BUCKED Box Set: A Bull Rider Western Romance (57 page)

“I know!” I seconded in an aggravated
fashion. I sighed and wiped my eyes, sniffling a bit, which caused Zachary to
hug me tighter.

“I wish I had an answer for you,” he said
carefully. “But I really don’t understand what is going through his head.”

“I mean, I have been in a similar
situation with my mother. She has done stuff for Shawn a little differently
than she did for me, but that doesn’t mean that I get angry at Shawn. I
understand that it’s because he doesn’t have a mother figure, except for my
mother, so sometimes she goes the extra mile to give him some motherly
attention.”

“But she doesn’t do it all the time. You
said she treats you both about the same,” Zachary said, as though asking for a
clarification in the tone of his voice.

“Yes…and there is a consistent, almost
deliberate way in which Paul treats me as opposed to how he treats Shawn…and I
understand that,” I stressed. “But what I don’t understand is why Shawn is
taking it out on me. I never asked for this!”

Zachary smiled in a sympathetic way.
“Yeah…I know, but I just don’t have an answer for you. I’m sorry.”

Well,
you’re no help,
I thought angrily, but didn’t say it.
Instead, I answered, “So, there’s like…no manly advice or anything that you can
shed some light on for me.”

Zachary thought for a minute, as though
contemplating whether or not he was going to say something. “I don’t know. To
me, it sounds like he is being a little…girly about the whole thing.”

At first, I wanted to come to Shawn’s aid,
but I just laughed. “I don’t think it’s that. I see how he is treated at home
and while it isn’t bad, his father is hard on him…”

“Yeah, well, I wish I still had a father
to be hard on me…To be anything to me,” he hissed, narrowing his eyes. When I
looked surprised, he continued. “I’m sorry, but Shawn has both of his parents.
Even though he doesn’t have a relationship with his mother and I know that she
hurts him more than she actually does much else, she is still there. If he
wanted to, he could go visit her, hug her.” He threw his hands up. “Go live
with her, but he acts as though the whole world is against him.”

I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. Even
though I didn’t understand where Shawn was coming from, I didn’t like what
Zachary was saying very much either. “Yeah, well lately, Shawn hasn’t been the
only one to act that way.”

Zachary stopped and pulled his head back,
as though intensely confused about what I was saying to him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I asked you for a listening ear and you
turn it around to make him out to be a bad guy because he has both of his
parents. Well, you know what, if I had his mother as my father, with all of the
genuine hurt and disappointment that she has shown him, in place of love, I
would rather have my reality. At least I can look at my father’s pictures and
see that he loved me with all of his heart.” I shook my head and hissed, “Shawn
doesn’t have that. His father is good, but although his mother might be living,
she wants nothing to do with him.”

Wounded, Zachary backed up and glowered at
me. “Yeah, well, I was under the impression that you wanted my opinion. I
didn’t give it at first, but you pressed me for it. You wanted a man’s opinion.
You might not like it, but here it is. Shawn needs to stop blaming the world
for his problems and man up!” At this, Zachary raised his voice. “It aggravates
me that he is blaming you, of all people, for something that really isn’t your
fault and I think that he is just trying to find someone to shift the blame
toward, because his mother doesn’t care about him and his father doesn’t seem
to think much of him either. You and your mother seem to be his only true
family and he is outing one of you for something that it is out of your
control, so it makes me angry. I’m sorry that I revert back to that, but
honestly, that is a big chunk out of my life and so that is what I equate him
to.”

Now I was angry with him. “You know that
is just as big of a chunk out of my life, that I miss every single day, but I
don’t let that define me.”

“Well, I’m glad you were able to figure it
all out! I’d appreciate it if you let me in on that secret at some point,” he
answered sarcastically. “You know, I could really use it.”

I glowered at him and shook my head. “I
can’t talk to you like this. I don’t know why I even bother!” I groaned with
frustration before I broke completely free of his grasp and began to walk
forward quickly.

I sensed that Zachary had stopped short,
but was assured of it when I heard him groan from behind me. “Seriously? This
is really how you want this to go?” He waited for me to respond, but I just
kept my pace until I heard him shout, “Fine! See ya later, I guess…” His sigh
was loud, but I didn’t turn around. I certainly didn’t need to deal with this
right now.

I was having a crisis and if Zachary was
going to be all super sensitive about the whole thing, then I certainly didn’t
need his presence making everything in my life worse. I continued home and
straight up to my room, without speaking another word to anyone.
 

Chapter
8

Shawn

I moaned in protest at first, hoping that
I was imagining things, but when the banging on the door came again, a little
more impatient this time, I realized that not only did someone feel their
existence here was urgent, but they probably also knew I was home.

“I’m coming!” I yelled as I put my soda
can down and stood up. I certainly wasn’t in any hurry and as I made my way
toward the door, I made a mental note of all the people I expected to be behind
it.

The number one choice was a boyfriend of
my mother, who would probably mistake me for another boyfriend and possibly try
to knock me out.

That had actually happened before, which
was a little awkward.

Granted, my mother didn’t exactly
advertise that she has baggage that she herself tries to forget, so I supposed
I should give the man the benefit of the doubt.

The second most likely person was going to
be Valerie; I knew all too well that she hated confrontation. And with the way
things ended earlier, it wouldn’t be too farfetched if she were to show up here
and try to make amends, whether I wanted to or not.

Valerie had that effect on people. Well,
she had that effect on me, specifically, but right now, even though I wasn’t
looking for another fight, I was secretly hoping that she would give me a
chance to explain.

