Dakota Storm Page 28

  Shane smiled, standing up. “Damn bull about shoved my balls into my throat.”

  Big Mike laughed, nodding his head. “Know what that feels like. You going to ride in the rodeo the town's putting on?”

  Misty handed Shane a piece of cake and a fork. “Yeah. They haven't made it official yet though. I hear it's going to be the First Annual Garner Rodeo, benefiting the victims of the storm.” Shane turned to Misty. “Speaking of, I stopped by your parents’ house looking for Matt. You planning to sign up for the barrel racing event?”

  Misty frowned. “No. You know I haven't barrel raced since high school.”

  It was Shane's turn to frown. “You must be,” he said. “John just delivered Tracy's barrel racing horse to your barn. Where did a recent college graduate get the money to afford that? Holding out on us?”

  Oh shit. David knew where this was going, and it wasn’t anywhere good. Damn it all to hell. David had wanted to surprise her—alone. David cringed when Misty's face went blank and then crimson. Then she leveled a look at him that had him thinking if they ever did get married, she had the look down pat, and it wouldn’t take her years to develop it.

  When Misty didn't say anything, and the silence in the room threatened to become something more, he casually said, “I bought the horse for her.”

  Every pair of eyes in the room turned to stare at him.

  Well, that was one way to announce how serious things were getting.

  Misty had to count to two hundred to calm down.

  Conversation in the Buchanan household picked back up slowly. Mainly because Misty’s brother—who seemed slow on the uptake, but was actually smart and knew when to intervene—brought up how expensive Shane was when it came to his contracting company and mentioned just how much work Shane did on the house. Big Mike hadn’t seen those bills yet, and he asked his wife to go get him the receipts. That’s when she and David left without the others noticing.

  Once outside Misty didn’t hold back. “David, no. You need to take her back.”

  As they walked toward her truck, David threw up his hands. “John was supposed to deliver the horse to my place. I'll take care of her, but she'll be here for when you come home and whenever you want to ride her. I’m sorry he made the mistake, but I swear I meant to keep her at my place. I’ll move her tonight.”

  It was a sweet gesture, but it only it made her uncomfortable. They'd said they were going to take this relationship slow, and they'd already blown that to hell and back. Now he’d gone and bought her a horse. Again. Even after she’d declined his offer.

  The horse would mostly go unused instead of conditioned for what she’d been trained for. She remembered Get 'Er Done, the quarter horse she'd raced in high school. Matt had named the horse, and the name had stuck. That horse had itched to compete. Once in the arena, Misty, like most racers, had a hard time holding him back when he knew it was his time to compete.

  And now this horse would be set aside. Only used for when Misty came home?

  Talent wasted.

  Misty stopped by her truck and faced David. “We said we were going to take this slow. Instead, we've been going a hundred miles an hour in a thirty-five.”

  David hooked his thumbs in his jean’s pockets and glanced back at his parents’ house. “I think it's because we both know you're leaving. It's like we're trying to cram in all the things we want to do before you leave.” He looked down at the ground, looking more unsure of himself with every passing second. “Not that you're not coming back, but... There's going to be a lot of lonely nights in our future. A lot of FaceTime. This is different.”

  “How is it different? David, I have no plans on getting back in the arena, and that mare deserves to do what she was trained to do.”

  His chest expanded when he took in a long, deep breath. He blew it out and finally looked her straight in the eye. “You sold Get 'Er Done because you didn't want to remember the times we shared in the arena. You stopped doing a lot of things, Misty.” He shrugged. “By buying you that horse I'm trying to nudge you in that direction again, that's all.”

  No, he was trying to shove it down her throat, but she didn’t want to browbeat him about it. She’d caught the tension in his parents’ house, and she was beginning to see a little of what he dealt with growing up. Back in the dining room she could feel his stress as though it were her own.

  She took in a long, calming breath. “So we talk about the good old days over coffee. Reminisce when we're hanging out with friends. You don't buy a barrel racing horse and leave her to sit in a barn.”

