The One Girl Read online

Paying special attention to both of her lips individually, I took my time and made the room fade away. My tongue touched just the tip of hers, but I could feel her shiver as a result. While I wasn’t opposed to public displays of affection, I knew I might just take it too far if I let it go on too much longer, so I wrapped things up with a kiss to the very corner of her mouth.

  After enjoying that really nice kiss from my woman, I pulled back to see Kayla in Cade’s lap and women with disappointed faces all around. They were all hoping to be the one randomly lucky woman that he chose to pay attention to that night, and Kayla had apparently shot their chances straight to hell.

  The last bull rider had just gone, things were coming to a close, and Cade had scored a 93, so it looked like he was going to win.

  That wasn’t much of a surprise. Cade was naturally talented, converted that raw talent into skilled talent, and was truly good at what he did. And had been for many years. He was getting older and would probably fall off of his peak soon, but for now, he was the best around.

  He spoke softly to Kayla as he said, “Looks like I gotta go claim the win, baby. We’ll celebrate it together later, though.”

  Jesus Christ, that shit actually worked? I couldn’t believe I probably used to use somewhat similar lines on women not too long ago and actually ended up getting some. I guess some women liked to be treated that way, even if they knew it was a farce constructed solely to get one night of pleasure.

  Kayla scooted off of his lap as she looked up at him from underneath her eyelashes, playing the perfect coy but willing woman.

  Well, I’ll be damned. It seemed as though maybe she was playing the game on him just as much as he was on her. A match made in casual sex heaven.

  I shouldn’t be all that surprised. Kayla was brazen, but she wasn’t stupid.

  Cade took in my face as he shuffled past me and, as a result, let out a low, throaty chuckle. He seemed to know exactly what I was thinking. “Yep, this used to be you, man.”

  Yep. He definitely knew what I was thinking.

  Instead of taking the long way around, the way he had taken to get up here, he ran down the stairs and jumped over the fencing at the bottom, right into the arena. It looked like it should have hurt, but I guess when you ride bulls for a living, your body can take a whole lot of beatings without much complaint.

  The announcer spotted him and started right into the spiel as if Cade’s actions were planned. “Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls, here’s your winner now, Coleman Cade!”

  As the announcer continued to talk, Talie tipped her face toward me and murmured, “His eyes are two different colors. Even I’ve got to admit, that’s pretty damn cool.”

  It was really cool, but I liked being the guy she thought had the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen, so I sought to discredit its coolness. “It’s a genetic mutation, you know.”

  She giggled as she pressed her lips to mine and spoke with her mouth right there. “Aw, honey. Don’t worry. Your eyes are still my favorite.”

  Kayla shoved her way into our conversation and our space with absolutely no regard for the fact that we may have been having a moment. It was nothing but typical, and I had to smile.

  “Sorry Hotman, but you may have just been demoted to Cade’s Robin.”

  I shook my head, pulled Talie into my lap, and muttered, “Harsh, honey. But somehow, I think I’ll survive.”

  She groused under her breath as she pulled back from us to slide back into her seat, “Yeah, yeah. I get it. I’m not the opinion that counts with you. Blah, blah, blah. Yackity schmackity.”

  Talie shook her head in disbelief before looking at me and querying, “She sure is a smartass, isn’t she?” I chuckled as she carried on, “I don’t know, I remember her being nicer when we were kids.”

  “A smartass is better than a dumb one, Babe.”

  Cade popped up from behind me and concluded, “True fuckin’ story.”

  Sweet Jesus, I hadn’t even noticed him coming back or his glory ending down below, for that matter.

  Kayla had moved on from us quickly and was busy having some sort of intricate conversation with Jace and Ruthie, so he stayed there and talked to us.

  Reaching around me and grabbing Talie’s hand, he voiced, “I’m lookin’ forward to gettin’ to know you, Sweetheart.”

  Talie rolled her eyes at the same time that I barked out a low, growly, “Cade!”

