Ride Me Cowboy #2 (The Cowboy Romance Series - Book #2) (3 page)

I went up to my room trying to get away from Mark. How
dare
he
take advantage of me while I was drunk, act as
if I would be stupid enough to tell out parents, and then act like he had some
right to ask me about my personal business? I was fuming when my phone rang. I
didn’t even look at the face of it as I answered.

“Hello!”

“Whoa! Who pissed in your Cheerios?” It was
Samantha, my best friend.

“Hey, Sam!
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”

“What’s going on? I just called to see how things
are going, but it doesn’t sound good.”

“Oh,
it’s
fine…I guess.
This place is just out in the middle of nowhere, and I hate it.”

I sat in the window seat and brooded as I talked.

“Is her husband a creep?”

“No,” I laughed. “He’s actually pretty nice. It’s
just so different here. I went to a rodeo yesterday.”

Now she laughed.
“A rodeo?
Really?
What was it like?
A lot of cute
cowboys?”

One in particular.
Oh
Jeez
, there I go again! I had no idea what I was
going to do. First of all, I couldn’t believe that I slept with him. My stepbrother!
That’s just…gross. But the memories of last night are starting to come through
– the kiss in the bar and the way he touched me…Not gross at all…Ugh! I’m
sitting here getting turned on by it while telling myself how gross it is at
the same time. What is wrong with me? Maybe there’s really nothing wrong with
me. After all, it’s not
like
I slept with my brother, or
any other blood relative for that matter. I didn’t know Mark until I got here,
and I was attracted to him before I found out that he was my stepbrother. Maybe
there’s nothing wrong with that. I thought about asking Sam what she thought,
but then that “ick” factor came into play again.

“It was…unlike anything I’ve done before. It was fun,
though. I actually kind of got into it. My stepbrother is a bull rider.”

“Your stepbrother?
He’s a cowboy? What does he look like?” Samantha has a cowboy fetish. That’s
what I should have done instead of sleeping with him. I should have introduced
the two of them.

“He’s…okay.” Why didn’t I tell her how hot he is?
Was I really worried that my best friend would want to steal away my stepbrother?
Ick.

I wanted to believe that I really didn’t want him,
but if I was being honest, the only thing that kept me from going for it is my
mom. She’s finally happy, and she deserves to be happy. She’s made so many
sacrifices in her life. I’m not going to screw that up for her.

“What else have you been up to out there?” Samantha
asked me.

“Mark and I went to a little bar here in town last
night and hung out, played darts, shot some pool…” Then we got really drunk and
fucked in a barn. Ugh! I was trying hard to act nonchalant and flippant about
it
not only to myself, but him
on the way home. My
attitude hadn’t seemed to faze him at all. Nothing seemed to upset or rile him.
It almost made me madder this morning when I wanted to fight with him. I wanted
him to fight back. No matter how much I insulted him, he found humor in it.

I wish that I could be like that. I let everything
get to me and then I stew over it all. If I
was
at
home in the city and trying to avoid a guy, it would be a lot easier. Here, it
was going to be practically impossible. I was living with the guy and Mom and
Mark’s dad will expect us to have meals together as a family and who knows what
else.

“That sounds like fun. I’ll have to meet this stepbrother
of yours. He sounds intriguing.”

Intriguing he was, to say the least. I looked back
out the window and there he was. He was bringing his horse out of the barn. I
ducked behind the curtain so that he couldn’t see me, but I didn’t move. I
watched him saddle the horse, and I watched him strip down to his undershirt,
and I watched his muscles ripple as he climbed up on its back and ride off. I
sighed. I was going to have to do my best to avoid him no matter what. My
hormones went crazy just at the sight of him.

“Maybe I can come back to the city this weekend and
we can have lunch or dinner or something?” I told Sam.

“Will the hot cowboy stepbrother be coming, too?”

I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say he was hot.”

