Page 27 of Barbed Wire Hearts

“City girls don’t belong out here!” he continues, so angry his face is turning red. “You’re going to get yourself or someone else killed. You should know better by now when someone tells you not to do something that you shouldn’t fucking do it!”

“I didn’t know!” I shout back, my own anger flaring. I’d made a mistake, yes, but he’s not even giving me a chance to speak, let alone apologize. I realize I’d acted without knowing all the facts, but I couldn’t have known how aggressive the bull was if no one told me. No one told me a damn thing about a killer demon cow! “It’s not my fault you don’t tell me shit! You could have explained! You don’t tell me anything at all! So fuck you!” I spit, not knowing what else to do. My fight or flight is triggered, and this hulking asshole doesn’t deserve flight.

So, fight it is.

“I shouldn’t have to explain that!” he growls. “It’s common fucking sense, which you clearly have none of.” He leans in close. “Go back home,city girl. This place isn’tfor you.”

My face twists. “Just because you have a stick up your ass doesn’t mean I have to have one, too!” I snarl. I glance over the wheelbarrow still on the other side where Ninny works her way through the hay. “I’ll ask Wiley to help me get my wheelbarrow back. You can go on and be an asshole somewhere else. I won’t bother you again.” I lift my chin. “Next time, just leave me out there if all you’re gonna say is I told you so.”

I snatch my hat off the ground and then I storm off, angry, leaving the asshole there to stare after me. I can’t deal with him right now. I can’t deal with him ever.

The bull watches me leave and bellows after me, as if rubbing it in my face.

“Fuck you, too,” I growl, going to find Wiley instead.

ChapterTwenty-Three

LEVI

Iwatch her stomp off. Just like a woman, I think, scowling at her retreating form. She doesn’t even realize how close she’d been to being torn up. Sure, I’d been angry and shouted some shit—Dakota will probably be mad at me—but she needs to know how badly she fucked up. Kill Dozer is famous in his own right, not only because of how unrideable he is, but because. . .

I sigh and look over the fence at the bull. “You know, you really are an asshole,” I growl at him. “It’s not enough that you’ve kicked my ass, but you wanna hurt innocent people, too? She didn’t hurt you. I’ve watched her offer you apples every goddamn day and you still try to kill her. I should grind you up into hamburger meat.”

Kill Dozer snorts, as if he doesn’t care at all. I suppose he doesn’t. Most bulls don’t care about ending careers or stomping on people. All they care about is where their food is coming from and his comes from over the fence, destined to be handled away from his angry ass.

“You know, if I hadn’t bought you when I did, you’d be a nice juicy steak right now,” I tell him, trying to put him in his place. No response. Instead, he turns and wanders back over to the wheelbarrow with Ninny.

Kill Dozer has always been so dismissive. He’s aggressive now, but his real aggression comes out when you’re on his back. He spends that time doing everything possible to get you off and used to be considered one of the most dangerous bulls to be assigned to. I’d ridden him once.Once. I’d even made it the whole eight seconds, the height of my bull riding career. I’m the only bull rider to have pulled it off. The first. . . and the last.

The reminder has me rubbing at my back and the scars there. The muscles are pinching right now after hoisting up Kate without any sort of warm up. To lift the calves, I’m always warmed up or else I pay for it later. Dakota and Wiley get pissed every time they see me do it, but they’ve realized I won’t ever stop. It’s why I keep the muscles in my back and core in top shape, to counteract the pain there. I’m gonna be hurting tomorrow though, and I scowl at the thought of having to take my pain pill. I hate taking that shit. Always upsets my stomach.

I point at Kill Dozer as he sniffs at the hay in the wheelbarrow. “You try and take something else from me, I’m going to cut you up and eat you for real,” I threaten him.

He only snorts and starts eating the hay.

Fucking asshole.

ChapterTwenty-Four

Kate

Idon’t go anywhere near Levi for the rest of the day, not wanting to piss him off again. Wiley manages to get the wheelbarrow by letting Kill Dozer into another pasture and blocking him off. He doesn’t tell me how much of an idiot I am, but he does pointedly raise his brows at the now empty wheelbarrow as I wheel it from the pasture I nearly died in. Ninny and the bull had cleaned it out, adding salt to the wound because I still have to take hay to the other pasture in the distance.

“I know, I know,” I grumble at Wiley’s look. “I didn’t realize a bull could be so aggressive. No one said that.”

“He’s named Kill Dozer for a reason,” Wiley had said. “That one should be charged with attempted murder.”

“Kill Dozer,” I repeat. “No one even told me that was his name.” If they had, I might not have gone into the pasture in the first place. “Who did he almost murder?” I ask.

Wiley refuses to answer, only saying it isn’t his story to tell, which only makes me think he means Levi. No one else has such a brutal reaction to the bull. It would make sense since he was a bull rider once and not anymore. But why even have the bull here? It doesn’t make any sense.

But I stopped worrying about it a few days later when Wiley meets me in the morning and explains he’s going to teach me how to ride a horse.

“Why do I need to learn?” I ask curiously as he leads me to the stables.

“First, because everyone who works on a ranch should know how to, spooky cowgirl. Second, because the cattle drive is around the corner. If you come with us, we’ll be riding horses,” he explains.

“You don’t use trucks nowadays?” I ask. Horses seem like a vintage way to do things even if it’s still very cowboy. I suppose I assumed that technology has outpaced tradition but out here, not so much.

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