35
“Y ’all are idiots.” Davis glares and slams the door as the nurse exits.
“You’re just jealous you weren’t a hero.” Charlie sits on the end of Wyatt’s hospital bed, holding a foam coffee cup. They both wear shit-eating grins. After all the chaos at the fairground, we took Wyatt to the hospital to get checked out. He has a minor concussion and a sprained wrist. Now we wait for him to be discharged.
Wyatt wiggles his brows. “Hat stayed on at least.”
“Like he said,” I say, crossing the room to swat the back of Wyatt’s head. “Idiots.”
“Damn, man,” Wyatt complains. “I’m already in the hospital.”
Davis levels a dry look at me. “You didn’t help, Ford.”
I shrug, keeping it casual, even though I’m all kinds of shaken up inside. “Couldn’t let them have all the fun.”
There was no way to keep a cool head when both of my little brothers were in that ring. A stampede couldn’t keep me away from them.
Davis sighs and shakes his head. “This is not how I wanted the summer to go. Both of you hurt within two weeks.” His gaze drifts to me, then to Wyatt. “It was close, Wy. Too close.”
Charlie’s smile fades, and he says in a low voice, “If you were paying attention, if your head was in it, you would have known that riggin’ was looser than normal.”
Wyatt swallows. “Charlie, man—”
“You know I’m right.”
Guilt and shame engulf Wyatt’s face.
I sigh, recognizing the come-to-Jesus chat we need to have with our little brother—the one we’ve tiptoed around all summer.
“End it,” Davis orders. “Take the contract for the training job, Wyatt.”
“It’s time,” Charlie agrees.
“Ford,” Wyatt croaks, looking at me helplessly.
Because he knows I know when he’s done. It’s the same feeling I had when I was over baseball. You’re so blocked you can’t see anything else, not even a way out. I had to quit. And Wyatt has to do the same.
Because if he doesn’t, he won’t hurt someone else—he’ll hurt himself.
I swear under my breath, hating to say it. But I have to.
“You’ll kill yourself if you keep going this way,” I say bluntly.
Charlie winces.
Davis settles a hand on Wyatt’s shoulder. “We won’t let you do that.”
A muscle jerks in Wyatt’s jaw as he stares down at the thin blanket draped over his legs.
I study my little brother, taking in the dark circles under his eyes, then I tell Charlie and Davis, “You two go ahead. I want to talk to Wy.”
Charlie nods. Davis hesitates, like the thought of being left out of one conversation in his entire bossy ass existence will kill him, but after a second, he follows Charlie out.
“I don’t need an intervention,” Wyatt complains, his face stony.
“Tough. I’m your big brother. You sit in that bed and you fuckin’ listen to me.”
Wyatt grumbles, and I sigh. The limits of patience have never been tested until Wyatt was born.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, I say, “Did I ever tell you why I really left baseball?”
“Because Sav left?”
“Partly. But it was also that kid.”
He blinks. “That bad pitch?”
“It wasn’t a bad pitch, man.” I tell him the story that Davis and Reese know. How much of a mess I was. How I fucked up and hurt that kid.
Finished, I run a hand over my jaw. “I don’t want you in the same boat, Wy. Get out while you’re clear headed. Get over Fallon.”
Bullseye.
Wyatt’s gaze snaps to mine and hardens. Fallon’s like a grenade strapped to Wyatt’s chest. When it detonates, he’s done.
“I see what you’re doin’ little brother. You think that if you attach yourself to her side, you can protect her. But you can’t. If she doesn’t want you to take care of her, you have to move on.”
“I wasn’t there.” His glassy blue eyes take on a faraway light. “I should have been there that night, and I wasn’t.”
I feel for my brother. “Punishing yourself for what you did and didn’t do ain’t a way to live, kid.”
It’s been my MO for the last seven years. With baseball. Staying at the ranch. Not moving on. It’s easy to recognize yourself in someone else who’s fucking up. I see myself in Wyatt and all the ways he’s trying to hang onto the past.
Onto Fallon.
I lean in and level with him. “It’s still going to hurt, you know. When she gets hurt, whether or not you’re together, it’s still gonna hurt.”
