The Wildest Ride--A Novel

by Marcella Bell

  He only had time for Lil.

  His blood was a rushing river in his veins, his breath still coming fast and hard as he strode over to Lil. She stood her ground as he closed the distance between them, lifting her face to his when he stood in front of her. Her eyes were hurricane dark, her thick eyebrows drawn together in a frown as she scanned his face. He’d never seen a woman more stunning. All that compressed beauty around a core of steel... She was the sexiest thing he’d ever encountered.

  She lifted a hand up to cup his cheek softly. “You okay?” she asked.

  He nodded, the thunderous beat of his heart beginning to slow. “You?”

  She nodded. “We should probably get out of here.”

  Aware of the phones still pointed their direction, he wrapped an arm around her, hiding her in the shadow of his body. If they were going to get in trouble over this, he wanted to spare her as much as possible.

  His body calmed as he led them out, the crowd parting to allow them through. As they went, the consequences of getting in a fight when you were too old for that kind of thing started to let themselves be known.

  His ribs were the worst, but his left eye ached where Hank’d landed a solid one, as well. His shoulders, never particularly pleased with him, throbbed their displeasure at those full-armed punches while his back went rigid in disapproval.

  Outside of the rental, he opened Lil’s door. She got in with a quick thank-you and he walked around to take the driver’s seat.

  They left Hank behind. He’d figured out how to get to the spot on his own. He could get home that way, too.

  Lil was quiet as they left downtown Houston, heading back to their hotel.

  After they’d driven for a while he said: “Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have caused a scene.”

  Lil’s voice was quiet when she replied, but there was laughter in it. “He started it.”

  AJ chuckled. “I finished it. Sorry he grabbed you like that.”

  “Wasn’t your fault.”

  “You’re right. But it was probably because of me.”

  She raised an eyebrow, tone dry. “It certainly couldn’t be because I look like such a snack in this dress...”

  He let out a barking laugh that made his ribs ache. “That you do, darlin’. You can dance, too.”

  She smiled. “You’re not so bad yourself. Thanks for taking me out tonight. I had a good time.”

  Warmth spread through AJ’s chest. “Even with the brawl?”

  She laughed and the sound wrapped around him like a warm blanket. “You know about me and brawls...”

  The night of the qualifier came back to him, her in her black vest in the middle of the melee. Even then she’d somehow stood apart, a body in her own glow, as if she walked the earth under her own personal spotlight.

  “I’m in love with you, Lil.”

  She sucked in a breath and held it, and a thickness settled in the air between them that hadn’t been there before.

  Her face was a study in surprise, mouth open slightly, eyebrows lifted, eyes swirling. She’d paled, her brown skin taking on an ashen hue, except for the two pops of red on her cheeks, and her nostrils were faintly flared.

  When it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything he added, “I know you can’t leave the ranch. I’m willing to come to you.”

  Her voice came out as a croak: “No.”

  He looked at her. “No?” His body ached with a dull throb, bruised areas making themselves heard more and more with each passing moment.

  “No,” she repeated.

  “No what?” He didn’t try to keep the irritation out of his voice. He’d waited thirty-six years to tell a woman he loved her only to have her tell him no like he’d asked for her spare change.

  “You’re not in love with me.” Her voice was high and thin.

  This time he put effort into keeping his tone even. “Yes, I am.”

  “You’re in love with rodeo.”

  It took him a moment to process her words, but as soon as he did sparks of temper flickered that he’d thought had been long ago doused.

  “I am a grown man, Lilian.”

  She shook her head, and he could swear he saw her digging phantom heels in. “You think you love me. But you don’t. You can’t. You can’t settle down. You can’t even retire.” She picked up both volume and speed as she spoke, the taut lines of her neck lending a note of panic to the whole delivery. She was freaking out.

  And even though he’d heard them before, the words took on a new sting when it was Lil throwing them back in his face after he’d trusted her with them.

  But she was acting like he’d backed her into a corner, so he kept his voice even when he repeated: “I’m a grown man, Lil.”

  She either didn’t hear or didn’t heed the warning his words carried. Still pitchy and strange, she said, “No, AJ. You’re a rodeo cowboy and I’m not. You’re not going to be able to stay and I’m not willing to get hurt when you leave.”

  He heard what she said like it was coming from far away and through a tunnel. Blood rushed in his ears as she went on, deciding for both of them.

  “We don’t suit. You want to travel and ride and dance. There’s no dancing like that in Muskogee...”

  The strain and tension she radiated were like knives against the thin skin of his temper.

  There was danger in the flatness of his voice when he said, “You’re afraid.”

  She didn’t hear it. She was spiraling too much off on her own. “Afraid?” she scoffed, young and foolish and completely unaware of the fire she stoked. “I’m not afraid of anything. You’re just mad that I’m right.”

  He swatted away her ridiculous attempts at baiting with his next words: “You already said it. You’re afraid to get hurt.”

  Her voice rasped out. “I’m practical. I’m the one who gets left with a broken heart—and maybe more—when you get bored.”

  “That’s your cowboy bullshit, Lil. Not mine.”

  She glared and he turned right, pulling into the hotel parking lot.

