Blinking, I try to bottle up all those feelings inside my ribcage and swallow away the moon lodged in my throat.
Gotta keep the focus on Billie.
Billie, who looks fuckinggoodin a pair of jeans and the tightest white button-up I think I’ve ever seen. A big old silver-and-turquoise belt buckle completes the ensemble.
Another sensation moves through me, this one a hot heaviness that settles between my legs.
Yep, can’t feel that either.
Evenifher perfect tits strain against that shirt in the sexiest way imaginable.
EvenifI got a thing for cowgirls.
Ordinarily I’d keep trying to ignore all this goddamn excitement. Billie is my best friend’s sister for Christ’s sake. I gotta show some decorum. I have years of practice keeping steady, staying in control. Numbing shit so I don’t drown.
But all of a sudden, that feels wrong.
It’s impossible.
So instead, I let myself be overwhelmed by the thrill of being here, now, and I holler like an idiot as Billie rounds the secondbarrel. Just as I imaginedherhollering as she bolted through the gate to start her race.
“Ava. Jesus. She’s a rock star,” I marvel over the clamor that fills the arena. “You’d best get ready to win some money, honey, cause y’all got something special here.”
Ava is smiling from ear to ear, pride written all over her features. “Don’t jinx us!”
Too late.
Just as Billie is rounding the third barrel, she guides her horse a smidge too close to the inside. As they straighten out to take it all the way home, the horse stumbles, losing her footing in the dirt. Billie does her darndest to stay in the saddle, but the centripetal force of their movements pulls her right off the horse.
A horrified gasp moves through the crowd as Billie launches ass over teakettle through the air. She throws out her arms, letting out another holler as she slams into the ground hard, her left arm bent beside her body at an unnatural angle. This holler is a sound of agonized shock.
Then she goes still.
The image hits me like a freight train: my parents flying through the air the same way after they were hit by a car going thirty-plus miles per hour. They were walking across Main Street just as it was getting dark, and an elderly man didn’t see them until it was too late.
No. Fuck. Not again.
I can’t stay in control. Pretend not to care. Not when someone’s life is on the line.
Before I know what’s happening, I’m pushing my way through the crowd. Somewhere it registers that Colt is behind me, and so are Cash and Ava and Duke, who calls my name.
I don’t stop. I have to get to Billie.
I don’t remember hopping the railing, but all of a sudden, my boots are in the dirt and I’m making a beeline for the lifeless figure thirty feet away.
A guy wearing chaps and a paper number pinned to his shirt approaches from the right. One of the bull riders? What the hell is he doing out here?
I’m the first to get to Billie. Falling to my knees, I see that her eyes are closed. Her chest isn’t moving.
I manage to keep my voice steady as I tap my shaking hand to her face. “Billie? Billie, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
Nothing.
Leaning down, I listen for her breath. It’s not there. Did the impact cause her heart to stop? Did a rib puncture her lung, or worse?
No no no.
I should probably wait for the medics, but fuck that. I got CPR certified after Dean was born, and then I brushed up with another class when Ella was on the way. I wanted to make sure Colt and Sawyer would let me babysit their kids.
