Page 35 of The Wildest Ride

On her other side, AJ snorted, adding, “Watch out,Hankey, this one might be out of your league.”

DeRoy shifted his attention entirely to AJ as a girl in a green shirt came to usher Lil off the stage.

She didn’t look back, not exiting the arena, not making her way through the crowd, stopping for pictures and autographs as she went, and not along the final stretch through the long parking lot on the way back to her car.

The two of them could have at it.

She might be the PBRA’s first female rough stock champion, but she was sleeping in her own bed tonight, and that meant she had a long drive back to Muscogee.

9

AJ stared at the second-place tour RV with a bemused grin on his face. The vehicle was a first. So was the second place—at least in a long time. The RV would be his home for the next month—or at least as long as he held the second-place spot.

He didn’t plan on getting comfortable.

Relax-o-wagon was sponsoring the tour in the form of thirteen tour vehicles—enough to house and transport the fifty contestants for the road trip portion of the eight-week tour—at least until they were eliminated.

The first-place contestant got the top-of-the-line model. Second place got a super deluxe, and third, merely deluxe. But they each got their own. The remaining forty-seven cowboys were split amongst the ten remaining standard models at a rate of about five men per bus. That meant a lot of cowboy musk in a small space.

In the Closed Circuit, there were more reasons than money to run ahead of the pack.

Above the fleet, the sky was the kind of dark that only five thirty in the morning could achieve, and AJ was the first contestant on site.

He stood ten feet from the vehicle that would be his for the first leg of the tour, an oversized duffel bag hanging over one shoulder. Around him, greenies hauled black tubs with yellow lids from truck beds to storage compartments beneath the RVs while the green-shirted folks on the media-team side scuttled around taking photos and shooting video.

AJ hadn’t always been an early riser—it was something that Henry had drilled into him over their twenty-four-year relationship—but now he considered it one of the things that gave him an edge.

Taking in the pristine RV in front of him, luxury in every way, though slightly smaller than the one parked in front of it, he realized he wasn’t quite ready to give up that edge yet.

In fact, he was going to drop his bag off and go on a quick run.

Contestants weren’t expected to check in until eight, and the caravan wouldn’t be hitting the road until nine—plenty of time.

As he reached into his pocket for the keys they’d mailed him, a light switched on in the first-place RV. Lil Sorrow walked out of what AJ guessed was the bathroom, head tilted to the side, drying her long hair with the towel in her hands. The thin white tank top she wore emphasized her slender, toned frame.

After taking what seemed like too long to dry her hair, she shook the towel out and did a quick hotel-style three-fold like she was going to hang it up all nice and pretty.

Obviously uptight, AJ thought, shaking his head with a smirk. That, or she was keeping the place nice because she knew she wouldn’t be there long. Maybe bareback bronc just happened to be her one event.

As if she sensed she was being watched, Lil Sorrow’s head whipped in AJ’s direction. Their eyes met, and something like genuine horror flashed across her face before her arm shot out to flip the blinds closed on a glare.

For a second, AJ didn’t move, feeling almost guilty, like he’d been caught peeping or something. He shook himself to clear the sensation. She had been fully clothed.

AJ ran a hand down his face, once again thrown off by Lil Sorrow. Who was she? She came out of nowhere but rode like a seasoned pro—and had an attitude to go along with it.

As AJ’s thoughts settled, his mind began processing other details of the scene. She had come out of the shower in her trailer. That meant she had beaten him to the site.

Hell, a shower this early probably meant she had beaten him to a morning run, too.

AJ made a noise of disgust in the back of his throat, unlocked the door to the second-place RV, and stepped inside. The woman was really starting to become a thorn in his side.

10

The drive from Houston to Dallas had been one of the smoothest rides AJ had ever taken. He’d never have thought it, but RVing wasn’t a bad way to travel.

Yet another thing the old folks were right about.

Thoughts like that wove through his consciousness the same way stray gray hairs showed up in his stubble.

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