But Tough Luck’s angry flight ended with a powerful wallop when they hit the ground.
Ty’s temples lit up on impact with that same ice-pick headache.
And everything came flooding back.
“One second,” the announcer shouted to the crowd.
Ty remembered that hot summer’s day up in Bozeman. He remembered walking into the ring, dust on his shoes and sleepy from the previous night’s carousing, on his way to do a spate of glad-handing with the sponsors. He’d looked up toward the stands, and there she was, trailing along with a pack of girls in the queens’ program. He was aware of them, but all he saw was Hannah. Blue eyes, blond curls, and the sweetest curves he’d ever seen.
He’d looked at her, and it was like something walloped him on the back of the head. He’d felt his ears ringing. He’d felt his heart skip a beat.
He’d almost walked into the side of the ring.
She stared back at him like she’d never seen a man before. Then she looked away.
But it was too late.
It had happened that fast.
“Two seconds,” the announcer cried, the crowd with him.
Ty remembered when he’d finally gotten her to go on their first date. How scared she’d been that night. Scared and exhilarated with it, sneaking out of that trailer she shared with her dragon of a mother and bolting across the dark to meet him.
She’d slid into his truck, laughing wild like a kid as she’d ducked down and let him drive them away from anyone who might recognize them. He hadn’t even touched her then, and still she’d seared herself into him.
It was that laugh. And it was the way she listened to him as they sat together in a diner in the next county over. Really listened, and was never satisfied with his set, pat answers to anything.
Ty had spent his whole adult life hiding right there in plain sight. But he’d never been able to hide from Hannah.
“Three seconds!”
He’d turned into that man he couldn’t conceive of bit by bit. Date by date. Every time they’d crossed paths, it had grown. Deepened.
Until what was inconceivable was life as he’d known it without her.
Ty remembered lying in the dark on one of their night picnics, the only way they got to spend more than a few moments at a time together. He’d been lit up, on fire, because she was lying next to him. Because their shoulders brushed.
He remembered wondering how it was possible he could feel so much from so little.
Sometimes he’d thought she was a witch. Sometimes he’d thought he was going crazy.
He’d told himself he had to end it, and fast, because he didn’t know what was happening to him or where this could possibly go.
Hannah was everything he wasn’t. Pure, sweet, innocent. Smart, tough, honest.
He should have run in the other direction.
But he never did.
“Four seconds! Halfway there!”
He remembered their first kiss. Down in the bowels of some arena, away from prying eyes. Hannah had said a prim hello the way she always did. Ty had grabbed her hand, the way he shouldn’t have.
He’d held her against him, both of them panting because it hurt to want like that. It was like falling face-first onto a bed of knives, by choice.
But he kept choosing it.
They could both hear the cheers from the ring. But they were a secret, and they were all alone, and he kissed her for the first time there, fitting his mouth to hers so carefully.
Like she might break.
But instead, she surged against him, honey and fire, and demanded he teach her how to kiss him back. Without saying a word.
That was the trouble with Hannah. She was sweet like sugar, and then she was a tornado, and he had no control over either.
He’d pulled away, and both of them were out of breath. And laughing, because it was too much. Too big. He’d rested his forehead on hers.
You’re going to kill me, baby, he’d muttered, wrestling himself back under control. And right now, I don’t think I’d mind.
She tipped her face up and ran her fingers over his mouth, smiling her real smile when he pretended to bite at them.
Don’t die, she’d told him. I don’t think I could do without you.
“Five seconds, folks!”
Ty remembered.
He remembered the way they’d fought, which was hardly fighting at all by his measure. No violence. Just those tense, upsetting conversations about what they wanted out of life.
I can’t be the kind of man you deserve, he’d told her, more than once.
Maybe I deserve to have the man I love, she’d replied. Who loves me back.
That had worked its way beneath his skin, because Ty didn’t know how to do that. Any of that. He didn’t know what love was.
All he knew was, he couldn’t let her go.
It would be so easy for me to sleep with you, to throw you a bone and hope that would keep you, she told him on another night, this time in the back of his truck. They’d both been staring up at the stars, their hands linked after too much kissing had nearly wrecked them both.
Am I supposed to talk you out of that? he’d asked. Grumpily, because he was a grown man and this girl was going to break him. Had already broken him.
She’d turned over, propped herself up on her elbow, and regarded him. All solemn eyes and her mouth swollen from his.
Is that how you want me, Ty? she’d asked quietly. Do you want me, or do you want the girl who would betray herself because that’s easier than staying the course?
“Six seconds!” the crowd cheered.
He remembered walking down what aisle there was in the chapel they’d found in Vegas. He remembered how bright her smile had been and how silly his had been in return.
He couldn’t remember what the officiant had said or any of the vows he made in return.
Because all he could see was Hannah in the blue dress she’d brought for a dinner out that had turned into a wedding gown, all that love for him pouring out of her.
