Page 58 of Love Me Back
“Her life is at risk just being out there. What if she gets bitten by a rattlesnake and no one is there to help?”
“She has boots on.”
“And if they fall out of the fucking tree?” I bellowed.
“Don’t be an asshole. You know as well as I do that if they have plenty of hiding places on the ground, they aren’t likely to climb. Besides, she sent me out here to move everyone back. She thinks if she can get him out here, he’ll get spooked when he sees everyone just staring at him.”
“She’s right, and I should have thought of that.” Jessie was fucking smart. “Carl, drive us back a ways.”
“Might wanna scoot back so I can put the tailgate up.”
“Why?”
“So you don’t fall off the end of the truck, asshole,” Hudson hissed as he turned the horse away to go tell the others what Carl said.
“And with the tailgate up, less people might see your twitchin’.”
“Thanks, Carl.” My hands pushed against the truck bed as I lifted my ass and scooted back. I grabbed one leg to swing it back while the other one moved on its own.
I looked up at Carl. I imagined his eyes mirrored my own. “Well, fuck me.” He grinned.
“Not a word, Carl.”
He brought his fingers to his lips, clasped together as if he held a key, and tossed them over his shoulder after pretending to lock his lips. It was a childish movement, but for some reason, every adult on the planet still used it.
I smiled as he shut the tailgate, staring at my foot as it moved from side to side. It was progress, and I only prayed it extended to the other leg eventually.
The truck bounced over the terrain as we moved back away from the forest that held my woman and my horse. I didn’t think I had ever felt as useless as I did right then.
Carl parked the truck and met me at the back. He grabbed the tailgate to lower it, but I stopped it.
“Leave it closed. I don’t want anyone to see my leg move.”
He nodded and leaned his back against the closed truck bed.
“I don’t like this.”
“You said that already.”
“I’m fucking saying it again, Carl.”
He didn’t answer, but his smile was all I needed to know he didn’t take my outburst to heart. There was no way to settle the nerves inside me. Not until Jessie and Thunder were both safe and back home.
“Trust your horse,” Carl said.
“What?”
“Trust him. He might be ornery and an asshole to everyone but you, but do you really think he’d hurt her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know Addison has been the one feeding him.”
“What?” Carl always called my sister Addison. Never Addie like the rest of us. She hated it and told him so every time he did it.
“She’s the only one that can get in and out of the stall without him makin’ a fuss.”
“He lets Addie near him?”
