The Wildest Ride--A Novel

by Marcella Bell

  Gran turned to him slowly, deliberate no doubt, gave him an excruciatingly obvious once-over, and then said, “So this is the handsy cowboy that thinks he can kiss my granddaughter on national television.”

  Lil’s stomach, and her lungs, and all the rest of her guts fell right out of her.

  Hank guffawed and Sierra’s laughter tinkled overhead like wind chimes.

  Even a few of the greenies chuckled.

  Gran simply stared, face absolutely straight, waiting for her answer.

  AJ didn’t bat an eye. “Why yes, it is, ma’am.”

  Gran cracked a smile, the mischievous, naughty, up-to-something expression Lil knew so well it hurt. Lil let out the breath she’d been holding and did the proper thing.

  “Gran, AJ Garza. AJ, Seneca Grace Island, known to most as Gran.” Lil couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice, introducing the woman who raised her, nor would she ever want to. If Granddad had been her guiding star, Gran was her lodestone and her heart, strong and ageless outside, pure putty within.

  AJ took off his hat, inclining his head in a respectful nod.

  Gran gave him another once-over, this time even more thorough, and when she was through, Lil saw a spark approval in Gran’s eyes—as if he was just what she’d ordered.

  Seeing it, a shiver shimmered down Lil’s arms, lifting the tiny hairs to stand.

  Gran turned to Lil, abruptly changing the subject. “I talked to the producers and I’ll tell you, I’m not happy. They said you couldn’t sleep at home since you were contracted to be on film—and I sure as hell won’t let men with cameras in rooms where my granddaughter sleeps, that’s just not right—so you have to stay here even though the ranch is just twenty minutes away...” She looked in the direction Lil knew their home lay, before waving the thought away to continue with, “You’re all having dinner at the ranch tonight.”

  Lil’s mouth dropped open, her gaze shooting to AJ. He hadn’t signed up for meeting the family. But AJ just looked as smug as a cat in the cream, pleased as punch to tag along on this ride.

  Sierra and Hank joined them, and Gran turned to them. “Well, Lil. Are you going to introduce the rest of your friends?” Again, the word struck.

  Piper and Tommy were her friends. The circuit members were not. But she showed her manners.

  “Sierra Quintanilla, multicrown rodeo queen and the Closed Circuit hostess.” Lil pointed her palm toward Sierra who gave a darling curtsy, before she gestured to Hank, voice losing some of its warmth. “And this is Hank DeRoy, the cowboy rounding out the top three.”

  Gran snorted. “I know all of that. I have been watching, you know.”

  Lil’s cheeks heated, but she didn’t say anything. Gran was feeling fiery and Lil knew better than to try and test her. Gran would win every time.

  Gran smiled and said, “As my granddaughter was saying, I am Seneca Grace Island. You may all call me Gran.”

  Charmed, and probably intimidated, the group paid their respects before greenies called them over to be debriefed.

  “I’ll see you for dinner, Gran,” Lil called, heading to join the rest of the group.

  Unexpected as it was, and uncertain she wanted her home on display, Lil realized she was nonetheless truly happy to see Gran. And maybe even more so to eat her home cooking.

  30

  Lil’s palms were sweating when the van turned into the long dirt driveway.

  The farmhouse, two stories painted yellow with white trim, as sweet as a freshly frosted cake, looked pretty and well kept, but she fretted over its vulnerability in front of the camera. It was her home and it hadn’t signed up for the scrutiny of the wide world. Especially a world that knew its story, and her family’s story.

  That she was riding to preserve it only increased the pressure. Now it would have to prove its worth.

  Would the hundreds of thousands who tuned in to each episode and extra see the value in her gran’s impeccable housekeeping and that one-of-a-kind tile floor? Would her fans continue to root for her after seeing this compared to the charm of Hank’s yearlings and the heartstring pull of AJ’s CityBoyz?

