Page 65 of Down in Flames
His father’s eyes twinkled. “You were born with a faulty heart, but there’s nothing wrong with your brain. You expect me to believe you can’t find a mark out line?”
A slow flush of shame had crept up West’s neck as he admitted, “I didn’t want word getting back home. Besides, it was never about winning.”
“What was it about?”
“Proving that I was stronger than you.”
West had never heard such a loud silence. It had echoed in his ears until he thought he might go deaf with it. When he couldn’t stand it any longer, he steeled his jaw and risked a glance in his father’s direction. He’d expected anger, or maybe pity. Anything other than what he got.
His father had looked stunned. His face was slack, and his mouth moved, but it took a couple of tries before he finally spoke. Even then, it was just to blow out a hard breath and mutter, “For fuck’s sake, son.”
West couldn’t help but laugh. He’d run through the nightmare of that conversation hundreds of times, and not once had he ever imagined such a response.
His father had stared down at his hands, flexing his knobby fingers, still thick with calluses that would never fade, and said the words West had been longing to hear his whole life.
“They cut you open so many times when you were a kid, and you never let it break you. All that pain and sickness didn’t turn you into something less. But me? I fell to pieces as soon as my body couldn’t do everything I expected, and I let that bitterness infect the whole damn family. Strong. Ha!” He began to laugh. “You’re stronger than all of us.”
Those words had killed Kade Keller for good.
Now there was only West Owens, prodigy son, and he was ready to show the world what he could do.
“Are you sure about this?” Hank asked skeptically, eyebrows twisting like caterpillars as he watched West climb inside the chute. “I don’t want you to be shamed on your home turf, son.”
West just grinned and bit off a piece of athletic tape before wrapping it around his glove. He still didn’t look like a bronc buster. No Stetsons and chaps for a country boy like him, just a pair of dusty jeans and his old Smarty the Steer hat, faded from washes and turned backward over hair that needed a trim. Michael had finally dug his lucky cap out of the irrigation pit before closing it up, and West had barely taken it off since.
He’d never been so fresh before a rodeo, but then, he’d never been to one so close to home. The county fair came like clockwork every spring, drawing cowboys from all over eastern Oregon for low-stakes fun, and the stands were packed full of locals. It was the first time he’d ridden since his secret got out, but not for lack of interest. He’d just been busy living life, settling into his new roles as a business owner and family man.
Gus retired shortly before Christmas, claiming that he wanted to take Mable on a whirlwind European tour while they still had the knees to do more than shuffleboard. Michael had fronted West the money to purchase the shop, and the first thing West did was order a dozen more garden gnomes. Jimmy handled all the deliveries these days, saving West’s back for the more important labor that came with living full-time at the Triple M.
He and Michael had married in a small, private ceremony just before the new year, giving August French the opportunity to gather all his courage and wear his best suit down at the courthouse. Neither of them had wanted to make a big show of it. That wasn’t them. Abby carried a small spray of pink roses and wore her prettiest dress, one with pockets for the rings that she gleefully placed in her father’s big hand when he reached down for them.
West had never been an ambitious man. He was a small-town boy with small-town dreams, but when he slid that thick gold band past Michael’s knuckle, he knew deep in his heart it was the most important thing he’d ever accomplish, in this life or the next.
That night, they had the ranch completely to themselves. The chores had all been finished early, and the crew had vanished only after setting a glowing array of lanterns and candles all over the front porch. A bucket of ice and champagne sat on a tray beside a carafe of hot coffee, and pillows and blankets were piled into a velvet nest.
They cuddled together as the sun went down over the snow-covered mountains. They made love as the clouds shook out fat, lazy snowflakes, and West finally learned what it felt like inside Michael’s body. He memorized the precise moment Michael’s breath turned ragged, the way the muscles in his back twitched, how vulnerable his nape looked as he writhed and groaned into a pillow.
Afterward, it was West who cried. He lay there, cradled in Michael’s arms, with tears scalding his icy face.
“Why are you crying?” Michael asked, brushing his knuckles over West's damp cheeks.
West caught his hand and laced their fingers together, examining the gleam of their rings in the lamplight.
“Just thankful,” he whispered. “By my count, we still have another fifty-nine years and eight months of nights just like this. At least.”
“Well, not exactly like this,” Michael teased, shifting until his thickening erection slid between West’s thighs.
“It will be the same in the only way that matters,” West insisted. “No matter how hard things might get, if you’re here with me, I’ll always be exactly this happy.”
Michael brought his hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the warm metal of his ring. Then his hand. His wrist. The inside curve of his elbow. When Michael reared up over him and pressed him down into the blankets, West closed his eyes and gave himself over to the cowboy who had always owned him, body and soul, from the very first time their eyes met.
That cowboy now stood apart from the crowd on the bleachers, hat tipped low and hands tucked deep inside the pockets of his shearling-lined jacket. Abby sat on the bleachers nearby, tearing chunks off a bright blue puff of cotton candy and occasionally offering a piece to West’s father, who accepted with a grimace. Both James and Susan had brought their families, and Bethie and her new boyfriend had traveled all the way from Salem, so the Owens clan filled out two rows on their own. Only Derek and their mother hadn’t shown.
“I’ll be there in spirit,” West’s mother had said, scrubbing at her teary eyes with the backs of her hands, “but I just can’t watch my baby put himself in harm’s way. Not when I worked so hard to keep him safe.”
West didn’t begrudge it. That woman’s big, strong heart had kept his own pumping for years. It deserved to be sheltered now.
“You couldn’t have drawn a bigger SOB,” Hank remarked as he stared down the agitated stallion inside the chute. “Ain’t a single man who’s been able to ride him since his debut.”