“Well of course not…he’s your brother. That would
just be wrong.” Ugh!

******

Mark was already gone before I got up the next day,
thankfully. I found Mom in the kitchen doing dishes.

“Where did everyone go?” I asked as I poured myself
a cup of coffee.

“Rob and Mark went out to move some cattle. They
leave at dawn when they do that. They probably won’t be back until early
evening. I felt bad for poor Mark. I don’t think Rob warned him. He just
drug
him out of bed first thing.”

“Oh. What are you going to do today?”

 
“I was going
to go into town to do some shopping. Would you like to go with me?”

I would like to do anything to get out of here for a
while. “Sure, that sounds great. Do you mind if we take my car? I miss driving
her.”

My mom laughed. “I’m sorry, honey. We have to go by
the feed store to pick some things up for Rob. I don’t think your pretty little
car can handle it.”
The feed store?
Who is this woman?

“Oh, okay.” I was disappointed, but
like
I said, just getting off the ranch will be good. It’ll
give me a chance to spend some time alone with Mom, and I’ll be away from the
ranch so that when Mark comes back, I won’t have to try and find ways to avoid
him. I did find it weird that my mother was running errands to the feed
store…it was very unlike her.

We took Rob’s big white Dodge Dually to town. It was
funny to see my mother climb behind the wheel of the massive four-wheel drive vehicle.
She seemed to be adjusting to life out here quickly. I never would have
imagined it. When we got out of the dust cloud that followed us from the house
out to the main road, I said “Are you happy, Mom?”

She smiled. “I am happy. I really like it out here.
The pace is so much slower than in the city and there’s not all of that
competition to see who has the nicer car or the bigger apartment. I got a
little tired of all of that.” I noticed that she talked about the place, but
she didn’t mention her marriage.

“I’m glad you’re happy here. What about Rob? Are you
happy with him, too?”

She looked pensive for a minute and then said, “I
am. He’s moody and he’s not as good to his son as I wish that he would be…but
he’s good to me. He doesn’t tell me no about anything and he’s sensitive to my
feelings and needs. It’s a good marriage. I think he and I both made the right
choice. Now that I’m older, social status and all of that aren’t anywhere near
as important as just being happy.”

I heard “happy,” and that was good. But I still
didn’t hear “love” there. I guess maybe when you’re older “love” doesn’t play
as big of a role as it does when you’re twenty-something. She said that she’s
happy and she seems like she is, so that’s all good. “What about Mark? You seem
to get along well with him.” I had to ask. I need her opinion of him.

“Yeah, I do. I like him. He’s a good kid. His father
is really hard on him sometimes, and I feel bad because he tries so hard.”

“He tries what?”

“He tries to make his father proud of him. Rob is so
wrapped up in the fact that Mark wants to do his rodeo stuff instead of staying
put and being a rancher that he can’t see beyond that. When Mark is home on the
ranch, he works as hard as or harder than any one of the hands. Rob doesn’t pay
enough attention or he could see that kid loves this land as much as he does. When
he’s not at the ranch and he’s out on the circuit, I don’t doubt that he’s
working just as hard. But, the difference is that he’s having fun doing it and
that’s important. I don’t believe you have to do something you’re miserable
doing in order to make a good living. You remember that when you decide to
choose your major and your career. It’s going to be a lot easier if you choose
something you love.”

“Like your piano playing?”
I got nostalgic as I said that. She used to play for me all the time. I missed
that.

She smiled. “Yes, like that. I never got rich and
famous, but I always loved my job. That makes it easier to go to work every
day. I tried explaining that to Rob about Mark, but he didn’t want to hear it.
I think Rob just had this idea in his head his whole life that Mark was going
to want to follow in his footsteps and run this ranch. He was disappointed when
he told him that he didn’t, which is understandable because Rob thinks of it as
a legacy that he built for his family and Mark is his only child. But I don’t
think he should hold the fact that it’s just not what Mark wants against him.
That’s just completely unfair.”

