Still, the look Billy was giving her didn’t change. “And since when do you throw all that old junk in my face, Skylar? I thought we were past that.”
She was saved from answering that by the sound of the usual American Extreme Bull Riders spectacle beginning out there in the arena. The crowd went wild and the music blared.
Billy glared at her another minute, then jerked his chin in a mute demand to follow him. Skylar wanted to march off in the other direction, but that would be cutting off her nose to spite her face, and she’d never seen the point of gestures like that. Especially not when she had a vested interest in keeping nose and face attached.
Instead, she followed her father from their booth. He led her along the arena’s long corridor and then down into to the VIP section that was almost all the way on the dirt floor, with a direct line of sight to all the chutes. So close that they wouldn’t have to look up at the big screens to see what was going on—it was going to happen right there. Right in front of them.
Thousand-pound-plus bulls, fired up and ready to party, with all those tough, steely riders clamped on top of them, bursting out into their eight seconds of a struggle—a beautiful, brutal dance, if they were lucky—barely more than six feet away.
Even before she’d known a bull rider personally, Skylar had found that watching the sport made her edgy. Exhilarated and invested about three seconds into every ride. Tonight it felt a whole lot worse.
Or better.
Billy found their seats, three rows up from the dirt, and they settled into them. The crowd went wild for all the riders as they marched out, dressed in their competition shirts and cowboy hats. They all looked fierce and handsome, the baby-faced newbies and longtime stars of the tour alike. The announcers read off Cody’s statistics as he walked out to take his turn in the spotlight, and Skylar had to swallow hard as he lifted his black hat to the crowd. He looked grim and focused, the way she supposed he always did, but she had an entirely new appreciation of that expression now.
The man gave intent new meaning.
The last time she’d seen him, he’d had the same look on his face when he’d kissed her before she climbed out of his truck. She shivered, because that memory was a gateway for a cascade of other ones, each more vivid than the last. But she controlled it in the next instant, because the last thing she wanted was to attract any more of her father’s attention.
There was a prayer for everyone’s safety—bulls and riders alike—a callout to the nation’s active military and veterans, and then the Star-Spangled Banner was belted out by a local girl who looked all of sixteen, with big curls and a voice to match.
And then it began.
Skylar couldn’t even count how many times she’d watched bull riding before. Hundreds of times growing up, right here in Billings. Maybe more than hundreds, if she thought about the rodeos she’d attended out west in Marietta, the little town in Paradise Valley where another huge swathe of Grey family members lived. And had done since the original Grey had hoofed it out of Boston to avoid a crisis or two of his own making, way back in the 1800s. She hadn’t been to a rodeo or a bull-riding event like this one in a long time, it was true, but it was the same as she remembered.
More than that—it almost felt like coming home. The rich scent of the dirt, and the more complex note of horses and bulls beneath it were a complicated kind of nostalgia. Country music playing loud in a stadium filled with red, white and blue everything, beer and hot dogs, ads for Ariat, Carhartt, farm equipment, and big old trucks, all made her heart swell a bit. And star-struck little kids and grumpy old men alike, all of them were on their feet and cheering every time the clock ticked toward those golden eight seconds while the rider kept his seat.
Skylar had always liked the sport, but she’d never felt so personally about any of it before. Every time a cowboy was thrown, she flinched. Every time a cowboy showed how tough he was by standing up from something that would have laid out the entire Atlanta Falcons defensive line, she couldn’t seem to look away from the way he’d limp out of the dirt.
Because she knew what Cody looked like naked, now. Golden and gleaming—and covered in scars. Surgeries, broken bones, cuts and bruises. She’d seen the cabinet in his bathroom, filled with tape and braces and a hundred different ointments for this or that ailment, ache, stiffness, whatever. She’d run her hands over old scars cut with new ones, and had seen the toll that the previous week’s show in South Dakota had taken on him, stamped all over his skin.
And tonight she saw exactly how those injuries happened, in case her imagination hadn’t been sufficient the night before.
Not that she hadn’t known that this was a dangerous sport. Of course she had. Everyone knew it was dangerous. That was part of its appeal. She knew it was why fans loved it. She assumed the riders did too. Not because they had death wishes the way Angelique had claimed, but because it was hard not to love a rush like that.
Or so she assumed, having had the wildest rush of her life with Cody. Repeatedly.
Tonight, standing there watching bull after bull buck and roll and go wild, Skylar felt the danger of it all deep in the pit of her stomach, as if it was happening to her. Because it turned out she had a vivid imagination, after all. It was too easy to imagine Cody getting stomped. Cody getting thrown. Cody getting dragged.
She hid another shudder when the medical team raced out to carry one of the riders out. And maybe she cheered a little louder than necessary when the rider climbed to his feet instead, waved to the crowd, and walked off without requiring that gurney after all.
“Date who you want to date,” Billy said gruffly during a lull, when the bull fighters were trying to chase a recalcitrant bull back into the chutes, complete with a lasso the bull flat-out ignored.
As if they’d been in the middle of a debate on the subject.
