Page 13 of The Pieces We've Lost

“Yes, I wanted to leave! I didn’t know what to say to that? That’s what my dad called my mom all the time. I told him I was busy and then went to find you.” I knew I was probably in the wrong. But I wasn’t going to admit that. I did what I had to do to protect my heart and prevent a potentially disastrous situation involving my knuckles, or at least a lot of harsh words.

“Oh, Ells. What if you missed your chance attrue love?” she fussed.

“I’m not going to find ‘true love’ with a cowboy,Isabelle.” I made air quotes as I spoke. “Besides, that’s messy. There’s a greater chance of a cowboy knowing who my dad was. There will be questions. Pity. I don’t need that.”

“If you say so.” She wasn’t going to argue with me, even if it broke her little romantic heart. We had been over this enough times.

But what if there could have been something there? No. Not in a million years.I pushed aside the thought of me falling in love with a cowboy. It was their lifestyle that cost my dad his life. If love was real, I’d be better off finding it with someone who lived in the city. Someone who had no interest in riding or roping for a living. Or taking down 500-pound animals for that matter.

Isa pulled up to the house to drop me off. “Hey, if you need anything tomorrow, let me know.”

“I will, thanks.” I waved her off and watched her drive away.

I walked into the house and saw that my mom was still awake, laying on the couch with an old Western movie on in the background.

“You’re back early,” she said on a yawn.

“Yeah, well, the bars aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.” I shrugged as I sat down on the couch next to her.

“I can’t say I miss those days.” The corners of her eyes creased. “I still hope you had a good time with Isa.”

“It was fun. Isa always knows how to have a good time. Bars just aren’t as much my scene as they are hers. I guess that’s something we have in common.” I smiled back at her. “I wasn’t expecting you to be up this late, though.”

“Oh, well, you know me. I just wanted to make sure you got back home safe. Besides, I don’t anticipate waking up as early tomorrow,” she replied simply.

“Right, with the rodeo and everything,” I murmured.

“Thank you for going with me, Ellison. I know that?—”

“It’s really nothing, Mom. I—” The sadness that crept into her eyes made me stutter. “I’m sorry, I’m just tired. I think I’m going to head to bed.” As much as I hated interrupting her, I wasn’t ready to talk about the rodeo and the implications of the day. What I needed was a good night’s rest. Tomorrow was going to be a day, and I didn’t even know the half of it.

CHAPTER EIGHT

colter

Igot into the arena around eight the next morning. This allowed me and Reid to not only practice before we competed tonight but also gave us the ability to watch our competition practice. Besides, if we weren’t at the arena, we’d most likely be hanging out at the trailers and I wasn’t exactly in the mood to deal with Mikey this morning, especially after everything that happened last night at the bar.

As if the boys giving me shit about the mystery girl wasn’t bad enough, Mikey started hitting on one of the college girls in the pink cowboy hats right as we were leaving. I did not want to stick around long enough to see how that played out, but knowing Mikey, he probably had her in his trailer right now.

A few people had the same idea of going to the practice arena. Sometimes the difference between a winning time and a no time was getting in a couple runs the morning of the performance.

Reid and I had to wait a little while before we could get out there and practice, as they had set times for each event,but that gave me time to tack up Bullet and make sure everything was adjusted correctly for later. I wasn’t going to overwork him by riding too much this morning, just enough to find the sweet spot of getting him warm without him being too tired tonight. But to be fair, Bullet would go all day if he had the choice.

I was walking to the corral to grab him so I could take him to the trailer when Wyatt, one of the other team ropers here for the rodeo, stopped me.

“Hey there, Colter, how’s it going?” he asked. Wyatt was admittedly one of our biggest competitors, but overall he was still a great guy and a friend of mine.

“Hey, man,” I greeted him. “Oh, not too bad, just ready to get out there tonight.”

One thing about the rodeo community was that it really was a big family. Sure, you were all competitors at the end of the day, but it was mostly friendly. I knew several men here who would give me the shirt off their back if I needed help.

A couple years ago, a saddle bronc rider’s family home burned down and they lost everything. The entire rodeo association banded together to help raise money to get them back on their feet. These were good men and women.

“I feel you there. I don’t even have my first performance until the fifth series. But we came down here pretty early because Cora’s family wanted to make a little vacation out of it.”

Cora was his wife. He had a great family. They let me and Reid crash at their place when we were up in Colorado once.

“How is the family doing?” I asked, not wanting to be rude.

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