Ride: A Bad Boy Romance (3 page)

The second I hear her voice, I know
exactly
who she is.

I can’t help but grin.

“Miss Guthrie,” I say, taking her hand in mine. “Welcome to the Pioneer Days Rodeo. I’m Jackson.”

She’s got a firm handshake and a steely, don’t-take-no-shit look in her eyes.

“Thank you,” she says, her voice stiff and a little formal. “But it’s just Mae.”

“Sure thing,” I say. I hold onto her hand for another moment before I let it go.

I’d bet fifty bucks she remembers
me
. She’s got her hackles up the way women do when they unexpectedly run into someone they’re embarrassed about, like she’s praying that I don’t tell our entire breakfast table the story of our little tryst.

It’s been years. That’s why it took me a minute to remember who she was, but as soon as she spoke up I remembered that voice saying
Come on, Jackson
right into my ear in the bed of my pickup truck.

Hell, I
still
think about that night sometimes, and I’ve got plenty of other nights to choose from.

“Take a load off and sit down,” Wayne says, and the three of us scoot in around the big circular booth.

Mae flicks her eyes nervously at the seat next to Wayne, but Bruce is already lowering himself into it with a sigh, like he’s got bad knees, so I pat the cushion next to me.

“Come on, I don’t bite,” I say. “Not unless you ask real nice.”

Darlene shoots me a glare before turning up the wattage on her smile.

“Sookie’s has got the best flapjacks this side of Oklahoma City,” she says brightly. “You two must be hungry after that long flight. How far
is
it from New York City?”

“It’s about four hours,” Bruce says. “We managed to get a direct flight, so it wasn’t too bad.”

They keep chatting, so I turn my head and look at Mae, who’s studying the menu like there’s gonna be a quiz.

“Where you from, Miss Guthrie?” I ask.

“Mae,” she says, not taking her eyes off the menu.

“Well then, where you from,
Mae
?” I ask.

“I live in Brooklyn,” she says, not exactly answering my question.

“You like New York City?” I ask, leaning back in the booth and letting my eyes run down her body for just a moment.

“I do sometimes,” she says, her eyes still on the menu. “Other times it’s cold, crowded, and the people are rude.”

“Sounds like it’s the second time right now,” I say.

“You’re not wrong,” she says, and then sighs, leaning her head on her hand on the table. “Do you know the difference between a flapjack and a pancake?”

“I don’t think there is one, and I’m nearly an expert on diners,” I say.

“Nearly,” she says, and her blue eyes get a glimmer to them. “What, are you one credit shy of your degree?”

“I never
was
much for school,” I say.

“Not even if the class is on bacon?” she asks.

I laugh.

“I damn near failed out of kindergarten,” I say. “That’s nothing but ABC’s and 1-2-3’s. You know how hard that is to fail?”

“You seem like you’ve learned them now,” she says, and the sentence has the slightest hint of a lilt to it, like she’s keeping the lid tight on an accent that’s clamoring to get out.

“By the skin of my teeth,” I say, taking another sip of coffee. “I got myself a reputation for making teachers cry by the time I was eight years old.”

“You made a grown woman cry when you were eight years old?” she asks.

Now she’s leaning back in the booth, her blue eyes smiling at me, and I’d almost swear to God she’s
flirting
.

“That was just the first time,” I say, grinning at her. “Ain’t you done your research? I’m a heartbreaker.”

Just then, the waitress steps up to our table and sets down coffee in front of Mae and Bruce.

But for just a moment Mae keeps on looking at me, those sky-blue eyes unreadable, before she turns and orders flapjacks.

Somewhere, deep down inside me, I feel a twinge.

I
don’t think
he remembers.

I can’t quite tell, but I don’t
think
so. He’s not acting like someone who remembers... well,
that
. He’s definitely flirting with me, but from what I’ve read, that’s Jackson Cody’s default setting.

But there’s no hint of recognition, no
don’t I know you from somewhere
look in his eyes, and even though I’m definitely relieved, I’m also the tiniest bit disappointed.

After all, I remembered him for
years
. I spent the drive from the airport to here psyching myself up for seeing him again.

Even so, the moment I saw him my heart hitched in my chest.

Jackson Cody looks almost
exactly
the same as he did when he was nineteen and I was eighteen. Same tall frame, same wide shoulders, muscles hard from a life of farm work.

Same dark brown hair that never quite lies down, same cocky grin, same square jawline, like he’s a movie cowboy.

Same hazel eyes, somewhere between green and brown, the color of forested mountains on a rainy day.

Good thing I know better than to fall for it again.

As soon as the waitress walks away, the older man at the table — Dwayne? Wayne? I think it was Wayne — puts his beefy hands on top of the table and looks around at us.

“Well, y’all, I’m pleased as punch that
Sports Weekly
is covering our little rodeo,” he says, his accent getting a little more folksy.

