Aurora, Colorado, has been good for me. My doctoral program is intense and thrilling and exactly where I need to be professionally, but, God, I’ve missed this. Missed Wyoming. Missed the Teton mountains and open skies and people who have known you your whole life, waving from pickup trucks.
Missed Wildhaven.
Missed my family.
Missed my friends.
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel as I follow the gravel road toward the medical clinic building Bryce Raintree had constructed near the indoor arena. Cabe sent me pictures while it was being built, bragging about how Bryce and Matty were “doing this thing right.” At the time, I teased him for sounding like an infomercial spokesperson.
Now?
I can see he wasn’t exaggerating.
The building looks incredible with dark-stained wood siding and black metal roofing that matches the rest of the academy structures. A sign beside the entrance reads:Raintree-Storm Sports Medicine & Trauma Center.
I park beside a black Ram truck that I’m almost positive belongs to Dr. Seth Stoke and kill the engine.
Butterflies erupt in my stomach.
Not nervous exactly. Excited.
This internship is a huge opportunity. Most PT students would kill for direct sports medicine experience like this, especially in a specialized athletic environment. Rodeo athletes are different from traditional athletes. Their injuries are unique. Their recovery demands are brutal. Their pain tolerance is borderline superhuman.
And I understand them. Because I grew up around them.
I grab my purse and overnight bag before climbing out into the warm June morning. The wind brushes my hair across my cheek as I look around again.
Somewhere out here, Cabe Trust is probably on the back of a horse.
We’ve been texting constantly for months. Calling too. Late-night conversations that somehow slipped back into the easy rhythm we used to have before life took us in separate directions.
Before college.
Before distance.
Before we decided loving each other and building separate futures at the same time was too hard and concluded we should just be friends for now.
Best friends.
Although I got a feeling when I was home last fall break that he might be hoping for more again.
I blow out a breath and head toward the clinic doors before my mind can spiral too hard into that particularly complicated situation.
The second I step inside, cool air-conditioning washes over me.
“About time you got here.”
I grin instantly at the familiar voice. “Seth.”
He steps out from behind a desk with a smile that deepens the lines around his eyes. He looks almost exactly like he did back at Bradley Spine and Injury Center in Laramie—tall and broad-shouldered with salt-and-pepper hair and the permanent tan of a man who spends half his life outdoors. At fifty-something, Dr. Seth Stoke is still ridiculously handsome in that rugged-older-cowboy way. The wedding band on his finger has never once stopped half the nurses in Wyoming from flirting with him.
Not that he notices.
Or cares.
His wife, Diane, has his heart securely locked down.
“There’s our girl.” He pulls me into a quick hug. “Doctor-to-be.”
