Page 1 of Buck This
Chapter One
“Do I look okay?” Torrey Chambers asked.
“For the tenth time,” Reece told her, “you look fine. God, not everything is about you.”
Her friend’s words stung enough that Torrey flinched and stopped walking. Lately, nothing was about her.
“There’s Cobalt!” Reece exclaimed, pointing past a set of gates. She turned around and gave Torrey a disparaging look as she realized she wasn’t following right behind her. “What are you doing? Come on! He’s going on in half an hour. You know what?” she asked, growing frustrated. “Never mind. Why don’t you just stand there and worry about how you look? It’s VIP back here anyway and you don’t have a pass.”
Reece turned and jogged toward her new husband, Cobalt Blue. Stupid name, but all bull riders in this circuit had to either have a cool one from birth or come up with one for the tour. Cobalt had been born Christopher Dinglefirth, but now she got to refer to her best friend’s new husband as a color from a crayon box.
It wasn’t Torrey’s plan tonight to piss her friend off with the two times she’d asked if she looked all right, but she hadn’t been to a rodeo since she was a kid, and never had she been to a rodeo like this. The annual Battle of the Bulls competition was happening, and both bull shifters and bull riders were vying for the top spots, and a chance to make a lot of money. At least, that’s what Reece had said. Torrey didn’t know how much money was up for grabs. She had asked Reece questions, but since she had married Cobalt last month, Reece had been so different. She had very little patience for Torrey these days.
Take for example, tonight. Reece had begged Torrey to come out with her to this Battle of the Bulls competition but had clearly steered her wrong about what to wear. Reece looked like a bejeweled cowgirl, while Torrey was definitely the only one here rocking a sundress and Dr. Martens boots.
Yes, she’d asked if she looked all right. She was insecure as hell right now and stuck out like a sore thumb.
A group of women in sparkly jeans and cowgirl hats were leaning up against the rail nearby and staring at her, talking low. Torrey pursed her lips into a forced smile and gave them a little wave, then looked around. Maybe she could find a little hidey corner somewhere until Reece was done sucking face with her husband, whom she’d known for a total of twelve weeks.
Torrey blew air out of her puffed cheeks and took two steps to the left before she was nearly run over by a horse and rider.
“Watch where you’re going!” the cowboy riding the horse yelled as Torrey staggered backward to escape getting trampled.
Hands shaking, Torrey clenched them and looked around frantically. A ton of horses and riders were crowding the dirt floor clearing now, and she was standing right in the middle of the chaos.
Her panicked attention landed on a cowboy who was standing near the gate the horses and riders were filtering through. She didn’t know why she looked at him. She was in peril right now and probably about to draw her last breath, but this guy had these striking green eyes that looked so unnatural surrounded by all this brown. Brown dirt, brown wooden walls, brown gates, and panels. Brown boots, brown hats, brown, brown brown, and then green eyes boring into her soul.
He looked angry.
Torrey ripped her gaze away from his and pulled her arms up to her chest, like that would save her from the cantering, stomping, side-swaying horses right now.
A strong grip on her neck made her hunch her shoulders and yelp.
“This way,” came a gritty voice as he pushed her toward the wall.
A quick glance to the side and it was the green-eyed angry man. She hadn’t realized how tall or how wide he was, but the cowboy towered over her.
Currently, Torrey was like a kitten being held by the scruff of her neck and couldn’t do anything but clumsily trot in the direction he guided her.
She was probably going to die. The running horses were thicker now, and she was pretty sure she’d seen this on a movie before—death by stampede.
His grip didn’t disappear from the nape of her neck until she was gripping a rail along the edge of the arena. The release was so quick, she wrenched backward and nearly fell onto her butt in the dirt.
“Geez,” she murmured, rubbing the back of her neck. When she turned, the cowboy was already walking away. “You didn’t have to be so rough,” she said.
He rounded on her, and whoa he still looked pissed. “What are you doing?”
“Like…what am I doing with my life?”
“No! Why are you standing right in the middle of the alleyway when a competition is starting? There will be a hundred animals going through here in the next few minutes.”
“Oh. Um, I haven’t been…to…a rodeo…in a really long ti—”
“This is Battle of the Bulls, not a rodeo, and even if it was?” he asked in this deep, gritty voice. He jammed a finger at the exit. “The bleachers are that way.”
He turned and spat and gave her one last fiery glance before he turned to leave.
“Thank you,” she said softly as he left. “For you know…saving my life.”
