The Wildest Ride--A Novel Page 9

  Speaking to the cameraman that walked backward in front of them, his camera trained on rodeo’s number one queen and its fresh new female star.

  “I’ve got high-scoring contestant Lil Sorrow with me now,” Sierra said, “just moments before the final ceremony of the night. Lil Sorrow—” she turned to Lil “—it’d be an understatement to call you the surprise star of the evening. Your story is straight out of the movies: a mysterious cowboy from the north blows everyone away on a bronc, only to turn out not to be a cowboy at all, but a cowgirl! What an upset! But now, we must know! Who are you? Where did you come from, and why haven’t we seen you around the circuit until now, because—and I don’t think it’s a lie to say this—there’re a lot of little girls out there who’ve been waiting for the likes of you!”

  The women of the audience, watching the exchange on the jumbotron overhead with rapt attention, cheered at Sierra’s words, the sound a wave of high-pitched “hell yeah!”s that felt a little bit like a sugar rush in Lil’s veins.

  Sierra’s energy was captivating—the sparkle she gave off nothing short of impressive. Her beauty was undeniable, her blunt bangs falling in a charming, eternally youthful fringe across her forehead beneath her hat. Thick, expertly dyed and curled hair tumbled out from beneath her hat around her shoulders and down her back. Her makeup was full and flawless, much like her figure—the opposite of Lil’s tiny muscular frame, in fact.

  Sierra was tall with curves that eating all the sandwiches in the world wouldn’t have been able to give Lil. The rodeo queen wore jeans and cowboy boots, and a matching jean jacket. Beneath the jacket, her Western-style button-up boasted a classic red gingham pattern, mother-of-pearl snaps, and red piping.

  She looked wholesome, all-American, and pretty. A hometown girl, sweet as apple pie, with a killer grin—everything a rodeo queen should be.

  Lil had always admired women like Sierra, perfectly put together with their impenetrable smiles and ability to carry it all off without coming across as too matchy-matchy or kitschy.

  There was a reason Sierra was the country’s top rodeo queen, and it wasn’t just that she looked beautiful in a Stetson. Her sharp gaze and smooth manner were those of a professional woman who knew her business at least as well as Lil knew hers in the arena. Maybe even better, since Sierra hadn’t taken any time off.

  Unlike some of her peers growing up—those rider girls who saw themselves as somehow better than the queens—Lil had never underestimated or written off the work of the rodeo queens. They were responsible for managing the crowd, wooing and welcoming them when they started to turn ornery or feel left out and bored. Rodeo queens were the bright hostesses that personified the magic of the rodeo, sparking dreams just as much as the cowboys in the arena, with their rhinestones and big hair and bright white teeth.

  Lil was better at riding bulls than wooing and welcoming, but that didn’t mean she didn’t see that each was necessary at the rodeo.

  Perhaps that was why, where others had failed, for Sierra, Lil opened up.

  “I can’t say I was thinking much about being a role model on the way out here—having been out of the game for the past few years, I was mostly just worried about putting in a good ride—but if I have inspired any other young women tonight, I am honored.”

  The response set off another wave of high-pitched cheering through the arena.

  Sierra slapped her knee. “You did that and more! You walked away with the high score of the night. Did you have any idea you would do so well?”

  Lil shook her head. “Absolutely not. As I said, I came into this pretty rusty. I just hoped to qualify.”

  “Well, if this is rusty, we can’t wait to see you warmed up!” Sierra waited for the crowd to quiet down before leaning in closer. “Now you said you’ve been ‘out of the game.’ That’s another understatement. We haven’t seen you anywhere around the PBRA, so tell us, where have you been all these years?”

  Lil almost frowned at the question, getting the odd feeling that her age was being pointed out as a negative when she was barely twenty-seven years old, but shrugged it off as being overly sensitive. Smiling, she answered, “My rodeo days mostly ended in college, but I was fortunate to compete for the Indian National Finals Rodeo.”

