Buck Cowboys

by Elle Thorpe

  I pushed to my feet. “Okay, looks like we’re dancing, too.”

  I stood, and with the rhythm of the slow country song, I swayed from side to side. I wasn’t a dancer by any stretch of the imagination. But even I could manage a side-to-side shuffle on the beat.

  Instantly, Molly laid her velvety soft head down on my shoulder, her cries and fussing quieting. She stopped rubbing her eyes and found her thumb to suck instead.

  “Thank fuck,” I muttered. Then realized I’d cussed. “Oops. Don’t tell your mama I said that.” On instinct, I tilted my head so my cheek rested against Molly’s wispy hair. God, she was so soft and sweet. At least when she was sleeping. I’d missed all of this while I’d been away. I’d missed seeing her as a tiny baby. I’d missed getting to watch my sister and Shep try to work out what to do with a newborn.

  I dared a glance in Hallie’s direction.

  She was watching, and this time as our gazes met, she didn’t immediately turn away. Something flashed across her face, but it was gone before I could really comprehend what it was.

  I spun Molly around, so Hallie wouldn’t see my grin. Perhaps Jasmine had been right after all. I shuffled out onto the dance floor, where nobody in the bar could miss me. Another little glance at Hallie told me I had her attention. “Thanks for being cuter than me,” I whispered to Molly. “It’s working like a charm.”

  The words died in my throat as one of the cowboys, at the table next to Hallie’s, stood and held a hand out to her. She nodded, putting her fingers through his. He led her to the dance floor, stopping just a foot or two away from where I stood.

  The cowboy nodded at me. “Cute baby.”

  “Thanks,” I fumbled. But it was Hallie I couldn’t stop staring at.

  Her dance partner didn’t seem to notice. He pulled her into his arms, keeping a respectful distance between them, despite the slow beat of the romantic country song. Hallie shot a look at me, then closed the gap between them, wrapping her arms around his neck and smiling up at him.

  If I’d been jealous watching Jasmine and Shep, I didn’t have a name for the feeling I had now, watching some other guy hold Hallie like that. Sure, I knew that it had been years since the two of us had danced at prom. I logically knew she would have had boyfriends. Or one-night stands. Both probably. She was no wallflower. She wasn’t sitting around, waiting for me to come home. But that had been easier to think about when it wasn’t right there in my face.

  Shit. I had no idea what I was thinking, coming back here, hoping I could just walk into her life like I’d never left. The realization hit me like a ton of bricks.

  I’d spent all this time pining over a woman who either still hated me or just didn’t care anymore.

  Jasmine gazed at me with sad eyes as I passed the sleeping baby back to her.

  “Nate…”

  I smiled and shook my head. “No, it’s fine. It’s all good. I think I’m going to go home.”

  “We’ll come, too. Molly needs to go to bed anyway.”

  I smiled tightly, avoiding turning in Hallie’s direction, and feeling even worse that Jasmine and Shep were cutting their evening short because of me. Not wanting to make a scene by arguing, I tried to be helpful, grabbing Molly’s baby bag from the table we’d been sitting at and shoved the strap up on my shoulder.

  I could feel the weight of someone’s gaze on me, but I didn’t dare turn around to see if it was Hallie’s. If I was wrong, and she was actually making out with that cowboy, I’d be in all sorts of trouble. Instead, I slipped out the bar door without a look back.

  Outside, a full moon shined, the only real source of light. The parking lot was nothing more than a dirt yard, and the streetlights were farther away. I trudged to Shep’s four-wheel drive to put the baby bag in the back, feeling foolish.

  I’d brought my bike instead of traveling into town with my sister and brother-in-law. I’d told my sister it was because I might want to stay on if she left early with the baby.

  I realized now I’d subconsciously been hoping to leave with Hallie. There was this place I loved, down by the river. A romantic make-out spot.

  Foolish.

