Page 16 of Counting on a Cowboy

“What’s up?” Kyra glanced at Lyric over her shoulder.

“That’s one of the girls in my class.” She moved behind the hat display so they wouldn’t see her. “Elina. And that’s her boyfriend.” He had that textbook bad-boy look, from the black spiked hair to the many tattoos coloring his arms to the scowl on his face.

Tess and Kyra hid with her, both of them craning their necks trying to get a better look.

“Yikes. I’m not sure he’s being very nice to her.” Tess frowned.

Lyric peeked through the space between two black cowboy hats. “That’s what I’ve been worried about.”

“They might be yelling at each other,” Kyra observed. “I can’t tell.”

“We have to get closer.” Lyric moved along the rows of hats and then hurried to take cover behind the first rack of sunglasses.

“Stop it. Just stop it,” Elina was saying. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

Lyric shared an intense gaze with Tess.

“Shut up,” Franco growled.

Oh, no, he didn’t. Before she could think it through, Lyric stepped out from behind the sunglasses. “Hey, Elina.” It was impossible to muster a smile with her blood boiling this way. “Everything okay over here?”

The girl’s eyes registered a panicked shock.

“Who the hell are you?” Franco demanded, squinting at her.

“I’m her friend.”So take that.Elina had backup—

“She’s my yoga teacher,” the girl corrected in ahorrified tone. Lyric might as well have been her embarrassing mother.

“I’m a customer at this establishment who is concerned that we might have a problem here.” She stared the kid down. She no longer caved to bullies.

“Oh, my God.” Elina hid her face in her hands.

“What the hell is your problem, lady?” Franco hissed, looking around as though embarrassed.

Lady? She didn’t even have one gray hair yet! “I don’t have a problem,” she said calmly. “Do you?” She addressed the question to Elina. “Because I’m here to help—”

“I don’t need your help.” She was definitely staring at Lyric the way an irate teen girl might stare at her mother.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Franco tugged on Elina’s arm, and Lyric found herself in motion again, stepping between them while some other force took over inside of her. “You don’t have to go with him. I can take you home.” Her skin prickled from the icy hot adrenaline the same way it had when her ex Luke used to grab her arm.

“Leave me alone.” Elina lurched away and practically ran for the door with Franco trailing behind her. The fight instinct that had risen inside of Lyric nearly sent her chasing them out the door, but that wouldn’t do any good. So instead, she tried to even out her breathing and returned to her friends, her heart thudding.

“You okay?” Kyra put an arm around her. She was the only one who knew the whole story behind Lyric’s past.

“I’m fine.” The wheeze in her voice exposed the lie. Her stomach was sick.

“I don’t understand,” Tess said. “Why would she wantto leave with him if he was talking to her like that? So rude.”

Lyric couldn’t explain. She’d done the same thing once. She’d ignored all her friends’ careful questions. She’d let other relationships go in favor of the one that was hurting her the most. “She’s probably never going to talk to me again now.”

“She has to keep going to your class to get the school credit, right?” Kyra asked.

“I guess so.” But, after making such a scene, Lyric had no idea how she would ever earn the girl’s trust.

CHAPTER SEVEN

This radio silence between her and Thatch had gone on long enough. Lyric parked in front of the rec center and tried to see through the slightly tinted windows. Running into Elina and Franco at the store a few days before had really shaken her, and she needed to know if Thatch had spent any time with the kid.

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