Page 14 of Maverick (The Bull Riders #3)

Chapter Six

Stella

It’s a cute cottage. I don’t know what I expected, but this is… Well, it’s just a lot more well put together than I expected it to be. A lot more decorative.

It’s country, and a little bit rustic, but the details are soft and lovely, and I really appreciate the lace combined with the rustic wood.

It definitely feels like it hasn’t been occupied for a while.

And I find myself with a lot more questions than answers about Maverick.

Because he isn’t what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected him to be, other than a one-dimensional cardboard-cutout rodeo circuit villain. He hasn’t been that with me. Even when he’s been abrupt and rude. Even though he’s not overly concerned with being nice.

But he doesn’t make sense. This place is beautiful, and if you had asked me where I thought Maverick Quinn lived, I would’ve said some kind of isolated cabin sitting at the top of a craggy mountain.

Or maybe I would’ve said that he lived in an apartment above a bar, someplace where he could easily drag his latest conquest. Maybe both.

Why not both? That actually seems like a pretty fair idea.

That he might have one place to stay in growly isolation, and another for when he finds victims of all that magnetic charm.

And who can blame any woman for falling victim to him? I certainly can’t. There is no real inventory to take of this place, because obviously no one has been in it for a while and the cupboards are bare other than a single box of Saltines that I think might fight back if I tried to bite into one.

I don’t really know what I’ve gotten myself into, and I try to imagine the conversation that I’m going to have with my parents.

I have impulsively decided to take work in Idaho and will not be returning home at all this summer. Well, I’m thinking about getting back into dressage.

Yes, in my sister’s engagement year. Yes, I can see how that might be perceived as trying to compete with her during an important time in her life.

Maybe everything is not about her.

Except, was it not?

Certainly, Harmony's engagement did something to my brain. Made me feel insufficient in some way. But then, she always has the power to do that, not her fault necessarily. But…

I guess I can’t honestly say this isn’t about her in some ways.

Oh well. Complicated family dynamics for you. It’s impossible to know for sure if you’re totally pure of heart about anything when everything feels like a trap.

I decide not to call my parents just yet, because for all they know, I have three or four weeks left in my season, and they’re not going to check in and find out how I’m doing.

It’s not like we have weekly check-ins. We just aren’t in that space.

That’s fine.

I make a shopping list of all the things that I want, and head into the small town nearest to the ranch.

The grocery store is neat and well-stocked, and I wonder if they get a lot of tourism from people going to Yellowstone and wanting to stay a little bit further outside the park for a bit more space and cost-effectiveness.

Because even though it is small and kind of in the middle of nowhere, it’s definitely well-appointed.

I fill my cart up with cheese and meat, because if there’s one thing I’m going to do, it’s crush a charcuterie board any chance I get, and also snag a couple bottles of wine from the very nice wine section.

And I know my wine, being from Northern California.

I make a quick blitz through the aisle with the protein bars, and grab a few different kinds, then go to the coffee aisle and get a bag of ground beans.

I can make camp coffee, if need be, but I’m sure there’s a coffee maker somewhere in the cottage.

I forgot to check, but it’s too well-appointed to have nothing.

Then I swing around to the bakery section and grab more baked goods than one person needs, but oh well. I feel a little bit self-indulgent. And honestly, why not?

Then I stop, right at the end of the aisle that has feminine hygiene products and contraceptives.

Nothing is going to happen. I’m here in the middle of Idaho, where I don’t know anyone, working for a man who has already rejected me, so it’s not like anything is going to change, but…

I feel a tingling sensation moving down my spine. Everyone has already called me a slut. They already think that I slept with him, and I’m a virgin, which is the most ridiculous thing I can even think of.

All bad reputation, no orgasms.

I move down the aisle, and I contemplate the condoms. There’s a variety of them, and I don’t know anything about which is best from first-hand experience. All I know is what I’ve heard.

I grab a box that doesn’t have any flavor, texture, or other novelty associated with it.

