Spur of the Moment (Bell Buckle #1)

1. Lettie

Lettie

“ H e did what?!” Brandy managed to say through her fit of laughter.

“He threw up all over my boots! I’m telling you - the guy had you topped on the lightweight scale.”

I brought the hammer down again, slamming it into the head of the nail to secure the board in place. Brandy was working on replacing boards on the stall doors inside the old barn while I balanced on a ladder, replacing rotting wood in the rafters.

“And you dated him? I’m surprised, Lettie. Your standards dropped after you left.”

I rolled my eyes, grabbing another nail from the bucket perched on top of the ladder. “Not much into city boys. I had slim pickings to choose from. ”

“Tell me about it. It’s the same deal here in town. You didn’t miss much.” Her voice carried up through the wooden structure as we worked in the blistering heat.

I’d only been back in town for two days before my dad put me to work, tasking me with repairing the old barn on the property so we could use it as a quarantine area for incoming rescue horses. Brandy was helping in between working with the horses. Partly to be nice, but mostly to catch up.

We’d been best friends since kindergarten, never apart for more than a couple days at a time.

When I left for college, there was a huge void in my life without her.

We still Facetimed daily, but it wasn’t the same.

She decided to stay in Bell Buckle to pursue horse training, and I went off to college in Boise to get a degree that wasn’t getting me anywhere.

The rumble of a truck engine sounded from the dirt road as I hammered. Why didn’t we have a nail gun? The hardware store would be my first stop when I drove into town this week.

“Oh, shit,” Brandy said below me.

“What?” I swiveled on the ladder to try to see who was coming up the driveway. Standing on my toes, I arched my neck, but the peak of the barn shielded my view.

“Lettie! Watch out!” Brandy yelled right when I felt the ladder shake. The bucket of nails toppled over, the contents pouring out as the tin clanked down the rungs of the ladder before landing on the ground with a bang alongside the nails.

My sudden movement from twisting must have thrown it off balance because it was going down and there was no righting it.

I held onto one of the rungs, but my hand slipped as it fell backward in slow motion.

Slamming my eyes shut, I pushed off to the side to avoid it landing on me and braced for impact as my body propelled toward the dirt.

But instead of the hard ground, strong arms wrapped around me, cradling me like a damn baby. My heart raced as I tried to catch my breath. My eyes stayed shut, disbelief coursing through me that I wasn’t a heap of broken bones on the dirt right now.

“Long time no see, Huckleberry.”

There was only one man who called me that. One man’s voice who made all my senses perk up on high alert. The man I was trying to avoid since coming back to town.

Embarrassment flooded my cheeks as I peeked up at him through one eye. I knew my cheeks were as red as they felt as he stared down at me with that damn grin on his face, his dimples on full display.

“Hi, Bailey.”

His eyes stayed trained on me, like everything around us disappeared into the background. Damn it if I didn’t stare right back, getting lost in those green eyes that had a hint of hazel around the pupils, dark lashes making the galaxy of colors pop.

I cleared my throat. “You can set me down now.”

He seemed to snap himself out of whatever trance we were stuck in and positioned me upright, keeping his hand on the small of my back as I righted myself. I brushed my hands on my jeans, blowing my hair out of my face.

Bailey was my brother’s best friend. Though all four of my brothers hung out with him and treated him like he was part of the family, Reed and Bailey were the closest. Growing up, they were always pulling pranks on me, hence the nickname Bailey gave me.

When I left Bell Buckle, I didn’t say goodbye to Bailey. I didn’t know if he’d understand why I was moving so far away for school, or any of the other reasons I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

He wasn’t the type of guy to take education seriously, so once he graduated high school, he dove into working on his parents ranch and helping out with my family's nonprofit, Bottom of the Buckle Horse Rescue.

Looking at him now, I realized five years was a long time to be away.

He’d matured, and in the best way possible.

The muscles in his arms caused the material on the sleeves of his shirt to stretch.

The fabric stretched over his abdomen, leaving little to the imagination.

His skin was sun kissed from long hours working on the ranches, his cowboy hat angled down slightly to shield his green eyes.

He was all man, no longer the boy I grew up with.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of red fur right before it jumped on Bailey, barking with excitement.

I blinked, trying to believe what I was seeing. I must have hit my head when I fell.

“Rouge likes males now?” I asked .

Bailey caught the fifty-five pound Australian Shepherd in his arms when he jumped up again, licking at his chin. “Well, given the only woman in his life abandoned him, he didn’t have much of a choice with all us guys around.”

My jaw dropped. “I did not abandon him! I had to go to school. Dorms don’t allow dogs. Especially crazy ranch dogs.”

“Shouldn’t have gone to school, then,” Brandy mumbled from where she stood in the door to the barn.

“Don’t make me kick you off this ranch, Brandy,” Reed said as he came around the corner of the barn wearing leather chaps and his beaten-up straw cowboy hat.

Brandy rolled her eyes, crossing her arms. “Kiss my ass, Reed.”

Bailey set Rouge down and he ran off, kicking up dust with his paws.

