02-Let It Ride (19 page)

The first thing Eric was aware of, when consciousness began to creep back in, was a large warm hand resting on his hip, even breathing close by, and roosters crowing in the distance. He lifted his eyelids to find Bridge smiling down at him, hair mussed in a sexy fashion and a playful light shining from those inviting chocolate-colored eyes.

“Good morning, stud,” Bridge said, his voice rough with sleep and arousing as hell.

“Mornin’. How are you feeling?”

“Perfect. A little sore, but it was so worth it.” Bridge leaned forward and kissed him. Just a warm press of lips, familiar and comfortable. “I got something for you.”

“Yeah?” Eric stretched and smiled as a callused hand slid down his hip and ghosted his groin. A finger teased along his waking flesh and came to rest flat on his stomach. “Is it my birthday now?”

“Soon, but first.” Bridge rolled away and leaned over the side of the bed. Eric heard paper rustle, a grunt from Bridge, and then he sat back up with a dark-brown cowboy hat and a pair of intricately stitched snakeskin boots in his hands. “Your very own.”

Eric stared at the gifts, and then at Bridge. The look in those eyes . . . It was the way he’d seen Marty and Tripp look at each other. The way Kent looked at Lily. Even as it sent a thrill spreading through his body and loosened something in his chest, a distant clang of bells also rang in his head because it couldn’t possibly be real. He wouldn’t name that look. Couldn’t. If he did, he’d jinx it and history would repeat itself once again.

But the way Bridge smiled at him . . . like he was someone worth that word he wouldn’t even think, let alone voice . . .

God, Eric. Get a grip
.
It’s just a gift, not a declaration. Nothing to freak out over.

He forced back the doubts and fears that had cluttered his mind for too long and sat up, taking the hat from Bridge so it rested in his lap. “When did you get these?”
And why?

“When you were at work the other day. Well, I had to wait for them to ship the boots in from another store, so I had Kent pick them up yesterday.”

“Thank you,” Eric said, his voice sounding rough to his own ears. “They’re beautiful.”

“The boots should fit. I checked the size of your work boots, but we can go back if they’re not right.”

“I can’t believe you got these for me.”

“A cowboy without his boots and hat is like that nightmare where you forget to put your clothes on and you’re standing out in public stark-naked.”

Eric laughed, and Bridge leaned over to run a finger along the curve of his jaw, and then he kissed him, a slow savoring of lips, a teasing slide of tongue, and a word Eric didn’t want to give life to.

Bridge pulled back and looked at him with that searching, too-warm gaze again. His voice too soft, too intimate, when he spoke. “Eric, I . . .”

No, no, no
.
Please don’t say it.

“I was wondering . . . What do you think about staying in my rig for rodeo season? With me?”

“What?” The word choked out of his mouth, a tremor rattled down his spine, and a strange sense of disappointment seeped into the back of his mind. Why on earth
not
hearing the unspeakable word had caused that reaction, he refused to examine. He didn’t
want
to hear it. Did he? No. No, he did not. That word was a harbinger of heartbreak.

Bridge sat up, and the bedsheet pooled in his lap. “Well, your little Tonka truck camper is too small for us, and in mine, we’d have the closest thing to a real bedroom on the road. I do have a full-sized queen in there, so it kind of makes sense.”

“But, I-I need my truck.”

Bridge’s mouth dipped down a touch at the edges. “Well, yeah. For work and all, but at night, we could share my trailer.”

Eric nodded his head once. He supposed it did make sense to sleep in the bigger rig since they’d never be able to share the actual bed in his camper. If he could look at it that way instead of as another foot deeper into the rabbit hole . . . “What about Kent?”

The small frown Bridge wore righted itself, and a mischievous glint sparkled in his eyes. “Dude, I’m never going to agree to a threesome.”

Eric just shook his head. “Not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know. If he gets tired of your screams of ecstasy every night, he can go sleep in your camper.”

Eric fought back a smile. He appreciated Bridge’s attempt to lighten the mood, keep him from overthinking, but he had too many reservations. He looked down at the hat in his lap, ran a finger along the edge of the brim. “I don’t know. It seems kind of . . .”

Bridge tucked a finger under Eric’s chin and forced him to look up and meet the dark gaze that promised a future and felt like home and made him want to run away for the very same reasons. Eyes that banked hurt in their depths while they quietly asked for trust.

“I’m not asking you to move in. Yet. We just started dating.” Bridge smiled. “But if things keep going like I think—hope—they will, maybe you’ll consider it at the end of the season.”

Yes!

No!

Eric forced himself to breathe, to slow down and think while his heart sang with joy, but the little voice in the back of his mind reminded him this couldn’t last.

If he accepted Bridge’s offer to share his trailer, and if Bridge hadn’t kicked him out by season’s end—which he knew was unlikely since he was usually shown the door within a year—he knew he would move all the way in with Bridge. But as thirty years of experience had taught him, Bridge would reach the point everyone else had and dump him. Then where would he be? He wouldn’t even have his own house to retreat to.

He forced a smile he hoped looked relaxed while in the back of his mind he cataloged where all his belongings were and how fast he could get out of the house without offending Bridge. “Can I think about it?”

Bridge studied him for a long moment, and Eric fought back the urge to blurt out that he didn’t actually need to think on it. Bridge’s expression saddened for a flash, and then he smiled a bit too big. “Of course! Take your time. I was just, you know, throwing it out there.”

