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It didn’t matter how hard she worked or how much she tried to distract herself, Bullet had been on her mind all the time. Now, here she was and so was he. It was like a dream come true.
She watched him climb up the back of the chute. He was easy to find amidst the other cowboys. He was wearing the chaps she’d designed. He looked over, caught her watching, and tipped his hat in her direction.
“We both have cowboys ridin’ for us tonight,” said Lyric, sliding into the seat next to Tristan, which her father had left empty when he went to talk to Nate Simmons. He was almost fan-boying it. “Good to see you here.”
She smiled at Lyric. “Better to be here. I missed you.” She turned her head and looked in the direction of the bucking chutes. “All of you.”
“He’s been ridin’ like shit.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“RodeoChat.”
“Right on, girlfriend,” Lyric high-fived her.
“Which cowboy are you watching tonight?”
“You know me, Tristan. I watch ’em all, but the one whose time I care the most about is a bulldogger.”
“Which one?”
Lyric rolled her eyes. “King West, but I bet you already knew that.”
“Yeah, I kinda’ figured. Although I have been a little out of the loop.”
“Did you know he’s been sittin’ in when my dad, Ben, and Mark play?”
“No. You’re kidding? Does he play the guitar?”
“Wait until later, and we get a jam goin’ wherever we end up celebratin’. That man has a voice as smooth as silk, and the songs he writes—damn, they’re good.” Lyric fanned her face, and her cheeks turned pink.
Tristan liked seeing her this way for two reasons. One, she liked seeing Lyric happy. Two, if Lyric was distracted by King, she wouldn’t be paying as much attention to Bullet and her.
Bullet put on his protective vest, kissed the tips of two fingers, and touched them to the spot he saw on his chaps where Tristan had embroidered her initials. It would have been easy to miss, but when he was removing the McCullough Cowboy tag, something in the detail caught his eye. It was a small heart and the initials “TdM.” He couldn’t wait to ask her what the “d” stood for. When he did, she’d know he found her little love note.
“Where’s your head now?” asked Buck, who Bullet hadn’t seen sitting on the back of the chute.
He smiled. “This bull is mine.”
Bullet didn’t lie. After a near-perfect eight-second ride, Bullet’s score came in at eighty-eight.
“Eight for eighty-eight,” he overheard Buck say to Bill. The two men were all smiles when Bullet walked back behind the chutes. When he glanced over to the box, Tristan blew him a kiss.
“Dottie used to do that,” mused Bill. “Always made me feel like I was on top of the world.”
“I know that feeling.”
“Hell, Bullet, when you break a losing streak, you go all out, don’t ya?” joked Bill.
“It’s his career’s best,” answered Buck, who seemed to be studying another bull rider. “Come on up here, Bullet, I want you to see this.”
Buck and Bullet sat on the back of the chute and studied the final five bull riders. With each rider, Buck asked Bullet to tell him what the cowboy did right and what he did wrong.
“You should do this every time you enter a bull buckin’, even when you’re practicin’. Watch the guys who aren’t riding well just as much as you watch the earnings’ leaders.”
Bullet was listening to every word Buck said, but he could feel his body leaning in the direction of the box where Tristan sat. It was almost as though there was a magnetic pull between their bodies.
