Chapter Fifteen
I think I’m falling in love with you, Joss Garrity.
The words still made her swoon hours later. They and what they’d done in the bathroom had played on repeat through Joss’s head all afternoon and into the evening as she and Damien waited for Troy’s event to begin.
But surprisingly they didn’t scare her.
They’d stunned her, of course. They were foolish and impossible and impractical. But they hadn’t frightened her. Hadn’t forced her into turning tail and running.
She didn’t know if it was because she was away from home, from the prying eyes of well-meaning people, from routine and responsibilities, or because she was on his turf but hell if part of her wasn’t just a little bit titillated by the idea.
It didn’t seem to matter how many times she told herself that his surprise admission was some kind of post-coital endorphin rush, a tiny little squiggle of pleasure wormed its way into her belly every time she thought about it.
She refused to think about it seriously. Refused to let her mind build castles in the sky. Refused to let what he said have an impact on her feelings for him.
She liked Troy. A lot. Period. He was fun and good for Damien and great with Gus and had made her laugh and given her something precious these last few weeks.
But she didn’t love him. She couldn’t love him. It was preposterous. She’d known him for three weeks.
True, she’d fallen for Andy very quickly too. Had been smitten at first sight. Had known on their first date that he was really special. Had slept with him on their third. But she’d been nineteen . Flights of fancy were fine when you were nineteen.
She was thirty-four. With a dead husband and a teenager and a father-in-law. She had debts and commitments and responsibilities. She was an ER doctor for crying out loud.
ER doctors did not swoon.
This wasn’t a relationship. It wasn’t even the prelude to a relationship. The very idea of it was fanciful. Troy wasn’t the kind of guy who tied himself down. And she wasn’t looking to tie him down, either.
If Troy got the points he needed here he’d be whisked back into the high-paying, high-stakes extreme circuit. He’d be hitting Tucson in three weeks’ time and she’d be a distant memory. She was a roll in the hay to him. A pleasant diversion. She had no problems with it. Really she didn’t.
So why did he have to go and say he thought he was falling in love with her?
And what did that even mean? For her there were no shades of gray where love was concerned. You were either in it or you weren’t. And if you were, you wanted to be a part of that person’s life.
Like she had with Andy.
But what did it mean to a twenty-seven-year-old footloose and fancy-free bull rider with the world at his feet?
I love you—it’s been fun, bye-bye?
I love you—see you again next year?
I love you—drop everything and live in a gypsy caravan with me?
None of it was practical. Their lifestyles were worlds apart and she wasn’t just responsible for herself.
Not that she thought Damien would object to Troy being a bigger part of their lives. He clearly thought Troy walked on water. And he’d been good for Damien. Spending time with him in the long summer evenings after work, talking endlessly about the circuit bulls over which Damien had developed a fixation.
He’d thrown a ball around the backyard with him, showed him how to change a light bulb, replace a fuse and do a grease and oil change on a car.
The kind of stuff a father would do.
The last thing she wanted, though, was to get Damien’s hopes up over something that could only ever, practically, be a fling. Joss felt like she was finally getting her son back; she wouldn’t jeopardize that by starting something with someone who couldn’t give her what she and Damien needed.
Someone who stayed.
If she ever brought a man into their lives, it would be because he was going to be a permanent fixture and Troy was the very definition of temporary.
I think I’m falling in love with you, Joss Garrity.
The thought of it might be doing funny things to her pulse here in this stadium, in Troy’s world, waiting to watch him ride but it wasn’t her world, it wasn’t real life and she’d be wise to remember that.
“It should be starting any minute now,” Damien said, interrupting her thoughts.
Joss smiled at his transformation as he leaned eagerly forward in his seat. He was wearing a cowboy hat and boots for the love of Mike!
Damien was a city kid, through and through. He’d been scathing about the kids at school who got around in hats and boots and had a running argument with Gus over the country music radio station he insisted on listening to in the car and over breakfast.
And now here he was—thanks to Troy—country to his bootstraps.
Suddenly the lights went low in the stadium and he jumped to his feet with the rest of the crowd, whooping and hollering. “You wait til you see these bulls, Mom,” he said as he sat and the announcer boomed introductions into the microphone. “They’re terrifying. It’s awesome.”
Joss smiled. Terrifying wasn’t her kind of awesome but there was no denying Damien was hooked. He’d become a walking encyclopedia on the animals in the last couple of weeks.
He was right—they were terrifying. Troy had got them ringside seats and they were right in the middle of the action. Watching a bull fly out of a chute with a rider on his back on the television did not do the reality any justice.
The first two bull riders landed on their butts in under four seconds. Joss hadn’t been able to watch the bone-jarring impact.
“Please tell me you don’t want to do that,” she said as they waited for the third cowboy to come out of the chute.
“Hell no, I’d rather get through life without any broken bones.”
Joss breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever else Damien had become these last few years he was still the son of a doctor.
“I want to be a stock contractor.”
