Page 1 of Spur of the Moment
1
Lettie
“He did what?!” Brandy managed to say through her fit of laughter.
“He threw up all over my boots! I’m telling you - the guy had you topped on the lightweight scale.”
I brought the hammer down again, slamming it into the head of the nail to secure the board in place. Brandy was working on replacing boards on the stall doors inside the old barn while I balanced on a ladder, replacing rotting wood in the rafters.
“And you dated him? I’m surprised, Lettie. Your standards dropped after you left.”
I rolled my eyes, grabbing another nail from the bucket perched on top of the ladder. “Not much into city boys. I had slim pickings to choose from.”
“Tell me about it. It’s the same deal here in town. You didn’t miss much.” Her voice carried up through the wooden structure as we worked in the blistering heat.
I’d only been back in town for two days before my dad put me to work, tasking me with repairing the old barn on the property so we could use it as a quarantine area for incoming rescue horses. Brandy was helping in between working with the horses. Partly to be nice, but mostly to catch up.
We’d been best friends since kindergarten, never apart for more than a couple days at a time. When I left for college, there was a huge void in my life without her. We still Facetimed daily, but it wasn’t the same. She decided to stay in Bell Buckle to pursue horse training, and I went off to college in Boise to get a degree that wasn’t getting me anywhere.
The rumble of a truck engine sounded from the dirt road as I hammered. Why didn’t we have a nail gun? The hardware store would be my first stop when I drove into town this week.
“Oh, shit,” Brandy said below me.
“What?” I swiveled on the ladder to try to see who was coming up the driveway. Standing on my toes, I arched my neck, but the peak of the barn shielded my view.
“Lettie! Watch out!” Brandy yelled right when I felt the ladder shake. The bucket of nails toppled over, the contents pouring out as the tin clanked down the rungs of the ladder before landing on the ground with a bang alongside the nails.
My sudden movement from twisting must have thrown it off balance because it was going down and there was no rightingit. I held onto one of the rungs, but my hand slipped as it fell backward in slow motion. Slamming my eyes shut, I pushed off to the side to avoid it landing on me and braced for impact as my body propelled toward the dirt.
But instead of the hard ground, strong arms wrapped around me, cradling me like a damn baby. My heart raced as I tried to catch my breath. My eyes stayed shut, disbelief coursing through me that I wasn’t a heap of broken bones on the dirt right now.
“Long time no see, Huckleberry.”
There was only one man who called me that. One man’s voice who made all my senses perk up on high alert. The man I was trying to avoid since coming back to town.
Embarrassment flooded my cheeks as I peeked up at him through one eye. I knew my cheeks were as red as they felt as he stared down at me with that damn grin on his face, his dimples on full display.
“Hi, Bailey.”
His eyes stayed trained on me, like everything around us disappeared into the background. Damn it if I didn’t stare right back, getting lost in those green eyes that had a hint of hazel around the pupils, dark lashes making the galaxy of colors pop.
I cleared my throat. “You can set me down now.”
He seemed to snap himself out of whatever trance we were stuck in and positioned me upright, keeping his hand on the small of my back as I righted myself. I brushed my hands on my jeans, blowing my hair out of my face.
Bailey was my brother’s best friend. Though all four of my brothers hung out with him and treated him like he was part of the family, Reed and Bailey were the closest. Growing up, they were always pulling pranks on me, hence the nickname Bailey gave me.
When I left Bell Buckle, I didn’t say goodbye to Bailey. I didn’t know if he’d understand why I was moving so far away for school, or any of the other reasons I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.
He wasn’t the type of guy to take education seriously, so once he graduated high school, he dove into working on his parents ranch and helping out with my family's nonprofit, Bottom of the Buckle Horse Rescue.
Looking at him now, I realized five years was a long time to be away. He’d matured, and in the best way possible. The muscles in his arms caused the material on the sleeves of his shirt to stretch. The fabric stretched over his abdomen, leaving little to the imagination. His skin was sun kissed from long hours working on the ranches, his cowboy hat angled down slightly to shield his green eyes. He was all man, no longer the boy I grew up with.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of red fur right before it jumped on Bailey, barking with excitement.
I blinked, trying to believe what I was seeing. I must have hit my head when I fell.
“Rouge likes males now?” I asked.
