Chapter 10
All of these young girls out there making sure they have the coolest water bottle. I didn’t drink any water until I was 30.
— Brecken to McCoy
brECKEN
“Okay,” I said three days later as I stared at my sister, McCoy. “I realize that you love this place, but no one said that you had to keep doing it if you hated it.”
McCoy leaned back into her chair and groaned. “I just need to hire help. I’ve been trying to do it all myself, and I’m just going to admit it. I need a man to do the man jobs. I can’t get the tractor hooked up to the mower anymore because the thingy that you hook from the tractor to the PTO is hard as hell to use. The tractor breaks down more than it’s running. I can’t get the stupid hay bales up into the hay loft without Ryler, Bronc, Holden, or Tibbs coming down and helping. And, even worse, the house needs more repair work done…and I am just drowning.”
“Mom and Dad could sell it,” I said. “You could board your bulls at the McCall Ranch.”
McCoy acted like I’d punched her.
“What?” she gasped.
“Mickey,” I said softly. “You’ve run that place for so long that you don’t even know that there’s this whole other world out there waiting for you to reach it. Dad ran that place into the ground before you took it over. I know that you have killed yourself to keep it up and running, but I have to ask the question…why?”
Mickey’s shoulders slumped. “Can we talk about something else? I think about this all day long, every day. It’s mentally exhausting.”
Knowing when my sister was pushed to her limits, I told her about my own problems.
She listened intently, and I watched as her eyes lightened as she listened.
“You like him?” she stated.
“I do,” I confirmed.
“What do you like about him so much?” she asked. “For all intents and purposes, you’ve only looked at the man. The way you’re cheesin’ over there, though, makes me think that you like him a lot.”
I flushed as I remembered our closeness at the school that day that he was there to bring something for Roslyn.
I told her about that, too.
Then I told her about seeing him here, at the coffee shop we were sitting in. Then again at the tournament the past weekend.
I ended it with, “Truly, he’s warned me away from him multiple times now. But I just feel this pull…”
My sister leveled me with a worried glance.
“What if he is dangerous, sissy?” she asked. “What if he’s warning you off with a very good reason?”
I looked away, my gaze taking in the coffee shop around me.
Just as my gaze slid past the door, then skidded to a stop and went right back because…
“There he is,” I said softly.
“There who…whoa.” McCoy gasped.
My thoughts exactly.
I’d seen the man in a tux. I’d seen the man in jeans and a Henley. I’d seen the man somewhere in between those two.
But I’d never seen him like this.
He had on running shoes, five-inch inseam running shorts, and nothing else.
He had a fine sheen of sweat over his entire body, and his chest was heaving as he walked in the door toward the counter where his sister was teaching a new employee how to work the coffee machine.
Milena saw him and smiled, reaching for a paper cup and filling it with water.
The employee standing next to Milena, currently frothing some milk, was staring in utter shock at Shasha just like I was.
My gaze went from his shoes—a simple and boring black pair of Brooks—to his muscular thighs that were straining the fabric of his black shorts.
His skin tone was a nice golden tan that made me want to press my lips to each and every inch and explore.
I didn’t care that he was sweaty, either. I was convinced that it would only add to the tastiness of his skin.
“What do you think that tattoo says?” she whispered.
The tattoo on his back, I was assuming.
Words covered one entire shoulder, from his spine to his bicep. It stretched from the top of his trapezius muscle all the way down to where his rib cage stopped.
“I have no idea,” I breathed. “But I want to memorize each freakin’ letter with my lips and tongue.”
“Me, too,” she agreed wistfully. “I changed my mind. He may be bad, but at least for you he’ll be good.”
I swallowed hard when Shasha turned, cup to his mouth, and started heading back outside.
Holy abs.
The man had a lot of them.
And the short glimpse of the Adonis Belt I’d gotten the other day when his shirt had shifted was nothing to seeing it in its full glory.
Jesus Christ, the man was utter perfection.
He had no other tattoos on him other than the words on his back and the full sleeve on one arm.
I was kind of glad that he didn’t because of the way his body looked.
He had not six abs, or eight, but ten.
I could tell he was a big guy based on what he wore, but nothing could’ve prepared me for how tall, muscled, and breathtaking he was.
Holy. Shit.
He walked out the door with his paper cup without once glancing anywhere else, not catching me staring.
I was both relieved to find out that he’d missed me, and sad that we couldn’t have at least some form of connection.
I felt like I couldn’t breathe…
“I feel like I can’t breathe,” my sister repeated my thoughts.
“My thoughts exactly,” I agreed. “That man…”
“Is intense.” She turned and I was forced to look at her. “I need to get to work.”
I sighed. “Me, too.”
Well, I had about thirty minutes until I needed to be three minutes down the road, but I liked to get there early and get my lunch in the fridge before everyone else arrived—cough, cough, asshole ex, cough.
“Don’t tell our brothers about what we talked about today,” she grumbled as she gathered her cowboy hat up and placed it on her head.
She’d been wearing that damn hat for years.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the hat meant something to her. That hat had been given to her by Kincaid McCall, her first boyfriend, her first ex, and her all-out rival on the ranch touching ours.
