AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Her name is Clarissa, and she’s a real piece of work. A man-eater who’ll do anything to climb the corporate ladder. Her company was going to become my major sponsor, offered me a large sum of money.” Mack hesitated. How much should he tell her? “I found out the only reason she wanted to sponsor me was so she could manipulate me. Manipulate the results. Anyway, we had a fight, and I stormed out.”
“You mean she wanted you to cheat?”
Mack nodded. That was about it in a nutshell. The one thing Bindi probably didn’t realize was how much money was on the line if he had thrown his ride, as Clarissa wanted him to do. Not just for him, losing his place in the top ten, but for all the punters who were counting on him out there.
“But you can’t prove it was her?” Bindi questioned.
“Nope. But I know it was her. She came to wish me well that night, right before I rode. Wanted to make up for our fight, said that she’d been wrong trying to persuade me to do something I wasn’t comfortable with.”
Bindi rolled her eyes, but let him go on.
“I had all my stuff laid out on a table, giving it a once-over, like I always do before a ride. Bart, one of the other contestants, asked me a question, distracted me for a few moments, and that must’ve been when she cut my rope. When I turned back to the table, she was gone.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Then they called my name, and I grabbed everything and hustled to the pens.” The rest, as they like to say, was history.
“Perhaps this Bart guy was in on it?” Bindi mused.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he grunted in reply. Mack never even made the eight seconds that night. After only the third buck, he inexplicably lost his grip and was sent sailing through the air. Had she been hoping he’d die? Who knew? But Bart had never come to see him in the hospital, unlike most of the other riders from the circuit. Which spoke volumes.
“I spent the first six months after my accident recovering. My leg was broken in two places, and I needed lots of rehab.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It was.” But not half as painful as having to watch the rest of his buddies continue on the rodeo circuit without him. Watch his lead slip away, knowing there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it, because there was no way in hell he was fit enough to get back on a bull that year. He’d persevered, done the work, suffered through the pain, so he was fit enough to start a new season, never mentioning his headaches or dizzy spells after those first few weeks in hospital. Because that was a minor distraction. As long as he was physically strong enough to ride again, he could ignore the minor inconvenience of a headache now and then.
“Then I spent the next six months trying to get back onto the circuit. But it seemed there were roadblocks wherever I went. It was impossible to get a ride, even in the smaller state rodeo circuits. They all said their lists were full. No one wanted to sponsor me, not even the lesser sponsors. It was as if I’d been branded a pariah. I believe Clarissa had a hand in that, perhaps spreading false rumors about me, I don’t know. Eventually, I returned home with my tail between my legs, which is when Dean gave me a job on Stargazer.”
“That’s terrible,” Bindi said, brown eyes brimming with sympathy.
“I thought so at the time,” Mack admitted. “But when Dean suggested taking some time down under, the idea began to grow on me. Especially when I remembered the pro-circuit, you’ve got going here. It’s nearly as competitive as in the US, and there are definitely some skilled riders here. I decided I may be able to get my foot back in the door that way, instead.”
“Hmm, interesting.” Bindi’s gaze went flat, losing the compassion, her mouth puckering in a pout. “But I still don’t understand why you would wilfully endanger your life every time you get up on a bull.”
God, was she going to keep harping on about this damn helmet thing? Who did she think she was? His mother?
She leaned over and placed her hand on his knee, surprising him with her intensity. “I mean, surely you can see that a new start here could also mean a new way of riding. Perhaps—” Her words were cut off as a loud bang filled the cabin and then the steering wheel was almost wrenched from Mack’s hands. The truck skewed sideways, skidding down the road. Bindi screamed and put both hands on the dash to stop herself from being flung sideways.
Thank God there were no cars coming toward them on the other side of the road, as Mack wrestled with the wheel, trying to pull the car back, stamping on the brakes hard. Suddenly the car responded to his mad pulling on the steering wheel, but Mack had overcompensated and now the rear of the truck swung out the other way.
Almost as if in slow motion, the right wheel caught, and the truck flipped into the air, cartwheeling off the road, rolling over and over until it came to rest with a shuddering thud against a large tree trunk.
