Cowboy Crush : A Small Town, Enemies-to-Lovers YA Romance (Sweet Oak Teen Ranch Book 1)

by Lacy Andersen

  I tilted my head to one side and glared at him, even though deep down inside, I couldn’t help but be impressed. The complete audacity of him. “What makes you think I can get you out of here?”

  “Aren’t you the sheriff’s daughter? If you can’t, who can?”

  I narrowed my eyes, wondering what the best course of action was. It was true, I did kind of owe him. And it wasn’t like the gazebo couldn’t be fixed with a couple new coats of paint. After everything that had gone wrong this evening, maybe it was better to end on a positive note.

  At least someone got to have some luck tonight.

  “Fine. I’ll call my dad and see what I can do.” I slipped off the desk and headed toward the exit. Turning back toward him, I grimaced and then did my best to push away my stubbornness. It was time to pay up. “And...thank you for saving my life tonight. I’m glad I’m not just a skid mark on Main Street right now.”

  He shrugged, the mask totally back in place once again. “Whatever.”

  Right. I had to remind myself that the cowboy didn’t care much about anything. After all, he was the one who painted no one cares on the gazebo in glaring red paint. I pasted on a smile and nodded to him before pushing through the doors to the main office area.

  He might have saved my life, but after I called my dad, Graham McGrady and I were officially even. I wouldn’t have to think about him ever again after tonight.

  But that didn’t solve my other problems. Taking the flyer out of my back pocket, I walked toward the bulletin board at the front of the station and found the perfect place to pin it up. Tomorrow, I’d post the rest of them around town. I was missing a cameraman and an entire town block of people were depending on me to help save their homes. If I didn’t get moving, many of the people my mom had served as a cop on these streets would be pushed out of their houses with nothing.

  I’d made a promise to my mom that I’d always fight for the underdog.

  No matter what, I intended on keeping that promise.

  Chapter Three

  Graham

  The world looked a lot better on this side of the cell bars.

  And best of all—it seemed like no one had a clue about what went down last night.

  Cassidy had kept her promise. About an hour after she left, Deputy Trip came back in and told me he was taking me home. No explanation. Not even a lecture. He dropped me off at the ranch while everyone was tucked up in bed. I’d slipped back into the house and up to my bed before anyone had the chance to notice.

  Of course, life would’ve been even better if I’d actually had a chance to bust free from this boring town. I wouldn’t have been sitting in the back row of Mr. Mercer’s first period English Lit class, trying and failing to keep my eyelids open during a class discussion about our latest assignment on yet another boring essay.

  “Miss Redmond, what did you think the yellow wallpaper reveals about our main character?” Mr. Mercer suddenly asked.

  Instantly, I was awake and staring at the back of the girl sitting three rows in front of me in a pink t-shirt and jeans. Cassidy had piled her yellow hair into a messy sort of bun on the top of her head, with curls falling down. She fiddled slightly with a dangly earring, turning her head just enough for me to see her biting thoughtfully on her bottom lip.

  I’d been surprised last night to know she remembered we had a class together. I’d known other girls like Cassidy Redmond. Goody-two-shoes types that didn’t pay an ounce of attention to the misfits and rejects like me. But Cassidy actually knew my name. That fact alone was enough to make me nervous. If she knew my name and what I was, that meant she could spill the secret about what went down last night. Which meant word might get back to the ranch.

  That was the last thing I needed right now.

  “I think that the yellow wallpaper was a metaphor for the main character’s mental illness,” Cassidy said hesitantly, still fiddling with her earring. “The more it came alive, the deeper the protagonist was sinking into her illness. But really, it was all happening in her head.”

  “Very good.” Mr. Mercer nodded approvingly and then the bell rang. The whole class started shuffling their crap into their bags as he pointed at the board. “Don’t forget your essays are due on Wednesday,” he said over the noise.

  I shouldered my backpack and quickly made my way up the aisle. Cassidy was talking to the redheaded girl that usually sat next to her—I was pretty sure her name was Hannah. Cassidy laughed at something Hannah said and flashed her set of perfectly whitened and straight teeth.

