Lost and Found (11 page)

Done with that, Neil dropped back down in his chair and dove into his eggs. Everyone else did the same.

I just stood there, trying to figure out what had just happened. Jesse had almost gone full-on Hulk in front of me. He’d become a person I didn’t recognize. He’d looked ready to strangle another person for two dozen witnesses to see.

It was a series of messed up things. But the most messed up thing I couldn’t get out of my head were those two words from Garth’s mouth:
Jesse’s girlfriend.

Jesse had a girlfriend. He’d just asked me out on a date. The phrase
What the hell?
came to mind.

“Hey,” Lily nudged up beside you. “You okay?”

The answer was a firm, resounding
no,
so I went with a half-hearted shrug.

“What was that about? The last time I saw Jesse angry was when I took a black Sharpie to his cowboy hat when I was in preschool.”

So his surge of anger was as out-of-character as I suspected. Whatever bad blood flowed between him and Garth ran deep.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Testosterone overload? Those tight jeans were cutting the blood off to their brains? Men as a whole are reverting back to their monkey origins?” I could go on, but right then, I wanted to forget the whole thing and get through the rest of breakfast. “I don’t know, but I do know one thing—it’s a waste of time trying to figure out the male brain since most of them are lacking one.”

Lily laughed softly. “I’ve had my suspicions the whole time.”

“That’s because you’re a smart girl.” I retrieved the empty coffee pot and headed to refill it. Almost all of the cups I’d filled less than five minutes ago were empty. Cowboys drank more coffee than beings of a mortal quality should be able to handle.

A couple minutes later, everyone had settled back into their breakfasts, and I made sure to stay busy. I was like a squirrel in fall, bustling about the kitchen, moving from one task to the next seamlessly. Against all odds, I managed not to spill, break, or drop anything else. I started to wonder if my body had been invaded by some alien being, and then my gaze landed on Garth. He sat at the table, ignoring his meal, ignoring everyone else . . . except me. His eyes followed me with the kind of intensity that made it hard to determine if I was the predator or the prey.

As soon as my eyes met his, that dark smile of his moved into place. I tripped over my own feet. Thankfully I wasn’t carrying anything or it would have been a goner.

After that, I didn’t look at Garth again, but I still felt his eyes on me. Every move I made, I was aware of him watching me.

By the end of breakfast, I was certain of what I was to him: the prey.

It excited me as much as it alarmed me.

For all the prep and work that went into it, the actual consumption of breakfast was a quick deal. In addition to be champion coffee chuggers, cowboys could pound down some serious grub. We’re talking a half dozen pancakes, a slab of ham, and a plate-sized portion of scrambled eggs each. What would have taken me a year to get through had just been consumed there that morning.

Once we’d all eaten, the table was cleared, the dishes washed, and everything laid out for lunch, Rose set us free. Well, kind of free. The girls had school work to get to. I gave them a sympathetic smile as they headed into the living room with their pencils and calculators.

Since I had yet to explore any more of Willow Springs than the house, I decided to head outside for a little fresh air. I grabbed my sketchbook and favorite pencil just in case I found anything I just had to draw, tucked them inside of my oversized purse, and headed outside. The weather had taken a turn and the early morning air had enough of a chill I wished I had my trusty black hoodie.

The giant red barn loomed in front of me like it could swallow me whole. When the reminder of the big reveal at breakfast raced to the forefront of my mind again, I kind of wished it would. A bunch of guys had lied to me about their relationship status. More guys than I could count. That wasn’t what I was upset about. The lies I’d come to expect. What I was upset about was that I hadn’t expected it from Jesse. I’d lowered my guard around him because my subconscious had been fooled into believing he was different. Jesse Walker, golden cowboy whose dimples alone could unnerve a girl, couldn’t possibly be hiding a girlfriend like the rest of them.

But he had been. The whole time. In all our conversations, our flirty banter, our asinine question game, and when he’d asked me out . . . never once had a certain Josie come up. Even though I’d only known Jesse a few days, his betrayal cut deeply.

