Page 108 of The Wildest Ride

Hell, even with the cameras, he was tempted, but he knew she wouldn’t appreciate the audience.

And it was a shame, really, because as he watched her leave, he reflected that she was a bottled ray of sunshine, and he was thirst starved for light.

He didn’t see her again until the auction, and then only in passing, as the contestants were responsible for showing their charges for sale.

The event passed in a blur, far more emotional than AJ had anticipated. For every other event of the Closed Circuit, he’d been able to maintain his normal level of rodeo professionalism, but this time he’d gone and gotten attached. The breeder who bought Bullet promised that AJ would be welcome to come visit the little colt whenever he wanted.

And in a surprise upset, Lil had come in first place.

While much of the evening hadn’t gone quite as predicted, with AJ’s colt going into a bidding war that seemed to have more to do with its trainer’s name than the colt itself, the fact that Lil beat out Hank, a legacy horseman, and by a long shot, was the most unexpected.

In the end, it was Hank’s expertise that bit him in the butt, though.

Thinking he’d score a little higher on appearance and raise his price, Hank had tried to sweat his colt before the sale, a cheap little trick to enhance muscle definition before a sale. It backfired for Hank when his horse came down with a cold, sinking his score.

Lil, on the other hand, as she told Sierra from the top spot on the stage, just “looked for the yearling that looked most ready for the next stage of life. Bold and brave enough to venture far from mama with the curiosity to explore.” Playing with words and a wink, she added, “That’s a yearling that’s fit for sale.”

The audience loved it, the pretty cowgirl who could ride like the best of the boys as well as she could nurture a filly out of the nest. None of them, though, he realized with a certainty he hadn’t felt about anything outside of rodeo, loved her more than he did.

Now he just needed to figure out what to do about it.

29

Getting to Muskogee was a bit more complicated than traveling to Lexington.

Fortunately, as the field was narrowed down to three, it’d taken only one rented bus to transport Lil, AJ, Hank, and Sierra, plus the full camera crew and greenies, from the Tulsa airport to Golden Acres, the massive ranch spread where the challenge inspired by Lil would take place.

Just thinking about it made her groan.

For Lil’s challenge, the true cowgirl of the bunch, the competitors were going to take on one of the most important aspects of ranch management: stock breeding.

“Explain it to me again.” Sierra’s face did not look like she wanted Lil to explain it to her again, no matter what her words said.

Lil sighed.

Behind them, AJ laughed.

Behind him, Hank continued to snore.

He’d fallen asleep ten minutes into the hour-and-a-half drive to Golden Acres, his snores providing an orchestral soundtrack to their drive.

Fifteen minutes in, Sierra had begun asking questions.

“One of us will hold the steer, one of us will handle the bull, and one of us will collect the sample.”

“But why?” She was aghast. Aghast, on Sierra, looked like a royal blue Western shirt, blue jeans, her embroidered white chaps and hat, and a cherry-red mouth opened in a wide O.

Lil didn’t buy it for a second.

They were down to the last two weeks of the circuit and Sierra spent more time with the producers than anyone else in the van. Lil was willing to bet that there wasn’t a thing about the whole production that Sierra didn’t know the why of.

But calling her out wasn’t the way to win the game, so Lil put on her best exasperated cowboy impression, calling to mind every time her gran had brought another barn cat indoors, and said, “Where else do you think little bulls and broncs come from? The stork?”

AJ laughed out loud, and Sierra’s eyes flashed, but her silly smile held.

When the moment was right, she let out a tinkle of laughter and flipped her hair over her shoulders. There were cameras on the bus.

“I guess I never really thought about where they come from! Unlike you, I steer clear of bulls. Imagine what they would do to my nails.” She punctuated the sentence by bringing her hand to her mouth, the nails in question painted red, white, and blue and glossy.

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