She makes a cynical noise but lets it drop. I stalk toward the saloon doors and pull them open, gesturing with my head for her to precede me. The noise immediately hits me when I follow her in, despite the fact it’s a Monday night. That’s the Silver Spur for you—always busy. Busiest of all on a Friday, but at this time of evening it’s packed with locals. It takes me a second to shake myself back into being Beau Donovan, bull rider, not just Beau. Beau the way Bailey knows me, the way I am with her, when it’s like we’re just two people, shooting the breeze, talking shit.
‘Hey, hey, hey!’ Randy’s booming voice calls across the packed room. ‘Look who just walked in, y’all. If it ain’t bull fightin’ royalty.’
I don’t hate a fuss being made. If I did, I wouldn’t do what I do. But I’m not ready for it now. More’s the point, I’m not ready for it in front of Bailey, who’s taken a few steps away from me, like she’s fucking terrified of getting caught up in my spotlight. Ilift one hand in recognition, smile casually, then take off my hat in acknowledgement of the applause as I start cutting through the people. I get back pats, loud greetings, handshakes. I look around a couple of times to make sure Bailey’s with me, to find her following in my wake.
At the bar, I scowl exaggeratedly at Randy. ‘Was that fuckin’ necessary?’
Polishing the top of a glass, he laughs. ‘Hell, it sure felt like it. Don’t act like you don’t love it either. I know you too well, bro.’
I clamp my lips together, acknowledging that’s God’s own truth. At least, it used to be. Or used to feel true. Something’s changed this year. As I’ve gotten older, maybe even wiser, I’m less into the benefits that come with being a rider at the top of his game.
‘You’ve been gone a long time,’ Randy comments, as he starts pouring a beer, slides it across to me. I shift a little, to make way for Bailey at the bar, to show I’m not alone. Randy’s eyes move that way, taking her in with a little more interest than I’d like. Then again, didn’t I do the same thing when I first saw her? Bailey goes beyond being beautiful, she’s an enigma. Because she is beautiful, and she is vulnerable, but she’s also got a toughness to her that just fucking dares you to try hurting her. ‘A friend of yours?’ Randy prompts.
I keep my tone light and casual. ‘More of an acquaintance.’ It’s not exactly a lie. I am very well acquainted with all of Bailey now, every single inch of her. ‘This is Bailey James—a reporter. She’s writing a piece on the tour.’
‘I see,’ Randy says. ‘Bailey James …’ His fingers drum a tattoo against the top of the bar. As they so often do, my eyes drop to the photographs displayed beneath the glass surface,permanently memorialised there, a collage of town residents, and land on my dad’s smiling face. Cole Donovan Senior. My heart thumps, my stomach twists at the familiar sight of him smiling, eyes that crinkle just like mine.
‘That name’s familiar.’
She bristles, then, with a forced smile, says, ‘I booked a room.’
‘Right.’ Randy clicks his fingers. ‘I remember.’ He glances around. ‘Look, it’s too busy for me to leave the bar right now. Do you want to have a seat, a drink, something to eat, and I’ll take you up after it calms down?’
‘I can show her,’ I hear myself offer, so fucking magnanimous, like I don’t just want to get her alone.
‘You’re a saint,’ Randy observes, clearly seeing right through me. Because he knows me, and he knows what I’m like. ‘You know your way around up there well enough, anyways,’ Randy adds for good measure, intimating with a wink that I’ve spent more than my fair share of time in the bedrooms above the Silver Spur. The truth is, I’ve hooked up once or twice with guests, but, like a lot of things my reputation’s built on, those days are in my distant past.
I keep my casual, uncaring grin locked in place as he hands over a heavy brass key—it’s a point of pride that the locks in this place are the originals from when it was an old coach-house and saloon.
I leave the beer on the bar and gesture with a tilt of my head for Bailey to precede me through the crowd, but that’s a mistake, because the number of people who stop to talk to me means I lose her pretty quickly. By the time I’ve cut through the room, Bailey’s found her way to one of the timber-linedwalls at the rear of the tavern, near the mechanical bull. No one’s riding tonight—it’s generally more of a weekend attraction—and it sits like a sad parody of the actual thing. But Bailey’s not looking at the bull so much as the wall, which is plastered with framed newspaper clippings of Goodnight’s most famous sons and daughters. Specifically, she’s looking at an article that was written during my first season, when I was still learning the ropes. There’s a photo of me riding a bull, the lines of my body fluid above the animal, my balance locked in.
‘Come on.’ My voice doesn’t sound like me. If anything, I sound like Cole, gruff and closed off, so much so that Bailey’s head jerks to mine, her eyes narrowing as she studies my face, probably sees too much. I force a smile. ‘This is old news.’
‘Still.’ She turns back to the framed article, lifts a finger and touches the photo, like she’s transfixed. ‘You look magic up there.’
Something moves in my chest. ‘I thought you didn’t like watching me ride.’
‘I don’t.’ Her finger drops. ‘You still look amazing while you’re doing it.’ She sighs, turns to me slowly. ‘One of the clips of you on YouTube included interviews with old-timers, bull riders from the eighties and nineties, talking about up-and-coming talent. There was one guy who described you as a savant. He said you might as well have been born half-bull, you understand them so well.’
‘Ricky Torres,’ I supply. ‘I’ve seen the clip.’ Ash had shown it to me. Half proud, half pissed as all heck. Like everyone else in my life, she always hated me doing this.
‘Is that something you were born with?’ she asks. ‘Or did you somehow learn it?’
I lift my shoulders. ‘It comes with experience.’
‘Lots of riders have experience. This guy singled you out as unique.’ She glances back to the photo, a frown tugging at her soft, pink lips. Lips so sweet I ache to kiss them—publicly. Here in the back of the Silver Spur, people are used to me hooking up anyways. But even that makes me kinda pissed, to think they might see Bailey and think she’s just like everyone else, when the truth is she’s worked her way into parts of me I didn’t know exist. Parts I would love to keep closed off forever.
‘And I’ve seen you,’ she says, looking at me again.
Because that urge to kiss her refuses to quit, I put a hand in the small of her back, heat bursting just beneath my fingertips as I guide her toward the dark timber stairs that lead to the accommodation.
‘You’re different to the other riders on tour.’
Something prickles along my spine—pride and a degree of happiness I wish I didn’t feel that she’s saying that, that she’s noticed.
‘Even the way you watch them when they’re riding, is like you’re reading the bull. Anticipating. Knowing.’
I roll my shoulders, feel a twinge in one and stop, move her bag to my other hand.
