Page 3 of Spur of the Moment
“Didn’t say that, Lettie. I just know you’re a klutz. Ladders aren’t your friend, and Bailey won’t always be there to come to your rescue.”
Bailey chuckled, tossing another bale over the side of the truck bed onto the ground.
“I don’t need his saving.” I’d be damned if I had to work with Bailey during my stay in Bell Buckle.
Bailey bent over to grab another bale by the baling twine with gloved hands. “Doesn’t look that way, Huckleberry.”
“Stop calling me that! I was fifteen!”
Brandy laughed from where she stood in the shade, spinning a screwdriver in her hands.
I shot her a glare as Bailey laughed right along with her. “Fifteen or not, your ass still landed in that bucket of huckleberries. You were stained red for days.”
Refusing to relive the embarrassment, I turned on my heel and aimed for the main house.
My parents lived in the original house on the property. Reed had built his own house on the opposite side of the ranch. It made sense to build here rather than move away since he trimmed all the horses' hooves here. He got a majority of his work from the rescue.
They’d renovated the old farmhouse when I was younger, knocking down some of the walls to make it more of an open floor plan. They’d kept the bones of the structure, but the entire interior was redone. My dad let my mom design it all, from the flooring to the kitchen cabinets. The house had a decent sized porch in the front, but it was dwarfed in comparison to the back porch. There was a built-in barbeque, a hot tub, and an outdoor dining set that could seat twelve. Since I’ve been back, my mother had added a smaller dining table to the front porch that matched the rocking chairs.
“Going to get Dad?” Reed yelled after me.
“I won’t let you force me to work with him!” I stomped off, hating how I let my emotions take over where Bailey was concerned. He knew how to get under my skin without even trying. Reed was doing this on purpose to force us to talk out whatI refused to speak with him about. He was trying to meddle where meddling didn’t need to be done.
When my brothers found out I didn’t tell Bailey I was leaving, they were nothing short of pissed. They considered Bailey a brother, so when I treated him like he was nothing to me, they couldn’t believe it. The truth was, I didn’t think I could have left if I saw the look on his face when I told him. I knew he’d be hurt, and that’s what I was trying to prevent by keeping quiet about my plans.
I had just turned eighteen, and the day I did, Bailey started looking at me differently. He was four years older than me, so the possibility of us ever acting on an attraction towards each other was moot until I was legal.
But that day, something changed. He started looking at me less like his best friend's sister and more like he was finally starting to see me. Reallyseeme. How I looked, how I acted, what I wore.
Those looks were the exact thing I didn’t want. He knew me, inside and out, and I hated that. He could use anything against me if he wanted to, so I had to do the only thing I could. Leave and not look back. At least, until coming back to Bell Buckle was my only option.
Now, I was forced to face him and see just what my leaving did to him.
2
Bailey
“Idon’t mind helping with the barn, but I don’t want to piss her off, man,” I said to Reed after jumping off the tailgate of the truck to help him stack the bales.
Reed waved me off. “Don’t worry about her, she’ll get over it.”
Little did he know, I always worried about her.
When Lettie left without saying goodbye, it felt like a small piece of me left with her. I was hurt that after all the time we’d spent together, all the laughs and memories we shared, I didn’t so much as get a farewell. Not even a damn text.
I had to find out through her brother, Lennon, when I was picking up grain at the feed store in town. He’d been talking about how Brandy was in the store just before me, moping around with nothing else to do. I’d asked why she was upset,and that’s when it dawned on Lennon that I didn’t know. It’d been a week since Lettie left town when I found out.
I didn’t even attempt to call or text her. I figured since she left without saying a word to me, she didn’t want to hear from me after, either. Hell, she disappeared without saying goodbye, whywouldshe want to talk? Clearly I wasn’t important enough in her life to be privy to her plans.
I heard the ladder settle against the red barn when Reed and I both looked over to see Brandy climbing the rungs. He narrowed his eyes.
“I’m not taking your ass to the hospital if you fall, too,” Reed yelled over at her.
He’d had a problem with Brandy since the day Lettie brought her home from kindergarten. They were always getting into trouble together, whether it was playing too close to the untouched horses, or sliding down into the creek bed on flimsy sheets of metal roofing. Whatever plans Brandy had, Lettie followed right along with her, no matter how dangerous.
Reed was the most protective of the four brothers growing up, always asking where Lettie was when she wasn’t in sight. She was diagnosed with anemia when she was nine after she almost passed out when she dismounted her horse. Ever since, her brothers hounded her like hawks. Reed may act like a hard-ass sometimes, but he had the biggest heart of all of them.
It was obvious that their love suffocated her at times, but I wouldn't act like it didn’t concern me either. Oneof my first thoughts when I found out she left was that I hoped she remembered to take her iron supplements.
