The Wildest Ride--A Novel

by Marcella Bell

  “Just a little longer,” she murmured, still more than half asleep.

  He smiled. “I’m not supposed to be here, remember?”

  She grumbled and he almost caved. Instead, he gave her another kiss and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Go back to sleep.”

  She smile-sighed and said sleepily, “Bye, AJ. I’m glad you came over.”

  He smiled and ran his finger along her cheek before forcing himself to leave.

  The morning light was really more of a dusky hint of brightness in the sky as he opened the door, but he still looked around. Seeing no one, he stepped outside and quietly closed Lil’s door behind him.

  Together, they’d blown away the competition in the overnight challenge. Alone, she’d blown him away.

  The arena show scheduled for later in the evening, hours and hours from this crack of dawn, would be the first bull ride of the tour—Lil’s first bull ride for the PBRA—and then, at the end of the night, every cowboy except for the final three would be sent home.

  27

  Lil remained in bed for only a short while longer after AJ left before getting up herself. Between the high of spending two nights in a row with him and tonight being her first bull ride for the PBRA, she had energy to burn.

  It was just too bad her granddad wasn’t around to see it. Not the AJ part, of course, but her performance on the tour. In the face of all this joy, the space he’d cut out in her heart felt bigger, more hollow than usual, a more insistent reminder of everything that was absent in her life.

  He’d been there the first time she’d climbed on a bull and picked her up afterward. He’d been there the first time she’d ridden a bull for prize money, too, and comforted her when she hadn’t won. The ache that he wouldn’t be there tonight was as persistent as it was illogical. She wouldn’t be here if he were still around, and yet she wanted him with her more than ever.

  But if she couldn’t have him, she could at least wear his vest, and through it, he would ride with her as if he could be there in person. Her grandmother, who was saving the trip money for the finale, was unable to come to this ride, but was there in it too, through her beadwork.

  Once again she wore a fish braid. Something about the style’s fine lines always reminded her to keep her spine fluid. Her jeans were tight, thick, and stiff—just the way she liked them for a ride. Her chaps were sturdy and tough, but molded to her, like a catcher’s mitt to her hand. She was as ready as she’d ever be, and she looked good, too.

  In all black, the vest was what caught the eye.

  Despite wearing it for multiple rides now, not a single bead was missing, no strands of ribbon torn, loose, or out of place. Her gran didn’t mess around with anything she did, and her beadwork held strong. The woman didn’t believe in doing anything halfway and refused to accept it from anyone around her—especially those she raised. It was a hard standard to live up to, but all the more rewarding for it. Maybe that was why Lil’s mother had gone so wild.

  A person could drive themselves crazy with maybes.

  Maybe if Lil had been a bit more well behaved and agreeable as a child, her mother wouldn’t have dreaded coming home so much. Maybe if they’d known who her father was, her granddad could have run him down and forced him to do the right thing and they could have been a family, with folks in their proper roles—not grandparents raising children, parents in the grave.

  But then she wouldn’t be here, with so many girlhood dreams coming true she wasn’t sure if she was even awake. For now, she’d take the waking dream.

  In full gear, she was all crisp lines and presentation, fresh pressed and tucked, her boots polished. All of it was too much, and obvious, but she couldn’t help herself. She’d literally prayed for this night since she was a little girl.

  She would die before admitting it, but she’d ironed and starched her jeans, luxuriating in every element of preparation.

  For tonight’s show, she wanted to look cowboy to the core. The Closed Circuit wanted their marketing photos and recorded interviews to convey the full pageantry and magic of the rodeo, but in truth, reality rodeo was about as far away from real cowboying as it could get, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t do her part. They were all there to ride bulls and win money, after all, and there wasn’t much more cowboy than that.

  * * *

  Twelve hours and thirty-five minutes later, long after the photos and publicity sessions, tears threatened to spill out Lil’s eyes in front of fifty thousand people.

  Her bull, Terror Nuevo, a new-to-the-arena baby bull, had spun exactly twice, bucked halfheartedly a half-dozen times, and then otherwise done its well best to sabotage her ride. Well over halfway through her eight seconds, her form perfect, she knew there was no saving it. When you weren’t AJ Garza, the only thing to do about a sluggish and reluctant draw was to accept it.

  After all her big words about women riding bulls for the PBRA and when she’d finally come to back up her words, the matter had been taken out of her hands.

  She’d shown up battered and bruised, like a cowboy should be. Standing by sheer will after the first month of the tour, the shows, the challenges, the promos, all of it nonstop, she’d gotten on the back of this bull ready to end the debate once and for all.

  The crowd cheered her, her bevy of girl fans ensuring the noise was right.

  The lights were right—bright, hot, beaming down unforgiving truth on her ride—everything was right, except for the result.

  Lil Sorrow, the PBRA’s first female rough stock champion was proving a fact long known in rodeo and just about every other arena of life: a cowboy could have all the skill in the world, could do it all right, but if that spark—that urgent wildness—wasn’t there, then nobody would be truly satisfied. Not the judges, not the people who paid money to feel their hearts race, and not Lil, with what was sure to be a lackluster score for her debut bull ride.