  Shane and Matt came strolling out of the Buchanan's house. Matt was a good two or three inches taller than Shane, but Shane was so built the height difference didn’t take anything away from him. Misty quickly lowered her voice, not wanting the two to overhear what she and David were arguing about. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Matt called out to David. “You ready?”

  “Yep.” He stood in front of her with his hands on his hips. “I want you to ride her. We'll figure out what to do with her later. I have to go. Promised Matt I'd help him with a sprayer.”

  He didn't kiss her goodbye, and she realized she'd hurt his feelings by rejecting the horse a second time. She didn't rightly care at the moment. He wasn't accepting the fact that she was leaving, and he sure didn't trust her enough to share with her what had really gone down four years ago. But he'd told her brother and Caroline.

  Man, that really was eating her up. “Hey, give me a lift back to my parents’ place. I'm going to make sure the horse gets settled in,” she said, referring to the mare she didn't want.

  David stopped with his hand on the driver’s side door. “You want to drive?”

  “Naw. Shane and Matt can ride in the back.” Hers was a single cab Ford. She wasn’t about to cram in the cab with Shane and Matt.

  Matt bitched a little, but he and Shane crawled into the bed of the dirty truck and David took off. Neither said anything to one another on the short ride back to her parents’ ranch.

  After he dropped her off and she went to the barn, it took her less than an hour on the mare to prove David right.

  Misty took the turns at the barrels she’d put out with joyful accuracy. She needed some air. Needed some time to herself. The sun was just now setting, but the time seemed to have flown by. Matt, David, and Shane were all still working on a sprayer that wasn't running right. With the daylight quickly receding, she thought she'd give in to the desire to ride. How easily she had fallen back into the routine of riding when she was stressed.

  The craving she'd been feeling for years had been sated.

  She took the horse for another loop, aiming for the feel of the turns, the strength underneath her again. To experience something familiar in an unfamiliar world. Everything had changed so fast. Some for good, some for bad. But this? Riding had always calmed her like nothing else.

  When she was done with her run, she patted the horse on the neck, praising her.

  “Bitch! Seriously!”

  Misty damn near broke her neck when she swiveled in her saddle to face the crazed voice. A sharp sting settled on the right side of her neck. She tried rubbing it out. “Jesus, Abby, what is your problem?”

  Abby hopped onto the fence and sat on it. She was wearing a pair of denim shorts and a T-shirt that read, Who's your cowgirl? “You and David are living together? Why didn't you call me? Text me? I dunno...something?”

  Misty led the horse to Abby, who immediately put a hand under the horse’s snout, and was petting the horse within seconds. Why did it ever surprise her how fast news traveled in this town? She should be used to it by now. “I've been...busy, I guess.”

  Abby gave her a look that told her exactly what she thought Misty had been busy with. Misty rolled her eyes.

  Abby pointed at the horse. “He bought you a horse? Don't look at me like that, the whole town knows he bought you Tracy's horse. My question was rhetorical. Come. on. What are best friends for? Las
t I spoke y’all had just fought. What happened? Make-up sex? Something happened between that fight and him moving into the cabin with you. Don’t hold out. I must live vicariously through you.”

  Misty shrugged. “Well, I don't know where to start.”

  “Are you together, as in boyfriend/girlfriend, or are you just saving a horse?”

  Save a horse, ride a cowboy. Nice. She really did need to talk to a friend, and Abby was the only friend she’d ever told anything personal to. She really needed to get the thoughts in her head straight, and Abby was the one to bounce her thoughts off of. Abby always cut right through the BS.

  On one hand, she knew she wanted to walk down the aisle with David at some point, and on the other, she was afraid to get in too deep because she was leaving.

  David wouldn’t open up to her about his dad, and she couldn’t open up to him about how she truly felt. “Abby, I don't know what to do. I feel like I'm going to get my heart broken again. With David it's all or nothing, and everything happened so fast.”

