Chapter 1 The Gravity of Bone #8
"You look miserable," Cole said, shouting over the fiddle solo. He was standing next to Ryder, holding a beer. Cole looked relaxed. Happy. He had spent the last hour dancing with Maya, swinging her around the floor with a surprising grace.
"I'm fine," Ryder lied. "Just observing the local wildlife."
"You're not observing," Cole noted, taking a sip of Coors. "You're hunting. She's over by the punch bowl."
Ryder didn't look. He didn't have to. He had tracked Elena’s location from the moment he walked in the door.
She wasn't wearing scrubs. She wasn't wearing the shapeless sweaters she wore at the clinic.
She was wearing a dress. It was simple—navy blue, knee-length, with a neckline that showed the curve of her collarbone. She had done something to her hair, letting it fall in soft, dark waves. She was laughing at something the town sheriff was saying.
She looked radiant. And she looked completely, devastatingly out of his league.
"She looks happy," Ryder muttered, the words tasting like acid.
"She is happy," Cole said. "She has a life, Ryder. A life that doesn't involve waiting for phone calls from Vegas."
Ryder griped the handgrips of his crutches. "I get it, Cole. I'm the villain. You can stop hammering the point."
"I'm just saying," Cole shrugged. "Don't break anything. We just fixed the floor."
Cole walked away, disappearing into the crowd to find his wife.
Ryder stood alone. He felt the weight of the stares. The town knew he was back. They knew he was broken. He could hear the whispers ripple through the room like a current.
There he is. The one who left. Looks like the rodeo finally chewed him up.
Ryder stiffened his spine. Let them look. He was still a Stone.
Then, the music changed.
The fiddle player eased off. The lights dimmed. The band slid into a slow, mournful waltz—something about neon moons and broken hearts.
Couples moved to the floor.
Ryder watched Elena.
A man approached her. It was Paul, the high school science teacher. A nice guy. A safe guy. A guy who probably had a 401k and never broke a bone in his life.
He held out his hand.
Elena smiled. She took it.
They moved to the floor. Paul put his hand on her waist.
Ryder felt a physical kick in his chest. It wasn't pain from the ribs. It was pure, green-eyed, possessive rage.
That's my spot, his brain screamed. That's my hand.
He watched them sway. Paul leaned in and whispered something. Elena threw her head back and laughed.
The sound of her laughter—carefree, light—cut through Ryder louder than the music.
He didn't think. He didn't calculate the risk to his femur.
He pushed off the wall.
Thump. Drag. Thump.
He moved into the crowd. He navigated the sea of dancers like a battleship moving through a fleet of fishing boats. People parted for the crutches, their eyes widening.
Ryder didn't look at them. He locked his eyes on the navy blue dress.
He reached the center of the floor.
Paul was just turning her.
Ryder planted his crutches. He tapped Paul on the shoulder.
"Excuse me," Ryder said. His voice was low, dangerous.
Paul turned around. He saw Ryder Stone looming over him, broken but still carrying the aura of a man who fought bulls for a living.
"Ryder," Paul stammered. "I... didn't know you were dancing."
"I'm cutting in," Ryder said.
He looked at Elena.
Her smile had vanished. She looked at him with a mix of shock and warning.
"Ryder, you can't dance," she hissed. "Your leg."
"I can sway," he said.
He looked at Paul. "Take a hike, Paul."
Paul looked at Elena. Elena sighed. She nodded at Paul. "It's okay. Give us a minute."
Paul retreated.
Ryder and Elena stood alone in the middle of the dance floor. The music swelled.
"You are an idiot," Elena whispered, stepping closer. "If you fall, I am not catching you again."
"I won't fall," Ryder said.
He shifted his weight, balancing precariously. He couldn't hold her like a normal man. He needed the crutches.
"Put your hands on my shoulders," he said.
Elena hesitated. Then, slowly, she reached up. Her hands settled on his shoulders. The touch was warm, heavy.
Ryder leaned in. He couldn't put his hands on her waist without dropping a crutch. So he just stood there, suspended by the aluminum and her grip.
They didn't really dance. They just drifted. A slow, microscopic rotation in the center of the room.
"You're making a scene," Elena murmured, looking at his chest.
"I'm a cowboy," Ryder said. "We make scenes."
He smelled her perfume. Vanilla and rain. It was the same scent that haunted his guest room.
"You look beautiful, Lena," he whispered.
She looked up. Her eyes were dark, unguarded for the first time in weeks.
"Don't," she said. "Don't do the charm."
