Chapter 44
T he crowd erupts into a deafening roar as the final barrel racer scores the fastest time tonight. I’m right at the barricade, watching it all unfold from close enough to hear hooves in the dirt and to feel the adrenaline pumping off both horse and rider.
Even though I’m being carried along on the wave of energy swelling and rippling through this arena, it’s the end of a long ass ten days. The balls of my feet ache after being on the go from dawn until long into the night. Rinse and repeat. I’m hanging out for my next stretch of time off before we hit the next stop on the tour, and have already booked myself a massage for tomorrow.
I might not be one of the rodeo pros putting their body through hell night after night, but I’m running what feels like a marathon each day. All in my best boots.
This event has drawn a sell-out crowd, as it always does, which in turn fuels the competition. The cowboys and cowgirls seem even more keen-eyed than usual, prepared to push harder. So it’s no big surprise to hear the time being called by the announcer is the best of the field.
Being the final night, there’s extra entertainment being put on, and I know I’ll need to get some footage of the crowd’s reactions and the atmosphere. My posts always seem to perform best when I can add in some clips to show off the fans and supporters at the events.
Pulling out my phone, I do a quick check over the copy of the digital run-sheet, to make sure I haven’t missed anything important while I’ve been down here set up to record the barrel racers. I think one of my favorite moments is seeing them in the run-up, just as they’re about to let rip and hit the course. There’s something electric in the air right before the final second, when the rider finally lets her horse unleash and fly like the wind. This is also why I tend to hang around at this part of the schedule a little longer than I should and invariably end up having to jog halfway around the arena to make it to the next place I’m supposed to be.
Fortunately for my hella sore feet, according to the schedule, tonight I can stay right where I am. Except, the longer I stand here with camera in hand, the seconds tick by without any action. Whoever is supposed to be coming out on stage hasn’t appeared.
Whatever. There are technical glitches that pop up across every single stop on the rodeo tour, and the sound and stage team are probably scrambling in crisis mode behind the scenes. So I turn my camera onto the crowd and start shooting off some B-roll footage I can splice into clips of the event when I get back to my hotel later tonight.
Everyone else might be living it up long into the small hours, hitting the after-party, but I’ll be pretzeled in front of my laptop editing video footage amid the debris of room service until my eyes can’t stay open any longer.
Oh, so sexy.
As I’m panning a slow-motion clip along the stands rising up above me, I see the ripple of excitement hit. The split second when you can taste that bubbling of anticipation as it captures a mass of people. Noise builds, with cheers and whistles starting to erupt when the band strolls out on stage. I grin to myself, because it truly never gets old seeing a moment like that unfold right before your eyes.
A throaty guitar belts out a few notes, and I start to focus back to the main arena, ready to start running off some photos. But I’ve hardly turned on my heel when an all too familiar voice comes over the microphone.
“Hope everyone is enjoying their night out there.”
I nearly drop the camera mid-shot.
My eyes flick to the big screens erected at the end of the stand because there is no way in hell I am hearing what I am hearing. This isn’t happening.
Beau stands on stage, raising a hand to acknowledge the thousands upon thousands of people in the screeching crowd, with a microphone in hand. He’s dressed to wrench my heart right out of my chest, in jeans and a plain white t-shirt. With that stone-gray cowboy hat on his head, the perfect color to bring out the blue in his eyes.
“I’m not supposed to be up here interrupting your entertainment, so I’ll be quick about it.” He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, and I don’t know how I’m still standing. Seeing him up on stage like this, witnessing his face broadcast on that giant screen—the first time I’ve seen him in a year—it’s like the man I’m looking at isn’t real. He’s tanned and relaxed-looking, even though he’s on camera and talking to this enormous crowd.
“Some of you might recognize my face.” As he speaks into the microphone, the crowd hoots and hollers his name. I see the closeup of his expression in the video image as the corner of his lip tips up, and he dips his chin to acknowledge the fans. A crowd cheering for him even after years of being away from the pro tour.
“I always thought the biggest regret in my life might be the day I read a bull wrong and ended up left for dead in the dirt. Sometimes, when one season ends, another presents itself, and you’ve gotta be man enough to know what to do about it. I won’t say I ever get anything fully right, but there’s one thing I know for certain.” He pauses, and I catch the flicker of his eyes as spotlights play over his strong jaw. I see the moment his strong throat bobs. “My girl is in this arena somewhere. She’s been touring with you fine folk this whole year, and I’m here to ask if you’d be willing to share her with me. Life ain’t worth doing if it’s without her, and if that means I gotta start living life on the road again, then hell, I’m about to beg someone to give me a job on this tour just so I don’t have to spend another minute without my girl.”
I feel someone lift the camera out of my unsteady hands, and I’m reduced to a trembling mess. This is an out-of-body experience. Surely, this man isn’t standing on stage telling the world about us?
“Truth is, I’ve been in love with someone for a long time now, and I understand that some of you might judge me for that. But I’m here to get the girl back. The one who truly owns my heart.”
