Free BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance by Alycia Taylor, Claire Adams

show for him. Few things can wound an ego more than a dad who isn’t proud
of you.”
    “Yeah,
maybe you’re right,” I confessed. “Maybe I should apologize. I’m glad I could
always be myself around Daddy…” I paused,
feeling the weight of how much I missed him already. “And, he was always proud
of me. I never had to wonder if he was. He made sure I knew.” I felt my chest
tighten, that crippling lump rising up in the back of my throat as I choked
back the tears. In an effort to try to keep myself from crying, I took a deep
sip of my weirdly delicious blueberry cappuccino and ended up burning my
tongue. Guess I forgot how long espresso stays scalding hot. I hung my tongue
out and panted a little bit, asking in a slurred voice where the ice was.
    “In the
freezer, blondie,” she told me.
    Right, I knew that.
    I ran to
the freezer and pulled out an ice cube, then popped it into my mouth. “Das bettur ,” I murmured around the chunk of ice
before crunching it into tiny pieces and swallowing it.
    “You know
what’ll make you feel even better?” Sara added.
    “What’s
that?”
    “A nice,
hot shower. Always works for me when I’m down.”
    “You know,
I think that sounds awesome,” I told her gratefully. I stood up and picked up
the mug. She took it out of my hands and assured me she’d take care of it,
which meant she had no problem drinking what I hadn’t. I thanked her and
slumped up the stairs.
    It didn’t
take long to strip out of my clothes and get a towel. There was a whole basket
of those puffy bath sponges in the towel closet, so I helped myself to a blue
one. I dug in my bags for my favorite fuzzy pajama pants and a tank top and
made a mental note to unpack them later. Even though it was June in the deep
south, with how cold Aunt Sara and Grandma had the air conditioner, I’d freeze
my ass off if I wore anything other than long pants to bed.
    When I’d
wrapped the towel around myself and laid out my pajamas, I headed to the
bathroom and closed the door behind me. Moments later, I stepped into the tub
with my bath sponge and drew the flowery curtain across the rod . Now, I generally considered myself a
fairly smart person. I mean, I can find the derivative of a curve without a
calculator and analyze Shakespeare like nobody’s business, but when it comes to
using someone else’s shower, I feel like a total baboon. Emily’s shower
functioned the same as the one I was used to from home, but using Aunt Sara’s
was like trying to speak a foreign language you’ve never studied. There were
three knobs instead of the usual two—none of which were labeled, might I
add—and so I stood there in the tub, fiddling with them for a solid minute
thinking there had to be some magical combination before I realized that the
left knob was hot, the right one was cold, and the one in the middle was used
to turn the shower. It would have made sense, really, if they all three
functioned in the same capacity. But the hot and cold ones turned. The middle
one you had to pull out, then push up. It was like the Rubik’s Cubes of
showers. Go figure.
    To top it
all off, when you pushed the middle knob the whole way and the water blasted
out of the shower head, it was much colder
than the water that came out of the tub’s faucet. It may as well have been
glacier water that rained down on me. I’m
sure it would have been a sight to see when I jumped and flattened myself
against the wall to avoid as much arctic water as I could. I tried to pretzel my arm around to twiddle the knobs.
Finally, I adjusted it to a nice, toasty temperature. The hot water felt
amazing pouring over my body, especially after the cold water wake up call. I
wet my hair first and breathed in the steam to relax.
    I
continued on with a normal shower routine—shampooing, conditioning, etc.—trying
to clear my head, but I found my mind wandering to Noah. Damn, he’s even invading my shower time. I couldn’t deny he was
attractive with that