  Regardless, it was too late to do anything about it now. They would either see it, see how one family holding on to their legacy when the whole world seemed determined to stamp it out might be important on a grander scale, or they wouldn’t.

  Either way, she was glad she’d carved out the time to repaint when the weather had turned nice enough the past spring. It was amazing what a fresh coat of paint could do to a house.

  The whole crew accompanied her, literally: AJ and Hank, Sierra, the greenies, and the film crew. All in all there would be fifteen at Gran’s table tonight, counting Piper and Tommy. Lil hoped she’d enlisted the two of them to bring in the rectangular holiday table. It was the only one that was large enough for a group of that size.

  Arriving with the largest party she could ever remember gathering in her house, she felt like she was bringing a boy home for the first time.

  As soon as she crossed the threshold, however, her time to fret came to an abrupt end. Unlike her companions, she wasn’t a guest in town for a night. This was her home, absent though she’d been, which meant she had work to do.

  Gran set her first to the task of washing the cooking dishes—Gran believed the more dishes done before dinner, the better.

  When AJ tried to follow her, Gran intercepted him, engaging him in conversation so that it would be rude to continue on his path toward Lil, and once again Lil suspected the move was deliberate. No one was wily like her gran.

  Instead of AJ, however, Piper, whom she hadn’t seen enter the kitchen, joined her at the sink, sliding an arm around her waist and squeezing.

  If the house hadn’t been full of strangers, Lil would have squealed in delight. As it was, she leaned into the other woman’s embrace and let out a long, slow breath.

  “Tell me everything,” Piper whispered, reaching into the sink to wash with her.

  Lil laughed. “Absolutely not. There’re people everywhere. You have to wait until it’s all done.”

  “Escape with me into the barn.”

  This time Lil snorted, leaning close to keep their conversation between the two of them. “I’m expected back after dinner, and they’re filming everything.”

  Piper blew out a frustrated breath, tinged with a whine. “Fine. Whatever. But when you get back, you’re telling me everything. And I mean EVERYTHING, because it’s written all over you.”

  Lil blanched. “It’s not.”

  Piper cackled her witchy cackle and the conversation in the room stopped for a moment while everyone looked at them.

  Lil’s temperature climbed a million degrees, while she was certain Piper grew horns.

  Only after everyone had returned to their own conversations did Lil whisper, “Of course it’s not, when there’s nothing to be written.”

  Piper laughed again, but quieter this time. “Oh, it’s written all over you. And if it wasn’t before, now you’ve confirmed it...”

  Lil groaned. “What am I going to tell Gran?”

  Piper side-eyed her. “Why would you tell her anything?”

  “She’ll know. If you knew, she’ll know.”

  “Lil. You are a grown woman.”

  “I know, but my mom...”

  Piper stopped washing dishes to look Lil in the eye, green meeting gray. “Lil, Gran knows you’re not your mom. You’re the only one unsure about it.”

  Lil opened her mouth to deny it, but Gran chose the moment to announce dinner, and everyone sat down, Lil, in her usual spot beside Gran, but instead of Piper at her side, Gran had placed AJ there, and, for better or worse, Lil knew that Gran knew.

  * * *

  They were wrapping up dessert a leisurely two and half hours later, stomachs full of divine food—her gran having pulled out all of the stops to
impress the Closed Circuit—faces hurting from smiling too much, and bellies sore from laughing. Lil couldn’t remember a more successful gathering at the house, and the thought was tinged with a hint of sadness because it was true and because her granddad wasn’t a part of it.

  “I don’t see why they have to have y’all collecting materials on national television. Seems indecent to air the bulls’ business like that.”

  Lil agreed, but wouldn’t be caught on camera saying as much.

  Piper answered Gran instead, pitching her voice to mimic an arena announcer. “You know why, Gran. They say it enough during every show! ‘These aren’t your average arena cowboys, the Closed Circuit cowboys are the real deal.’”

  Sierra laughed, the sound as musical as ever, and Piper sent her a small glare, making Lil laugh, grateful she wasn’t the only one.

