21. Faith
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Faith
If joy had a sound, it would be the crack of a gate flying open, a kid shrieking with glee because a pony sneezed on them, and Jet shouting at her daughter, “Becky, do not lick that railing!”
And if joy had a smell, it would be dust, kettle corn, hay, and faint manure. Buckhorn’s signature fragrance. Eau de Rodeo.
The early year rodeo isn’t the big event. Just a warm-up tournament for locals, but the energy is buzzing. It's like the entire town collectively said, “You know what we missed? Loud noises and dirt,” and gathered accordingly.
Jet, Charlotte, Becky, and I make our way through the crowd, weaving between toddlers with balloon horses, men in belt buckles the size of dinner plates, and a group of teenage boys daring each other to ride the mechanical bull backward.
Jet flicks her hair dramatically.
“This,” she announces, “is culture. I hope you’re appreciating it.”
“I’m appreciating the secondhand dust in my teeth,” Charlotte chirps.
Becky skips ahead, her sparkly pink boots kicking up dust clouds.
“Mommy!” she shouts, pointing at a goat. “That goat’s staring at me!”
“That’s because you’re not blinking,” Jet calls. “Stop intimidating the livestock!”
We finally climb onto the cold metal bleachers, which feel specifically designed to punish people wearing thin jeans.
The crowd is half full, buzzing with life.
Babies crying, grandpas arguing about knot-tying technique, the announcer warming up with a microphone that screeches every few minutes like it’s being tortured.
I’m instantly happy. It hits me unexpectedly, like stepping into sunlight after weeks of rain. This is what home used to feel like. Messy, loud, real.
Then a low cheer rolls across the arena, and my body reacts before my brain catches up.
Dallas is walking toward the chute.
My body remembers him before my brain does. Not just his face, but his hands on my waist, the way he kissed me like he’d been starving and didn’t care who saw.
And suddenly I am the one who stops blinking.
Good Lord.
He’s wearing a charcoal button-down rolled to his elbows, jeans that should not be allowed in public unless accompanied by a warning sign, and that damn hat tipped just right. Dust curls around his boots, trying to flirt with him.
Jet catches me staring and whispers, “If you don’t close your mouth, a fly is gonna move in.”
I snap my jaw shut so fast my teeth clack.
If this were just a crush, I could laugh it off. But it isn’t.
It’s the fact that I know what he tastes like.
Charlotte leans in. “Faith?”
“Hm?”
“You’re sweating.”
“It’s… warm,” I mutter, even though it’s thirty-six degrees and I’m covered in three layers.
“Uh-huh,” she says.
Becky climbs into my lap suddenly, leaving a trail of kettle corn crumbs. “Miss Faith? Do you think the horses are pretty?”
“Yes,” I say honestly. “Very pretty.”
“I think the cowboy is pretty,” Becky whispers conspiratorially.
Jet chokes on her soda. “Oh, she’s observant. I’ve trained her well.”
I bury my face in my scarf. “Lord take me.”
Pretty isn’t the problem.
The problem is that last week I let myself believe, for a handful of stolen minutes, that I could have him… and then I spent days after pretending it didn’t matter.
The announcer’s voice cracks over the speaker like a whip:
“Alrighty, Buckhorn, hope your insurance is paid up! First event of the day: bronc riding!”
The crowd erupts. Kids scream. Someone behind us spills nacho cheese on their boot and curses creatively.
Across the arena, riders line up, adjusting gloves, tugging down hats, stretching out arms like they’re about to go to war instead of willingly getting launched into the stratosphere by irritated livestock.
“Look alive, Buckhorn!” the announcer yells. “Because first up, Clay McCoy!”
Jet pumps a fist. “Woo! Go, cowboy!”
Down in the chute, Clay looks laser-focused. The bronc, an angry swirl of muscle and bad decisions, snorts and slams against the gate.
Everything goes still for one suspended moment.
Then…
BANG!
The gate bursts open, and Clay explodes into the arena on top of a horse that looks offended by gravity.
The bronc buckles sideways. Clay whips back violently, practically horizontal in the air. Becky shrieks with delight and steals my arm to clutch.
Dust sprays everywhere. The crowd roars. Clay holds tight, form perfect, even when the bronc launches itself upward like it’s trying to touch space.
“He’s gonna die,” Charlotte says calmly.
“No, he’s not,” I reply.
“He’s gonna die, Faith.”
“He’s literally trained for this!”
The buzzer sounds. Clay jumps off mid buck, lands like a gymnast, and throws a victorious fist in the air while the pickup rider grabs the bronc.
Becky wiggles. “Again! Again! Again!”
Clay tips his hat toward our side, grinning.
