“Clearly,” I mutter, rubbing the back of my neck.
She looks over at me again—really looks—like only moms can. “Doesn’t mean she won’t ever be. Time changes people.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
She nudges me again. Not as sharp this time. “It changed you.”
I don’t answer right away. Just let that settle.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “I guess it did.”
She leans back on her heels, face tilted toward the sky like she’s chasing a memory, then glances back over at me with a grin. “You remember how your dad and I met?”
I groan. “How could I forget?”
I’ve heard the damn story so many times it’s practically burned into my brain. Molly O’Connor, twenty-one and full of fire, sitting front row at the Cheyenne Frontier Days rodeo, watching Lane Wilding get rag-dolled by a famous bull nicknamed The Widowmaker.
He landed hard—busted ribs, bruised pride, spitting in the dirt like it had personally offended him.
And my mother, God help her, took one look at him cursing on the ground and thought,Yep. I want that one.
It wasn’t romantic—not even a little. It was more like watching a train wreck in slow motion and feeling weirdly invested in the outcome. She wasn’t the girl who chased after rodeo stars or fell for bruised egos in big belt buckles. Molly O’Connor, back then, had been one of the biggest rising stars in the music industry—writing chart-bound songs in cheap motel rooms, crisscrossing the country on tour, barely keeping track of time zones. She’d only ended up at that rodeo in Cheyenne because her band had a night off and someone said the beer was cold and the bulls were mean. It was supposed to be a detour.
But the way my dad pulled himself up after that loss—blood on his lip, his pride in pieces? The way he got up and walked out like he didn’t owe the world an explanation? That got her attention. And once she was looking, it was hard to look away.
After the rodeo, she spotted him at a dive bar just outside of town, nursing a beer, his ego still bleeding. She didn’t go up to him right away—just watched him for a while, noted the way he carried himself, his eyes constantly moving, like he was always waiting for the next thing, the next ride, the next fight.
And then—because Molly O’Connor had never once waited for permission in her life—she walked right up to him, plucked the cowboy hat off his head like it belonged to her, set it on her own, andsaid, “Didn’t take you for a man who lets a bull do all the talking.”
Lane looked up, slow and unimpressed, like he had all the time in the world to decide if she was worth the trouble. “Didn’t take you for the kind of woman who steals hats from strangers.”
She tilted the brim down with a grin, like she was trying it on for size. “Didn’t steal it. Just figured you wouldn’t be needing it, what with all the sulking. Cowboys don’t cry, don’t you know?”
His jaw tightened, just enough to be noticeable. “That bull was a mean son of a bitch.”
She shrugged, a little spark of challenge in the movement. “So am I.”
That was it. That was the match strike.
He leaned back against the bar, arms crossed, smirk threatening the corner of his mouth. “And what’s it gonna cost me to get my hat back?”
She tapped a finger against her chin, like she hadn’t already made up her mind. “Buy me a drink.”
Lane exhaled like she was already exhausting. “Get her whatever she wants,” he told the bartender without looking away.
She tugged the hat a little lower over her eyes. “Good answer.”
And that was that.
They drank. They danced. She kissed him first—right there in the middle of the bar, with George Strait’sYou Look So Good In Lovecrooning through dusty speakers and a half-dozen cowboys hollering like they’d just witnessed history. Maybe they had.
Later, when she walked out, she did it with his Stetson on her head and a look over her shoulder that said everything else she didn’t.
“If you want it back,” she said, fingers hooked in the brim, “you’ll have to come find me, cowboy.”
And he did. Of course he did.
Mom smirks, brushing the dirt off her hands. “Guess how long it took your dad to find me.”
