Page 83 of The Wildest Ride

AJ shook his head. “I don’t think so. You’re lead today. I’ll take the back.”

Lil frowned. “You’re a bit green to take on the whole rear.”

He snickered and Lil realized too late what she’d said.

“Don’t you worry, Lil.” He smiled. “I can take the whole rear. I can even spank it if you want me, too.”

Lil mustered the driest look she could, considering the moist heat building up in unmentionable places, and said, “Does your mother know you talk to women like that?”

“Nope. And I’d deny it if you told her. She teaches Spanish and Women’s Studies at a community college in Houston. She’d have my hide.”

Lil whistled. “Smart lady.”

AJ nodded. “And terrifying.”

“It’s not attractive for a grown man to be afraid of his mother.”

“You just wait until you meet my mother before you go passing judgments.”

Lil wasn’t entirely sure if he was serious or not and didn’t press, though a laugh slipped out.

She wouldn’t be meeting his mother.

A strange pang in her chest followed the thought, but she shrugged it off, instead nosing her horse toward the flank once more.

“I was serious.” AJ’s voice came from behind, carrying all of its usual relaxed confidence, but different somehow—like a steel rod ran through its center. It rang of finality and the hairs on the back of Lil’s neck stood up.

Nobody told her what to do.

“Excuse you?” she asked, turning her horse around to face him.

He had his cowboy hat back on and it was almost too much for her with the gorgeous green of his shirt and his perfect jawline. Her stomach did a somersault.

“You’re riding lead today, and if you’re really so concerned about making up for lost time, I suggest you get up there quick and get us started.”

They stared each other down, both mounted and stubborn on the horizon, brown eyes meeting gray.

They would have been on more equal footing if she hadn’t had to look up at him. Even when she was on a horse, he towered over her.

He wasn’t going to budge—she knew it, whether it was from the set of his shoulders or the look in his eye. He’d throw the competition before giving in. She felt it in her gut as if she was inside his mind as he thought it.

She broke the stare and blew air through her nose in frustration.

“Fine,” she said.

She turned her horse toward the front and grumbled, “Holler if you need help.”

AJ said to her back, “If you’re to be believed, I’ve got all the skill I need.”

Lil ignored him, focusing instead on catching the lead of the cows.

Like everything else with these cows, or rather,almost everything, the process was easy. She’d seen her granddad do it so many times that the motions were familiar, comfortable, and practiced as if she’d been doing it for decades, rather than for the first time today.

It wasn’t lost on her that this moment, too, was another forgotten dream coming true. Or that she owed that fact to AJ.

The sun rose fully, a bright greeting of orange and yellow, and the cows followed close behind her. Picking up the pace as the light improved, she got them moving at a nice clip, cows, horses, and cowboys happy and content.

They rode like that for a few hours before AJ made his way toward the front.