The brawl spreads outward like a virus. Within seconds, it seems like everyone is fighting, and I can’t tell if there’s teams or sides, or just a whole lot of people taking the opportunity to release their aggression on whoever’s standing next to them.
Somebody grabs my arm, but it’s only Shelby pulling me toward the door, her arm cradled protectively around her belly.
“Come on!” she shouts.
“What about Bo?“
“Raylan’ll bring her,” Shelby pants.
She pulls me outside to the porch, which is already crowded with the dancers who likewise wanted to flee the brawl. Some people are laughing and peeking in the windows, commenting on the riot within. Others are heading to their cars, obviously feeling like they had enough fun for one night.
I hear the wail of a single siren, distant but distinct. Somebody called the cops, though I don’t know how a single sheriff is going to break up this mess.
Raylan comes barreling through the doorway, half-carrying and half-dragging Bo along. Grady is right behind him. Together they frog-march their sister back to the truck. Raylan’s lip is swollen, and Grady has the beginning of an impressive black eye. But both are grinning.
“You said you weren’t going to fight tonight!” Shelby says, slapping her husband’s arm furiously. He seems to feel it about as much as a moose feels a mosquito. Still, he pretends to be cowed.
“I didn’t start that!” he says. “Duke did.”
Bo looks mildly guilty. She knows that if anybody started the fight, it was her. But she doesn’t pipe up, and I’m not going to rat her out.
Once Raylan has stuffed Bo in the backseat, he grabs my shoulders and looks me over.
“Are you okay?” he says.
“Yeah, of course. I’m fine,” I assure him.
“Alright. Just making sure you didn’t get hit by any stray shrapnel,” he says. “You know . . . solo cups. Tobacco juice. Cowboy sweat.”
I smile, despite myself.
“No,” I say. “Nothing like that.”
“Thank god,” Raylan says. “You get a drop of cowboy sweat on you, and you’re never getting that smell out.”
“You’re a cowboy,” I say, low enough that nobody else will hear. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten your sweat on me . . . ”
Raylan grins. “That’s different . . . ”
“So how’d you like your first country dance?” Shelby calls up to me from the backseat.
“It was . . . pretty fun,” I admit.
“You got the full experience,” Grady says. “No good dance ends without a brawl.”
“There’s plenty of good dances without any fighting!” Shelby cries.
“Name one,” Grady says.
Shelby bites her lip, obviously at a loss for an immediate answer.
“Carrie’s wedding!” she blurts.
“Uh uh. Jonny White beat the shit out of Carl Oakton halfway through the reception. Right before they cut the cake.”
I can see Shelby scowling in the rear-view mirror, but she can’t seem to think of any other examples to prove her assertion.
Grady grins smugly, throwing his arm around his wife’s shoulders and squeezing her tight.
Bo sits next to the pair, silent and frowning.
Raylan glances back at her.
“You okay, sis?” he says.
“Yeah, of course,” Bo says. “I’m fine.”
Raylan nods and turns back to the road, but I can see him thinking, probably piecing together what happened.
18
Raylan
A kind of peaceable silence spreads out in the car. I can tell Shelby is getting sleepy, her head leaned up against Grady’s chest and her eyelids drooping like a child’s. Bo is looking out the window, even though the night is black as pitch and she can’t see anything in the fields and forest we pass.
I don’t know what the fuck is going on with her and Duke, but I don’t exactly feel like I’m in a position to give advice. I’m chasing after a girl who barely tolerates me, who seems determined to slam the drawbridge down on my head every time I try to wriggle my way through her castle wall.
Goddamn Riona looked so gorgeous tonight. I love her in her lawyer clothes, but I’ve never seen anything prettier than her creamy skin against that pale green dress, with her red hair all loose and wavy around her shoulders.
She looked relaxed and free in a way I’ve never seen before. Strangely, she looked more herself than she did in Chicago. She was smiling and laughing, dancing with me like she’d been doing it all her life. She tries to be so rigid and stern, but that’s not her, not really. The real Riona is adventurous, climbing on a horse when she’s never been within ten feet of one before. She’s graceful, spinning around in my arms like she was born to dance. She’s perceptive, getting to know Bo when Bo’s as prickly as a cactus and can’t get along with anybody, including her own damn best friend.
That’s what I see when I look at Riona. A woman who can be anything and do anything she wants.
But she seems determined to deny it.
I felt her pulling away from me as we danced. I saw that resentment flare up in her eyes again, that refusal to let herself enjoy something that she was obviously loving just a few minutes before.
I don’t understand her.
But goddamn do I want to.
I want it more than anything. I want to crack the code of her psyche. I want to win her over. I want to make her mine.
And it’s not just ‘cause it’s a challenge. Maybe it started out that way—Dante calls me Long Shot for a reason. If you tell me I can’t have something, I want it ten times more.
But it’s gone way past that with Riona. The more time I spend with her, the more I realize that she has a force of will inside of her stronger than a hurricane. I admire it.
I never wanted some sweet-tempered country girl. I adore Shelby—she’s just the right kind of angel to put up with my brother. But I don’t want that for myself.
I want an equal. Someone who pushes me, and challenges me.
I want a partner.
The only problem is, you can’t make somebody your partner against their will. And I don’t think Riona wants to tie herself to me for one goddamned second. I think even the idea of that would terrify her.
I don’t know how to convince her to give me a real shot.
But I’ve got a couple ideas.
“You can just drop us at the house,” Grady tells me.
“Sure,” I say, turning right at the fork in the road that leads to their place. I drop them off in front of their pretty white house, waiting just a minute to see if my mom will be coming out. The door remains shut—I’m guessing she probably fell asleep right next to the boys when she was putting them to bed. That’s what usually happens.
So I drive Bo and Riona back to the ranch house instead. Bo hops out as soon as I shut off the engine. She goes stomping into the house, still steamed up about whatever happened at the dance, and not wanting to talk to Riona or me about it.
Riona starts walking in the same direction, but I grab her arm and gently pull her back, saying, “Hold up a second, I want to talk to you.”