Montana Gold. Genell Dellin

voice suddenly soft and thoughtful. “Even if Rodney and I don’t get married, or if we do and it doesn’t last a lifetime, I want you to experience this.”

      Elle felt terrible because big tears were gathering in Missy’s eyes as she spoke.

      “I know you do and I appreciate it, I really do. I just don’t know…”

      “What I know,” M.J. said, “is that Derek ruined your marriage, right?”

      I ruined it, too. He wasn’t the only one.

      “So what’s your point?”

      “Just this. If you don’t change your attitude, he’ll ruin your whole life. Here you are, comparing Chase to him when you don’t even know Chase.”

      Missy wiped her eyes and Elle tried to change the mood. Somehow, M.J. was making her want to cry, too.

      “Maybe you just need to pick a different guy for me,” she said lightly, fanning her toenails to dry them. “Why’re you so hung up on Chase, anyhow?”

      When she glanced up, M.J. caught her gaze and held it. “Because I was there. Because I saw you two when you came back off the dance floor. And before that, when Robbie introduced y’all.”

      Elle wouldn’t let herself look away, even though the memory was taking over her body again. She was afraid M.J. would see that, too.

      “I never saw that spark with you and Derek. It’s a gift, Elle, honey. You should at least see where it goes.”

      More of Missy’s truth cutting too deep. Elle wasn’t normally afraid of a little truth. Yet she couldn’t find a word to say.

      Missy heaved an irritated sigh, unfolded her legs and got up without touching her hands to the floor. She headed for the door.

      “I don’t know why you bother to paint your toenails, anyhow,” she said, throwing the words back over her shoulder like pellets of punishment. “Nobody’s gonna see ’em unless some hateful bull knocks you right out of your shoes.”

      WHEN CHASE WAS satisfied with his bind, the way his hand fit into the rigging, he sat down on the bareback horse in the chute. He put his feet on the rails on each side of the chute and rested his free arm on top of it. He flexed his riding arm and thought about the horse underneath him.

      She was old and full of tricks, the kind of bucking horse that had grown so ring-wise from being at many rodeos, she was smart enough to hum the national anthem. And she was feeling frisky tonight. At least, that was the definite impression he’d gotten when he petted her before putting the rigging on. Every horse was an individual and he always tried to get a read on each one before he ever got on.

      Dawson Rodeo Company was rightfully proud of Full Tilt Boogie. Chosen world champion bucking horse twice and maybe on her way to a third time, she loved to buck more than she loved to eat. He’d drawn her twice before and she’d thrown him both times—once just out of the gate and the other at 7.5 seconds.

      Not going to happen again. She was all his this time.

      He waited for the horse ahead of them to leave the arena, glad that this new rigging felt right to him. It ought to—he’d worked it over when it arrived and it had been custom-made for him. Custom-made, and a thousand times better and safer than the ragged old piece of junk that was all he could afford when he started rodeoing all those years ago.

      Remember that, Lomax. You’ve come this far by stayin’ on top of ’em.

      Full Tilt came unwound, then, in a heartbeat, ready to boogie, trying to rear, slamming against the inside bars of the chute. Chase’s face hit the top one with his brow bone. The shock of the blow raced through him in an instant, waking every nerve in his body to anger and wariness and cold determination.

      The announcer was calling his name.

      He nodded for the gate. It swung open, Miss Boogie committed herself and he set his feet at the point of her shoulder on each side to mark her out with his dull-roweled spurs. The rule was that he had to mark her out of the chute for one jump, but he kept it up as he felt all the want-to in the world surge into his blood.

      Chase rode flat with his shoulders against the horse’s rump, immersed in the rhythm of the spurring, starting on the front of the neck and coming up the neck to his handle with each jump, toes turned out. He tried to sense what Boogie might do next as she kicked in the hind end and dropped in the front, kicked and dropped.

      She really bucked, this mare, and her front end was still in the air when her hind end kicked, so there was a lot of drop to get her front feet back on the ground again. But she did have a rhythm and Chase kept his feet set right, leaned back and lifted on his rigging. Bucking off was not an option.

      His adrenaline was so high he forgot about his damaged bones jarring and his sore muscles wrenching. He rode for the whole eight seconds with his free hand high and away from his body and his spurs rolling, never losing his seat, even when Full Tilt tried changing directions and a spin or two. When the buzzer sounded, he sat up and kept on riding, looking for the pickup man to come alongside. That mare knew what the whistle meant, too, and her bucking fell into a halfhearted imitation of itself. Chase got his legs up, grabbed the cantle of the pickup man’s saddle and swung himself over his horse’s butt to land on his feet on the offside.

      “Look at that, folks,” the announcer boomed to the cheering crowd. “The old man got ’er done! Yep, nothin’ but a day off for Chase Lomax, in spite of the fact that that horse can buck! And in spite of—or because of—the fact that she won the last couple of battles they had. You bet! That right there’s a sweet eight seconds for our five-time bareback world champion, Chase Lomax!”

      Shut up and tell the score, won’t you? Forget all the blather.

      “Ninety points! The judges tell me it’s a 9-0 for Mr. Lomax!”

      He was happy with that. That was okay.

      What the hell was he thinking? It was great. It ought to be incredibly exciting—like it used to be. Any rider had to be thrilled with a ninety-point score.

      Chase took his hat off to the crowd, waved and smiled, the way he always did. He listened to the roar of approval for a second and then turned and walked along the fence.

      No, to hell with the score anyhow. It oughtta be—it had to be—the ride that stirred the fire. The score meant nothing but money.

      That curled his lips in a wry smile. Since when did the money mean nothing to the kid inside him who’d started out without a dime to his name?

      “Good ride, cowboy!”

      “Yeah, you really got ’er done, Chase.”

      He accepted the high-fives and congratulations from the other cowboys with grins and jokes. But as he took his rigging from the pickup man who brought it to him and stepped out of the arena, the flat feeling came over him, longer and harder, in a smothering wave.

      He stopped walking long enough for somebody from the Justin Sports Medicine team to look at his head and dab a little germ-killer on the cut but he didn’t hear a word the guy said. He was thinking.

      Yeah, he’d got ’er done, and yeah, he’d kept his focus and made a textbook ride and a good score and some money, and it’d been great like it always was to get on an animal he knew would live up to its half of the bargain and really buck. But now that his adrenaline was draining away and his breathing was slowing, he didn’t feel any more excited than if it literally was a day off for him. His want-to might still be there, but the high didn’t stay with him the way it used to.

      Was he getting old?

      No. The bull riding proved it. He wasn’t too old to learn some new tricks and get some new thrills and he was proving it with every bull he rode.

      He pulled his mind up short. There he went, worrying about his feelings again. Focus. He had to focus.

      Chase