  But the alignment of the stars wasn’t something that could be manufactured or forced, and the union of rider and draw was as much a matter of the stars aligning as love or any other kind of magic.

  Her granddad had told her that countless times during her years in youth and college rodeo. Back then, however, there had been far less at stake. Back then she hadn’t been the barrier-busting, first-ever female rough stock rodeo champion. She didn’t have the weight of a thousand little girls watching her every move, praying for her to prove what the old-timers were so reluctant to believe: girls had try.

  Well, it hadn’t happened tonight.

  The buzzer had rung and she’d dismounted in a blur. Her score, in the seventies, rang out, and the audience made it sound like they didn’t mind the dull performance, but there was no cheering from her.

  In the end, it had been a good thing her granddad hadn’t been there to watch. If he had been, he would have taken one look at her face and seen right to her railing heart, stiff and angry with the pain of having let them all down. And if he had been there and seen all of that in just a glance, understanding and compassion would have creased his face—with its square jaw, round nose, wide mouth, dark skin, and deep brown half-moon eyes—and she wouldn’t have been able to hold back the hot angry tears that chased all of her disappointments.

  It was a struggle as it was, even with the threat of the mortification of being witnessed looming large.

  Keeping her head down she tried to make her way through the gauntlet and straight back to the green room without being waylaid, but Sierra stepped into her path, high-beam smile cemented in place and aimed blindingly in Lil’s face. Blinking, both in the glare of Sierra’s shine and to ward off the evidence of her inner turmoil, Lil took a moment to focus on the other woman’s face, bracing for the usual undercurrent of aggression inevitably headed her way.

  But Sierra surprised her. A quick flick of her big doe eyes was the only indicator that she’d scanned Lil and quick
ly summed up the situation. Without a change to her smile and as smooth as if it had always been her intent, she angled her body, brought an arm up to wrap around Lil’s shoulders and gave an imperceptibly light squeeze with her manicured hand as she did, saying to the camera, “Let’s hear it for Lil Sorrow, out here doing it for us girls!”

  Knowing it was her cue, Lil forced the smile, only to realize with a start that the other woman had walked her the length of the gauntlet. With another comforting squeeze, Sierra set her free, ensuring that no one had the chance to pepper her with questions about her ride.

  Lil didn’t waste the other woman’s gift, making her way quickly down the hall to the green room like there was fire behind her.

  She was still there, pacing back and forth in front of the refrigerator, when AJ found her.

  The door had hardly closed behind him before she burst out with, “He might as well have been goddamn Ferdinand the Bull!”

  AJ raised his hands, palms up, his expression a mixture of smile and fear, and asked, “Who’s Ferdinand?”

  She didn’t blame him. She was being ridiculous. How many times had her granddad reminded her that the luck of the draw was always her invisible partner in the arena? It couldn’t be everywhere all the time, and tonight it hadn’t been with her.

  “Ferdinand is a bull who likes to smell flowers,” she said, to which AJ looked even more confused.

  “Terror Nuevo didn’t seem particularly interested in flowers,” he said.

  Lil exhaled and counted to ten. Another surge of anger that was really disappointment bubbled up in her gorge. She breathed that one out, too.

  She understood the Closed Circuit’s logic behind using young, untried bulls for the first round of bull riding. Every now and then an untried bull, overwhelmed by the situation, went crazy, giving a cowboy the ride of their life. For the show tonight, it had worked that way for about half the contestants—golden child AJ included. But the other half of the contestants, the group Lil ended the night in, got scared baby bulls that were more interested in freezing than bucking or turning.

  Her granddad’s voice repeated in her head, with growing sternness: luck of the draw.

  And finally they penetrated her anger, dissolving it of its steam, leaving her with shame. She stopped pacing and sighed, going to sit beside AJ. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned her head against his.

  After a moment, he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Lil.”

  A hot tear escaped the corner of her eye, but she didn’t wipe at it. Voice thickening, she said, “It’s okay.”

  He kissed the top of her head. “It sucks.”

  An airless laugh escaped and she nodded, but the corners of her mouth lifted. “It does.”

  He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You rode well.”

  She looked down at her boots and gave a small snort. “Not much to ride.”

  “Sometimes it’s like that,” he said. No explanation for it. It just was. Another important life lesson from rodeo.

  Somehow it was softer coming from AJ, though. Maybe because, like her granddad, he understood.

  Lil took a deep breath and pulled her shoulders back. “There’s always next time.”

  Watching her, AJ’s smile heated, eyes dancing. “You’re incredible,” he said.

  Lil’s entire body flushed. In just a few words he touched her everywhere, and she had no idea what to do about it.

  Blushing, she looked at the door and did the sensible thing—changed the subject. “They’re going to be looking for us.”

  AJ shrugged. “We’re fine. There’re a lot of riders left and it’s their last hurrah. I’d think you’d let them have the spotlight before they go, Lil.”

  With the end of tonight’s show, the Closed Circuit would be officially halfway over. The final three contestants would be announced, and tomorrow, those going on and those going home would all say goodbye to their RVs.