His wife. His.
Deep inside, he still had all those same shadows, all the same doubt, but there was something about Hannah that made him believe he could handle them.
He’d been determined he could handle them.
He’d carried her over the threshold of their hotel room, and he’d laid her down in the wide, soft bed.
And he’d made her his in every way he knew how.
He’d told her he loved her, over and over again. But he hadn’t known how to tell her that she was the one who owned him, body and soul.
Or how much that had still scared him.
“Seven seconds!” The crowd was roaring. “Here we go—”
He remembered their fight that night, tucked away in a forgotten room in the back of a rodeo complex a lot like this one.
Pregnant? How the hell can you be pregnant?
Well, Ty, I’m no expert, but I imagine it came about in the usual way, she had drawled right back at him.
As she’d told him tonight, there had been no wilting. She hadn’t been cowering in a corner while he stormed at her and broke things.
On the contrary, she’d looked a lot like she might swing on him.
Maybe you forgot, but I was the virgin in this scenario, she’d thrown at him. I thought you were taking care of the practicalities.
I did take care of them. I don’t understand how this happened.
If you take a peek around at the whole of the planet, I’m confident you’ll find all kinds of people wandering around, miraculously alive because the practicalities don’t always work.
This is a disaster, he’d shouted her.
That was when she’d cracked. But even then, she hadn’t crumpled. She’d stood tall.
I don’t know that I would call it a disaster, exactly, she’d said. We’re already married. Granted, that’s a deep, dark secret, but I imagine it will come to light one way or another when I start showing. And of course, once that
happens—
This can’t happen, Hannah.
This was always going to happen, she had said. Then she’d stared at him, her eyes getting bigger by the second. Wasn’t it?
And he remembered.
He remembered everything.
What he’d said, which hadn’t been kind or careful, but hadn’t been cruel either.
More than that, he remembered what he’d felt.
Terrified.
From his head to his toes, absolutely terrified that no matter his best intentions, he would end up doing to his own child what his father had done to him. What his father still did to him.
He couldn’t bear it.
Ty had been kidding himself with Hannah. That was clear to him, then. He’d been playing with fire, and now they were both burned, and there’d be an innocent child in the middle of it.
How could he have been so thoughtless? So damned reckless, the way he’d been accused of being his whole life?
He remembered.
He’d stormed out of that room, not because he wanted to hurt her, but because he was terribly afraid he already had.
“Eight seconds!” the announcer bellowed.
The crowd cheered with him, and Ty was dimly aware that everyone was on their feet. He could feel the roar. He got a glimpse of the big screen all lit up and going wild with something like fireworks as his body did its thing.
And he remembered. Everything. Big, small. Not only that, he could feel everything that had been behind that glass. It all poured into him.
Love. Loss. Fear. Hunger and regret.
Faith, promises, and Hannah.
It all came back to Hannah.
Because Ty knew the darkness, inside and out. He’d left his father’s house to get away from it. He’d done what he could to be nothing like the man who’d raised him, fearing all the while he was exactly the same.
But Hannah was a bright light.
He got his hand free, then took his dive, and he’d spent a lot of time worrying about how he’d do it this time. What if he froze up? What if he rolled the wrong way? Would the memory of what happened last time, stamped as it was on his body forever whether he recalled it directly or not, make him choke this time around?
But while Ty was aware of Tough Luck, all two thousand pissed-off and snorting pounds of him, he’d already stopped caring about him.
He hit the ground and rolled to his feet, and the cheering was so loud, he could feel it inside his bones. He could see people in the stands, up on their feet and chanting his name. All the glory he’d ever wanted and more, and Ty didn’t care. It was all noise.
Until he found her, up there in the risers.
It was the same as it had been earlier this summer on the ranch.
It was the way it had been every other time, each and every one of which he could remember now.
The world stood still.
His ears rang.
His heart skipped a beat.
Because she was his lighthouse, beaming out all that brightness everywhere she turned, warning him away from the rocks—especially when the rocks were him.
He couldn’t believe how close he’d come to losing her all over again.
The rodeo clown was making his way toward him, and the bullfighters were busy doing their thing, but Ty didn’t care about any of them.
He headed straight for her, like his life depended on it.
Hannah had that smile welded to her face, serene and cool and all rodeo queen, and she held their baby in her arms.
And the closer Ty got, the less that smile stayed serene.
He vaulted up the side of the ring, tossed himself over, and stalked straight toward her. He jumped the wide stairs to get to her bench, the crowd parting around him like butter.
“You appear to be making a scene, cowboy,” she drawled when he drew near.
He could see the tears on her cheeks, and he knew she’d cried when he’d gotten on that bull. Cried for eight seconds straight, unless he missed his guess. And sobbed when he’d rolled free at the end.
Now her eyes were suspiciously bright, but she wasn’t crying.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Then and now. Always.
“I remember,” he told her gruffly.