Joss blinked at the definitive statement. “Oh.” Damien had already talked incessantly about Troy’s friend Rowan but she hadn’t realized he was that serious.
“Troy said he could put a good word in for me with Ro’s father. He thinks he might take me on after I finish high school, so I could learn the business.”
Oh he did, did he? Troy seriously should know better than to plant such possibilities in the head of an impressionable fifteen-year-old without at least talking to her about it first.
“Are you mad I don’t want to go to college?”
“No.” She was a little ticked at Troy but not Damien. In a perfect world she’d want her son to go to college and get a degree but Andy’s death had taught her the world wasn’t perfect and life was short. “I want you to be happy, Damien. I want you to do whatever it is you want to do.”
“Do you think…Dad would be disappointed if I didn’t become an architect?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Joss’s heart contracted at the sudden streak of uncertainty in her son’s voice. Damien had wanted to be an architect like his father for years and had become more adamant about it since his death.
It was moments like these when she realized how deep Damien’s grief still ran.
“Your dad understood all about not following family traditions. Your grandfather was none too pleased when he didn’t follow him into the fencing business.” She squeezed his hand. “He’d want you to do what you wanted to do. And he’d have been proud of you no matter what. He was your biggest fan. So am I.”
Damien pulled her into a big bear hug. “You’re the best, Mom,” he whispered and Joss blinked back tears.
The third bull rider fired out of the chute at that moment and Damien’s attention snapped back to the arena, gasping at the size of the bull called Skeletor. Joss gasped at something else entirely.
This cowboy wasn’t wearing the impressive helmet the previous two had worn with its jaw protection and facial grill. Just his flimsy felt cowboy hat.
What. The. Hell. Was he mad?
Surely there was some kind of law or industry standard that made helmets compulsory? “He’s not wearing a helmet,” she said to a cheering Damien.
“They don’t have to.”
Joss gaped. What? She couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around such stupidity. What was wrong with these people?
At six seconds the guy riding the bull was bucked off. The whole crowd gasped as his glove got stuck in the rope and he was dragged around by the angry, kicking beast. Joss couldn’t bear to watch but she couldn’t look away either as the rider was finally tossed aside, smacking his head on the ground and landing in a heap.
His stupid useless hat landed near his foot.
Everyone rose, including Joss whose stomach churned at the sickening sight. Her first reaction was to get to him. An instinctual medical response bred into her over years on the job and she hadn’t realized she’d turned to do just that until Damien grabbed her arm.
“It’s okay, Mom, they have a sports medicine team. See?”
She turned to find three guys running onto the arena with vests emblazoned with Medical in fluorescent printing. The bull was still there but being expertly herded by the rodeo clowns toward the open gate.
Joss thought she recognized one of them as he kneeled to the unmoving man and realized he’d come in the ambulance with Troy a few weeks ago.
There was a collective sigh as the cowboy on the ground started to move. Most of the crowd sat but there were a lot of hands pressed to mouths and thundering silence as everyone watched the unfolding drama.
“He’ll be all right, Mom,” Damien assured her. “Look, see, they’re getting him on his feet.”
But Joss wasn’t so sure. He was very unsteady, clearly dazed. They should have a collar on him; they should have stretchered him off. He staggered and her heart leapt into her mouth as two guys supported him out of the arena.
At best he was concussed. At worst his brain could be actively bleeding.
All because the idiot hadn’t been wearing a helmet.
Joss was still trying to grapple with it all when the next cowboy was announced. Apparently nothing stopped because some idiot could be having a cranial hemorrhage.
The show went on.
*
Troy was the tenth rider in tonight’s lineup, which meant Joss had to sit through a lot of guys voluntarily signing up to be tossed in the air and landing in bone-crunching fashion.
Some were luckier than others. Two even landed on their feet. And two lasted the full eight seconds. None thankfully sustained any injuries and at least they were all wearing helmets.
Still, all the time her mind worried about the injured cowboy.
Then the guy with the mic was announcing Troy and Joss’s pulse spiked, her hands curling into fists. She might have thought this was batshit crazy but she knew how much this meant to him.
She was sick to the stomach thinking that he’d land on his arm again and reinjure it.
Please don’t get hurt. Please don’t get hurt.
“Oh no, he’s drawn Excalibur,” Damien said, almost as tense as she was.
Joss glanced at her son. “Is that bad?”
“He’s one of the meanest bulls on the pro circuit.”
“God,” she wailed. Please don’t get hurt . “Don’t tell me that.”
Damien took her hand. “He just has to go eight seconds.”
The chute opened then with a bang, startling Joss, and Troy was flung out on the back of Excalibur. She leapt to her feet with Damien. He was going nuts but Joss was dumbstruck, too shocked to say anything.
He wasn’t wearing a helmet.
His long lanky body was being pitched to and fro and side to side like a rag doll with absolutely no protection for his head at all.
Just that stupid cowboy hat.
Her heart was beating so hard she thought it was going to crack a rib and she was so close to losing the hotdog she’d eaten she swallowed hard.
“He’s not wearing a helmet.”
