Chapter 2 – March 2025
Hadley
“HAD-LEY . . . JONES, ladies and gents.”
The announcer’s call is drowned out by the drumming in my ears. The rope, now snug around Trigger Warning, pulls tight with my curt nod to the cowboys surrounding the chute.
The bull moves in the tight metal confines, and my leg smashes into the rail. The sounds turn to a hiss as memories flood in. Tunnel vision of Hells Bells’s enormous mass under my seat replaces my reality.
Then . . .
Pain. The taste of copper. My face biting the dirt.
The snap of my arm. The never-ending downward pressure of a horn in my back.
The darkness that creeps into my peripherals eventually abducting me before I can get up and get out of the path of the bull with the biggest grudge Mother Nature’s ever seen.
A cold sweat breaks over my forehead, sending my hands clammy in the Tiffany glove. The other I raise to my vest, wiping off the slick. The vest that’s currently strangling me.
It’s been two whole years since the accident, and every ride, it plays over in my mind like it’s happening in real time. Just as painful. Just as terrifying.
I hone my focus to the two thousand pounds pressing between my legs. All rage and determination. And this is our second match up. A bull I’ve strapped to before with no success.
Second chance to ride an unrideable bull.
The bull rope tightens again, and I run my gloved hand up and down the length held up by the chute cowboy. My glove warms, turning the rosin thick and sticky.
Perfect.
Sliding my gloved hand into the hand piece of the rope, strapped tight around the bull, I close my fingers over and drive my fist into knuckles shutting my digits down tight.
No coming out.
“. . . this cowboy has worked hard to come back from what would have kept many a man down. We want to see him moving up the ranks . . .” the announcer continues.
I shuffle side to side on the bull, getting my center where I need it.
“This is his first ride back after a long recovery, so let’s show him some love, Alberta!”
The crowd roars, and I sink my seat snug behind the rope.
Inhale.
Exhale.
I nod, fast.
The chute gate swings open.
I set my gaze between the bull’s horns. The roar around me disintegrates to white noise.
And we dance . . .
Almost.
Trigger jerks right, bucking. I lean back, left arm held high.
Seat planted on the raging animal, I follow him round to the right again and chance a raking spur over his flank. My body is tight on the left. A sharp pang runs down my rope arm, sending a flush of tingles through my fingers tucked around the hand piece.
Trigger Warning dips his head, throwing his back legs up and twisting to the left.
Fuck.
Right, go right!
He turns sharply, sending me darting over his shoulder. Spittle flies from his muzzle, loaded with dirt and snot, when his head careens upward. The grill of my helmet does nothing to ward it off. Mouth, lips, and tongue coated in dirt and fluids, I blink. The grainy, filthy shit burns my eyes.
Trigger bucks high, his back legs kicking out in a far reach.
I move, but my seat leaves center, popping off the bull’s back as he is airborne.
Hooves hit dirt.
I’m jerked forward. My chest slams into his hump before I roll over the front of him.
A horn catches in my vest, and I release my hand from the rope. Going limp, I’m flung across the arena.
The hard earth bites my hip and shoulder. My helmet bounces a heartbeat later.
Fuck it.
I roll, trying to make my legs move, keeping an eye on Trigger.
He spins with the rodeo clowns, who try their best to distract him.
It doesn’t take.
Barreling toward me, head down, he snorts, kicking up his back legs.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
Move, Hadley, you useless motherfucker.
I scramble to my feet, sending dirt flying behind me, heart soaring a song of erratic beats. The railing is mere feet from my fingertips when a hard head and horn connect with my ribs, tossing me sideways. I crash into the rails before hitting the dirt for the second time in less than ten seconds.
“Hey, hey!” The bullfighters are between me and the bull.
I sag, gripping the rail with one hand, for a moment.
When they fail to coax Trigger Warning from my space, I scale the rail and drop down on the audience side.
Bent over, hands trembling on my knees, I gasp for a solid, useful breath.
I track the bull, willing him back to the holding pens. Where he belongs.
Hell is a ride you can’t get away from.