He didn’t care that there was a crowd all around them. He didn’t care who could hear them. If the cameras were on them. If they were breaking even more rules.
Ty didn’t care about anything except making sure this woman, his wife, understood him. “Baby. I remember everything.”
Jack wiggled in her arms, but Hannah’s eyes filled with something like wonder. And hope. She reached over and lay her hand against his cheek, still wearing the ring he’d put back on her finger in Colorado.
“Welcome back,” she whispered.
There were so many things Ty wanted to tell her. So many ways he wanted to show her that he’d finally woken up. Finally come back to himself. Finally found his way out of that dark, and all because she’d loved him straight through to the light.
But they were standing in the middle of a noisy arena. All the lights were on them, all those eyes and cell phones and wagging tongues.
And Ty remembered now, so he knew that too much of their relationship had been conducted in the shadows. So many lies. So many secrets. So many twists and tangles in what was the most beautiful and most simple thing he’d ever known.
He had a lifetime to tell her. He would.
Tonight, Ty had reclaimed his reputation and his glory in eight of the longest seconds of his life. He would give up the reputation and the glory in a heartbeat.
But he’d ride out those eight seconds a thousand more times if it brought him back to her. If it gave him back the love that had changed him.
He reached down and carefully took the baby from her arms, holding his son high against his shoulder.
“Hey there, little man,” he said, looking into those solemn, dark green eyes that were a whole lot like his own. “I promise you, I’m never going to leave you again.”
Jack squealed in delight.
Ty looked back down to the woman before him, who was no longer making any effort at all to keep her tears from flooding her face.
His beautiful Hannah, tough enough to take him on and smart enough to take her time. Sweet enough to wait him out. And tenacious enough to come back even after he told her to go.
He swept her up with his other arm, hauling her straight off the ground and up against him. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, laughing a bit as she looked down at him.
“I never want to get so lost again,” he told her, a gruff vow. “I never will.”
“Ty,” she whispered. “I’m always going to find you.”
“You won’t have to look,” he promised her. “I’m always going to be right there beside you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Hannah whispered.
Then he took her mouth, kissing her deep and hard, right there in front of the cheering crowd. Up there on the screen, where everyone could see them, and he made it good. Because he was so in love with this woman, he couldn’t see straight, whether or not he was riding bulls. And because he wanted there to be no doubt in anyone’s mind that she was his, he was hers, Jack was theirs, and this was how it was at the rodeo. And forever.
He kissed her and kissed her, out there in all that bright and beautiful light, because Hannah was the reason he could step out of the darkness at all. She was the reason he wasn’t his father. She was the reason he could imagine hoping for something better.
Hannah was the reason. Every reason.
And Ty was never hiding her—or from her—again.
23
The second time Hannah married Ty, at the end of that same gold and bright August, they invited everyone they knew.
They said their vows beneath the shade of the big tree out behind that old barn where Ty had gotten that scar of his. Hannah wore a big white dress. They put Jack in boots and jeans and a fresh
ly pressed cowboy shirt to match his daddy.
Mama and Aunt Bit walked Hannah down the aisle, one on each arm.
This time, when they said their vows, it was in front of both their families and the friends they’d made along the way. And when they were done, they got to celebrate. Without the bittersweet knowledge that they were going to have to hide afterward.
Abby, still pregnant and less okay with it two weeks after her due date and counting, had produced a handful of local musicians, which was how Hannah got to dance with her husband as the last of the sweet summer evening gave way toward a breathtaking Colorado night filled with stars. And all the potential of the life she planned to live with this man. Because God knew they’d fought hard enough for it.
“I love you,” he told her as he held her in his arms. The way he kept telling her, as if he had to make up for the eighteen months where he’d forgotten.
Hannah couldn’t say she minded.
“I love you too,” she told him.
That would be enough. It was everything, all on its own, but there was already so much more.
Buck Stapleton had approached them after Ty’s post-win romantic run to Hannah got national attention. He’d had a bigger and broader smile across his face than either one of them had ever seen, which was alarming. He’d wondered if they’d like to do some publicity appearances as a couple to bolster the rodeo’s reputation—and capitalize on their pop of fame.
The king and queen of Rodeo Forever, Buck had boomed.
Hannah’s initial response had been regrettably unladylike, if thankfully internal.
But she and Ty were rodeo people. They loved it and believed in it, or they wouldn’t have given it their whole lives. The rodeo had been their family when their own had let them down. And no one had to tell Hannah that family could be complicated.
Why, Buck, she’d said, all smile and sparkle. We’d love that.
Though here, now, as she swayed in her husband’s arms on the land his people had carved out of the wilderness, she knew that as much as it would be fun to do an appearance here or there, everything was different now. She didn’t want to center her life around it. She had her man, at last. He remembered everything. And they had their own family now. Maybe she would do something with horses. Or wannabe rodeo queens.
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