Page 122 of Ride or Die

Goose bumps flare over my skin by the gentle draw of his finger circling my throat where he’d held me. I look up, meeting his eyes through the darkness, finding something unexpected, something that settles in my stomach like lead. He tucks my hair behind my ear, his gaze roving over my face, bouncing between my eyes.

“Are we… okay?” His low, deep voice is laced with an uncharacteristic fragility, and I feel my heart crack. “Because I… I love you. So fuckin’ much. And you’re… You’re everything to me. I can’t bear the thought of you thinking that you’re not?—”

“Hey, shhhh.” I climb up a little so we’re eye to eye, cupping his stubbled jaw and trailing my thumb over the curve of his cheek. “I know.” I steady him with an unwavering stare. “I know, Cole.”

He licks his lips, eyes dipping from mine down to my mouth and back again.

“I love you.Welove you,” I assure him, referring to myself and the kids. “And—” I swallow hard, taking in every part of his face shadowed by darkness yet still devastatingly handsome. “I… I don’t like that you’re going against your doctor’s orders, but,” I continue, “but I know how important bull riding is and—” I release a shuddering breath, tears pricking my eyes. “I’ll always be by your side, Cole. No matter what.”

Cole closes his eyes, his body racking with a long, staggering exhale, like the weight of the world has just been lifted off him. When he looks at me, there’s a telling shine in his eyes as he cups my cheek. “I don’t fuckin’ deserve you,” he grits out.

“Well, that’s too bad.” I offer a smile I know doesn’t reach my eyes, trying to keep it light despite the heaviness in the air between us. “Because I’m yours. And I’m not going anywhere.”

CHAPTER 46

CLARA

Cole’s riding tonight at a charity event in the next town over, Sunshine. And I know it’s for a good cause, but I’ve felt sick to my stomach all day. I told him that I’d support him no matter what, and I will, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about the thought of him getting on the back of a literal raging bull.

Bull riding is dangerous no matter what. I didn’t do myself any favors by researching the sport, because now that I know men have died in the arena, others have become paralyzed, blinded, permanently brain damaged, it only increases the anxiety racing through me. The last thing I want is for Cole to be injured or worse, but I know that he loves it. And he’s good at it. And it’s his dream. And I love him, so I need to stand by him.

But tonight feels… different.

All day there’s been this lingering hint of foreboding dread hanging in the air, and I can’t seem to shake it. And, standing here in front of the mirror, smoothing my hands down over my sundress, despite my well-versed smile, I have a really bad feeling about tonight that’s caused a painful knot to wedge itself in the pit of my belly.

Securing my earrings, I walk out of the bedroom. “Come on you guys,” I call out to wherever the kids are in the cabin. “We need to get going.”

“I’m ready,” Tommy calls back.

When I walk into the small living room, I stop in my tracks, finding him ready and waiting on the sofa looking every bit the junior cowboy in his blue jeans and Cole Dawson T-shirt, boots and a hat.

“Look at you, handsome.” I can’t help but smile, tucking my hair behind my ears. “Where’s your sister?”

“On the swing.” Tommy rolls his eyes indulgently.

I shake my head with a light laugh, because I really don’t know how she’s going to handle going back to Cole’s house now that weather has calmed down and there’s no immediate tornado threat. She’s already pleaded him to install a porch swing like we have here, which, of course, Cole agreed to, because that little girl has him wrapped around her pinkie.

I grab my purse and slide my socked feet into the cowboy boots Mama Joy gave me, and nod for Tommy to follow as I walk out onto the front porch.

“C’mon, Bil.” I glance over at her where she’s relaxed back on the porch swing like she hasn’t a care in the world.

“We gotta get go—” I’m stopped dead, my eyebrows drawing together when I look down to the stuffed dog tucked in beside her. Narrowing my eyes, a prickly heat creeps up over my chest, my neck, onto my cheeks. “Is that… Morris?”

Billie looks from me, to the black and white doggy and back again, nodding, her smile sheepish as she clutches the dog to her chest.

My heart pounds in my ears, the thud of my pulse drowning out everything else. I blink tight, trying to rack my brain, swallowing hard around the lump of trepidation that sits like a rock in my throat. “Did you… f-find him?” I ask hopefullybecause as far as I’m aware that dog was left back in West Virginia, on the bathroom floor the morning we ran away. “In the… the car?”

Billie’s small shoulders cower in on themselves, and she buries her face into the dog’s soft ears, her big blue eyes peering up as she slowly shakes her head.

My stomach bottoms out at the same time as my heart seems to come to a stop, the acidic taste of bile burning my throat. I’m forced to grip onto the railing, my knees buckling with the weight of the realization as it crashes over me, and I find myself looking out at the nothingness surrounding the cabin, searching quickly.

“Billie?” I say as calmly as I can manage. “W-where did Morris come from?”

She looks at me like she doesn’t want to tell me, but then, her small voice confirms my biggest fear. “Daddy.”

Her whispered word knocks the wind out of me and my brain grows foggy, my vision tunneling as darkness begins to swallow me. I shake my head because surely she’s mistaken, and I glance at Tommy who looks just as shocked and terrified as I’m sure I do right now.

Placing a hand over my chest, my heart slams against my sternum, hard and fast. But I know it’s up to me to stay cool, not to give anything away. Taking a step closer to the swing, I stare at the dog like it’s some sort of ticking timebomb that might go off with one wrong move.