Page 19 of The Wildest Ride

The whole thing was done in an instant. It just took a wrist-flick rope trick with just enough force to punch the hat off a damn fool’s head, plus another flick for the recoil.

Again, the crowd stopped breathing.

And then everything happened at once.

DeRoy yanked a beer can from one of his cronies and hurled it at Lil’s head. Lil ducked and the can crashed into the face of another baby-faced cowboy—this one wearing brand-new boots.

The young man stumbled back then stepped forward, wiped the beer off his face, lowered his head, and charged.

Lil leaped clear of his path while one of Hank’s cronies pushed Hank out of the way to take the hit for him. The two men crashed into Hank’s other two cronies, sending the whole bunch of them tumbling into a heap on the ground.

The cowboy that Hank had knocked into came back swinging, but Hank ducked, so the man made contact with a different bystander, who responded by throwing his own punches.

Cameras rushed toward the commotion from all directions, reminding Lil of the images she’d seen in high school of spermatozoa surrounding an egg.

The thought would have made her laugh if she weren’t right in the middle of it with a brick fist barreling toward her face.

She ducked, evading it, but decided it was time to break free from the fight.

She slipped around two other brawlers unnoticed, weaving her way toward the edge of the crowd. She had nearly made it out when somebody got the bright idea to pick up somebody else and throw them at the registration tables.

By dumb luck, he crashed into the one table that didn’t have high school volunteers sitting at it.

The thrown man jumped up immediately and climbed back over the table to take his turn to hit while the registration girls scattered. They fled like a panicked deer, so, of course, one of them ran straight into the fray.

Lil groaned and turned around, locking her eyes on the girl’s bright green shirt.

Lil had heard that fools had special angels, and it must have been right because the girl wandered deeper and deeper into the melee without becoming a casualty to any of the wild swinging and kicking going on all around her.

Until, as if the devil had heard Lil’s thoughts, the girl startled suddenly and swung right, placing herself in the path of an active fistfight.

Lil sped up, skimming under swings and over bodies to get to the girl before she ended up taking one right in the kisser.

About three feet away, Lil realized she wasn’t going to make it to the girl in time. So, leaping with a running start, she knocked the girl out of the way, bracing to take the hit herself.

But it never came.

Instead, a strong hand caught the fist zeroing in on her head and pushed it aside before catching her with the force of an iron bar in the gut, knocking the wind out of her, but stopping her from hitting the ground. The thought flashed across her mind that it might have been gentler to fall.

She gasped a quick “thanks” as the stranger helped her back to her feet, where she pulled her vest straight, giving it a quick scan for torn ribbons before registering the absolute silence around her.

In fact, nobody even moved.

What had only moments before been an active brawl suddenly looked like a group of grown men caught playing dress-up freeze tag for an audience of reporters and interns in green T-shirts.

And every single eye, camera, and mic was aimed at her.

Or, not at her, but at whoever was behind her.

Turning around slowly, she found herself staring at a broad expanse of white cotton. She took a step back.

The man in front of her wore a plain white T-shirt. Crisp and clean, it stretched tight across a set of pecs that had seen the gym at least as much as the pasture. Thick arms framed his chest, obviously grown and honed from a similar combination of effort and vanity.

His hands, though, his hands were all bull rider.

Huge, rough, layered, and callused, they were the hands of a man who let go of something only when he was ready to.

Her eyes trailed lower, taking in and lingering at the narrow tapering of his waist and the low sling of his jeans before she remembered her manners and shot her gaze back up toward his face.