Oh, he wasn’t afraid to have his bones broken. Wasn’t afraid to get stomped on and ground into dust in an arena. No, he wasn’t afraid of that.

But he was afraid to love.

He was afraid to put his whole self into something and have the return come back broken. Damaged and mangled beyond repair.

He was afraid of wanting someone who would never want him in quite the same way. Who would hurt him. Again and again.

He got out of bed, his feet making contact with the cold floor. And his thoughts kept racing, even as he started moving. As he put his boots on, grabbed his truck keys and headed out the door.

He wasn’t afraid of being his father. He was afraid of being his mother.

And he wondered if part of him had chosen to behave just a little bit like Hank Dalton, so that he would never find himself in Tammy Dalton’s shoes.

He could see himself, seventeen and being told he might be a father. And the real terror he’d felt. Not just that he couldn’t do it, but of all the pain he’d be opening himself up to.

Marriage. A child.

It had terrified him even then.

Fuck.

He was just so very fucked.

And Jamie...

At that moment that dull ache in his chest turned into something more. Something deeper. And it fractured. Pulling his whole chest apart, and he bled. He bled for this. Bled for her. Bled for them.

He was, in a metaphorical sense, selling his own horses out from underneath himself. So that he couldn’t try and fail. So that he couldn’t try, and end up wounded.

It was that moment when he realized he was headed to the Dalton ranch.

He had given himself a mediocre life that he didn’t want any part of, and he had blamed his parents. He had blamed his circumstances. He had blamed his need for the rodeo money. He had blamed every damn thing in the world except for Gabe Dalton. But Gabe Dalton was the only one who could answer for these sins.

It was easy to make it about the sins of his father. Easy to make it about the sins of his mother.

But all had sinned. And he sinned against himself more righteously than anyone else ever had.

And Jamie... Jamie had loved him, anyway. Jamie had demanded he look her in the face and say he didn’t love her, and he was such a coward he’d looked her directly in the eyes and spoken those words. Lied right to her. Lied right to himself.

Because the scariest thing in all the world wasn’t getting on the back of an angry animal. No. The scariest thing in all the world was opening himself up to love. To the potential for pain. Real pain.

Not physical pain that might leave you with a limp, but emotional pain that would live with you for the rest of your life.