Chapter 6 #3
The validation should feel like relief. Instead it feels like the grief has been given teeth.
Before, I had suspicion and rage. Now I have corroboration, and corroboration means the rage has somewhere to go.
And the somewhere is a man named Hayes Merrick sitting in a VIP section at this very arena, watching the event with a drink in his hand and a smile on his face like the world is exactly the way he wants it.
I push off the fence and walk toward the arena. My hands are steady. The coal in my gut is burning hotter than it has in weeks, and for the first time since Grant's funeral, the fire feels less like it's consuming me and more like it's fueling something that might actually work.
The rest of the day passes in the blur of arena noise and livestock dust that I've lived inside for half my life.
I ride the performance, collect my check, and make the rounds.
Through all of it, two things burn in the back of my skull: Slade's confirmation, and the memory of Kenna's skin under my hands.
I find her in the stands after the evening performance, sitting in the press section with her notebook open and her pen still.
She's watching the arena, but her eyes are somewhere else.
When she spots me coming up the stairs, something flickers across her face, fast and complicated, before she smooths it into the professional expression she wears like body armor.
We don't talk about last night. Not here, not with press badges and riders and Merrick's people scattered across the venue.
"I learned something," I say, dropping into the seat beside her. I sit close enough that our shoulders touch, and the contact sends a current up my arm that I don't bother pretending I don't feel. She doesn't pull away.
"So did I."
She tells me about a pattern she found in the competition records.
Three riders in the past two seasons sustained career-ending injuries at events where Thornton supplied stock.
All three were ranked in the top ten. All three were replaced in the standings by riders who'd previously been mid-pack competitors with no obvious trajectory change, and all three of those replacement riders collected disproportionately large payouts at subsequent Thornton events.
She's been pulling the numbers all day, cross-referencing entry fees and payout records through her press credentials.
"That's not coincidence," she says. "That's selection. Someone is clearing spots in the rankings and filling them with riders who benefit."
The woman is sharper than a good knife, and twice as dangerous. I should be focused on the data she's handing me. Instead I'm watching the way her mouth moves when she's working through a problem, and remembering what that mouth did against my neck before she started crunching numbers.
"You're staring," she says, without looking up from the spreadsheet.
"I'm listening."
"You're listening with your eyes on my mouth. That's staring." She flips the notebook closed and finally meets my gaze. "Save it for the motel. I'm working."
"I can work and appreciate the view. I'm capable of both."
"Since when?"
"Since the view got this good."
She opens her mouth. Closes it. A flush climbs her neck that has nothing to do with the temperature in this arena. She grabs the notebook and buries her face in the spreadsheet.
I let the quiet hold because winning a round against Kenna is rare enough to savor.
I tell her about the new handler and about Slade.
I leave out the specifics of what Slade said about Grant's last seconds, because my throat closes every time I try to form the words.
I give her the confirmation instead: an eyewitness to the drugged bull, a man who knows the truth, another door that won't quite open.
"He won't go on record," I say.
"He doesn't have to. Not yet. He corroborates the theory, and corroboration builds a case even without testimony.
" She's thinking out loud, the journalist brain working behind those eyes.
They remind me of someone, the way they narrow when she's calculating, and the recognition scrapes across the back of my mind and vanishes before I can hold it.
She pauses and glances sideways at me. "Your ride today was different."
"Different how?"
"You weren't trying to get yourself killed.
I've watched you ride twice now, and at Amarillo you looked like a man who wanted the bull to finish the job.
Today you looked like you actually cared about walking out of the arena.
" She tilts her head, studying me with the same analytical intensity she brings to financial records. "What changed?"
The honest answer is sitting right next to me, smelling like hotel shampoo and ink, and I'm not about to hand her that kind of leverage.
"Got tired of hospital food," I say.
"Liar." But her mouth curves, just slightly, and her shoulder presses harder against mine. The contact is deliberate this time, and the warmth of it spreads through my arm and settles somewhere deep.
We sit like that for a few seconds, shoulder to shoulder, watching the empty arena fill up with shadows while the last of the crew packs out the livestock equipment.
The silence between us isn't awkward. It's the silence of two people who are both acutely aware that there's about six inches of air between his thigh and her thigh, and neither of them is doing anything about it, and neither of them is moving away.
"Don't stay out late tonight," she says. She doesn't look at me when she says it, and her voice is level and matter-of-fact, like she's issuing a schedule update. "We need to plan the Flint approach."
"Is that what we're calling it."
The corner of her mouth twitches, just barely. "Among other things. Unless you'd rather sit in the truck and brood. I know that's your preferred evening activity."
"I don't brood."
"Colt, if brooding was an Olympic sport, you'd be a shoe-in for the gold.
" She stands, gathers her notebook and bag, and looks down at me with an expression that's equal parts challenge and invitation.
"Don't keep me waiting." She pauses on the step below me.
"I've arranged for a rental car to be delivered to me.
I need my own wheels if I'm going to work sources independently. I'll meet you at the room."
"You don't need your own car. You've got my truck."
"I've got access to your truck when you're not using it, which is never, because you live in it." She tilts her head. "I need to be able to move without waiting on your schedule, Holloway. Don't make it a thing."
She walks down the stadium steps without looking back.
I watch her go, and the ache in my gut has nothing to do with the bull ride and everything to do with a woman who walks into a room and takes control of it the same way I take control of an eighteen-hundred-pound animal, with nerve and timing and the absolute refusal to be thrown.
I should keep this professional. Grant is dead. Merrick is untouchable. The investigation is a house of cards held together by financial data and a steer wrestler's off-the-record confirmation. The last thing either of us needs is a complication.
I don't keep her waiting. I'm not built for staying away from something I want, and Kenna is rapidly becoming the thing I want most.