  Shep clapped a hand over my shoulder in a fatherly sort of way. He was only about five years older than I was, but his life was light-years from mine. He worked his ass off, day in and day out, on the ranch my sister and I had inherited when our parents had passed away years ago. I worked hard, too, but in an entirely different way. My job was full of fitness training in hotel gyms, press conferences, and Saturday night rodeos with my name in lights. When the World Bull Riding Association had come knocking after I turned eighteen, I’d jumped at the chance. I wasn’t sure I was cut out for the rural sort of lifestyle my sister had. I wanted to travel. I’d wanted to see the world.

  That’s what I’d done. I’d left my sister and Shep behind.

  And Hallie, too.

  I swung my leg over my bike and gunned the engine. I only had a few more days here anyway. With a low rev of my engine, I slowly followed after Shep and Jasmine, heading toward the driveway that would lead us out onto the main road.

  I waited behind while they stopped to check the road was clear, but all I could think of was Hallie, and how that might be the last time I saw her. Who knew when I’d be back next? Hell, if I came back in a few years, she could be married with a family. Or she might have moved on from this town entirely.

  The thought didn’t sit well with me.

  I was so preoccupied I barely even noticed Shep pull out onto the road.

  I almost didn’t notice the truck coming in the other direction, with both headlights off.

  Neither did Shep.

  All I definitely noticed was the explosion of sound the two vehicles made as they collided, and the sickening crunch of metal against metal.

  Shep’s car, with my entire family inside, flipped and rolled off the road.

  3

  Hallie

  Over Jason’s shoulder, I watched Nate leave the bar with his family and felt like a bitch. I knew what I’d done. I’d accepted the dance with Jason and made it out to be more than it truly was, in the hopes of making Nate jealous.

  The fact it had worked was the real surprise. Sort of. It had been hurt that had flashed in Nate’s eyes, not jealousy. Yet he hadn’t said a word. He’d just quietly handed his sister back her baby, and he’d left the bar.

  I was the worst sort of pond scum.

  We’d been best friends our whole lives, and I couldn’t even talk to the guy when he came back to town after four years away?

  “Dammit,” I whispered.

  Jason pulled back. “You okay?”

  Jason’s concern was worse. He was a nice guy, and we were friends, but nothing more. “Yeah, fine. I’m sorry about this…” I gestured between us. “It’s a bit much.”

  He lifted one shoulder. “We’re just dancing.”

  I was glad he saw it that way. I didn’t want to feel like I’d been using him. But I couldn’t stand by while Nate walked out of my life again. Not without hashing out what had happened between us. “I gotta go,” I told Jason. “Can you let Summer know?”

  He gave me a knowing smile. “Sure. See you at the ranch on Monday.”

  I ran for the bar door and shoved it open. “Nate!” I scanned the parking lot, my heart sinking when I didn’t see him anywhere. But then a flash of taillights caught my attention at the far end of the lot. I raised a hand, waving frantically at Nate on the back of his bike, stopped behind his sister’s four-wheel drive. Yelling was useless, but I tried again anyway, because, dammit, now that I’d decided this confrontation needed to happen, I needed it to happen now. I’d lose my courage if I had to wait until the next time I saw him.

  I ran for Nate’s bike, right as Shep pulled out onto the road.

  No amount of watching high-speed collisions on the news or YouTube prepared you to see or hear something like that. The impact of the truck hitting Shep’s SUV was shockingly violent. I flinched away, cove
ring my head and eyes on instinct, but that didn’t block out the noise as the car flipped and rolled, sliding off the edge of the road and down into the embankment. The impact was deafening, ringing in my ears, and instantly the smell of burnt rubber and gasoline permeated the air.

  However, it was the deadly silence that settled in the aftermath that filled me with fear. That silence was somehow worse than watching the crash itself.

  But it was the pause my body needed to come back to life. I ran for the overturned car, barely visible on the other side of the road. I passed Nate’s bike, abandoned on the driveway, no sign of its owner anywhere. The gravel road and broken glass crunched beneath my boots. I skidded across it, half falling down the hill on the other side, only just catching myself on the patchy grass with my hands.

