Page 1 of Buck This (Battle of the Bulls #6)

“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.”

“Why the fuck did your friend bail on you?” he demanded, rounding on her again.

She felt like she was in trouble, and she didn’t like it.

She was a grown woman, and she’d been through a lot, and she hadn’t signed up for any of this!

She’d been bullied into coming here tonight.

Torey pulled the sides of her dress up to let it fall around her hips again.

“Because I don’t fit in with her world. Obviously. ”

“You’re friend’s lame. So is her stupid boyfriend.”

“Husband now,” she muttered.

“Ha!” The cowboy removed his hat and then replaced it and laughed again. “Your friend married Cobalt Blue?” He gritted out the name like a curse word. He huffed a breath and shook his head. “That tells me all I need to know about you.”

“About me?” she demanded, her cheeks burning with anger.

“I didn’t marry him. I barely know him. Hell, Reece barely knows him.

Three months ago, our lives made sense, and then all of a sudden I was maid of honor at some big ranch wedding in Denver and now I’m at a rodeo, where my friend, who has never worn a pair of boots in her life, told me this was the look for me tonight.

And then I almost died,” she pointed out, rubbing the back of her neck.

It was still tingling from where he’d gripped her.

The tall cowboy narrowed his eyes at her and sighed.

He was atrociously behaved, but she couldn’t deny the man was sexy as hell.

Cowboys weren’t her type, but he had this short beard that was just a shade darker than his hair that curled out from under his cowboy hat.

He had a chiseled jaw, and broad shoulders that probably got him into a lot of panties.

And those eyes…oh, those glowing green eyes.

She bet she knew what he was.

“You a shifter?”

He looked grossed out by the question and gestured around them. “This is a shifter event. Being a shifter isn’t special here. You want autographs?” He pointed toward a wide hall. “Go in there. It’s safer for a city-slicker like you.”

City-slicker?

He strode away with long, powerful strides.

“I’m Torrey,” she called.

“Don’t care,” he called back without turning around.

She stared after him until he climbed a gate like he’d done it a million times. He hopped off the other side and disappeared into a crowd.

Reece was sitting on top of a nearby panel with Cobalt, staring at her with a strange frown on her pretty face.

What? Torrey mouthed.

Reece’s frown deepened before she returned her attention to Cobalt.

Sweet. Torrey couldn’t feel much lower than she did now and was beginning to realize just how bad a decision coming here had been.

She’d thought tonight would be about hanging out with her best friend and cheering on her new husband.

Truth be told, she had missed Reece very much lately.

Torrey was going through something big, and she’d needed to lean on Reece, but she couldn’t take away from Reece’s happy time.

It didn’t sit right with her, so she did this—she waited for Reece to invite her out and she tried to enjoy the time they had together, hoping that someday when the newness of the marriage settled, Reece would go back to being her normal, caring self again.

She stayed plastered against the railing and aimed for the wide-mouth hallway that Grumpy Cowboy had pointed at. She wasn’t interested in autographs, but she was interested in survival, and that opening felt like the direct path to that.

“’Scuse me,” she murmured, edging around people who were standing against the railing talking in pairs and trios.

“Nice shoes,” someone called sarcastically.

“Ha, thank you,” she muttered, pretty certain her cheeks would hold this blush for the rest of her life.

The hallway opened immediately to an enormous open arena crowded with people. There were several lines, and as she stood on her tiptoes to see around the masses, she noted several guys at the tables signing pictures for fans.

Who were they?

Torrey scratched an itch on her neck and looked up at the open night sky, dotted with stars.

She hadn’t realized how enormous this venue was.

Against the railing, there was a bar with several bartenders working.

She kind of wished she could buy Grumpy Cowboy a beer for saving her, but he would probably throw it at her or something.

Maybe they sold soft drinks.

Her phone dinged in her purse, and about four people around her tossed her dirty looks. Right, shifters were everywhere here. That sound was probably annoying to their oversensitive ears. She scrambled to retrieve her phone from her purse before another text came through.

It was probably Reece wanting to meet up.

The name on the text dropped her heart right through her toes. Caleb.