I picked my bag up, carefully caught my coffee cup, and headed out to the car with her.
When she went to her old dusty Chevy truck, I went to my dusty Jeep and threw everything over the back of my tailgate but my coffee and keys.
Without the doors on, you were really limited on what you left in the Jeep.
Pretty much, I had to bring it all in if I was going somewhere that people would swipe it without thought.
The coffee shop, though great, wasn’t in a really safe location.
Meaning, I couldn’t leave a thing in my car, no matter if I was sitting at a window booth within eyesight of it or not.
I’d just placed my coffee cup in my cup holder from the passenger side when a familiar voice called my name.
I nearly groaned.
I did squeeze my eyes tightly shut and prayed for patience.
When I was finished, I turned woodenly and stared at the man that had ruined my life all those months ago.
The man that I once thought would be my end game was now the villain in our story.
“What do you want, Rupert?” I asked quietly.
I was suddenly exhausted.
It wasn’t even seven in the morning yet, and already I was having to deal with bullshit.
Rupert’s bullshit was worse than actual bullshit, too.
I’d rather be mucking out stalls at the ranch with my bare hands and using my shirt as a bucket than dealing with Rupert.
Yet, there I was, having to deal with him.
“I want to talk to you,” he explained, stepping closer.
With nowhere else to go but into my Jeep itself, I stiffened.
“I don’t want to talk to you, that’s why I’m avoiding your calls, texts, emails, and LinkedIn messages,” I grumbled.
“I just want to talk to you. Explain,” he pleaded.
I was just opening my mouth to tell him where he could shove that explanation when I was lifted.
The gasp left my mouth, and my hands automatically went to the sweaty shoulders in front of me.
I looked down into a pair of navy-blue eyes.
Shasha.
Fuck.
“You scared me,” I said to him, not struggling at all.
“Sorry,” he said. “Thanks for agreeing to give me a ride to work.”
I opened my mouth to say “of course” but before I could, he kissed me.
Kissed. Me.
And, because I was a fool, I kissed him back.
A throat cleared somewhere behind me, but I didn’t stop from kissing Shasha until he’d stopped.
When I pulled away, I was gasping for breath and staring at him in shock.
His eyes were once again on my lips, and I felt a distinct bulge against my lower half where my legs were dangling.
He had one arm around my ass, one around my back, and he was still holding me so firm I had no hope of getting away unless he wanted me to.
With a change of position, he placed me on my butt in the passenger seat.
I held my breath as he reached over me, buckled my seat belt, and then ran his hand up the length of my thigh before backing away.
He watched me watch him, then reached into his pants and readjusted his hard cock—which I could see incredibly well in those thin, slightly wet with sweat, running shorts.
When he was far enough back, he rounded the Jeep and stopped dead in front of Rupert who I hadn’t realized was still there.
His eyes took him in from top to bottom before saying, “Leave her alone. Don’t go near her. Don’t call her. Stop following her around. Stop going to the places that you know she loves. She doesn’t want you anywhere near her.”
“You don’t get to decide where I go…” he started, but in that instant, Shasha was done.
“You’re wrong,” he said quietly. “I can decide. I did decide. Keep it up, and your job will be gone, too.”
“I doubt that,” Rupert replied smugly.
That’s when Sasha smiled.
“You think that you’re good,” Shasha replied after that terrifying smile fell off his face. “But you’re not.”
My heart was pounding as Shasha moved around Rupert’s body to head for the driver’s side.
He got in, started it up, then expertly drove away, making me realize that the man probably drove a standard better than I did.
He didn’t say a word as he pulled into the parking spot I usually used when I got to school.
He got out, turned, studied my face, then took off running.
The man’s ass in those shorts were divine.
And I wondered if he knew that he’d just taken off with my heart in his pocket.
“Who was that?”
Of course, I would run into Jolessa.
I ignored her and got out, grabbing my stuff from the back without opening the hatch, which then caused the tire to rub against my jeans.
I looked down and, sure enough, I had a black mark from the tire on my jeans.
Luckily, I was wearing dark wash, and you couldn’t tell all that much.
“Brecken, please.”
I turned to her, studied her face, and said, “Do you know what it feels like to get your heart ripped out of your chest, stomped on, and then kicked over the side of a cliff?”
Jolessa stopped, her mouth partially open.
“Because I do,” I explained. “I want you to leave me alone, Jolessa. Stop talking to me. Don’t look at me if you can help it. I have to heal this gaping wound inside of my chest where you used to be. And I can’t do that if I have to worry if you’ll talk to me that day or not.”
“Brecken…”
“No,” I imparted finally. “Not anymore, Jolessa. Not anymore. You don’t get that.”
I left, leaving her shocked face in my wake.
My smile was forced when I sat at my desk for my first class of students.
By the time eighth period rolled around, that smile wasn’t as forced.
Jolessa and Rupert had stayed away.
But I could see Rupert was only doing it because he wanted to act like he was giving me the space I needed.
It wouldn’t last.