Page 43 of His Eighth Ride

She shook her head, and Tuck nodded. “Okay, then.” He didn’t ask anything else, because the Lord shouted at him to wait. Just wait.

And though waiting and patience were not Tuck’s strong suits, he prepared to do exactly that.

fourteen

Bobbie Jo Hanks couldn’t believe she’d come to the seed shed. At the same time, she didn’t want to be alone. Ironic, since she’d been living here in Ivory Peaks alone for the past several months.

She pulled the turkey and Swiss sandwich from the bag and took a bite. Tuck did the same thing. He set the bag of chips on the cold ground between them, and Bobbie Jo dipped her hand inside to get some of the ridged snacks.

This silence between them was comfortable, but foreign. Tuck didn’t normally sit still or silent, something Bobbie Jo had actually admired about him. She’d admired a lot about him—appropriately, of course.

She could acknowledge that he had a handsome jawline without letting herself think too much of it. His sandy hair played differently with his dark eyes, and the man worked a farm relentlessly, so he definitely had muscles.

He got along with the other cowboys, and he knew his stuff around the ranch. She’d rounded up horses with him a few times, and he was always right where he needed to be to get the job done. His horse obviously trusted him explicitly, and they worked well together.

Yes, Bobbie Jo could tell a lot about a cowboy by the way he rode and worked with a horse.

The edges of her nose felt raw as her tears dried. Her face crackled with the salt, and she wished she’d gone home after Lawson’s phone call.

“So, Lawson broke up with me over the phone,” she said.

Tucker sucked in a breath and turned his head toward her swiftly. “He did what?”

Bobbie Jo shook her head, her emotions far too delicate to be having this conversation. Still, she’d chosen to come here, knowing Tuck would arrive with sandwiches. He did every single day; she’d seen him walking this way many times; he’d even invited her to eat with him once.

“I’ve known for a while that we weren’t going to work out,” she said. “It still—it’s really weird how it still hurts.” She sniffled and shook her head again. She looked up from her half-eaten sandwich and gazed at the cloudy sky. She identified with it, with the way the clouds were all one big mass of foaming, rolling, angry pressure.

“I’m really sorry it hurts.” Tucker spoke kindly, softly, tenderly. He finally tore his eyes from her face, and some of the weight lifted from her shoulders. “I don’t want you to hurt.”

“Thank you, Tuck.”

He finished his sandwich, and Bobbie Jo tucked the rest of hers back in the bag. She had no appetite left, and she simply leaned her head back against the shed while Tuck crunched his way through potato chips and then an apple.

Her thoughts seemed to have been suspended in gelatin. She didn’t think anything; nothing entered or exited her mind. She may have even dozed, which was something Bobbie Jo never did.

Eventually, she came back to herself, realizing that the man beside her had gotten really quiet. A blip of panic moved through her at the thought of Tucker getting up and leaving her sitting there, and then his hand slid along hers.

She turned her hand over, and he took it into his. A scuffle along dirt, a cleared throat, and then Tuck’s shoulder touched hers. Bobbie Jo sighed as she leaned into him, stealing his warmth and friendship and safety.

He wanted to be more than friends, Bobbie Jo knew. In soft, private, still moments like this, she could admit that if she hadn’t been dating Lawson, she’d have definitely gone out with Tuck by now. The man was equal parts charm and good-looks, and he hadn’t been shy about his crush on her.

He’d calmed down a lot in recent months, and Bobbie Jo wondered if she’d already had her chance with him.

Doesn’t matter, she told herself. You don’t want to move from one relationship straight into another one anyway.

Bobbie Jo had never had a lot of boyfriends, and just the fact that Tuck had shown interest had been surprising to her.

“Do you know why I came to Ivory Peaks?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said quietly. “You’d just finished a degree in something no one gets a job in, and you needed a job.”

True, but…also not true. “That’s what I told everyone.”

“Are you sayin’ you lied to me, Miss Bobbie Jo?”

She opened her eyes as a smile graced her face. She turned toward Tuck, and oh, he sat close. So close, and it felt so good. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this man, and she wasn’t sure she should even be here with him.

What would he think of her now? Was she moving too fast?

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