Page 52 of Reckless Skye

On her other side, Ryan silently leaned forward and rested both elbows on his thighs as he watched the arena like a hawk.

Skye watched in fascination as the first rider, a kid called Dale Smith, lowered himself down onto a bull called Lucky Strike. Their seats were close enough to the sand that she could make out the rider as he set up, the bull thrashing beneath him in the chute.

There was a moment of stillness, where both rider and bull paused.

The rider nodded.

The chute opened. And Lucky Strike did not hesitate. He came out forelegs first, head down, his powerful hindquarters up.

Dale held on as the bull bucked, each kick out seemingly more frenzied than the last, each twist and spin rag-dolling him.

The buzzer sounded.

Skye released her breath in one whoosh of air as Dale freed himself and then fell to the ground and landed on his knees. It took a second for the bull to realize the rider was off his back, but the moment he did, he turned – looking, Skye thought, like he wanted revenge.

‘See, now the bullfighters step in to distract the bull,’ Janey said, right as a bullfighter in clown makeup slapped Lucky Strike on the rump, calling the bull’s attention back to him and away from Dale as he hurriedly got to his feet and ran for the piped corral fence.

‘I don’t know who’s crazier,’ Skye commented as the bullfighters formed a circle around the bull and took turns dodging its horns while they pushed him back towards the pen’s gate.

‘Baby, let me tell you something: you gotta have a few screws loose to get to this level in any rodeo sport.’

Skye did not disagree. And as she watched the first three bull riders, two of whom didn’t make the required eight seconds, she thought that maybe they had more than just a few screws loose.

And then it was TJ’s turn.

Crazy or not, he was undeniably sexy in his black leather chaps, vest, and hat.

She held her breath as he lowered down onto Cuddles’s back. On one side of her, Ryan was eerily silent. On the other, Janey unconsciously reached out to take Skye’s hand in a death grip, her whispered ‘Here we go’ full of dread.

‘Mother’ by Danzig started blaring over the speakers.

Skye squeezed Janey’s hand back, but she couldn’t speak. Couldn’t look away as TJ leaned forward, laced his free arm on the side of the chute, and then nodded.

Cuddles came out of the chute like a bullet, bucking and spinning as if the devil were on his heels – or maybe on his back. He jumped mid-kick, so that all four feet were off the ground.

Ryan inhaled sharply through his teeth.

TJ rode, his body moving fluidly despite the turbulent ride, his free arm following in the wake of his body’s movements.

‘Come on, TJ,’ Ryan murmured.

Everything passed in slow motion; every tick of the clock was an eternity. Skye’s lungs burned as her trapped breath heated and expanded. She vaguely thought she might throw up.

At one point, with only two seconds left on the clock, TJ slipped forward. For a single blip in time, it looked as if he was going to fall.

It took everything within Skye not to cover her eyes like a child watching a horror movie she wasn’t supposed to. Please, God.

But TJ righted himself at the last moment.

The buzzer sounded.

Skye’s heart started beating again.

TJ released his hand from the bull rope and dropped onto his feet as the crowd went wild.

‘A beautiful ride from Triple J and Cuddles,’ the announcer stated. ‘And it looks like the judges agree! That’s a 90.50 score for Jesse James Jones, which puts him in the lead for tonight’s rides!’

Skye and Janey expelled relieved breaths at the same time and then looked at each other and grinned.