I clear the pooled saliva in the back of my throat with a rumbly cough. “Oh, uh, good. And you?”
“Good, good. Looks like we’re in for another hay shortage this year.”
Fucking hell, I was about to indulge in the girl of my dreams, and this man interrupts to talk about hay?
“Sorry, we were kind of in the middle of something,” Blair speaks up. “Can we have a minute?”
A minute isn’t long enough for what I want to do, but I’ll take anything I can get.
“I need you right now. This stupid space-age system you insist on having is absolute junk.”
“You mean the electronic record keeping?” She bites back a smile.
“All I know is I have a patient coming in ten minutes, and everything is gone. The damn computer won’t even let me log in. I need you to come to my office.”
Blair looks at me, and I open my mouth to protest, but she shakes her head. “Um, we’ll…get back to what we were talking about later, yeah?”
“Bet your ass we will.”
Blair
(sixteen years old)
In a crowd of other barrel racers waiting in the August heat, I leaned forward to drag my nails along Chief’s neck, in that perfect spot about an inch below his mane where he loved to be scratched. I looked around at our competition and smiled at the only face I recognized—a girl from Sheridan who ran barrels faster than anyone I’d ever seen. And sure, their runs were rarely clean, but when it worked, it freaking worked.
Denver weaved through the throng of horses, stopping next to me and giving Chief a firm pat. “Hey, Bear. You two ready to kill it? You’re gonna ruin all of these girls’ days when you make their runs look like peewee barrels.”
“Den.” I pulled my foot from the stirrup to kick it at him. “Shush. You’re going to make people hate me.”
“Okay, okay. I’m just speaking the truth, but I guess we can rub it in later. I need to go find the best spot to watch you win from. Love you.”
“Love you, dork.” I leaned down to kiss him, feeling the heat of the other girls’ stares on me.
Turning back to the arena, I adjusted the straw cowboy hat on my head and tucked a sweaty lock of hair behind my ear. Then walked ahead, gearing up to take the next crack at the barrels. A clover pattern around three barrels, thenstraight on home. After hundreds of runs, Chief could do the pattern in his sleep, and my job was primarily to hang on and let him do what he loved.
With a deep breath, my heels squeezed against his side, ushering him forward. When Chief saw it was a straight shot from the alley into the massive outdoor arena, he took off like a bullet out of a gun. Around the first big barrel on the right-hand side of the arena, sticking so close to the barrel I had to pull my foot up and back to keep from knocking it over. Then the second, where I heard Denver whistling over Kenny Chesney blasting from the loudspeakers. The third barrel wobbled as Chief rounded it—I doubted it was enough to tip, as long as the ground was relatively even, so I didn’t hold back. Storming toward the finish, I egged him on to push faster, hooves kicking up dirt and mane whipping around in the breeze. Once we passed the timer, Chief slowed to a stop just before slamming into the fence panels. And I didn’t need to see the time to know it was a damn good run.
If Lucy had been there, she’d be cheering so loud my entire face would turn crimson. She was never one to care that the other girls stared, or that her children found it mildly embarrassing to have her literally jumping for joy regardless of how well they competed. But with her illness, she hadn’t been able to travel to rodeos since the spring.
Instead, Jackson, Denver, and I drove around the province by ourselves. The boys took turns hauling the stock trailer, and I made sure they followed the rules Lucy set for us. One of those rules being that we took videos of every single run to show her when we got home.
Sidling up next to Jackson’s roping horse, I climbed off Chief and tossed my hat on the trailer fender. In the middle of combing my fingers through my hot, damp hair, somebody pinched my side, making me squeal.
“Baby, you’re incredible.” Denver wrapped his armsaround my waist and lifted my boots clear off the ground—no small feat, given he only had all of two inches and ten pounds on me.
“Denver Wells, if you drop me and I have to go collect my first-place buckle with a limp, I’ll kill you.” I laughed, leaning into him as my feet touched back down.
“Marry me.” He held a palm to either side of my flushed face. “Marry me, and we’ll travel to every rodeo in North America all year long.”
“You just want to claim half of my cash prize.” My fingers slapped across his bicep. “Hold your horses—we still have a whole year of high school left, then college. Plus, I don’t think my dad’s going to allow underage marriage.”
“Okay, well…agreeto marry me. Say you will one day. Promise me you’ll be mine forever.”
“Denver, what the hell has gotten into you?” I shook my head, and his eyes grew wide, waiting for an answer. A confirmation that…I wouldmarry him?!“Okay, okay. I promise I’ll marry you one day, and I’m yours whether there’s a ring on my finger or not. Even though you’re insane.”
Then he stole every last bit of oxygen from my lungs with an all-consuming kiss.
—
