Luck of the Draw: Rockin’ Rodeo Series 1 by Vicki Tharp

Author:Vicki Tharp
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-948798-00-6
Publisher: Vicki Tharp

“Silas? Are you back here? Silas?” Josephine aimed her flashlight under the bleachers near the chutes, where many of the bull riders had staged their gear before their rides. She’d already checked Toby’s trailer for Silas, but it had a quiet, almost abandoned feeling to it.

Toby was alive and out of surgery, but with him being on a ventilator, the doctors didn’t have any plans to try and wake him for a day or so at the earliest. The doctors had ordered Silas back to the rodeo grounds to get some rest. But Silas had walked off as soon as they’d pulled back into camp. That had been hours ago.

Now the sun would be up soon. Where was he? Had he caught a ride back to the hospital and didn’t tell her? Josephine couldn’t shake the sickeningly sweet taste that kept climbing up the back of her throat, like she needed to vomit, but her stomach was too empty, too twisted, to accomplish anything more than make spit pool in her mouth.

Off to her left she heard a noise like boots scuffing on gravel and swung the beam of her flashlight around. “There you are.”

She picked her way through the maze of crisscrossed supports and eased down beside him, resting her back against the pillar. “You want to talk about it?”

“No.” One word. Steady. Unequivocal. He didn’t move. His head rested against the pillar, his hat over his eyes, his legs crossed at the ankles, a bullrope in his hands.

“Congrats on your ride.” His hands rubbed on a section of the rope just past a sticky section of rosin.

She didn’t want to talk about her ride. But at this point she’d talk about anything, even her dad, if it kept Silas talking.

“We did well enough to qualify for the finals this weekend.” With a hundredth of a second to spare.

“You should get some sleep. Comet deserves to have a well-rested rider for the finals tomorrow.”

Off to the east, past the locked-up concession stands and the empty public parking lot and the battered chain link, the inky black night had turned a shade lighter. “Make that today.”

Silas tipped up his hat far enough that he could see the pinks blossoming on the horizon. He looked at her then, the pain in his eyes was a raw, palpable beast he was either too tired, or too emotionally battered to muzzle and leash. “All the more reason you should get some sack time.”

“Come with me.”

He gave the slightest shake of his head, so she settled against him. He put his arm around her and laid her head against his chest. She silently vowed to stay awake with him even as her eyes started to cross. The deep-seated fatigue from the stress of the past week or so was taking its toll and her runs were suffering.

But as important as it was to her to make it to Cheyenne, knowing that she had to go home after, no matter how well she did, stole some of her drive.

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