Page 68 of Reckless Skye

‘No.’ Skye didn’t so much as blink, though that old, dull ache flared. ‘TJ wouldn’t come looking for me.’

‘You know he called Mav – before you arrived? Recommended you for the job.’

Skye’s head whipped up at that. Her heart lurched, so that beneath her, Smokey snorted loudly and tossed her head from side to side, looking for the danger.

Skye reached forward and ran her palm through Smokey’s mane, calming the horse, but her heart continued to tap impatiently. ‘What?’

Sierra grinned. ‘One day, you’re gonna tell me the full story, Skye.’

‘There’s no story.’ She ducked beneath an overhanging branch. ‘I stayed with his family during the Rodeo Scottsdale event where he got hurt.’ Skye flushed with embarrassment as she remembered how childish, ignorant, and infatuated she’d been. Now, she could look back and see that it was just a few days of fun, but back then, it had felt like so much more – like everything.

‘That must have been awful,’ Sierra commented quietly.

‘Yes,’ Skye assured her. ‘It was.’ Her past infatuation with TJ aside, that was true. His accident had been horrific.

‘Well, apparently he’s working the rodeos again.’

When Skye’s spine snapped straight at that, Sierra grinned. ‘No story there, my ass.’

‘He’s not bull riding—’

‘No. He’s working as a pickup man at PRCA events.’

Skye wondered how that was possible. The pickup men were mounted riders who rode in the arena during the Rough Stock events. They helped the bronc and bareback riders dismount the bucking horses or, if necessary, helped the bullfighters corral the bull and get it back into the pen.

It was an athletic and demanding job, one that required versatility and a range of skills unparalleled even by most of the rodeo competitors – one that couldn’t have been easy with a spinal cord injury.

The PRCA and WPRA worked together to incorporate women’s rodeo events – the barrel racing and breakaway roping – into the rodeos. So, if TJ really was working them, there was a near-certain chance that Skye would run into him during her barrel racing season. Probably more than once too.

Unwilling to ponder that, Skye simply said, ‘My father, Holden Marchant, may come looking for me.’

‘Is he dangerous?’

‘Not in the way you’re implying, and not to anyone but me.’

Sierra didn’t get the chance to push for more as they came to the big Hunt Ranch and Resort barn, which was busy with wranglers hard at work and guests preparing for their trail rides.

They both wordlessly dismounted and led their horses inside.

Benji was waiting for Sierra in the barn, the two-month-old twins fast asleep in a ring sling baby carrier strapped to his chest.

Skye might as well not have been there for the way the couple focused on each other, but she was as used to it as she was unoffended by it. ‘Here, I’ll take Ty.’ She reached out and grabbed Ty’s reins.

Sierra looked down at the reins as if she’d forgotten she was even holding her horse. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yup. Go on, boss.’

Skye smiled at Benji as she walked by with both horses.

Maybe it was the mention of TJ or seeing the connection between Sierra and Benji spark the moment their eyes met, but that old resentment she still carried for TJ flared. She hated herself for it more than she could ever hate him. It was her problem – and her problem alone – that she still felt so bitter over the whole thing.

There had been other men. In fact, after TJ, Skye had made a point of collecting all those firsts – first horrible date, first awkward one-night stand, first regrettable drunk sexcapade.

She had nursed her wounded pride by proving to herself that she could be casual, that she could be with any man without giving him a piece of herself. So, while there had been some nice guys thrown into the mix, Skye had purposefully avoided anything remotely serious.

She’d been hurt by the only two men she’d ever had in her life, and although her father’s abuse had damaged her in many ways, TJ’s abandonment had hurt more. Because she’d had a choice. She had willingly let him in. She had given him her trust and the power to cause her pain.

Never again.