Page 13 of Colt (The Bull Riders #2)

But it doesn’t. And it never will. So I just have to make things, including making a difference, because it matters to me.

Everything else is something you can’t control.

When I get off my shift, I have a text from Cindy who wants Colt and me to come over for dinner tomorrow night if he has the energy.

A family dinner, she says, with Gentry and Lily.

I used to be so jealous of Lily because she got to run around with the boys.

She was somehow one of them when I never was.

I used to worry that Colt would fall in love with her, because she is beautiful, that is true.

And I wondered if he would fall for her. Honestly, that could still happen.

I don’t ruminate about that. Because it’s silly. I need to stop ruminating in general.

I decide to go to the store in person, and pick up some frozen meals that will be easy for Colt to heat up for himself, some Cokes and beer, coffee for his house, and a few things to make a quick dinner.

For tonight, I just get lazy and grab a precooked half rack of ribs along with some potato salad and macaroni salad.

It’s going to be a beige wonder of a meal, but I don’t have the energy to worry about nutrition.

I’ll just pray over it and call it good.

The thought makes me laugh, though honestly, any thought about good health at the moment for Colt makes me laugh.

A lack of green vegetables is the least of his concerns.

I give him a courtesy text before I pop over again. And then I ring the doorbell about twenty times before I walk in.

When I do, he’s sitting on the couch looking at me. “I’m not getting up.”

“Well, I didn’t want to walk in on you naked again.” My bad for bringing up the nudity immediately.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me. I have no modesty left. I’ve had nurses sponge out creases I didn’t know I had.”

I’m aware that that’s going to be part of my job as a nurse.

You have to take care of people to the best of your ability, while preserving their dignity, but sometimes dignity is just hard to come by because injury and illness can be such an undignified experience.

But the people caring for you can make it better.

And they can make it worse. I met so many great and terrible medical professionals during my mom’s illness.

And that was just me as a kid. So I can’t imagine how much more intense it was for the adults, for my mom.

“Did you have good nurses?”

He frowns. “Weird question. But yes.”

“It’s not a weird question. This is what I want to do. I think that it’s really important to have medical professionals who show you a lot of care. Even when they’re sponging out creases.”

“Wow. But yeah. I was really lucky, I think. Everyone was great.”

“I’m glad. I’ll probably end up getting work in Tolowa.” I carry the bags through the room and head into the kitchen. I open up his fridge and start putting things away, then I get out plates and silverware for the dinner that I brought home.

It takes a while, but eventually he comes into the kitchen. “You’re going to move away?”

“It makes the most sense. And I might not move. I might stay here. It’s only a forty-five-minute drive. But maybe I’ll work in the cancer center or…I don’t know.”

“My mom will probably see it as an excuse to get some investment properties in Tolowa.”

I grin. “Yeah. Okay. Probably.”

“Do you want to move?”

I shrugged. “This is the only place I’ve ever lived. Even moving forty-five minutes away seems weird.”

“It’s a good tether,” he says. He sits down at the table, that leg straight out in front of him. He doesn’t look quite as tired or terrible as he did yesterday. I’m relieved to see it.

“What do you mean by tether?”

“It’s a place I always want to come back to. But I don’t necessarily want to be here all the time.”

“Right. You like traveling with the rodeo.”

“I like being different all the time. We moved from Bend when I was little, but I barely remember living there. I remember we had a little house with a yard, and there was a river that ran right behind it. There was a fence, and my mom used to always warn me about climbing that fence. I didn’t listen, of course. ”

“Well, that’s terrifying. Pediatric drowning is one of the leading causes –”

“I know. But I was young and dumb and thought I was invincible. I thought I was invincible until about three weeks ago.”

Silence settles between us for a moment.

There’s a real heaviness to his words. He’s not kidding.

For a moment, I mourn the passing of that man who never considered his mortality.

It was part of what made him who he was.

This experience is going to change him, not just physically.

It’s already changed me. It introduced me to the horror of the sudden, random trauma.

I was already familiar with the kind you could see coming from a mile away.

“I’ll dish you some food.”

“I will,” he says. “I’ve barely been up and down all day.

It’ll be good for me.” He stands up, slowly, and walks on his crutches over to the kitchen island, where he picks up a plate.

It’s hard for me not to help. I want to make it easier for him, but I know that’s not what he wants.

I know that what he wants is his independence back.

To not have his stepsister looming around.

I suppose I don’t need to stay for dinner.

And yet… He’s the kind of man who usually goes out every night.

The kind who’s used to uproarious applause and traveling with a huge band of people.

He’s not used to being alone. I worry much more about his mental health than anything else.

I dish my own food, and then I sit down with him. The tension from this morning seems to be gone. He doesn’t seem as angry.

“What did you do all day?”

“Watched TV. There are some really trash talk shows that I can’t believe still exist.”

“Oh. That’s… Good.”

“Probably not. Odds are, I’m doing serious damage to my health and wellness. Though in the case of ten-month-old Jeremy, Keith was the father.”

I frown. “Was that good?”

“For Tanya. I don’t think it was good for Keith.”

“Hey, the comfort of truly garbage TV is sometimes the exact thing that a person needs.”

“How about you?”

“We’ve got to do some permanent jewelry installations today. I did some studying. I have a final on Friday.”

“You sure do a lot,” he says.

I’m stunned by this statement. Because I would’ve thought that he and Gentry would see me as boring if they thought about me at all.

I would’ve thought that they would feel like I do very little in comparison to them.

Gentry fights fires, and Colt is a rodeo cowboy.

I’m oddly touched that he sees what I do as being a large amount of anything.

“It’s just working and going to school. A lot of people do that.”