  Raising both of his hands in a defensive position, but letting a smirk stay on his face, he corrected himself. “I mean in the boring, platonic, completely reasonable way that Tuck would approve of.”

  Skepticism coated my face, but Talie chose to take him seriously. “Okay. Tell me one thing about yourself that I should know, that other people don’t usually bother to ask you.”

  His playful grin slipped slowly from his face, and it was replaced by a look of surprise as his brain registered the seriousness of her question. “Well, I have a son. He’s fourteen, almost fifteen. Had him when I was seventeen, and soon as he was out, his mom took off. I don’t get to spend much time with him while I’m out here on the circuit, but he’s a good kid.”

  A beautiful, radiant smile took over Talie’s face. As Cade took it in, he went on to mention, “Don’t usually tell people all that. Then again, like you said, they don’t normally ask.”

  “That was a good answer, and as a result, I like you Cade. As for not talking about it regularly, you should talk to the kind of people who would care enough to ask these kind of questions more often.”

  Respect was stark on his face as he turned to me and said in a low, serious voice, “One day, I hope I find it, Tuck. And I hope to God, I’m as lucky as you.”

  Talie didn’t know what he meant, but I, as had become our routine, squeezed her thigh to keep her from talking.

  He cleared his throat before going on to whisper, “Do me a favor? Apologize to Kayla for me. Sorry to run out on you, but I think I’m gonna try to make it home tonight. I’ll be sure to come see you soon.”

  I gave him a quick, “You got it, man,” before he was up, turned around, and gone.

  If I hadn’t already respected Cade before, I sure as hell would now. It may have taken Talie to give him a wake up call, but it didn’t take him long to make the right decision by foregoing time with some random woman to head home and see his son instead.

  The next thing I heard was Talie blowing out a strangled puff of air, followed by an extremely exasperated, “Well, shit. Kayla is really going to give me hell for ruining this one for her.”

  I had no doubt that she was right about that, but I tried to offer her comfort even if it was false.

  “I’m sure she’ll get over it, Babe.”

  Her eyebrows shot to her hairline as she enunciated every word that she spoke. “Tuck. He’s a bull rider with two different colored eyes. And I talked him into not spending the night with her, but going home instead. I’m screwed. I’ll be lucky if she lets this go anytime in the next century.”

  ********

  Boy was Talie right. Kayla gave her hell from the time she found out Cade was missing to the time we left her to go to sleep that night. Non-fucking-stop.

  I guess at some point we were going to have to find some way to make it up to her, since technically we did give him the idea to leave, but she was also going to have to get over it. I had told her that on the way home after listening to her drone on and on for a couple of hours about it. “Kayla! Fuckin’ relax. It was the right decision for him, a decision he made by the way. And it’s not like we cost you your soulmate. He was gonna be a good fuck, that’s it.”

  It may have been harsh, and it didn’t actually stop her grumblings, but it did make them quieter. All I could hear were the words, “Definitely not fucking Hotman”, “I could use a good fuck”, and “Tuck thinks Cade fucks well” mingled in with a whole bunch of incoherent mumbles.

  Talie, ultimate defender of all other people, normally would have taken up for her when I snapped,
but I had the feeling she had been called a bitch one too many times to be in a particularly helpful mood.

  Now we were home, in bed, it was the middle of the night, and I was awake after dreaming about Jenny. Again.

  This dream took place when we were older, around twenty or so, and Drew had just started coming around and showing interest in her.

  ********

  “Oh my God, Tuck, Drew asked me out!”

  I wasn’t sure my feelings were completely in line with hers. “Just be careful, Winnie. There’s something about him that I haven’t figured out yet. Seems like there might be somethin’ more hidden underneath his top layer.” I had the feeling there was a latent asshole in there.

  She rolled her eyes and giggled, “Oh, Tuck. You’re just used to guys being jerks and having to be protective. Drew is so sweet to me.”

  That was what I was worried about. He had turned into a really good sweet talker, and I had seen other personality traits in him previously. And by previously, I mean all of our lives.

  “Just be careful, Jen.”

