Chapter 36
Maggie
By the time I make it to Edmonton, it’s well after dark.
The parking lot at Rogers Place is packed. Betsy and I circle like a vulture, waiting for a spot. The second one opens up, we shoot into it, and I kill the engine and grab up my phone and bag. The entry is a circus, and when I make it to the front of the line, I’m practically bursting out of my skin.
I can’t miss this.
After five hours of deep, uncomfortable reflection and soul searching, I understand now what I only thought I knew before.
Life is risk.
Life is pain.
But life is alsobeautiful. Those are the parts you hold on to, not the dark pieces. Never the hard stuff. It will drag you down and drown you in its mediocre paranoia and suck the life right out of you.
I was fearless for much less before the incident in the Ukraine.
I traveled into a war zone to give a voice to people I’d never met.
But when it came to the one thing I needed, I ran away scared.
I will make this right. I will?—
“Ma’am?” A young guy looks down at me from behind the plastic booth shield. The turnstile is up against my stomach. Shit.
He gives me a bored look. “Ticket or card?”
“Oh shoot, card please.” I offer up my card.
He holds out the machine and I tap it.
“Enjoy the show.” He hands me a ticket.
“Oh bud, there’s nothing enjoyable about this, and it is definitely noshow.”
He glances at the people in the line behind me. “Um, okay?”
The turnstile moves and I push through and find my way to the seat he gave me on the ticket. I have to weave through people already seated, and heat flushes my face when it’s obvious I’m blocking their view.
I do a quick check at the cowboy being tossed around on a brindle bull. Not Hadley.
Something inside me settles.
I find the last seat in the row and sit in it. Pulling my jacket off, I fold it in my lap and drop my bag at my feet. The announcer is running over the stats for the night as I raise my gaze to the leaderboard.
Bravos are on top.
The tallied scores for the season have Hadley and Knox in the top two places. My gut flips.
He’s so, so stinking close.
I sit through a few cowboys and bulls I don’t know. Knox has a great ride on none other than Terminator and I find myself leaning forward, breath held the entire eight seconds. The score of eighty-nine point five moves him to the top place. It’s down to the wire, or the last ride of the night.
The one I only just made it in time for.
“Maggie!”