If I were going to do it, then I would want the straight-up experience.

I bite my lip, standing there staring at it, and I wonder how common it is to have a full-on sexual fantasy in this aisle.

Probably more common than not, honestly.

Or maybe some people just buy it the way they do cheese.

Stocking up for a special occasion. I’m stocking up for maybe never. But what if…

Hell, what if there’s even somebody who works at his ranch that I think is hot?

Who knows. It’s a responsible thing to do, really. Being that I’m twenty-four, and I have aspirations of becoming sexually active. It’s responsible to grab condoms. It just is.

I put the condoms in my cart and give thanks for the fact that I’m in a place where nobody knows me.

Still, when I’m in line with all of my items, I feel heat creeping into my cheeks when the checker picks up the condom box and scans it.

She doesn’t look at me. She’s got pink hair and a septum piercing, which I admit I didn’t expect to find in small-town Idaho.

She doesn’t exchange pleasantries with me.

She merely stares and asks me if I want a bag.

“Sure,” I say.

And just like that, all my items are placed into paper bags, and I’m charged an extra five cents for the privilege.

Then I put my items in the cart and push it out to the parking lot, where I load everything into the back seat of my pickup truck.

As I’m pushing the cart back to the front of the store, I call myself an idiot in about ten different ways.

He already rejected me once.

And he’s the only man I want. Well, I have to get over that.

Because life is nothing but a series of disappointments, at least in my experience.

There was one kind of glory that I wanted, and I traded it in for another.

Found that it wasn’t good enough, then couldn’t even achieve that glory a second year in a row.

Maybe it’s a metaphor for how the rest of my life will be. Maverick will be the brass ring of men. The highest, most crowning achievement of desire, and I won’t be able to have him.

Then, beyond that, I will find men who disappoint me. And I’ll try for them until I eventually can’t even land the disappointment of a man.

How cheerful.

I decide to try not to dwell on that. I walk back to the truck and get into the driver’s seat, and push my thoughts away from sex.

I try to bring it back to riding, because that is why I’m here.

It’s not because of Maverick, at least, not who he is as a person.

It’s not because of any sort of imagined connection between the two of us.

We don’t have a connection. Except… He isn’t staying away from me. So maybe we do have more of one than even he wants to admit.

I think about the way that he punched Sean. That’s definitely one of my top five memories at this point. Even if it shouldn’t be.

I bite my lip as I think of the way he hit him.

The way that Sean went down, blood everywhere.

That shouldn’t be hot. It is, though. The thing about Maverick, the thing that I know makes it even more problematic, is that he’s a man.

I’ve been around plenty of handsome guys my age, it’s not the same.

There’s something about him. About the way he carries himself.

The way that he walks through the world.

There’s something about his intensity. And it keeps bringing me back to him time and time again, at least as a fantasy object.

I’d love to be able to let that go. I’d love to be able to attach this need to somebody else, but… I don’t know.

I realize that I spaced out the entire drive, which is crazy, because I don’t even really know where I’m going. I obey the GPS every time it makes a command and then manage to pull up right to the front of the cottage, but the entire time my brain was on planet Maverick.

I unload everything and leave the box of condoms in the paper bag on my counter as I put everything else away. Then I pick the paper bag up, take it back to the bedroom, which I hadn’t even explored yet.

It’s cute. With a moderately sized bed in it – probably a queen – and it’s got sort of a frilly comforter and pillow set in it, that definitely doesn’t bring to mind debauchery of any sort. And yet, I am extremely capable of thinking about getting up to debauchery in it.

It seems to be a gift of mine.

I’m a little bit disappointed in myself. The one-track nature of my mind at this moment in time is causing mayhem in my system, and I could do without it.

I dump the bag out onto the bed and stare at the black box of condoms. Magnum. So masculine.

I take a deep breath, and then I laugh. At myself.

Because not a single man has shown the slightest bit of sexual interest in me, and here I am contemplating a box of condoms. I’ve never been close enough to a penis to need one.