  “Hmmmmm.” Sierra’s lips pressed together, and the sound was filled with meaning. It was unspoken there was no stiffer competition than at the INFR, but it didn’t offer the opportunity for stardom and riches that the PBRA did. Smaller pots, lack of press, and a history of outright racism and discrimination had kept many world-class INFR cowboys from getting their due in the PBRA—and both the groups knew it.

  Her granddad had been one of them.

  But her granddad would have said moaning about the loss did less toward avenging it than getting out there and getting on a bronc, which she had done tonight.

  The truth of it sank in right there, in Sierra’s kingdom, with a strange start.

  She’d spent so much time bemoaning Gran’s scheming that she hadn’t noticed that, in the process, the nagging voice inside that insisted she show the world what its ignorance had robbed it of all these years had gone quiet for the first time in decades.

  “My granddad, a ten-time INFR champion with more buckles than you can count on your fingers and toes, taught me everything I know—starting when I was five years old.”

  Making a noise of approval in her throat, Sierra smiled at the camera. “Well, there’s our answer, folks! A child prodigy with lineage! Did I hear right? You’re a rancher, as well? It seems our unconventional star of the evening is traditional, through and through.”

  Lil smiled, always happy to talk about the ranch, even if the rodeo queen’s words carried a familiar edge of derision to them. She didn’t mind if her peers saw her as old-fashioned. She looked at time on a longer scale than a single lifespan, no matter that modernity offered more shortcuts than ever. In other words, it didn’t matter which direction you swiped if you didn’t have solid ground to stand on when you met in real life. Doing things the tried-and-true way, without shortcuts, might take longer, but the results were stronger. That was true in everything, from rodeo to family.

  “I am,” she said, a smile warming the whiskey scratch in her voice. “Everything I learned about rodeo I learned the old-fashioned way—doing it on the ranch. My granddad said, and I believe him, that there isn’t an artificial training environment in the world that can replicate the experience of doing it where the stakes are high and the consequences real.”

  Sierra chuckled, the sound cultured and light, as charming and sparkling as a Disney princess. “Your granddad sounds like someone we all need in our life!” Pausing with a mischievous smile and sideways glance, letting the previous subject naturally die down, Sierra leaned in, her entire demeanor turning conspiratorial. “We’re just minutes away from making PBRA history, crowning the first-ever female rough stock buckle winner, but I can’t let you get away without addressing everyone’s biggest question. What’s the story with you and PBRA’s golden boy, AJ Garza?”

  Lil’s mind went blank.

  She should have expected the question, of course—or something like it. But she had forgotten, lulled by the other woman’s smooth warmth, that Sierra wasn’t simply a regular cast member in the drama that was rodeo. She was a monstrous Chimera, part rodeo queen, part reality TV show hostess. Her job went beyond inspiring the future boys and girls of rodeo. No, like the packs of reporters Lil had been encountering all night long, it was Sierra’s job to ferret out the juiciest drama and amplify it for the delight of the audience.

  Inside, Lil vowed not to make the mistake again.

  Outside, grinning as if the question hadn’t sent her stomach plummeting to the floor at the same time as it set her cheeks to boiling, Lil leaned back, posture full of casual ease, and said with a wicked sideways glance, “If by that you mean, ‘how did a nobody come out of the sh
adows to beat the PBRA’s greatest champion?’ I think that’s just your classic tale of girl beats boy.”

  A spark of respect sharpened the glint in the hostess’s eye, though her expression didn’t change. “Now you know that’s not what I meant!” she teased. “We want to know about that whopper of a kiss, don’t we, folks?”

  The response was a thunderous affirmative. It seemed there was nothing anybody wanted to know about more, in fact.

  Lil continued to grin, looking for all the world as if she was unbothered, when, in fact, she was mortified that the truth would be obvious: she had no more knowledge about why it had happened than anyone else.

  She had no idea why she’d let him kiss her like that.

