin’ like a pig on a transport truck.
Then like I’ve skidded through a time warp, I’m suddenly right there . Between them. My back to her, facing down this man-boy who doesn't know he’s about to meet his maker
"Walk away," I growl, low and deadly as he spins, seeing me there bathed in the crazy blinking red light. He swallows, his eyes narrowing.
I feel her fucking heat from behind me and that sweet scent of vanilla and sunshine makes my knees start to buckle. Soft pressure meets the tense muscles between my shoulder blades.
Small. Delicate. Mine.
The drunk weighs his options. The very real possibility of his final breaths being taken right here as he expires by my hands seems to sink in, and he staggers off mumbling something about rednecks and country girls.
"Buck, what are you doin’ here," she says in that sassy spring-fed voice, and the sound lifts me up like a prayer.
I turn, taking her in. Flushed cheeks. Bright meadow-green eyes.
That virgin-white gauzy dress clinging to curves I've memorized for far longer than I should admit. Every time I look at her, I’m fucking dizzy and salivating like a fucking horse ridden too long and hard on a hot day.
"You’ve leaving, Callie." My voice doesn't sound like my own. Too rough. Too raw.
"Or what?" She tilts her chin up. Challenge written across that beautiful face.
Her defiance only makes me harder as I find her wrist, fingers pressing into soft flesh. "Don't test me tonight, sweetheart."
"I'm not your sweetheart." But her pulse jumps wildly beneath my thumb.
She knows exactly what she is.
I lean down, close enough to feel her breath against my lips. "You’re getting. In. My. Truck."
“This is ridiculous,” she says as I half drag her. But I catch the smirk playing at the corners of her mouth. “My car is right there .”
“In,” I demand as I wrench open the driver’s door on my Ford.
“Always so grumpy,” she hisses, kicking the gravel with each measured step, forcing me to tug her closer like a disgruntled puppy.
This woman-child will be my ruin.
And God help me, I'm ready to fall.