  “You’ve been retired for three years, yet here you are. You can’t quit rodeo any more than I can leave the ranch.”

  Instead of answering, he parked, got out of the car, and walked around to open her door. He unbuckled her seat belt and she sat there, staring up at him. He could feel the heat from her body and smell the smoky vanilla that was her scent. She was beautiful—her dress smooth over her lap, her hair thick and curly, falling around her back and shoulders, and he wasn’t willing to accept anything less than all of her. He couldn’t. It wasn’t in his nature.

  So when he spoke, his voice was raw and abrasive, stripping them both bare: “I’m not playing the role of passing-through cowboy here, Lil. You are. If you walk away from this, you’re a coward. Just like every other cowboy who rode off into the sunset rather than stick around and take a risk.” Just like my dad, he thought. Just like your dad.

  He held out a hand to her, and she took it, even though her eyes were angry and glistening. After helping her out of the car, he closed the door behind her and walked her in silence to the hotel’s rear entrance.

  “Good night, Lil. See you tomorrow,” he said.

  But he didn’t kiss her.

  34

  If Lil’s eyes were puffy when she woke up at least there was no one in her room to see it. And if she’d cried angry, hot tears alone in her bed, well, there was no one in the world she’d ever share it with.

  He’d called her a coward. Her? A coward? A woman who’d never backed down from a challenge in her whole damn life. She wasn’t a coward. She was a realist. AJ was used to women with stars in their eyes and he just didn’t like the fact that she called it like it was.

  She was no coward. Through the night, she’d thought about it all. She’d pictured AJ riding fences with her, using his grea
ter strength to break through the tough, hard dirt of high summer when a fence post had to be replaced. She’d imagined him walking through the front door over and over, at every time of day, in every season, taking his hat off and smiling at her, fresh and happy from tending the things they grew together and her stomach had clenched with a stabbing sensation that stole her breath and brought tears to her eyes.

  He’d better be grateful, she ground out in her mind, because while she was saving him, it was killing her along the way.

  This is good, though, she said to herself over again. She needed to focus on the competition.

  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.

  But really, it was the eyes that did it. In all the world, she’d never met another person with eyes like hers. Until her father.

  She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again, only to close it again.

  She had imagined this moment an infinite number of times throughout her life, mentally playing out every emotion and then looping back around to cycle through the ones she felt the most—anger, fear, sorrow, joy—and none of it had been any preparation at all for the reality.

  And though she’d thought out the first thing she would say to him so many times that she was known for whispering words in her sleep—why didn’t you look for me?—the words that actually came out of her mouth, the first words she had ever spoken to her father, weren’t her own, but AJ’s:

  “‘A cowboy is always prepared,’ my ass.”

  She didn’t think she’d yelled them, but apparently she had.

  Every sound in the room ground to a screeching halt, even the fans.

  Every eye and camera trained on Lil and the man in front of her.

  Familiar gray eyes, narrower and closer set but the same in surprise as her own, widened into horrified shock in slow motion, though his body was as frozen as if he’d been carved from stone.

  The expression was more than Lil’s lacerated heart could take.

  All this time, and he had had no idea she’d even existed. That much was clear in his expression. She’d pined and wondered and pushed it all so deep she could barely register it anymore, and he’d never even known. All of that she could forgive, but not the fact that in finding out, he wasn’t happy. There was no rejoicing in the face that stared back at her.

  A strange, high-pitched twisting sound escaped him, and Lil realized it was air, seeping out from between his petrified lips.

  From far away AJ’s voice carried. “What’s going on? Where’s The Old Man? I need to ask him something.”

  The sound was yet another sword through her heart, his nearness when she couldn’t have him somehow more painful in thi
s moment than it had been the night before.

  Probably for the first time since winning his first world championship, no one in the gym moved a muscle or spoke at AJ’s command.

  But it didn’t matter because a moment later he was there, positioned between her and her father, looking back and forth between them, a true scowl on his face.

  The reality of him was even more potent than the sound, and the fact that she was right about everything did absolutely nothing to lessen the sting of no longer having the freedom to reach out and take his hand. Especially not when she needed to so badly.

  Beside AJ stood the friend who’d called her the enemy at the qualifier. He too scowled, his expression aimed entirely at her.

  Finally, nearing three decades too late, The Old Man spoke. “It can’t be.”

  Lil’s blood turned to ice in her veins, a part of her reflecting that his first words had been just as abysmal as hers had, the rest of her sinking in the affirmation of her worst childhood fears, long buried but no less potent.

  Piper had once asked if she’d ever thought of looking for him, the fly-by-night cowboy she was supposed to call a father, and Lil had laughed as she shook her head no. She never had. She’d told Piper it was because she didn’t need another man in her life trying to tell her what to do. In reality, it was because she was petrified he wouldn’t want her.

  Like he didn’t right now.

  “Will somebody explain to me what is going on? We’ve got a truckload of boys here that are ready for us to get this challenge rolling,” AJ said, no easy smile in his voice this time to soften the words.

  Cracking back to life, The Old Man recovered first. He answered without taking his steel eyes off Lil, his voice resonant and deep with a bit of rasp to it, not unlike her own, his rigid spine straightening further. “This young woman is my daughter.”