Rodeo Rumble Sneak Peek

The heart monitor beeps with life, but not enough to wake Abe. I wonder over every step, every careless comment Clark said to her. How we easily dismissed it, how we failed her time and time again at protecting her from the one man who hurt her the most.

            Her face is pale, lifeless comes to mind, but Roarke won’t let me say it out loud.

            “Judd,” Sutton calls my name, probably for coffee, maybe even for a beer. But I can’t focus on a drink. I must know where we went wrong.

            I need to know why it happened at all.

            Let me go.

            Maybe we have been hurting her just as badly. In Spanish, it’s “déjame ir,” meaning “leave me.” Acre could probably translate it into Japanese and Portuguese, but in any language, I don’t believe it will ever stop hurting, no matter how it is pronounced.

            “Jude?” Sutton touches my fingers, but I flinch.

            “Let me go.” I stand, shocked by the environment, but the circumstances. “I didn’t mean…” It’s too hard to gather the energy to explain.

            “I know.” His purple-blue eyes seem washed out of their bright color.

“We’ll let you know if she wakes up.” Sutton sees the way Acre can’t seem to leave the room.

            “When she does.” Roarke corrects his sentence.

“I am going to go talk to Chuck.” Sutton goes into the hallway as my phone vibrates in my pocket.

            I pull it out to see my mother calling, and I nearly fall to pieces right there. I sneak into the bathroom as Sutton runs over the situation with Abe and Clark.

            My eyes adjust to the bright light as I answer the call. “Mama.” I kneel on the floor. “It’s Abe.” I cry to her. She whispers to me until my sobs take over, and the only thing she can do to calm me is sing.

            The rhythm of her voice rushes over my shoulders, wrapping me in a delicate hug. She never once blamed me for the violence I was created from.

            Even now, the melody she sings is so sweet, angelic even. I was a purity to her, a fresh start after a bad moment. Because that is all it was, she reminds me. One bad moment that delivered the most important person to her.

            “Ximena?” Sutton catches the phone as I let it spin on speaker against the tiled floor. “He’s okay, I’ve got him. Yes, Abe is in the hospital.”

            I ignore their conversation. I force myself to sing in solitude the same song as my mother’s. It made her free; it loosened the burdens the past put on her, and I wish it would do the same for me.

            “I’ll take care of him. Talk to you soon.” Sutton ends the call, but I can’t end the song. I don’t dare echo the last verse, the last lyric.

            My mother protected me with songs. She danced it from head to toe like a barrier against the blues. But I saw her, when she didn’t think I was watching, when she thought I was asleep next to my cousins.

            I saw the bravest woman I’ve ever met cry with her head held high.