  She smiled and threw her arms around my waist, her head tipping back to look me in the eyes. “Don’t worry, Tuck. I have you to look out for me. You won’t let anything happen.”

  ********

  God, what a joke that was. I felt like someone was playing a sadistic joke on me, making me relive all of these moments, taunting the fact that I didn’t keep her safe in front of me.

  Covering my face with my hands, a quiet growl rumbled deep in my throat.

  Talie felt me stirring and grumbling, an activity that was becoming way too routine, and woke up again. By the look on her face, it was clear she was done letting this go.

  “Tuck, this has to stop. I get that maybe you don’t want to talk to me about it, but please, talk to somebody. I’m sure Jace would listen.”

  I gave her a look, but she held up her hand. “Look I know you men aren’t keen on sharing your feelings and all that, but just try it. The man I fell for didn’t have permanent purple circles under his eyes and a heavy feeling in his chest.”

  She paused for a second and then finished, “Okay, so he had some heavy feelings in his chest, but they didn’t overwhelm him and they certainly weren’t keeping him up at night.”

  God, she was right. I had let this shit eat at me for years until she had come along. Now with her here, I had finally let myself feel peace, but I was letting it all go to hell because of a phone call and a voice on a fucking voicemail message.

  However, I absolutely did not want to put this on her. “I’ll talk to Jace.”

  She looked satisfied, but there was a tinge of disappointment that lingered, likely because I wasn’t confiding in her. I hoped she knew I trusted her more than anyone and that this wasn’t about not trusting her.

  Instead of using words to make my point, I used actions. I don’t know that they said exactly what I would have said with words, but I was pretty sure they said good things. Three times.

  Chapter 9

  Guy Talk

  I had managed to put off talking about the dreams for another week after Talie had laid down the law.

  Hmm. Procrastination. Talie had mentioned I was rubbing off on her, but perhaps she was also rubbing off on me.

  I was still having the dreams and suffering the lack of sleep as a result, and she was starting to get seriously aggravated. She said she was going to stop ‘giving away the milk for free’ if I didn’t talk to someone. I told her that I was pretty sure she wasn’t using that saying in the way that it was intended, but all that did was make her look like she wanted to punch me in the throat.

  God, she was cute.

  I also still hadn’t given her the ring yet, and I was convinced that if I hadn’t already been losing sleep from my neuroses, I would have been from my inability to complete that one simple task.

  Right. Simple. Planning something romantic but not cheesy was kin to laying naked on a bed of nails if you ask me. I was good with the day to day stuff, but I had never tried to do anything so meaningful before.

  Since I had to help Jace with some cow work today, I figured I’d kill two birds, if you will, and talk to him about everything that was on my mind while I was here.

  I was on my horse, Sonny, and Jace was on his, Pivot, and we were moving his herd of cattle onto a different piece of his property. He rotated the cattle through different areas because they helped to keep the soil more fertile for his crop growth, and they were more useful in certain areas at certain times.

  Sonny was a sorrel with a blaze on his face, and Pivot was a light dapple gray. It was funny to watch them work cattle together because they couldn’t have been more opposite in looks, but their actions mimicked each other almost perfectly. Their movement was graceful and perfectly timed to one another, almost as if they were in each other’s head.

  The reins were centered in my hand with one trailing end coming down each of Sonny’s sides. His muscles were loose between my legs and he reacted to any amount of slight leg pressure from me. Half of his actions were directed by me, but half came from his innate cow-sense. Sonny was the best cow horse I had, and besides that, held a special place in my heart as my favorite horse.

  He was one of the last colts born under my father’s watch, and after my dad died, I made it my responsibility to break him, train him, and see that he reached his full potential. It might sound crazy, but it was like Sonny looked at me and remembered my father. And when I looked at him, the same thing happened to me.

  My father would have known exactly what to plan for giving Talie her engagement ring. He was the ultimate romantic, at least when it came to my mom. He had told me once that he used to be a ‘playboy’ with no goals other than getting as much ‘tail’ as he could. To look at him with my mom, you would never know it.

