Page 9 of Wild Omegas (Wild Skies Ranch Omegaverse #1)

Josie

Carson is trying very hard to avoid contact with me while remaining polite and it’s incredibly hard to ignore. If I’ve done something wrong I have no idea what it is. But the awkwardness remains through dinner.

I probably finally scared him off for good. Which sucks and is about par for the course in the story of my life.

Luke saves—or dooms—the evening as he finishes his beer. “We should go out to Wild Rodeo tonight.”

Carson’s eyes light up. He snaps his fingers and points at Luke. “Yes, fantastic idea!”

I look at them both. “Wild Rodeo?”

“A bar,” Brooks provides. “With a little stage and mechanical bull.”

I narrow my eyes at Luke. I can’t help but think of our bull-riding conversation in his truck. “You did this on purpose.”

He shifts his head. “I simply thought going out would be fun. If Wild Rodeo happens to have a mechanical bull for you to try riding, how was I to know?”

I smack his chest lightly as I rise from the table. I’m dressed in a skirt which simply won’t do if this is what my future holds. “Fine, fine. But let me get something slightly more appropriate on first.”

“Sure thing, angel,” Luke drawls rises from the table. “I’ll drive.”

Brooks hops up too. “I’ll meet you out there in five.”

“Same,” Carson says before disappearing first out the back door.

I meet them all at Luke’s truck just after Brooks makes it down.

We lock up the main ranch house and climb into the truck with me in the front seat.

This is the first time in… probably forever I’ve had to drive this far for nighttime entertainment.

In the city, everything is at your fingertips and it’s really only a matter of deciding what you want to do.

Here… not so much. Luckily, these alphas are easy to pass the time with.

Conversation lights the cab of Luke’s truck with talk mostly of the ranch, especially ways to make it slightly more profitable in the face of some of the financial issues I’ve uncovered.

By the time we pull into one of the very last open parking spaces at Wild Rodeo, we’ve developed a plan to increase the amount of animals on the ranch and, hopefully in time, product output.

I gape at the two-floor building on the edge of Fairwater Falls.

There’s no way this existed when I lived here.

If it did, I’ve never driven past and certainly never gone inside.

But to be fair, my head was always somewhere outside of Fairwater Falls.

An elephant could’ve walked past and I probably wouldn’t have noticed.

“Intimidated already?” Brooks croons as we make our way inside.

I click my tongue at him. “Intimidated about what? Riding a bull? How hard can it be?” Incredibly . And I know this. At least, I’ve seen videos just like anyone else of people riding mechanical bulls. But surely it can’t be that difficult.

I need to try. I need to do well .

I’m not sure where this need to impress these alphas comes from but it’s growing in force. They can’t be too impressed by a city girl simply existing at the ranch even with the steps I’ve taken to learn how ranch life and their various jobs work. I just…

Like them. Yes, that’s it. Conversation with them is easy. Living with them is easy. Everything just feels calm at Wild Skies Ranch, and I don’t think it’s just because it was a childhood escape.

It’s them and their drawls, their hard-working natures, their humor.

It’s the way they took care of me, a not-so-easy stranger who just appeared here one day in a tornado of life failures and insecurities.

Maybe I am just another mare Luke has tamed.

Luke laughs and presses his hand lightly to the small of my back. I changed into a crop top and jean shorts so I can feel every inch of his large warm hand directly on my skin. The contact catches my breath. “Harder than it looks, Josie. But you should give it a try.”

“Only if you want to, though,” Brooks says as he holds the door open to me. He tips his hat a little. “Don’t let him push you.”

I thank Brooks and turn back to the pack once I’ve crossed the threshold into Wild Rodeo. “I want to try! Can’t let Luke have all the fun.” Not that I’ll be joining him on a real bull anytime soon.

Wouldn’t mind riding him though.

The thought strikes suddenly, but it’s raw and true. An excited shot of arousal accompanies it. My cheeks warm and I pray that none of them have seen it. It’s all too easy to imagine what I was thinking.

Carson shoots me a wink.

Shit. He knows.

“I’ll get the drinks!” I hurry toward the bar and order a pitcher of beer for us to share and return in short order with it and some cups.

The alphas have claimed a table in the meantime.

I pass out the cups in a not-dissimilar way to the lemonade event and try not to think about the glorious solo time I had after it.

“Josie?”

Luke’s voice snaps me out of the heated reverie. I turn toward him. “Hi, yes?”

Carson and Brooks chuckle again and each sip beer while Luke’s gaze roams over me.

“I was asking if you’d like anything to eat?” Luke asks.

Good job, Josie. I’ve been around them for so many days now and this is when I’m too tied up in my attraction to them to behave like a normal person? Just more ways I keep fucking things up for myself.

