Page 115 of Homebound

INDECENTLY PUBLIC

WYATT

He tried to kiss my lady.

Rage boils inside me, a white-hot jealousy that threatens to consume every shred of my self-control. I do my best to casually saunter forward, stuffing my hands deep in my pockets to keep my composure.

Boone’s eyes bulge when he sees me towering over him, but his confusion quickly turns to irritation. “What’re you doing here in the back pens, Patterson? You always seem to show up at the wrong times.”

“Or the right ones,” Dakota interjects from behind me.

That settles some of the boiling irritation in my chest, but I still grip his shoulder hard enough that Boone winces.

“I think you and I need to have a little talk,” I drawl, the veins in my arms bulging with the force of my clenched fist.

I’m pissed that he tried to kiss Dakota, but I’m also angry because I’d never want someone treating my daughter that way, and I feel like it’s my duty to set this guy straight once and for all.

All he does is chew on that goddamn toothpick.

I pluck the wooden toothpick from Boone’s lips and throw it into the hay bale. “Listen up, Bowman.”

“What the hell, man?” Boone tries to rip himself out of my grasp, but he can’t. He might be a bull rider, but I’ve got a decade of hockey under my belt.

I lower my voice, getting so close to his face that my nose bumps his. “Where’s your dictionary?”

He cocks his head like Luna when she hears a high-pitched noise. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Your dictionary. Where is it?” I punctuate each word with a sharp snap.

“Do I look like the kind of guy who owns a fucking dictionary?” Boone frowns, trying to break out of my grasp, but I hold him tighter.

I glance at Boone’s black button-down, the fabric pulled tight, too tight, over his broad chest. “No, you don’t,” I admit. “I’ll make this easy then.”

I pull out my phone from my jeans and start typing. Now that I’m a dad, there’s this strange urge to educate the assholes of the world. Dakota peers over my shoulder at the screen. When I finish typing, I shove my phone in Boone’s face.

“Read this,” I command.

Boone grumbles something under his breath, but he reads the screen with pinched brows. “No, meaning no. Not any. There is no excuse. Used to give a negative response...” He looks up, more irritated than confused now. “What the hell am I reading?”

“Watch that tone.” I shove my phone back into my pocket. “You’re reading the definition of the word ‘no,’ because apparently, you need to learn the meaning of it. So let me educate you, when a woman says no, she means hell no. You got that, or do you need to read that definition again?”

“Goddamn,” Dakota mumbles, fanning herself in my periphery. She sounds a little breathless, a little impressed.

It makes me a little hard.

Boone gulps, darting his eyes to her. “Yeah, I got it. You don’t need to shove your phone in my face; I get it. I’m sorry.”

We stare at each other for a few tense seconds. Images of him trying to kiss her flash through my mind, fueling my irritation. But I can be the bigger man.

Boone might’ve made some mistakes, but people deserve second chances. I know if I stay, I’m going to do something I regret, so with one last squeeze of his shoulders, I say, “She’s right. You’re not a bad man, Bowman, so act like a good one.”

I release him, striding away to a more secluded area outside the animal corrals. I need some breathing room to cool off. I hear Dakota’s footsteps behind me, soft but persistent, and soon it’s just us among the hay bales and horses, the familiar scents of straw and leather cocooning us.

I lean against a hay bale and pinch the bridge of my nose. Deep breaths. In and out.

“You’re mad,” she blurts the obvious, sounding worried as she grips my forearm. “Nothing happened between us. I swear, Wyatt. I would never do something like that to you. I pushed him away.”

“I know you did. I saw. I’m not mad,” I lie because this isn’t her problem. I’m the one who needs to calm the hell down. This is her big day, and I don’t want to ruin anything. She has to ride in less than an hour.