I wandered into the barn and tried to push all thoughts of betrayal, girlfriends, and Jesse Walker out of my mind. I was done pretending there might or ever could be something special between us.

The barn was as huge from the inside as it was from the outside. It had a grassy, tangy smell right between pleasant and offensive. I couldn’t decide. As I passed a stack of bags taller and wider than I was, I saw what Jesse had been heaving out of his truck: feed grain.

The barn had a never ending number of stalls, an unbelievably tall tower of hay bales, and only about a million different tools, buckets, hoses, and thingamajigs hanging on the walls. The only tool I was familiar with was the row of shovels. Everything else I would have been at a loss with.

I was almost to the end of the barn when a wheel barrow bounced out of the last stall on the right. Followed by a certain cowboy I really wasn’t in the mood to see. His trademark dark smile and predatory eyes went into position as soon as he noticed me.

“Well, if this isn’t the damn pleasantest surprise I’ve had all week,” Garth said, parking the wheelbarrow outside the stall before walking my way. Actually, it was more of a saunter. Garth Black had a serious saunter as unapologetic as the way he stared at me.

Damn, the guy was so my type everything inside me tightened in anticipation. At the same time, I also knew “my type” had gotten me a whole lotta nowhere in the past.

“It
is
a surprise,” I said, crossing my arms.

The skin between his brows came together. He was thrown by my lack of warm welcome. Cocky bastard. I wanted to ignore him that much more.

“You don’t like me,” he guessed, stopping a few feet in front of me. His black hat was tilted low on his forehead, making his eyes dark as onyx.

I lifted a shoulder. “I just met you. Not liking you would assume I’ve actually spent time thinking about you. Which I haven’t.” I wondered if that ever present curl to Garth’s mouth could be ironed out.

“You’re about as good a liar as you are pretending you’re not attracted to me.”

My mouth almost dropped. He wasn’t just a cocky bastard. He was the cockiest bastard to have ever sauntered the earth.

“Are you always this full of yourself or just today?”

Garth’s smile curled higher. “Always.”

Of course he was. “And where does this full-of-one-self attitude come from?” I asked, crossing my arms tighter.

“Experience.”

Garth infuriated me, but a thrill of excitement rushed through me at the same time. I didn’t know what it was about that kind of guy, who thought they were next in line to rule the world, that appealed to me, but the desire ran deep. So deep I doubted I could root it out even if I wanted to. Which, while Garth held me with his stare and smile, I didn’t want to.

But I had enough experience with that kind of guy to know one didn’t keep their attention by falling into their traps on the first day. They craved the chase, the anticipation of the kill. Guys like Garth were the ultimate predator.

“You know, I don’t live all that far from here if you’re ever bored and looking for something to do,” he said, resting his hands on his belt buckle.

I huffed. “You mean if I’m ever looking for some
one
to do?”

“That depends on your answer to that.”

I really regretted my decision to explore the grounds, especially with the way Garth’s thumb made those slow circles over that belt buckle of his. I wasn’t sure if he did it to draw my attention to his junk, or he just liked having a hand as close to it as was acceptable in public, but it definitely had something to do with the junk.

“My answer is no,” I said. “Any day. Every day. It will be no.”

Garth’s twisted smile didn’t falter. “It’s always no until it’s yes. And I’ve never met a no I couldn’t turn into a yes.”

“Well, you’re looking at your first no that’s going to stay a no.”
Oh, and by the way, that ego of yours is sucking the air right out of the room.

He slid his hat off and lowered it at his side. His hair was as dark as his eyes, maybe a shade darker, but still not as dark as his smile. I’d never met a person who so exactly fit their last name. His eyes flashed, and at that moment, I was fairly certain if he sauntered up to me, grabbed me in his arms and kissed me deep and hard, I would have kissed him back. And he knew it.

