Page 44 of Buck This
He turned in her arms. “All those people tonight…it’s more to let down.”
She nodded but stayed quiet. When a man got jammed up like this, it was best to just listen.
He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and there was such sadness in his eyes. “All my life I’ve let people down. It’s what I do. And now there’s all this attention on me and I know what’s coming.”
“Or…hear me out…you don’t let anyone down at all. You focus on yourself and building a legacy you can be proud of. It’s you and the rider. One rider at a time.”
“And all eyes on me while I struggle with the Change, and escape panels, and try to jump out of the arena. That isn’t under control, Torrey. I’m barely there when I’m the bull and it isn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Was it always like that?”
He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “It’s only a couple of years old.”
“The car accident?”
“It did something to my animal. We don’t co-exist well anymore.”
“Then why do you still buck?” she asked. His answer mattered.
“Because for eight seconds, I remember who I used to be. I feel normal. My life makes sense for that eight second ride. For eight fucking seconds, I can remember the good.”
Ooof. Her heart. She hugged him up again and stared at the bed on the other side of the RV. He really hadn’t come to this career for the fame. He was searching for something different. He was searching for his old self.
“Tomorrow, you will get another eight seconds to feel like you,” she said softly. “And I’ll be there right after you finish to remind you of who you are now. We can bypass the media—”
“Quickdraw won’t allow me to do that—”
“You’re a grown man. You and I can slip out and leave the media with a mystery.” She eased back and smiled at him. “We can come back here, whatever the results of tomorrow’s finals, and turn on that little firepit you have set up outside, and we can drink a beer and decompress, and I’ll tell you stories from when I was a kid.”
“More sucky track team stories?”
She laughed. “I haven’t even gotten to the part about how mediocre I was at soccer.”
He chuckled, and there it was. There was that smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes yet, but it was still a smile. It counted.
“I got you something,” he murmured.
“If you finish this joke with, ‘it’s my dick,’ I’m going to donkey-kick you.”
He huffed a good laugh this time and shook his head, leaned down and pressed a kiss on her shoulder and then made his way to the little closet, and pulled out a box. He set it on the table and gestured to it. “Open it.”
But she could see the tags on it, and the picture on the outside of the box. She could see the size.
“Buck,” she uttered on a breath as she approached it slowly.
She lifted the lid on the cowgirl boots and gasped at the fine leather there. She ran her finger down the tan leather of the boot shaft and traced the white decorative stitching. “How did you know my size?”
“I checked your shoes last night.”
“When did you find time to get these?” she asked reverently as she pulled one out and studied it. The leather shaft wasn’t too soft to flop over, but also wasn’t too stiff to be difficult to break in. There was a three inch heal on it, and the stitching was a beautiful latticework of cream thread on brown leather.
“I snuck a trip to a store I know on my way to training today.”
“These look expensive,” she whispered, hugging the boot to her chest.
“Try them on.”
“Okay!” she said excitedly. Torrey plopped down on the floor and kicked out of her own boots, then pulled the new one on. Buck sat at the table and handed her the other one, and when she stood to strike a pose, his face lit up like a firework. There was the smile in his eyes.