A piercing wolf whistle comes from right beside me, and I turn toward the sound with what must be panic and confusion written all over my face, only to find Oscar Diaz in his full rodeo gear with my camera slung over his shoulder. His fingers are in his mouth, letting out another shrill whistle, before he waves his hat back and forth in the air.
I’m open-mouthed, struggling to comprehend what is happening. My eyes dart back to watch the big screen version of Beau search around for the source of the extra noise. As he does, the crowd behind me starts calling out in unison when they see what Oscar is doing.
My senses are almost completely dulled by the roar of blood in my ears, the commotion at my back seems like it’s coming from somewhere far away.
Did I pass out? Am I hallucinating? Is this a cruel and terrible trick my mind is playing on me? Will I jolt awake thanks to a free-falling sensation any second now, only to discover it was nothing more than a fantasy brutally invading my dreams?
Beau hones in on where the sea of stamping feet and whistles are coming from. Locating the part of the arena where I’m standing, quaking, feeling like I’m about to float right out of my boots. He points in my direction and turns to toss the microphone to the guy with the guitar before they clasp shoulders. Then he jogs offstage.
I lose sight of him and don’t know what to do with myself. The sweaty-palm urge to run away grabs hold as my stomach turns into a riot of fluttering wings. He can’t possibly be willing to do this, not here, not causing such a public scene.
I’m not worth any of this trouble he might be bringing upon himself.
Oscar presses between my shoulder blades, pushing me closer to the railing, and Beau comes back into sight. He’s jogging across the dirt of the arena, looking every inch the cowboy who spent a professional career in that very same spot under the adoring glare of spotlights and crowds and eagle-eyed sponsors.
He scans the crowd, looking for where the peak of commotion still thunders in my ears, matching the furious speed my heart is pumping at. With each step he comes closer, I’m teetering on the edge of bolting, but in the same breath, I’m glued to the spot, unable to do anything but suck in shallow breaths.
Behind him, under the glare of the spotlights illuminating this vast arena and crowd, the sky is painted in shades of royal purple, orange, and blushing pink. A riot of color descending into the deepest inky black settled right on the horizon, with a handful of scattered stars starting to make their appearance.
Another long whistle drags his attention, and his gaze falls to mine. Our eyes lock from all that distance away, and it’s like the world shrinks down to a narrow tunnel, with Beau Heartford’s crooked smile and long-legged stride eating up the space between us.
This man jumps the railing with all the certainty and ease of someone who has done it ten thousand times throughout his life on the pro tour.
He doesn’t stop, doesn’t pause. One second, his boots are landing on the ground; the next second, the scent and warmth of him stop right there in front of me. I’m blinking rapidly, faintly aware of the wetness running down my hot cheeks.
“What are you doing here?” I hardly get the gasped words out before he tilts his head my way, catching the hat off his head in one hand, using the other to wrap a firm palm around my lower back.
“I’m here to find you, my sunset sky,” Beau murmurs, with a hidden smile written in the creases around the corners of his eyes, before he dips me backward and kisses me in front of this packed arena. In front of cameras and media and the multitude of ever so public aspects to his career that he’s avoided for such a long time.
My hands fly up to fist the front of his t-shirt, and a torrent of memories come rushing at me the second his mouth seals with mine. The day at the river, when we kissed just like this. His strong arms wrapped around me in the barn. Being in his bed curled into his warm chest. All our stolen moments pulse and flash like a kaleidoscope of rapid-fire scenes that I was convinced I had lost for good. Except this time, that faint hint of leather and the masculine scent of him washes through me and his mouth moves against mine, unhurried and slow.
Beau kisses me like he’s got nowhere else to be in this world, and my heart simply explodes.
He makes a gentle, contended rumble of a noise against my lips, before feathering a softer kiss over my tear-stained cheek.
All I can do is cling to him and stare back when he pulls away and looks at me, still unbelieving that this is actually happening. It surely can’t be real?
Tucking his hat into the hand pressed against my lower back—the only thing preventing me from crumpling to the ground—he brings his free hand up to nudge the brim of mine, giving me a soft expression as his gaze bounces all over my face. Beau cups my jaw and swipes away the wetness coating my cheeks with a thumb, and I shudder with relief at feeling his warm, calloused touch. It feels just as safe and sure as I remember, even better than any version of his caress that I’ve been left dreaming of for all this time without him.
“You remember that day you asked me if I had any weaknesses?” His voice is low and relaxed, and I hitch in a breath as he stares down at me. “The truth is, I’ve climbed onto the back of thousand-pound bulls. I’ve faced down being stomped and crushed. I never once felt like I had a fear or a soft spot in all those seconds spent in the arena. Right now? I can stand here with my boots in this dirt and tell you I’m terrified of how life might look if you never came back to me, Sage.”
I swallow hastily, still without the ability to form words.
