28. Bull

28

Bull

Maybe I just didn’t understand women.

I was out at the ranch, stripped to the waist and riding a fine, fast stallion, helping the owner chase down a troublesome steer. Exactly the kind of thing I did well. But I couldn’t enjoy it as I normally would. I kept thinking of Lily, alone in that bus.

Lily, with her hair like silk and her lips like goddamn satin pillows. Lily, with those full, bountiful breasts and pale, curving thighs that I’d still only seen in my imagination. So smart and so sure of herself, so proud of all she’d accomplished—

Proud?

Aw, hell. The lasso fell from my hand and I pulled my horse up short.

I’d gone and offended her, hadn’t I? That’s why she’d blown up at me. I’d been worried about her and angry at her for putting herself in danger, and she’d taken it as criticizing her. And then I’d made it worse with that crack about her single bed. All I’d meant was that her damn secrecy had stopped us getting together for the whole time she’d been living in Texas. If I hadn’t saved her from the bull, we might never have met.

Maybe I should apologize. But I still couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t tell me about her past.

“Hey!” the owner bawled at me. “You gonna rope that steer or what?”

I looked up. Confused by the fact I’d stopped chasing it, the steer had stopped too and was frowning at me as if to say, “ Are we doing this or are we not doing this?”

“Sorry,” I mumbled to the owner. I retrieved the lasso and tossed it over the steer’s head with a quick flick of my wrist. The steer snorted as if to say, “ About time!”

There. Simple. Why did women have to be so damn complicated?