  “Why?” Abby's expression turned deadly. “Did he say something to you to make you think that?”

  “No. Nothing like that. It's just... Well, I'm leaving for Rapid shortly. This relationship is too fresh. Too young. I don't think it will stand.” It felt so good to say the words out loud to someone. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest.

  Had that been the way David had felt when he’d spoken to Caroline? She imagined the two of them holed up in the old apartment building Caroline had grown up in, sipping a beer while he let her in on family secrets and got things off his chest. Misty did that with Abby from time to time, but what if she talked to David instead?

  Abby laughed. “Are you kidding me? Too young? You two have been hot for each other since you knew what hot was.” She slapped her hands together. “Speaking of hot, did y’all?”

  “Did we what?”

  Abby wiggled her perfectly sculpted brows.

  “My God, Abby, is that all you think about?”

  Abby screwed up her face. “Um...yeah?”

  Misty rolled her eyes, but Abby's obnoxious smile was contagious. Misty's mind flipped back to the night before, and well, she definitely couldn't hide that damned goofy smile she'd been wearing from time to time.

  “Well, that's a yes!” Abby clapped her hands like a four-year-old. “Okay, come on, spill it like you mean it.”

  Chapter 24

  Matt and Shane wanted to talk to Big Mike a little more, so David left them at his parents’ house and headed back to the Evan’s ranch to pick Misty up. The sun had set a while ago, but he knew she was still at her parents’. At least she hadn’t texted him and told him otherwise.

  When she'd texted him earlier and apologized, he’d texted her back and quickly offered his own apology for buying that horse. Then she told him that she was going to ride the mare, and all the stress from their argument earlier had melted away. His mood had lifted considerably after that.

  He, Matt and Shane had fixed a busted hydraulic line on the sprayer, easy enough for any one of them to handle on their own, and thank God for that, because he wanted to get back to Misty. Spending time with her was quickly becoming his drug of choice.

  When he'd walked into the house he’d quickly told his dad about the work they’d done on the sprayer, politely declined his mother's offer of a salad for dinner, and headed out in Misty’s truck, since his was still parked at her place.

  What would it feel like when she was gone? Wishing he could be around her every waking moment? The rank thought settled deep inside his chest and planted an ache there. He had to find a way to keep her in Garner. He couldn’t leave the farm right now. If his dad hadn’t had a heart attack, David very well might have gone with her to Rapid. But his father’s health overshadowed everything right now, including his own desires.

  Being with Misty again reminded him why he’d fallen in love with her in the first place. She had a good heart, a sense of humor, and they shared the same morals. Hell, he loved everything about her. Her eyes, her hair, and even her attitude—when it wasn’t directed at him.

  When he pulled into her parents’ driveway, he sat in the truck for a minute trying to think up a way to break that contract she had. She’d admitted she wanted to work on a ranch. Well, what better ranch than his? Hell, if they stuck together, that ranch could be theirs someday. He'd talked to his father over the phone while Matt and Shane had been working on the sprayer, and Big Mike had said he wanted to relinquish the books to David. His father wanted to retire and spend more time with Mom.

  Perfect. David never thought his dad would consider him competent enough to take over, but that damn storm and his dad's heart attack had given him the opportunity to show Big Mike exactly how competent he was. What if Misty worked the ranch with him until she could find a job that was closer? The arrangement wouldn’t last forever. She’d find a teaching job soon enough. The idea seemed like a win/win to him.

  David rubbed his jaw and felt oil there from the busted hydraulic line. “Damn,” he muttered, pulling down the visor to check his reflection in the mirror. A piece of paper fell into his lap. It was yellow and had been folded several times. It didn’t look particularly old though. Curious, he opened it. He clicked on the light above his head and couldn't quite believe what he saw.

  A pro and con list...of him and Brandon?

  For a second, he looked away from the paper and focused on the lights on the barn that was a ways from the house. Misty must still be riding, because there were lights on, and her father was usually in the house by now.