“I guess. But I’m sure that you could skip the working part-time if you wanted to.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m not going to work for the last year of school. I’m finishing this term and then I start clinical rotations at the hospital so I won’t be working.”

“Oh, you’ll actually work at the hospital while you’re still in school?”

“Yeah, this program starts you a little later on rotations, but that’s because I did most of my credits online.

Anyway, it’s been a little bit of a slower path, and I’m sure that my dad would pay for everything.

But it just seems… Your mom letting me live in one of her rentals is so kind, and my dad is helping pay for my school.

It’s better to have a little bit of money that’s mine.

” I look down at my plate. “I was talking to Sarah today about resilience. She was just saying that she always knew life wasn’t going to treat her fairly.

But she did her best to muscle it into the best-case scenario.

If she can do that, then the least I can do is work and go to school.

The least I can do is put my back into it for my dream. ”

“Yeah. Fair enough. But I’m still impressed. You couldn’t have paid me to go to school any longer than I had to. And here you are, doing it by choice.”

It surprises me that he’s being this nice.

“Were you lonely today?”

“A little bit stir crazy, I admit. But, you know, I felt better. I feel better.”

“You’re not better,” I say.

“I am, though. A little bit better every day. That is true. Undeniable, even.”

“Well… Yes. It’s true. But with everything that I know about healing, and about the kind of fracture that you got, it’s a long road ahead. You are really lucky you didn’t lose your leg.”

He goes just a little bit pale. But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he attacks his food with even greater relish, acting like I didn’t say a word.

“I’m just saying. You don’t want to push yourself too hard. It’s not going to make you heal faster. There’s going to be a point where you’re doing PT and then… That will be the time to push yourself. Until then, your job is resting.”

“I hate resting,” he says.

“I know.”

We finish eating, and I stand up. But my foot gets tangled up in the chair, and I lose my balance, and Colt reaches out, gripping my hip and stopping me from falling flat on my face.

I’m facing him, standing in front of him, my breasts level with his eyes, his hand planted firmly on my hip.

And suddenly, my whole body goes hot.

Like I was lit on fire.

This isn’t a slow smolder like the other times recently, this is something major. Something deep and intense that transcends, and makes me feel like I’m going to melt into a puddle on the floor.

God. Sex isn’t even that great. I already know that.

I had to go have sex when I was sixteen. Partly because I spent a few years feeling like life was short and brutal and I needed to squeeze as much living in as I could, as soon as I could.

But shamefully, also so I could prove to myself there was no reason for Colt Campbell to have that kind of power over me. To prove that my crush was unreasonable. That the way that I felt when he walked into the room had nothing to do with reality. I did that.

The guy I lost my virginity to was a one-and-a-half-pump chump.

It was over so fast I barely felt it.

To be fair, we were both so young, it was both of our first times, and he was overexcited. It was better the next couple of times, at least in the sense that he lasted a bit longer. But I still didn’t orgasm or anything.

I have had orgasms with partners since then, but it wasn’t… It hasn’t been… Nothing undeniable. Nothing world-shattering. Nothing life-altering.

But the feeling of Colt Campbell’s hand on my hip is like a complete and total reimagining of everything I’ve ever believed my body could feel. Everything I’ve ever wanted, everything I’ve ever believed might be possible.

He’s looking up at me, fire in his blue eyes, and I can’t look away. Does he want me?

The thought is so horrible, so wonderful, so frightening, that I move away from him. Because I can’t stand it, I can’t process it.

“Careful,” he says, his voice rough.

“Yeah. Fine.”

“You’re lecturing me on doing too much, but you’re not really taking care of yourself.”

“I have a lot to do. I’m just clumsy, I’m not negligent.”

“You had a concussion.”

“More than three weeks ago and I barely had any symptoms.”

“Yeah. Sure. Right then, you didn’t seem any steadier on your feet than I am. Makes me a little concerned for your safety.”

I think he’s actually being sincere, and not messing with me.

But I do think he’s also saying it because he wants to feel like he’s taking care of me.

Maybe that’s where all the sincerity about my hard work in my schooling comes from.

Trying to reposition this whole thing. Reposition himself, because I saw the total discomfort in his eyes when I had to help him down from the truck.

I know this is killing him. But God damn, he just about killed me.

I’m gasping, my heart pounding so hard I’m sure that he can hear it. And if he can’t hear that, then surely he can tell that I’m trying to suck in air like a fish that got tossed out of its bowl and onto the countertop.

I’m like a tragic, under-sexed guppy.

But then, so is he. That clarity rolls right to the front of my brain.

He’s trying to feel more like himself. He’s stuck like this, and he feels diminished.

Attraction… Having a woman want him, that’s something he’s familiar with.

It’s something that makes them feel good. And suddenly, I feel small.

Because he’s never looked at me that way before.

I’ve never seen fire like that in his eyes, and I know it’s not really about me.

It’s about him. It’s about the way that he feels about himself.

It’s about his need to feel like he’s healing.

Getting back to normal. Because God knows if he were out there in the arena tonight, collecting cheers from the crowd, he wouldn’t be desperate for me.

He would have plenty of attention. Attention, that’s a hell of a lot more desirable to him than mine.

All the heat inside of me is doused by that thought, and I turn away from him.

“Your mom invited us over tomorrow night.”

“Okay.”

“Since you’re feeling so much better, that shouldn’t be difficult.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it won’t be.”

“I have a test that I have to go in person for. So I’m going to be driving to campus. And I won’t be around.”

“That’s fine.”

“Just… Just so you know.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

I can tell that my abrupt departure is confusing to him. But I would rather have them stay confused and have him look at me for too long and know exactly what I’m feeling.

Because that would be one humiliation too many.