Page 15 of Before You Can Blink (Rust Canyon #4)

Jett

August

“You look pale.” I cupped Daisy’s cheek. “You feeling all right?”

Before my wife could answer, Layla scoffed from behind me. “Of course, she’s pale. You keep her locked away in your motel room most of the day. Only time she gets out is after the sun goes down.” Under her breath, she added, “You’d think the honeymoon would be over by now.”

Releasing my hold on my wife’s face, I spun around to face Layla. “Maybe if you didn’t bust Murph’s balls so hard, he’d get close enough to let you play with them once in a while.”

Layla rolled her eyes so hard I wondered if she caught a good look at her brain. “We need to head out. You ready?”

I turned back to my girl, my brows drawing down as I assessed her. Layla might have a point about her not getting enough sun, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was more than that. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and I was almost certain she’d lost some weight .

There was a sharp tapping of boots on concrete. “Jett, we’ve gotta go.”

My eyes slid shut as I tried to tamp down my frustration with my manager. “Give me a minute, will ya?”

Layla huffed but relented, as evidenced by her retreating footsteps.

Training my gaze on Daisy, I searched her eyes for any clues that might tell me what was really going on. When I came up empty, I let out a heavy sigh. “Why don’t you stay in tonight?”

If I hadn’t been watching her so intently, I might’ve missed how she sagged ever so slightly in relief.

There wasn’t time to dig deeper, but when I got back tonight, I was getting to the bottom of this.

It wasn’t like Daisy to keep secrets, but I had a sneaking suspicion she was going out of her way not to be a distraction during what was arguably one of my worst seasons.

None of that mattered if there was something wrong with my wife. I’d make sure she knew that when we cleared the air later.

“Are you sure you don’t need me there?” Her sweet voice rolled over me like honey, soothing me like it always did.

I tapped my lips. “Give me a kiss for good luck, and I’ll be all set.”

Daisy rose on her tiptoes, and my arms snaked around her waist, hauling her flush just as our mouths met. I tightened my grip, groaning when her tongue darted out, tangling with mine.

Sooner than I would have liked, she pulled back, her choppy breathing fanning my face. “You have to go.”

With my forehead pressed to hers, I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

“Be safe.”

I dropped one more kiss to her lips. “Always am.”

The bright lights in the arena were blinding, but I was locked in.

I’d pulled Rampage for my ride tonight, and he had a reputation for being hell on hoofs.

If you could manage to keep your seat for eight seconds, his half of the score alone was almost enough to shoot you right to the top of the leaderboard.

Already, he was visibly agitated, thrashing so violently he rattled the chute. If he was this pissed off now, he was gonna go feral when I hopped on his back.

The spotter assigned to me tonight caught my eye, his lips pulling into a thin line as he gave a slight shake of his head. The message was clear: if Rampage didn’t settle his ass down, they might deem him too dangerous to ride and sub in another horse.

I couldn’t have that. Not with the season I was having.

Every ride from now until the end of September was crucial. I needed to win as many purses as possible to squeak my way into a spot in the circuit finals.

Calmly, I stepped forward, placing my palm on the horse’s muzzle and stroking upward, murmuring, “Easy, boy.”

Rampage’s nostrils flared as he let out a sharp exhale, but his restless motion inside the chute halted.

“That’s it,” I praised. “I know you hate this part, but I’m hoping you’ll do me a solid and let me take a quick ride. Eight seconds is all I’m askin’. Promise I won’t linger any longer than that.”

One of the handlers stared at me in disbelief. “Sure you don’t wanna come work with us? If you think getting him in the chute is bad, you should see us tryin’ to load him into a trailer.”

Backing away from Rampage, I let out a chuckle. “No offense to the work you’re doing, but I prefer riding ’em instead of taming ’em.”

“Fair enough,” he replied with a dip of his chin.

“Ready to hop on?” Gary, my spotter for the evening, asked from behind me.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I climbed the side of the gate, waiting as the announcer called out my name and the horse I’d be riding.

Keeping a firm grip on the opposite side of the chute, I positioned myself over Rampage’s back. Gary held my vest tight, just in case, as I grasped the riggin’ handle and prepared to take a seat.

Sucking in a centering breath, I let it out slowly, pouring all my focus into the next eight seconds that could very well make or break my season.

