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I’m around these kinds of animals all the time. They’re a mirror. You show up stressed, they’ll act the same. You’re calm? They’re calm.

Funny how people respond the same way.

It’s the same way Briggs guided me all those years ago.

More of a father to me than anyone else in my life.

I’d been gone from Silverwood for about nine months. I was mad and aimless and there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t think about this place. Thought about coming back, but how did I do that after the stupid things I’d done?

Then one night, I saw Briggs in the crowd at a rodeo in Wyoming. I never told him where I was going. I had no idea how he found me, but he did.

He told me later he figured this is where I was headed. Rodeo was the only thing I was ever any good at, so it made sense. He’d been watching the entries, waiting for my name to pop up. When it did, he made the drive to watch me get my butt kicked by a big, nasty bull named Hildy.

Got bucked off in four seconds, and when I pulled myself up and got back to the chute, there was Briggs, standing on the other side of the fence, waiting for me.

I never thought I’d see him again.

I stood there, frozen, not sure I had it in me to hear what he had to say. I’d been spiraling for a long time, but leaving had only made it worse. For some reason, seeing him there made me mad. Like I’d been caught—again. Like he was here to point out all my stupid mistakes.

Shame raced through me knowing how these choices must look to him. Briggs had more integrity than anyone I’d ever known, and he’d been trying to pass that on to me.

It didn’t take.

I stormed off in the other direction, and he found me packing up my stuff.

“What are you doing here?” I didn’t look at him.

“Came to watch you ride.”

“Yeah, well, you wasted a trip.”

“I promised Mindy I’d check in on ya,” he said. “Never could tell that woman no, so . . .”

“I’m fine.” I chucked my gloves into a bag, avoiding his eyes.

“You were watching the bull’s head,” he said. “Gotta watch his shoulders.”

“I know.” I practically growl this because I do know. I’ve ridden before. But this wasn’t high school and these bulls weren’t messing around.

Briggs shifted his weight and said, “Just want t’ let you know you can come back anytime.”

“I won’t be coming back.”

“That’s fine too,” he said.

“You should just forget you ever knew me,” I said, hating that there was a knot in the back of my throat, not meaning a word of what I was saying.

“Probably won’t,” he shrugged.

And that was it. He left. About three months later, he was back. And six months after that, he showed up again, this time with Quent.

It went on like that for years.

He just showed up.

Never told me what to do, never pointed out my mistakes—unless it was about a ride—and he never made me feel like an idiot.

He just showed up.