The Wildest Ride--A Novel

by Marcella Bell

  Because of his completely made-up, out of the blue, world record bonus.

  Standing next to each other on the stage earlier in the evening, Lil had been agonizingly aware of the incredible nearness of him, just as she’d been agonizingly aware of every second they’d been near each other over the past four days.

  Now, untangling her bra from the comforter on her unmade bed and shoving it in the bag, she was mortified by the fact that AJ was going to be sleeping in her bed tonight. Or, rather, his bed. But what had started out as her bed. And all because of some random fine print.

  Even though she had won by way of competition, AJ had set a world record in one of the few events where he beat her, and the Closed Circuit, desperate for attention as they were, had a world record points bonus for any cowboys who set records during the tour.

  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 of fraternizing 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.

  But if AJ and riding for the Closed Circuit were validation for her granddad’s ways, they were also proof that even a gym rat could make it if he had the try.

  If AJ hadn’t sought her out before they’d gone live, she would have never believed he hadn’t been around wild horses before. He was what people meant when they called someone a natural.

  Rodeo seemed to come as smoothly to him as smiling and breathing.

  She had to work her butt off out there and he sauntered out and made it look easy.

  And sexy.

  Bastard.

  She didn’t truly begrudge him the talent, though. Her granddad had taught her that competition was the greatest motivation to improve, and her recent rides had shown that to be true. And by now, she was even beginning to accept the base interjections of her inner dialogue regarding his anatomy. She’d seen the miles of dripping muscles wrapped in a stupid white towel that was AJ and the sight had permanently damaged her brain. All of it was what was and there was no use fighting it.

  Picking up her bulging duffel and the plastic bag that held her shampoos, she gave the RV one final scan. Greenies would come through and change linens and take out garbage and, fresh and clean, it wouldn’t be hers anymore.

  But there was no use crying over it, the only thing to do was work hard and regain her title.

  Heading to the second-place RV, she put her bags in the lower storage compartment without looking back. The lights were on inside, and someone—she guessed AJ—was moving around inside.

  The thought brought a smile to her lips until she realized what was happening and forcibly frowned.

  She needed to take herself in hand. She had strict rules, both about rodeo cowboys and mixing work with pleasure, and all of them could be summed up in
one word: no.

  Someone tapped her on the shoulder, setting her jumping three feet in the air, much to the person’s low-chuckling delight.

  When she caught her breath she whipped around, asking, “You trying to kill someone?”

  AJ laughed, dimples and white teeth flashing.

  Did he have to smile so much?

  “Just wanted to remind you to treat Winnie right,” he said, patting the RV lovingly. “She’s been good to me and she’s a smooth ride if you take care of her.”

  Lil lifted an eyebrow. “Mine doesn’t have a name.”

  AJ scoffed. “Of course she does, she just wouldn’t give it up for a poser.”

  Lil flipped him off and turned to leave. She didn’t like the effect their banter was having on her chest—hot and tight and dangerous.

  “I’m really looking forward to the next event,” AJ said to her back. “Especially after resting up in the lap of luxury.”

  Lil kept her grin to herself as she walked. Let him gloat—all of it was luxury to her.

  Which wasn’t to say that home wasn’t nice—because it was. Granddad had made sure of that through the years, updating appliances, changing outdated fixtures, and tacking on a couple additions.

  But Lil was used to traveling in a compact car and paying for her own gas.

  Compared to that, even the second-place RV would be a pleasure cruise.

  Plus, if she had anything to say about it, she wouldn’t be in it long.

  Lil left the RV circle and headed out farther into the open side of the parking field. The sun was beginning to set and she’d rather be out looking up at the sky than standing outside the second-place RV waiting for AJ and the greenies to clear it so she could get ready for one of the more horror-inducing activities of the tour.

  As soon as the RV transfer was done, a Closed Circuit bus was due to pick up all the contestants and take them to a real-live local honky-tonk—on camera, of course.

  Excepting a brief period she chalked up to the magic of studying abroad, Lil had never been one for either drinking in public or staying up late.

  Unfortunately, all the contestants were required to go. It was supposed to build camaraderie, and more importantly, generate more content for broadcast fill and the website. The thing about reality TV was that it was never satisfied—it always wanted more. Regular reality, at least, knew when to let up.

  As the sun sank below the horizon line, darker blue beginning to chase away the gorgeous canvas of purples, pinks, and orange, she pulled out her phone.

  The bus was due in twenty minutes and she still had to get ready.

  The whole thing was ridiculous. She didn’t even go out with her friends, let alone a bunch of cowboys she barely knew.

  Lil knew a recipe for disaster when she approached one, and that was even without tossing AJ and alcohol into the mix. In fact, in that mix, there was only one thing she could control, and that meant that, in addition to being miserable, it was going to be a very dry night for her.

  Despite riding rough stock rodeo, in general, Lil would pick safe over sorry any day of the week. It wasn’t an accident that she didn’t have a past full of regrets and foolish behavior.

  And now, more than ever, she had more pressing reasons to stay sober. The primary of those being the way her mind kept swinging back to the earthshaking kiss she’d shared with AJ every time she let her guard down.

  She’d never had a kiss like that in her life—a connection with another human so powerful that it overwhelmed her sense of time and place.

  It was the kind of kiss that complicated things. It was the kind of kiss that made things charged where they should be grounded, clouded and unstable where they should be clear and balanced. In fact, it was a lot like alcohol itself. All the more reason to be on guard, then, when they were on their way to a bar.

