Chapter 11 #2
“I did,” I say softly, since there’s no chance she’ll hear me through the closed window. But I nod and smile, feeling slightly surer about this.
She climbs off, letting the horse nibble on grass as she opens the gate, then spastically waves a hand to guide me through. Once I’m on the other side, she closes it and hops back on the horse. I follow her down the long dirt driveway, parking in front of a two-story house.
This is Bobby’s house, I think excitedly.
I want to explore every nook and cranny, study each room to see what makes him tick and what created this man who has stolen my heart. But Shayanne doesn’t lead me to the house, instead flagging me over to her.
I approach the horse slowly, having never been around them before.
“C’mere, girl. He won’t bite ya. Promise,” she reassures me as though she’s not sitting astride a one-thousand-pound animal with a mind and will of its own.
I get a bit closer, step by step, holding out my hand like you do with an unfamiliar dog to let the horse sniff me. He snorts, scaring me, and I jump a bit. “Ah!”
Shayanne laughs, patting the horse’s neck. “You really are a city girl, ain’t ya?”
I glare back and her grin widens. Getting a little more comfortable since the horse hasn’t bitten my hand, I work up to gently rubbing his nose. Snout? Muzzle? I don’t know the proper terminology, but it’s soft as velvet under my fingertips.
“Can I take his picture?” I whisper, not wanting to spook the animal.
With no such worries, Shayanne says, “Hell, yeah. He’d love to be your model.”
I grab my camera bag from the passenger seat of the car, throwing it easily over one shoulder and letting it hang on the opposite hip to take my baby out. Holding it up to my eye, I find the horse through the lens, framing the shot that I want.
Click.
Adjust and do it again. And then again.
As though he heard Shayanne’s prediction, he holds still and lets me snap away as many shots as I want. I even switch to my phone for a few so that I can do a quick post online of the shadowed contrast leading to his beautiful eyes which stare me down.
“All right, let’s get this show on the road. I can’t wait to see Bobby’s reaction, not George’s,” Shay says with another pat of the horse’s neck. “Actually, I’m guessing if you’ve never seen a horse, you might not be ready to ride yet. Let me put him in the barn and we’ll take the Gator.”
I have no idea why she’d have an alligator here or how that’s supposed to be better than a horse, but she’s gone toward the barn before I can ask.
She reappears a moment later on a big golf cart on steroids, pulling up to wave me inside.
I climb in, and she takes off like a bullet, seeming to know exactly where she’s going.
The rolling land gives way to a horizon of crops and trees. Getting closer, I can see two large silhouettes breaking the even spacing of the tree trunks. Bobby and Brutal.
Shayanne stops the Gator, and I get out. As soon as I’m clear of the vehicle, one of the silhouettes starts moving my way. Shayanne was excited to see me here, but Bobby is literally running toward me.
“Willow?” he shouts. “You’re here!” He scoops me up in his arms, spinning me around in a circle and squeezing a laugh out of me.
Putting my feet back on the ground, he asks, “What are you doing here?”
I have that moment of doubt, but the light in his dark eyes burns it away in a flash. “Shay said it would be a good surprise and promised me pictures of the goats.”
He rumbles, promising, “You can take pictures of any damn thing you want to.”
He hasn’t let go of me, his arms still wrapped around my waist tightly as if he’s checking to make sure I’m real. I can feel his heart pounding with excitement beneath my palms as he presses his forehead to mine, breathing me in like I’m his oxygen.
Shayanne jumps in, breaking our sexy stare down to threaten, “I might have to hold you to that. But she’s mine first because I had the balls to invite her out, unlike some people.” Her fingers grip around my arm and pull me to her side like I’m a toy they’re fighting over.
Bobby growls at Shayanne, “Fuck that.”
I can’t help but laugh at his reaction, teasing dryly, “Yeah, I’m totally just here for the goats.
That’s the only reason.” I give him a head to toe check, taking in the sweaty hair sticking out of his ballcap, the dirty shirt and jeans that are molded to him like a second skin, and that white smile amid the scruff I want to rub against like a cat with a scratching post.
“Yeah, she likes your ugly face too, for some reason,” Shay taunts with an eye roll. “But goats first, asshole brothers second.” She holds up one finger for the goats, but instead of a second for Bobby, she just points at him.
“Fine, the goats are cute, I guess. But don’t leave, okay?
