Back in the Saddle (Jessica Brodie Diaries #1)(29)

His hand gently squeezing now. Shaking slightly?

Suddenly, without warning, a void replaced feelings so powerful I didn’t feel grounded. Cold air replaced his warm hand. Sunlight replaced his well-built body. It was like the world went from an explosion of color, to white-washed.

He had stepped away, and was now looking around us distractedly. The hand that had been holding mine was in his pocket. He cleared this throat and wiped his nose.

Well, that killed the mood.

I looked around us, too, figuring someone called his name or had a damn good reason for ruining the perfect moment. To my horror, I didn’t see anything or anyone with a vengeful vendetta. I blinked a couple times, and then shook my head like a wet dog wanting to be dry.

Then I laughed. I couldn’t help it! What just happened was just so intense! I wasn’t even sorry it ended. Not really. Having never felt anything like that before, I almost vowed to give up drinking. In the next thought, I almost vowed to drink forever if I would feel that over and over when I got close to him.

Chuckles still coming, the seriousness of life and my current situation completely forgotten, I noticed that he was now looking at me with the cutest lopsided smile I have ever seen. He looked half-way between an embarrassed little boy and a confident, grown man. It was so odd and so endearing that I laughed all the harder, jubilant. Loving the crazy awkwardness of the situation.

I was so far out of my league it wasn’t funny. But guess what, those were thoughts for L.A.. Here, in Texas, at a rodeo with a bunch of cowboys, how could I possibly give two shits, when fitting in would be as easy as keeping a tan in Ireland.

I laughed all the harder; big body wracking chuckles. Not ladylike, but I didn't care. I wiped the streaming tears out of my eyes, and tried to gain control. I leaned up against the trailer and fanned my face with a sweaty hand.

I looked over at William with a Please forgive me! smile. He smiled back and gestured for me to enter the trailer ahead of him. No contact. Safer.

“Willie, it’s about t—“

Adam was cut off by a booming voice over the loud speaker.

“We might have to continue this another time. The bull riding is about to begin,” William said as he motioned for me to follow him to the side of the ring.

Easily hiding my disappointment in a blasé attitude, I moseyed over to Candace, who was waiting for me with an excited smile. “Ty is going to ride! Isn’t he cute?”

“What is with the nickname? How does one go from Clayton…to Ty?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t get to talk to him very long ‘cause he had to go ride. He drew one of Davies’s bulls. It looked like he was getting really nervous. They are sure big. I hope he’s okay.” She turned back to the arena.

“S’cuse me, ladies?" William stepped closer to the arena fence, "I thought I might talk you through what bull riding is about. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea about it.”

In reality, I didn’t much care, but to him, I was all ears. And body parts if he wanted to demonstrate…

“Why is your face red?” Candace asked me with a mother’s concern. “Are you hot? Do you want some shade from the trailer? I can move over..."

“If you can see,” William, head turned toward the rider on a bull, missed the naughty thoughts on my face. “Right now the rider is getting ready in the chute. He sits on the bull and wraps his hand into the bull rope.”

“Chute, as in…slide?” I asked, not quite sure how the rider and bull got from their makeshift prison into the spacious arena.

William turned his whole body and stared down at me for a blank-faced moment.

“Yeah, that was a dumb question, my bad.”

“I’ll say,” Adam mumbled from the other side of William, watching the rider get ready.

“A chute can be a slide, yes.” William‘s eyes sparkled while his words mocked. “Also a cascade, channel, shaft…”

“I said it was a dumb question—“

William laughed, turning back. “Okay, here we go.”

Someone yelled, followed by a loud, metallic grate. The fence swung into the arena, allowing the confined beast to burst out into the space with a weirdly bouncing cowboy on his back.

“Why the hand in the air?” I asked over the din.

The hand not roped in to the bull’s back was high up, over his head, sometimes swinging, sometimes knifing the air.

“Balance,” William said, relaxing somewhat against the fence.

“He doesn’t have much of it. He won’t make—“ Adam stopped talking as the cowboy whipped down, over the bull’s back, then sorta tumbled off and landed flat on his back.

“Gate’s dirty, Jessica, and you are wearing white!”

I ignored Candace as the cowboy scrambled up and hightailed it to the side of the enclosure. The bull, rid of his charge, did a couple more jumps before it got bored and jogged to another gate newly opened. That was probably the way back to his pen.

“That was a pretty anti-climactic ride, but it gives me an opportunity to talk about points." William turned to face me again.

Speak away, good sir, while I ogle you! I stared at his handsome face, pretending to be in rapt attention.

“The judges will give points to the rider based on the style of the ride; how in sync the rider was with the bull, if he was in balance, things like that. The bull gets points for how hard a ride they gave the rider. If they throw the rider off before eight seconds, they give the bull points for that. So the rider gets extra points if he stays on a hard bull.”