  She had never let anyone kiss her like that in the whole of her existence.

  She wasn’t the kind of girl who kissed people. Hell, she’d made her college boyfriend—the only one she’d ever had—wait months before she would even let him think of kissing her.

  And here she’d kissed not just a stranger, but the enemy, as his companion had so kindly pointed out.

  But the crowd was waiting, and if Lil took any longer, they’d start taking her silence for talking.

  “Oh, that? Just taking care of a little bet. I’m as honest a loser as I am a winner,” Lil added with a wink, the lie rolling off her tongue as smoothly as the TV-cowboy personality. “And if I’m not mistaken, they’re calling us back to the stage, now—both of us, I’d think. Shall we make like girls and go together?”

  The audience laughed on their cue while a flicker of irritation darted across Sierra’s face, but she let out a giggle as if she thought it was funny, too.

  “Why, certainly! And on that note, isn’t it a wonder what a little makeup and hair will do to a woman? Why you practically transformed before our eyes without even changing clothes!”

  Lil held her temper, blaming her raised hackles on AJ and the bronco and the fact that she was up past her usual bedtime without dinner—anything besides the fact that she was finding it awfully hard not to hear insults hidden in Sierra’s chatter.

  And why the hell was the woman talking to her about hair and makeup as they walked up for Lil to claim her qualifier’s champion buckle? If this was what it meant to be the PBRA’s first female champion, she wasn’t sure she was better off with the world knowing she was a woman after all.

  Voice as light as gravel could be, Lil replied with a false chuckle, “Family always said I cleaned up well—but we all know family is the first to lie.”

  Again, the audience laughed at her joke, warming away some of her stiff and cranky as the two women walked up the stairs, fully mic’d, with what looked like friendship blossoming between them for all the world to see.

  Reality TV was wild.

  Sierra opened her mouth again, but Lil beat her to speaking. “But you’re so right—you know. It was so nice to get a chance to freshen up after the ride. I may be the high score of the night, but I’m still just a girl.” Her words landed in time with their boots hitting the stage, and the combination of timing, and lighting, and the perfect kismet of Gretchen Wilson coming on over the PA system, had the women of the audience leaping to their feet roaring.

  Despite all the fierce feminine energy of a rodeo—from the barrel racers to the ultracompetitive queens, and all the girl dreamers in between—Lil would have said the Houston Blue Ribbon Arena was the last place she’d expect a girl power riot to erupt, but faced with these women tonight, she wouldn’t be surprised to stand corrected.

  Swept up in it in a way she would have never expected of herself—would likely be ashamed of later, even—she gave in to the urge to stomp her foot and clap her hands in time to the music, moving in unison with the arena full of women who were going to go home tonight and show their men who was boss.

  The camera crew zoomed in on her, her image, long curls falling in front of her shoulders to blend with her black vest, eyes laughing, diamond-nose stud catching the arena lights and sparkling, in a Stetson but still pretty and adult about all of it with the help of makeup, with, at least for the moment, the attention of each and every person in the audience. She had shown them all tonight.

  The only thing that could have made it perfect was if her granddad had been there to witness it. Instead, she had a crowd of twenty thousand and her teen idol, AJ Garza.

  He wasn’t her granddad by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a different kind of dream come true. She’d had the chance to watch her hero, the greatest living rodeo cowboy, ride up close and personal.

  And that was after she’d beat him.

  And then he’d kissed her.

  It almost made up for the missing.

  At the very least, it was proof that even impossible dreams could come true.

  As the song died down, Lil’s moment with the audience drew to its natural conclusion, and she turned to Sierra, who stood smiling out at the crowd. Blinding lights prevented anyone on stage from really seeing the people there, but, in this case, Lil wasn’t sure it mattered.

  Sierra’s face might wear a smile, but she was anything but happy.

  Whether it was due to the fact that Lil had momentarily stolen her stage or simply because she’d successfully maneuvered around her questions, Lil would never know. And quickly, it was out of her mind to even wonder.