  I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh my God.”

  The four-wheel drive was crumpled from every angle and lying on its roof. Tiny screams from the baby inside pierced the air, sickening me to my core.

  At least she was alive. There wasn’t a sound from either of her parents, and that scared me more.

  Nate’s yell of frustration and fear sent me skittering to his side. He blinked up at me from the ground, confusion and surprise in his eyes, but we didn’t have time for that.

  Everything that had passed between us didn’t matter anymore.

  “I called the ambulance, but I can’t get the doors open,” he said frantically. “I’m too big to get through the windows.”

  I dropped to the ground as he stood to get out of my way. Lying on my stomach, I peered into the mangled wreck of the car through the rear window. The glass had busted out, but the metal frame on this side remained mostly in shape.

  In the front seat, Jasmine’s head hung limply, her blood glistening in the dim glow of the dashboard lights. I couldn’t see Shep’s face. His seat belt hadn’t held him in place as well as Jasmine’s, and he was slumped in an unnatural position, his neck twisted awkwardly.

  Terror whispered he might already be dead.

  I pushed the thought away, because I instinctively knew there was nothing I could do to help either of them. But I could help their daughter. Safe in her baby seat, Molly screamed her lungs out, her legs and arms wiggling in the air. She was the sort of baby who smiled at everyone she passed in the street. The delight of the whole town. But right now, her face was red with the exertion of her terrified cries.

  I inched forward, trying not to choke on the overwhelming smell. Liquid seeped into the body of the car and pooled beneath me. “Hey, sweetheart. It’s okay.” I reached for her, but Nate was right, the gap was tiny and the car was big enough that I couldn’t easily reach her with one hand. I wriggled in a few more inches until a hand clamped on my leg.

  “Hallie! There’s gas leaking everywhere!”

  I looked back at Nate, crouching behind me. I knew what he wasn’t saying.

  This thing could go up at any minute.

  It didn’t matter. Not when I knew I could get to Molly and get her out. “I know. Let go.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then reluctantly did as I said.

  I fought my way through the gap, trying to reach Molly’s seat belt, scraping myself on the shards of broken glass. They pierced my skin, opening it up until blood trickled across my arms and shoulders and abdomen, but I refused to stop. I wouldn’t be the one who gave up on this little girl and left her for dead. If the car went up in flames right now, I’d go with it. Blood pounded in my ears at that realization, the rushing noise urging me on.

  I didn’t feel the pain of the injuries I was inflicting on myself. The seconds felt like hours as I slithered across the debris, but then I was finally close enough to untangle her from the straps, catching her awkwardly as her body slipped from them. Her screams started up in earnest again, filling me with dread that I might have just hurt her more. “Shhh, it’s okay, I’ve got you.” I tucked her downy head to my chest and backed out of the crumpled car as quickly as I could.

  In the time I’d been inside the car, the guys from the bar had filtered out to help. Three of them yanked at the passenger-side door, trying to pry it from its hinges.

  Nate looked up from working to free his sister. Relief flickered across his expression, but then it morphed into something harder. “Get her out of here!”

  He was right. I knew that. I had to get Molly away from the car that could explode at any minute.

  But I hated leaving Nate.

  It suddenly felt like I was being ripped in two.

  Nate had no such qualms. “Dammit, Hallie. Go!”

  I turned and ran, clutching Molly to my chest. Summer met me halfway down the embankment, and it was only then that I realized the rest of the bar patrons had all come outside and were standing at the edge of the road, watching the scene unfold in horror.

  Summer held her arms out. “Here, give her to me.”

  But I couldn’t. Some protective instinct in me had me holding Molly even tighter. “No, we’re fine.”

  Summer frowned but didn’t push. She wrapped an arm around me and helped pull me up the rest of the embankment to where Austin was waiting.

  “You shouldn’t have gone down there!” he scolded Summer. “You could have been killed!”

  I just stared at him. What the actual fuck? She’d been about three steps down the hill, not inside the damn car like I had been. Like Nate still was.

