One Last Rodeo (Whitewood Creek Farm #7)

Chapter 1 – Jensen

“You’re getting too old for this shit.”

I shoot a glare at my friend and teammate, Micah, from underneath the brim of my cowboy hat.

He's draped over the top rail of the chute like he’s lounging at a pool instead of waiting for the gate to crack open and unleash the thousand pounds of fury I’m currently straddling out into the arena full of our screaming fans.

“Bull riding doesn’t have an age limit,” I mutter, settling deeper onto the rope. I loosen my neck and try to get comfortable. Well, as comfortable as you can get on the back of a bull who wants nothing more than to kick me off and stomp on my brand-new heart. “Plus, you’re older than I am.”

Micah grins. “By ten months. And I’ve got better shoulders. A better heart, too.”

I don’t flinch at that. I’m used to it by now. Every jab, every half-assed intervention dressed up as cowboy shit-talk. It’s all been the soundtrack of my season since the surgery. None of it bothers me.

Since getting back, the guys have been relentless about telling me to hang up my rope. Most would think it's because they want me to stop kicking their asses and taking home the buckle, but I know it's because deep down inside they care about me and worry every ride might be my last one.

I get it. I care about them too. We’ve all become like family riding for the same teams off and on, competing against each other since we were young men in our early twenties without anything to lose. But that doesn’t mean I have plans to quit any time soon.

Bull-riders don't get into the sport for an exit plan, or a retirement. It's financially rough when you start out, and there’s strong competition for sponsorships and team placement. I've done all that. I've paid my dues, and I’ve made it. I’m not ready to walk away from the only thing that’s ever made my pulse feel like mine.

My surgery last winter was supposed to stay quiet.

But somebody at the hospital in San Jose leaked that North America’s golden boy bull-rider was getting his chest cracked open during the off-season.

Guess that's the price you pay for being the guy who's been the face of North America's bull-riding circuit for the last ten years. One minute I’m waking up from anesthesia with a scar down the center of my chest, the next my face—pale, oxygen tube, ugly gown that hardly covered my dick—is plastered across every sports feed in the country alongside the caption ‘Will Jensen be back? Or was that his last rodeo?’

The negative press only lit a fire under my ass.

I came back swinging and now I'm stronger, sharper, hungrier. I’ve been crushing every night of the Iron Horn series we’re currently competing in, and I don’t intend on slowing down any time soon.

And tonight, the real test of my grit is sandwiched between my thighs wrapped up in muscle and testosterone named Starshine.

Don’t let the bull’s name fool you. His owner’s three-year-old daughter named him after some unicorn toy that she plays with religiously.

I’m convinced that’s why he wakes up every morning ready to murder anything within kicking distance.

Tonight feels like karma for every joke I’ve made about his name when I was warming up.

I give Micah a mock salute right before the horn blows and the gate flies open.

There's no hesitation and no warm-up. Starshine launches like hell’s fury shot out his ass.

These bulls aren't just animals, they're bred for this.

Born for this. They're as much performers and athletes as the riders are, and I can tell this one’s elite.

Shoulders down. Core loose. One hand locked in the rope so tightly I can pretty much taste the threads in my throat, and I’m flying. Eight seconds is the time I need to stay on. It's not about beating him, it's about matching his movements just long enough to hear the whistle blow.

Eight seconds isn’t long.

At least, that’s what everyone loves to say.

And maybe I used to believe that when I was young, dumb and didn’t have a few scars to pay for not listening better.

But eight seconds on a pissed-off, muscled animal who wants to erase you from the planet is an eternity.

And after your heart stops once, after you’ve stood in your grandma’s cabin in Tennessee unable to breathe, sweating, short of breath, while the mountain views you love blur through your vision…

eight seconds can feel like both everything and nothing at all.

It goes quick when it’s the end. I’ll never forget thinking it was almost funny how I'd come close to death so many times before, but a peaceful moment in Tennessee was the moment the grim reaper chose. A Sunday afternoon in the offseason with the only woman I’ve ever loved, my grandma.

Maybe it would’ve been better if it had happened in the arena.

Easier to explain. Less personal if I'd taken a hoof to the heart.

But either way, eight seconds changed everything that day.