  Everything about her was like that. Perfectly in place. I couldn’t help running my tongue over my bottom teeth, finding the spot where my two front ones overlapped. Maybe they weren’t perfectly straight, but at least I had all of them. I’d been in enough fights that a few of them could’ve easily become casualties.

  “Hey,” I said gruffly.

  Cassidy and her friend both blinked up at me as if I’d shouted at them. Cassidy was the first one to recover. She grabbed her pink backpack from the floor and then shot me a tight-lipped smile.

  “Hey,” she replied.

  “I need to talk.” Glancing at Hannah and then back to Cassidy, I frowned. “Alone.”

  Cassidy hesitated, as if she wanted to tell me to buzz off. But something in my face must’ve told her how important this conversation was. She stood with a defeated sigh, shouldered her bag, and then turned to Hannah. “I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

  “Sure, chica.” Hannah eyed me suspiciously and then picked up her stuff to leave. “Check ya later.”

  I waited until Hannah was out of the room before turning back to Cassidy. Everyone else was gone. Even Mr. Mercer had stepped out. We had the room to ourselves, at least for a few seconds. She watched me closely, her blue eyes wide as half dollars as she waited for me to speak. Suddenly, I was struck by a strange sensation of nervousness. The palms of my hands grew a bit clammy and this morning’s breakfast of toasted oats was starting to feel like a giant rock in my stomach.

  “Listen, it’s for the best if no one else finds out about last night,” I said, swallowing down my discomfort.

  She tilted her head to one side, her eyes flashing with a hint of humor. “For who?”

  “For the both of us.”

  She laughed and then started walking toward the door. “You mean for you. I’m not the one that vandalized a park and went to jail for it.”

  Gritting my teeth, I hurried after her and hoped no one had heard her outside the door. If this got back to the ranch, I was done for. I’d be stuck on stall duty for the next two months. They wouldn’t let me out of their sight again. And there’d be no chance for me to finally get away.

  Luckily, no one seemed to be lingering within earshot of the classroom. I followed Cassidy to her locker nearby and stood impatiently behind her as she put in her combination.

  “It would just be really helpful if you didn’t mention it to anyone,” I said through my teeth.

  She glanced over her shoulder at me with a teasing half-smile. “Why? Would you get in a lot of trouble at home?”

  She had no idea. “You could say that.”

  I moved beside her and leaned my shoulder up against the locker next to hers as she bent down to collect her books. She had pictures of some country music stars taped up in her locker. A few snapshots of her and Hannah. Some handwritten notecards with cheesy motivational quotes and random lyrics tacked here and there. Nothing original. Still, my eyes took it all in, down to the last notecard.

  My locker was bare as a bone, but I kept a few important things like that in my backpack. Letters and scribbles of lyrics that helped me remember life wasn’t always like this. At one time, I’d belonged somewhere.

  “I just think that we should keep what happened last night between the two of us,” I said, finally drawing my attention away from the contents of her locker. “You got to admit, you kind of owe me.”

  “Wait a minute.” Cassidy straightened up and laughed, as if I�
�d told a joke. “I think we’re already even. I got you out last night.”

  I grunted and shoved a hand through my hair. Apparently, saving a chick’s life wasn’t worth much these days. In those old Western movies Ken liked to watch at the ranch, after the cowboys would save a girl, she’d practically throw herself at him. Cassidy didn’t look very grateful. The only thing she might throw in my direction was a tomato.

  This was too important to leave to chance. Maybe Cassidy could joke about things, but this was my life. My only way out. She’d already kept me from leaving once. It couldn’t happen again.

  “Fine,” I said, stepping closer, my voice lowering into the most sincere tone I could manage. “Then can you at least promise me you won’t go blabbing about it to everyone in town?”

  Two bright red spots appeared on Cassidy’s cheeks and she clenched her jaw tight as she glared unblinkingly up at me for a full five seconds. The teasing glint in her eyes had completely vanished.