She thought she’d said it to herself but she must have said it loud enough for Damien to hear it over the crowd.
“He’ll be fine, Mom,” he yelled.
The buzzer rang out and the crowd went nuts, the announcer waxing lyrical about Troy being on fire and clawing back his place in the extreme comp. Damien turned and hugged her, actually lifting her off her feet for a second or two before letting her down. “He did, Mom! He did it.”
She watched in a numb kind of daze as he was pitched off the back of the bull, landing on the ground on his side but springing immediately to his feet and moving in the opposite direction to the bull as the clowns distracted Excalibur.
He picked up his stupid hat and waved it at the crowd, seeking them out among the cheering masses, giving them the thumbs-up with a big grin before running out of the arena.
Damien whooped as he sat down. “That was awesome! ”
Joss shook her head. She felt sick. That anyone would so blatantly pay so little heed to the dangers of bull riding was incomprehensible but Troy…?
What the hell was she doing with him?
With someone who had so little respect for his own life? She knew what he did was dangerous but she’d have thought he’d at least take every precaution to minimize harm. He wore a protective vest but not anything to keep his head from being crushed?
Andy hadn’t been able to control the freak accident that had killed him but if he could have, he would have. He would have done anything, given anything to be around to see his son grow up, to grow old with her.
And here was Troy, with a complete disregard for his life, dicing with death every weekend.
Anger churned in her gut. She couldn’t watch another moment. She had to get out.
“Come on.” She stood. “Let’s go.”
Damien glanced at her, startled. “ What? ”
“I’ve seen enough. We’re leaving.”
He frowned. “It’s not over yet, Mom. There’s more in this round and Troy’s advanced to the second round.”
“I don’t care.” Anger was turning to rage. Her hands were actually shaking.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Nothing. We’re just done here.”
She was so done here.
But of course, Damien wasn’t. He shook his head, his jaw jutting out. “I’m not. And I’m not leaving.” That bullish expression she was used to made an appearance. “We’re Troy’s guests; we can’t just leave. You’re the one who taught me that.”
If her son thought he could guilt her into staying then he was dead wrong. “Oh yes we can.”
“I don’t want to.”
The announcer was introducing the next rider and Joss didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to keep her stomach contents down. Short of physically dragging him out, there wasn’t much she could do and she didn’t want to cause a public spectacle.
But she was damned if she was sticking around.
“Fine.” Troy had shown them where to meet him after the show. Damien was old enough to be left unsupervised and he had a phone. “I’ll text Troy and let him know I’ve left and he’s to bring you to straight back to the motel after.”
Damien nodded, his features softening now he had his own way. “Are you okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him.
Or she would be anyway.
*
Joss was pacing when she heard the lock whir just after eleven. She’d already packed their bags and stowed them in the car.
Thank God they’d brought two.
She whirled to face the door to find an ecstatic Damien chattering away, obviously unconcerned about her earlier mood. Troy was more subdued, eyeing her warily over Damien’s head. He was in jeans and a checked shirt, the sleeves rolled up, his hat crammed on his head, looking every inch the cocky young cowboy who’d pulled over to help her with her tire a few weeks ago.
Which only made her madder.
He glanced around the room and she clocked the moment he realized the absence of stuff . No more of Damien’s clothes spread over his bed. The cupboards where she’d stowed her bag and hung a couple of shirts, empty.
“Mom!” Damien threw an arm around Troy’s shoulder. “He did it! Two eight-second rides!”
Joss smiled stiffly. Unfortunately time and distance had not helped the situation. Neither had the last two hours Googling bull rider injuries. “Congratulations.”
Her red-hot rage from earlier had crystallized to a deep icy anger.
Damien prattled on about the second ride she’d missed as he headed to his bed ignorant of her cool formality. “Where’s my stuff?” He looked around.
“It’s in the car. We’re leaving. Would you mind waiting for me there, please? I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“ What? ”
“I said we’re leaving. Get in the car.”
Damien glanced at Troy as if he had some kind of answer. Troy, who was standing with his hands in his back pockets, shrugged. Damien looked at Joss. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Nothing. Something…came up. That’s all.”
Damien’s brown eyes crinkled as he took a step toward her. “Is Grandpa okay?”
Joss’s heart swelled in her chest at his immediate concern considering how pissed off he clearly was. “No, he’s fine. I’ll explain in the car.”
Somehow…
He crossed his arms. “But we’ve still got another night.”
“Damien… please .” For the love of Mike would he just do something she asked for once! “I’m not going to argue with you about this.”
He opened his mouth to do just that but Troy cut him off. “It’s okay, mate.” He gave Damien a reassuring smile. “Just do as your mom asks, okay?”
“But it’s stupid!”
One side of Troy’s mouth kicked up. “Sometimes you gotta do things for people you love.” He glanced at her. “Even when they’re stupid.”
Damien glared mutinously from one to the other before he stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him for good measure.
“Okay.” Troy took off his hat and threw it on the closest bed. “You going to tell me what happened tonight?”