  Sierra swept her arm grandly, drawing the cameras back to her before shouting brightly, “And here she is folks, the one, the only—and I mean that quite literally—Lil Sorrow! PBRA’s first female rough stock champion! Give it up for Lil Sorrow! The mysterious little cowgirl that swept in out of nowhere and reminded us all how to ride a bronc!”

  Following her gesture, Lil stepped onto the top step of the small riser, and the arena thundered, filling Lil’s bones with a tingle of restless power she didn’t know what to do with.

  “And here he is, folks!” Sierra called, voice curling around the he like a cat in a lap. “The one, the only, AJ Garza, our undisputed king of rodeo!”

  If the crowd had thundered before, its roar now threatened to tear down the stadium, rattling the stage and risers.

  AJ stepped onto the step below her and still stood taller.

  Next to him, Lil shivered.

  This close, she caught his scent: desert pine, with a hint of tantalizing wildness, like riding off into a sunset—with the top down in a convertible.

  For the fourth time of the night, their eyes locked, and it occurred to her that standing on the top step of a tiered podium while he stood in second place was likely the closest to eye to eye they were ever going to see.

  AJ reached out a hand with a friendly smile, completely nonchalant for the fact that he’d held her far more intimately with that hand less than an hour before. “From where I’m standing,” he said, “it looks like CityBoyz won’t be getting a new coach after all.”

  It was a peace offering.

  Lil opened her mouth to respond, but as the crowd finally settled down, Sierra announced the third-place contestant. “And in third place, nipping at AJ’s heels like always, that old dirty dog, the unshakeable, Hank DeRoy!”

  As the noise settled back to a normal rodeo level, Sierra went on, “With the awarding of these buckles, the PBRA Closed Circuit goes live! Stay tuned folks, we’re coming to a town near you, and if you want to get an even closer, electrifying look, don’t forget to follow the show on all your favorite social media channels!”

  And quicker than seemed fair, given how long Lil’d waited for this moment, Sierra pressed a buckle in her hand and moved on to AJ.

  The buckle was cold and heavy in Lil’s palm, as alive as it was dead, and more precious than gold. Lil held it to her heart and closed her eyes. AJ caught the move and smiled at her, no trace of mockery in his warm brown eyes.

  The same couldn’t be said for Hank.

  “Now, sugar, you didn�
��t have to risk your life on a bronco to find a good ride. All you had to do was let Ol’ Hankey here know, and I could’ve taken care of you.”

  Lil replied between her teeth, speaking through her picture smile as she said, “You didn’t even recognize I had the equipment. I doubt you’d know how to handle it.”

  On her other side, AJ snorted, adding, “Watch out, Hankey, this one might be out of your league.”

  DeRoy shifted his attention entirely to AJ as a girl in a green shirt came to usher Lil off the stage.

  She didn’t look back, not exiting the arena, not making her way through the crowd, stopping for pictures and autographs as she went, and not along the final stretch through the long parking lot on the way back to her car.

  The two of them could have at it.

  She might be the PBRA’s first female rough stock champion, but she was sleeping in her own bed tonight, and that meant she had a long drive back to Muscogee.

  9

  AJ stared at the second-place tour RV with a bemused grin on his face. The vehicle was a first. So was the second place—at least in a long time. The RV would be his home for the next month—or at least as long as he held the second-place spot.

  He didn’t plan on getting comfortable.

  Relax-o-wagon was sponsoring the tour in the form of thirteen tour vehicles—enough to house and transport the fifty contestants for the road trip portion of the eight-week tour—at least until they were eliminated.

  The first-place contestant got the top-of-the-line model. Second place got a super deluxe, and third, merely deluxe. But they each got their own. The remaining forty-seven cowboys were split amongst the ten remaining standard models at a rate of about five men per bus. That meant a lot of cowboy musk in a small space.