Page 8 of Wild, Wild Cowboy

Maybe it never would again. But I wasn’t going to let myself dwell on that thought, because if I did, I might just decide to find the edge of a very tall cliff and then keep right on walking.

“Business or pleasure?” Dad’s words pulled me back. He had ambled over while I had been feeling sorry for myself, and now he squinted up and me from beneath the wide brim of his tan Stetson.

“Business. Adam told me to make myself useful, so I figured I’d check the fence after last night’s storm,” I said.

Missy chose that moment to lift her tail and manure tumbled out. I stood in the stirrups to take the pressure off her back. Fuck, that hurt.

“Looks like you’re getting your strength back. Didn’t I say you’d be back to normal before you knew it? Feels good, right?” He said it like there was no alternative.

Back to normal. I thought about that cliff again. About finding the edge of it.

“Sure,” I said. My lips tilted up. “Feels great.”

Dad nodded and gave Missy a brisk pat on the neck. That was what he wanted to hear.

“If you don’t mind waiting a minute while I tack up Xander, I’ll join you.” He grinned up at me. “I’m feeling pretty good today, too.”

Waiting was probably my least favorite thing ever, but of course I said, “I don’t mind.”

At seventy-five, Dad was in better shape than most men twenty years younger, but he had the occasional flare up of arthritis in his knees that made riding uncomfortable. If this was a good day for him, I wasn’t going to stand in the way of him spending it on horseback.

Three years ago, deep in his grief from losing Mom to cancer, he would have spent the day with a bottle of whiskey. He had sobered up when Adam told him he couldn’t be around his grandson, my nephew Ben, while drunk, but it had taken him another year after that to want anything to do with Lodestar or the horses. Mom had been by his side when he started thetraining operation, and it was too painful for him to be there without her.

Seeing him take pleasure in riding again was good. I might not know what the fuck I wanted for myself, but what I wanted for other people hadn’t changed. I just wanted everyone to be happy.

Missy got antsy as we waited, and I shifted my hipbones. My seat felt all wrong. My skin felt too tight. I was a little worse for wear this afternoon. Last night’s barfight might have had something to do with that. But I suspected it had more to do with this morning.Time me, I had told Hannah, and then proceeded to throw my body around like it hadn’t been trampled by a nine-hundred-pound animal ten months ago.

And she had done it, too. That prim little librarian had surprised me. Not just because she did it. It was thewayshe did it. The second she had hit that green button, she was all in—and she was on my side. It wasn’t me against her. It was me against the clock, and she was rooting for me to win.

Maybe I should have taken more care with my battered body, but I couldn’t bring myself to regret it now, sore though I was. Those sixty seconds were the closest to normal I had felt since the eight seconds that had changed everything. I had given our stupid game everything I had, holding nothing back.

All or nothing.

It was how I lived my life.

Giving my all was easy. Having nothing left to give turned out to be a lot harder.

Maybe giving my all to a race against the clock was stupid, although there were probably plenty of people who would argue that bronc riding wasn’t exactly smart, either. Anyway, my leg was going to ache regardless. What did a little more pain matter?

Hannah’s squeal of victory was worth every extra ache.

“It’s good to see you smiling again,” Dad said, joining us by the fence. He swung onto Xander’s back with careful ease.

“What are you talking about? I smile all the time.” I knew this was true. I made sure of it.

Dad’s blue eyes travelled over my face. “Not like that. Not lately.”

With a nudge of his heels to Xander’s belly, he took the lead. He headed west where I had planned to turn east, so I could ride into the sun rather than let it beat down on the back of my neck. I was wearing a baseball cap today rather than a cowboy hat, and anyway, I liked catching the sunset. If I said that, though, Dad would have something to say about my choice of hat. He didn’t care if cowboy hats were not as common these days as they had been back in his youth and younger generations preferred a ball cap. He’d wear a Stetson to his grave.

“James said you’re going to help the library with their rodeo,” Dad said as we moved at a slow walk, checking for downed rails and loose wires as we went. “Seems the topic of conversation came up at her sewing club this morning.”

“That’s right.” I wondered what else had come up. My dick, probably. Not in the fun way, either, although there had been a moment where she was getting in the car and I had definitely felt…interested.

I needed to stop thinking about that woman’s ankles. This was how people developed embarrassing kinks. Not the standard butt plugs and ropes stuff, either. The kind that brought shame to your friends and family.

“You don’t have to, you know.” Dad’s head was tilted down toward the fence, his face obscured by the shadow of his Stetson. But I knew he wasn’t minding the fence at all. He was watching for my response. “No one would blame you if you backed out.”

How he could possibly think that after spending even five minutes with Hannah Bell, I wasn’t clear. She would absolutely blame me if I backed out. That disapproving frown of hers was a fearsome thing, and I wasn’t in any hurry to be on the receiving end of it again. The way she had looked at me last night at the bar, like when I wiped the blood from my lip, I took her last hope with it.

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