A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (34 page)

Georgia might have worked herself into a
state if she’d had more time to think about it, but from the crowd noises, she
knew the chute gate had opened and the ride begun. She squeezed her eyes
tighter. When the buzzer sounded and the crowd cheered, she was stunned. The
ride had felt like it lasted . . . eight seconds. Eight seconds
instead of the usual eight years.

She opened her eyes. Sol slapped at his
jeans, beating out the dirt, as he walked from the ring, but the bounce in his
step told her how pleased he was. Moments later, his score was announced.

Ninety points was a great score in bull
riding—impossible to achieve if the bull didn’t do his part—and Sol had scored ninety-four.

Pride tightened her chest and filled her
eyes with moisture. He really was good at this. She took a deep breath and
blinked back the unshed tears. It had been too long since she’d felt this way
about Sol.

The crowd was packed three deep at the
bar with rodeo cowboys and buckle bunnies who needed something cold and wet to
celebrate with. Everyone was yelling, trying to be heard over the country music
blasting from the stage off to the right. Tonight, Sol’s spirits were so high,
he didn’t even mind being sardined in the middle of the noise and the bodies.

“Hey, man, good ride,” one of the cocky
bastards who’d called him and Terry old men at the secretary’s office yelled
into his ear. Sol found the young cowboy’s words especially gratifying since
the cowboy had landed on his butt only three seconds into his ride.

“Thanks,” Sol yelled back. “I owe it all
to a diet of Rocky Mountain oysters and beer.”

The cowboy laughed as he plunged into the
crowd behind Sol.

“Hey, Sol! I got us beers!” Terry had
turned to fight his way free, three Lone Star long necks held high to keep the
ambrosia from spilling as thirsty patrons jostled for his spot at the bar.

Tables were in short supply, and Terry’s
future missus hadn’t emerged from the ladies’ room yet. They found a wall that
looked in need of two cowboys to hold it up as far from the band as they could
get. Sol took a long pull on his beer. It tasted better than any beer he’d
drunk in at least a couple of years, the same way his ride tonight had been
sweeter for how long he’d been waiting for it.

For the first time, he’d stayed on that
son of a bitch Colonel Mustard until
he
was ready to get off. And he
hadn’t just ridden him; he’d ridden him with style to a score of ninety-four,
cinching first place.

Maybe he wasn’t too old or broken down
for the sport he loved. And he did love it. That moment of triumph in the
arena—that perfect moment when he’d seen his score—was magic, a joy so pure, it
felt almost holy.

Terry grinned broadly then leaned in
close to Sol to be heard. “You still quitting?”

The words
hell no
leaped to Sol’s
tongue, but he caught them just in time. He’d said he would, and he’d meant it.
His brain still understood why he’d said it. He knew the frustration and
futility would come back all too soon, maybe even after his next ride. It was
all still there inside him. He understood that, but at the moment, he couldn’t
even imagine feeling it. Not with all the adrenaline of a great ride and taking
first place coursing through him.

So was he still quitting?

“I don’t know,” he yelled back. “Ask me
tomorrow.”

Three feet away, the tightly packed crowd
ejected all five-foot-nothing of Terry’s woman. Molly’s short, dark hair,
usually smoothed in a short pageboy style, was mussed from navigating the room.
She took a half step toward them, turned, and walloped the grinning cowboy
behind her with her purse. “Watch those hands, Bubba, or you’ll be a steer when
you get on your next bull.”

Terry pushed the beers he was holding at
Sol as he shoved himself off the wall. Sol barely got his hands around the
bottle necks before Terry reached for Molly.

“Hold on, dumplin’. You don’t need to be
causing mayhem tonight.”

Molly glared into the crowd as Terry drew
her back to the wall with him. When he dropped a kiss on his pixie-sized woman,
she seemed to forget about the handsy cowboy and leaned back, sandwiching him
between her and the wall.

Sol stared at the seething mass of
bodies. The music’s volume built a cocoon around Terry and Molly, excluding Sol
from their conversation. In the room full of rowdy, partying people, he couldn’t
help feeling isolated.