With a head shake and a snort, he turns back, trotting across the arena for the gate back to the bull pen.
That was way too close.
Anyone would think that bull had it in for me.
“Hadley?” The voice is feminine but all business.
“Yeah?” I turn back to find a lens in my face.
“The bull have a vendetta against you or something?” She huffs a strained laugh, shuffles to my side, and slips a card into my vest before snapping my picture.
I hold a hand up. I don’t want my photo taken. I’m not here to be a celebrity.
“Just one more?” She wiggles the camera.
“No.”
I walk away and she calls out, “Call me.”
Fucking buckle bunnies . . . You never know when they’ll pop up.
I’m not here for them, either. The only thing that keeps me on the rodeo circuit is the money I earn. Without it, the ranch my family has worked for three generations would be lost to the bank.
That is more terrifying than Trigger Warning.
Hands pat my back behind the chutes as I pull my vest from my body, then the helmet from my head. I toss it into the gear bag and start unwrapping my wrists.
“Hey, bud. Better luck next time.” Brady tugs at his own wraps, tightening them for his last ride of the night. His blue eyes shine. Nothing beats the adrenaline and anticipation of rodeo.
Nothing.
“I’ll ride him down one day. Just not this day.
” A strained chuckle rattles my rib cage as I stretch one arm across my chest to loosen the tight muscles after mere seconds of bucking rage.
My body is way too broken for this sport.
I’m way too old. Most bull riders have long quit by thirty.
Despite being “over the hill” in rodeo years, I will make eight on Trigger Warning.
It’s only a matter of time. I release my arm, swinging the next one up and stretching it across.
“Ah, fuck.” I jerk forward as pain lances through my side, starting at my ribs and tracking toward my sternum.
“Get that looked at, Jonesy.” Brady slaps my shoulder as he pulls on his helmet, walking past. I hiss with the movement his contact makes.
Dammit.
He stops by the arena director, Levi, who nods before palming his clipboard to his side and fist-bumping Brady.
Levi’s in my space a beat later. “Medic, Jones, ASAP.”
“Looks worse than it is,” I mutter, unbuckling my chaps and dusting them off before folding them up and tucking them into my bag.
“Make sure you do. I’ll be double-checking with Willow when the round is done.” He gives me the Dad Look, despite being barely ten years older than me at forty.
I know he means well, and if anything, I need to be fit during the week to work the ranch. So I do as I’m told and walk through the corridors in the big old building that stands behind the arena and pens.
I find Willow with another rider as she wraps his arm in a sling and scribbles out something on her prescription pad.
The second the guy turns to leave, I cross my arms.
Kade Knox.
I’d bet the arm injury is fake. The prescription in his hand is probably the only reason he bothers to rodeo.
You hear talk around the circuit, and nothing said about Kade Knox has ever been good.
He pushes past me, dark eyes burning into mine under his black hat. I swear the guy is the devil in chaps.
“What are you looking at, Jones?” he spits, cradling his arm dramatically as he stalks down the corridor toward the locker rooms.
“Hadley, are you okay?” Willow leans on the counter as she replaces a pill bottle and locks the cupboard.
Her navy scrubs hug her petite frame, her dark locks tied back and flowing down one shoulder as she pats the treatment bed.
“Up you hop, let me take a look. What did that big old guy do to you this time?”
I chuckle, undoing my buttons and peeling my shirt off. “Dusted up my ribs a little, is all. Levi insisted.”
Her face warms at his name. “Well, he’s just making sure you’re looked after. Let me know if this hurts.”
She lifts the arm on the affected side, checking for range of movement before sending her fingertips over my already bruising ribs.
“How’s your mom? And those sisters of yours?”
“Good, busy. What’s the verdict, doc? Can I sling a shotgun after the rednecks chasing my sisters still?” I give her a wry grin.
“You’re a good big brother, Hadley. How old is Nia, again?”
“Nineteen.”
“Ah, what I wouldn’t have done for a big brother when I was that age.” She smiles and releases my arm. “It doesn’t appear anything is broken. Just some gnarly bruising. You’ll live to ride another day and wield that shotgun.” She winks at me.