Wyatt flinches.
Because it’s not if anymore, it’s when .
He’s silent for a long beat, then says, “You don’t know what fucking hurts.”
I sit there, rocked by the bitterness in his tone, waiting for him to say more. Instead, he looks down at his hands.
“Y’all are right. I’ll quit rodeoing. My heart isn’t in it anymore.”
I eye him warily, hoping we haven’t made a fucking mistake. Hoping he doesn’t brood around the ranch for the rest of his life instead of on the rodeo circuit.
“What about you?” He nods. “You gonna take that baseball job? Leave the ranch?”
It’s not a hard choice. Not anymore.
“No,” I tell him as Reese’s gorgeous face fills my head. “I don’t want the job. I want the girl.”
I never expected her. This . How one moment I never knew she existed, and now I know an embarrassing number of things about her. I don’t want to fuck anyone else. I don’t want to leave the ranch. And I sure as hell don’t want Reese to leave.
“Well, you should keep her,” Wyatt says. “Sav treated you like you needed fixing, but that girl there…” Full blaze smile on his face, he nods at the door. “She doesn’t.”
Startled, I turn to see Reese standing at the window. She lifts her hand, giving us a little wave.
My heart flips over.
Wyatt shifts in bed, wincing. “Go, man. I’ll be out of here in five minutes.”
“Make sure you check out,” I warn him. Memory montages. Fourteen-year-old Wyatt. A bad horseback riding accident that left our entire family shaken up. After treatment, he ditched his gown in the hospital stairwell and bailed before discharge. He left the nurses to panic and effectively scared the shit out of our parents.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters, already tearing his hospital bracelet off.
I step out into the hallway.
The sight of Reese in her tiny shorts and knee-high boots nearly knocks me over. Trips my pulse.
This entire summer, everything about us has felt right. Tonight, on my arm, at the rodeo. Living in my small town. Sleeping in my bed. Since day one, it’s clicked. Nothing hard or forced.
It’s been a dream.
My dream girl.
I plant my hands on Reese’s waist. “You’re here.”
“Of course I am.” She touches my chest, and the weight of tonight, the worry over my family, falls away. That’s the power of Reese. She calms me.
“It’s late, baby,” I tell her, fighting emotion in my throat. I tuck a lock of wavy blonde hair behind her ear. “You should have gone back to the ranch with Ruby and Koty.”
She shakes her head, a stubborn glint in her green eyes. “I didn’t want you to be alone.”
My heart seizes at that. An obstruction the size of the Rockies forms in my throat.
This fucking woman. I never thought a woman could hold my heart and break my soul, but here I am. Broken. In love. Whipped.
So damn natural. So damn easy. Like I wound up for a pitch, and by the time I let it whip, the game’s already over.
But my world with her is just beginning.
“How’s Wyatt?” she asks.
“An idiot, but he’s still breathing.” I tug on her hand, pulling her closer. “Has a minor concussion, but he’ll live to annoy again.”
A shaky laugh pops out of her. “Good.” She pokes a finger in my chest, her pretty face stern. “You have to stop scaring me to death, Country Boy.”
I chuckle. “Gotta keep you quick on those high heels, Birdie Girl.”
Above us, the neon light flickers. Bootsteps sound down the hall and Reese stiffens, fear on her face.
She relaxes when Fallon slices down the hallway like a shark. When she sees us, she says nothing, only slips by to enter Wyatt’s hospital room. The door clicks closed.
I look at Reese. “Birdie, what’s wrong?” By now, I can read her.
She bites her lip, then says, “I saw a car.”
“What kind of car?”
“A black SUV. I’ve noticed it around town a few times. And tonight, it was at the fairgrounds.” She shivers. “Like it was watching me.”
I exhale, frustrated she kept it from me. “You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Always worry me when it comes to you. You hear me?”
She nods.
“I’ll handle it.” I drop a kiss to her lips, wrapping my arms around her waist. “You wanna go home?”
Home. That’s what she is.
“Yeah.” She smiles, and without another word, holds out a hand to me.
I take it, and then I lead her back to the ranch.