I raise my eyebrows a millimeter. Oklahoma Pioneer Days isn’t
little
, but I recognize that characteristic down-home humbleness, that way that country people sometimes have of waving away their accomplishments.

“Darlene, have you got the schedules?” he asks.

Darlene pulls a file folder out of a bag and passes out glossy pamphlets to Bruce and me.

“Now, you can’t attend everything,” Wayne says. “But I thought you might like to go over this and we’ll work out what you two ought to prioritize.”

“Besides bull riding,” Jackson says. “That’s a given.”

I want to roll my eyes at his cocky grin, but he’s right. We
are
here because he’s poised to become the greatest rodeo champion of all time, at least if he wins this and competes in the finals this December.

“Right,” Wayne says, and then starts going over the whole schedule in excruciating detail with Bruce, who has a million questions.

I try to pay attention, but my brain feels like it keeps slipping out of gear. I’ve been up for thirty-six hours straight.

This job is huge.
Sports Weekly
is huge. If I do it well, I’ll never be taking pictures of a mall Santa again — but first, I have to not screw this up.

The problem is Jackson Cody. Even though I promised myself we’d be strictly professional, it’s been five minutes and we’re already flirting.

It’s five days
, I tell myself.
Just keep it together for five days
.

How hard can it be?

* * *

“
Y
ou
sure
nobody’s gonna
find us up here?” I ask, stumbling out of Christy’s truck.

“It’s Derrick’s brother’s boss’s land, and he don’t care if we use it,” she answers, hopping out of the driver’s side. “Come
on
, Lula-Mae. Be bad for once in your life.”

I look at the near-empty bottle of peach-flavored Boone’s Farm wine in my hand.

How did that get almost-gone?

My brain feels blurry, like there’s a time delay between what’s happening and when I figure it out.

“Lula, come
on
,” Christy says, laughing and coming back toward me. “You ain’t gonna get in trouble.”

“Am I drunk?” I ask her, still standing there.

We’re both wearing tank tops and cut-off shorts, and there’s a raging bonfire in the clearing ahead of us, pickup trucks and thirty-packs of beer circled around it. It seems like half my high school graduating class is here, too, and for a moment, I wonder how long they’ve been congregating up here to get drunk.

I’ve
definitely never been invited before.

Christy just laughs at me.

“If you’ve gotta ask, you’re not drunk enough,” she says. “Come on, I thought you liked that stuff.”

“It’s like alcohol
candy
,” I say. “I
love
it.”

I take another long swig, then follow her toward the bonfire.

It’s a couple weeks after high school graduation, and suddenly, nothing I do has the same consequences that it used to. There’s no more tests to fail, no more papers to write, no more teachers to please.

I’ve got a full ride to the University of Texas at Austin in the fall, but until then?

I’m
free
.

I take another drink of the peach wine. It tastes like sugar, alcohol, and freedom.

Christy’s got a beer in her hand now and the two of us are walking around, me still clutching this wine bottle. I can hear people whispering
it’s Lula-Mae
, but I’m way too drunk to care.

“Christy!” a man’s voice shouts, and we turn toward him. Christy looks him up and down.

“Buck, I didn’t know you were back in town,” she says.

Even drunk in the firelight, I can tell Christy is blushing.

“Sure am,” he says. “There’s a rodeo over in Odessa this weekend so I figured I’d come by and see my folks.”

Buck’s a year older than us, and he quit school in the middle of his senior year to ride rodeo full-time. I thought he was a total idiot, but Christy disagreed.

He was never my type, but I’ve heard her sing his praises
endlessly
, like he was Jesus Christ himself come down to earth.

“It’s great that you’re still ridin’,” she says, taking a long pull of her beer.

“I’ll keep ridin’ for as long as I can get on a bull,” he says, and grins his cocky, swaggering grin at her.

Christy looks like she goes weak in the knees, and I roll my eyes, too drunk to be subtle.

Then someone else is behind him. The new guy claps Buck on the shoulder, leaning over the other man toward us.

“You ladies know Buck?” he asks, a grin on his face.

It’s a
really
handsome face.

I clutch my wine bottle harder. I feel myself turn ten colors. My mouth goes dry and my guts pretty much turn themselves inside out, and for a second I have the crazy urge to just run away.

There aren’t a lot of new people in Lawton, Texas. When there are, they’re
never
hot men my age.

This guy is.

Not only is he hot, he’s looking at me in a way that boys don’t look at me. He’s got this intense expression on his face, like he doesn’t know that I’m Lula-Mae Guthrie, valedictorian, National Honor Society Member, captain of the debate team, and card-carrying Good Girl.

I feel weird. I feel like there’s a spotlight on me.

Suddenly, I realize what feels like when someone undresses you with their eyes.

I look down at the ground and heat floods through me, pooling between my legs.

Oh gosh
, I think.
Is this because I’m drunk?

This has gotta be because I’m drunk.

“I’m Jackson,” he says, holding out one hand, still staring me straight in the eyes.

My insides feel like spaghetti, but if spaghetti was alive and angry.

