Page 12 of Knot Your Problem, Cowboy (Wild Hearts Ranch #1)

RIDGE

I ’m in the chute at Cheyenne Frontier Days, the metal rails cold under my gloved hands despite the July heat.

Diesel Rage shifts beneath me, two thousand pounds of pure meanness compressed into black hide and muscle.

The bull’s breathing matches mine, heavy, controlled, waiting. We both know what’s coming.

“Ridge Colter on Diesel Rage!” The announcer’s voice booms over the packed arena. “This cowboy’s sitting second in the world standings, folks, and a good ride here could move him up to first going into Vegas!”

My hands are steady as I work the bull rope, wrapping it around my right hand. Suicide wrap—that’s what we call it when you wrap it tightly enough that only God or gravity can get it loose. The rosin makes the rope sticky against my glove, insurance against the violence about to come.

I can see Cash and Walker pressed against the arena fence from here, close enough that I can make out Cash’s worried frown and Walker’s encouraging nod.

They’ve been at every major ride for the past three years, my unlikely pack brothers who understand that rodeo isn’t just what I do; it’s who I am.

Three rows behind them, Abby waves when she catches my eye.

Beta female, sweet as honey, with a laugh that made me stop mid-sentence when I first heard it at that bar in Sheridan.

We’d been talking about books. One conversation led to another, which led to her driving four hours to watch me ride today.

“Looking good, Colter,” Jake Chase calls out from the bucking chute over, waiting for his turn. “Heard you drew a spinner.”

“Diesel always goes left,” I confirm, settling deeper into position. “Hard and fast.”

“Just how your girl likes it?” another rider jokes, and laughter ripples through the cowboys hanging on the rails.

“Shut your mouth, Thompson, before I shut it for you,” I shoot back, but I’m grinning. This is how it is—crude jokes and bravado masking the very real possibility that any of us could leave here in an ambulance. Or worse.

The arena director leans over the chute. “You ready, Ridge?”

With my free hand, I pull my hat down, a black Stetson that’s seen a hundred rides and never let me down. My other hand grips the rope so tightly my knuckles ache inside the glove. Diesel’s muscles bunch beneath me, coiled energy waiting to explode .

“Ready,” I call out, though ready is relative when you’re about to try to stay on a tornado for eight seconds.

I nod sharply.

“Let’s see if Ridge Colter can tame this storm!”

The gate swings open and the world explodes.

Diesel launches out of the chute like he’s been shot from a cannon, immediately spinning hard to the left like I knew he would. My arm jerks up high, maintaining the perfect form the judges want to see, free hand never touching the bull, never touching myself, never touching anything but air.

The first jump jars every bone in my body, spine compressing and releasing like a violent accordion.

The arena blurs past—faces, lights, signs, all of it smearing into a kaleidoscope of color and sound.

The crowd roars in approval as Diesel really gets into it, bucking and spinning with a fury that makes him one of the best bulls on the circuit.

Time stretches and compresses simultaneously. Eight seconds feels like eight hours and eight milliseconds all at once. My thighs burn from gripping, shoulder screaming at the repeated jerking, but I’m centered, balanced, in that perfect sweet spot where bull and rider become one violent dance.

I catch glimpses as we spin. Cash on his feet now, fist pumping. Walker’s hands cupped around his mouth, probably whooping, though I can’t hear individual sounds over the crowd’s thunder.

Five seconds. Maybe six. I’m counting in my head, feeling the rhythm of Diesel’s bucks, anticipating each twist. I’m going to make it. I’m going to ? —

On the next spin, I see Abby. But she’s not watching me anymore. She’s turned to the man beside her… When did he sit down? She’s laughing at something he’s said. Her hand touches his arm, casual, friendly.

My concentration shatters.

For one crucial instant, my balance shifts. My free arm drops just a fraction, and my grip loosens just enough. Diesel feels it immediately because bulls always know the second you’re vulnerable.

He changes direction mid-spin, a move I’m not ready for. My weight goes wrong, sliding sideways. I try to recover, muscles screaming as I fight to regain position, but physics has already chosen sides.

Fuck!

The world tilts.

My heart is thundering in my ears.

I have a perfect moment of clarity as I leave Diesel’s back, seeing everything in crystalline detail. The bull’s head whipping around, the arena dirt rushing up, the horror dawning on Cash’s face. I’m airborne, hat flying one direction, body another, completely at gravity’s mercy.

Then I hit.