It sounded to me like she and Rob had discussed this
before and maybe even heatedly. Mom had some strong opinions about how people
should treat their own children, with good reason, though. She had seen her
share of bad parenting in her life. She’d had to speak up then, and I doubted
that she was afraid to speak up now.

“It’s funny, because he seems proud of him when I
hear him talk. Like at the rodeo when he was talking to people about Mark’s
ride.”

“I’m afraid he’s able to communicate how he feels
better to everyone else,” Mom said. I thought about how hard that must be on
Mark since Rob was his only parent.

“Well, maybe you being here will be good for them
both then,” I told her. She was really good at conflict resolution. Some people
were just born with it, I think.

When we got to town, I was surprised to see that although
it was small, it seemed to have everything a person might need. I saw
restaurants and fast food places, a post office, and a large grocery store.
There were a lot of sporting goods stores and a big mill where Mom said they
made feed from corn.

We went to the grocery store first. Everyone there
said hello to Mom by name. When she introduced me, they were all so nice and
welcomed me into town. I can see why she likes it here, I guess. I would get
bored in under a week, but I suppose my mother’s days of wanting to go out and
do things were mostly over, anyways. Then we went to the boutique where they
sold everything a country girl could need to create a wardrobe. I was going to
buy myself a skirt.

“I’d like to buy you some things…”

“Mom, you already do enough. I have plenty of
clothes.”

“I know, but I can afford it and I want to do it.
There were a lot of times when you were growing up that I couldn’t splurge on
you. I could barely afford the necessities. Pick a few things out. I want you
to be comfortable here.” By the time we got out of there, my mother had bought
me three bags full of things.

We stopped at the bakery, and she picked up some
croissants that she said Mark really liked. It was sweet how she included him
in everything, but that was
her
. She was one of the
most loving, kind people in the world and she would do whatever it took to make
me happy. I owed her the same courtesy. I was definitely going to stay away
from Mark. She didn’t need that kind of drama in her life.

Lastly, we went to the feed store. They knew her
there, as well.

“Good morning, Lydia!” The lady at the front desk
greeted her.

“Good morning, Stacey. This is my daughter, Lexi.”

Stacey looked surprised. Mom and I were used to
that. As far as looks go, our hair and eye and even skin tone were at opposite
ends of the spectrum.
“Nice to meet you, Lexi.
Will
you be in town long?”

Not unless I become suicidal. “I’m staying for the
summer,” I told her. “I go back to school in August.”

“Well I hope you have a good time in our little
town. It’s small, but the folks are really nice and it really has a lot going
for it.”

I smiled. I doubted that this town had much of
anything going for it, but I wasn’t going to tell Stacey that. “I’m sure I
will,” I told her. “Thank you.”

After Mom paid Stacey for her “usual,” the feed was
loaded into the truck by a couple of guys on the docks. Mom checked to make
sure it was
alright
and when she saw that it was, we
loaded up and headed back out to the ranch.

CHAPTER
SIX

MARK

Lexi stayed locked in her room the rest of Sunday,
and on Monday morning, Dad and I went to round up some calves out of the back
pasture. That took most of the day and it was a long one. The work was a
welcome relief to piddling around on the ranch, but Dad was in another one of
his moods. He didn’t really talk to me at all the entire
day,
he just barked orders when he needed to. We stopped at one point to eat out
lunch and I tried to make conversation with him. He closed his eyes and leaned
his head against a tree, completely ignoring me. When we finished herding the
calves up to the front pasture, we cooled down and stripped the horses and put
them away. When we got to the house around seven p.m., Lydia was waiting for us
with dinner. She said that she and Lexi had gone to town and she’d brought back
chicken and all of the trimmings from the café. She’d even stopped by the
bakery and bought some of my favorite croissants. I hope my Dad knows how lucky
he is, but I doubt it. In his mind, he just deserves everything good that
happens to him.