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Because life always works out so perfect and tidy.It sure hadn’t for all the families who’d lost loved ones because of her family’s avarice and callous disregard for anyone or anything except profit.

“A game?” Ashni demanded.

“Beck didn’t tell you?” Langston demanded.

“Tell me what? A game? A game?” Ashni demanded again, looking sick.

Nico wasn’t sure how to make this right. Surely, Beck had explained. Even though for him it was real.

God, let Bodhi’s feels be real.

She was a Wentworth. Selfish. Why would God answer her now?

She closed her eyes.

Let him be healthy.

And then Beck popped in with a beer keg and smiled at all of them and said something about showtime, and the evening went totally south. Complete nosedive.

“A game?” Ashni rounded on Beck and moved toward him with menacing purpose. “That makes so much more sense now.”

Beck looked at Nico as if she could save him.

Langston, still a scrappy cowgirl, lit in on Beck. How could he? He knew the rules. The woman had to be in on the plan.

Ashni rushed out as Bodhi rushed in. “Ready, babe?”

“You have to help,” Nico said. Bodhi and Ashni were so close. He could help her. He could help Beck. His plans were being destroyed at the last minute.

Langston was still verbally slaying Beck, who honestly deserved it.

“You have to fix this,” Nico said, feeling like she was in the middle of a TV drama. “Beck lied to Ashni. He didn’t tell her about the game.”

Beck looked like he was frozen in place. He looked utterly destroyed, and it was his own dumb fault.

“I never lied,” he muttered, miserable. “I just didn’t explain about the game because Ash is real. The proposal will be real. Marriage. Our lives entwined forever.”

Nico felt the words like a left hook followed by a right.

She hadn’t explained to Bodhi who she really was, what she’d done, what had happened to finally bring her here. So how could she think that she and Bodhi could be real?

“Bodhi,” Nico said through numb lips. “Ashni needs you.”

“Nah.” Bodhi reeled her in to kiss her numb lips. “I got my own life right here. And it’s showtime. Go get your girl, Beck. Let’s go make Granddad ecstatic and rob your mom of a huge commission.”

Ashni wasn’t sure if Beck even heard. But something galvanized him out the door.

Bowen came in from a different entrance, looking for Langston, and Bodhi laced his fingers with Nico’s and walked out with her into the night.

*

This was it.The moment of truth. The most important moment of his life. There would be more maybe. Taking the test. Negative would mean he could have a whole life with Nico. Kids. Could they have kids?

Could he do this to her? Shackle her to a man with a potential bomb inside of him? He’d been so focused on making this last year legendary, going out in a blaze of glory, as corny and stupid as that sounded now. Nico had woken him and guided him back to reality.

There was so much more to life than the rodeo. And if he had ten good years, he had to seize them and squeeze every drop of love and laughter and accomplishment from them. Maybe he would go to med school. His application was complete. He just had to hit send. See if he got any interviews.

Or should he try to talk Granddad into staying on the ranch and he’d help out as long as he could? Or forever. Would Nico be a rancher’s wife? He didn’t know everything about her, but he felt he knew the most important things. She matched his energy, challenged him in so many ways to be a better man. He wanted to be the man she trusted, the man she shared her joys and her sorrows with.