“Baby, you are my weakness, my trouble, and this aching heartbeat right here.” He lifts my palm to sit squarely over his chest. And that’s when I see what he has wrapped around his wrist.
A sob bursts out of me.
Beau’s ocean-deep eyes follow mine as he looks down to where he’s got my fingers clasped inside his own. He flicks his gaze back to hold me so damn securely when all I feel like doing right now is falling apart. “I never took it off, baby.”
The friendship bracelet I made him is sun-worn, the pink beads have faded to a pastel shade, dirt stubbornly sticks to it in a couple of places, and it looks like the entire thing has been threaded back together with something far sturdier than the elastic I originally used. Yet, it’s still there, fitted snugly around his wrist bone and tanned skin.
Cock Ring.
He squeezes my fingers. “If all I’ll ever have in this lifetime is this thing around my wrist, it’ll have to be enough, but it anchors me to you every minute of every goddamn day.”
“Beau—I—You don’t have to do this—” I sniff and feel the weight of all those long, unending moments without him come crashing through me as more tears fall.
“My heart has been in your hands this entire time, Sage. It doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s yours, baby. You deserve a man who is rock steady, who knows himself, and is prepared to take responsibility for his flaws. So here I am, fucking flawed as all hell, but trying to do better every day, begging you to come back to me.”
His Adam’s apple dips and his face is all I see. All I’ll goddamn ever see, I’m certain of that, after how hard it has been to be separated from him.
“I—I don’t know how to be a wife.” My bottom lip trembles.
Beau shakes his head and laughs, with a brightness about him that seems entirely new compared to all the time I spent with him when there was something unspoken hanging over his head. “Fuck that, Sage. I don’t want a wife. I want this spark… our passion… I want someone who will order my ass to go skinny-dipping in the middle of the afternoon, then at night, chase after an ocean of stars in the sky. I want someone I can cook for and take care of, but not because she needs me to. No, in fact, she’ll fight me every step of the way because she’s stubborn as fuck.”
The love of my life tugs me closer and lets his mouth brush over mine before whispering words up close so only I can hear them amidst all the raucous noise and music still going on in the background.
“I’m not looking for an imaginary fairytale… I’m here for my dream girl, who burns hot and bright in my veins, and makes everything come back to life.”
A shudder of an exhale gusts out of me, and I bite down on my bottom lip before nodding at him. “I want all of that, too. I love you, Beau Heartford.”
“Goddamn, I missed you.” He gently tugs my lip out from the pinching hold I’ve got it in. “Now, can I get you outta here and properly fucking kiss you?”
“That wasn’t?—”
“Not even close, trouble.” The smirk this man gives me is everything I’ve dreamed of.
That’s when a heavy hand drops my camera strap over Beau’s shoulder before slapping his back. “Good to see you, bro. I gotta run, or I’m gonna miss my warm-up.” Oscar leans in to quickly peck my cheek. “Welcome to the fam, Sage.” Then he’s making a hasty exit back to the competitor’s zone.
“But, wait… I can’t just leave?” My eyes wander to the camera and then back to Beau’s features, with a tightness starting to creep in because while this is perfect and all, I’ve got a job to do.
Beau ignores all that and starts to lead me away by the hand. All the while, tiers of crowds in the stand above us start creating a renewed fuss upon seeing us start to walk away. “Let’s just say, I might have called in a favor or two. But that means I gotta do a whole signing meet and greet thing tomorrow in return for stealing you tonight.” He waves his hat in the air at the crowd, looking every inch the rodeo superstar, and I’m filled with a giddy sort of sensation.
This man loves me enough to do all of this, to turn up for me, to put himself out there for public judgment and scrutiny?
“You don’t have to get back? What about the ranch… the horses…”
He threads our fingers together and tugs me to fit right against his side. “Consider this my formal job application. I’m all yours to be your second photographer for the rest of the tour season.”
Seeing my confusion, he chuckles. “I got myself a ranch manager to take care of things while I’m gone.” He wets his bottom lip and shakes his head a little. “Didn’t know how long I’d be needing to convince you for, baby.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. Not really sure what I’m thanking him for. Maybe just for being the type of man who knows I wouldn’t have been able to simply walk away from my work. He’s not asking me to give up anything. In fact I’m almost certain this man would be the one to always encourage me to make a plan for my career, the kind that felt good for me first and foremost.
Because that’s the type of man Beau Heartford is.
“I missed you so much. I’m sorry for leaving…” I falter a little, but then the way he smiles, gazing down at me with so much love in his eyes, tells me in no uncertain terms that he understands why I did it. He doesn’t judge me for doing the hard thing for the both of us.
He dips his head to meet the shell of my ear, sending goosebumps flying down my arms.
“I’ve spent a lot of lonely nights in hotel rooms. I might know a thing or two about how to make it feel a little less lonesome.”
Grinning wide, I beam back at him, contentment flooding through my veins just being near him like this. “Are you offering to keep me up all night, hot stuff?”
“I’m offering to give you everything, trouble. For as long as you’ll have me.”