Page 13 of Burnin' For You
Gilly frowned at her but obeyed. Juliet dropped the dress over her. Billowy and soft, it accentuated her thin, muscular legs and distracted from the fact she didn’t have much in the backtocover up. “Now, we’ll put up your hair, add some boots, and you’ll be adorbs.” Jules winked at her. “Maybe catch the eye of one of your jumper pals.”
“That’s what this is about—I don’t need to catch the eye—”
“Stop it. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed any of the cute guys on your squad.”
“They’reteammates, Juliet.” She made to pull off the dress, but her sister grabbed her hand. Gilly surrendered. “Fine. But no—I haven’t noticed any of them.” She opened the door, walked down to the bathroom, grabbed a brush for her out-of-control hair.
Except. Well. But the last thing she’d do is fling her heart out for some man to trample on.
Or more.
Besides, Reuben was just so…well, she’d have to stand on a bench to kiss him. And how that thought drifted in, she didn’t know, but…okay, yes, it wasn’t exactly random, or rare.
She’d wondered more than once what it might feel like to be swept up in those massive arms, to know the quiet man who often ended up in the copilot’s seat, fighting his sensitive stomach during a flight.
And she found itoh-sointeresting that he hadn’t dated one—notone—girl since arriving on base seven years ago.
Seven years was a long dry spell.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud.
She ran the brush through her hair, and Juliet appeared to put it up in a messy bun. She handed Gilly some mascara and lipstick, and soon Gilly was in over her head.
“We’re taking your Mustang,” Juliet said.
Reuben just needed a way to burn the frustration away. To jolt free of the residual hum of fear, the panic that gripped him around the throat when he thought of their run to freedom.
Regret did that—lived deep in his gut, an ember, smoldering.
He needed something bigger than himself—a fifteen-hundred-pound black-and-white Plumer bull named Custer, a beast with so much mean in his eyes he didn’t need the horns to make a man’s gut roil. But he had them—cut off on the ends, just in case—and tonight he’d already tried to tear up everything that got near him—the horses, the stalls, the barrels.
Even the cowboy trying to ride him.
Reuben straddled the chute, breathing hard, trying to remember what he’d learned about this bull. Just a junior bull in the big world of PBR, this animal was known as a sunfish bucker—twisting up his belly, mid-kick. If Reuben managed to stay on longer than four seconds, the bull might settle into a spin. Throw Reuben off like a top.
Not tonight.
Reuben simmered with a restless energy, something dark and brooding lit by the fire, still seeing Hannah nearly perish as the wall of flame bore down on them. He could still smell the sizzle of flame in water, feel his boots on the superheated embers as he and Hannah ran down the road.
He still heard Hannah’s scream as she fell, tasted his heart in his throat as he grabbed her by the scruff of her jacket, boosted her up, dragged her into the open toward the cool water of Fountain Lake.
How they’d survived, he still couldn’t work out, although he knew it had mostly to do with Gilly’s miraculous rainstorm of rescue as he’d run toward the wall of flames.
He’d never been a fast man—not even in football. Well, a lineman didn’t actually have to be fast, just sturdy. But he ran like he could have gone to state, his regret—no, hisstupidity—ringing in his ears like the brutal wind.
Why hadn’t he stopped Pete earlier, listened to his gut, told them to head the other direction? They would have cleared the fire before it jumped the road.
And then he wouldn’t be waking from his sleep, nightmares piling one over another.
First his dad, then Jock, and now this.
And all were his fault for not speaking up, for letting someone else make the decisions.
Not tonight. Tonight he was in charge. Tonight he would do what he did best—tighten down his grip, hold on, be the master of his fate.
Reuben settled himself on the bull and worked his gloved hand into the bull rope, the bell beneath the animal’s chest ringing. He worked his fist into the rope, pounded his fingers down, closed.
Already his muscles burned, adrenaline rippling through him.