Page 18 of Buck This (Battle of the Bulls #6)

“You got some Buck of the Night award,” she murmured as Buck pulled his truck into the parking space beside her car. “They announced it to the crowd and everything.”

He shook his head in disbelief and cut the engine, then relaxed back into the seat, staring at his RV. “Tonight feels like a dream.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep having flashbacks of certain moments and I feel present in those, and then others, I feel like I was watching myself from outside of my body.”

She smiled and reached over the console to rub his arm. “That was really you. Now you know.”

“I know what?” he asked, rolling his head until he faced her.

“You know you have it in you. You know you can. That’s a powerful moment when you take that shackle off. You don’t have to hold yourself back anymore.”

He huffed a soft laugh. “I can do it with a few of the biggest legends in the game, and you leading me into a chute. Credit where it’s due.”

“It’s still you,” she said softly.

His chest rose as he inhaled deeply, and he surprised her by lifting up her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Thank you for staying.”

“What was your favorite part of the night?” she asked. His answer was important to the piece of her heart that loved him already.

His eyes softened. “I don’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll run.”

She dropped her gaze to her lap. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it then.”

“You really don’t give a shit about it all, do you?” he asked.

She didn’t know what he meant.

“I could be the number one bucking bull shifter in existence, and you wouldn’t care at all about how many likes or follows or events I booked.”

“Mmm, would those things make you happy?”

“If I said yes, would you care then?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Only then.”

He nodded slowly, watching her. “One more day of playing house.”

“One tiny day.” She banished the hurt from her voice. She wasn’t ready to be separated. This had been the best and most beautiful distraction of her life.

She would miss feeling excitement like this. She would miss feeling the intensity of feelings. She would miss learning about this world, and the people she had met in it.

She would miss Buck.

“This has been really fun,” she murmured.

“It ain’t over yet.”

She grinned. “Damn right. You have finals to crush.”

He snorted. “It’ll be a miracle if I place at all.”

“I have faith,” she said, pushing the door open.

Buck grabbed her hand and stilled her. “Why did you just say that?”

“Because I really do have faith in you.”

A frown was etched so deeply into his handsome face.

“What?” she asked.

Buck swallowed hard. “Someone I knew used to say that.”

“Well, she sounds like a genius.”

“He was my brother.”

“Was?”

“Yeah. He used to say he had faith in me. He said he just knew I was going to be something big someday. He’s been on my mind. Before every buck, he would say, ‘Push the hurt down to your toes and buck strong.’ Sometimes I can still hear him saying it when I’m about to buck.”

His phone dinged with a text message, and he checked the glowing screen. “Quickdraw says I better be in bed already or he will personally beat the shit out of me.”

She laughed and got out. “Come on, big fella. Bedtime. Quickdraw is probably terrifying in a fight.”

“Actually, you can find some of his brawls on the internet.”

“Was he a fighter?” she asked.

“He was and is a lot of things. One of them being one of the most legendary bucking bull shifters to ever exist. No herd has more awards under their belts than Quickdraw and his boys. You know his son?”

“Tuff Enough?” she asked.

“Yep. He’s the number one bronc rider in the world right now. He’s held the title for a few years now.”

“Why didn’t he go into the family business and buck?” she asked as she followed him up to the door of the RV.

“Because he’s a werewolf like his momma. Last I checked, there wasn’t a circuit for bucking werewolves.”

She giggled at the imagery he’d painted in her mind. “I guess it would make sense that he didn’t want to ride bucking bulls if his dad is one. Broncs makes sense. Are there bucking horse shifters?” she asked curiously.

“Nope. Those are all animal.”

“So, Tuff competes with the human bronc riders?”

“Nope. That wouldn’t be fair. His competition is all shifters. Sort of how the circuit I buck in is all bucking bull shifters. The animal bulls are a different circuit, and they all compete for different awards and different cash prizes.”

He led her inside his RV and she sat at the small table, lost in thought. “Was your brother a bucking bull shifter like you?”

Buck’s eyes closed off immediately, and he knelt down to grab a pair of water bottles from the small mini fridge.

She’d stayed here last night with him, but he’d insisted she take the RV while he’d slept in the back seat of his truck.