Skylar forced herself to unclench her teeth. She tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans to keep herself from clenching them into fists—or swinging them. And she rocked back on the heels of her cowboy boots as if that would give her the sort of calm the bull riders exuded so effortlessly.
“I’m not dating anyone, Dad,” she said.
That was the most ridiculous part of all of this. Skylar had stood her ground and thrown herself into the fight because of the principle of it all. Not the reality. The reality was that Cody Galen had never made her a single promise outside of enjoying a whole night together instead of their single encounter on a picnic table.
And Skylar might not have done a lot of dating, but she’d watched the rise and fall and near miss of all her friends’ relationships in Atlanta. She’d soothed more than one broken heart on her couch with ice cream in one hand and a friend’s cell phone in the other, to cut down on ill-considered, potentially embarrassing calls, texts, and messages. She knew how these things went. The bottom line was that she knew better than to expect anything from a man like Cody. She would be very surprised if she heard from him again. Ever.
But that hadn’t been the point this morning. It wasn’t the point now.
Just like that raw thing deep inside her wasn’t the point either. She’d have to deal with that later. Out there in the brand-new life she knew she had to create, just as soon as she got through this weekend.
Billy ran a hand over his face, and then eyed her for a moment that dragged on too long. As if he’d never seen her before. And maybe that was the real point in all of this, as she’d claimed it was this morning when she’d been a little more volatile than she felt right now. He really hadn’t.
She wasn’t the same person she’d been and random bull riders had nothing to do with it.
“I’m not going to stand here and pretend to be on any moral high ground,” Billy said gruffly after what felt like forever. “That would be ridiculous. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes.”
That was one more award she wouldn’t be getting, Skylar thought then, when she managed to keep her face expressionless. She did not throw
her mother in his face. She did not bring up Risa, her horrible ex-stepmother, who still lived in Billings and hated Billy with all the fury of a Montana winter. Every winter. She did not mention the many girlfriends she’d known about over the years, not all of them while her father was single.
She kept her mouth shut and waited for sainthood. Or at least an acknowledgment of her restraint.
But Billy only forged on. “But I’m also not going to explain myself to you.”
Skylar nodded. “My feelings exactly.”
He looked at her, then back toward the dirt of the arena, crossing his arms over his chest. He’d always been a good-looking man. So good-looking, in fact, that Skylar’s high school friends had called him the hot dad, to her eternal mortification. And her college friends had been more descriptive, on occasion. But those had been his unhappier days. There was no denying that he was calmer lately. More settled.
And, likely because his wife was so much younger than him and objectively stunning, a whole lot fitter. He went for a run every morning and to a CrossFit gym three times a week, which he’d wanted to talk to Skylar about, of course. At length. Obviously, she’d declined the offer. But standing there in the stadium, she was forced to face the uncomfortable fact that her father—her father—was cut. Ripped, even.
She was going to have to ruin Scottie’s week by texting her about it. As soon as possible.
Well. As soon as Billy stopped having this serious conversation with her.
“No matter what version of yourself you are these days, Skylar, I don’t think you meant to hurt Angelique’s feelings,” he said.
And Skylar stopped composing texts in her head, because that hit her harder than she would have liked. She liked Angelique—when she ignored the fact that a woman her age was married to her father and was the mother of her half-sisters. She didn’t want to hurt her stepmother’s feelings. After she’d showered and thought about it a bit this morning, she’d even come to the conclusion that Angelique had meant well. She believed that.
“Of course not,” she gritted out.
Because Angelique might indeed have meant well, but that still didn’t make it any of her business.
“You know she considers you a friend,” her father continued in that same gruff, too-serious voice, possibly pissed off because he was being so gruff and serious. “You particularly, because your brother and sister aren’t exactly open to that.”
Skylar supposed it would be churlish to point out that Jesse was unlikely to ever consider the ex-girlfriend who’d cheated on him with his own father a buddy, even these days when there’d been a noticeable thaw from his direction. In general, anyway. His fiancée Michaela might have taken the edge off, but exactly how friendly was he supposed to be?
Meanwhile, Scottie was a very busy, high-powered lawyer in San Francisco with an even busier and more high-powered lawyer as a live-in boyfriend. When she and Damon weren’t locked in their offices for days, they took intensely private vacations in places that required three planes and a watercraft to reach. Scottie had never been off her phone long enough while at family events to develop a relationship with Angelique and that, Skylar had always thought, was a blessing. For Angelique. Because Scottie wasn’t a lawyer by accident. She’d honed her cross-examination skills on Risa, the stepmother from hell. She’d cut Angelique down in three sentences, given the opportunity.
Making nice had always been Skylar’s role. She was the middle child. The peacemaker. Something that had been easy enough to do with a smile and a busy life far away in Atlanta.
Now that she thought about it, she’d played that role a bit down in Atlanta, too. She’d soothed Thayer when his family got to him and in return she’d smoothed things over with his mother and sisters on the “girls’ day” shopping and spa adventures they’d loved so much.
Skylar couldn’t really say she missed all that. Maybe, just once, she’d like the chance to be the person everyone tied themselves in knots trying to placate. Maybe she’d like to see what it was like to be a wild card instead of a sure thing.
