Page 112 of The Wildest Ride

Shoulders relaxing, Piper offered Sierra one of her real smiles, the one that promised fun, saying, “I’ll leave being professionally beautiful to you,” which immediately and comically endeared her to Sierra, a fact obvious to everyone.

Lil looked around the room as familiar as the back of her hand and it felt brand-new, filled with people as it was. Despite the cameras and the looming conclusion of the tour, the unavoidable moment when someone had to win and someone had to lose, Gran had worked her magic. Everyone was relaxed and easy, laughing and smiling, cracking jokes and antics entertaining enough for television, but without the tawdry drama that usually sold so well. But it was still good TV, even if it was just joyful. Enough so that, for the moment, Lil didn’t even mind the cameras.

For the first time she could remember in the two years since her granddad had passed, her home was filled with people and laughter. She hadn’t realized she’d missed that so badly.

One of the greenies announced it was time to go, and Gran insisted on serving everyone coffee, which meant no one actually left for another hour. Making their way out the door, Gran sent everyone, greenies included, home with Ziploc bag care packages filled with homemade baked goods, and Lil had the surreal experience of suddenly becoming the most popular kid in the group.

She might be an adult, but she wasn’t too old to deny the fact that it felt good.

Bringing up the rear, she was the last to lean in to the warm embrace of Gran’s hug.

Mouth close to Lil’s ear, Gran whispered, “I’m proud of you,” before pulling back to look at her.

Lil smiled, her gran’s words going down warm and spreading, like the first sip of whiskey after a long day in the cold. She knew her gran was proud of her every day, but there was something special about hearing it after she’d really earned it. It was the kind of warmth found only at home, and being home, being in the kitchen that’d seen her highest highs and lowest lows in the embrace of the woman who’d been there for each and every one of them, only jackhammered how important it was for her to keep up her streak, to let nothing distract her from her purpose. “I can’t make any promises,” she said, her voice full of promise, “but it’s like you said, Gran. I actually have a shot at winning. I have what it takes to beat AJ.”

Gran brushed a curl that had shaken loose over the night from her face with a soft smile. “I certainly did not mean I was proud of you for winning a bunch of money, you silly girl—though I told you so, and lord knows we need it. I’m proud of you for taking a big scary chance and putting your heart out there.”

“You mean going for all or nothing, like granddad and I always talked about?”

Gran shook her head and held up a palm, signaling for her granddaughter to stop guessing. “It’s been lonely here, Lil.”

Lil opened her mouth to say how much she missed her, too, but another firm shake of the head from her grandmother stopped her.

“It’s been so lonely since your granddad passed, Lil. I can’t tell you how much it hurts. How dearly I wish I could see him again. I’ll tell you, Lil. There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t offer up for the chance to spend just one instant with him—I know, because I’ve offered near all of it. And do you know what I have wished all this time, through all this pain?”

Lil shook her head.

“That you would find someone you loved even half as much. That you might someday love someone so hard that it’d hurt just as bad as all of this if you lost them.”

Certain she was sinking into the floor though her body remained perfectly still, all Lil could do was stare as her grandmother spoke to her in a way that she never had before. Like a woman.

“But you’ve never let yourself,” she continued. “You fooled yourself into thinking you could substitute that kind of love with loving us and loving this ranch and nothing I could do, or you were willing to do, could change your mind. But I think you might be reconsidering now, and for that, I’m proud of you.”

Outside, the van honked. It was well past one in the morning and their cattle breeding work-study was due to start at 9:00 a.m.

Glancing at the van and then back to her grandmother without any words, all she could do was hug her one more time and then dash off the porch and back to the van to rejoin the tour.

She was quiet on the way home, sitting as far away from AJ as she could get, trying to figure out what her grandmother meant and what she was going to do about it.

Seven days and way too much bull semen later, Lil wasn’t any wiser on either subject.

She was, however, in first place.

There hadn’t been time again, or permission, to return back home once the challenge started, only enough for a quick goodbye at the end before the van was honking out front once more, this time eager to get them back to Tulsa and on their way back to Houston for the final challenge of the Closed Circuit.

She wouldn’t see her family again until the finale in Las Vegas. Whoever walked out on top in Houston would get first draw in Vegas. First draw, best luck. Her granddad had never said that, and would have more than likely disagreed, as he didn’t keep with talk of luck, but she’d kept it on repeat in her mind since she’d begun competing in elementary school.

She’d been second in OKC and it had been a flop. Whether luck was real or not, she wanted to make sure she was first in Las Vegas. That meant she had to win in Houston. The only problem was that this was the challenge based on AJ, the city-based challenge that would be most likely to throw her for a complete loop.

A suspicion supported only by the note she held in her hand, slipped into her boot while she’d been passed out on the plane.

Recognizing the scrawl for AJ’s handwriting, Lil read it for the three thousandth time.

You’re on my turf next time. Meet me outside Tito’s tomorrow at 7. Wear something nice.

She had no idea what Tito’s was, and she had no idea how she was going to get away to find a dress in a city she didn’t know, but the mere act of looking at the note lit her up like a torch and she knew she was going to be there at 6:45.

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