Then again, after what I had said and what
she had gotten from our argument earlier, I wouldn’t be overly surprised if she
decided that she wanted to knock me out too.

After all, I did kind of deserve it and if
she got her one good shot in, I was hopeful that it might lead to a speedier
resolution, especially if she drew blood.

Valerie couldn’t hurt a fly and so, if her
anger caused her to stray from her morals far enough so that when she hit me,
it mattered, then she would instantly feel bad and would inevitably cause her
to forgive me. That was just the way Valerie worked.

Finally, the third most likely option was,
“Dalilah…Hi!” I said pleasantly as I opened the door, even though I was still
really looking forward to the whole “being alone” objective.

Well,
that ship has sailed,
I thought as she pushed past me.

From the look on her face, I wasn’t quite
sure if she was here to comfort me, or knock me out for some reason, just like
options one and two.

“What happened to you today?” she
demanded.

I knew that the confused look on my face
didn’t help matters, especially when she was so volatile, but I couldn’t help
the dumbfounded expression as I asked her, “What are you talking about?”

She growled loudly and began stomping back
and forth. “We were supposed to meet up after school, you were supposed to
bring me here, but you tore off just as soon as eighth period let out and you
were gone!”

I smacked my head as I just now remembered
our plans. “I am so sorry, Dalilah…I do remember now…” I groaned as I looked at
her with an apology in my eyes.
  

“So, where did you go? What was so
important that it made you forget your own girlfriend?” She demanded, now
moving so close to my face that I felt the need to back up.

“Nowhere…Um…Here…” Then, feeling as though
she wouldn’t stop killing me with her eyes until I told her the reason for my
distress and stupidity, I added, “I’m sorry. I had a fight with my stepsister
about my dad. It ruined the whole rest of my day and so anything after that
kind of left me.” I shrugged as she moved closer, eyeing me with a careful,
incriminating look. I stayed still and stared right back at her, unwaveringly.

After all, I had nothing to hide.

“I don’t believe you,” she announced
suddenly, after a few long moments of contemplation, before she turned around
and continued her stomping motion.

“What?” I declared in pure and genuine
disbelief. “What do you mean, you don’t believe me? That’s what happened.
That’s why I didn’t wait for you. I was distracted…” I sighed and allowed my
shoulders to sag. The last thing I needed was this absurd interrogation.

“Is there another woman? Oh God…You are,
you’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?” Her glower was somehow worse than
Valerie’s but still didn’t hurt as bad, even though she was attacking my
character.

I rolled my eyes and sighed. This wasn’t
the first time that I had been down this road with Dalilah and I was sure, if
she let it go any further, it would be another extremely long and aggravating
ordeal. “No,” I answered her solidly. “There is no other woman…” I grasped her
hands, pulling them just enough that she stopped and stared at me. When I
finally had the full attention of her eyes, I assured in a voice that was both
clear and stern, “There is no other woman, Dalilah.” I smiled, hoping that my
honesty was proving itself. “I only have eyes for you.”

With that, her posture eased a little and
she stared at me intently, as though once again trying to figure out whether or
not I was telling the truth. Her lie detector wasn’t very good, since I had
never lied to her a day in my life, but she seemed to think it was and tried to
convince me that it was almost every time we fought.

It was at that moment I was left to her
whim. This was the difficult part to Dalilah, but I supposed like with every
relationship, you had to take the good with the bad.

“Okay…”

“And I’m sorry,” I said again. “I promise
I will make it up to you.”

“Take me to the movies,” she demanded with
just enough sweetness to sugarcoat the fact that this wasn’t a question. “There
is a new movie coming out on Friday and I want to be one of the first to see
it.”

I shrugged, just happy that I dodged a
bullet that would have made for a very unpleasant evening. “That sounds like a
plan.”
    

Chapter
9

Valerie

Distraught, I didn’t come out of my room
all afternoon. I wasn’t quite sure how I was feeling about my boyfriend. I knew
that I would probably, eventually feel guilty for being so hard on him and that
would require a nice apology, but no one insulted my friend and got away with
it.

More like an older sister, I supposed,
than a friend, I could say anything I wanted about Shawn; but no one could say
anything against him, or I would fight them tooth and nail, even if they were
right.

I didn’t think that Zachary was right.
After all, he didn’t know the ins and outs of Shawn’s strange family dynamics.
Not like I did. I had grown up with them. I had watched his mother destroy his
spirit, again and again, while also witnessing his father crash down on him and
then turn around and say something nice to me, as though nothing had happened.

In a way, I wished I did know why his
father
 
did those things, but I hadn’t
the faintest clue. Shawn’s father was a mystery to me. He was nice and he was
always good to my mother, but there were certain aspects of his relationship
with Shawn that I had never understood.

When we were little, he seemed to be a
doubting, supportive father. Shawn and his father were almost friends, even
though he always had respect for him. Shawn’s father, Paul, always treated me
nicely and had concern for me, when no other male figure did, which was always
great.

Every time Paul and Shawn went anywhere,
Paul would always offer to take me and he would teach me, right along with
Shawn; but it did seem as though the moment he married my mother, his
perspective on how he treated his son changed.

They instantly seemed to grow apart, but
neither me nor my mother could figure out why. It seemed that Paul refocused
himself from his son to his new family, all but cutting Shawn out of the frame.

He had always been strict about grades,
but Shawn had never done well; yet it never seemed to be much of a problem
until we all became a family. Then, it seemed that the hammer came crashing
down on literally anything that Shawn tried to do. Where his father was once
encouraging, he was now even more strict and constantly borderline of being
mean about it.