Page 67 of The Wildest Ride

He’d only even planned to check on her for caution’s sake, trusting that the steadiness in her stance and the smile on her face were enough evidence to suggest she hadn’t sustained any serious damage.

But when the cows started to get restless again, he knew something was wrong.

As time was wont to do in the rodeo, seconds warped, truncating themselves even further than their regular momentary scale. In an instant, the cows went from milling about in mild disgruntlement to racing at full speed, every one pointed in the same wrong direction, a small, docile herd transformed into a single, enormously powerful beast.

“GO!” Lil screamed, taking off after the herd.

“How do we stop them?” AJ called, racing after her.

“We don’t!” she hollered back. “We just hope they tire out soon!”

And that’s what they did, racing to keep up with the cows until the herd exhausted itself, breaking up once again into clusters of cows.

Horses and riders breathing hard, sun beginning to set overhead, AJ reached into his saddlebag for his GPS device while his heartbeat slowed.

They’d veered off their course to the northwest in a large arc—almost a half circle.

At his side, Lil’s tired rasp broke into his mapping. “The van’s gone.”

Looking up and around, he realized she was right. They must’ve lost them in the process of keeping up with the herd. But while the circuit would be sorry to lose the footage, he and Lil had bigger fish to fry, most pressingly, the fact that their little stampede had taken them an extra twenty miles off course.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said.

She laughed, “Besides the fact we misplaced a camera crew?”

Snorting, he retorted, “They lost us.” Sobering, he added, “But we do have a problem. We’re about twenty miles off course.”

Lil’s curse ended in a long hiss.

“That’s going to be tough to make up,” she said.

He nodded, though it was an understatement. By more than doubling the distance they had to travel, their chances at placing in the challenge had all but vanished. And to think the whole drama had taken less than an hour.

He smiled. “Good thing we’re the best there is.”

Her smile was tired, but real, and seeing it, he felt oddly stronger, like coaxing the mirth out of her had given his own battery a charge.

Straightening in her saddle, shadowed and fierce in the twilight, she said, “We’re not out of this yet. Here’s what we’re going to do. It’s early, but we’ll set up camp now. If we hit the hay early, we can wake early and get going before dawn. Current evidence to the contrary, these are well-trained cows. It’ll be a stretch, but if we push them double-time, we’ve still got a chance at a good time.”

AJ nodded. “I like it. But before all that, I’m going to check you out.”

“What?” Exasperation colored the word, as if she couldn’t believe he would stoop to cheap flirtation in a situation like this. Serious person that she was, she had yet to learn that there was always time for cheap flirtation.

“You took a pretty bad fall there.” He held up two fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

The look she gave him was dry and dusty and just like the Lil he knew and loved. Or rather, didn’t really know at all but...enjoyed all the same.

“We’re not doing this whole thing,” she said.

His heart stuttered in his chest, his brain miscomputing her words for an instant, before he covered it all with a stretched-out drawl, languid and lazy as a cat. “We sure are.”

Her mouth formed a stubborn line, but he continued on, unbothered. “We’re going through the whole rigmarole and if you don’t pass we’re heading straight in. Forget the cows.”

She raised her eyebrow. “Oh, we are, are we?”

He stared her dead in her eyes. “We sure as hell are. No competition is worth your life.”

A flash of lightning streaked through her eyes, but she gave a sharp nod.