Epilogue #2
I found them in the family section. The Blackwoods had claimed an entire row—because of course they had.
Momma in her usual spot, Dad beside her with his hat on his knee.
Wyatt and Ivy were next to them, Wyatt's arm slung over the back of Ivy's chair.
Liam and Stephanie, Hunter and Sophia, even my little brother Luke had made it.
And at the end, Maggie leaned into Jack's side, his arm around her shoulders in that easy, automatic way of a man who'd gotten used to holding her.
They looked settled. Happy in a way that made the air around them easier to breathe.
Six months since she'd taken his hand in front of the whole family, under the tree where my parents got married, and declared he was the man she loved.
"Momma," I called, climbing up with Maisie's hand in mine. "I need a favor."
Her expression moved through four phases in two seconds: surprise, confusion, maternal alarm at Maisie's tear-streaked face, and then that warm, open-armed thing she did that made every lost creature on earth feel like they'd come home.
"Well, hello there, precious. Who is this?"
I rested my hands on my hips, sighing as I said, “Maisie Elizabeth Monroe. She tells me that's the whole thing."
Maisie pressed into my leg, shy but hopeful. Momma extended her hand with the patience of a woman who'd raised seven children and knew trust was earned. “Nice to meet you, Maisie Elizabeth Monroe. I’m Louisa Mae Blackwood.”
"She got separated from her mom near the stock pens," I said. "My ride's in fifteen—"
"Say no more." Momma smiled at Maisie. "Would you like to sit with me and watch Clay ride?"
Maisie looked up at me. "She's really your mom?"
"She really is.” And I was damn lucky for it. We all were.
"She's pretty."
Momma laughed. I grinned at Maisie. “Don’t tell her that. Goes straight to her head."
"Clay Owen Blackwood!” she scolded with her cracked-whip voice.
Maggie snorted from Jack's shoulder. "Eleven seconds before getting middle-named. That might be a record.”
I grinned at her. "Looking domestic as hell, Mags."
"Feeling it too." She smiled—real, full, the kind she'd been stingy with for years. Jack caught my eye and gave me a nod. Steady. Solid. I nodded back.
“Miss Louisa?" Maisie's small voice. "Do you have snacks?"
Momma smiled, soft and warm. Like she missed having a little one to take care of. “Honey, I always have snacks."
"Goldfish? The rainbow ones, not the regular ones. The regular ones are boring."
She looked at me. "Go. Ride. Win. We've got her."
I crouched to Maisie one more time. "After I ride, we find your mommy."
She touched the brim of my hat. "With the horns and the raaarrgh?"
"With the horns and the raaarrgh."
"I'm going to watch you."
And for the first time in my entire career, I got a bit nervous knowing this little girl would be watching. I shoved the feeling down. Now wasn’t a time for nerves. "I'll be the handsome one."
Her giggle followed me back to the chutes, and I had the strangest sensation walking through that crowd—like the ground had tilted two degrees and I was the only one who'd noticed.
Weston was waiting with my rope. He took one look at my face. "You're making a face I've never seen before."
I frowned. “I'm not making a face."
"It's a good face. Weird, but good."
I took the rope and started my prep. Rosin on the glove. Rope wrapped tight. Finding that center of focus where everything dropped away.
My name echoed through the coliseum: "Next up—your current national leader—Clay Blackwood!"
The roar went through my teeth. I lowered myself onto Hellfire's back, and the world narrowed to a point. The bull shifted beneath me—hot, furious, coiled to explode.
I wrapped the rope. Pulled it tight. Slid forward until I was right in the sweet spot.
Looked up toward the family section one last time.
Couldn't see faces—just the blur of lights and crowd.
But I knew they were there. Momma. Mags.
Jack. And a little girl in pink boots who'd asked me if I was a real cowboy.
I nodded. The gate blew open.
Hellfire came out spinning—a hard left that would've unseated anyone who wasn't ready.
I was ready. My body moved with the fury, counterbalancing, absorbing, riding the chaos like a wave.
He kicked. Twisted. Changed direction with a violence that sent fire through my riding arm.
I gripped harder. Sat deeper. Found the rhythm in the madness the way I always did—that impossible sync between human will and animal power.
Four seconds. He dropped his head and kicked high, back end launching skyward. My spine compressed, absorbed, held.
Six seconds. He spun tighter. Desperate. Trying to find the angle that would send me flying.
There wasn't one. Not tonight. Tonight I was welded to his back, locked in, riding like my life depended on it.
Eight seconds. The buzzer. I held a beat past it—instinct, showmanship, pure adrenaline—then landed clean. Boots in the dirt. Hat still on.
Ninety-four point five.
The coliseum erupted.
I stood in the arena with dust settling around me and the crowd losing their minds, and I did what I always did. Tipped my hat. Grinned. Soaked it in.
Weston was the first to grab me behind the chutes, pulling me into a hug that nearly cracked my ribs. "Ninety-four five, you crazy son of a bitch! Champion, brother."
I'd done it.
The next thirty minutes blurred—press, photos, handshakes, the buckle heavy and real in my hands. I ran my thumb over the engraving and let myself feel it. But the whole time, there was a pull in my chest. A quiet tug pointing me back toward the stands.
I found Maisie on my mother's lap, and her face when she saw me was something I'd carry for a long time.
The rest of the family was on their feet—Dad with his hat pressed to his chest like he'd been holding his breath, Wyatt grinning, Hunter giving me a nod that from him was the equivalent of a standing ovation.
Stephanie was wiping her eyes. Sophia was yelling something I couldn't hear over the noise.
"Clay!" She launched off Momma's lap with physics-defying velocity. I caught her on instinct, settled her on my hip like I'd done it a thousand times—which I had not. Not once.
But it felt like I had.