“We’ll see,” he said with a wink.

I gave myself an imaginary slap to the face and waited to reply until I was sure I wouldn’t come off sounding like a befuddled schoolgirl. It took longer than I thought.

“I’m going to leave you to your cow shit,” I curled my nose at the wheelbarrow, “and ego. Not enough room for anything else with that head of yours in here.” I was halfway down the barn when Garth spoke up.

“Going after Jesse?”

I bristled and stopped in my tracks. “No. I’m planning on staying as far away from Jesse as Willow Springs will allow.”

“Glad to hear it. I know the outcome to a girl like you chasing after a guy like Jesse Walker. And it isn’t a pretty one.”

I closed my eyes. I knew that. Even with a girlfriend he’d lied to me about, Jesse was still ten levels above me on the dating scale. Nothing I’d done or would do could ever be worthy of the likes of Jesse, even on his worst day, which, after today, may have been it.

I was heading for the entrance when Garth spoke up again. “What are you doing Saturday night?”

I paused. I knew better than to answer, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Nothing.”

“Ever been to a rodeo?”

I almost snapped back
Does it look like I have?
when I remembered I wasn’t in my usual attire. As far as I knew, Garth didn’t know anything about me except what he’d seen after he arrived that morning.

When I didn’t reply, I heard him move closer. “You want to come watch me at one?” There wasn’t one note of doubt in his question.

Twisting around, I narrowed my eyes. “Does it look like I do?” The question was rhetorical, but Garth didn’t take it that way.

“Yeah,” he answered. “It sure does.”

I hated it like I couldn’t have hated anything more, but he was right.

I never knew being surrounded by a couple of hot guys would be such a chore. After that week, I knew better.

The day in and day out chores at Willow Springs kept me busy from dawn to dusk, but it didn’t seem to matter how busy I was or looked. Almost every time I turned around, I ran into Garth. Or Jesse. I literally couldn’t escape them.

With Garth, I rolled my eyes, threw something snarky at him, and was back on my merry chore way. He still looked at me like he was just waiting for me to trip his trap, but I knew guys like him. I’d dated legions of them. His mysterious aura combined with his troubled vibe might have scared off other girls, but not me. Troubled and mysterious was my Kryptonite. My Achilles’ heel. My weak spot. My specialty.

With Jesse, it was harder. Infinitely so. Bumping into him around the ranch wasn’t so easy to shrug off because whenever I came within a foot of Jesse, my body went on high alert. Every molecule zinged to life. I tried to brush it off, like being around him didn’t undo me, but I doubted I did a very good job.

He’d tried to corner me that same day, to explain the whole Josie thing, but I basically told him enough had been explained and to leave me alone. He did.

And he didn’t.

Just when I was sure Jesse had forgotten my name, I’d find him watching me in the middle of lunch. As soon as I’d look his way, his gaze would shift.

After a few days, though, I didn’t catch Jesse staring at me once. He’d taken my advice after all.

It was Saturday night, and the ranch was quiet. Other than the cattle mooing, the crickets chirping, the noise coming from the ranch hand bunkhouse, and the washing machines whirring a floor below me. So, yeah. Quiet wasn’t the right word for it, but it was as quiet as Willow Springs ever could be.

It was rodeo night, and I guessed around those parts, that was a big deal. Like Texas football big deal. Most everyone had already headed out. Rose had stopped by my room to see if I wanted to go and needed a ride. I told her I wasn’t sure if I was going yet and that I was sure I could find a ride if I decided to go. I didn’t like telling Rose a white lie, two of them at that, but I didn’t want to take the chance of finding myself crammed next to Jesse in the family Suburban.

From the sounds of it, the rodeo fairgrounds weren’t far away. I’d hoofed it plenty of times in my life.

I watched the Walkers’ Suburban head down the driveway before grabbing my purse and heading downstairs. I checked my phone and found the same missed calls I’d been missing all week. Not that I was missing much.