Mansfield Ranch (7 page)

“Because I can’t drive the truck anymore.”

“Yes, I know that, but why would you go to Bloomfield in the first place?”

“Because I wanted out of the house, all right? It’s not like it’s twenty miles or something—lay off. It was no big deal, really. And it
definitely
wouldn’t have been any big deal if—”
What in the heck am I saying? Dang!

“If?” Sean was quick to catch my blunder.

“Uh, if . . . uh, it hadn’t been so cold.” I smiled.

“Good try.” He chuckled. “Now spill. What happened?”

I shook my head and fiddled with the afghan. “It’s nothing, really. Just Harrison stopped and offered me a ride.”

I thought Sean was gonna fall off the chair. “Are you kidding me? Harrison Crawford stopped and offered Lilly Price a ride?”

“I know. Crazy, huh?”

“‘Insane’ is more the word I would use.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t think anything worse could happen to me after that, you know what I mean?”

“What? Are you kidding? This is great! Man, this is the best news I’ve heard all day.” I could’ve cheerfully smothered his smile. “Do you know what this means?” he continued.

“That Harrison has an even bigger head than I realized?”

“Nope.” Sean beamed like he’d just won the lottery. “You’re gonna get that date after all!”

Chapter Eight: Dream On

“Sean Edmund Benally, are you for real?” I nearly hollered. It had been a trying day—I think I’d finally hit my snapping point. “Let’s get one thing clear right here and right now. I will
never, ever
go on a date with that inflated jerk. You got that?” I walked right up to his chair and leaned over. “Do you need that tattooed on your forehead so you don’t forget? Because I’m sure I can find someone who’ll do it for me.”

He grinned. “So I take it Harrison still bugs you.”

“ARGH! Why are you such a dork, seriously? Sometimes I wonder if I was meant to have you in my life as some sort of trial or something.” In a moment of desperation, I knelt down on the floor and planted my hands on his knee. “Please, please, please, do not try to set me and Harrison up, okay? Please.”

That new tactic seemed to break through whatever mental block Sean appeared to have. He looked down at me and really searched my eyes before he asked, “Are you sure?”

Duh
. “Yes!”

***

“Lilly? Lilly Price? Are you listening to me?”

As the voiced ebbed into my subconscious, it took about half a second for it to register that Mr. Simmons had been calling on me.
Dang!

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked, knowing full well I was going to hear the snickers from the other students around me before they began.

It was my worst fault. I could never pay attention during social studies. I tried, but it was too late in the day. As the last class, it already made me drowsy, but when you added Mr. Simmons’ monotone voice, it could be classified as some sort of ancient medieval torture method. Seriously, how do they expect us to learn in such an environment?

“You weren’t paying attention, Lilly,
again
.” Mr. Simmons gave me a stern look over his glasses. “I asked you specifically to begin reading section twelve out loud. Apparently you think my reading is boring, or you wouldn’t dose off as much as you do in my class. Let’s see if you can do any better.”

I rubbed my hand over my eyes and then set to work finding section twelve while the room around me roared with laughter.
Ha. Ha
. After about ten seconds of sheer panic—I couldn’t find anything that said section twelve anywhere—an open book flew from the desk across from me to hover in front of my eyes. Startled, I stared at the large words that announced the appropriate page before I followed the arm that held the book up to a smiling Harrison Crawford. He had moved his desk out of his row and leaned over to share his book.

Ugh
. I rolled my eyes and pushed the book out the way, determined to find it on my own.

“You’re never going to find section twelve with your English book,” Harrison smirked.

What?
My eyes darted to the top of the page. Sure enough, world literature.
Double dang. I must’ve grabbed this one by accident.

“Lilly, any time you’d like to read to us would be appreciated. We’re all waiting for you,” Mr. Simmons droned. “Oh, and thank you, Mr. Crawford, for being so generous and sharing your book.”

The room let out a collective gasp and everyone whipped their heads around to stare at us. Harrison chuckled and placed his book down on top of mine.

Just as I was about to grudgingly whisper my thanks, he said, “Yes. You owe me. You owe me big time.”

