Chapter 12
He walks with me most days. He never asks me for a thing.
She had glitter all over her face, and in her hair.
She was wearing a prairie dress, which wasn’t her normal garb for the shows, but it seemed to fit the new routine tonight.
All she could think of was the fact that Flynn was in the audience.
It made her heart beat just a little bit faster.
He had watched her perform earlier, and she was almost certain she had done better because he was there.
Don’t go getting attached to him.
She really didn’t want to do that. Because that was the whole reason she had put off sex in the first place. Not wanting to be vulnerable. Not wanting to get …
To get to the point she wanted something she couldn’t have.
Enjoying his company was one thing. Getting overly emotional about it was another.
“Your man is here,” West said as he walked by her.
“I know.” She responded as if she hadn’t just been thinking about him. As if she hadn’t just been wondering.
She had butterflies in her stomach, which was unlike her. But maybe it was okay that he gave her butterflies.
Just maybe. She mounted her horse and took a deep breath.
“Don’t drop me,” she said to West.
“Don’t drop yourself, sis.”
“You’re so encouraging.”
“Hey. I’m here as backup. But you’d better not need the backup.”
“Oh blah blah blah.”
She took her position in the stall.
Her dad was welcoming the crowd. The first team of horses would ride out for the national anthem and “God Bless America,” and then her dad would introduce West and her.
She waited, keeping the reins taut, adrenaline making her hands sweaty.
But this was something she knew how to do. Well.
Last night she had done something totally out of her comfort zone.
Last night she had done Flynn.
She smiled softly.
“Head out of the clouds,” West said, his eyes severe and blue through the slats of the stall.
She stuck her tongue out at him. But she heeded his admonishment. They were great at what they did, but there was a high level of skill involved.
She probably shouldn’t be fantasizing about her fake boyfriend.
Was he her real boyfriend because they’d had sex?
She swallowed hard.
She didn’t think so.
Because there was no future for them.
There couldn’t be.
He was Flynn, and she was … just trying to figure herself out.
One thing at a time. And if she won the election, that was going to be a big thing to figure out.
She shrugged off her worries and listened to the music. Let the familiar anthem wash over her. For better or worse, this was her life. This was what had made her.
Very quickly, the moment of uncertainty passed.
And she was being announced.
“And before the lady knew it, her horse was running away.”
On cue, the gate opened, and Jessie burst out on the back of her horse.
Running full tilt through the arena. She started her acrobatic routine, hanging upside down.
For some reason it brought back memories of Flynn.
Flynn’s hands. The euphoria she felt. But the memories didn’t distract her from what she was doing.
Far from it. They made everything feel electrified.
She felt more in touch with every part of her body. Was aware of every muscle as she moved on the back of the horse.
She felt … beautiful. Maybe it was just because she knew Flynn was watching. But it was an extraordinary feeling.
She still felt all the adrenaline she was used to. But there was something else she had never felt before.
As she moved into the last trick, just before West was supposed to ride up beside her, she realized what it was.
She was in her own body. She was herself.
She wasn’t hiding. She wasn’t conscious of needing to look a certain way. Just being herself felt like enough.
She hadn’t even thought about her mask. Hadn’t thought about looking confident, looking at ease. She hadn’t thought about projecting a thing. She had only thought about her movements. The way she felt. How happy she was to be doing the routine, and how much it suited her.
“I’ll save you!” West shouted, and she pulled up into position, leaping from her mount to his, right behind his saddle, where she stood up and waved to the crowd as they did a final circuit. Her horse ran back into her stable, and she and West went back into his.
She hopped off the horse, laughing, her cheeks pink.
“Perfect,” she said.
“You were something else out there,” he said. “I thought you were going to kill yourself.”
“I did great.”
“Oh, it looks great. But I’m just saying you were overextending.”
She frowned. “I was not overextending. I was getting full extension. I know what I can handle. I don’t need you in my face.”
“What are you going to do when I’m not helping you with these routines anymore?”
She stared at him, totally unable to figure out what he was saying. “You’re not leaving.”