  He blew out a breath. Aside from the list being slightly childish to his way of thinking, he felt like an asshole as he held the list in his dirty hand, like he was about to read Misty’s diary—because he was going to read it. How could he not read a list of attributes she found in him and Brandon? He had often wondered how close she and Brandon had become. Not physically, since he knew the shitty answer to that, but emotionally. This was his chance to find out. She'd smiled at Brandon at the fair in such a way that it had nearly broken him, but after the tornado she'd hardly glanced at him.

  When Brandon had come to the Roadhouse with his date, she hadn't seemed affected at all, other than the way she’d checked the girl out. But if you were with someone for as long as those two had been together, how could you not have feelings for them on some level?

  He’d never taken Misty as a fickle girl.

  He kicked his morals out of the truck and looked back down at the words scribbled in front of him. The paper shook as he read it, which was slightly ironic. He could hold a weapon with accuracy against an enemy of the United States, but he couldn’t seem to steady his hand while holding a piece of paper that compared him to another man. He wondered what Dr. Phil would say about that. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.

  Under Brandon's name were the words sweet, good-looking, considerate, stable, intelligent, and stuck around after we had sex. Christ. Nothing like a slap in the face when you weren’t expecting it. You didn’t have to have a high IQ to read between the lines there. Seemed she thought very highly of Brandon and didn’t write down any cons on his pro and con list.

  On the other side of the paper, under David’s name was hawt, ex-Marine, tattoos, hardworking, and a word that had been written but then scratched out so thoroughly the paper had ripped. Damn. His heart felt the same way as he gazed down at the list—as though the words he looked down on ripped the walls of that hallow place inside his chest cavity.

  He held the paper closer to his face. There were only six or seven lines through the scratched-out word. He smoothed the rip down as best he could to try to read the word that had been written.

  Loyal. The word loyal had been mutilated.

  When had Misty written this? Last week? A month ago? He sat back in the driver's seat and took a deep breath. He'd thought she'd forgiven him, but apparently she hadn’t. Why had she even broken up with Brandon considering Brand
on had kicked his ass in this pro and con list?

  He glanced back down at the list. His gaze kept landing on the word that had been pen-slashed. Absolutely destroyed. Is this what she thought of him? Just that he was better looking? He leaned in the seat to get closer to the light to get a better look at the handwriting. The words hawt, hardworking, ex-Marine... None of those words were in Misty’s handwriting. Brandon's list of attributes was, but not his.

  Abby.

  He nodded his head with a sad smile on his face. He could tell their handwriting apart because of all the years spent in school together. Hell, they’d learned how to write their ABCs sitting side by side. Abby had written everything down on his side, and Misty had written all the good things about Brandon. Looked like Abby had been on his side, but damn, hadn't she had anything else to say about him?

  This had to have been before Misty had broken up with Brandon. Perhaps just like Matt, Abby had been trying to play matchmaker. Looked like Misty had been having none of it. She must not have thought much about him at the time, but had clearly thought the world of Brandon. Why had she ever ended it with him, then? Certainly not because David was merely hawt.

  She'd finally managed to make him feel exactly like his dad had all those years. Like he meant nothing. Didn't matter what he did when it came to her, she found him lacking.

  Folding the piece of paper and placing it back into the visor, he shook off the vise that had tightened around his insides and opened the door of the truck. He shouldn't have looked at the paper. It was her business, and he'd had no right to pry. Besides, she must have changed her mind since writing that list, because she’d clearly chosen him over Brandon.

  Realizing that should take some of the sting out of that list, but it didn’t. Not really.

  As he made his way to the sound of voices and laughter, he wondered if they ever should have crossed that line she'd made. And moved. And moved again. Eventually demolished. They'd gone from zero to a hundred in a few short days. And this just after she'd broken up with Brandon. Maybe Matt was right, and they shouldn't have hooked up so quickly after she'd ended a long relationship.