Word Count: 78,028
Summary of Events:
Kingston spent the drive to the next rodeo despairing that he'd ever be able to regain the success he'd had last season and contemplates quitting rodeo and going back to baseball, which he'd played as a teen. At the next rodeo Kingston's horse stumbles and he gets a re-ride, all the while contemplating how he'll go about officially ending his rodeo career and moving back into baseball — and wondering how he'll break the news to Blair. At the Ponoka Stampede later that week Kingston ends up talking to Wyatt McCoy, one of the most famed bronc riders in recent memory, who is upset that Kingston doesn't do much for training and refuses to let Kingston say there's no point in trying . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
“You know the answer kid,” Wyatt said firmly. “You know what the point of trying is.”
“No, I don’t,” Kingston replied curtly, going to step around Wyatt.
Smoothly, Wyatt stepped in his way and grabbed his shoulders firmly. “I’ve seen that fire in your eyes, that near-primal desire to risk your life, in some ways, honestly, just for the thrill of it. You could’ve had a safe, secure job, but you chose instead to have this, and now you’ve gotten so deluded you think you’re going to be able to walk away from this and not regret it?”
Kingston’s chest tightened, tears threatened at his eyes.
“I know you want it,” Wyatt said. “You’re just trying to convince yourself that you don’t, you’re trying to convince yourself you’re doing the right thing in giving up, in quitting, in hanging up the spurs and the ripe old age of twenty. You think if you say it isn’t worth it enough the statement will become true, but you know it won’t, you know that you’re never going to be able to quench that desire, and you’ll be left to suffer a life of dissatisfaction because you walked away from your dream for one of the stupidest reasons there could possibly be. It took you blood, sweat, and tears to get here, it should take no less to stay, and you should know that.”
Desperate to keep Wyatt from seeing the tears, Kingston lowered his head, but Wyatt immediately grabbed his jaw and held it up firmly, his steely gaze holding Kingston’s relentlessly.
“I know you didn’t spend as much time with your dad as Quinn did,” Wyatt said. “I thought that served you better. And you could say it did, but you could dispute that too, because you seem to have the same flippant mentality as Quinn does about rodeo. You think it’s easy, you deny that it takes a whole lot of fortitude to stay here, even though it took you a whole lot of fortitude to get here. I know you and Quinn don’t get on well; that in spite of the wide differences between your events of choice that there is still this unquenchable and intense sibling rivalry between the two of you; so I tell you this: if you want to be better than Quinn, for ever and always, you need to be willing to roll up your sleeves, put on your big boy boots, and earn the right to stay here.”
Kingston tried to pull his jaw out of Wyatt’s grip as tears blurred his vision.
“You can’t do it alone,” Wyatt said, his tone softening. “Don’t lie to yourself that you can, because that’s in the bull pens too. You need help to do this. Everyone does. Why do you think the rodeo community is so tight-knit? We know we need each other. I will help you, and I’m sure Drew and Lincoln, among many others, will do the same. You aren’t alone, and you shouldn’t expect to be.”
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