Free Taking the Bull by the Horns by MJ Fredrick Page A

toss the clothes in the hamper.” He shifted the duffle back onto his shoulder.
    "Mr. Creighton? Is something wrong? Are you feeling all right?"
    "I'm good.” But he stopped and looked over what passed for a front lawn. “Do you think roses would grow out here?"
    * * * *
    "I figured it out!” Jerri burst into Lavender's classroom after the morning announcements, waving a magazine.
    Lavender looked up, startled, from tying Bethany's shoe. “What?” She straightened, her focus on the magazine.
    "I knew I'd seen your cowboy somewhere.” Jerri jabbed a finger at the picture.
    Lavender took the teen magazine. And there, in the middle of five young men known as Crushin', Taylor Craig smiled up at her, with a very white, very fake smile.
    "He was in a boy band!” Jerri blurted, as if Lavender couldn't see the page in front of her. “I'd seen an interview not too long ago on one of those entertainment shows, you know, and they were talking about how Crushin’ was going to get back together and they showed Taylor's picture and said he couldn't be reached. He's the only hold-out, I think. They're even going back on tour, can you believe it?"
    Lavender lowered herself slowly to the edge of one of the tables, oblivious to the children, only staring at the fake Taylor smile. Taylor Creighton was the name he went by then. He'd liked romantic dinners on the beach, mint chocolate chip ice cream and girls who had the natural look.
    Naturally. She dragged her hand through her hair.
    Taylor Creighton was in Crushin'. Well. That explained his sense of rhythm.
    The noise level in her class brought her out of her shock, and she called them together for a math lesson, trying to put the picture out of her head.
    But as soon as the class went out for PE, she hunkered down in front of her computer and started Googling.
    Many of the sites were blocked by her district's filtering system, but she was able to discover that Taylor Creighton was twenty-seven now, twenty when he'd been in the boy band, so baby-faced, so slender. And wow, had he made bad fashion choices. Yeesh.
    How had he gone from singing songs like “Love Me ‘Til the End of Time” and “Goin’ Crazy Tonight"—obnoxious earworms, both of them—to wrestling steers in a small town rodeo?
    And why was he working...?
    Of course, he wasn't working on a ranch. He didn't sleep in a bunkhouse, despite that battered truck and old RV. Her heart sank inexplicably when she realized her fantasy had only been, well, a fantasy. Instead of working on a ranch, no doubt he owned it.
    Everything she thought she knew about him was wrong. She couldn't even say he'd lied to her because he hadn't told her anything. He'd neatly deflected any conversation that headed that way.
    When they had talked.
    She closed out the window and sat back on her rolling chair. Gertrude was right in more ways than she knew. Lavender had been a complete idiot over Taylor Creighton.
    When she went home, though, she couldn't stay away from the computer, looking up old videos—the boy could dance—buying a couple of downloaded songs and trying to pick out his voice, that same low voice even at his young age.
    She even found a couple of videos of interviews. His mannerisms were so different, so big and effusive. If not for the glint in his eyes, she wouldn't have believed Jerri.
    The band broke up six years ago and Lavender couldn't find any information on Taylor Creighton after that, until speculation ran rampant the past few months, everything from whether he'd died in some horrible manner to wondering if he'd become a woman. Definitely not that.
    She Googled Taylor Craig, and the first thing she could find on him was last year. What had happened in the intervening years?
    She searched for more lurid information—scandals, gossip, anything that would explain why the band broke up. But any information was buried.
    Why this discovery hurt, she couldn't say. Clearly he didn't want anyone to make the connection or he