Bucky was a retired bronc. I’d been scrolling Facebook one day when I saw he was going up for auction. Having experience with my mother’s nonprofit, Bottom of the Buckle Horse Rescue, it was a no-brainer that he’d end up in a kill pen and shipped off to slaughter.
Bailey and Lettie had been up at the auction house in Montana, so I’d called my dad first thing to be sure they grabbed that horse.
Now, I couldn’t be more damn thankful I had.
Bucky was a walking reminder of Garrett. One of the few things I had left of him.
Garrett and I had learned all we knew on that horse. Sure, in rodeo, you rode every damn level of crazy, but Bucky was the go-to at some of the local clinics.
Sometimes I wondered if that horse felt the loss of Garrett. If he could feel it in the breeze or the hollowness of the trees. If he, too, noticed how everything around us felt like the life had been sucked out of it. Or maybe it’d only been sucked out of me. Maybe I was projecting my grief, the emptiness so strong, it felt like the air was nonexistent.
A speck of something cold and wet slid down my cheek, and I swiped it away. The hole in my chest seemed to grow every time I let myself think, but allthose articles I’d scrolled through online said to embrace the emotions. Not to bottle them away and stew in them.
It was a hard pill to swallow, given I grew up thinking men shouldn’t cry. That it made us weak. Pathetic.
So who the fuck was I to sit here sniffling over him?
I tore my gaze from the drifting clouds to Bucky, where he was pulling the grass up around my boot. Hatchet, one of my dad’s horses, grazed farther away, both of their manes fluttering in the wind.
Everything around me was moving, living, thriving. I simply felt frozen. Like time had ceased all movement four months ago, and this pit in my stomach was incurable. I often wished the clock could reverse just a little bit more before it stopped, to a time when Garrett was smiling.
God, what I’d give to hear his laugh again.
A rustle behind me had me sniffling and clearing my throat, wiping my cheeks once more for good measure before I twisted.
“Heard your brothers were hard on Parker,” my dad said as he gently tugged the reins. He wasn’t one for a ton of words, usually reducing himself to grunts and frowns, so the unexpectedness of his visit, especially way out here, made me weary. Did he think something was wrong? Or was this one of those times where he’d be bluntly honest and tell me I was being a fool?
His horse stopped, and he dismounted. Letting the animal do his thing, he lowered himself beside me.
“She forgave them,” I told him. Parker was too good to hold a grudge against many people.
My dad was silent as the sky reflected in his blue eyes. His mustache was unmoving, but I could see the frown he always wore beneath it.
After what felt like minutes, he spoke. “Is the baby yours, son?”
My gaze fell to my scuffed boots. “No.”
Neither of us moved a muscle. I’d never been more grateful for my dad’s silence than right now.
“You wanna tell me what’s been goin’ on?” he asked.
I’d spoke too soon.
My eye caught on a particular cloud in the sky, all puffy and fake-like. Out of all the people I thought I might dump my feelings on, I wouldn’t have guessed it’d be my dad.
“You don’t wanna tell me, that’s fine,” he grumbled. His voice was hoarse with old age and time spent yelling at cows—and his sons—on the ranch. “But don’t peg me as a fool to not know where you got that from.”
Forehead creased, I turned to meet his gaze.
“Don’t keep things from the people you love just because you think that’s how your ol’ pops battles with his own struggles,” he went on.
“What struggles, Dad?”
His cheeks moved like he was rolling his lips together beneath his thick ‘stache, and he swallowed. Another few minutes of silence, and he was shoving to a stand and setting a hand on my shoulder.
“Even cowboys cry, son.” He squeezed. “Only the brave ones can accept that.”
Without another word, he walked over to his horse, grabbed the reins, and hefted himself into the saddle.
