Page 1 of The Runaway and the Rugged (Dusty Meadows #1)

GARTH

Twelve years ago

“ G arth, sweetheart, can you hear me?” The voice sounded close, like a gentle whisper across my face, yet it seemed so damn far away. “We need you to wake up, Garth. Your daughter needs you to wake up.”

Daughter.

My daughter

Grace.

She had just turned two months old the other day and was already crushin’ all her milestones. Like her daddy, she wasn’t a quitter.

“We got her right next to you, baby. Can you feel her little fingers? She wants her daddy to hold her,” my mom, my unshakeable rock, spoke gently as I felt the smallest of pressure against my arm.

I went to open my eyes but was met with resistance. Everything felt weighed down, like I had thousand-pound weights on every square inch of my body while my head pulsated in forceful bursts of pain.

I was injured.

Badly, and my body was fighting its damned hardest to keep me quiet and still, doing everything it could to heal me.

But I refused to stay asleep. I needed them, my family, my fuckin’ daughter, and with each resilient attempt to open my eyes, finally, I noticed a flash of light emerge through the narrow slits of my eyelids.

“There you go, Garth. Keep tryin’.”

She never lost faith in me, even as a grown-ass man who got himself into a predicament like this, she never left my side.

My eyes fluttered until the moment I felt my sweet baby girl bein’ placed into the spot just below my shoulder blade. It was all the strength and reason I needed to force my eyes to open the rest of the way.

On a groan and a prayer, the brightness of the world around me slammed into my eyes like a freight train.

“Oh, thank God!” My mom cried while I heard the relieved sighs of Greta and Griff from not too far away. “Are you in any pain? Do you need me to get a nurse?”

The onslaught of questions sent my head into a painful plunge, instantly causing me to wince.

“Mom, just give him a minute, will yah? Let him wake up and see baby Grace,” Griff advised as softly and gently as he could without comin’ off like a dick.

He was right. As much as I was thankful to have them all here, all I could focus on was seein’ my daughter.

Getting my eyes on her.

Ignoring my dry, scratchy throat, I finally found the strength to fully open my eyes and the moment they adjusted, I looked for my daughter.

“Baby girl…” The words burned on impact but it was worth the pain when her tiny little eyes moved in search of me. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Grace. No more,” I cried out.

Everything hurt.

My body.

My heart.

My damn ego.

It was all suffering from the hands of a woman who left me and her daughter. And the only way to cope was to get on a bull. I wanted to feel something other than this bullshit burning, soul-crushing pain.

But this time, I had taken it too far and I was payin’ the price for that mistake.

“Garth, everything is going to be okay. It’s just a broken leg and concussion.”

A broken leg and concussion.

What would it be next time? A broken hip? Lung? Death?

Peering down at my daughter, eight seconds was no longer the high I sought out anymore, but instead it was an adorable little girl who had stolen my heart from the moment I laid eyes on her.

Bull riding was no longer who I was, no matter how hard I tried to hold on. I was a dad, a single dad at that, and it wasn’t until it took this moment, waking up to my daughter lying in my arms while I was in a hospital bed, that I truly realized that I needed to quit.

After everyone finally spoke to me, ensuring that I was going to be okay, I made a silent promise to myself that day. I would never be selfish with my life again. From that moment on, I realized what truly mattered and it wasn’t the money or the fame.

All I needed was my daughter, and for her sake, I was determined to turn things around. A new chapter, one where everything I did was for her, and for a future I could be worthy of.