Chapter 2 #2
“You should have family with you,” Colt says. How am I just realizing that he’s jogging beside us? “I’ll go—”
“You need to stay with Dean,” I tell him. “Ryder is more charming, anyway. He’ll sweet-talk me into getting the best of the best, right?”
Ryder’s lips twitch. “Best of the best what? Hate to break it to you, my little hellion, but the ambulance isn’t exactly a Rolls-Royce.”
Did he just use an endearment that’s cute as fuck when referring to me?
Is he actually playing ball after years of ignoring my jokes, my jabs, my attempts to get a rise out of him?
“Ain’t that the truth,” Xander says with a scoff.
Part of me is hurt he hasn’t offered to come with me to the hospital. Xander and I may not be officially dating, but we have been hooking up for a while. I’d certainly offer to go with him if he were in my position.
Another part, though, is relieved. Ryder is proving to be much better company than Xander tonight.
More comforting. And yeah, better looking too.
“You should let your brother go with you, Billie.” Ryder arcs his thumb over the back of my hand. If I wasn’t laid up on a stretcher with a bum elbow, I’d be swooning right now.
Is this what it took to finally get my lifelong crush to notice me? Fall off my horse and break my arm in front of everyone I’ve ever known?
I bat my eyelashes. “Don’t make me beg.”
“You? Beg? I’d like to see the day.”
“I really am scared, Ryder.”
“Your mama is here, you know. She’s gonna be worried sick.”
“She and Dad will follow us to the hospital. And you know Mom can’t move that quick.”
Mom has a bit of a limp after getting a knee replacement six months ago. The woman hasn’t sat down in almost forty years, so it’s been an adjustment for us all.
“They’re gonna give you good drugs.”
“You’re the best drug there is. And I’m gonna need a lot of drugs if I have surgery.”
He searches my face, the corners of his eyes crinkling in the most adorable way imaginable as he shakes his head. “Your flirting ain’t gonna work on me. And no one said surgery, Billie.”
The female medic sucks a breath through her teeth. “From what I can tell, this is a bad break, y’all. I don’t want to scare you, but surgery could very well be on the table. We may have some broken ribs and a punctured lung too.”
My stomach dips. I squeeze Ryder’s hand. “Please.”
Ryder blinks, rolling his tongue along the inside of his cheek. I love that he’s growing out his scruff. It looks almost copper in the lights of the arena.
“Why you gotta be so damn convincing?” His voice sounds different. Deeper. A little gravelly.
“Dad always said I could’ve been a lawyer if the accounting thing didn’t work out.”
“A lawyer?” It’s Ryder’s turn to scoff. “Nah. That’d be too easy for you. Too boring. You’d win every case, and then what? I see you as more of a…”
My heart pings around my chest cavity. “What?”
“Washed-up barrel racer.”
I’m laughing again, and it still hurts like hell, and the medics are asking me to tone it down so I don’t mess myself up even more as they load me into the ambulance. But I don’t care because Ryder climbs into the vehicle beside me.
He’s actually coming.
He’s actually staying.
I may be in a hell of a lot of pain, but part of me still wonders if I’m actually in heaven, because this…this is everything.
“You sure you’re okay to go?” Colt pokes his head inside the ambulance.
Xander steps up beside him. “I don’t like this.”
Ryder cuts him a nasty look that makes my skin feel two sizes too tight. “No one asked you. Colt, we’ll meet you at the hospital?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I’m in pain. A lot of it. Even now, I feel nauseous at just the idea of being poked with needles in the ambulance or in the hospital.
I also worry that I’m never going to be able to race again because this could very well be a career-ending injury.
Even if that’s not the case, there’s a good chance my parents won’t let me race after seeing tonight’s shitshow.
Let this be your last hurrah, they said when I told them I wanted to give barrel racing a try. Then it’s time to settle down and focus on your future.
Thing is, I love this sport. Everything about it speaks to me: the mix of speed and skill, the delicate balance you need to strike between being fearless and being in control.
I also love the excuse to hang out with Ava and Sally.
I feel like I’ve been starving for girlfriends for my entire life, and two really great ones fell into my lap when my parents hired them to work on the ranch.
Racing makes me feel like I’m firing on all cylinders.
That’s so different from how I feel at my day job on the ranch.
I’m a good accountant. I work hard. I’m just slowly dying of boredom and frustration, and no one seems to give a shit.
Maybe that’s why I don’t want to let Ryder go tonight. He seems to legitimately care about, well, me. He was the first one to reach me after I fell, wasn’t he?
Usually I’d tell myself not to read too much into how quickly he must’ve had to move to be at my side like that. That’s just what people do in our little corner of the world—we take care of each other.
But fuck that. Right now, I’m reading into it.
I read into the fact that Ryder keeps his hand wrapped around mine as the ambulance begins to move. The pain and the fear and the uncertainty I felt seconds ago fade bit by bit until I feel almost…relaxed. Calm.
I like you, Ry. What I wouldn’t give to have you like me back.
My parents are always telling me to keep my feet on the ground. But for tonight, I let my head live in the clouds, if only so I don’t literally die from anxiety or a broken body.
I let myself believe that tonight is the start of something I’ve dreamt about for a long, long time.
Cowboy, I’m gonna make you mine.