“She wasn’t trying to act like a parent this morning,” her father was saying, and the truth about his furious silence all day dawned on her. He really didn’t care—or was choosing to ignore—that Skylar had stayed out all night. What he was pissed about was that she’d fought with Angelique. “Believe me, she knows better. She was just worried about you.”
That sense of injustice swamped her again, but she took in a deep breath and opted not to let it seize control the way it had this morning.
“I’ll apologize to her. I certainly didn’t mean to hurt her feelings. But, Dad…” And Skylar looked at him again then, and didn’t hide her frown. “I’m not sorry for what I said. I have a new life to figure out and there’s no committee. I’m the one who has to do it.”
Alone, a voice inside whispered.
And that was the thing, wasn’t it? She’d had a shared life and she’d lost it. Of course it wasn’t going to be pretty figuring out a way to move forward. It had been one thing to be single way back when. She hadn’t known what she was missing; she’d only had ideas about it in the abstract. Now she knew.
The comfort and responsibility of a person always on her team and invested in her life. The voice on the other end of her first call. The shared language of jokes and fights, intimacy and sex, disappointments and dreams, spinning across years. Housekeeping skirmishes and roommate battles and golden evenings lit from within with private laughter no one else would ever understand. The difference between missing him in a home he’d return to and the finality of knowing that the emptiness there was permanent.
Now she knew exactly what she was missing.
“People care about you,” Billy said, reminding her where she was.
“And I’m grateful.” Skylar lifted her chin. “But that doesn’t come with a vote on how I handle this.”
“That’s fine,” Billy retorted. “No vote.” The announcers were talking again and the chute nearest them opened to a big round of applause, but he kept his gaze hard on her. “But stop kidding yourself, Skylar.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“Believe me, I understand the appeal of a fling to shake things up, but it doesn’t change anything. You’re still you on the other side of it. The same problems as before you started. A fling doesn’t do anything but complicate things.”
Her tongue hurt and she realized she was literally biting it. “Noted.”
“And you’re not the type,” he continued doggedly. He raised a hand when she scowled at him. “You grew up watching me make a fool of myself and I know exactly why you picked a good guy and settled down with him. Your sister did the same thing. You both held on to the first relationship you found because you watched me throw so many away. You think I don’t know what that’s a reaction to?”
“Scottie is perfectly happy with someone else,” Skylar said tightly. Scottie was more than merely happy and her ex Alexander had been a cheating slime, but that was neither here nor there. “And not everything that happens in the world is about you.”
“You never dated much before Thayer and he was a good one, Skylar. And the point is, you’re not prepared. You’re playing games without knowing the rules.” It took her a minute to place the look in her father’s eyes then and when she did, she froze. Because it was pity. Pity. She didn’t know if she wanted to throw up or punch him, and he was still talking. “Men are dogs, sweetheart. Especially famous ones. You’re going to get hurt.”
And then the crowd around them was chanting, as if they’d heard the entire conversation. As if they agreed that Skylar was an idiot. As if everyone in the entire world knew what an idiot she was.
Cody. Cody.
But no, she realized when her heart receded a bit from taking over her throat, it was just because Cody was finally in the chute.
Which was good, because her father thought she was an idiot and it gave her an opportunity to talk herself down from stabbing him in the
neck with the nearest sharp object. While making sure she didn’t give in to the emotion pricking at the back of her eyes, because she would rather die than give him the satisfaction of thinking he’d scored a hit.
Cody. Cody.
Inside the chute, maybe ten feet away, she saw Cody nod to indicate he was ready.
She sucked in her breath as the gate flew open, and then Cody was there before her, high up on a mean old bull who looked particularly pissed off as he hurled himself out into the arena.
Skylar forgot her father had been talking to her. She forgot the whispers, the muttering. She forgot her walk of shame and this deeply appalling new trend that her romantic life was anyone else’s concern but hers. Or that her own father thought she was some starry-eyed groupie, unable to discern a man’s real intentions.
It all disappeared into the spectacle right there in front of her.
The bull spun, bucking wildly, but Cody was nothing but grace. Grace and control, his left hand high and his right clamped tight in his rope. The seconds spun out on the clock, the crowd getting louder with each jolt and jump.
More and more—everyone on their feet—and then the buzzer rang.
And Cody dismounted, hitting the ground and rolling while the bull fighters ran in to distract the bull. Cody rolled straight back up to his feet, taking off his hat to wave at the crowd—but the hat wave pissed the bull off.
He charged toward Cody, sending the bull fighters scattering.
And Cody jumped for the rails that separated the dirt arena from the stands, three rows below where Skylar was standing and watching him, her hands over her mouth and her heart a mad drumming in her chest.
The announcer called out the score—a high, much-deserved 89—and the bull was gradually coerced back into the chutes. Cody stayed up on the rails, waving his hat at the crowd again as they cheered on the score that put him in the lead, but his hard green gaze landed on Skylar.
It was only a second. A brief, electric moment across a crowd.
Cody’s mouth crooked in the corner, and that was all it took.