fully aware that the Travis Younkin was right there. The pull she felt between them was almost magnetic. In her mind’s eye, she flipped back to the picture inside her high school notebook. Travis Younkin, it’d read. Simply the Best.
She hadn’t been too young to get the double entendre and she sure as heck hadn’t been too young to wonder if he really was the best. At everything.
His eyes narrowed as she looked at him. Right. This was not about him, and she would not get all googly-eyed.
The other thing she’d always thought about when she’d looked at that picture?
What if she could be the best, too?
And now she had the chance to do it—to show everyone she wasn’t some misguided girl with delusions of grandeur and a secret wish to bed a bull rider. Where would she be if she let a stupid crush undermine all her hopes and dreams? She’d be crushed by a bull, that’s where.
Even now, she could see the tape of Travis’s wreck in her mind. Rides were supposed to be eight seconds, but he’d been trapped under that bull for almost three minutes of hell. He shouldn’t have survived, but he had.
If he had any sense about him at all, he would have retired after he had to have his pelvis and jaw reconstructed. That disaster of a ride—on a bull named No Man’s Land—still made ESPN’s All-Time Best Wrecks. At least these days, he had enough sense to wear a helmet. He was the only guy here who had one.
June didn’t have one, either. But then, a shocking lack of common sense was what led them all to sit on the back of a two-ton animal and try to ride the danged thing.
Up close now, she could see the serious brown eyes that cut right through the crap. She didn’t get the same threatening vibe off Travis that she’d gotten off Red. Maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You think I won’t make the buzzer?”
“I think you won’t even get on him,” he replied.
“Mr. Younkin—” He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she felt the air between them thicken. “Travis—I don’t recall asking your permission.”
The corner of his mouth curved up a bit—something that might have been a smile under other circumstances. Even so, a faint dimple tried to divot his cheek, right on the edge of the beard that almost hid the sharp planes of his face.
The girl part of her brain realized that, pissed or not—broken or not—Travis Younkin was still a handsome fellow.
And stubborn. “I’m not letting you on that bull.”
Her fingers tightened around her bull rope. “Don’t worry, Mister Younkin. You aren’t letting me do anything.”
His mouth opened into something just short of a snarl when Hallowed Ground came roaring down the chute. Saved by the bull, June thought with an inward grin.
Hallowed Ground was a bull to be reckoned with. A buck shy of two thousand pounds, his mottled white skin seemed to hang loose on his formidable bones like a boxer wearing an oversized robe into the ring. He might look big, but that only disguised the agility that had would-be riders flying off his back in all directions.
His horns looked like he’d twisted them around the hard way, on some poor sap’s backside. She knew that was just the way horns grew, but it didn’t make him any less frightful looking. One horn was angled down behind his ear, like he wanted it tucked out of the way while he tried to gore anyone who dared to ride him with the other. If history was any indicator, Hallowed would do his damnedest to get her both coming and going.
“Travis, if Girlie wants to ride, let her ride. It’s her neck.” June rolled her eyes in the direction of the speaker. Girlie? “You want me to pull your rope? I’m Mitch.”
June mentally scrolled through the night’s garbled announcements. Mitch Jenner. Currently sixth in the overall standings, placed third tonight. Lasted 5.3 seconds on his last attempt to ride Hallowed Ground.
And apparently the only friend she had right now.
“Sure. Much obliged.”
“This is beyond insane,” Travis mumbled. He was still standing between her and the bull.
“Travis,” Mitch scolded, still smiling at her, “isn’t that the definition of bull riding?” A gangly fellow with glasses perched on a beak of a nose, he grinned at her. “Don’t worry about him, Girlie. He’s just a Poppa Bear in chaps.”
Most of the cowboys here had dark chaps, from black all the way to dark brown, but Travis and his chaps stood apart. A vivid grass-green with three brown diamonds down each side, his chaps reminded her of early spring on the Plains, when the prairie was still lush from April showers. Custom chaps like that weren’t cheap. They said winner. They said confident, a showman comfortable enough to be outside the box.
They also said he had a good Wrangler butt, the kind that got a standing ovation from the ladies in the crowd every night, good ride or not.
“More like just a plain ol’ chicken,” Red called out. The sounds of clucking followed.
Travis’s jaw flexed. Clearly, this was an old battle being fought on new turf—hers.
“You’re making me look bad,” he said, the whisper sounding almost dangerous.
“You seem to be doing a fine job of that all by yourself.”
That was apparently the last straw, because he grabbed her arm and hauled her off to the side, out of earshot of the others. “Please don’t do this.” How nice of someone to use the magic word. His voice was low—and sexy, darn it all. She’d love to hear him say her name in that voice.
“Go on, honey! Try to break his arm, too!”
Travis’s hand dropped like she’d jabbed him with a hatpin.
“Get out of my way, or I’ll get you out of my way.” Somehow, she managed to sound calm, but if she didn’t get on that bull right now, she was going to lose the last of her cool and wind up in the middle of a cowboy riot.
Whatever concern for her she thought she’d seen seconds before evaporated beneath a frustration that bordered on pissed. “Fine. Throw your life away. But at least wear a damn helmet.” Even as he said it, he stepped to the side.
She’d won this round. “Don’t have one,” she replied, hoping she didn’t sound smug as she handed her bull rope over to Mitch and straddled the gate.
“Cluck! Cluuuuuck!”
Two other cowboys had joined Mitch on the platform. She recognized the Brazilian—she was certain he had a name, but even the rodeo announcer just called him by his point of origin. He was a man apart, silent and dark as he watched the drama. June had heard whispers through the crowd that he never spoke and he sure hadn’t weighed in on the whole women-on-bulls controversy. But here he was, holding her by her vest to steady her on Hallowed’s back.
“Thanks,” she said. His head barely dipped in response.
The other cowboy up on the platform was the one who’d given the opening prayer—Luke Lucas,
