“What’s your fuckin’ problem, Jace? Jesus—I’m here to see you ride.”
“Bullshit. Try again. What are you doin’ here?”
There was no point in answering him. He was right. Maybe in part it was to see his brother, but it was a very small part. He was here to see Blythe, and Jace knew it.
“Where is she?”
Jace walked away without answering. When Tucker didn’t follow, Jace turned around. “Did you wanna get into the rodeo or not?”
Jace flashed his credentials at the cowgirl sitting by the door. The look on her face let them know they could’ve gotten in without any problem, credentials or not.
“Where is she?” Tucker asked again.
“What makes you think she’s here?”
“She’s here.”
There were so many things Jace wanted to say to Tucker, and all of them would be said in anger. He was as mad at himself as he was at his brother, though. He’d been the dumbass who’d told Tuck that he planned to see Blythe. He might as well have waved a red cape in front of one of the bulls. Of course, that got Tucker on the next plane. Of course. Why had he been so stupid?
Last night, he’d practically begged Blythe to give him a chance to make her forget about Tucker. Now, the only chance he had was a fat one.
Blythe’s view was unobstructed when she saw Jace come through the door with Tucker, who followed his brother’s gaze and looked straight at her. And damn him, he smiled. She couldn’t help herself; she smiled back.
The roar of the crowd in the arena had quelled to background noise. Everything else but Tucker faded away.
“Holy shit,” she heard someone say. It might’ve been Lyric. “Damn, those two are hot.”
“Mmm hmm,” Blythe murmured. It was precisely what she thought when they’d climbed out of the truck, the first time she saw them.
They looked so much alike—yet so different. Jace was all cowboy tonight. Tucker, on the other hand, had on a dark turtleneck sweater, which, from a distance, looked rich and soft. He moved with perfect grace in his snug jeans, and while she couldn’t tell from where she was, she guessed he had on the same black boots he was wearing when she met him.
He looked like an artist, or maybe a writer. At the same time, he fit in perfectly in the rodeo setting. He moved with the ease of a man accustomed to being around rough stock.
Her gaze shifted to Jace, who looked as though he’d been able to read her thoughts and knew they had nothing to do with him. Disappointment carved grooves in his brow; his eyes darkened and lost their fire.
Blythe wanted to comfort him, tell him it would be okay, but the man standing next to him made that impossible. Even from a hundred feet away, Blythe was willing to do whatever Tucker asked of her. No one had ever affected her this way. Not even Jace.
There she was. Not close enough to touch, but almost. Tucker wanted to jump the fence and walk straight through the arena to her, but he couldn’t get his body to move. It was as though a part of him was acutely aware that, once he moved, once he walked to where she was, once he touched her, his life and hers would irrevocably change.
His face still held a smile. He couldn’t help himself; seeing her made him happy. And she smiled back. How long had they been staring at each other from this distance? Not so long that her eyes showed doubt. They still held his, transfixed.
He kept his gaze on her while he weaved his way in and out of the crowd. She stood and walked in his direction. God, he liked that about her, that she wouldn’t simply stand and wait. She’d come to him, too.
It was all she could do not to run. It was too crowded to, but that’s what her body longed to do. The walk to him seemed impossibly long.
He was still a few feet away when she stopped. What was she doing? This was not a long lost lover or even a dear friend. This was a man she’d had dinner with once, then he left and hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t heard a word from him since. What was she thinking? She shook her head and turned to go back to her seat.
She stopped. Why? And worse, instead of coming to him, she was walking away. Tucker worked his way through the last of the crowd that separated them and grabbed her arm, right above her elbow.
“Blythe?”
She jerked her arm away. “I can’t do this.”
A wall of people trying to move through the coliseum prevented her from getting any farther away from him. Tucker stood behind her and put his hand on her waist. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
He felt her body tense. Her breathing accelerated. “What for?” she asked.
“Everything,” he answered.