  “You’ve got a skill there,” Sierra bubbled. “Ever think of making money off that voice?”

  Piper stilled, but Lil was the only one who noticed. Recovering quickly, faster than she used to, Piper shook her head with a forced smile. “No. I’m not one for making money with my body.”

  She didn’t add these days, like she might have in the past and Lil was proud of her. Piper used to throw her history in people’s faces, using her own wound as a weapon. That it hadn’t worked on Lil was one of the reasons they were friends. Over the years, and over the healing, though, Piper had learned to respect her past, bringing it to the surface on her terms, a message of hope and strength, rather than a weapon.

  “Well, you’re missing out, honey.” Sierra winked at her. “With those cat eyes and a voice like gold, you could go far.”

  Lil reflected that despite Sierra’s cattiness, it was impossible to stay mad at her, especially when she brought you in on the joke that was always playing in her laughing brown eyes, which happened to be as big as Bambi’s and twice as pretty. That there wasn’t actually any of that subtle cattiness in the statement only served to pop the lingering bubble of tension around Piper.

  Shoulders relaxing, Piper offered Sierra one of her real smiles, the one that promised fun, saying, “I’ll leave being professionally beautiful to you,” which immediately and comically endeared her to Sierra, a fact obvious to everyone.

  Lil looked around the room as familiar as the back of her hand and it felt brand-new, filled with people as it was. Despite the cameras and the looming conclusion of the tour, the unavoidable moment when someone had to win and someone had to lose, Gran had worked her magic. Everyone was relaxed and easy, laughing and smiling, cracking jokes and antics entertaining enough for television, but without the tawdry drama that usually sold so well. But it was still good TV, even if it was just joyful. Enough so that, for the moment, Lil didn’t even mind the cameras.

  For the first time she could remember in the two years since her granddad had passed, her home was filled with people and laughter. She hadn’t realized she’d missed that so badly.

  One of the greenies announced it was time to go, and Gran insisted on serving everyone coffee, which meant no one actually left for another hour. Making their way out the door, Gran sent everyone, greenies included, home with Ziploc bag care packages filled with homemade baked goods, and Lil had the surreal experience of suddenly becoming the most popular kid in the group.

  She might be an adult, but she wasn’t too old to deny the fact that it felt good.

  Bringing up the rear, she was the last to lean in to the warm embrace of Gran’s hug.

  Mouth close to Lil’s ear, Gran whispered, “I’m proud of you,” before pulling back to look at her.

  Lil smiled, her gran’s words going down warm and spreading, like the first sip of whiskey after a long day in the cold. She knew her gran was proud of her every day, but there was something special about hearing it after she’d really earned it. It was the kind of warmth found only at home, and being home, being in the kitchen that’d seen her highest highs and lowest lows in the embrace of the woman who’d been there for each and every one of them, only jackhammered how important it was for her to keep up her streak, to let nothing distract her from her purpose. “I can’t make any promises,” she said, her voice full of promise, “but it’s like you said, Gran. I actually have a shot at winning. I have what it takes to beat AJ.”

  Gran brushed a curl that had shaken loose over the night from her face with a soft smile. “I certainly did not mean I was proud of you for winning a bunch of money, you silly girl—though I told you so, and lord knows we need it. I’m proud of you for taking a big scary chance and putting your heart out there.”

  “You mean going for all or nothing, like granddad and I always talked about?”

  Gran shook her head and held up a palm, signaling for her granddaughter to stop guessing. “It’s been lonely here, Lil.”

  Lil opened her mouth to say how much she missed her, too, but another firm shake of the head from her grandmother stopped her.

  “It’s been so lonely since your granddad passed, Lil. I can’t tell you how much it hurts. How dearly I wish I could see him again. I’ll tell you, Lil. There isn’t a lot I wouldn’t offer up for the chance to spend just one instant with him—I know, because I’ve offered near all of it. And do you know what I have wished all this time, through all this pain?”