“I’m good.” In fact, if I eat right now I think I might be sick.

Okay, maybe that’s dramatic. But my nerves have cranked up high.

I stare at the mechanical bull from across the room.

It sits in the center of Wild Rodeo, in an open mezzanine area with a railing around the balcony above, so that everyone on the second floor can also watch whoever’s on the damn thing get flung off.

As if on cue, a lady is thrown off onto the pads below.

Screw it. “I’m going to go give that thing a go.”

Brooks catches my wrist. “Hey, you don’t have to, you know?”

Luke nods. “It was mostly a joke. Just wanted us to all have a fun night out.”

I flash them all a smile I’m not entirely sure reaches my eyes. “I know.” What I feel for you all is scarier than the mechanical bull. But I can’t tell them that. I mean, I could . But that’d open up a whole can of worms I’m not sure I’m ready for.

As amazing as these three alphas are, and as attractive as being part of a pack again sounds, the reality is I’m still running from a life I willingly burnt down.

When I set my bakery on fire I was half attempting insurance fraud and half…

attempting to end that tail spinning life.

I still don’t think that when I lit the matches I knew which I wanted. But the attempts were made nonetheless.

Pissing off Damien wasn’t part of that plan, of course, but it was absolutely an accidental result of it.

I can look at Wild Skies Pack. I can maybe even touch them if the opportunity arises. But no matter how much I’d love to sink into their muscular arms and heady scents, I can’t be a part of their pack. I can’t get too involved.

Fun, yes.

Involved, no.

“I’m going to try now,” I say and hurry away before I change my mind about all of it.

Focus on the present. That’s what I should do.

That’s what the therapist I should be seeing would say.

But which present is that? The one where I’m going to try riding this fake bull?

Or the one where I’ve walked onto a ranch with three beautiful alphas and no reason to not fall into their arms?

Or the one where I’m at the ranch because Damien wants me dead?

I can’t have one without the other.

I suck in a deep breath as I approach the man operating the mechanical bull. He’s over six feet tall, wearing cowboy boots and tight black jeans, and in general looks like a bull of a man himself.

“Ten dollars per ride,” he announces.

I fish out my slim wallet and hand him the cash. “Any tips?”

I intend it to come out as a cheeky joke but he just looks at me deadpan. His gaze does a quick skim of my small form and he shrugs. “Don’t let go.”

Reassuring, truly.

“Thanks.”

He nods and waves me to the line. I watch two more women and one man get thrown off but another man manages to stay on despite being absolutely drunk. Afterwards, he sways away back toward a table of hollering men lifting beers in his honor.

Hilarious , I think dryly as I make my way to the bull and climb on.

It feels like every pair of eyes in this bar is on me. They very likely are. Even I couldn’t help but watch the previous victims mount this thing.

I grab on to the small leather loop as my thighs straddle the bull for dear life. The loop is the only hand-hold but I’ve ridden horses. I know how to stay on.

It occurs to me as the bull starts up that the last time I rode a horse was over a decade ago.

The mechanical bull starts off slow and easy. Every now and then it bucks but not wild, and I’m able to look up to my table of alphas and see their grins. They’re enjoying this so far, it seems, and I’m pretty sure it’s not entirely because at this angle, my ass is very suggestively positioned.

The speed picks up. I squeeze my thighs and try not to think about this position with any of those alphas instead of this mechanical bull. For starters, they couldn’t be as wildly bucking as this thing, right?

The bull operator tries to throw me off.

The machine shoots forward but I hold on.

The crowd hollers and whoops. I bear down.

So far, this is going better than I could’ve hoped for.

Maybe I’ve blown this whole thing out of proportion.

It’s a far cry from the actual bull-riding that Luke does at rodeos but it’s something , and it’s something I’m not failing at, and as stupid as that sounds, it makes me happy.

It gives me hope.

The operator tries several more times but I hang on. There’s a part of me that knows this is more a show for everyone watching than it is a real feat of skill or something. But to me, it all matters.

Especially when I see my alphas watching. Which they are with raised eyebrows and less then wholesome smirks. The fingers around their beer glasses are gripped tight, and the eye contact is dead on. Except when their gazes wander to where my hips meet the mechanical bull.

Oh yes. If there was any doubt before, it’s gone now: They’re interested.

I am, too. And I know this is probably a disaster waiting to happen.

One alpha pack already left me behind. But if something more than simple friendship evolves while we live together for the next year, should I really push them away?

The operator ends my ride and I hop off to the sound of a drunk crowd’s applause. I take an overdramatic bow and head back to my table of alphas who have not yet rearranged their faces.

So instead, I flash them a beaming smile and say, “What? Did you think I couldn’t ride?”