Ignoring Brandy, Reed came over to stand by Bailey. “You bring the hay?”

Bailey nodded, finally taking his eyes off me to face Reed, hiking his thumb in the direction of his Chevy. “Got it all loaded up if you want to help me stack it.”

“Why’d you bring hay? Don’t we still grow our own?” I asked.

He turned back to face me, his eyes assessing me before he spoke. “Your dad needs more. Guess you guys are bringing in too many rescues to keep up. ”

“Yeah, someone needs to be taken off recruiting duty.” Reed pointed a glare at Brandy, who was leaning against a wood support beam.

“What can I say? I have a hard time saying no,” Brandy said, a smirk pulling at the corner of her mouth.

Reed grunted. “That's been obvious in the past.” He turned to head toward Bailey’s black Chevy K10.

Brandy scowled at him as he stalked off.

I raised my eyebrows, turning back to Bailey. “Some things never change, do they?”

He nodded once, turning on the heel of his boot to follow Reed. I watched him walk away, then made my way over to the fallen ladder. “What’s his problem?”

Brandy pushed off the post she was leaning against to help me pick it up. “I think he’s butthurt you didn’t tell him you were back in town.”

“Why would I?”

She arched an eyebrow at me.

“What?” We hauled the ladder up, propping it back up against the side of the barn.

“You seem to forget you two were best friends before you left.”

“We most definitely were not best friends. We were barely friends, if that.” I kneeled down and began collecting the nails that littered the ground, tossing them into the bucket.

“So, you’ve been helping my mom find rescues?” I asked her, changing the subject .

“I was for a bit. We went a little overboard, if you couldn’t tell. Your dad capped us and now makes us run all the possible rescues by him first.”

I snorted out a laugh. That sounded like something my dad would do. He ran a tight ship around here, but he loved the work. He did it to make sure the rescue stayed afloat, and we all appreciated it.

I finished collecting all the nails on the ground and stood up with the handle of the bucket in my hand.

“No way in hell are you getting back on that ladder, Lettie,” Reed shouted over to me from where he was stacking bales of hay with Bailey under the carport.

I stood up, placing my hands on my hips. “Dad wants me to rebuild the barn, so I don’t have a choice.”

Reed shook his head. “Bailey can do the roof."

I gaped at him from where I stood. “You think I’m incapable?”

“Didn’t say that, Lettie. I just know you’re a klutz. Ladders aren’t your friend, and Bailey won’t always be there to come to your rescue.”

Bailey chuckled, tossing another bale over the side of the truck bed onto the ground.

“I don’t need his saving.” I’d be damned if I had to work with Bailey during my stay in Bell Buckle.

Bailey bent over to grab another bale by the baling twine with gloved hands. “Doesn’t look that way, Huckleberry.”

“Stop calling me that! I was fifteen! ”

Brandy laughed from where she stood in the shade, spinning a screwdriver in her hands.

I shot her a glare as Bailey laughed right along with her. “Fifteen or not, your ass still landed in that bucket of huckleberries. You were stained red for days.”

Refusing to relive the embarrassment, I turned on my heel and aimed for the main house.

My parents lived in the original house on the property. Reed had built his own house on the opposite side of the ranch. It made sense to build here rather than move away since he trimmed all the horses' hooves here. He got a majority of his work from the rescue.

They’d renovated the old farmhouse when I was younger, knocking down some of the walls to make it more of an open floor plan.

They’d kept the bones of the structure, but the entire interior was redone.

My dad let my mom design it all, from the flooring to the kitchen cabinets.

The house had a decent sized porch in the front, but it was dwarfed in comparison to the back porch.

There was a built-in barbeque, a hot tub, and an outdoor dining set that could seat twelve.

Since I’ve been back, my mother had added a smaller dining table to the front porch that matched the rocking chairs.

“Going to get Dad?” Reed yelled after me.

“I won’t let you force me to work with him!

” I stomped off, hating how I let my emotions take over where Bailey was concerned.

He knew how to get under my skin without even trying.

Reed was doing this on purpose to force us to talk out what I refused to speak with him about.

He was trying to meddle where meddling didn’t need to be done.

When my brothers found out I didn’t tell Bailey I was leaving, they were nothing short of pissed.

They considered Bailey a brother, so when I treated him like he was nothing to me, they couldn’t believe it.

The truth was, I didn’t think I could have left if I saw the look on his face when I told him.

I knew he’d be hurt, and that’s what I was trying to prevent by keeping quiet about my plans.

I had just turned eighteen, and the day I did, Bailey started looking at me differently. He was four years older than me, so the possibility of us ever acting on an attraction towards each other was moot until I was legal.

But that day, something changed. He started looking at me less like his best friend's sister and more like he was finally starting to see me. Really see me. How I looked, how I acted, what I wore.

Those looks were the exact thing I didn’t want. He knew me, inside and out, and I hated that. He could use anything against me if he wanted to, so I had to do the only thing I could. Leave and not look back. At least, until coming back to Bell Buckle was my only option.

Now, I was forced to face him and see just what my leaving did to him.