Page 2 of Maverick (The Bull Riders #3)

Chapter Two

Stella

The mood of the rodeo is somber and has been for the last couple of weeks. Colt is alive, he’s stable, and thank God. I know that he’s not going to die, but I don’t know if he’s ever going to be back on the circuit.

He’s one of my best friends. Losing him like that…

I stand there, hand braced on my horse trailer as I try to catch my breath.

Sometimes it just hits me. Right before an event, I’ll just be going about my business, and I’ll have this intense flashback of what it was like to watch him get attacked in the arena.

What it was like to watch him nearly die.

When I went to visit him in the hospital, he wasn’t conscious.

He was out for more than a week. At least, from what I was told.

Dallas has been texting me some updates, but I know that now that they’re back in Gold Valley, back in their lives, trying to figure out what to do with Colt now that he’s got this life-changing injury, they can’t update me every five seconds.

None of us are big on using our phones. We’re all action-oriented people. That’s just how we are. All of us together. Now splintered all apart.

I swallow hard.

This has been so much harder to deal with than I could’ve imagined. Not that I ever would’ve imagined one of my close friends getting injured like this.

It’s funny that I made friends with a couple of bull riders anyway.

But I’m just so competitive it’s hard for me to make friends with the other barrel racers.

That’s my problem, I know that it is. I’m obsessed with winning.

I’m obsessed with being the best. And hanging out with a couple of highly competitive guys that I wasn’t competing with was always fun.

It was never anything more than platonic, not that I wouldn’t have been open to it.

They were handsome, and they’re exactly the kind of man that I’d like to end up with.

If I had time for that kind of thing. Mainly though, I don’t.

Because I want to win. And I have. It’s not like bull riding, though.

The pinnacle of barrel racing is amazing, and I’m excited to have reached it, but it doesn’t have the cachet, doesn’t have the prize-winnings, doesn’t have the eyes on it that bull riding does.

I never imagined myself here. When I was younger, I imagined myself in the Olympics. That’s what I always wanted. But I never found the right horse.

And so much of it is the horse, their capacity, your connection to them.

I try not to think about the ways my parents pushed my younger sister in that direction, while they left me to do it all myself.

There’s something about her. Something that made her more likable, more special, more the person that they wanted to see on top, and I had to make my own way.

My competitive edge makes my family a whole mess.

Especially when I’m competing with my sister.

I took up barrel racing as kind of a side hustle, and riding Western is something my parents really looked down on, and so it was a rebellion of sorts.

I’m competitive, but I’m not a people pleaser.

I know they wish I were more of a people pleaser.

I also know they wish I were more focused.

I think they looked at me and my much more chaotic and impulsive nature and just couldn’t see a dressage champion.

My sister moves like a ballerina in and out of the arena.

She’s serene, focused, poised. Even though she’s younger than I am, she’s always had a stillness in her that I just don’t have.

Harmony has always been suited to her name. She’s always seemed to be singing notes that complement the song my parents are writing for their family.

I’m the discordant note.

I’m out on the rodeo circuit, and they’re still going to all of my sister’s events around, in pursuit of the brass ring – or the gold medal, as it were. Or even just trying to get on the main Olympic team and off the shortlist – which is where she made it last time. But still, farther than I did.

And yes, part of me misses that goal.

Because it meant a lot to me, because it has that cachet.

I’m trying to let it go.

I’m a winner in my field, and that has to matter. It has to be the only thing that matters.

Anyway, I have an event tonight, and I need to keep my thoughts in order. This season has gone off the rails since Colt’s injury, and I am not in an advantageous position. To go from winning the championship last year to not even making it would be such a punch in the stomach.

But I’m afraid I’m teetering on the brink of that.

And my sister is engaged, which shouldn’t bother me. It really shouldn’t. I don’t want to get married right now. I don’t feel like I care about that at all, but I know my parents do, and it’s just more evidence of how much better she is than I am.

I’ve always thought it would be nice to be close to Harmony.

When we were kids, we almost were. But there was always competition.

