Page 124 of The Wildest Ride

He wasn’t the stick-around type. He was bored and trying to run away from the fact that he couldn’t quit rodeo. A few months of tedious ranch life and he’d get the itch, but after a few months more of AJ, Lil didn’t think she’d be able to watch him leave.

This was for the best.

She repeated it to herself in the shower, in front of the mirror, and as she slipped on her vest as she prepared for the first day of the last challenge of the competition. She needed her head in the game—especially if she wanted first draw in Vegas.

She just had to keep her endgame in mind and she’d be fine.

Getting fresh with the enemy was a luxury the ranch, and she, couldn’t afford.

And he would’ve gotten bored, anyway.

He needed the pace of the circuit and the nightclubs of Houston to feel alive, things that might as well be as far away from Muskogee as the moon.

Showered and dressed, she headed down to the lobby for the van that would take them to CityBoyz. She didn’t know what it was yet, but she knew the challenge was based out of the place that had shaped AJ. She wondered if she’d recognize the ways it had once she got there, her mind always circling back to him. She stopped the train of thought harshly.

That was done. AJ was just another cowboy to beat. He had to be.

The ride to the gym was lost in thought, Lil no company for any of the others on the bus. Hank approached her and said a few words, apologizing, knowing his type, but she was too preoccupied with the loop in her mind to bother making sense of what he said.

AJ wasn’t there.

No one else tried to talk to her.

By the time they pulled into CityBoyz, Lil was certain she was strung out, never mind the fact she’d never so much as seen a drug in her entire life.

The building wasn’t much to look at, just a big warehouse-y box, not unlike the one they’d danced in the night before.

Her heart twisted at the memory, and she scrambled to switch tracks. The sooner she walked through the doors, the sooner she could win the challenge and walk out, and the sooner the whole thing was over and she could go home.

Lil went in, followed by Hank and Sierra, her swollen eyes taking longer to adjust to the change in the lighting than they might have otherwise.

They stood in a smaller sectioned entryway, next to which a tiny cube office was positioned, its one sliding glass window the only effort to pretend like it was anything more than a closet.

Outside of the entryway, the space opened up into a cavernous box. Light poured in from high windows, illuminating floating dust motes and high rafters. Drafty and echoing, it would never be called cozy, or even comfortable, for that matter, but it was AJ’s home. She could feel it.

She stepped in, awash in the sacred of hush despite the fact that there was a steady jumble of noise ricocheting throughout the space, including the group of people gathered beside the mechanical bull ring and gym equipment, the giant fans overhead circulating air, and the constant and yet unique Closed Circuit sound of greenies debating camera angles and shots.

Somewhere in there was AJ. She’d heard his voice, her heart picking out its threads the second she’d walked through the door, but her will had resisted the urge to locate him.

The thought of seeing him hurt as much as she wanted it.

So she looked for someone else instead.

Finding a likely looking greenie, she tapped the woman on the shoulder and asked, “Pardon me, do you know where I might find out more about our challenge today?”

The woman smiled, her curly blond haircut close to her head giving Lil the impression of the sheep back home, and said, “Not me! But you can go talk to that gentleman, right over there. He runs the place and set up the challenge with the producers.”

Lil tracked the line of the woman’s finger to land on the straight spine of a black-clad cowboy a couple yards away. Tipping her hat to the greenie, Lil began to walk in his direction, her long strides closing the distance easily while he remained engaged in conversation with another one of the greenies.

Sensing her behind him as she neared, however, he finished his conversation with the young man and turned around to face her, his lined gray eyes warm with welcome, an easy smile at the ready.

Lil started, her world completely flipping on its axis because of a man for the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

His skin was rich black, darker than hers and looser, his aura older, though, than the mild aging his face belied. He was slender and not particularly tall, though he was commanding like a tall man, with a neat salt-and-pepper beard a good half-inch thick. His shirt was a black Western with gray piping and obsidian snaps; his jeans, black Wranglers; and his boots black ostrich. His hands were wide, gnarled, and scarred and there was a rope at his hip. He was missing a chunk of one of his eyebrows and his cheeks showed a light dusting of age spots.

That he was a rodeo old-timer was as obvious as it was that this was The Old Man that AJ had referred to so often and so lovingly.

Standing before him, she could see herself in him. In so many ways. In ways that made the parts of herself that had been so mysterious, the features that so clearly didn’t come from her mother’s people, suddenly make sense.

---