Gah, this man! Every conversation today made me want to rip my hair out. Or his. But considering the trouble that had come from my efforts to get to this point, I would have to take him at his word.
“Great. Good. All I want is for us to be friendly for Eden and Booker’s wedding, okay?”
He nodded, but at this point, he’d probably agree to anything if it meant I’d leave.
“Okay. Friendly it is.”
“I’m also going to want some proof you’ve got the Best Man stuff covered.”
“You’ve got a real Type A thing going on here, June.”
I flashed him a cheesy grin. “Type A as in Awesome at Handling Weddings?”
He shook his head at me. “I’ll send you my plans, receipts, the works. It’s been great seeing you, but I’ve got to order aNo Trespassingsign.”
FOUR
ty
Friendly.
June wanted me to be friendly. I could do polite, I could even do cold, but hell if I could do friendly with June Evans. I’d proved that well enough when she dated Bret. The woman was all sunshine and enthusiasm, and I’d never quite been able to shut up the voices that clamored for so much more than justfriendlinesswith her.
I watched as she drove off in that little car of hers, the tires kicking up dust behind her. When she disappeared from view, I finally sat down in my recliner. Standing hurt like the devil, but I wouldn’t let her watch as I grunted and groaned myself into a sitting position like some ancient man climbing into his death bed.
Not that she hadn’t already seen me at my worst. That had to be one for the record books, a woman pulling up to my property and promptly watching me get my ass handed to me by a four-year-old horse. In all my time working with horses, I’d never been kicked like that, not even as a stupid, reckless kid. I’d been bit a time or two, sure, and had plenty of little injuries, but nothing like this. I’d started a lot of green horses that didn’t know what they were capable of, but I always stayed in charge of the situation. I never took my eyes off them when we were in the pen together, never got distracted by anything around me.
Until June turned up on my ranch.
If it hadn’t been for Bullet, who knows how long I would have stood there gawping away at her like an idiot. She’d just appeared out of nowhere, a vision of everything soft and beautiful and completely out of reach. I’d sworn to myself I’d keep her that way, no matter how much it tore me up inside. And she thought I had a problem with her? Well, that was probably better than the alternative.
I had to focus, and fished around in the pharmacy bag for my cell and wallet. The one saving grace of the day was that June hadn’t barged into the ER with me to make sure I was being adequately cared for. I’d rather get kicked again than let her witness me having to be undressed by a nurse because it hurt too much to take my own pants off. Couldn’t say which had been worse, the red-hot poker in my chest, or the searing humiliation.
I thumbed in Booker’s number on my cell. He had grown up on a ranch and knew his way around flighty horses, even if he didn’t do anything with them these days. With Aaron out of reach until tomorrow morning, I didn’t have a whole lot of options for getting Bullet taken care of for the night. The rest of the horses would be fine out to pasture, but I didn’t like to leave Bullet in the small round corral with nothing to do. A horse like that would find his own amusement, and that would surely end in trouble.
“What’s up?” His deep voice rumbled on the other end of the line.
Booker Robinson had been my best friend since second grade. We’d been so tight, we had legitimately thought we were twins, our seven-year-old selves too innocent to see my white skin and his black skin as a barrier to blood brotherhood. That bond had stuck fast through school, with only a short pause when we went off to different colleges. When we both rolled back into Magnolia Ridge, we’d picked up right where we’d left off, and our friendship had seen each other through the last dozen years of highs and lows.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t give me crap about this particular low.
“I need to ask a favor.”
In theory, Booker’s job as Magnolia Ridge High School’s P.E. teacher and basketball coach left his summers free. In practice, he wound up almost as busy mid-summer as in fall. Basketball clinics took up most of his time, and he was trying to finish his continuing education course before the wedding so he could have the last of the summer to enjoy being a love-crazed newlywed.
Not that I was jealous. Booker deserved every bit of happiness with Eden. Still—nothing like your best friend getting everything he ever wanted to make a guy see all the gaps in his own life.
“That’s not how this works,” Booker said. “You’re my Best Man, you’re the one at my beck and call.”
“Not today, man. Any chance you could come by and turn out a horse for me?”
“You mean you found one you can’t handle?”
“Not exactly.” Lord, how to explain? I hadn’t thought about all the questions I’d have to answer, not one of which I wanted to discuss. “I’ve had a slight complication.”
“A complication? Do tell.”
I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. I would never hear the end of this. “I got kicked.”