” He seems genuinely concerned that I might disappear into thin air, and I realize that my being here means something to him the same way it does to me.
We’ve gotten so close, intimate, really, but it’s mostly been within the confines of Hank’s—never at my place, and never at his.
How can that be for someone I’m this in tune with?
I feel like I would be able to pinpoint him in a crowd, my heart drawn to him like a magnet.
“You might have to call Chief Gibson to get me out of here now that I’m past the gate,” I threaten with a smile.
He shakes his head, pinning me in place with a heated look. “Never.”
Shay pulls my arm again. “Okay, loverboy. Enough for now. We’re going up to see the goats.”
“Not Baarbara,” he warns, and Shay rolls her eyes in a solid ‘duh’ response.
She nearly shoves me back into the Gator and pulls away, spinning the tires in the grass.
“I figure we have about thirty minutes before he comes sniffing around again, so we’ll have to cut short the tour of Tannen Farm and stick with just the goats.
” Talking to herself more than me, she adds, “He’d probably kill me if I went anywhere else, anyway.
” But there’s an evil little glint in her eye that makes it seem like she’d like to see Bobby try.
In the pen, we’re instantly surrounded by baaing goats of every color and size. They go for Shay, and she scratches behind their ears, so I follow her lead. “Keep your camera up high or they’ll take it right out of your hands.”
I do as she suggests but ultimately go a step further and set my bag outside the gate in favor of focusing on the adorable animals. The goats aren’t nearly as scary as George was, mostly because of their smaller size.
Before long, I’m sitting in the dirt with a small, brown-spotted goat in my lap, petting its wiry hair and smiling wide. “Look, Shay. It’s licking me,” I whisper, delighted.
I look up to find her snapping a picture of me with her phone.
I’m not used to that, never the subject of my own photography beyond a hand here or a leg there.
Once or twice, I’ve shown a snippet of my face, basically a close-up of my eye so that I stay anonymous.
But Shayanne is taking a full-frame shot of me and little Trollie.
I look down shyly, but Trollie chooses that moment to lick my face.
“Ah!” I shout, laughing as I look up so that his tongue swipes along my chin rather than French kissing me.
“Got it!” she exclaims. “That’s gonna be a good one, I bet. Well, not that I bet. No gambling allowed.” She’s mimicking a lower voice, presumably one of her brothers. At my lifted brow, she asks, “You haven’t heard about our dad? Hell, girl, what rock have you been living under?”
I confess, “All I know is Unc said your dad put you through the wringer, but you all seem okay to me.”
She laughs, plopping ungracefully to the dirt next to me. “We do seem okay, but most folks do on the outside. It’s the inside that’s all twisted up like a ball of baling wire.”
That’s actually really insightful, especially for something delivered so off-handedly and casually. I eye Shayanne with new appreciation. “So you’re not okay?” I ask gently, not sure if I’m getting too close to dangerous territory.
She shrugs, but I see that she’s picking at a ragged spot on her cuticle. “We are now, for the most part. But how you grow up, it shapes you. I reckon you mostly want to know about Bobby, so here’s what I’ll tell you—”
I wave a hand, not wanting to push her. “You don’t have to say anything.”
She ignores me. “Yes, I do. I think it’s good for you to know, and fuck knows, he ain’t gonna tell you shit unless he’s singing it in a song.
” She throws another eye roll, something that seems to be a habit.
“Bobby was right on the edge of greatness, has always been too good for this place. You ever heard the expression about roses needing fancy soil, but dandelions just pop right up through the concrete whether you want them to or not?”
I nod, getting what she’s saying even if I haven’t heard the phrase.
“Bobby’s like a rose that decided concrete was good enough for him.
And not just any old rose, but like one of those fancy heirloom ones that have to be cultivated from generational stock and cared for better than a newborn baby.
He’s like one of those that decided pit gravel was just fine.
He blooms, and it’s pretty as can be, but it ain’t right and we all know it.
” She looks around, but I can tell she’s seeing something other than the goats and fence around us.
“But he’s a hold-on-er. He lost so much—Mom, Dad, his chance at the life he wanted, the farm.
So now he holds on to everything with both hands and an iron will, even if it suffocates the tar out it.
He damn near killed Brutal that way one time, just hanging on so tight, trying to protect him with everything he had. He and Brutal had it out.”
“Who won?” I can’t imagine a battle between the two brothers. One, they seem so close, and two, their reputations as fighters definitely precedes them.