Bridge took the cowboy hat from Eric’s hands and gently placed it on his head. “Perfect.” He kissed him quickly and then hopped out of bed. “C’mon, let’s get breakfast. I’m starving.”

Bridge threw his coils and missed the horns of the plastic steer head fastened to a bale of hay. Again. He couldn’t focus on practicing his lasso techniques with his mind so stuck on replaying the last kiss he’d shared with Eric. He’d hoped the practice would help him take his mind off how that kiss had somehow felt like a good-bye instead of a
how will I survive the next five days without you
. But so far, he was only getting more and more frustrated.

“Eric working today?” Kent finally spoke. Bridge had heard the dull
thud
of hoofbeats on hard-packed dirt a short while ago. Knew by the creak of leather and stamp of a foot on the ground that Kent was sitting astride his horse watching, but Bridge didn’t acknowledge him in any way, just kept throwing useless coils at the plastic steer.

“Nope.” Bridge tossed and missed. “Went back to Redding early. Said he had a lot to do in prep for the season start this weekend.”

“Yeah, looks like you do too. I haven’t seen you miss a throw since . . . shit, since I can’t remember when.”

Bridge sighed and began coiling his rope, twisting it to keep the loops roughly the same size. When he reached the honda, he adjusted the spoke and then swung the lasso overhead. “I asked him to move in. Sort of.”

“No shit.” Kent’s horse snorted, as if the gelding were as piqued as Kent. “What do you mean ‘sort of,’ and what did he say?”

Bridge threw the coils and missed again. Barely ten fucking feet away. He sighed. “‘Sort of’ because I asked him to share our trailer on the road and then after the season, if he wanted to, move in here. Said he’d think about it, and then he up and took off right after breakfast. He called later and left a message to say he’d just meet us in Oakdale.”

Kent was silent for a moment, and then said, “To be fair, that was kind of fast.”

Bridge turned to glare at him. “We’ve known him the better part of a year now.”

“Slow down, dude.” Kent held up a hand. “Always gotta dive right in, don’t you? Up ’til a couple of weeks ago, Eric thought you were straight. We all did. For the most part. So while you may have been thinking this through for months, he’s only had weeks. Let him catch up. He’ll get there. I’ve seen the way that man looks at you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Dude’s in deep. We have a ton of shit to get done ourselves before we roll out, so try not to worry. Okay?”

Bridge smiled for the first time since he’d waved good-bye to Eric, and that lightness when he’d realized how he felt about Eric seeped back in and soothed his worries. “You’re right.”

“Usually am,” Kent said matter-of-factly and climbed down out of the saddle.

Bridge laughed and shook his head. “Lily like that cocky attitude of yours?”

“Oh no, I’m a smart dog. Lily’s always right first.”

The first rodeo of the season in Oakdale, California, came and went, and Eric never showed up to work. Instead, some guy who looked barely out of high school but somehow managed to become a first responder saw to any injuries over the course of the weekend. The kid was competent enough, so Bridge couldn’t begrudge him that, but he wasn’t Eric and therefore, by default, was on Bridge’s shit list.

What was even worse was that when he’d asked the kid where Eric was, all he’d gotten was a shoulder shrug and a nonchalant, “Quit, I think.”

Quit?

Bridge had stood there a good five minutes until the words and situation truly sank in. Had he scared Eric so badly by asking him to pseudo move in that Eric felt he couldn’t work the circuit with him anymore? Had Bridge moved so fast that he’d just gotten dumped with a no-show? A cold ball had formed in his chest, heavy and restricting, and he’d had to gulp for air. When he was finally able to catch his breath, he’d called Eric’s cell again, but it went straight to voice mail—again. “You’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing,” was all he’d said in the first message. He’d been too upset at the time for levity. Fortunately, Marty had been able to get him focused on work, but it took everything he had in the long hours between start and end of the action to not go charging off to find Eric and shake some sense into the man.

Until today.

“I gotta go,” Bridge said the second he and Marty rode out of the arena after the last official event of the rodeo three days later. He didn’t even wait for an answer, just kicked his horse into a short gallop back to their rigs. When he slid to a stop and dismounted, Marty was right there.

“Here.” Marty held out a hand, motioning for the reins. “I’ll take care of Breeze. You go find Eric.”

“Thank you, Smarts.” Bridge handed Breeze’s reins over. “I owe you.”

“No, you don’t.” Marty dismounted and began leading the two horses to his trailer. “Get gone!”

And Bridge did. He unhitched the truck in record time and took off, driving as fast as was safe, which it really wasn’t when the needle bumped up against the 100-mph line on the freeway. The longer he drove and the closer he got to Redding, the more he felt like time was running out. That if he didn’t hurry up and get there already, he’d never see Eric again. He white-knuckled the steering wheel and fought to keep from pressing his foot down harder on the gas pedal.

Finally, he reached the CA-44 West exit and pulled off the I-5 into Redding. The sense of urgency that had been riding shotgun with him for the last three hours climbed into his seat and settled heavy on his chest. He had no idea why, but he knew time was almost up. It seemed like he’d turned onto one suburban street after another until he rounded yet another corner in a doglegged road and breathed a sigh of relief. There, in the driveway of a small, nondescript rancher, sat Eric’s blue Tundra.

“Thank you, God,” he whispered. But what he saw when he pulled up to the curb in front of the house made the blood in his veins turn to ice and his stomach plummet to his toes.