Roped Tight (Ryker Ranch #4) - Kim Loraine Page 0,31

his group of guys mount their horses. The stormy expression on his face told me everything I needed to know. He was jealous, carefully trying to mask it, and failing miserably.

Huh, maybe there was more between us than hatred and history. Maybe he still felt a glimmer of something that we started long ago but never finished. I shook my head. It didn't matter. Tucker and I were in the past, with no road toward the future. Not one that ended with us as a pair anyway.

Tucker

It had been the longest ass day I'd had in years. And that included winter nights spent trying to keep calves alive, branding season, hot summer days herding cows, and hefting bales of hay for hours on end. Today, Sam and I worked together, herding humans who were worse than teenagers. At least the teenagers who came for summer programs had been raised right and knew to respect what they were being told. These guys were all about showing off for the cameras, making sure they looked good, and getting the best selfie for social media. You know what made a real great picture? The three assholes who got bucked off their horses because they weren't listening to what Sam and I were saying. I hoped someone had gotten that on camera.

But it was all over when that smarmy, dimpled chin, movie star wannabe Greg, who kept cozying up to Sam, put himself right behind his horse. Sam had to shove him out of the way before he got kicked. Now I was sitting with Sam in the barn after all the horses were put away, helping him inspect the clearly broken pinky finger on his left hand.

"You need some ice? Looks like it hurts," I asked, reaching out as though I was gonna touch him.

He hissed and jerked away. "I'm fine. I actually don't even think it's broken. It just hurts like hell. I’ll be bruised for a few days. She really just clipped me."

“That guy’s a menace. What kind of idiot gets behind a horse and then reaches out to touch her without warning?”

He chuckled. "My thoughts exactly."

"You want a beer or something?"

Sam shook his head, gaze focused on the ground in front of him. "Nah, I stopped drinking five years ago."

That statement took me off guard. I hadn't heard anything about him having a problem with alcohol. Then again, all I ever heard about Sam Ryker was that he won almost every competition he entered, except for the one where he'd ended up in the hospital. That was something I never wanted to relive. His leg had been crushed between the bull and the chute. Both Sera and Mama rushed to get to him, flew redeye flights to make sure he was okay. I'd had to sit at home waiting for some kind of news without ever making anyone aware of the absolute terror in my chest. It was a week before I was able to casually ask Mama how he was.

"I don't know if these guys are gonna make it. We don't have enough time to get them ready."

He chuckled. "There's no way in hell I'm putting any of them on the back of a bull. They may have signed a release, but I will not be responsible for these idiots getting killed."

“You think the network will be all right with that?"

"I don't think they're gonna have a choice. Besides, it's really about them learning, and… The gratuitous shirtless shots they’re gonna get. It's ridiculous how cut these guys are."

Jealousy reared its ugly head yet again. "Well, that's what you get when you spend hours every day in the gym, and all you eat is protein shakes. I’d look like that too."

His brow raised, and a slight smirk twisted his lips. "Did I say I like it?"

As a matter of fact, he didn't. "What do you like?"

"I like a man who knows how to sit in the saddle and ride his horse for hours on end without complaining. I like someone whose body shows that he works hard, but who’s also not afraid of hard work. Someone who doesn't have to spend his time in the gym because he spends it all doing something meaningful.”

Was he talking about me? I wasn't here for him to mess around with and forget. We’d done that one time already, and that was my fault. But he was here, he was staying, and that changed everything.

“That's good."

I swallowed hard as his gaze locked with