  For a moment there, I thought she’d blow her top like some kind of blonde-headed volcano. The janitors would be cleaning up the mess for days. Everyone would wonder what I’d said to make her so mad. I’d be just as clueless as everyone else.

  I’d tried to ask nicely.

  “Well lucky for you, I have better things to talk about than what happened last night,” she said finally, averting her eyes back to her perfectly organized locker.

  I should’ve felt relieved. After all, that was what I wanted. To keep my jail time on the down low. But instead, my injured pride roared like a lion inside of my head. Was I so unimportant that it didn’t even cross her mind to tell people about how I’d saved her last night? I knew small town kids like her loved gossip, but apparently I didn’t even rank on the scale of things worth mentioning. And for some reason, that stung.

  “Great,” I blurted out, taking a step backwards.

  She shot me a frown. “Yeah, great.”

  I stood there frozen, staring at her for longer than was probably appropriate. Inside my head, the gears turned slowly, grinding out a message that I couldn’t understand. It seemed like my brain had gone offline. Instead, I let my gaze drift to the bare bit of skin between the bottom of her t-shirt and the top of her jeans. There was a flash of something shiny. A belly button ring? Maybe. It was a surprising thing to find on the daughter of the town sheriff.

  “I told you, I’m not going to blab,” Cassidy said, shutting her locker suddenly and forcing me out of my stupor. She wrinkled her little nose and hugged a textbook to her chest. “You don’t have to scowl at me all day like that. I get it, Graham. I’ll keep your secret.”

  Cassidy moved past me, leaving me staring at the spot she’d just left. The muscles in my face twitched. I hadn’t meant to scowl at her. And I definitely hadn’t meant to stare. Nothing in my brain was working today.

  At least I had her silence. No one was going to find out about our little incident. My plans to escape were still in motion.

  Chapter Four

  Cassidy

  “What. Was. That?”

  My friend Hannah dropped herself into the chair next to me in the computer lab, staring at me with her large blue eyes. Her dark red hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, the freckles on her pale cheeks popping even more than usual. She held a carrot stick in her hand and a cup of hummus in the other.

  Mrs. Paul never let people eat in her computer lab, but she’d momentarily stepped into another classroom and Hannah was a bit of a rule breaker. Without taking her gaze off of me, Hannah dipped the carrot in the hummus and took a massive bite, the resulting chomp sounding ridiculously loud to my ears.

  “What was what?” I asked, sparing her another glance, and then went back to checking my messages. After blasting my need for a cameraman all over social media and the town, I still had nothing. Not a single applicant. What was going on here?

  “Graham McGrady asking to talk to you this morning.” She munched happily on her carrot and then swallowed. “I didn’t think you two were friends.”

  “We’re not.”

  “Are you sure? I saw him walk you to your locker.”

  “Trust me, Graham and I are not friends.” I closed up my Internet browser and frowned at her. “He just wanted to ask me a question about school. Nothing interesting.”

  She leaned back into her chair and smiled up at the ceiling. “Seemed interesting to me. That boy could ask me questions all day and I’d be happy to stare at his pretty face. He’s kind of got that Cillian Murphy look going on, you know? Strong jawline. So much intensity in his eyes that he looks like he could snap a guy in two. I like the strong, silent types.”

  “If only he really was silent,” I grumbled quietly.

  Our conversation had started out okay enough. He’d seemed intent on making sure his naughty deed from last night stayed on the down low. I couldn’t help but tease him a little about it, but apparently Graham wasn’t the kind of person you teased. The way he’d practically accused me of being a blabbermouth...if there was one thing my mom had taught me as a kid, it was that gossiping did nobody any favors.

  As a family of cops in a small town prone to that kind of behavior, she often said that we had to set the example. People always wanted Mom to dish on the latest drama from the station, but she always kept her lips sealed. And they came to respect her for it. The fact that Graham would so unjustly accuse me of blabbing was massively insulting. I was pretty sure my face had been beet red for all of second period because of him.