I shake my head with a laugh. Willow travels with the circuit. We all know her well. We’re just waiting for the day Levi realizes what’s going on between the two of them. The bull riders, bullfighters, and a few of the chute hands have a long-standing bet going. Long-standing being the key word.
Odds are Levi’s never going to make his move, so I put my money on Willow.
Who now hands me a prescription for painkillers.
“Nah, don’t need those.”
She tilts her head. “If you say so, Superman.”
“Good, great.” I jump off the bed and throw my shirt back on before doing up the buttons, wincing as I do.
“You sure?”
No way.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks though, hey.”
“Anytime, cowboy.” She walks me out with a smile that would swallow Lake Superior, and I make my way back to the chutes to help out.
Only when I make it back, the last rider is working his rope, getting himself down on a bull called Tornado. Brady.
Better him than me.
“Hello again.” An airy voice falls in at my left.
I see the giant lens attached to what looks like an expensive-as-hell camera before I can raise my gaze to her face.
“Do you mind?” She pushes past, climbing up the railing to get a better shot at Brady strapping to Tornado.
Levi grabs for her. “Ma’am, you shouldn’t be up there. Not with that bull!”
She bats him off, raising her camera to capture a shot.
The flash goes off.
Tornado rears, sending Brady scampering backward into the waiting hands of the chute cowboys, who haul him up and out. The photographer screams, falling backward and into the dirt. Levi lunges to catch her and doesn’t make it.
Tornado snorts, ramming the chute with his head.
The photographer moans, rolling to her side before pushing onto all fours . . . and collapses.
It’s then we notice the broken bone protruding through her jeans.
The bull continues to dance in the chute like he’s determined to see her pulverized into the earth, if only he could break through the steel rails holding him back.
“Medic!” Levi cries, falling to the woman’s side. She clings to him, tears streaming down her dirty face.
“Just breathe, we’ll have you out of here real soon, okay.” Levi is removing her camera strap from her neck, making way for her to lie on her good side. “That was real damn stupid, you know that?”
She sobs. “I needed the shot.”
“Yeah, well. You got more than you bargained for.”
Cowboys have started to crowd around when Willow and her assistant arrive with a stretcher. “Paramedics are at the canteen, be here in a minute.”
Of course they are.
We roll the woman onto the stretcher as Willow looks her over.
“What the hell were you doing so close?” she scolds as she inspects the leg.
“. . . the shot . . .” The woman’s head bobs, and she’s out cold.
“Ladies and gents, we’ve had a little setback down on the ground, but the next rider will be out in just a few minutes.” The announcer fills the audience in as the bullfighters stride out to the center of the arena to entertain the waiting crowd.
Their faces painted, ridiculous rags hanging from their waists, and bright-colored shirts with the buttons done up all the way up their necks, they look hilarious. Which, right now, is exactly what this show needs.
Logan backflips his way to the oversized neon yellow barrel in the center and jumps up. Walking around the arena on it, his two buddies, dressed equally as ridiculous, squeeze themselves into the tiniest excuse for a car ever known to man, honking a horn as they chase Logan on the barrel.
The crowd roars with laughter, drowning out the photographer’s semiconscious groans as the paramedics finally arrive and lift her out and carry her away.
With a nervous look on his face, Brady adjusts his strapping and tugs his Tiffany glove on tight before trying his luck to strap down on Tornado for a second time.
The bull rams the chutes.
Brady lowers himself onto the bull’s back, pulling his rope round until his hand piece is right where he needs it.
On Brady’s nod, the cowboy hovering above him tugs it tight.
Brady pulls it tighter still, laying it over his open palm in the hand piece. Closing his fist, he smashes his other into it, locking his grip down tight. He flicks the loose end of the rope over Tornado and away from the gate.
His blue eyes meet mine.
I give him a subtle dip of my hat, and the fire in his eyes flares.
He tugs his helmet down, sets his shoulders back . . .
Then, with a nod of his head, the gate flies open.