  “My best friend was down there!” she yelled at him. “People are hurt.”

  I turned away from them, straining my eyes in the darkness, trying to work out if Molly was injured while also keeping an eye on her uncle.

  A rescue truck screamed onto the scene, sirens blaring, four guys in uniform pouring from the inside and shouldering their equipment. One took charge, his voice booming out over the surrounding noise. “Everybody get back!”

  Nate wouldn’t listen. He had to be dragged up to the road in order to let them work. But only the tiniest part of me was relieved that he was out of the danger zone. The guys from the bar held him, but he fought with them the entire time, his whole focus on getting to his sister and brother-in-law.

  “Nate!” I snapped at him, feeling harsh for speaking to him in that tone, but this wasn’t the time for kind, soft words. “Stop. You can’t do anything for your sister right now. But you can for Molly.”

  He stilled, swiveling in my direction and blinking at me as if he’d forgotten we were here. “Is she okay?” he choked out. He reached out a hand to me but dropped it before he could make contact. “Are you? You’re bleeding.”

  “I’ll be fine. Do you want to take her?”

  He held his hands out for his niece, but his fingers trembled so hard he bunched them into fists, dropping them at his sides. “Fuck!” He shook his head, his gaze slipping back down the embankment to where the rescue workers had the Jaws of Life out, cutting into the car. “I can’t. I’ll drop her. Or hurt her.”

  He was in shock, I realized, and probably needed medical attention himself.

  He didn’t need the pressure of caring for Molly as well.

  I squeezed his forearm. “It’s okay. I got her.”

  Blue and red lights lit up his face momentarily, and I glanced over my shoulder at three ambulances pulling up at the scene. Summer ran across the road to grab the nearest one and hauled the woman in my direction.

  I squeezed Nate’s arm again. “I’ll stay with her, okay? You just worry about Shep and Jasmine.”

  His eyes were wild and unfocused. “Thank you.”

  I went with Summer and let one paramedic take Molly from me, while the other sat me on the opposite side of the ambulance to inspect my injuries.

  “You’re going to need some stitches,” the woman said to me, wincing in sympathy. She handed me some gauze for a wound on my arm.

  “What about Molly? Is she okay? Just worry about her. I’m fine.”

  The paramedic frowned at me, but she checked with her partner.

  She nodded. “Somehow
she seems to have avoided any noticeable injuries at all. But we still need to get her to the hospital for a full range of checks and scans.”

  Molly was screaming again, and the sound ripped at my heart. “Can I hold her? Just until we get to the hospital?”

  The two women nodded, handing her back to me before clambering out of the ambulance. Molly immediately quieted, and I hugged the tiny girl to my chest.

  Summer watched from the back of the ambulance, her brown eyes huge. “What can I do? Should I come?” she asked, as the paramedics readied to close the doors.

  Fear and pain trickled through the adrenaline. I would have loved to have my best friend climb in beside me. But then I thought about Nate being at the scene by himself. He and Summer had trained together at Summer’s dad’s bull riding school. We’d all gone to school together. She knew him almost as well as I did, and he could use her help and support more than I could right now. “Stay. Make sure someone looks at him, too, okay?”

  “Of course. I’ll meet you up at the hospital as soon as they get Shep and Jasmine out.”

  I prayed they’d both be alive when that happened.

  4

  Nate

  The crash played over and over again in my head. No matter how many times I blinked to try to force it away, it kept coming back, determined to haunt me. The images brought the whispers of guilt with them, and pacing the halls of the hospital didn’t help any.

  Shep and Jasmine wouldn’t have even been at the bar that night if I hadn’t dragged them there. They wouldn’t have been leaving at that time if I hadn’t gotten butthurt over Hallie’s rejection. If I hadn’t come back to town, they would have spent their Friday night sitting on their couch watching Friends reruns, instead of lying in hospital beds, fighting for their lives.

  The doctor came out, folding his arms across his chest. “Nate, right? Jasmine’s brother? She talks about you a lot.”