We were always pitted against each other, even when we didn’t want to be.

I think my parents really believed it would make us better.

That a healthy competition would make us both work harder.

That worked with Harmony, I think.

Not so much with me.

But that urge to compete with her still exists inside me. It doesn’t motivate me. I’m much more likely to see her succeed, throw my hands up, and go off in another direction – see my whole barrel racing gambit.

But for some reason, knowing she’s taking this step that feels so…grown up makes me feel inadequate. Makes me feel like the screw-up.

My mid-twenties are feeling very mid indeed.

I take a breath and open up the back of the horse trailer, ready to get Cloud Dancing out of the back, when two guys walk by. Cade Lawson and Holt James; one of them rides saddle bronc and the other one is a tie-down roper. “Morning, Stella,” Cade says.

“Good morning.”

“We’re playing poker tonight. Fancy joining?”

He might be hitting on me. And maybe I wouldn’t even mind that.

That’s another thing that keeps coming up with Colt getting injured like that.

I just feel like time is passing by. I’ve been lost in this for the last few years, and nothing else has existed in my life. Especially not flirtation of any kind.

And if I’m honest…

I feel a shiver go up my spine, and I tell myself not to turn around. Because I already know exactly who has just approached us, I don’t even need to look.

My guilty pleasure, my deepest shame, the greatest sin I’ve never committed.

“What exactly’s happening?”

His voice is low, mellow, and enticing. He’s like one of those poisonous animals that lures you in by being appealing before he strikes.

Maverick Quinn.

I turn around, because there’s no avoiding it now. And Holt speaks before I can. “Poker game.”

Holt and Cade both look cagey now; Maverick has that effect on people.

He’s so good-looking it’s criminal. And hell, maybe so is he.

He has that look about him. Like he would be the outlaw in a western.

And he really does look more like an actor than an actual cowboy.

Like the guy you would cast, not a guy who should actually be here organically.

His hair is such a dark brown it’s almost black, and he has a dark, heavy beard that covers what I sense is a perfectly square jaw.

His eyes are dark, piercing. His nose angular, his lips…

I shouldn’t have thoughts about his lips. And yet, I find that I do, which is more than a little bit disturbing. And perturbing.

I like looking at him, but I would never, ever do anything with him.

First of all, he’s in his thirties. So there’s that, second of all, he’s…

Objectively evil. Not in the sense that he’s a serial killer or anything, though if we found out anyone on the circuit was a serial killer, I would place my bets on him.

He’s magnetic, not strange, and he talks to people, but there is a very firm wall around him.

Anyone who’s near him for more than a few minutes can sense it. I think that’s part of why people find him alienating.

You can talk to him, but you can never actually get to know him.

I swear, even Cloud Dancing is nervous being around him. Like she thinks he might bite, and I’m not entirely convinced he won’t.

“After tonight?”

“Yeah,” Holt says.

“I might want to sit a few rounds.”

No one points out that he wasn’t invited. He’s aware. He doesn’t give a shit. That’s part of the serial killer vibes, if I’m honest.

He doesn’t seem to care if anyone likes him. Not at all.

He wanders through every rodeo event, clearing a path around him, the dark energy he emanates attracting attention from everyone, but keeping them from getting too close at the same time.

Mind you, I’m sure he lets women close. And I’m sure it’s…

My brain blanks, a warm fizz filling my brain instead of – thank God – any illicit images of a tangle of limbs and thrusting. I can’t be thinking of all that with him right there .

He brings it out in me, though.

Because he’s forbidden? Maybe.

That man would be a punctuation mark on my rebellion. The exact kind of rough, crude, low-class guy my parents would never, ever allow me or my sister to be seen with. Much less sully ourselves with.

Which could explain why, when he’s around, my brain immediately wants to get down and dirty.

“All right then. We’ll see you.”

Cade is doing his best to dismiss Maverick, but Maverick is doing what he does best and electing to stick around and make people uncomfortable on purpose. I don’t know why I know that about him, with such deep conviction and certainty. I just do.

“What about you?” Cade asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll play.”