If Zach had come with them, instead of
heading for the motel, Sol would at least have had a wingman, but his brother
acted like an old, married man these days; without his wife there to dance
with, he didn’t find bars interesting anymore.

Dancing, yeah, that would help. Sol
looked around. There were plenty of buckle bunnies who’d be happy to dance with
him, but he didn’t really enjoy dancing when it was this packed.

Ten years ago, he’d thought crowded and
loud was how a bar was supposed to be. When had that changed?

He wasn’t really looking for anyone as he
watched the crowd. Out in the middle of that sea of people, a white cowboy hat bobbed
toward the bar. It reminded him of the one Georgia wore when she was out on the
town. His heart pinched a little. He glanced at Terry and Molly. With Molly’s
back pressed against Terry’s front, his lips whispering in her ear, they were
practically melded into one body.

If Georgia were here, he could hold her
like that. The packed bar would be all the excuse he’d need.

Less than a minute later, the white hat
bobbed through the crowd again. Sol leaned a little, trying, for no particular
reason—because after all, he knew it wasn’t Georgia—to see who was under it,
but one cowboy after another blocked his view. The hat disappeared toward the
restrooms.

He’d nearly forgotten about it when the
hat appeared again. This time, it was closer to the edge of the crowd, and he
caught a glimpse of long, blonde hair. The band started playing Chris Ledoux’s
Hooked
on an Eight Second Ride.
The noise level went through the roof as every
cowboy in the place whooped, and Sol lost sight of the white hat.

Two nearby cowboys distracted him further
when they started swing dancing together. One nice thing about bull riders.
Nothing threatened their masculinity.

And then Georgia was there, standing in
front of him, and Sol’s world went sideways.

###

She’d found him. That small miracle had
been in serious doubt since she’d stayed in her seat, sorting through her
emotions, until most of the other spectators had left the arena. By the time
she’d found one of the rodeo staff to ask, Sol and Zach had both vanished.
Luckily, the arena employee had suggested a few of the more likely watering
holes, which had saved her hours of looking.

She’d thought about calling his cell
phone, but she needed to get this right. For that, she needed to see his face
and read his body language.

And there was one other reason. One she’d
barely let herself consider.

Buckle bunnies loved bull riders,
especially when they won. Sol could easily be with a woman. If she caught him
with one, she’d feel like a fool. And if he managed to hide it, somehow that
felt even worse. As if not knowing made her an even bigger fool. An unwitting
fool.

It was better to know, so calling Sol had
been her choice of last resort.

Instead, she’d cruised the parking lots
until she found Terry’s pickup with its
My Other Ride Is a Bull
bumper
sticker, knowing, if Sol was out on the town, he was with Terry.

And here he was, looking at her as if she’d
been conjured by a magician.

His lips moved, shaping her name, but she
couldn’t hear it over the music, nor whatever he said a second later. It was
probably something like,
What are you doing here?

“Can we talk?” she yelled, knowing couldn’t
hear her any better than she’d heard him.

He frowned and tilted his head then
grabbed her shoulders and turned her around. A moment later, his hand found
hers, and he started threading his way through the crowd, towing her behind
him.

The crush didn’t let up until they were
outside and stepped away from the door. It wasn’t as stuffy as the bar had
been, but it was still August, and it was still Texas, so the air was warm and
heavy with humidity. They ended their sojourn at the corner of the building.

“What’s going on?” Sol asked as he pulled
his phone from the pocket of his jeans. “Is Eden all right?” Before she could
answer, he shoved his phone back in his pocket. “It’s not Eden, is it? Someone
would have called me.”

“It’s not Eden,” Georgia said. She’d
thought of a hundred different ways to open this conversation while she’d hunted
for him, but they all deserted her now.

“What are you doing here, then?” Sol
asked.

Georgia licked her lips. How did she
start? She leaned against the building. Having something solid against her back
felt reassuring, as though it wouldn’t let her run. “I never told you how I
felt about you riding bulls.”

Sol blinked a couple of times in rapid
succession. “I thought you had. You don’t want Eden worrying about me getting
hurt.”