And instead of it causing me to fear my next eight seconds, now I don't fear anything at all.

Not bulls, not pain, not dying. We all go somehow, someday.

Might as well be doing something that makes your blood hum.

The thing that wakes you up at night and in the morning.

The horn sounds, ending those eight seconds. I made it this time.

I don't even remember the ride.

The roar of the crowd washes over me, but it feels distant, like I'm underwater, swimming in the lake behind my grandma's house, fishing with my bare hands like I used to do when my grandma couldn't afford a new pole to replace the one that I snapped driving in the UTV too fast.

I hit the dirt and roll, adrenaline rippling through me like a live current.

The pickup guys swoop in, dragging Starshine's attention away so I don’t get crushed.

Then I’m on my feet. I wave at the crowd and wonder if she’s watching.

She always does. Probably has our whole tiny town in Tennessee in her living room, yelling at the screen like I can hear them.

I spin in a quick circle, so the crowd gets their recognition for paying to see me ride, then jog toward the sideline where my team's riding Coach, Dawson Reed, is waiting with a smile on his face.

“You did good. How’d that feel?”

“Like nothing.”

He takes it to mean I felt strong and untouchable.

What I mean is literal. Like floating in the ocean staring at the sky.

I was aware of movement but not much else.

Riding has become my heartbeat. It’s something that happens automatically without me thinking or initiating it.

I still love it, but sometimes it feels like I've lost the pulse on why I'm even doing it.

The scores come in and I don’t look. Never do. Never have. The crowd’s roar and Dawson’s slow, proud nod tell me everything I need to know. I nailed it. Another perfect ride. I still have it. I'm not hanging up my hat anytime soon.

“Go cool down before press,” he orders. “Some of your sponsors want to talk to you, so make sure you put on something nice when you’re done.”

I nod and scan the arena. Joel, Micah’s twin, another one of my buddies who’s riding in the series, is in the chute now, white knuckling the rope like he's not sure he's ready. He’s talented but still gets in his head most days.

That's one of the things you can't do here unless you want an injury.

Be nervous. Bulls feed off nervous energy, and not in a good way.

“Hey man! You got this,” I call out to him.

He lifts his chin, salutes me, and the gate whips open—he’s gone in a blur of dust and muscle.

I don't stick around to watch his ride, I'm sure he'll be fine. We're a small team of five riders this competition. While bull-riding is normally a one-man show, the Iron Series is a team lead event with one leader from each team getting promoted to the finals. I already know for our team, the Broken Spurs, that’ll end up being me. That doesn’t mean these rides aren’t important for the rest of the guys. It’ll give them some more airtime and exposure with the sponsors and the fans, it just means I’m better.

I hop the fence and head for the training room, rolling my bad shoulder where no one can see me do it.

It's been acting up again. Nobody needs to know that but my physical therapist, and even he's only getting the abbreviated version of just how bad it feels. Few more months till the finals. I can grit through anything in that time. I’ve handled worse.

I walk the halls without looking at my phone, without really thinking at all.

My head's been static since the surgery, white noise behind everything I don't say out loud.

To everyone around me I'm still the guy holding the whole production together, still the one signing the most autographs, cracking the best jokes.

Inside, most days, there's nothing. Like someone wrapped my brain in cotton and I’ve lost the plot.

I push open the training room door without a thought, bee-lining straight for a free table. Thankfully, there’s no one else in here right now but me and Heath, a guy who’s been on the circuit with us for years off and on and who’s probably getting close to my grandma’s age now.

“Hey, Jensen. Good ride. Just the shoulder?”

I nod. “Yeah. Thanks. It feels a little tight.”

He starts pulling out some tools, focused and humming an old country song quietly to himself.

I lay back, letting the table take my weight as I stare up at the ceiling.

My hips hurt but I don’t tell him that. My hamstring’s pulling too.

I need to call grandma. We’ve got a break coming up soon which means I’ll be heading back to Tennessee to see her in a week or two.

I miss her, but somedays I wish I had more to look forward to than a quiet week off in Tennessee.

Distant words play through my mind as Heath’s fingers dig into the muscle and tissue… “A second chance... Heart good as new... Don't waste this opportunity...”