Page 104 of One Last Rodeo

The way he says it tells me he knows I’m not asking for bull riding lessons. And he’d be right. I’m not looking for tips on the finals. I don’t need someone to tell me how to sit on a bull, how to time a kick, how to read the roll of a shoulder or the twitch ofa flank strap. I’ve been doing this long enough to know my way around a ride and a series. I know what it takes to win as much as Hayes does, and we’ve got the buckles to prove it.

At this point, winning comes down to luck. Whether it’s riding shotgun with me Saturday night or leaving me in the dirt. Whether the bull decides to cooperate for eight seconds or decides he’s got something to prove to the crowd. That’s always been the gamble. However, the wind blows and whatever bull I pick. And just how badly I piss him off.

What I’m really hanging back to talk to Hayes about is something else entirely.

I need tips on how to walk away from this life. From the wild, fast-paced, reckless, non-committal existence I’ve been living for years. The one where tomorrow is never guaranteed, and everything feels temporary by design.I need to know how to do what Hayes did.How to hang it up without feeling like I’m losing my identity. How to enter the next phase of my life where I'm no longer the cowboy looking for something to prove; I’m a man who knows his worth outside of the arena.

Hayes was about my age when he retired. Maybe a year younger. At the time, I thought he was crazy ending in his prime. Thought he was quitting too early when there was still money to be made.

I told myself I had another season in me after my surgery. Maybe two.

But the truth is that I think I always knew this was it. After my heart surgery, I needed one more. One last rodeo. One final summer to prove something. Not to the fans. Not to the judges. Not even to the guys. To myself.

To prove it wasn’t my heart that made me consider hanging up the buckle and walking away from the sport I love the most. The sport that gave me purpose, that never made me feel like less—like that little boy wishing a girl would notice him, never feeling smart enough—that sport was never my problem. My heart was.

And not in the physical sense. The heart that I handed over to Catalina without realizing how permanent that kind of thing can be.

“Yeah,” I say finally, meeting Micah’s eyes.

He nods. He doesn’t push. Doesn’t need to. He can tell that these last few rides my mind's been somewhere else, and that's a dangerous thing for us. You get distracted on a bull, and you’re at risk of being severely injured, or worse.

“Ready to go?” Hayes’s voice cuts in as he steps into the locker room. One of the best bull riders to ever do it, and now a respected doctor, standing there like he belongs anywhere he chooses to be. “It was a good ride.”

I shake his hand, firm and steady. I used to respect him as a rider. Now, I’m realizing I respect him as a man even more. It’s easy to walk away when you’re broken. It’s harder when you’re still winning.

More than respect, I envy him. The life he built. The wife. The kid. The small town that feels like home instead of a pit stop between arenas. I want all of that. I always have, and I've never been shy about my desire for commitment and a family. I know now I'll only ever want that with Catalina. I just hope she wants it too someday.

Maybe that’s what I’m really hoping he can teach me tonight. How to build something that proves to her I'm reliable and steady and the guy she should want it all with. Not only impulsive and unpredictable guy who’s been hopping on the back of bulls and calling it a career for two decades.

“Yep,” I say. “Let’s go.”

I follow him out of the locker room, down the long concrete hallway, and toward the mouth of the arena. The noise builds the closer we get. I check my phone again, even though I know there won’t be a response to my last message.

I want to check on Pulse. I want to hear her voice. I want to see her face. Make sure she’s okay. I want to reassure her that she has what she needs inside of her to make this surgery a success.

But she asked for space. And I’m trying like hell to respect that. Even if every instinct in me wants to force my way back into her orbit, I know there are things she needs to do first. Problems she has to carry alone. Wounds I can’t fix for her, no matter how badly I want to.

I just hope that when she’s done—when the dust settles and her world steadies again—she’ll still want me.

Because I’ll be right here... waiting for her.

Chapter 32 – Jensen

“You want something else to drink?” Lawson asks me cautiously.

I’ve only known the guy for two days, but I can already tell he’s good as hell. The kind of man who notices tone shifts and body language and files it all away without saying anything unless he needs to.

I’d bet good money Dani filled him in on whatever version of the story she has, assuming Kitty told her anything at all about what happened between us. In the past, I’d have said ‘no wayshe would tell her sister.’Catalina is the type to keep things close to the chest. But tonight feels a hell of a lot different.

Dani’s been watching me all dinner, her gaze a little too assessing, like she’s deciding what she wants to ask me first and keeps coming back to silence being the best policy.

“I’ll take a water. Been sober for almost a year now.”Unless you count that small break in judgment in San Jose.I regret that. I won’t let it happen again.

“Good man,” Hayes says with a nod before he and Lawson take off toward the bar. He probably thinks it's because I'm prepping for my upcoming ride. But it'll always be because one very serious, very smart doctor told me I needed to be careful now that she fixed my heart. And whether she believes it or not, I've listened to everything she's said.

I watch them go, then glance around the Whitewood Creek restaurant. For everything that's happened—whatever the hell me and Catalina are, and the way my chest feels like it's collapsing in on itself—I genuinely like her extended family. And I think they might actually like me back.

Hayes and I crossed paths back when he was still riding, but this new version of him is a complete one-eighty from the guy I knew in his younger years. He's grounded, steady, more confident in himself, and the happiest I've ever seen him working in medicine as the chief of the Whitewood Creek small-town hospital.