Page 18 of His First Baby Rodeo

“And you really wanted to marry him?”

“It wasn’t even that, so much,” she said. “But when I figured out what he’d been doing, I decided I couldn’t stay with a guy who would play me like that. He was deliberately misleading me about his intentions just because he didn’t like having a long-distance girlfriend. If he’d had enough respect for me to be honest and tell me that either one of us needed to move or else we needed to break up, I could have made an informed decision. Instead, I left my life behind in Seattle and moved all the way home thinking I was going to be building a future with this guy, and then when I asked him about marriage, he had the nerve to saywhat ever gave you an idea like that?”

“He sounds like a tool,” Mac said.

El burst into surprised laughter. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d actually laughed about this situation. “You know what? That’s exactly what he is. He’s a tool.”

“No great loss, then?”

“No. I’m not sad about losinghim. That was for the best. But I do have some regrets about losing the time I put into him. I thought I was going to be at a different place in my life by now. I didn’t think I’d be living out of my brother’s spare room and job hunting in my mid-twenties. All my friends are getting married and having babies, and I feel like I’m not really a part of anything anymore.”

She was surprised at herself for being so open about Dean. But at the same time, she recognized that she had never really gotten the chance to talk about him. Jeff hadn’t been much help when it came to that — he tended to start telling El how foolish she’d been to be taken in, as if she didn’t know that. El knew her brother meant well, of course. He loved her, and he was just trying to make sure she wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. But it did her no good to have to hear about it over and over.

Mac didn’t appear to want to make any comments like that. Instead, he stared out over the valley as if he was pondering what she had told him.

After a moment, he spoke. “I think I can relate,” he said. “I mean, not the bad ex-boyfriend part.”

“No bad exes in your past?”

“No exes at all, really. Not since high school. Dating’s too hard on the rodeo circuit.”

“I see. Can’t let yourself be tied down.”

“Well, it’s more that everyone thinks they’d like to date a rodeo star but no one actuallywouldlike it,” he said. “There’s too much travel, and you’ve got the diehard fans who are always idealizing you, women asking you to sign their undergarments…”

El laughed. “It does sound like an intense life for a partner.”

“Yeah. And it would take a lot of effort to make a relationship work in spite of all of that, so I just haven’t bothered with it,” he said. “But I still think I can relate to the feeling that your life… isn’t where you thought it would be. I mean, this isn’t where I’m supposed to be right now. I’m supposed to be competing in front of sellout crowds, not riding a horse I can barely manage with one hand on the trail behind my house. And everyone keeps pushing me to retire, and I don’t feel ready for that.”

“Well, they can’t make you retire before you’re ready,” El said. “Why does anyone care?”

“The injury didn’t help. People think that proves something.”

“You know your body better than anyone else, though.”

He grinned at her. “No one’s ever said it that way before,” he said. “But you’re right. I should start telling people that. I’ll know when it’s time, and I shouldn’t let anyone else give me a hard time about it.”

“That’s right.”

“But you should take your own advice,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t have to worry about getting married or having kids just because the other people in your life are doing that,” he said. “That’s them and this is you. You have to do stuff like that on your own timeline, even if it means you do it at a different time than everyone else — or a different time than you thought you would.”

“That’s great advice.”

“Hey, it’s your advice. I’m just repeating it back to you.”

Be that as it may, she wished someone had said it to her sooner. All the advice she’d gotten after her breakup had taken the form ofsomething else will come alongorthere are plenty more fish in the sea. But it felt like Mac was giving her permission not to pay any attention to the other fish, but to focus on herself and on what she wanted for the time being.

Of course, that was strange advice to be getting from a guy she had a crush on. If she was honest with herself, she would have liked to hear him say something completely different. If there was one person she would have welcomed a comment about finding someone else from…

But a hookup with Mac Palmer was just about the most foolish thing she could do, so she did her best to listen to his advice. The right thing for her would come along at the right time, and it would be stupid to try to force something that was so obviously wrong — even if it would have felt great in the moment — just because she was impatient.

That didn’t mean she couldn’t daydream, though, and as the pair of them sat in silence on the rock, El allowed herself to imagine what it would feel like to let him touch her, to kiss him — to let go of the reins, just for a few hours.

CHAPTER9

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