  14

  Ardmore’s honky-tonk was more of a dive bar, but fill any place with over two dozen cowboys and it was more than halfway there. Toss in a few cameras and drinks—on the show’s tab—and it was a regular hoedown.

  AJ’s elbows rested on the bar. A half-drunk beer sat on a coaster in front of him. Of-age greenies milled about, taking photos, quotes, and making suggestions to impressionable, more than half-drunk young men.

  A camerawoman hollered, “Do a line dance!” and one of the boys going home from the bullpens thought either the suggestion or the suggester was delightful, so he sashayed over to the jukebox and whistled for the others from his RV to join him.

  After some debate, Garth Brooks and a fiddle filled the room with his urgent need to make a long distance phone call and the crew of five cowboys cleared the floor to dance.

  AJ watched it all with a half smile on his face. He’d give them credit—the youngsters could move their hips pretty well for a bunch of white boys. As with everything else, though, he could stroll over and show them how it was really done. It just wouldn’t be nice to embarrass them on TV.

  The cameras were eating it up without the added drama anyway. AJ was beginning to find the Closed Circuit’s relentless and obvious pursuit of viewership almost endearing. Though nobody had ever tried to call it so, reality TV wasn’t subtle.

  AJ finished his beer as the boys finished their dance.

  Across the bar, Hank DeRoy held court in a shadowed corner booth with a group of cowboys.

  The man never lacked for lackeys. Year after year, the faces changed, but the personalities didn’t. To a certain kind of man, Hank was a king.

  Gaze sliding away from Hank and his cadre of clowns, AJ scanned the bar for Lil’s long braid and undercut for the third time since sidling up to bar—which he had done for the express purpose of looking for her there. The second-place rider had disappeared as soon as they got off the bus and hadn’t been seen since.

  And that wasn’t being a good sport to AJ’s mind. He wanted to gloat.

  Throughout the bar, cowboys played pool, shot darts and sat around drinking in small clusters. While it wasn’t his normal nigh-out scene, all in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend an evening.

  There was a distinct dearth in the way of female company, but that was the trouble with being in the middle of nowhere—the pickings were slim, tanned, and tough, or taken.

  The sliver that remained were looking for husbands in the wrong place.

  The bar door swung open on that depressing thought, framing a small silhouette.

  The tension AJ didn’t know he’d been holding dissolved.

  Lil made her way to the bar, choosing a stool at the far end, half-hidden in the shadows.

  AJ finished off his beer, stood up, and walked over to her, stopping short of her, a strange tightness in his throat at the sight. For the first time since their kiss at the qualifier, she’d worn her hair down and loose, her glossy black curls tumbling in a riot from beneath her hat. Adding to the gut punch of it all, she’d lined her thunderstorm eyes in black, and colored her full lips red, making them impossible to ignore.

  The memory of sparking gray eyes and small callused hands wrapping around his neck to pull him deeper into a kiss pushed its way to the forefront of his mind, and fast on its heels, the memory of her scent, sweet and rich as bourbon infused with vanilla.

  “Now where’ve you been?” he asked, only after collecting himself, unable to ignore the satiny texture of her smooth brown skin in the neon bar lighting.

  Face pleasantly bland, Lil shrugged. “Just pissin’ in the wind.”

  AJ laughed. Her brand of deadpan rudeness was becoming as welcome to him as Diablo’s dry sarcasm. That she had a voice like a chain-smoking jazz singer from a different era, and delivered it all with a sweet country cadence and old-fashioned cowboy manners made it all the more intoxicating.

  “Your manners are terrible,” AJ observed, proud of the ease in his tone.

  “Odd. No one’s
ever mentioned that before. You’d think in twenty-seven years...”

  At the other side of the bar, the bartender picked up AJ’s empty glass and looked around the bar in alarm. He waved to her from his seat next to Lil and the relief on the woman’s face was almost comical. For a moment, he wondered if this was the kind of establishment that made the bartender pay when someone bailed on their tab.

  Starting their way, hips swaying, the bartender sent him a slow smile and he couldn’t stop the corners of his own mouth from curling.

  She wasn’t worried about the tab.

  And although he didn’t plan to encourage her—she wasn’t his type, though he had nothing against her—he couldn’t help but smile at her obvious appreciation.

  Like rodeo, here was a game older than mankind itself that never lost its edge. And the bartender was an appropriate, seasoned opponent, far more so than the salty cowgirl that sat at his side.

  In fact, tall, curvaceous, and bright blond as she was, the bartender had a lot going for her.

  It just wasn’t anything he was looking for. These days, his interest seemed to lean shorter, more athletic, and utterly fearless on the back of a beast—a list dangerously specific to the woman sitting by his side.

  The bartender’s come-hither smile said she was most definitely drawn to him, despite his lack of encouragement. The looks she was serving weren’t the most sophisticated, but he gave her points for primal. He also, however, did the gentlemanly thing, angling his body and averting his gaze in a way that told her the only thing he was interested in was a beer.

  She was around his age, and neither jerky nor marriage-bait. She gave the impression of competence without hardness and he knew, if he wanted, the evening could have ended happily. But his mind rejected the idea, instead choosing that moment to recall the fact that Lil’s bright red lips were as soft as her rear end was full, firm, and round.

  He shook the image clear with a frown.

  It was one thing to get carried away in the thrill of a moment—it was another thing entirely to actively fantasize about his colleagues. He needed to remember that that was what Lil was: a colleague, a resource, and a competitor for a prize that was far bigger than the way she felt in his arms.