CHAPTER 1: THE GRAVITY OF BONE
I. The Chute
The dirt in Las Vegas didn't taste like the dirt in Montana.
Montana dirt tasted like silica, sagebrush, and deep, ancient iron. It was honest. Vegas dirt tasted like diesel fumes, pyrotechnics, and the desperate, metallic tang of ten million dollars in prize money.
Ryder Stone sat on the back of the chutes, his spurs jingling with a restless, chaotic rhythm against the steel rails.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
He looked down.
Inside the narrow metal box beneath him, eighteen hundred pounds of biological hate was waiting.
The bull’s name was Widowmaker. He was a brindle Brahman cross with a hump the size of a mountain range and horns that curved upward like scimitars designed by a sadist. He wasn't just an animal; he was a celebrity. He had a higher win percentage than the house at the Bellagio.
"He's tight tonight, Ryder," the flank man warned, spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the yellow dirt. "He's looking for a fight."
"Good," Ryder said. He stretched his neck.Crack."So am I."
Ryder adjusted his glove. He pulled the leather strap tight with his teeth, biting down until the taste of rosin filled his mouth. He slapped his cheek. Once. Twice. Hard.
He needed the sting. He needed the pain to sharpen the edges of the world.
For the last six years, Ryder Stone had lived his life in eight-second bursts. He was the "Wild One." The Stone who ran. The one who traded the slow, grinding death of the ranch for the bright, violent lights of the circuit.
And it had worked.
He looked up at the stands of the Thomas & Mack Center. Eighteen thousand people. A sea of cowboy hats, sequins, and screaming faces. They were chanting his name.
STONE. STONE. STONE.
It was a drug. A pure, uncut dopamine hit that flooded his system, drowning out the quiet voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like his brother Cole.
You're running, Ryder. You're just running in circles. He heard Cole had eloped last winter. Settled down. Probably thought he had it all figured out.
"Shut up, Cole," Ryder whispered to the noise.
He looked at the scoreboard. He was sitting second in the world standings. If he covered this bull—if he stayed on for eight seconds—he won the Gold Buckle. He won the world. He proved, finally and definitively, that leaving Stone Creek was the right choice. That he wasn't the failure who abandoned the family; he was the conqueror who transcended it.
He climbed down into the chute.
The bull shifted. The massive muscles bunched under the loose, brindle hide. The heat coming off the animal was physical, a wall of humid, musky aggression.
Ryder straddled the beast. He slid his hand into the braided bull rope.
This was the connection point. The suicide pact.
"Tighten it," Ryder ordered.
The flank man pulled the tail of the rope. The leather cinch bit into the bull’s chest. Widowmaker huffed, a deep, resonant sound that vibrated through Ryder’s thighs.
Ryder pounded his gloved hand into the rope, melting the rosin, fusing his grip to the animal. He slid up, jamming his crotch against the bull's spine.
"Don't get hung up," the flank man muttered. "This bastard spins left, then reverses. If you get hung up in the well, he'll eat you."
"I know the book," Ryder said.
