Page 17 of Bull Rush

“Absolutely none,” she confirms, shaking her head and then heading for the door. “I mean it. No bullshit, Ramsey.” They’re the last words before I hear the door slam shut behind her.

“She’s awfully worried I’m going to hurt your feelings.” I take a draw off the bottle as he finishes his.

“She’s got no reason to be. We’ve always been honest with each other, and she’s told me enough about you to know I don’t need to be worried.”

“Huh.” I grin at him. “Well, that’s good. I can’t say I’d feel the same if I was on your side of the table and knew how easily she agreed to it.”

“I wouldn’t say all this…” He waves his empty bottle around. “And a million is easy. I’d say that’s a pretty steep bribe.”

“If you knew Haze as well as you think you do, you’d knowshe can’t be bought. She doesn’t do a damn thing she doesn’t want to.”

He gives me a tight saccharine smile and sets his bottle down hard on the table. His eyes lift to mine, and I can tell I’ve hit a nerve. Whatever she said about him being fine with this, he’s not.

“Maybe she just thinks you’re an easy way to make a lot of money to start her life with me.”

“Does that sit right with you? You knowing you’ve been living in my house on my ranch with my wife?”

“It certainly seemed like she knew whose bed she was in when she was saying my name last night.” The little smirk on his face makes me want to take him outside and wrap his jaw around one of the fence posts, but I keep the smile plastered in place.

“Lastnight. But tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that… she’ll forget you even had a name when that engagement ring you got her is sitting on the edge of the sink, and her legs are wrapped around me.”

“She might, if you’d ever been able to make her come.”

My smile falters at that. I have no idea what he’s talking about. I was the first guy who was patient enough and willing enough to try whatever she needed to make sure she could come. It was half the reason she kept coming back to me in college even though she knew then I was a bad bet. His face screws up, and he laughs at my reaction.

“Yeah, Hazel and I… we share everything. Even the painful details of how woefully bad you were in bed. That’s gotta suck for someone like you. All that fame and money. But you can’t manage the simplest thing a woman needs.”

If Hazel told him that—I have to guess she had her reasons. And any protest I make is just going to make it seem like I’m desperate to undermine the narrative. So I keep my mouthshut. Long enough that it makes him uncomfortable, and he stands abruptly.

“I need to head out and say my goodbyes.”

“Ah, yeah. It’s convenient that you’re on the road. Makes this whole thing a little easier for all of us.”

“Fairly certain it’ll be over before we know it.” He gives me another simpering grin and then heads out of the room. I don’t see him again for the rest of the night, and I’m thankful for it.

SEVEN

Ramsey

My warm welcomehome the next morning is climbing out of a creaky old bed that’s two sizes too small in my childhood bedroom and a cup of cold coffee and a half-stale bagel that my wife has left out alongside a box of bran flakes. Kit’s signature farmer’s plate with eggs over easy, crisp bacon, and perfectly buttered toast is calling my name right now, but going there would mean seeing Hazel first thing, and I’m trying to give her space. She was prickly as fuck last night when she set me up in the guest room and shoved a few towels in my hands before disappearing into the master. Apparently, returning to marital bliss is going to take us a minute or two.

After I help Elliot, the ranch hand who’s been around since my days here, feed some of the horses, I wander into the old pole barn. I’m hoping that my bike has had the same sort of luck as Wolfsbane, and I’ll find her right where I left her—pushed ina back corner covered up, figuring I’d be back at some point to get her. I figure the chances Hazel’s been back here clearing things out isn’t high when she’s always stuck in the inn.

I find it tucked behind a new pile of things she must have moved out of the house. They’re tarped but covered in a fine layer of dust; among them is my old den couch and a poker table she hated from the day I got it. I smirk at the fact they’re still here, too, taking up space. Maybe it’s desperate that I’m seeing all this as hope—the fact that she’s pushed me off to the edges of her life but hasn’t dumped me completely.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the bike doesn’t roar to life when I try. So I push it out to the far side of the gravel lot and get some help from Elliot loading it into one of the ranch trucks before he tosses me the keys.

“Just don’t tell her I helped you. Lie and say you stole it.” Elliot gives me a mock threatening look because he’s not trying to get on Hazel’s shit list, and I don’t blame him. I’d probably be better off buying a new truck, but I have to get to a dealership first. Without heading all the way back into the city, that would mean stepping foot on my brothers’ territory—not a move I’m ready for yet.

“No problem.”

“Where are you taking it?”

“Down to Briggs’s, I guess.” Hazel’s brother, and my former best friend, owns a shop. From what I’ve heard, he’s more absent owner than worker bee these days, so there’s a chance I’ll miss him. If I don’t, I imagine I’m not in for a warm welcome there either. He never did forgive me for how things went down with her, even if he didn’t blame me.

“Oof. I guess they’re the best option if you don’t want to go to Springs or Pueblo, but good luck to you on that.” Elliot’s face scrunches with the same realization I’m having.

“Gotta rip the Band-Aid off if I’m gonna be staying here.” I answer as I climb in the driver’s seat.

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