"It's not charm," Ryder said. "It's the truth. I watched you from the corner. And I realized that watching some science teacher hold you hurt more than the femur break."
Elena’s breath hitched.
"He's nice," she said weakly. "He's safe."
"I know," Ryder said. "And I'm dangerous. I know the script."
He leaned his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes.
"But he doesn't know how you breathe when you're asleep," Ryder whispered. "And he doesn't know that you hate this song."
Elena went still.
"I do hate this song," she admitted softly.
"I know."
The world shrank. The noise of the hall faded. There was just the heat of her body, the scent of her hair, and the desperate, aching pull of the past.
Ryder shifted his weight. He leaned into her.
She didn't pull away. She leaned back. She was holding him up.
"Ryder," she whispered.
He tilted his head. His lips were inches from hers.
He could feel the tremble in her hands. He knew, with absolute certainty, that she wanted this as much as he did. The biology didn't lie.
He closed the gap.
IV. The Sway
Their lips were millimeters apart. Ryder could feel the warmth of her breath, taste the faint hint of the wine she had been drinking. He closed his eyes, surrendering to the gravity that had been pulling on him for six years.
He leaned forward those last few millimeters.
His mouth brushed hers.
It wasn't a kiss. It was a collision of ghosts. It was electricity jumping a gap that should have been unbridgeable.
For half a second, Elena softened against him. Her hands on his shoulders tightened, her fingers digging into the muscles of his neck. She made a small, desperate sound in her throat—a sound that belonged to the girl by the creek, not the doctor in the clinic.
Then, she froze.
Ryder felt the change instantly. The warmth turned to ice. The yielding body turned rigid.
Elena gasped. It was a sharp, panicked intake of air, like someone surfacing from deep water.
She ripped herself away.
The movement was violent. She pushed against his shoulders, hard.
Ryder, balanced precariously on his good leg and the crutches, stumbled backward. One crutch slipped on the sawdust-covered floor. He flailed, fighting for equilibrium, his broken leg swinging wildly.
He caught himself just before he went down, jamming the rubber tip of the crutch into the floor with a jarring thud that sent a spike of agony up his femur.
He stood there, swaying, breathing hard, the adrenaline of desire instantly replaced by the adrenaline of pain.
The people around them stopped dancing. A circle of silence formed in the middle of the waltz.
Elena stood three feet away. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with horror. She wasn't looking at him. She was looking through him, at something terrifying that only she could see.
"Elena?" Ryder whispered, bewildered.
She shook her head.
"No," she said. Her voice was strangled. "No. I can't do this."
"Lena, it's just a dance. It's just us."
"It's never just us, Ryder!" she hissed, stepping closer so only he could hear, her voice vibrating with a furious, terrifying intensity. "It’s everything that happens after."
She looked at his leg. Then she looked at his face.
"You think this is romantic," she accused. "The broken cowboy coming back for the girl. It's a game to you. Another adrenaline rush."
"It's not a game," he argued, desperation creeping into his voice. "I feel it. You feel it."
"Feeling it isn't enough!" she cried, her voice cracking. "Feelings don't pay the mortgage. Feelings don't... they don't stay when things get hard. You leave. That's what you do. You break things, and then you leave."
"I'm not leaving this time."
"You will," she said. The certainty in her voice was devastating. "The second that cast comes off, the second you hear the buzzer, you'll be gone. And I will be left here to clean up the mess."
She took a deep, shuddering breath, pulling the doctor mask back into place, though it was cracked and crooked now.
"I can't afford your mess anymore, Ryder. I have too much to lose."
Too much to lose.
The words hit Ryder like physical blows. He knew what she meant. It wasn't her job. It wasn't her reputation.
It was the boy with the red boots and the plastic bull.
Elena looked around at the staring crowd. She smoothed her dress, gathering her dignity like armor.
"Don't touch me again," she whispered. "Don't come near me unless you're bleeding out."
She turned and walked away.
She didn't run this time. She walked with a stiff, rigid spine, cutting through the crowd, heading for the exit. Paul the science teacher watched her go, looking confused and relieved.
Ryder stood alone in the center of the dance floor.
The music started up again—an upbeat two-step that felt grotesque in the sudden silence of his world. People started dancing around him, their eyes sliding away, pretending they hadn't just watched the town's biggest drama play out in real-time.
Ryder gripped his crutches. His knuckles were white. His leg was throbbing with a dull, sickening ache.
He had cut in. He had gotten the girl. He had almost gotten the kiss.
But as he watched the exit door swing shut behind her, Ryder Stone realized the terrible truth of the night.
He had won the eight seconds. But he had lost the ride.