I don’t have a chance to answer him before he asks another question. “Remember when you told me you wanted something different? Something real?”
“Obviously,” I grunt. “That was the night I?—”
“Met your very different, very fuckingrealwife,” he cuts me off pointedly with another cocky wink. “So, I think the real question is, are you prepared to watch your wife walk away forever, knowing you never had the balls to tell her that you’re in love with her?”
The very thought of it makes my chest ache in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
“Asshole,” I mutter, and he laughs.
“You’re not wrong, Trav.” He slaps me on the shoulder.
“Now get your head in the game and focus so you don’t kill yourself out there and make the decision for her.”
Maisey
I’ve spentthe last two days trying not to fall apart. Trying not to think of saying goodbye and walking away forever.
It was hard enough to drive away from Rock Creek Ranch, knowing I was unlikely to ever be back to the lush green fields with the towering mountain peaks surrounding us.
And the horses. Pico. I’d cried when I said goodbye to the horse I’d come to think of as my own, and I swear she understood that it was goodbye by the look in her eyes when I walked away.
Spending the day at the Calgary Stampede had been a good way to take my mind off things.
Mostly.
Because it was such a big deal, we’d all made the trip into the city to watch Rex and Travis ride in the finals of theGreatest Outdoor Show on Earth. Of course, I’d heard all about the Stampede, but seeing the massive fair in person was an entirely different experience than I’d been prepared for.
Especially the rodeo.
It was unreal. I couldn’t believe how many people came together to watch everything from barrel racing to little kids riding sheep in an event they called mutton bustin’. And of course, the main events, which were the bull riding that Rex was competing in and Travis’s event, bronc riding.
Both Travis and Rex were in the finals, of course. Wyatt and Cash very proudly filled me in on just how talented the two of them were when it came to rodeo, a detail Travis had very much downplayed in all of our conversations.
And now I was about to see it with my own eyes for the first time.
I was a bundle of nerves watching the first handful of riders compete.
“This is insanity,” I said to Kali, who was grinning and cheering for the cowboy currently getting tossed around by a wild horse. “Why would theydothat?”
“Because it’s rodeo,” Cash said, leaning over his wife to answer me. “It’s in their blood.”
“It’s crazy. They’re going to get hurt.”
“Some do,” Anna said seriously. “That’s why they wear all the protective gear, but even with?—”
“Don’t scare her,” Wyatt scolded. “Besides, Travis is the best there is.”
“So, he doesn’t get thrown off like that?” I pointed and gasped as the cowboy in the ring got tossed like a rag doll into the sawdust. He rolled to the side, only narrowly avoiding being stomped at by the bucking bronc as a rodeo clown distracted the animal, encouraging it to chase him instead.
Which was also lunacy.
“Oh no,” Wyatt said. “Trav gets bucked off plenty.”
“What?” My mouth dropped in horror, worry filling me. “How dangerousisthis?” I asked Anna the question, certain she’d be the only one to answer me honestly. “Should I be worried?”
She looked me in the eye, and I knew whatever she was about to say, it would be the truth. “Yes,” she said simply. “We’re all worried every time he rides.”
Because it could be his last.
