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I hear him. His words float around me, but they don’t register because all I can feel and think about is the incredible sense of dread weighing down my stomach.
“Come on, Rhett,” Linc hollers. “Snap out of it. They’ve already announced the ride. They’re waiting on you.”
I blink, searching the crowd one last time, and when I come up empty, I turn to Linc. “When I get off this bull, you better have a path clear for me to get straight out of this goddamn place, because I’m going after my girl.” I’ve got to find out why she left.
“Not sure you’ll have to go far, but okay.”
Tightening my grip on the rope, I lift my hand and nod.
Lucifer flies out of the gate with a frenzy only he’s capable of. The muscles of his back shift beneath my thighs as he bucks and thrashes around, tossing me from side to side. The roar of the crowd is deafening as I squeeze my thighs together, hell bent on staying on his back.
It feels like a lifetime, but the buzzer eventually sounds. The crowd goes wild, and in a not-so-graceful dismount, I fall to the ground. Lucifer jumps, charging for a rodeo clown as I scramble to my feet.
Rhett
As promised, Linc clears a path, and I rush through the gate, weaving through the back pens and ignoring the announcers and fans calling out for me. My head spins with all the places Mo could be, and I just want to find her and hold her and tell her how much I love her. I also need to apologize for getting back on Lucifer.
I’ll do whatever it takes, because now I know for sure that all I want in this life is Mo’s happiness.
I turn a corner and run right into her.
“Mo.” Relief rushes through me, and I yank her into my arms. “God, baby, I thought you left. I looked up in the stands, and you weren’t there.”
“I’m sorry.” She shakes her head, and I notice the tear stains on her cheeks. “I tried to watch, but I just couldn’t. I think your dad realized that, because he came and got me.”
“Wait. What? My dad came and got you?”
She nods. “I need you to listen to me, Rhett. I know this is what you do…what you love, but it was so much harder to sit there in the stands than I thought it would be.” Her words come out in a rush, along with a few fresh tears.
I wipe them away. “I know, baby.”
“No.” Her head shakes. “You don’t. It’s different than when we were younger. When we were sixteen, we were invincible, with the entire world at our feet. I don’t see things like that anymore.”
“What do you see?”
“I see a future. I know we’re not there yet, but I see babies and a tire swing in the front yard. I see family dinners and a golden retriever and teaching my daughter how to ride a horse. But when they announced the special event, all of that went away. All I could see were the ways that future could be ripped away from us. I had visions of you getting thrown off again, kicked in the head, trampled on, and I realized I can’t do this.”
Her voice splinters, along with my heart. She tries to pull away, but I don’t let her.
“I can’t sit here and watch you put your life and our future on the line.” Brushing the tears from her face, she blinks up at me, her big, beautiful eyes full of so much love and pain.
All the blood drains from my face. A wave of dizziness washes over me, and I reach for her arm. “What are you saying, Mo?”
“I can’t ask you to walk away before you’re ready, but you can’t ask me to watch.”
Oh, God. She’s leaving me.
“No!” I shout, my grip on her tightening. “You can’t leave me. You don’t have to ask me to walk away. I’ll just do it. I’ll walk away and never look back. I’d do anything for you—you can’t break up with me again.”
“Break up with you?” Confusion clouds her eyes.
My words continue to come out in a rush, my brain not exactly processing her question. “My life doesn’t work without you, so if bull riding is a hard limit, I’ll stop. I’d do that because I love you.”
Mo sweeps a hand up my cheek, curving her fingers around the back of my head. “What did you just say?”
“I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you, and I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner, I just—”
Slamming her lips against mine, Mo shuts me up. And when she steps back, she’s smiling like she won the lottery.