“I am. This is Dad’s thing, not mine. And I’ve only stayed so long because of you. But now you’re doing the mayor thing and …”
“What happened to you being my backup?”
He sighed heavily. “You don’t need it.”
She did, though. What was she supposed to do without West? They were the only ones who understood this life, their life. He had always been there for her, and, no, they didn’t verbally share everything with each other the way Flynn and his brothers seemed to, but …
He was her brother.
She was used to living near him, working with him. What was she supposed to do when he was gone?
“I might not win,” she pointed out.
“You might not. But you’re not going to just stay here after this either. You’re with Flynn, and you’ve already figured out that you could do more. I’ve never wanted to leave you here.”
“West …”
How was this happening? How was he telling her this right now when he was going on again in just five minutes?
“But you love this,” she said. She knew he didn’t. She knew that he participated in the show because of their family, and for no other reason.
He wasn’t a showman. Not in his soul.
“But where you going to go?”
“I have to get ready. We’ll talk more about this later, okay? But you’re going to be just fine. I know you are. Because you’re amazing. And because you did it. You’re not stuck here anymore.”
“What do you mean ‘stuck here’?”
“You already know, Jessie. Even if you don’t want to say it.”
She wanted to smack her brother on the back of the head, because they had never talked about this before, and he was acting as if she already knew what he meant.
Or maybe, just maybe, West knew her better than she had ever given him credit for.
That thought sat uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach. But her brother had to get ready for the next event, and she peered through the slats and watched as he pretended to play poker and dodged an angry bull.
All right, it was easy to see why West didn’t necessarily want to stay here.
She didn’t want to leave. Not entirely. She always felt torn. That was the thing. Between her desire for a more normal existence and …
Being afraid that she couldn’t actually have it.
She watched the rest of the show until it was time for her to do the final routine with the whole crew. A montage of the best tricks from the night as everybody rode through the arena quickly and did a little exhibition to some rollicking country music.
And then, it was time for the shoot-out, which was essentially a finely tuned stunt show.
Her brother was playing the part of Austin Wilder tonight, which she thought might be weird for Flynn. West stood up at the very top of a second-story building facade that was made to look like the main street of town.
“You’ll never take me alive, Sheriff.”
The sheriff had been altered in their little show, and was now a mustache-twirling villain, while Austin was painted as a heroic figure.
“You’ll have to shoot me dead if you think you’re going to take me.”
“That can be arranged.”
Their stunt gun popped off several shots, and West clutched his chest, falling straight out of the window, onto some dust-colored mats below.
The whole crowd cheered, and Jessie rode her horse back into the arena along with another line of riders, doing some rapid-fire stunts. And then West’s horse trotted out to him, and he got on the back of it, standing and waving at the crowd. “Legends never die.”
And then he rode off into the sunset. Just as it should be.
It made her sad to think he meant to leave this behind. Made her feel lonely.
She needed to talk to him.
But she looked into the crowd and saw Flynn, standing there in the front row, clapping for her.
And her heart leapt up into her throat.
Oh, Flynn.
She put her horse away and then hurried out the back exit, into the crowd.
She never mixed with the audience. Usually, she avoided crowds. But this time, she was meeting potential constituents. And this time, Flynn was waiting for her.
She had to stop and talk to all the people who recognized her from her announcement and from her campaign signs. She hadn’t expected this response. But it was enthusiastic. To say the least.
“All I can say,” she quipped, signing a hat for a small child, “is it’s much cooler to have a mayor who can do trick riding, isn’t it?”
Then Flynn came to her side and kissed her on the cheek. And she thought her heart might burst through her chest. When they finally broke away from the crowd, her heart was pounding hard. “I meant all of that,” she said.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I meant all the things I said to everybody. I wasn’t doing a bit. I just feel … I feel confident. I feel like myself tonight in a way that I can’t really explain. I’m just … I feel different. And it isn’t because you ‘made me a woman,’” she said.
He looked a little bit as if she had hit him in the side of the face with a two-by-four. And then he recovered. “I did, though,” he said.
“Absolutely not. None of that caveman stuff.”