“Good thing I’m tone-deaf.”

“Can I at least do what you...demanded, asked, me to do first? I’ll promote the hotel. I’ll tell everybody how much I loved it, and that it’s under new ownership and... I can make a big song and dance about the fact that I was here during the snowstorm and it was wonderful.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, because I might as well get something out of it. And maybe if people know that you were here with me, they’ll stop yelling at me on streets.”

“Yes. Fine. That seems fair.” Silence lapsed between them, and she stabbed the carrot with her fork and took a bite of it. “You’re going to quit riding rodeo, aren’t you?”

“What makes you say that?” he asked.

“Because of what you told me. About focus. About goals. About how you couldn’t want anything else as long as you were trying to win. So this is what you want now? This is what you’re trying to win?”

“Yes. You know, I have a trust fund. But I wanted to make sure I didn’t use it for this. I don’t want my dad’s success. I want my own. And inescapably, my success is going to be built on some of that. I can’t erase the advantages I got from him. Because my winnings that come from the rodeo... I was in the rodeo because of him.”

“But you won because of you.”

He didn’t know quite what to do with that. With that kind word from her, because it was as real as any of the mean ones, but he wasn’t sure why she had bothered to give it to him.

“I didn’t really choose it, though. So now I decided to have something that I chose. I decided to make sure that it could be something that I wanted. That I was...” He was going to say that he was proud of. He wasn’t sure that he was proud of a damn thing. Because what everything came back to was... This was something he could do.

He was fine enough at doing things.

It was why he’d worked for his family all those years. Because he could.

Feeling? Being there for someone emotionally? That was beyond him.

Something had broken inside of him a long time ago, and he didn’t even have the desire to fix it. If something could have, it would’ve been Tansey.

But he hadn’t wanted her to fix it then any more than he wanted it fixed now.

So maybe proud was a bridge too far for anything that he was going to do.

“I wanted something that was mine,” he said.

And that much was true.

Because a man had to have land. His own. And his own achievements to stand on.

She nodded. “I understand that. You know...you know that I joined the rodeo to show my dad. And you know that I... I wanted to be successful and famous to show him. He doesn’t care, Flint.” She swallowed hard, and looked away. “He asked me for money. He found me, of course, not when I was barrel racing, no, nothing like that. He found me when I was really successful. When I might have something to give him. And you know... I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. If I wanted to hold the fact that I had money and he didn’t over his head and deny him. Or give it to him so that he would need me.” She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him. “Neither reason was very good motivation. Both make me...kind of a terrible person.”

“What did you do?”

She swallowed hard. “I gave it to him. But not so I can hold it over his head. I gave it to him because... I just wanted it to not mean anything. And for him to not matter. If I withheld it, it was admitting I was angry. There was no way for me to really win. So I gave him money. Payment for the emotional scarring that produced the music, except I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to give him any credit for it. He never mentioned it. I think if he had known that the song was actually about him, like if he had known that it was autobiographical, he wouldn’t have asked for money.”

“He knew you were famous, but he’s never listened to your music.”

“No.”

“Well. He’s a special kind of asshole. Even I listened to my expert takedown.”

“You thought he deserved it, at least that’s what you said when you heard the song.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t deserve it, Tansey,” he said. “I said I didn’t like it.”

And that was the truth. It was a strange thing, this conversation. These honesty pitfalls. The fact that he remembered too keenly how much he had liked her.

It was easy to let all the pain that had come after that erase the friendship. His genuine affection for her. It was easy to tell himself it had all been some kind of sexual fever dream, followed by an immature tantrum on her part.

That was a lie.

He’d been in too deep with her. And it had not been his imagination. He couldn’t deny it. Not now.

It was way too easy to remember the good times. To remember that friendship as the foundation, and the way that had shifted. The way it had shifted under his feet without him making the decision to let it.

Because he knew better. That was the thing. He had never in his life let himself get drawn into a relationship with a woman because he knew he didn’t have the capacity to give a woman what she needed. He had always known that marriage and children weren’t for him. He had known that since he was fourteen years old. And he had never, ever crossed those lines; he had never done anything that he was ashamed of with a woman. Not until her.

But he knew why it happened.

Because of her. Because there was something about her. And in the end, he supposed it wasn’t all that surprising that she’d ended up famous. If he couldn’t look away from her, it stood to reason the whole world couldn’t look away from her.

He gritted his teeth. And he tried not to remember. He really did try to not remember.

Before

It turned out that her truck was effectively blown up, and while she absolutely refused to let him buy her a new one, she did concede to the fact that while she sorted it all out, she was going to need a ride. And he offered to be that ride. They would be driving from Utah to Nevada over the next few days, and they’d be taking the road trip together. All that would be fine if he didn’t still want to kiss her. And if she hadn’t been very clear that it wasn’t going to happen.

I really like you.

He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had said that to him.

I want you, sure.

But not I really like you.

He liked her too.

It was a hell of a thing.

He took his position back behind the gates to watch her event, and his heart was pounding harder than it did when it was his turn to ride.

When she rode, she rode spectacular, and it put her right up in the number-one spot.

When she got off, and came out of the gate, he pulled her in for a hug, lifting her up off the ground.

“Easy there, Ace,” she said, her arms wrapped around his neck. He put her down, and kept holding on to her. She kept holding on to him.

“Tansey...”

She looked around, then stretched up on her toes, and kissed his cheek.