  They would get to the remaining stops on the tour via airplane, flying to the locations of the to-be-announced final three challenges, and then on to the grand finale in Vegas.

  Even without the announcement, they knew where they stood. Lil’s success with AJ in the overnight challenge had nearly been enough to push her over the edge, but after tonight’s dud, she would remain in second place, just two points behind AJ. Trailing behind them by fifteen points but a good fifty points ahead of the rest of the pack, Hank would likely maintain his stranglehold on third place, which meant everyone else was going home.

  Both she and AJ knew that as cocky as she was in the arena, though, there wasn’t an ounce of spotlight hog in her.

  A chuckle worked its way past her hurt and disappointment as she shook her head at him. “You’re a ridiculous man, you know.”

  And though she wished it weren’t true, his responding grin snagged at the ragged edges of her mood, soothing, smoothing, and sewing them back up until they were as good as new.

  28

  They landed at the Blue Grass Airport in Lexington, Kentucky, just before 6:00 a.m. local time. The flight from Santa Fe, first-class and uneventful, had provided ample napping time, though, so while it was still dark and he’d ridden a bull the night before, AJ felt rested and energized for the first of the final challenges, which wasn’t too bad for an old man.

  Maintaining his first-place position, and knowing Lil’s bunk would be just down the hall from his at the thoroughbred farm where the weeklong challenge would take place, didn’t hurt his mood, either.

  This far into the competition what had already felt like constant filming had kicked up a notch, with cameras constantly trained on the final three cowboys, hungry and hoping for drama, which meant there’d be no more sneaking into her bunk late at night, but he felt a strange sense of comfort just knowing she was close, a kind of steady reassurance he normally associated with family. It was new, wanting to spend time with a woman, to simply be near her, as opposed to pursuing and delighting, and after the dull horizon of the future with active rodeo, it was a novelty he could appreciate.

  Their challenge, inspired by DeRoy’s coming from Kentucky horse breeding stock, was to finish up fitting thoroughbred yearlings for sale. Each cowboy would be assigned their own, field-wild, blue-blooded yearling, which they were responsible for cleaning up and preparing for auction. Points would be based on a combination of readiness, appearance, and price earned. The Closed Circuit had promised to make up the difference to the operation that volunteered the space and yearlings—and to pocket anything that came in above their preestablished appraisal value.

  Business was business, even when business was reality rodeo.

  Hank would have the advantage going into the challenge, but if the Closed Circuit showed true to form, their stock would be pretty yearlings, just this side of plump, that really just needed a good brushing.

  * * *

  In reality, the yearlings turned out to be a bit more complicated.

  On Sunday, Hank, AJ, and Lil had their pick of yearlings from a pasture full of bright young things.

  In third place, Hank was allowed to choose first, and, true to type, he chose the obvious standout amongst the bunch. Clean lines, muscular and large without teetering near chubby, the blood bay colt looked like money on legs, just a few buckets oats away from being ready for the downs. There was no doubt the man knew his horseflesh, and he flashed a snide grin at AJ as he passed by him, leading the colt away.

  Walking by Lil, he offered, “Go for the one that looks the best now because there ain’t much getting better than that in a week’s time.”

  AJ almost laughed. That Hank’d intended to snub him, leaving him out of the advice, was clear as day, but did nothing to offset the fact that AJ still had ears.

  “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.” Lil’s brush-off was as classic as it was obvious, and, chuckling under his breath, AJ loved he
r all the more for it.

  Hank didn’t sputter in offense the way he would have if AJ had delivered the line, though. Instead, he just smiled wider, speaking slow and suggestively as he said, “Now don’t get mad, sugar. I just know how you women go gaga over a runt. But don’t worry, a quick little thing like you won’t take too long to identify the real quality.”

  He sauntered off with his colt before Lil or AJ could respond, which was just as well because the cameras had been filming the whole thing like salivating jackals.

  Tempers bubbled close to the surface this close to the end of the competition, and even the greenies had started getting tense and mean.

  Once Hank was gone, Lil was up next. Unlike Hank, Lil took her time in choosing.

  Climbing up to perch on top a thick white wooden fence post, she sat silently for a long time, just watching the field of yearlings.

  AJ wondered what was going through her mind, wondering which of her inner voices led the conversation—the part of her that was practical and helpful, offering sage advice without beating around the bush; the part of her that loved the flash of the arena, cocky and full of high spirits; or the part of her that had something prove.

  Whatever was going through her mind, she was in no rush about it.

  Crews filmed anxiously, likely dreading the editing that would be required by all of this extended footage of her brooding, but AJ didn’t mind the show. She looked right, sitting like she was, staring out at the gangly fillies and colts playing in the pasture. She wore blue jeans and a black-and-white-checkered button-up, formfitting and tucked into her jeans, over which her qualifier champion buckle shined. Her hair was braided, the elegant lines her neck and undercut obscured only where her hat rested.

  Lil would always look right wherever you pictured a cowboy: on the range, in the arena, on a fence in a pasture. The only place he couldn’t picture her was in a dusty gym in Houston. The realization brought an unfamiliar twisting sensation to his gut.