Page 73 of The Pieces We've Lost

“What are you thinking about?” She looked up at me with her round eyes, eyebrows furrowed.

“I am thinking about how perfect these last few days have been and how much I want you to stay here.”Forever,I added in my brain.

“These last couple days have been perfect, haven’t they?” She grinned, putting her arm around my waist as we stood there, holding each other and watching as Reid and the boys messed around in the arena.

“Colter! Let’s go!” Reid yelled at me.

I kissed Ellison and climbed over the fence. Reid and I hadn’t practiced in a couple of weeks. We needed to keep our skills sharp for the next month of traveling that would start in a few days, after Ellison left.

I mounted Bullet, getting him to walk over to the chute, and Reid followed.

“I like you two together, Colter. You’re good for each other.”

His approval meant the world to me. He knew more about my personal life than anyone and if he thought Ellison and I were good together, then that was more validation than I would ever need.

“Mikey, get over here! Stop texting your woman!” I yelled at him, and he glared at me before typing furiously for a couple more seconds and then running over. “You’re like a damn teenager,” I teased.

“I don’t know if you should be calling me a teenager, Carson, considering I almost caught you and your girl this morning.”

Meh, minor detail.

Reid and I lined up as Ellison watched from the sidelines. I looked over at her and her eyes locked on only me.

“Let’s go!” I nodded and we were off. I don’t know what it was about this particular run, but something felt off. I ignored it, though, as I swung my rope and threw it onto the steer’s horns.

I went to dally as the steer turned, and my horsefollowed. However, unbeknownst to me, my stirrups weren’t adjusted correctly, and my left boot had slipped out of it. With the sudden jolt of the turn, I was thrown from the horse and into the fence, my spine rattling against the metal railing and my skull slamming against the post that stabilized it. A frantic yell rose from the end of the arena before everything went black.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

ellison

Isaw Colter’s body lying on the ground, his horse still running as Reid tried to catch the steer to guide it back to the corral. People were yelling and running into the arena to help him, but I was paralyzed.

Shit, shit, shit.

I couldn’t move; my feet felt like they were glued to the earth.

At that moment, it was like I was eight again.

Dad’s crumpled body lay motionless on the floor of the arena. He was too far away to see clearly, now that the cameras were off of him, but I could still see the blood soaking through his shirt.

The arena was eerily quiet, almost as if it were empty, with only the livestock and horses making noise. Dad’s hazer had retrieved his horse and the mounted officials had already gotten the steer back in the corral while first responders carried a stretcher down to take Dad to the hospital.

Mom grabbed my hand, urging me to follow her. Her movementswere jerky, panicked, and her hand shook in mine as we hustled down the stairs of the grandstands and toward the exit.

“Mom, where are we going? What about Dad?” I whimpered.

“We’re going to meet him at the hospital, Ellie. It’s going to be okay,” she tried to reassure me, keeping her voice as steady as possible.

At that point, the paramedics had Dad on the stretcher and were carrying him out of the arena toward an ambulance. Their demeanor was urgent, and from that alone I could sense the accident was more serious than Mom was letting on.

We hurried out to the vehicle to try to meet the ambulance at the hospital. I saw a tear stream down Mom’s face out of the corner of my eye before she quickly wiped it away. Externally, she was trying to be strong for me, for us, but I could tell that, internally, she was terrified and didn’t know what to do. She drove to the hospital faster than I had ever seen her drive. She almost ran a stop sign—she was that determined to get there.

When we got to the hospital, my dad’s parents were already there waiting. Grandpa pulled me away from Mom to go sit down in the waiting room. I tried to pull away in protest; I wanted to be with Mom, but I wasn’t strong enough.

Before we got too far out of earshot, I faintly heard Mom ask Grandma in a hushed tone, “Where is he? Is he going to be okay?” It was like she didn’t want me to listen to their conversation, but I could hear everything.

“They have him in the ICU. That’s all we know right now. The only thing we can do is pray the steer’s horn didn’t pierce his heart,” Grandma told her. “They’re trying to get him stabilized. I’m sorry, Hanna, they just aren’t giving us much information.”

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