he’d survived the ordeal. He’d only watched the video once, and that had been enough.
“That was quite the ride.”
“You can say that again. You ride?”
“No. Did some mutton busting when I was younger, but nothing since.”
“You could always get back to it.” Possibly. Maybe. Though the kid was scrawny. “Let me know if you ever need any lessons.”
Boone grinned. “Not sure I’m willing to risk my life like that, but I’ll keep it in mind.” After a nod, he took off.
A girl—maybe around nineteen or twenty—was talking to Mackenzie, and their conversation was quiet. Everything about the girl was thin. Her body. The hair barely filling out her ponytail. Was she okay? It looked like the world had chewed her up and spit her back out. In contrast, Mackenzie glowed with health and strength.
Jace wasn’t trying to overhear, but their chat filtered in his direction. The girl was asking for an advance on her paycheck.
Mackenzie nodded, listening. “I’ll talk to Luc and Emma, and we’ll let you know.” She squeezed the girl’s arm in a reassuring gesture, and then the little mouse scampered off.
Mackenzie was supposed to train him today. At least that was what Luc had said. Jace wasn’t sure how that would work when she was treating him like a rat in the gutter, but he was game if she was.
The day was sure to be a barrel of fun. Especially since his head was teetering on the edge of a cliff, deciding, without his input, whether to calm down or throw a fit.
Which could be because he’d had a hard time falling asleep last night. Jace wasn’t sure which had caused that symptom—the concussion or the woman in front of him. It was a toss-up. Thoughts of Mackenzie—of the relationship they’d once had—had been resurrected like vivid movies. To the point that he’d finally slept and dreamed about her. Dreamed that he’d stayed in Westbend. That she didn’t hate him.
Things that had consumed his mind when he’d first left to ride bulls and had holed up in an apartment with a few other guys in Billings. And then the rodeo had fully distracted him. And finally, finally the part of him that had been screaming that he’d made a mistake had lightened up. Quieted.
Until now—until seeing Mackenzie again. The need to work, to not spend his days lazing around, might not be worth this headache. And yet the challenge of something new, of helping out Luc and Mackenzie and Emma, still pulled at him.
Jace wasn’t ready to give up a qualified ride yet, even though that was probably exactly what Mackenzie hoped and prayed he would do.
But since Jace’s prayers were the opposite, that left them in a spiritual tug-of-war. Because, as far as Jace knew, God didn’t pick sides. He loved both of them. And the Man upstairs was going to have to work this out. Because Jace didn’t see Mackenzie calling a truce anytime soon.
“Well.” Mackenzie shuffled papers on the table, which held her attention like her favorite pair of boots. Finally she glanced up, regarding him with as much contempt as she might a door-to-door salesman peddling high-priced skin-care products. “I should show you the trails. You might lead some rides, and either way you’ll need to know where the groups are in case of an emergency.”
“Don’t I already know them?” They’d been all over this land together in high school. Had ridden more times than he could count.
Jace had preferred time with Mackenzie over the agony of watching his brother try to figure out how to live after losing part of his leg. It had been pretty awful around his house for a while. When Jace had been eleven, their father had been killed in a bar brawl. Drinking had always been his most important relationship, and his presence in their lives before that had been sporadic. Four years later Evan’s foot and part of his leg had been amputated because of a lawn-mower accident. Mom had struggled—working constantly to support them and pay for Evan’s medical bills.
Jace had escaped to Wilder Ranch all of the time in high school. Kenzie Rae had been his escape. The truth of that made every bruised, broken and sprained muscle or bone he’d experienced riding bulls roar back into existence.
“You’ll know some. But a few are new.” She strode to the door and then paused inside the frame, tapping the toe of her boot with impatience when he didn’t immediately sprint after her. “You coming?”
“Right behind you.”
And that was how it was on the trail, too. Mackenzie led. Jace followed. There was no riding next to each other. No conversation.
Only him trying—and failing—not to notice everything about her. Being relegated to the back seat on the ride gave him the chance to drink her in, to catalog the slight changes that had come with time. Jace had left a girl behind and had come back to find a woman. One who didn’t need him. Didn’t want him. Didn’t know why he’d done what he’d done.
With her dark blond hair slipped through the back of a baseball cap, and wearing a simple gray V-necked T-shirt, jeans and boots, Mackenzie turned casual into a heap of trouble.
They rode enough of the new trails that he gathered what he needed to know between her directions and the hand-drawn map she’d tucked into her back pocket.
When they reached a wide, smooth path that carved through open pasture, she didn’t give him even the slightest heads-up before urging her horse into an all-out gallop.
The smart thing to do would be to let her ride. Enjoy the view. But Jace had never been one to take the easier road.
He nudged his horse into action.
If he’d thought Mackenzie was distracting earlier, seeing her fly wasn’t helping matters.
The flat-out run was worth it—gave him a hint of that risking-it-all feeling—but by the time Mackenzie slowed Buttercup and eased her back into the trees, the dull ache in Jace’s head had ramped up from barely noticeable to jet-engine-roar levels. And his ribs were on fire.
Probably not his best move, since he was supposed to be taking it easy. But not joining Mackenzie would have been painful in other ways. For a few seconds he’d felt young and free. Like they still had their whole futures ahead of them. He missed that, especially now. If Jace couldn’t go back to rodeoing, what would he do with himself?
He’d never been any good at school. Or any job other than the one currently dangling out of his reach.
“You weren’t lying when you said you could ride with one arm.” Mackenzie tossed the comment/compliment over her shoulder as they reached the hot springs and she dismounted. It registered in Jace’s chest, warm and surprising. Getting ahead of yourself, Hawke. She didn’t say she was crazy in love with you, just that you could handle a horse.
Jace mimicked her dismount, needing a second to steady the wavelike motions crashing through his noggin. He’d give a hefty sum of money for an ice pack to press against his wailing ribs, which were none too pleased with his recent activity.
Mackenzie must have realized her mistake in leading them to the hot springs, because her vision bounced from the water, to him, then back.
Yep, you sure did deliver us right back to the past.
They’d
