Page 4 of Entwined Hearts
This couldn’t be happening to me. Not in front of her. Not now.
I’d been riding since I was twelve. Made it through championships, national qualifiers, and multiple tours. I’d been on bulls worse than this one in worse conditions. Not once had I fucked up this badly.
But I had never locked eyes with Savannah before the chute flew open, either.
By the next buck, I was airborne, spinning as I flew through the air. Dirt, crowd, sky, dirt again. It all blurred around me. The crowd let out a collective gasp. My heart lurched. My breath caught.
My arms flailed as gravity dragged me down right on top of Bodacious, my head meeting his hip as he bucked hard. Then there was pain. Blinding, exploding pain that tore through me quick like a lightning strike.
And in an instant, everything went dark.
I groaned.Everything hurt. I couldn’t move. My eyes ached when I tried to open them. Lights moved over my head.
“Am I dead?” I slurred. My voice sounded far away, weak. If I weren’t dead already, I was pretty sure I was actively dying. I’d never hurt like this. Not physically, anyway, and I’d gotten through broken ribs, concussions, and dislocated shoulders over the years.
“Weston?” The voice sounded like my Sav—soft, concerned, just like she had spoken the night of our first kiss.
But when I squinted up at the source, it wasn’t her. It was a nurse with a mask and gentle eyes, not the woman I thought I’d spend my life with. Maybe it was a memory, and my brain had scrambled everything together, trying to make sense of what had happened.
“Weston, honey, you’re at the hospital. We’re taking you into surgery.”
Shit, this was bad, then. I’d never needed surgery before.
I shut my eyes. I didn’t even want to know.
My head was a mess. Like those humid summer mornings before the sun came out and everything was drenched in a thicklayer of fog. I pushed through it, going back to the last thing I remembered.
I was flying. And then I fell. Fell right on top of a bucking bull. But before that… Before that, there was her. My Sav. My angel with wide, terrified eyes.
My chest clenched. Something beeped next to me, the tempo growing faster.
“Angel,” I rasped. Where was she? Was she okay?
She had always refused to watch me compete live, terrified of what could happen. She said her anxiety couldn’t take it. She’d lie in the bed of my truck, wrapped in a pile of blankets, curled against my side while she watched video clips after the fact, when I was “safe by her side.”
And the first time she came to see me, this happened? Just my fucking luck.
Doors opened, and the low chatter of people rushed around me. Voices I didn’t recognize, not my people, not my girl. I needed to see Savannah, to tell her I was okay.
Was I okay? I didn’t know.
Then I was in the air, being set down on something. The air was cold. Frigid even, and I started to shiver. People were touching me. Quick and sure. I only wanted one person touching me. But she wasn’t here. She wasn’t here and was probably worried sick. Or maybe she didn’t care at all. That thought hurt worse than whatever was wrong with me.
“Angel,” I said again, this time it came out broken. My eyes burned. Something hot and wet rolled down along my temple and into my hair.
“Don’t worry, honey,” the nurse said. “We’ll take good care of you.” She swiped the corner of my eye and stroked my hair. Oh. I was crying.
Maybe it was the pain, the meds, or the memory of Savannah sitting there in the crowd for the first time ever. Whatever itwas, I couldn’t control it. The thought of her leaving that arena indifferent while I got carried away in an ambulance hurt worse than any injury could.
Someone put something over my nose and mouth. A mask. I took a deep breath, and everything went black again, Savannah’s face the last thing on my mind.
2
Savannah
The arena erupted into chaos after Weston hit the ground, but all I could focus on was the fact that he wasn’t getting up. He never didn’t get up.
This was all my fault.
