Page 46 of Tangled Up With You

We bid goodbye to our friends, and once they took off, I held my hand out to Ivy. “Come on, wild woman. Let’s get you fed.”

Walking through the rodeo grounds hand in hand with Ivy felt like we were on our first date. We’d had countless meals together in the past when I’d swing by the lodge on her lunch hour to take her for a picnic in the field of wildflowers she loved so much, but this was different. I felt like I got to show her off like this. I was proud to have her on my arm as we bounced from one carnival booth to another. I spent twenty bucks on a stupid game where I had to shoot a cheap water gun into a stupidly small hole to win her a stuffed pink unicorn she’d squealed over.

The thing was ugly as sin, but watching her carry it around, clutching it to her chest like her most prized possession, made warmth bloom in my chest. The way she’d smiled at me when I finally won the damn thing made me feel like the luckiest man on the planet. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to make her smile like that every day.

I took her to some of my favorite food tents, loading up on anything she thought looked good, so by the time we sat down at an empty picnic table, we had a paper boat of loaded nachos,two corndogs slathered in mustard, chili cheese tots, sausage on a stick, street corn, and a caramel apple.

I let out a sigh of relief when we finally sat down. I would have been happy to walk laps all around the fairgrounds if it made her happy, but I’d tweaked my knee earlier when I jumped off that bull, and the damn thing was throbbing like a bitch. If I’d been smart, I would have headed home to ice it and pop a couple anti-inflammatories, but as long as Ivy was having a good time, I’d swallow down the pain.

She sat down on the bench across from me and popped a nacho into her mouth, chewing slowly as she studied me.

“What?” I asked with a small chuckle as I loaded my chip with jalapeño slices and tossed it into my mouth.

“How has your knee been doing since you hurt it last year?” Her tone was conversational, but I couldn’t help but feel she was digging for something.

“It’s fine,” I said as I scraped a glob of mustard off one of the corndogs and bit into it, using our food to hide the fact her question had caught me off guard. “All better.”

“Really?” She cocked her head to the side, her pretty blue eyes scrutinizing me from across the table. “Because it kind of looked like it was giving you a little trouble when you hit the ground earlier.”

Fucking hell. Who knew the woman was so damn observant? I lifted the plastic cup of beer to my lips and drank deeply, giving myself a second to come to terms with the lie I was going to stick to. “It was nothing, just a little tender is all. I’m perfectly fine.”

She worried her plump bottom lip between her teeth. “You sure?”

I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. The difference in size between her small, delicate hand and my large, rough one never failed to amaze me. “I’m sure,” I told her. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

I meant it too. I knew my knee was fucked up, and that any doctor in their right mind would tell me I shouldn’t be riding anymore, but I couldn’t stop now. Not when I was so close to the World Championship. Not when I still had something to prove to the people who’d given up on me.

It was on that thought that a voice spoke up, taking the great evening I’d been having and flushing it right down the toilet.

“Well isn’t this cozy.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ivy

The air around Connor changed in an instant. He went from calm and happy to tense and pissed, all from one blink to the next as he turned to look at the person who’d come up to our table. It was that bull rider from earlier, the cocky one with the Chicklet teeth, with the brunette latched onto his side, her left hand pressed to his chest to show off the sparkly rock on her ring finger, the woman whose tongue he’d been sucking on for all to see.

My attention bounced between the two men. There was no missing the animosity crackling in the air between the two of them as they stared each other down, but while they only had angry eyes for each other, the woman’s focus pinned on me. She watched me with a combination of curiosity and disgust, like I’d done something to personally offend her.

“Move along, Grimes,” Connor gritted out between clenched teeth, his fingers around mine tensing even tighter.

“Don’t you want to introduce me to your friend?” He cast that toothpaste-commercial smile at me and extended his hand my way. “Vance Grimes. Pleasure to meet you, little lady.”

My top lip curled away from my teeth atlittle lady. What a condescending prick. No wonder the woman pinned to him hadn’t said a word yet. She was only a trophy. Something he touted around for show.

“Seriously?” I said under my breath. “I’m not your little lady.”

“Get your fuckin’ hand away from her before I snap it off,” Connor growled.

“Whoa, no need to get hostile.” The pretty boy let out a chortle and held up his hands in surrender like he meant no harm, though anyone with eyes could see plain as day that he’d come over to our table with the intention of starting shit. When he put his arms down, he tucked one hand into his pocket and placed the other right on the woman’s ass cheek, giving it a firm squeeze and a light smack.

What the hell was with these two and the nauseating PDA?

“Just wanted to come over and congratulate you on a good ride, that’s all.”

The corners of Connor’s mouth curled upward, his smile looking downright vicious. “You mean you came over to congratulate me for knocking you back to number two again?”

Oh shit. I had a feeling those were fighting words.

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