Page 28 of The Wildest Ride

And to make matters worse, after all of it, her complexion had gone shiny and red—more like an angry toddler than an adult. Disgusted with it all, she nearly flipped the shade back up when her grandmother’s voice echoed in her mind.It doesn’t matter what happens to you. It matters what you do about it.

Her grandmother dealt truisms like white on rice. But it applied. She couldn’t control what people assumed, but she could do a little to help them out.

She kept a bare-bones makeup bag in her glove box, and, while there were good reasons not to have started the night all dolled up—when it came to riding, it wasn’t so much a question of waterproof enough as not even an option—she was done riding now. And she was done being taken for anything other than what she was, which was the highest-scoring rider of the night.

Dabbing a layer of foundation and adding a quick lining of black and mascara to her eyes, and a dusky rose-tinted cream to her lips was her first step.

As always, she was startled by the effect after pulling back to examine her handiwork. She knew no special techniques, did nothing out of the ordinary, but somehow the little bit of accentuation transformed her from the kind of woman men’s eyes skipped over to the kind that stopped men in their tracks.

The simple lining set off her half-moon-shaped eyes, the gray of them jumping out of her face so much, it demanded attention. The smooth, creamy rose of the lip tint emphasized the rich fullness of her lips.

She looked seductive but dangerous—like a tempest.

But most importantly, she looked like a woman.

Makeup complete, she unbraided her hair, parting it down the middle and shaking the long curls loose from the crown of her head as she did. Massaging her scalp, she let out a low moan. Her hair was thick enough and curly enough that even with the undercuts, she still had enough to fake a full head of coverage. Her long full curls settled around her shoulders and down her back as she massaged her head, the black of them shimmering like a crow’s wing in the low light of the parking lot. She could never be described as girly, but she was admittedly vain about her hair. It was her beauty failing, and she channeled any desire to adorn herself into its care, spending hundreds of dollars in creams, masques, specialized shampoos, microfiber towels, silk pillowcases, and protective braids every year. Since there’d never been enough extra money for fancy things like salon relaxers or paying someone outside of the ranch to braid her hair—and Gran’d had no time to spare for installing hairstyles which required a greater time investment than a half an hour or so—Lil’d had to master the management of her uniquely blended hair herself—and at a young age. But right now, released in its glory and ready to do the apparently heavy lifting of convincing the world she was a woman, she had no doubt it was all worth it.

Hair and makeup in place, she retrieved the slender gold hoops her gran had given her for her twenty-first birthday from her wallet and slid them in each ear. Then she wiggled her finger around in the coin pocket until she found the diamond nose stud she wore when she wasn’t riding rodeo, wiped it with the alcohol wipe she carried—also in her coin purse—for just that purpose, and angled it back into her right nostril.

Now, even with the hat on—as was required at the podium—there would be no mistaking her for anything but an adult woman. She flicked the mirror closed and pushed the shade flap up. Zipping the makeup bag and tossing it back into the glove box, she grabbed her keys and hopped out of the car.

In the parking lot, she heard the distant murmur of the PA system blare a name whose ride she couldn’t care less about but whose position in the queue meant she needed to get back to the stadium fast. If Hank DeRoy was riding now, that meant that AJ was up next, and while he might be an arrogant gym rat from the city, AJ Garza was still the best rodeo cowboy on the planet.

There was no way she was going to miss a chance to be chute side for his ride. She jogged back to the stadium.

All she’d done was take down her hair and put a little makeup on, but she might as well have had a complete transformation for the difference in her journey back to the chutes. Incognito as she was—now looking more like a low-rung rodeo queen or maybe a contestant’s wife—she didn’t warrant the attention of reporters, and, overdressed for the average buckle bunny, she didn’t warrant the attention of cowboys. Rodeo-goers, even the ones looking for snags, weren’t in the market for chasing down lone wolves either, so she didn’t get stopped by anyone while making her way to the contestants’ entrance.

Security let her through to the chute without any questions, and she momentarily marveled at the absurdity of the world she loved so dearly. The way a rodeo behaved, you’d think her ability in the saddle, or bareback for that matter, disappeared when she took her braid out.

Weaving her way through the crowd of cowboys bunched up at the chute, she arrived just in time to watch it pop open.

For a stomach-sinkingly long time, nothing happened. Then the bronc, with AJ on top, stumbled out and staggered to a standstill.

Lil’s heart thudded.

This was bad.

AJ would never make score with a dud of a draw.

Something was wrong with his horse, which simply stood, almost meditative, even as AJ’s spurs dug into its haunches, and a stadium of people shouted at it.

In any other sport, they’d stop the clock, but AJ’s seconds ticked away. Lil’s heart beat fast in her chest, and her breath came short.

The horse wasn’t doing anything, and in what was about to become the biggest upset in recent history, AJ Garza, rodeo’s greatest champion, was about to be disqualified.

7

The blood thundering in AJ’s ears was louder than all the sounds of the arena combined. Staring at failure in the face for the first time in over a decade, time as inert as the beast below him, a part of him was dumbfounded.

There had been no question that he would qualify.

Before it was announced he was coming on board, all of the current top rodeo pros had snubbed their noses at the Closed Circuit, calling it a publicity stunt for novices. The announcement of his participation lent the whole thing credibility. Yes, he had retired, but there had never been any question as to whether or not he’d make it.

So there was an extra sting to the fact that while the seconds bled away, it was becoming apparent, in front of seventy thousand people and his first time riding for something other than himself, that he would not qualify.

He hated to be the man who blamed his tools, but something was wrong with his horse—something beyond bad luck and a poor draw. It had been obvious as soon as they’d come out of the gate.

And the horse was half the score.

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