His arm came back up around her shoulders, slower than before. She felt the tension in it. He wasn’t relaxed. He was overruling himself.
She squeezed his thigh where her hand still rested, then moved it. “You’re a good dad, you know that?”
Two minutes later, Logan came up the bleachers two at a time and dropped back into his seat beside River.
The announcer’s voice cut through. “And now we’ve got a crowd favorite, folks. Xavier Vega on Widow Maker. Let’s give him a hand.”
Logan sat forward.
Bear’s arm went still behind Greta’s shoulders.
Ahead of them, River stood up, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled something that got lost in the general roar of the crowd. Logan stayed seated, but his posture had changed—spine straight, hands gripping the bleacher edge, attention locked on the chutes.
Greta sat forward, too.
Chute four banged open, and the gray roan came out already twisting, all four hooves off the ground before X had his second hand free. The horse hit the dirt and immediately launchedsideways, back arched, head down between its front legs, doing everything in its power to remove the human from its back.
X rode it like he’d been born for it. His free hand was up, his body rolling with the motion instead of fighting it, and every time the horse bucked, he absorbed it and came back centered. The roan spun left, then right, then went straight up and came down stiff-legged, and X stayed on.
The crowd was on its feet. Greta was on her feet and didn’t remember standing, one hand gripping the bleacher railing in front of her, her breath caught somewhere in her chest. The horse bucked again, a full-body snap that should have launched X into the dirt, and he leaned back into it and held on.
The buzzer sounded.
X dropped clean into the dirt and rolled, coming up in a crouch, then standing. His hat had come off at some point, and he bent to scoop it up, brushing dirt off the brim. He was grinning—full-face, the kind of grin only a man who knew exactly how good that had been could wear—and he turned in a slow circle, taking in the crowd.
Then he stopped, facing the grandstand, and his gaze tracked up.
Greta followed the line of it and found Mariah three sections over, standing near the railing with her arms crossed and her face set.
X swept his hat off and gave her a bow. Full theatrical, one arm extended, the other behind his back. Then he straightened, put the hat back on, and walked toward the gate, still grinning.
Greta sat down and leaned in when Bear draped an arm around her.
“Six weeks,” she said.
Bear’s arm tightened around her.
“Six weeks,” he repeated. “You’re watching that man bow to her like a court jester, and you think six weeks.”
“I’m watching that woman pretend she’s not smiling.” Greta tilted her chin toward Mariah’s section. “That’s not a woman who’s going to hold out six months.”
thirty
Bear felt Daniel before he saw him.
He was standing in the parking lot beside X’s truck, hands in his jacket pockets, waiting for X to finish glad-handing the last of his rodeo fans at the back gate. Logan was on the tailgate, scrolling his phone. Greta and Naomi were ten feet away beside Walker’s trailer, heads bent close, voices low. Atlas sat at Greta’s left boot with his ears half forward.
The arena lights threw long shadows across the asphalt. The lot was emptying out. Somewhere across the grounds, a generator cut off, and the carnival music dropped.
A chill of awareness crept up the back of his neck, and his head came up.
Daniel Goodwin was thirty yards out and weaving, his gaze locked on Greta.
The target was Greta.
Bear didn’t move yet. He turned his head and kept his voice low. “Logan. Go find Walker or Boone. Tell them I need help.”
Logan looked up. His gaze tracked from Bear’s face to Daniel.
