AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Theron offers me the half-eaten slice.
“No thanks. I’ll just make another one.” I turn my back to him and proceed to make my breakfast again as slowly as possible hoping he’ll be gone when I turn back around. Put an end to my humiliation.
“How you likin’ country livin’?” Theron asks, then crunches another bite.
I glance over my shoulder to find him looking at me. “It’s alright, I guess.” There I go clenching again. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say there’s genuine interest in those baby blues lined by thick black lashes. But I do know better. I’m so obviously seeing what I want to see. Guys don’t look at me like that. If they did, I’d have had sex more than a handful of times with my one lousy boyfriend. If I couldn’t find another teenage boy horny enough to take me, there’s no way in hell this full-grown, hot as fuck man wants to. He probably has goddess-level women lining up for him.
Thoroughly defeated, I shrug and go back to watching the red-hot coils turn my bread into toast. “Anyway, I’ve only been here a few hours. Been asleep more than I’ve been awake.”
“We’re pretty laid back around here. If you need anything, just holler.” His voice pans behind me as he walks across the room toward the door. “See ya around, Skye.”
My words get stuck again, not sure of the tone they’ll take as I’m half relieved and half sad he’s leaving. Finally, I force out a thin, “See ya,” hoping, even though I know nothing can come of it, I see him sooner rather than later.
four
THERON
Well,thatwasunexpected.
It’s a good thing I loaded my bike into my truck before I went in and met Skye. My limbs are completely useless now. Takes every ounce of energy I have to climb into the driver’s seat and back my truck down the driveway to head home.
When Boone told me Skye was about my sister’s age, I expected to meet a girl I’d instantly see as a sister. Instead, I walk into his kitchen to find a woman I instantly want to see bent over my bike while I rail her from behind gripping those thick hips of hers.
I love how fucking soft she looked. It took an extraordinary amount of willpower not to full-on plaster myself to her when I reached for the toast. Which I only did because I had to get closer to her. How is she only eighteen? It’s fucking criminal to be a decade younger than me and be that fucking delicious.
As hard as it’s been for me to find a woman my own age willing to put up with my bullshit, there’s no chance in hell a woman new to the adult dating scene will. She has time to wade through men that aren’t as big of shitheels as I am. She shouldn’t settle but she’d be better off settling for a man her own age than one who’s older and not the least bit wiser.
“Chip jumped the fence again,” my mom says as soon as I walk into the house.
“Is Maya home?” I ask assuming she’s already out looking for him.
“She’s still at work.”
My jaw drops as I scoff. “So, you’re just going to lose your daughter’s pet? What the fuck, mom?” I leave the house unconcerned with her answer. It’s one fucking thing to not care about the farm but Chip is family. My sister’s favorite goat. Though, I’m not sure why. He’s ornery as fuck, even for a goat. He gets out constantly and has put Maya on her ass too many times to count.
“Chip, you little shit, get the fuck back here,” I shout when I see him gnawing on the fence rail across the road.
I walk slowly so as not to startle him. He’s likely to jump that fence and be halfway to the next fence line before I get down the driveway.
“Oh, thank fuck,” I say and grab the lasso hanging on the fence—the one Chip jumped—next to the barn. Maya must have left it out after wrangling him a couple of days ago. It should have been put in the barn, out of the sun to keep it from getting brittle. The last thing we need is for the thing to break and get a hoof to the face or gut or worse. I would have told her off for leaving it out but I’ve had too much shit going on to notice. I’ve been out here more than she has. It’s as much my fault as it is hers.
Worked out in my favor though. Not having to take my eyes off Chip, possibly lose him, to get it out of the barn.
As I creep across the road and prepare to rope Chip, I can’t help thinking that my riding gear is about the worst thing to be wearing for this job but if I had taken the time to change, who knows how far he could have gotten. It’s lucky he’s only gotten this far.
When I step off the gravel and into the grass, Chip stops chewing on the wooden fence rail but keeps his teeth clamped down on it. Now that he knows I’m here, there’s no telling when he’ll make his next move.
Not long. Chip releases his grip on the fence and I get ready to toss the rope, crouched and holding the loop at my side.
Chip’s quick. Not putting enough distance between himself and the fence for me to toss the lasso over his head. Instead, I have to toss it under him and catch him around his back leg as he takes off down the length of the ditch.
It’s a fight to keep hold of him as I work my way up the rope to wrangle him into my arms. Thankfully, as soon as I have him incapacitated he calms and lets me carry him back to the barn.
“Consider yourself grounded,” I tell him before I exit the barn shutting him in so we don’t wake up to find him missing in the morning. That is not how I want to start my Sunday.
“Not again,” Maya says, climbing out of Penny’s car.
My sister is such a weirdo. She’s obsessed with the 1980s. Refuses to use a cell phone. She has one because our mom insisted, for emergencies, but she has to be the only teenage girl in history to actually use it that way. Why she doesn’t drive though…? I don’t get that.
