Page 27 of Entwined Hearts
I hung my head and bit the inside of my cheek so I didn’t rip apart this entire gym with my bare hands.
All of this from a bull namedBodacious. Why couldn’t he have been named Terminator or Widowmaker or something ominous? I just kept thinking of that Nelly song about getting naked with the opening line, “Good gracious ass bodacious.” Something Beau had so kindly pointed out to me.
“What about the sling?” I asked, my voice low and doing a poor job of hiding my disappointment.
“The sling, you can stop wearing 24/7, but—and that’s a large but—that’sonlyif you swear to wear it at least eighteen hours a day.”
I suppose that was one silver lining, but it still wasn’t the news I had expected. I thought I’d walk in here, do some silly little exercises, and they’d tell me I was good as new and that I could be back on a bull by the end of summer.
I’d never been that lucky. It seemed like any time I wanted something, it was just out of reach. Except bull riding. Now that I worked my ass off for. But it was getting yanked away, too, and I wasn’t ever sure I’d have it again.
And if I didn’t have bull riding, I might as well have had nothing.
“And still limited activity. No driving, lifting, pushing, or overhead movements. That joint is still healing, Weston.” So I could go toe to toe with a rubber band, but not put on my own t-shirt. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Yeah. Scouts honor, boss,” I mumbled and crossed my heart.
“I know that’s not the answer you wanted. I want you back on my TV just as much as I know you want to be back in that arena, but you can’t rush these things.”
I grunted in acknowledgment.
“Hang in there.” He patted my good shoulder. “I’ll see you next week, okay?”
“Got it.” I stood, ready to get the hell out of this place.
“Nice to meet you, Weston,” Matt said, smiling as if he hadn’t taken a wrecking ball to my life.
“You too,” I replied, shaking his hand to be polite since he was clearly a fan.
I walked out of the rehab building and sent Colt a text to let him know I was done, and sat on a nearby bench while I waited for him. I felt like a preschooler waiting in the carpool line for my mommy.
I stared at the sling in my hand and sighed. “This fucking blows,” I grumbled as I put it back on. I’d rather wear it now so I could sleep with it off and finally get some decent sleep after three weeks of hell.
“Need help with that?” a voice asked, smooth and sweet.
I looked up to find a woman staring at me with an eager smile, dressed in one of those workout sets I’d seen Savannah wear around the ranch. She had a brace on her knee, so she must’ve been a patient here. She was blonde, but it was the wrong kind of blonde. Her hair didn’t look like hand-spun gold like Savannah’s. It just looked like a shitty bleach job.
“I’m good. Thanks, though,” I replied, not in the mood to get chatty. Especially not with her.
She sat down next to me, her leg straightened out. “I’m Leah.”
“Weston.” Where the hell was Colton?
“Oh, I know who you are,” she said, and then she gave me an appreciative sweep like I was an object, and not a person. “I saw your Lucchese ad.”
That damn thing. Austin had insisted that I do it. He said it’d increase women’s viewership for Professional Bull Riders events, and it worked a little. But I had a feeling they weren’t watching because I was a great bull rider, but because I was the hot guy from the boot ad. And it didn’t exactly help my reputation as the womanizer of PBR, either. A reputation thatwas falsely thrown at me until it stuck, just because I was a little flirty.
I hadn’t had a woman in my bed in ages, and even when I did, there was only one face I saw. And she hadn’t spoken to me in the two days since we left the hospital after Anna had her baby girl, Hattie.
When I had seen her name pop up on my phone when we were at the bar, my heart had nearly stopped. I knew she had either come to her senses and realized we were meant to be together, or, more likely, something was very,verywrong.
“I’m taken,” I blurted before Leah could say anything else. I didn’t want the poor girl to think she had a chance and embarrass herself.
She blinked quickly, briefly stunned. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t see a ring.”
I looked down at my hand, where there would’ve been a ring if things had gone how I’d hoped. “No ring. Just taken. Have been for a long time.”
She gave me a look as if she were trying to figure out if I was lying or not. I didn’t clarify, and she eventually gave up and went back inside, leaving me to wonder what it would’ve been like to be married to Savannah.