Not the dirt like I’m supposed to. The side of my head scratches against the top rail of the arena fence, a glancing blow that sends lightning through my skull.

The crack is audible even over the crowd’s sudden gasps.

I slide down and hit the dirt hard, right shoulder taking the impact before I roll.

There’s a moment of absolute silence in my head despite the chaos erupting around me. Then sound rushes back, distorted, wrong, like I’m underwater. Ringing fills my right ear, high and sharp and endless.

“Ridge! RIDGE!” Walker’s voice, closer than it should be. When did he jump the fence?

I try to push up, but the world spins violently. Something warm runs down the side of my face. Blood. I can taste copper, smell iron mixing with arena dirt.

“Don’t move!” Cash now, hands on my shoulders. “Medical’s coming. Just don’t move.”

Through the haze, I hear the announcer: “…looks like Colter got hung up there, folks. Let’s hope he’s all right…”

Six point nine seconds. That’s all I lasted. Not even close to eight. But that’s not what terrifies me as I lie in the dirt with my Alpha pack and medical personnel rushing over.

It’s the ringing that won’t stop. The way sound warbles in and out of my right ear like a badly tuned radio. The certainty, bone-deep and immediate, that something fundamental just broke. Not just my body, but my whole life.

“Can you hear me?” The paramedic shines a light in my eyes.

“Yeah,” I manage, though my own voice sounds strange, distant on one side.

“Don’t try to sit up. We need to ? —”

Yet I’m already trying to see past him, to find Abby in the stands, but someone is holding my head down. However, I caught a quick enough glance at where she was standing now, hand over her mouth, that man’s arm around her shoulders. Comforting her. Like he has the right.

“Who’s that?” I say, my words slurring slightly.

Walker follows my earlier gaze. “Ridge, buddy, we need to focus on ? —”

“WHO?”

“Another rider,” Cash answers quietly.

All I see is her hand on his arm, resting there like it belongs, and it guts me worse than the fall. She was here for me. And still, she found someone else to hold her. Like I’m already gone. Like I never mattered.

They get me on a backboard, then a stretcher. The crowd applauds, that polite acknowledgment that I’m moving, not dead or paralyzed. As they wheel me toward the ambulance, I catch sight of the replay on the arena’s big screen.

There I am, perfect form until the instant I’m not. The fall plays in slow motion, my head grazing against the rail with a violence that makes me nauseous to watch.

Three years of dominating the circuit. Three years of almost reaching the top, unstoppable. All of it ending in six point nine seconds because I let a Beta’s disinterest in me break my concentration.

“You’re going to be okay,” Walker says, jogging beside the stretcher. “You hear me? You’re going to be fine.”

But the ringing in my ear says different. The way medical is moving, fast but careful, says different. The look in Cash’s eyes says different.

I’m a rodeo cowboy. Was. We know injuries, live with them, collect them like badges of honor. And this is the one that ends me.

T hree years later, and I still wake up tasting arena dirt and lost dreams.

I shoot right out of bed, sheets soaked with sweat, phantom pain screaming through my skull. My ear rings with the memory of it. Sharp, high, endless. The pain radiates from my temple down my neck, across my back, following pathways that exist only in my dreams.

“Fuck.” The word comes out rough, angry. Three years, and the damn dream won’t leave me alone. Of waking up tasting failure.

I grunt. My room is exactly how I need it, with white walls, bare of decoration, spacious enough for the king bed, walk-in closet, and the leather couch where I sometimes sit when staring at the sky doesn’t cut it.

My guitar waits on its stand in the corner, a Martin D-28 that’s seen me through too many sleepless nights.

The dream clings like cobwebs. Abby’s laugh. Her hand on the rider. That split second of distraction that cost me everything.

Anger floods through me, hot and familiar. Not at her, as I got over blaming her years ago. The fury is all for myself. If I’d been good enough, strong enough, focused enough, I would never have fallen. Would never have let something as simple as a woman’s attention shatter my concentration.

I shake off sensations that aren’t real anymore and stumble into the adjoining bathroom. The shower runs hot, almost scalding, but it helps wash away the phantom aches. By the time I’m out, I can almost pretend I’m whole again.

I pull on blue jeans, worn soft from years of ranch work.

My belt slides through the loops, the buckle catching the early morning light.

It’s a bronze piece depicting a rider on a cutting horse, working cattle.

Cash bought it for me two Christmases ago, said I needed something that showed who I was now, not who I used to be.