you make it to that rock up there?” He pointed toward a long, low boulder.
“Sure. Okay.”
Her mind roiled while she trudged up the hill behind him, reluctant as a convict en route to the gallows. It was stupid to think she’d be able to hide her fear from Lane. He was bound to figure it out eventually, unless she left him—and that just wasn’t something she could do. Not now, not ever. She’d told him the truth in the hospital—this wasn’t just about sex. He was the one for her, the only one. And that meant she had to share everything, including her fears.
She’d been thinking about giving up on Lane, letting him go. But she never gave up anything without a fight. If she couldn’t ride, she was going to have to tell him why.
“You know, this would be a lot easier if you’d ride instead of walking,” he said.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Sure you can. You rode Flash, for God’s sake.”
“Not when it mattered.” She sat back down so abruptly she almost bruised her tailbone.
“Tell me about it.”
He sat beside her and the whole story spilled out. The quiet night, the locked trailer, the surreptitious saddling of the horse. His sudden change from docile mount to kicking, screaming chaos. The feeling of total defeat as she led him back to the trailer, back to his unknown fate, back to the road that would take him away from her.
“I couldn’t do it.” Somehow, in the telling of the story, she’d ended up with her head on Lane’s shoulder. His shirt was wet with tears and getting wetter, but he didn’t seem to mind. His arm circled her protectively and she felt her secrets spilling with her tears. “I couldn’t do it, and I knew they’d take him and it would be over. And then when he sold so cheap, I knew I should have tried again and it was too late. I failed, Lane. My family lost everything, and all because I was scared.”
He pulled her face to his shoulder and rocked her back and forth, to and fro, the motion soothing as a cradle. “You weren’t scared, honey. You were traumatized. You saw your dad die. You can’t just shake that off.”
“But I had to. And I should have. Soldiers do it.” She was spilling words faster and faster. “They see people die and they still do what they have to do.”
“You weren’t a soldier. You were a kid.”
“But I gave up. I gave up and I let it happen.”
“And now you’re giving up again.”
She jerked away from him. “What?”
“Do you really think you’ll be happy as long as you can’t ride? Do you really think you can hang out here and see the one thing in the world you can’t do and not grow to hate it? What happened wasn’t your fault, but you’re not a kid anymore. You can’t give up now.”
She sniffled and hunched her shoulders, feeling almost as miserable as she’d felt the day they’d taken Flash. “I did try. I can’t do it.”
“Yes you can.” His eyes met her, challenging and unwavering. “You can get on that horse and ride away from your past, leave it behind you forever. Or you can stay on the ground and keep wallowing around in it. Your choice.”
She hunched lower, reminding herself that she loved this man. And he loved her. He was doing what he thought was best. He didn’t realize he was killing her.
“You weren’t scared of anything when you rode Flash.”
“I’m not that girl anymore.”
“No, maybe not. Maybe you don’t want to be.” He knelt beside her. “Fear is a choice, Sarah. I’m scared every time I get on a bull. But I get on anyway.”
“Yeah, but you’re an idiot.”
“I’m a rodeo cowboy.”
“Same difference.” She sniffed, then took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll try.” She stood and reached for the reins in his hand. “Give me Ollie.”
“You’re riding this one.”
“Lane, I can’t do that. He looks just like…”
“There’s an old saying in rodeo: ‘When you get thrown off the bucking bronco, you got to get back on the bronc that throwed you.’”
“And in business we have a definition of what crazy is: Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.”
They stood inches apart, their eyes meeting in a challenge just as they had on that first day. He lifted his chin and gave her just the faintest hint of a smug smile and she snatched the reins from his hand.