Roughstock

Intro- The Return

This is the story of Tucker "Tuff" Pillsbury and Magnolia "Mags" Carter.

It doesn't begin with them though.

It begins with Levi Miller, the rookie... the kid. At nineteen years old he's as green as a bull rider can get. Every nerve ending in his body is lit on fire from the moment he looks up at the rodeo hand and nods his head for the chute to be opened.

His first ride of the season. His *third* professional ride *ever*.

*Eight seconds.* That's what Tuff always says. "It's only eight seconds, just fuckin' hold on, keep your knees in and pray like hell."

The roaring crowd, the clouds of dust, Beau, the circuit announcer's voice... all of it fades out compared to the sound of his heart pounding in his ears, and the flex of twelve hundred pounds of *pissed off* muscle underneath him.

Eight seconds feels like both a lifetime and the blink of an eye when it's this volatile and vicious. Somehow he manages to hold on until the grating old buzzer sounds over the outdoor arena, and Levi is able to dismount, hitting the dirt face first with a heavy, breath stealing *thud*.

He scrambles to his feet the second he realizes that he's still *alive*. He dusts his chaps and shirt off with a triumphant, rough laugh escaping his throat. His eyes scan over the crowd, looking for any familiar face. Someone who'd seen his victory, and his eyes end up snagging on a figure in the press pit.

She's sitting *in the dirt* just on the other side of the fence, her hair tucked up into an old baseball cap and a camera bigger than her own head pointed directly at him. He'd know that figure anywhere. She lowers her lens, noticing him looking her direction, and when their eyes meet she gives him a soft wave. The last time he'd seen her he was the ripe age of *ten*.

Magnolia Carter... *Mags*.

"Levi Miller!" She shouts with a grin across the din, him slowly limping towards her side of the arena to get out of the way. He's still looking up at her as he goes, and she continues.

"Last time I saw you, you were winnin' ribbons for mutton busting and picking your nose!"

"Mags?" He shouts back, his voice slightly cracking from the pain in his ribs from his landing. He isn't asking *if* it's her— that isn't even a question. He's wondering where the hell she's been, and *why* she's back now after almost a decade.

She only grins and sends him a wink before lifting her camera just in time to catch the next riders entrance.

That was all he needed. Levi didn't just *run*, he *bolted*. He forgets the fans, the score he didn't check, and the pain searing through him as he ducks under a railing and sprints towards the chutes. He kicks up dust, but his one track mind is set on one thing.

He skids to such a hard stop that he nearly knocks into Kyle "Ky" Newman, who's in the middle of wrapping his riding hand. Next to him is the man himself... Tucker "Tuff" Pillsbury, local circuit champion and pain in everyone's ass. He's leaning against one of the gates, his eyes on the dirt floor as he mentally prepares himself for his own ride.

"She's back!" Levi shouts, immediately cursing out an "oh fuck" in between when he catches a stitch in his side from running. "She's *here*!"

Ky looks up with an amused, but unmoved smirk. "Who, your mom? I thought you knew she was coming?"

"No— *no*, not my mom... *Mags*. My old babysitter." Levi gasps out between his heavy breaths, trying his best. "Magnolia Carter is *here*. She's up there in the press box takin' pictures!" He points up as if they could see through the metal frame of the arena's underbelly.

"Oh... shit." Ky mutters, losing all of the bravado and 'your mom' jokes he had ready to go. The shift in the groups energy is instant. Ky stops wrapping his hand. Him and every other cowboy within earshot seem to stare at Tucker, waiting with bated breath for something.

He doesn't move, but every muscle in his shoulders *lock up* when Levi's words register. The zone he'd been putting himself in is now *crumbled* on the dirt floor in seconds.

His eyes are dark and hardened as he slowly turns his neck, locking eyes with Levi who's standing on the other side of Ky. "*What?*"

From a few chutes over, one of the shiny corporate champs, Colt Vance, speaks up with curiosity and a raised brow, a soft smirk already forming on his lips. "Who's... *Mags?*"

Nobody dared move a muscle, or say a word for fear that they'd unleash the *hell* that is Tuff before he's even in the arena. Even the air seems to still, the temperature more bone chilling.

"Nobody." Tuff grunts, the words are low and *almost* possessive, his eyebrows pulled together and his knuckles gripping white around the gates railing. Everyone can tell by his reaction... she's not nothing, she's *everything*. Or she was.

The reigning circuit champ only lets out another low grunt as he stalks off towards his chute in an attempt to get his head back together before his eight seconds start. A futile attempt at best, because it hasn't worked once *yet* even after eight years apart.