  Lil shook her head.

  “That you would find someone you loved even half as much. That you might someday love someone so hard that it’d hurt just as bad as all of this if you lost them.”

  Certain she was sinking into the floor though her body remained perfectly still, all Lil could do was stare as her grandmother spoke to her in a way that she never had before. Like a woman.

  “But you’ve never let yourself,” she continued. “You fooled yourself into thinking you could substitute that kind of love with loving us and loving this ranch and nothing I could do, or you were willing to do, could change your mind. But I think you might be reconsidering now, and for that, I’m proud of you.”

  Outside, the van honked. It was well past one in the morning and their cattle breeding work-study was due to start at 9:00 a.m.

  Glancing at the van and then back to her grandmother without any words, all she could do was hug her one more time and then dash off the porch and back to the van to rejoin the tour.

  She was quiet on the way home, sitting as far away from AJ as she could get, trying to figure out what her grandmother meant and what she was going to do about it.

  * * *

  Seven days and way too much bull semen later, Lil wasn’t any wiser on either subject.

  She was, however, in first place.

  There hadn’t been time again, or permission, to return back home once the challenge started, only enough for a quick goodbye at the end before the van was honking out front once more, this time eager to get them back to Tulsa and on their way back to Houston for the final challenge of the Closed Circuit.

  She wouldn’t see her family again until the finale in Las Vegas. Whoever walked out on top in Houston would get first draw in Vegas. First draw, best luck. Her granddad had never said that, and would have more than likely disagreed, as he didn’t keep with talk of luck, but she’d kept it on repeat in her mind since she’d begun competing in elementary school.

  She’d been second in OKC and it had been a flop. Whether luck was real or not, she wanted to make sure she was first in Las Vegas. That meant she had to win in Houston. The only problem was that this was the challenge based on AJ, the city-based challenge that would be most likely to throw her for a complete loop.

  A suspicion supported only by the note she held in her hand, slipped into her boot while she’d been passed out on the plane.

  Recognizing the scrawl for AJ’s handwriting, Lil read it for the three thousandth time.

  You’re on my turf next time. Meet me outside Tito’s tomorrow at 7. Wear something nice.

  She
had no idea what Tito’s was, and she had no idea how she was going to get away to find a dress in a city she didn’t know, but the mere act of looking at the note lit her up like a torch and she knew she was going to be there at 6:45.

  31

  AJ resisted the urge to check his outfit in the large mirror that decorated the restaurant’s lobby. That kind of move was supposed to have been long behind him. These days, he generally left the looking at himself to his date, but he wanted to look good for Lil.

  He wanted a lot of unusual things when it came to Lil.

  Now that he knew what she was fighting for, he wanted to fight for it alongside her. No matter what the outcome of the competition, he wouldn’t let her lose her home. Swallowtail Ranch was a place like none he’d known. He was used to big skies and flat vistas, but he was brand-new to old farmhouses and porch views and tidy well-kept barns that said humbly, Love lives here and you’re welcome to stay.

  Though they’d been out of sight and bedded down for the night while he’d been there, he’d known that somewhere on the property were stock, and horses, and all the other picturesque creatures that belonged on a farm. He’d sensed them, in the faint scent of warm large mammals on the breeze and the tangible hush in the air of being surrounded by sleeping animals.

  But while the scents were familiar, reminiscent of the rodeos at which he’d first encountered them, they were also different—less frantic and chaotic, less edgy and looking for a good time, less desperate and willing to lay it on the line.

  Swallowtail was peace, carved out of the chaos of nature but made of the same blood and dirt that he’d been chasing his whole life. It was easy to see why she loved it. Just like it was easy to see so many things with Lil, things like sending CityBoyz participants to a real ranch, things like working together to save both of the things they loved, for the long haul.

  And because he could see those things, he was waiting at Tito’s, a top-rated restaurant in Houston, at 6:40, trying not to check out his outfit in the mirror like a jerk.