Page 110 of Reckless Hearts

But then I hear it.

A different kind of noise, too quiet, too sharp. It slices straight through the noise of the night and lodges somewhere deep in my chest.

And I run.

I don’t think. I just take off, boots pounding across concrete, cutting between fans and staff and fences until I’m at the edge of the arena. The dust cloud is still settling, and the bull is already being wrangled away.

Colt’s not standing, waving his hat at the crowd like he always does.

He is on the ground.

Limp in a way no person should be.

The scream that rips out of me doesn’t sound human. I shove past two security guards, one of them trying to hold me back. I duck under his arm and throw myself toward the chute, dropping to my knees beside Colt just as the medics reach him.

“Don’t touch him!” I shout, my voice shrill, splintering. “Don’t… don’t touch him until I know he’s…” My breath breaks mid-sentence. My hands shake as I reach for his.

His shoulder is twisted. His leg is bent wrong. There’s blood in his hair.

He’s not waking up.

“Be okay,” I whisper, curling over his hand. “Please, be okay.”

“Callie.”

Maverick’s voice cuts through the noise, low and close. I barely register him until he’s crouching beside me, one hand curling around my wrist.

“Cal.” He’s softer now. Steadier. “They need to take him. You have to let go.”

“No.” I shake my head, tighter around Colt’s arm. “Don’t make me—Maverick, I can’t?—”

He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t tell me to be strong or calm down.

He just holds me tighter and lifts me off the ground, one arm around my back, the other beneath my knees like I weigh nothing.

I don’t even fight it. I’m too broken to care.

The crowd is still roaring, announcers scrambling to keep things moving, but it all fades behind us as Maverick carries me away. Past the gates. Past the medics. Past the arena.

He finds a shadowed corner near the far side of the trailer row, behind one of the livestock holding pens. Quiet. Secluded.

And that’s where I break.

He sinks down onto the concrete with me in his lap, arms still around me like a fortress, my sobs shaking the both of us.

“She begged him,” I gasp, curling my fingers into his shirt. “My mom begged him to quit. Over and over again. And he kept saying, ‘Just one more ride.’ Then he died in the fucking dirt.”

Maverick holds me tighter. His jaw is locked, face pressed into the side of my head like he’s holding himself together for both of us.

“I know,” he says. It’s ragged, almost broken. “I know.”

“I can’t,” I rasp.

I can’t do this again. I can’t. “I thought I could handle it, but I was wrong. I was so fucking wrong.”

He pulls me tighter against him, and we just sit there, pressed together in the shadow of the arena. I can hear the crowd buzzing, the announcers trying to fill the air with noise again. Like Colt’s blood isn’t still drying in the dirt.

Like he didn’t almost die right in front of me.

---