Georgia shook her head. “No.” Her voice
had a tremor in it. “I mean, yes, but . . . no.”

“Okay. Then I’m officially confused. You
drove all the way to Mesquite, hunted me down in a bar after a rodeo—” He went
still. “Were you there? At the rodeo?”

Georgia nodded.

Sol was silent for several very long
seconds. Finally, his mouth moved, starting to shape a question then a
different one, but no sound came out. He ran a hand over the lower half of his
face then scratched his jaw. “I don’t even know what to ask. Do you wanna help
me out here?”

Georgia took a deep breath. “Maybe . . .
why now?”

“That’ll do. Why now? What’s changed that
you came all this way to talk about . . . whatever you came to
talk about?”

“Everything. Everything has changed. I’m
seeing things more clearly than I have in years . . . or maybe
ever.”
God, this is hard.
“Living in Dallas, only seeing you now and
then when we traded off Eden, it was so easy to tell myself I’d done the smart
thing. But being around you this summer . . . I’m not so sure.”

“Oh, man.” Sol’s head dropped. All she
could see was the top of his hat. That scared her. She needed to see his face.

“What, Sol? What are you thinking?”

His head came up slowly. “I think you’re
going to tell me you’ve done something so bad, I can’t even imagine it.”

Lifting her hands like she was about to
pray, Georgia covered her nose and mouth as she realized how bad things were.
Her thinking had been screwed up for a long time, but now she saw that this
emotional sickness in her family had spread like a contagious virus, infecting
Sol, too. He expected her to kick him in the gut.

She swallowed. The time had come to bare
her heart—maybe even her soul. She owed him that. It didn’t matter if he turned
away from her—no, it did matter. It mattered a great deal, but she couldn’t let
her fear that she’d made him wait too long stop her. Illogical? Maybe. But for
all that logic said she was worried about nothing, she hadn’t quite shaken the
idea that Sol loved riding more than he loved her.

She filled her lungs with the night air. “Do
you remember the last time Bill Marshall rode?”

Sol’s expression was blank, as if her
transition had left him behind. A second later, he caught up, and his mouth
tightened. He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “That was
a long time ago. We were still married.”

“Yes.” She bit her lip. Once she started
this, changing her mind wasn’t going to be an option. Then again, it was
probably already too late. “I never told you how I felt about you riding after
that day.”

He looked at her for a long time. It felt
like five minutes of silence, but it probably wasn’t more than thirty seconds.
Or roughly four bull rides. A really long time. Finally, he said, “Go on.”

“I thought . . .” She
swallowed and made herself tell him. “If that could happen to Bill, it could
happen to you. I never believed it before Bill got hurt, but I knew it then.
You could get hurt. You could even—” The word she’d intended wouldn’t pass her
lips. “I got scared.”

Here it was. This was the moment when she
bared her soul. “I was afraid you’d get on a bad bull and . . .
and . . . you’d . . .” Her throat slammed shut.

Sol looked at her as if he didn’t know
how that sentence ended.
How can he not know?
Her throat ached but she
forced herself to say, “You wouldn’t come home.”

Another silence. Long enough to scare
her. When he finally spoke, his voice was detached, and that scared her even
more.

“Are you telling me you left because of
the bulls?”

“Yes.” A whisper was the best she could
manage.

He dropped his head and kicked the toe of
his boot against the sidewalk.

She’d never hated his cowboy hat before,
but it was hiding his face again. Her teeth worried her lip while she waited
for his response.

Finally, he looked up. “Why didn’t you
ever tell me? Why didn’t I get some say in what was happening in my marriage?”
He was still too calm.

“Would you have quit riding for me?”

His face was blank again. No, not blank.
But it held none of the emotions she’d hoped for or feared. Stunned surprise.
That was the expression on his face.

“
That’s
what you wanted? For me to
quit riding?
That’s
what it would have taken to keep you?” He swiped his
hand down his face. “I can’t believe it.” He turned and paced, no, stomped
several feet away from her, then spun and pointed at her. “You’re asking that
now?
Why the hell didn’t you ask
then?
”