Then I look left and see Dallas leaning on the fence, laughing at something one of the judges says. And the air just… leaves my lungs.
He hasn’t even gotten on a horse yet, and I’m one minor eye contact away from needing an inhaler.
Next up is barrel racing. Horses and riders fly around the barrels so fast the sand practically dissolves under them. Martha Lou’s granddaughter, tiny, fearless, and wearing a sequined vest that could double as a disco ball, wins the round.
Meanwhile, Jet is sobbing dramatically into her sleeve.
“Jet,” I say, “are you crying because of the speed or the sparkles?”
“Both,” she weeps. “She’s so fast. And she’s shiny.”
Becky pats her mother’s head. “It’s okay, Mommy. You can be shiny too if you use conditioner.”
Jet wails louder.
“And now,” the announcer yells, “Let’s hear it for Nash McCoy.”
Nash trots his horse out with lazy confidence, tips his hat at the crowd, and immediately receives seventeen marriage proposals from the teenage girls in the top row.
He competes in steer wrestling. Aka voluntarily leaping off a moving horse to grab a running steer by the horns and slam it to the ground.
“People do this for fun,” Charlotte murmurs. “Humanity is doomed.”
The gate opens.
Nash flies.
No, really, he launches off his horse as a human missile, grabs the steer, and wrestles it into the dirt within seconds. Dust explodes around them. Becky screams happily again. Half the town stands up and hollers.
Jet wipes her eyes. “The McCoy genes should be illegal.”
I open my mouth to respond, but don’t get a chance.
“Next up, Boone McCoy.”
And the crowd reacts as if someone just yelled ‘free beer.’
Because Boone is Buckhorn royalty.
Jet elbows me. “Get ready. This one’s the human freight train.”
Boone rides out on a massive sorrel gelding, and the horse’s muscles ripple like it’s been carved from anger and oats. Boone waves lazily, charming half the audience into immediate pregnancy.
“What does Boone compete in again?” Charlotte asks.
“Everything terrifying,” Jet replies.
Today, it’s tie-down roping.
The calf bursts from the chute. Boone hurls his rope with surgical precision, dismounts mid-slide, and closes the distance so fast my brain files a complaint.
He flips the calf, ties three legs, and throws his hands up.
The buzzer dings.
The crowd detonates.
“Oh wow,” Charlotte shrieks. “Is he part machine?”
Boone tips his hat. A gaggle of older ladies in the front row swoons. One fanfare of confetti might as well go off.
“That was… ridiculous,” I breathe.
Jet pats my knee. “The McCoys don’t do things normally. They do them dramatically. It’s genetic.”
But then the announcer says the name I’ve been pretending not to wait for.
“And now, Team Roping. Clay and Dallas McCoy.”
Becky gasps. “Miss Faith! It’s your cowboy!”
Before I can deny it, Jet nods seriously. “Yes, baby, that’s our cowboy.”
“Jet!”
“Sorry. Your cowboy.”
Charlotte snorts.
Down in the arena, Dallas mounts his horse with slow, controlled confidence. His movements are precise. Focused. That quiet intensity rolls off him like heat.
My mouth goes dry.
This is not a normal reaction to someone getting on a horse.
Clay rides into position at the header box while Dallas waits in the heeler’s spot. The chute crew wrangles a steer into place.
I lean so far forward that Jet hooks a finger into my coat to keep me from falling into the arena.
The announcer booms, “Riders ready?”
Clay twirls his rope once.
Dallas adjusts his grip.
And then, the gate blasts open.
The steer bolts.
Clay is first off the mark, horse lunging forward in a blur. His rope spins high, slicing through sunlight.
Dallas follows, faster than I’ve ever seen him move. His horse surges beneath him with raw power, each hoof punching into the dirt.
My heart thrashes in my chest.
Clay throws, perfect catch around the horns.
The crowd goes wild.
But Dallas…
Dallas goes still for a beat. Waiting. Calculating.
Then he moves.
His rope swings low and drops around both hind legs, threading a needle at thirty miles per hour.
The whole arena erupts.
Jet is screaming. Becky is screaming. Charlotte grabs my arm.
And Dallas…
Dallas reins back, dust exploding around him, shoulders flexing, jaw tight, eyes bright with adrenaline.
He looks up into the stands and finds me instantly.
And smiles.
My breath stumbles. The world tilts.
Jet whispers, “Oh, honey… you’re done for.”
I don’t deny it.
I want him.
I want him like hunger.
I want him like breath.
And I’m terrified.
Because I don’t know how long I’ll be here.
Because I don’t know who I am yet.
Because wanting him feels like stepping into a wildfire barefoot.
But when he lifts his hat in my direction, eyes never leaving mine?
The truth is undeniable:
Part of me desperately hopes I burn.