My eyes glared into his. “Excuse me? I owe you? What in the—?”

His hand darted out and held the book open just as I was about to slam it shut and beat him over the head with it.

“Miss Price, really? Will you begin now?”

 “Yes, sir.” I smiled up at Mr. Simmons.

Annoyingly, Harrison Crawford was thoughtful enough to share the book with me the rest of class. Yep, he leaned right over my shoulder for about twenty minutes. I thought I would gag on his cologne.

“So, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he had the audacity to ask once the bell rang and the room scrambled to leave.

I ignored him as I shoved my stuff into my bag.

Harrison laughed. “Come on. You’re not even gonna give me the third degree or anything?”

Ugh. Is he for real? Like I care.
I threw my bag over my shoulder and pulled my iPod out of my pocket.

“Aren’t you even the littlest bit surprised to find me in your class? Aren’t you going to ask me what I was doing here? I’ve been expecting that, at least.”

What?
I looked at him like he’d gone nuts. “You mean this isn’t your class?”

He looked shocked. Like totally shocked. “You didn’t notice I just transferred in here?” He held out a small white paper, like that was supposed to clarify something.

“Oh. So, this is your first day here?”

Harrison threw his hands up and shook his head. “You’re killing me, Lilly. I mean it. This is an act, right? Tell me you knew I wasn’t in this class before.”

I blinked.
He so needs to get out more
.

“You didn’t even see me last hour either, did you?”

He’s in English, too?
I scrunched my brow and shook my head. “Nope.”

“We now share our last two classes.”

Great. Fabulous
. I shrugged and put my ear buds in my ears. As I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder, Harrison stepped in front of me and blocked the way.

“I did it because of you. Now I can get to know you better.”

“No. You did it because of
you
.” I made a shooing motion with my hands. “Now move, please. Alexis and Lauren are waiting for me.”

“I’ll take you home.”

I slumped my bag on the desk next to me. “You know, Harrison, for a guy who’s talked to a lot of girls, I have to say I thought you’d be better at it.”

“Better at what?” He grinned, probably thrilled to start a real conversation. “What did you mean by that? You have to tell me.”

“I don’t have time for this. Now move.”

“You have all the time in the world. I’m taking you home, remember?”

That’s it.
I shoved against his chest and threw him off balance enough to allow me to grab my bag and slip past. “No, you’re not.”

I’d actually made it about five steps before he caught up with me. “Why not? Let me take you home. It’ll be fun.”

“For who?” I could think of ten things I’d rather do than ride home with Harrison Crawford. One involved cutting off my pinky toe.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid.” He chuckled as he followed me out of the room and into the hall. About thirty teenagers were staring at us.

I groaned. “Seriously? I’m terrified. Now leave me alone.” I was, too. I was really scared to be anywhere near his ego. It just might explode.

“You sure know how to play hard to get, don’t you?”

He’s such a moron
. “I’m not playing a game, Harrison. I know you. I know your type.” I planted myself in the middle of the hallway and looked him right in the eyes. “And you disgust me.”

He laughed. “Why? What have I done?”

About thirty things rose to my mind, but I decided to mention something he’d actually understand. “Who’s your girlfriend?”

“Uh—” Harrison took a step back.

“Exactly.”

He leaned toward me like he was going to grab my arm.

“Touch me and I’ll flatten you.” My fist came up in between us.

Harrison threw his arms up in a “don’t shoot” gesture and backed away. The smile on his face grew to colossal proportions. “You are definitely the most fun game I’ve ever played.” Then, loud enough to be heard down the hall, he announced, “I’ll call you tonight. Bye!”

By the time I had made it into the car with my sisters, I was in no mood to hear them chatter about their favorite subject: Harrison. I turned up the volume on my iPod and drowned them out, my gaze out the window of the backseat blurred as I leaned my head against the glass. It was cold and hard. I tried not to think about the interested stares of the people who’d been standing around Harrison and me, but it was difficult. As much as I didn’t want to, I realized that the side effects of his obvious attention would be catastrophic. I sighed and closed my eyes as I allowed the deep music to vibrate through me. Alexis and Lauren were going to be bent once they heard about what happened.