In some ways, Buck was an absolute monster, and in others, he was a compelling gentleman.

He handed her a water and told her, “Set it by the bed in case you get thirsty in the night.”

He'd done the same last night, and she knew if she were to stay with him longer, he would make it routine to care for her in this small way.

“What are you smilin’ at?”

“Oh nothing. Just that you can be pretty nice when you want to be.”

“Yeah well, don’t tell anyone my secret. I’ll deny it to my grave.”

And he’d done it. He’d changed the subject. He didn’t want to talk about his brother, and it wasn’t her right to pry too deeply for information on him. She had a feeling something had happened to him, but Buck wouldn’t share any more with her tonight. She could tell.

He turned on the small, wall-mounted television, and the news popped up. The media was covering the competition.

“Whoa, that’s you!” she exclaimed, pointing.

He’d turned his back and was pulling on a pair of sweatpants, but at her exclamation, he turned, narrowed his eyes at the TV, and changed the channel.

“Why did you do that? I bet they are going to show your interviews!”

“I’m sick of seeing myself,” he said simply.

She watched him brush his teeth. His torso flexed with the movement, and his eyes stayed somber. He had a faraway look to him.

“Hey,” she said, standing. “Are you okay?”

“I’m always good,” he said low.

But he still seemed tense. She didn’t understand, so she slid her arms around him from behind and hugged him, resting her cheek against his spine.

Buck froze, and after a few seconds, he softened and straightened to his full height, and patted her arms where she rested them against his abs. She could feel his sigh as much as hear it.

“I can sleep in the truck tonight if you need some space,” she told him.

“Space is the last thing I want. It ain’t you.”

“What’s wrong?”

He turned in her arms. “All those people tonight…it’s more to let down.”

She nodded but stayed quiet. When a man got jammed up like this, it was best to just listen.

He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and there was such sadness in his eyes. “All my life I’ve let people down. It’s what I do. And now there’s all this attention on me and I know what’s coming.”

“Or…hear me out…you don’t let anyone down at all. You focus on yourself and building a legacy you can be proud of. It’s you and the rider. One rider at a time.”

“And all eyes on me while I struggle with the Change, and escape panels, and try to jump out of the arena. That isn’t under control, Torrey. I’m barely there when I’m the bull and it isn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Was it always like that?”

He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “It’s only a couple of years old.”

“The car accident?”

“It did something to my animal. We don’t co-exist well anymore.”

“Then why do you still buck?” she asked. His answer mattered.

“Because for eight seconds, I remember who I used to be. I feel normal. My life makes sense for that eight second ride. For eight fucking seconds, I can remember the good.”

Ooof. Her heart. She hugged him up again and stared at the bed on the other side of the RV. He really hadn’t come to this career for the fame. He was searching for something different. He was searching for his old self.

“Tomorrow, you will get another eight seconds to feel like you,” she said softly. “And I’ll be there right after you finish to remind you of who you are now. We can bypass the media—”

“Quickdraw won’t allow me to do that—”

“You’re a grown man. You and I can slip out and leave the media with a mystery.

” She eased back and smiled at him. “We can come back here, whatever the results of tomorrow’s finals, and turn on that little firepit you have set up outside, and we can drink a beer and decompress, and I’ll tell you stories from when I was a kid. ”

“More sucky track team stories?”

She laughed. “I haven’t even gotten to the part about how mediocre I was at soccer.”

He chuckled, and there it was. There was that smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes yet, but it was still a smile. It counted.

“I got you something,” he murmured.

“If you finish this joke with, ‘it’s my dick,’ I’m going to donkey-kick you.”

He huffed a good laugh this time and shook his head, leaned down and pressed a kiss on her shoulder and then made his way to the little closet, and pulled out a box. He set it on the table and gestured to it. “Open it.”

But she could see the tags on it, and the picture on the outside of the box. She could see the size.

“Buck,” she uttered on a breath as she approached it slowly.

She lifted the lid on the cowgirl boots and gasped at the fine leather there. She ran her finger down the tan leather of the boot shaft and traced the white decorative stitching. “How did you know my size?”

“I checked your shoes last night.”