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Skimming her gaze over the stands, she paused on an entire row of men sporting the same white Stetsons as that bull rider wannabe. Even from here, she spotted the grins on their faces.
She let out a sigh. Try as she might to immerse herself in this world of plaid shirts and hardworking people, she never would experience that brand of belonging.
She pulled her stare from those people and moved on, passing over women in tube tops on this hot summer night and their boyfriends with their arms around them, proclaiming them off-limits to any man who looked their direction.
She saw a happy family in the middle of the bleachers. A mom with a little boy in her arms. He wore Carhartt pants and a red plaid shirt and small boots. As Trinity watched, the father seated next to him swept him out of his mother’s arms and swung him up onto his shoulders, where the boy gripped his head and peered over the arena.
Her heart gave a small tug at the happy sight. So normal. Not at all like the world she grew up in.
Turning her head, she glanced to the left. The fence protecting people from any dangers that might happen in the arena was built of sturdy wood posts with wire fencing tacked to it. All night long security personnel walked the edge, warning kids to stop climbing on it.
The next rider shot out of the chute. The crowd cheered as the bull spun in a wild circle.
When she glanced back at the fence, she saw a boy of about four years old scaling it. A stuffed toy pony dangled from one hand, and he still managed to climb that fence like he did it for a living.
Trinity held her breath as he reached the top. Her heart rate tripled as he swung one denim-clad leg over the top.
Oh god. This could spell disaster. A fall from that height would be terrible, especially for a kid that small.
He wobbled at the top.
In the next second, she saw the wreck of what was to come playing out in her mind. She shot over the rail, leaped into the arena and took off running for the boy.
His toy pony hit the dust, and he leaned too far to get it. The gasp of people around him drove her faster. Several other onlookers ran to the fence, and any one of them could be looking forher,but she only had the boy in her sights.
Where were his parents?
She was three steps away, but it was too late.
The boy tumbled off the top in a dramatic head over boots roll—and hit the dirt. A shocked outcry tore from the fans.
By the time she reached him, the boy was sitting up, his cheeks already wet with tears.
All of a sudden, crazy colored patterns zipped into her peripheral vision. Paul the rodeo clown hollered and waved his arms. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him running at her.
Oh crap.
She didn’t think this through. She was inside the fence with the boyandthe bull.
Desperate, she scooped the boy into her arms and ran for the fence. The thunder of her own pulse drowned out the crowd.
“Give him to me!” a deep voice boomed from her side.
She whirled and sawhim. The terrible bull rider was in the arena with her, fear etched across his rugged features.
She thrust the boy at him. Cradling the boy in one beefy arm, he latched on to her forearm. “Run!”
Her mind blanked. Vaguely, she registered hands reaching up to catch her and a hard, firm shove in her backside that propelled her over the top of the fence.
Landing hard on the other side, she looked up between the wires of the fence to see the bull only feet away from the man who’d just saved her and the boy.
He scaled the fence with Spiderman-like abilities and leaped to safety with the boy still clinging to his chest.
Trinity’s heart drummed so hard and she couldn’t catch her breath. She’d grown up so protected that she never even came close to wiping out on her bicycle, let alone being nearly trampled by a bull.
She lost track of the boy she saved—they both saved. Knees hit the ground in front of her, and she looked up into the darkest set of eyes she’d ever seen. The irises were so rich that she couldn’t even make out the man’s pupils in the inky blackness.
“Are you okay?” His low voice shook her back to her senses.