"You did it! You rided the bull, and you didn't even fall off!"
“It’s rode, darlin’. And yeah, I did."
"Miss Louisa holded my hand and she said you were gonna be okay and you were." She grabbed my hat and put it on. It swallowed her face. "I want to ride a bull."
"Absolutely not," Momma said.
Maisie pushed the hat up. "What if I be really, really careful?"
"Still no, sweetheart."
She looked at me. Dead serious. Negotiations were not over.
"Clay. If I give you my horse—" The stuffed horse.
"—and my most favorite hair ribbon—" The limp purple ribbon trailing from her ringlets.
"—and also I have a lollipop in my pocket that only has a little bit of fluff on it. .. will you teach me to ride a bull?"
I was done. Absolutely, completely done. I laughed so hard something broke loose in my chest—something I didn't know had been locked down. Maisie grinned up at me from under my hat, delighted she'd made me laugh, already working on her next angle because this kid was a born negotiator.
Maggie was watching from Jack's side, and the look on her face—soft, surprised, like she was seeing something new—hit me in a way I wasn't ready for.
"You're a natural," she said quietly.
I didn't know what to do with that, so I shifted Maisie on my hip. "Come on, princess. Let's go find your mommy."
"She was prolly really worried. She's a worry-bug." Maisie leaned her head against my shoulder with the boneless trust of a child who'd decided you were safe. "She loves me the most. More than all the stars. That's a lot of stars, Clay."
"Yeah. That's a lot of stars."
We made our way toward the police tent—me, Maisie on my hip, Momma beside us with that quiet alertness she got when one of her children was doing something she found interesting.
She hadn't said much since I'd come back from the ride.
Hadn't needed to. I could feel her cataloguing every interaction, filing it away in whatever vast maternal database she maintained on her children's emotional development.
I was choosing not to think about it.
We were twenty feet away when the door burst open.
She came out running. Blonde hair, lighter than Maisie's, falling around a face that was tear-streaked and desperate and—
Beautiful.
The word landed like a rifle shot. Clean. Final. Devastating.
Not the way the women in the stands were beautiful—done up, deliberate.
This was quieter and more dangerous. The kind of beautiful that wasn't trying, that existed in the line of her jaw and the way her whole body oriented toward her daughter like a compass finding north.
There was strength in the way she moved, even through the tears—the strength of a woman who'd been carrying weight for a long time and had built the muscle to bear it.
"Mommy!" Maisie exploded off my hip with a shriek that could shatter glass. I barely set her down before she was running, pink boots pounding the dirt.
The woman dropped to her knees and caught her daughter like the world had just handed back the only thing that mattered. She pulled Maisie in tight, one shaking hand on the back of her head, the other wrapped around her small body, and held on with a fierceness that made my throat close.
I stood there and watched this woman hold her child like she was the most precious thing in the universe, and something rearranged itself inside my chest with a slow, grinding shift I was entirely unprepared for.
"Oh my God, baby—I looked everywhere—"
"Mommy, don't cry! Clay found me and he's a real cowboy and he rided a bull and he won and Miss Louisa gave me snacks—"
Then she stood. And she looked at me.
Her eyes were blue. The kind of blue that didn't seem real—that you'd accuse someone of faking until you saw them up close and realised no, that was just the color God had picked, and He'd been showing off. Red-rimmed and wet, and they hit me like a physical thing.
"You found her?" she said. "You're Clay?"
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
I was Clay Blackwood. I had been charming women since before I could shave. I had literally never, in thirty-one years, been speechless in front of a beautiful woman.
"I—yeah." Sandpaper voice. I cleared my throat. Scratched the back of my head. "That's—I found her. Near the stock pens. She was—I mean, she's fine. She's great. She's—" I gestured at Maisie, who was perfectly visible and did not require gesturing at. "She's right there."
Smooth, Blackwood. Really smooth.
Callie's voice steadied beneath the tears. "She's everything. She's my whole world. Thank you—I don't even know how to—"
"You don't owe me anything." I wanted to say something else. Something smooth, something that would make her smile instead of cry, something that would give me a reason to keep standing here. But my brain had left the building along with my ability to form sentences.
She held my gaze for a beat. Two. Then she nodded, soft and final.
"Thank you, Clay. Really."
She took Maisie's hand, and the little girl waved over her shoulder—big, theatrical, the kind kids gave to people they'd already decided belonged to them.
"Bye, Clay! I'm going to practice riding bulls in my room!"
"Please don't," Callie said, and the last thing I heard was Maisie's giggle as they disappeared into the crowd.
I stood there. Championship buckle on my belt. Biggest win of my career. And all I could think about was the color of her eyes and the sound of my name in her mouth.
My mother was beside me. Quiet. Which was where Louisa Blackwood did her most dangerous work. I could feel her watching me with that expression—the one she got when one of her children did something that confirmed a suspicion she'd been holding for years.
"Don't," I said.
She gave me a knowing grin, shaking her head. "I didn't say anything."
"You're thinking it."
"Clay Owen Blackwood, you didn't blink for forty-five seconds. I counted."
I had no comeback. For the second time in ten minutes, I had absolutely nothing.
Momma patted my arm. Gentle. Patient.
"Interesting night," she said. Like she was commenting on the weather. Like she hadn't just watched her son's entire operating system crash and reboot in real time.
Then she walked away, and I stood under the lights of Fort Worth with a gold buckle and a pounding heart and the strangest, most electrifying certainty that something had just shifted. That the life I thought I wanted had just been rearranged around a new centre of gravity.
Callie Monroe.
I said it once, quietly under my breath, just to hear how it sounded.
Then I headed back, because I had a family to celebrate with and a life to get back to.
But I was smiling.
And I couldn't stop.
The END