Page 33 of Untamed Heart
This is ridiculous, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Please don’t be childish about this. We need to talk.
I closed my messages, rage building up.
Fucking bastard.
The emails from him were no better – four of them in total, all along the same lines, all feeble attempts at gaslighting me. But there were two others, both invitations to job interviews after the applications I’d shot off earlier in the week. I scanned them, noting that both were online – one just before I was due to leave the ranch, the other a day after I was due back. Both were similar roles to my old job, marketing in banking and law.
I blew out the tension I was holding, mind racing with everything I needed to prepare, trying to digest everything I’d just read.
A knock sounded at my door and seconds later, Bailey’s head was hanging round it.
‘Lil’s sent me to get you rodeo ready. Now I’m no girl’s girl, but you can come raid my wardrobe if you need? I’m assuming you only got a handful of things before coming up here from town, right?’
I thought about the majority of my clothes, hastily loaded into the washer the previous day and re-washed again this morning, the dust here somehow ingraining itself into every fibre. I only had my city clothes left to wear, but from what I remembered of the rodeos I’d been to as a kid, they wouldn’t cut it.
‘I’m all yours,’ I said, letting out a sigh as I chucked my phone back on the bed, tucking the dressing gown around me. The weight remained in my hand, in my head.
‘You okay?’ she asked, opening the door wide as I came out.
‘Yeah,’ I lied. ‘Stuff at home, nothing interesting.’
She eyed me, missing nothing.
‘If you say so, sugar,’ she replied. ‘If you want my advice, best thing to do is get good and drunk, find yourself a nice cowboy to pass the time.’
I snorted, a pang of emotion hitting me square on.
‘You’d really love my friend Hestia,’ I replied, missing her more than ever. ‘And yes, maybe you’re right.’
We reached Bailey’s room, a surprisingly tidy space with her closet doors already wide open.
‘The weather’s staying fine, so think it’s time to mix it up,’ she said, glancing back at me, eyeing my legs with a smile.
Some thirty minutes later, somewhat overheated from trying on half Bailey’s wardrobe, we’d landed on a cornflower blue sundress, almost the exact shade as my eyes. It was shorter than anything I’d worn since uni, showing off my legs and chest in a way I wasn’t used to after a year of buttoning up in the city.
‘You sure this isn’t too much? I feel like I’m hardly wearing anything?’ I asked, torn between self-consciousness and objectively liking what I saw.
Bailey just chuckled.
‘You look just right to me. I mean, I reckon half the rodeo will be queueing up to pass the time with you,’ she said, ushering me out and guiding me to the back of the house, hurriedly putting on her boots. ‘I’ve got to get Dunkin ready – come on over if you like, give me a hand?’
Down at the yard, despite the hat, boots and a cropped denim jacket over the top from Lil, I still felt exposed. Especially when Jesse wolf-whistled, standing in the corral with Cole, rope in hand, a plastic cow head attached to some hay bales in front of them.
‘I told you,’ Bailey said, glancing back at me before splitting off towards the stalls. ‘Eyes on the prize, Jesse. Ain’t no one paying out for roping cowgirls.’
‘Told him what?’ I shouted after her, not quite brave enough to look towards Cole.
‘That you’d look way hotter in a sundress than any of those buckle bunnies,’ she called back, her voice muffled as she turned into the stalls. ‘Better watch your back!’
Unsure whether she was joking or not, I gave Jesse an apprehensive smile.
‘Ever tried roping, Lottie?’ Jesse asked, an expression of pure mischief on his face as he approached the fence. He was dressed in full rodeo gear, from the leather chaps to the Diamond Back-branded jacket.
‘As a kid,’ I admitted, careful to give only a quick glance back at Cole, who remained near the hay bales. His face was neutral, but his arms were folded, his body rigid.
‘C’mon then, give it a try. If it’s anything like your riding, you’ll be a natural.’
He beckoned me over the fence, but when I gave him a dead-eyed expression, glancing down at the short dress and heading for the gate, they both cracked a smile.
