Page 150 of Bucked Hard

Jim's shoulders slump. Not acceptance, not yet, but resignation. "If you hurt her—"

"I won't," I promise.

"If you do," he continues, as if I hadn't spoken, "they'll never find your body."

A laugh escapes me, relief making me light-headed. "Understood."

He doesn't take my hand. Doesn't forgive me yet. But he nods once, sharply, before turning back to his truck.

"Sunday dinner," he calls over his shoulder. "Both of you. We'll... talk. Right now, I need whiskey."

As the dust from his departure settles, Callie turns to me, eyes bright with unshed tears. "That went better than expected."

I touch my jaw, wincing at the pain. It’s already swelling. "Speak for yourself, sweetheart."

Her laugh is worth every punch. "Let's get some ice on that, cowboy."

I pull her against me, burying my face in her hair. "He'll come around."

"Of course he will." She stands on tiptoe to kiss my bruised jaw. "You're his best friend. And I'm his daughter. He wants us happy."

"Are you?" I ask, suddenly needing to hear it. "Happy?"

She looks up at me, sunlight turning her hair to spun gold. "Deliriously. But I can think of something that might make me happier, something to distract Papa from the pain…"

She’s looking up at me like a gift from God, her hands already gently rubbing me through my Wranglers.

“Get your ass in the house. Lord knows, your Dad turns around to come back and sees you gagging on my dick, he’s not gonna stop at a punch.”

I tangle my fingers into her hair, her yelps and giggles making me harder than a fucking diamond as I kick open the door, shove it closed with my shoulder and put her into position in front of me.

“Papa’s had a hard day. Use that mouth like a good girl and make me feel better.”

Chapter10

Callie

Two months after my father's grudging acceptance, I stand in Buck's kitchen—our kitchen now—slicing apples for a pie. The morning sun streams through the windows where I’ve hung new curtains with little cherry clusters on them, the light catching on the simple gold band that now adorns my left hand.

Buck took me into the city for a special date and surprised me with an appointment at some boujee jewelry store where he’d arranged for a private showing of engagement rings. The entire store smelled of lilacs he’d cut personally from the back acreage at his ranch, standing in what seemed like a hundred crystal vases, a juxtaposition of our simple country life and the fancy, glitzy city slicker store.

There, a lineup of rings with diamonds as big as dimes awaited me. Buck looked so handsome, but so nervous and out of place in his best Wranglers and his black leather dress cowboy hat.

He proposed right there in front of God and the five employees entrusted to find me the perfect ring, doing it right, down on one knee.

I couldn't have said yes fast enough. Then I told him I just wanted him, and a big diamond ring would surely get lost on the farm. He blustered about that, grumbling about no budget and telling me to pick out what I wanted.

So I did. The simple band that’s on my finger now, and a matching one for his.

My father grumbled when we went by to tell him the news, but the handshake he gave Buck afterward was genuine. Time was healing that wound, just as we knew it would.

The screen door slams open, and Buck strides in, hat pulled low against the morning sun, boots muddy from checking the fence line, his shirt half unbuttoned tp show off the valleys between hard-earned muscles, making the butterflies flutter in my belly and down between my legs.

"Mine," he growls, eyes locking on me instantly. His chest heaves like he's been running instead of walking.

I set down my knife, waves of heat and lust tangling in my core. "You're back early."

"Couldn't fucking breathe out there." He crosses to me in three long strides, rough hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. "Need to be inside you, or I'll lose my goddamn mind."

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