My life just got a whole lot worse.

***

My cell phone rang for about eight minutes straight before I got annoyed with it enough to answer. I knew it was Harrison—I didn’t even have to check the ID. The worst part was, I couldn’t turn it off. It was against the Benally rules to turn off a cell phone. They wanted to be able to get a hold of us whenever they needed to. If we did turn it off, we lost the privilege of owning one—a rule Harrison obviously knew about.
Grr
. I had already lost enough privileges since I met him—I wasn’t about to lose this one too.

“What?” I hissed into the phone. “
Stop
calling me!”

“All right, then, I won’t tell you the surprise I’ve been planning,” said a subdued Sean.

I gasped. “Sean? Sean! It’s you?”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Who’d you think I was?”

“Uh . . . no one. It doesn’t matter. What surprise are you talking about?”

“What are you doing Saturday morning?”

“Uh, Saturday? Just riding Buttercup. Why?”

“Good!” he exclaimed. “Don’t plan anything else, okay?”

“Okay,” I said slowly. “So what’s this about?”

“You’ll see.” I could hear the mischievous grin in his voice.

“Sean?” I growled.

“What?”

“Ugh! You know I hate surprises. And now you’re making me wait all the way till Saturday? Just tell me!”

“Nope.” He chuckled softly in my ear.

I grinned. “Come on. I can be surprised now, just the same as if it were Saturday.”

“No.” He laughed. “You’re the worst. You know that, right?”

“Yes. I know. You tell me all the time.” For no reason at all, I found myself giggling.

“You’re going to giggle more on Saturday, I promise. You’re gonna love it.”

“You’re evil, Sean.”

“Yep. I’m as evil as they come. Besides,” his voice got a bit deeper, “if I tell you now, it’ll ruin it for you on Saturday, and then I’ll never be able to make up for
last
Saturday.”

“Aww, the truth comes out.”

“Good night, Lilly.”

I rolled over and checked the time. Ten o’clock. “Where are you?”

“I’m driving back from Albuquerque with a friend right now.”

“Are you just now coming back? How’d it go?” Sean had been gone for a couple of days at a large cattle and farm convention down in Albuquerque. He’d taken this year off before he started college so he could help his dad build up the ranch.

“Same as all the other conventions—bought more than I needed to.”

“Yeah, but knowing you, you’ll find some way to use it.”

Sean chuckled. “Or donate it somewhere.”

“Or donate it somewhere.” I smiled and shook my head at Sean’s overgenerous nature. I was pretty sure there wasn’t a family in Bloomfield that hadn’t been secretly blessed by the Benallys at one point or another, especially during the recession that seemed to have hit particularly hard the last few years.

“See ya tomorrow.” His deep voice warmed me all the way to my toes.

“Okay.”

“Don’t miss me too much until then.”

“Ha ha. You wish.” I grinned and then whispered “Bye” before I clicked the phone off and tossed it on the bed.

About two seconds later, it rang again. I chuckled and leaned over to grab it.

“What?”

“Finally, you answered your phone. I wondered how long it would take.”

Ugh
. “Harrison?”

Chapter Nine: Popularity Blues

“Who’d you think it was?” He snorted.

“Why can’t you take a hint?”

“So I’ve been thinking,” Harrison said calmly as if we talked on the phone every day. “I’ve been trying to figure out what it is about me that you don’t like.”

“Gee, and you’re finished already?” I stood up and collected the clean clothes that were on my bed.

“I realize you may be intimidated by the fact that I have a girlfriend.”

I dropped the clothes on the chair and yanked open the closet door. “Intimidation is the least of—”

“Which is why I’ve decided to do it.”

My hand stilled on the end of an empty hanger. “Do what?”

“Dump your—uh, sister. Is she your sister?”

The hanger pinged off the rod and almost hit me in the eye. “Wait. You’re dumping Lauren?”
Dang!
“Why?”

“Just to prove to you how serious I am.”

I tossed the hanger on the top of the clothes and wandered back over to my bed. It took me a moment to compose myself enough to remember to sit down. I collapsed.
Is he really this stupid? Really?
“Harrison?”