Page 30 of Wrangle Me, Cowboys

Swallowing hard, I headed out back to ring the bell. What else could I do? It wasn’t like Grimes had hurt me. He hadn’t tried anything. He’d just showed me his dick, and it wasn’t like I’d never seen one of those before.

I rang the bell and trudged back inside, hung up my jacket, and started up the stairs.

“Can you come in here a minute, Amber?” Sawyer asked.

I readied myself for the worst and stepped back into the kitchen. “What’s up?” I asked, suddenly feeling awkward in the house I’d gotten so used to that I thought of it as home now.

“I want you to tell us exactly what happened,” he said. “When we’re all here.”

Holden came in, stomping off his boots by the door before entering the kitchen. My heart started hammering as we waited for Waylon. I never knew how he’d react.

When at last he showed up, my hands were thawed and I was warming my toes next to the wood stove. Sawyer had set four plates of BLTs on the table, and I slid into a chair, dreading this moment. On the walk back, I’d imagined telling them and then going out to tell off that pervert. But now that I had to say those things out loud, I didn’t want to. I didn’t want the guys to know that anyone saw me that way, even an old perv like Grimes.

“Grimes needs to go,” Sawyer said before I could speak.

“What?” I squeaked.

Waylon frowned and picked up his sandwich.

“What happened?” Holden asked.

“He crossed the line,” Sawyer said. “With Amber.”

Three sets of eyes fixed on me. Sawyer’s usually playful blue eyes were steady and fierce. Holden’s warm brown eyes were reassuring and concerned. Waylon’s dark eyes were stormy and…a bit frightening. I gulped and set down my sandwich without taking a bite.

“What did he do?” Waylon asked, his voice flat.

“He didn’t do anything,” I said. “Well, I mean, he didn’t do anything to me. He just whipped out his dick and kind of…told me to…you know. Sit on it. Or, I think the word he used was ride.”

Holden’s eyes bulged, and he reached out to take my hand. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. “He told me not to tell you or we’d all be sorry, so I probably shouldn’t have, but—.”

“You should have,” Waylon said.

“I should have told you, or I should have…?”

“Told us,” he growled. “You’re one of us now. What happens to one of us, happens to all of us.”

“If that’s the case, then next time I’d appreciate it if I wasn’t the one who actually had to see the disgusting little grub.”

Waylon stood, his chair legs scraping the floor. “There won’t be a next time,” he said.

Without a word, the other two stood, picked up their hats, and followed him out. I ran out on the porch after them before I remembered I’d taken off my boots to warm my feet. “Don’t kill him,” I begged, grabbing Holden’s arm.

“Go back inside,” he said, his voice gentle but firm. “We’ll be back soon.”

What had they said about cowboy justice? I definitely should have kept my mouth shut. Probably. Surely they wouldn’t really kill him. I mean, this wasn’t the wild west. But the way they strode off towards the barn, not in a crazy way like they were going to beat the shit out of him but in a purposeful way, made me cold all the way to my toes.

Not that my poor toes needed another reason to be cold. The pain of standing on the frozen porch got the better of me, and I ran back inside. I started to put on my boots, but then I realized that whatever cowboy justice involved, I didn’t want to see it. I’d already been arrested once this year, and I didn’t want to be an accomplice in someone’s murder, or a witness in his castration, or have anything else to do with Grimes—ever. I’d seen more than enough of him to last a lifetime.

So I slumped down on the couch and called Haley.

18

Amber

“I saw my first real-life penis,” I told Haley a few minutes later, after she’d told me about the community service her mom was making her do.