  God willing, that was the kind of relationship I would be able to establish and maintain with Talie. But hopefully, God, hopefully, we would be able to enjoy it for a lot longer than my parents did. They had thirty-one years, but I guarantee if you had asked my dad, he’d tell you it had only felt like a day.

  Coming out of my thoughts, I noticed that we were coming up on the herd of cattle, and I had better start paying attention if I didn’t want to end up in a heap on the ground with a mouth full of dirt.

  Jace cut to the left with Pivot to gather the straggling cows and calves on that side while I went to the right.

  As I rode, I came up on a couple of calves, and I immediately recognized that one was the calf I had helped rescue a while back by the tear in its ear. As I rode around them, positioning Sonny right at the shoulder of the back calf, I pushed them toward the rest of the herd and leaned down to see if I could see the scar on the right hind leg of the littler one.

  I got a good look at it, and it seemed to be healing nicely, though I was sure Jace had been keeping an eye on it without my help.

  I pushed them the rest of the way to the herd, and then turned and finished picking up the rest of the stragglers using much the same technique.

  When we couldn’t find anymore, Jace did a quick count and saw that we did indeed have the entire herd gathered.

  We both took positions at the back of the herd to push them as a whole entity, occasionally doing sweeps out to the sides when they got a little too spaced out.

  I figured it was now or never; If I was ever going to talk, I may as well do it now.

  “Jace, you mind if we talk?”

  Fuck me. Men didn’t ask other men shit like that. This was ridiculous, and Jace gave me a look that said he thought the same thing.

  “Alright, look. Talie’s on my back, and probably rightfully so.”

  Now I had him intrigued, and his face reflected that.

  “I haven’t been sleepin’ well, as you can probably tell. At least, that’s what I would guess, since Kayla tells me I look like shit just about everyday.”

  Jace burst out laughing at that, shook his head, and murmured, “Kayla. She’s funny.
”

  Yeah, yeah. She was fucking hilarious.

  “So anyway I wake up every night, and that in turn wakes Talie up. I haven’t wanted to pile more shit on top of the shit she’s already got goin’ on, so I haven’t told her anything.”

  Jace’s face was serious again, and he looked to be listening sincerely.

  “So I’ve been dreamin’ about Jenny. I found something in a box of my parents’ stuff that’s had me thinkin’ about her ever since.”

  His face shown with understanding so I knew I had to get to the point. “I know that seems natural along with the grief I have to go through, Man, but there’s more. I’ve also been feelin’ some pretty strong paranoia, like someone’s watchin’ me.”

  His face was both intense and curious now, so I answered what would be my question if I were him.

  “I’ve been checkin’ out everywhere I go, always searchin’ with my eyes, lookin’ for what might be the culprit, but I always come up empty. It’s drivin’ me crazy.”

  I paused to take a breath and then finished, “And to top it all off, I also took my mom’s engagement ring outta that box, and I’ve been holdin’ onto the ring to give to Talie ever since. I just can’t seem to come up with a good way to do it.”

  Jace chuckled before running his fingers through his hair and then donning out his wisdom through his answers to my many conundrums. “Okay. Way I see it, the dreams are part of your natural grief cycle. You held it in for a long time and you got your memory sparked by whatever you saw in your parents’ stuff. You had started to let your girl heal you before Drew came back, so I suggest you set about lettin’ her do it again.”

  That seemed like better advice than I would have come up with, so I let it sink in.

  “Second, you’re probably feelin’ eyes on yourself and the paranoia because you feel like you got somethin’ extra special to protect now. You’re not just lookin’ out for you anymore and that’s takin’ a toll on you. Especially when you feel like you didn’t save your sister, and Talie’s trouble lurks just around the corner.”

  I figured that by that he meant that Drew was back in town and it had my senses heightened, which did seem pretty logical. The last time I had tried to protect somebody (and actually that last time I had also been trying to protect somebody from Drew), it had blown up in my face, and I ended up losing her.