Lowering my ass until it met firm muscle, I gave a nod to the attendant manning the chute and, in an instant, the gate was thrown open wide and Rampage burst into the arena.

At this point, a lot of it came down to muscle memory—my white-knuckled grip on the riggin’, my left arm held poised above my head, forcing myself to relax enough to move with the animal instead of fighting against its bucking—but there were still variables outside of my control.

Horses were often unpredictable, and there were still times when, even if you came in prepared by having watched its past rides, that wasn’t enough to ensure you could anticipate its moves.

I’d been doing this long enough to know instantly this ride was going south.

Right out of the gate, my head snapped back, crashing against Rampage’s rump as his hind legs kicked toward the sky.

The collision caused stars to burst before my eyes, my vision swimming so badly I feared I might get sick.

The sudden dizziness stole my focus away from making sure I held tight to the riggin’, and before I knew it, my fingers loosened just enough to have me hurtling headfirst toward the dirt.

With my reaction time delayed by the head injury, I wasn’t able to protect myself from the inevitable impact.

My shoulder made first contact with the unyielding ground, and an agony so blinding it stole my breath away flooded my nerve endings.

It was like I was paralyzed; I couldn’t move a muscle from where I lay in the dirt, waiting for the medics to rush in and help me.

But it only got worse from there. I’d been so consumed by the bolts of white-hot lightning zinging through my shoulder that I hadn’t realized Rampage was practically on top of me.

That was, until one of his hoofs came down square on my chest. I barely heard the crack of breaking bone over the primal scream that tore up my throat.

It was almost a relief when my world went black.

“Jett. Jett, buddy, can you hear me?”

I groaned at the sound of Murphy’s voice, which sounded distant, like it was at the far end of a tunnel.

“Jesus. Thought we’d lost you there for a minute.”

Cracking one eyelid open, I immediately regretted it when the bright overhead lights made it feel like an ice pick was stabbing my brain.

“Fuck,” I muttered. Or at least I tried to. It came out as a whisper-quiet wheeze that didn’t sound much like the curse I intended .

“Don’t try to talk. The medics were forced to put in a chest tube for your collapsed lung.”

That would explain why I couldn’t draw in a full breath.

“I was wondering why in the hell you didn’t move out of the way, but then they told me you’d shattered your collarbone and must’ve been in unimaginable pain. They’re gonna have to surgically repair it.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Pins and shit.”

“My head,” I rasped.

“Oh, did I forget to mention the concussion? You really did a number on yourself this time, kid.”

“We’re here to take Mr. Sullivan to surgery. You’ll have to move to the waiting room, where we can have someone update you on his condition post-op,” a female voice spoke from nearby.

That sparked something in my hazy memory.

“Daisy.”

Fingers gripped mine, and Murphy said, “Layla went to get her. She’ll be here when you wake up.”

The last thing she told me was to be safe tonight. And like the cocky asshole I was, I’d promised that I would.

My heart twisted, imagining how scared she would be when Layla told her I’d not only fallen but landed myself in the hospital with serious injuries. This went far beyond the bumps and bruises she was used to seeing as a result of my dangerous profession.

A terrifying thought flashed through my mind.

What if this was all too much for her and she decided to leave me?

We didn’t talk about it around the circuit, but we all knew we risked our lives every time we hopped on one of those wild horses. This accident would put that reality front and center for my wife .

I couldn’t live without her; I knew that. But riding was all I knew, what I’d poured my heart and soul into for the past eight years.

If she asked me to give it all up . . .

Fuck. I wasn’t sure what I would do.

How did you choose between the two loves of your life?

The simple answer was that you couldn’t, so I had to find a way to keep them both. That was the only option so far as I was concerned.

“Mr. Sullivan?” the female voice spoke again. “We’ve put a nerve block in your shoulder, and I just added a sedative to your IV. Do you have any questions about the surgery?”

“How long?” I asked.

“Usually, three or four hours. Could be longer with the severity of your break.”

“No.” I winced when I tried to move my head from side to side. “Before I can ride again?”

A disbelieving laugh sounded. “Lord, save me from foolish cowboys with no sense of self-preservation.”

My brain was so sluggish that it took until the anesthesiologist put the mask over my mouth to realize the nurse, doctor, whoever she was, had never given me an answer.

An incessant beeping grated on my nerves. Daisy must’ve slipped out to fetch breakfast before the alarm went off .