“I’m Lula-Mae,” I say, my voice coming out breathless. “I’m here.”

I meant to say something like
I go to the high school where Buck went,
but it didn’t work. I snap my mouth shut.

Jackson just laughs.

“I’m here too,” he says, his hazel eyes twinkling.

“Jackson’s been traveling the circuit with me,” Buck says. “I dragged him here for the weekend so my mom could feed him her biscuits and gravy.”

“Ain’t they good?” Christy asks.

I take the opportunity to drink more peach wine, trying to drown the angry spaghetti in my stomach. Christy talks to them for a minute, but mostly she talks to Buck, and then before I know it her hand’s on his arm and she’s giggling and then they’re walking away, leaving me standing here with Buck’s super-hot friend.

Jackson just whistles as they walk away.

“Never seen Buck be a ladies’ man before,” he says to me.

I roll my eyes, and everything swims.

“She’s got it
bad
for him,” I say. “Christy’s my best friend but sometimes I think if I have to hear Buck’s name one more time I might just smack her upside the head.”

He just laughs.

“I’ve never heard him so much as say her name,” he says, looking after them again.

Then he shrugs.

“Maybe don’t tell her that,” he says.

“My mouth is... locked?” I say, the wine preventing me from getting the saying right.

He laughs and lifts a beer to his mouth, taking a couple long swallows as I try to think of what to say next. I’ve probably got a couple seconds before he heads off to find someone else.

Guys like him don’t talk to dorks like
me
. They want fun girls like Christy.

“So, you ride rodeo with Buck?” I finally say.

“Sure do,” he says. “Little bit of everything, but bull riding is my main event.”

I gasp involuntarily, like an old lady or a little kid.

“That’s
dangerous
,” I say. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll fall off or get gored or something?”

Any other time, I’d be less impressed, but this bottle of wine is almost gone and so is my better judgement.

Jackson grins and tucks his thumb into his belt.

“The danger’s what makes it fun,” he says.

I get a little warmer between the legs.

“Really?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says. “Every second up there, it’s just you versus this raw force of nature, you knowin’ that at any second it could toss you off and crush you like a bug, and all you’ve got to do is make sure that don’t happen.”

He winks at me.

“It’s a hell of a rush, Lula-Mae. Come by the rodeo this weekend and I’ll give you a lesson.”

I laugh.

“It’ll be a cold day in hell first,” I say.

Suddenly I realize two things: one, my wine bottle is empty, and two, he’s gotten closer.

“I bet you’d make a pretty good rider,” he says, grinning down at me.

I drop the wine bottle, and it makes a dull thunk on the ground.

“What makes you say that?” I ask.

“You move right,” he says, and puts one hand on my hips.

Part of me wants to step away and resist what’s happening. That’s the part of me that’s an honor student, the part that color-codes homework assignments in her planner.

A much bigger part of me wants me to stay right there, and that part is drunk for the first time and thinks that once,
just once
, maybe I should have some fun with a hot cowboy whose last name I don’t even know.

“How do I move?” I ask. “Like I’m hard to shake off?”

“You walk real fluid,” he says, and puts his other hand on my hips, then wiggles them a little bit.

Now I’m
aching
and looking up at him. I’ve had a boyfriend before and we did
stuff
, but it never made me feel like this.

“You gotta move easy and go with the flow to be a good rider,” Jackson says, his hazel eyes smiling down at me. “Stay loose and keep your balance but be in control. It’s all in the hips,” he says.

He winks at me.

“How do you know what I walk like,” I say. “I ain’t moved since I came over here.”

“I watched you walk in,” he says. “I watched you and I thought to myself, that girl oughta
ride
.”

I narrow my eyes. I can practically hear my mother saying
Lula-Mae, you know boys only want one thing, so keep your legs shut
.

Momma never covered what to do if I want the exact same thing.

“Do girls even ride bulls?” I ask.

“Not most girls,” he says. “But I got the feeling you ain’t most girls.”

He bends down and kisses me, right there in front of the fire. My head swirls with the alcohol and for a moment I nearly lose my balance and fall over but then he’s got his arm around me, keeping me upright, and my hands are on his chest.

Underneath his t-shirt he’s pure muscle, and I run my hands down it as he opens his mouth against mine, the ache inside me deepening. He tastes like beer, but I couldn’t care less.

When I finally surface, I glance around, but no one’s looking at me. Half of them are making out and the other half are dead drunk.

“I got my pickup here,” he says. “You wanna go sit down?”

I nod breathlessly and follow him. We stop by a twenty-four pack and he cracks a beer and hands it to me. I can feel my classmates watching as I follow him back to his truck.

They’re probably wondering what on earth
he
is doing with
Lula-Mae
, of all people.

Let them wonder.

He’s got a blanket and a few cushions in the bed of his truck, and we climb in and lean against the cab, the glass cool against my back in the hot night.

“You just graduated, right?” he asks.

His hand is on my bare leg.