Page 8 of Buck This
“Torrey!” he yelled. Oh, he remembered her name! “Run!”
Something about the desperation in his voice got her legs moving. Torrey aimed for the gate he’d pointed to, and she noted the other two guys running for an escape too. Heart in her throat, she climbed the rails as fast as she could.
“Go!” he yelled, but it turned into a terrifying bellow of a bull.
She fell trying to get down the panel and turned just in time to see the enormous chocolate brown and white bull charging the fence toward her.
He was huge, muscular, and terrifying.
She screamed and scrambled for the next set of panels as she heard the echoing clang of the panel behind her being destroyed.
His last name, Storme, was inaccurate. It wasn’t big enough. This guy was a fucking hurricane.
She scrambled up the next panel, terror consuming her body, but when she turned around, the bull was already in the aisle to be loaded into the chutes. The guys were on the fences, holding long sticks with electricity at the ends, yelling to get the animal moving.
She stood there frozen, probably both ass-cheeks out as the bull disappeared into the loading area.
What in God’s creation had just happened?
Chapter Two
The buzz had not worn off at all by the time she found her seat in the box.
The roaring in her ears didn’t stop as she watched from the front row as a bull and rider bucked. The rider made it the eight seconds. In the box next to her, a middle-aged guy greeted her and asked if she was with the herd, but she didn’t understand the question, so she just smiled, said she wasn’t sure, and scooted closer to the railing.
Buck This Storme would be loading any second now, and she had a great view of the chutes from this seat.
A huge clang sounded, and she could see a bull buck inside of the chute. Buck This Storme’ s head came above the chute, and she gasped as he nearly jumped out as the handlers were yelling, trying to get him in position again.
A pair of cowboys pulled open the gate to chute three and a solid tan bull bucked. The rider held on for five seconds before he was thrown off.
Another damaging clang sounded from chute six, and the crowd gasped as Buck This Storme’s head appeared over the panels again. He bellowed a roar before he settled back on all four hooves again. He bucked in the chute, throwing the cowboy with every moment while the cowboys around them were yelling and trying to keep the rider seated. She’d never seen such raw power.
“Geez,” she whispered to herself.
The box was suddenly flooded by the shifters who had been signing autographs. They waved to her one by one in a polite greeting as they took their seats, but they all looked nervous, or perhaps unsettled.
Raven sat in the chair right behind her and squeezed her shoulder.
“He’s not ready,” the Dead of Winter guy said low.
“He is,” a giant man with silver streaked through his dark hair and beard gritted out.
“Look at him,” another said. “He’s wasting all his energy in the chute.”
“He’ll be fine,” the dark-haired man said. Whoa, that was the Quickdraw Slow Burn guy who had been signing autographs. She remembered the tattoos on his forearms.
“Who are they talking about?” Torrey asked, but she had a feeling she already knew the answer.
“Buck This,” Raven murmured. “He’s one of Quickdraw’s prospects to sponsor, but he’s a freaking mess before each buck. Sabotages himself almost every ride.”
“The athleticism though,” Quickdraw said.
“Hey, no one is arguing that. There are just safer bets,” Dead of Winter said.
“Screw safe bets. Safe bets never become legends,” Quickdraw said, not taking his eyes off chute six.
Clang!
