Page 12 of Bucked By Love

I finish school with excellent grades. I leave Belleflower to attend college about two hours outside of town. It’s far enough away to give me a taste of life outside Belleflower, but close enough that I’m still dragged back home every summer.

I forget about the boy who sat behind me in church. I forget about the way he braided my hair. I forget about ropers and belt buckles and everything to do with Riley Ransom.

When I come back to Belleflower, I’m nudging against nineteen, and for reasons beyond my understanding, it seems to be some fantastic ordeal, because everyone feels it necessary to comment about it.

Even Arris Dagney.

“Well, look at you,” he says, announcing my presence with flourish when I enter Daddy’s study. Daddy remains stone-faced behind his desk, but Arris gets out of the big, leather chair by the window to pull me into a hug. I inhale the familiar scents of tobacco and wet ink. When he pulls back, he cups my face in one of his big, leathery paws. “She’s growing up well, isn’t she?” Dagney comments, stroking back a fallen bunch of blonde hair. “Pretty enough to be the next Belleflower Queen.”

I’m grown, but not that grown.

The worlds Belleflower Queen still incite a childlike excitement in me, making my body buzz from head to toe, the kind of excitement that makes a person want to bounce up and down on the tips of their toes.

But I’ve been trained better, so I simply acknowledge the compliment with a compulsory, “You’re too kind.”

Daddy frowns. My returned presence has been a great annoyance for him. “Is there something you need?”

I lace my fingers together, politely binding my hands in front of me. “I would like to take Calypso for a ride.”

“Where?”

“Mary-Kate and I are taking a ride on the Coldwater Trail.” A half-truth, but enough of the truth.

He flicks his wrist. “Then get going.”

“Be good,” Arris says, and gives me a familial wink.

Calypso gives me a warm welcome home, huffing and nudging me with her snout. I kiss the softest place on a horse—that small space between the nostrils.

“I missed you too,” I tell her, and she flicks her tail.

I fasten her saddle and climb up, leading her out of the stables. There’s a shortcut between my house and the Dagney estate—a trail through the woods that’s nearly overgrown, easy enough to miss if you don’t know what you’re looking for. But Calypso knows the path by heart and her hooves make a pleasant, muffled clip on the dirt below.

Mary-Kate is waiting for me on her porch. We change out of our stuffy, buttoned up polos and into small crop-tops and pleated skirts.

It’s summer in Belleflower. The flowers are blooming, so why can’t I?

We collect Elsbeth, Violet, and Bonnie, who join us on their horses. We take off and the five of us sound powerful—a stampede, pounding the ground.

Our spot on the river is smaller than I remember it. The river seems like a trickle compared to the flowing water I’d pictured in my head. And the rock Mary-Kate and I used to lay on now doesn’t seem big enough for the both of us.

The girls disrobe, shimmying out of their outer layers. Our bras and panties double as bathing suits, and we’ll dry out on the flat stones before we go home.

Bonnie is the first to step in, and she yelps about the temperature of the water. Elsbeth comes in after her, splashing her, and they laugh.

I start to take off my shirt to follow them in, but my head gets yanked backwards. There’s a tug on my hair, as though it’s caught on something.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

I twist to challenge my assailant, but?—

I recognize him immediately.

I don’t know how. He looks nothing like the short, scrawny boy who used to sit behind me at church.

Riley has grown up.

He’s taller than me now. He’s filled out pleasantly, his chest and waist thickened with muscle. His skin has darkened, and he has all the signs of a man who spends too much time outside, and his body has taken the beating for it.

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