  Just because he’d saved my life, didn’t mean he got to make me feel bad about it. After all, if it weren’t for him running away, I wouldn’t have been in the street to begin with. And none of that would’ve happened.

  It was all his fault, if you thought about it.

  “Hey, Aaron, I don’t suppose you’re free to do some camera work for the next couple weeks?” I spun around on my chair, determined to shake off thoughts about Graham, and shot a hopeful smile at the guy sitting in the computer row behind us.

  Aaron’s eyes widened for a second and then he swallowed hard. “Sorry, Cassidy, I’ve got my own senior project to worry about. No can do.”

  My smile faltered. Of course, everyone in our class would be busy with their own projects. I should’ve realized that.

  “It’s okay,” I said, spinning back around to survey the room.

  So, all of the seniors were out. That still left three other grades of kids who might have enough time and talent to run some camera equipment for me. I would do it myself, if I could, but I needed to focus all of my attention on the people I would be interviewing. I couldn’t be worried about whether the shot was in frame or if the equipment was running properly.

  Hannah took another loud bite of her carrot, oblivious to my internal battle. “So, are you interested?”

  “In what?” I asked absentmindedly.

  There was Todd—the sophomore in the front row. But he had an awful habit of cracking inappropriate jokes at the worst time. Probably not the best choice in the world for such a serious project. And then Lola, a freshman sitting two chairs down from him. But Lola was about as timid as a mouse and just as skittish. I doubted she’d want to go into strangers’ homes with me. That left her out.

  “In the cowboy, silly.” Hannah leaned on her elbow and batted her brown eyelashes at me. “He’d be very pretty in a suit for homecoming. Actually, I take that back. He’d be very pretty in a tight pair of Levi’s and cowboy boots for homecoming. Imagine slow dancing in his muscular arms.”

  Her words brought an unbidden image to my mind. Graham, with his strong, calloused hands gripping my waist. His face inches from mine as we swayed slowly to some music. The warmth of his breath tickling the side of my neck. I almost shivered, as if it were real. Which was totally ridiculous, because no way in any universe was that happening.

  “I imagine dancing with Graham would be very painful,” I said dryly, sparing my bestie a glance. “Especially when he stepped on my toes in thos
e boots.”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “If he can ride a horse, he can move a gal across a dance floor. Don’t you know, those things come standard with every cowboy? It’s like a rule of nature, or something. Trust me, I saw my mom’s ancient VHS copy of Urban Cowboy.”

  I sighed. No offense to Hannah, but she was about as far off on this as anyone could be. Even with the jawline and intense eyes, Graham had proven himself to be massively irritating. The only way I’d go to the dance with him was if every last guy on the earth had suddenly dropped off. And maybe then, I still wouldn’t go. She was barking up the wrong tree.

  It was time for a definite change in topic.

  “Why won’t anyone answer my ads for a cameraman?” I asked, once again opening the Internet browser to check my messages.

  No luck.

  “Well...maybe they’re just all too busy?” Hannah’s voice lowered and she turned away in her chair so she didn’t have to look at me.

  Immediately, suspicion filled my head. I studied the side of her face. Sure enough, she was making that expression. The one where her chin dimpled slightly and she struggled to keep an innocent smile on her lips.

  The lying face.

  “What do you know, Hannah?” I spun her chair back, so she had to face me. There was no hiding from me. I knew her too well.

  Sucking in her bottom lip, she chewed nervously on it and shrugged. “Well, as far as I know, there could be two reasons why you’re not succeeding in your mission.”

  I didn’t break eye contact. “Yes?”

  “Well...” She grimaced painfully. “The first reason could be your project from last year. The one with the vending machines. Nobody probably wants to risk getting involved in another one of your ideas.”

  Groaning, I buried my head in my arms overtop the keyboard. People around here had too long of memories. The vending machine project wasn’t supposed to turn out the way it had. I’d simply been writing an article for the school newspaper about the unhealthy options offered to students daily in our school vending machines. Sugary sodas, fatty candy bars, chocolate milk, ice cream bars.