Page 48 of The Wildest Ride

So, due to a contractual sub clause, AJ had wedged her out of the top spot and wormed his way into the first-place RV.

And her bed.

The thought refreshed her mind’s crystalline image of him in that towel, which had become part of its permanent collection, constantly displayed in her imagination.

He was the most beautifully built man she’d ever seen.

And they’d kissed. And, if her recent dreams were any indication, there apparently wasn’t anything she wanted to do more than kiss him again.

Pinching herself, she said, “Abigail Lane Island.”

Just as she’d intended, saying her mother’s name out loud had the same effect as pouring a bucket of cold water over her head.

She shuddered in its aftereffects, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And she was desperate.

She had no business and no time to spend daydreaming about AJ Garza. She wasn’t a teenage girl anymore, she was a woman on the brink of showing the PBRA just what they robbed themselves of by keeping so many out.

She had no business woolgathering, caught up in memories offraternizing with the enemy,as his friend had so eloquently put it.

But it seemed that the fraternizing story between her and AJ was all that anyone wanted to woolgather about, herself included. To the media and the Closed Circuit, it was even more sensational than her being the PBRA’s first female rough stock champion, or the highest-scoring transfer from the INFR to date. It was even more remarked upon than the fact that she was coming back to the spot after a near six-year hiatus.

Apparently, none of that was “the story” of Lil Sorrow—the name of which was another point of growing irritation. She wished her gran had just signed her up as Lilian Island—it would have made things a lot easier.

For all the world cared, the story of Lil Sorrow was a kiss that she couldn’t seem to shake, inside or out.

But shake it or not, she still had to move.

With her clothes packed, her mind no less a battlefield, she moved on to toiletries, images of the night before replaying in her head.

AJ had whooped like a hooligan at the surprise upset of the points announcement, hollering, “Goodbye, Winnie!” before throwing his head back to laugh at Lil’s unguarded expression, the movements highlighting the strong column of his neck and his disconcertingly appealing Adam’s apple.

Lil’s face had revealed her initial shock before quickly settling into a not-very-sportsman-like scowl, all captured for the camera, as Sierra announced that AJ would be awarded a five-point bonus for setting a new PBRA record in steer wrestling.

The worst about it all had been that he’d looked so good doing it—both the crowing over his surprise victory and the steer wrestling.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was her primary competition, her inner seventeen-year-old would have reveled in the fact that she, Lilian Island from Muskogee, Oklahoma, had been chute side to see AJ Garza set a new PBRA record, not to mention the fact that she had weeks of front row seats to watch AJ Garza in action ahead of her.

That she had kissed him as well, and that that kiss had been as natural and wild and addictive as the rodeo itself, was far beyond her inner teen girl’s ability to compute. That was territory even the grown woman didn’t know what to do with.

In real life Lil didn’t kiss anyone, let alone rodeo cowboys. Whether that was because she’d grown up trying to be one, or simply because all she knew about her father was that he’d been chasing rodeo when she’d been conceived, the type had never appealed to her. In fact, she had, until recently, had a strict no rodeo cowboys romance policy.

Of course, looking back at it now, she could almost say she’d enforced a strict no romance policy near her whole life. Romance was dangerous so she’d kept her focus on rodeo.

And like it had back then, it was a technique that could still save her from wayward thoughts.

She would focus on what was familiar: the work of the rodeo.

In that regard, AJ was even more astounding up close and personal than he had been watching from afar through her teen and college years.

And the fact that he’d come to her for advice—it was the stuff of dreams.

Literally.

In her early competitive days, she had had recurring dreams in which she talked shop with AJ Garza. She always woke up right as he leaned close to tell her how much he admired something of hers, but whether it was her rope handling, her riding, or what, she never knew. It always cut off before he could finish the sentence. Always, it ended before she could tell him she’d learned it all from her granddad.

Her every experience with the Closed Circuit had validated what she’d always believed: her granddad, his way of training, his way of doing rodeo, was just as good—if not better—than the very best the PBRA had to offer.

When he’d been snubbed, jeered at, called a negro playing cowboys and Indians and worse, he’d held his head high and walked his own way. And he’d been right. Although he was a traditional man, his methods and approaches looked nothing like the way traditional rodeo cowboys worked, but it didn’t matter—what mattered was that they were effective. They had churned out a cowboy unlike any the PBRA had ever seen—even if that was in large part due to her being a cowgirl.

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