Pulse leaping, he gazed down at her beautiful face. Her blue eyes were twinkling. “Really?” he asked, scarcely daring to believe what he’d heard.
She laughed. “Really. About November, I think.”
With a whoop of joy, he swept her off her feet and waltzed her around the porch.
Read on for an excerpt from the newest novel in Janet Dailey’s
Champions series.
WHIPLASH
The Champions
From New York Times bestselling author Janet Dailey
comes the latest
Champions novel, set on the Alamo Canyon Ranch, where a legacy
bull rearing operation is run by three sisters—women who aren’t
afraid to compete in a man’s world, or to take on something as wild
as love—and win.
When Val Champion returns to the family ranch, she’s ready to
put her past behind her. Her dreams of a Hollywood acting
career have become a nightmare of fear. But once she sees
rodeo man Casey Bozeman facing down a bull in the arena, she
knows she’s no safer at home. Face to face with her first and only
true love, Val can’t deny her still powerful feelings for Casey.
Feelings she can never act on again . . .
* * *
Val’s the one who got away, the woman who broke his heart
so hard he still feels the sting. But there’s no denying Casey’s
still drawn to the fiery beauty. And there’s no way he can
stand by when the high-stakes Professional Bull Riding finals
in Vegas bring out the danger Val’s been running from.
Suddenly the rugged cowboy is willing to risk it all for her
once more, even if it means facing down those secrets lurking in her unforgettable eyes . . .
CHAPTER ONE
Las Vegas, Nevada
Early November
CASEY BOZEMAN PLANTED HIS FEET IN THE THICK DIRT THAT COVERED the floor of the vast T Mobile Arena. As he waited for the first chute to swing open, he willed himself to ignore the lights, the noise, the TV camera crews, and the crowd of 20,000 people who’d come to watch the World Finals of the PBR. His mind was laser focused on one job—protecting the rider who would explode out of the gate astride 2,000 pounds of bucking bull.
A glance to either side confirmed that his teammates, Joel Hatcher and Marcus Jefferson, were in place. Like Casey, they were dressed in loose-fitting athletic gear with protective vests underneath. The team of bullfighters, as they were called, had worked together for the past five PBR seasons. They trusted each other with their lives. But it was a given that, whatever the cost, the rider’s safety came first.
Farther out in the arena, a mounted roper waited with his lasso ready. If a riderless bull was headed the wrong way, it would be his job to rope the animal and herd it back to the exit gate.
The announcer’s voice blared over the public address system, introducing the first rider and bull, in sync with the images that flashed onto the huge display screens. In the gated chute, twenty-year-old Cody Woodbine, ranked fifth in world standings, was lowering his body onto Cactus Jack, a surly, white-faced behemoth with blunted horns like the front end of a ’69 Cadillac.
Casey had faced Cactus Jack before. Some bulls, the good ones, just wanted to dump the cowboy and head back to the pen. Others had murder on their minds. Cactus Jack was the second kind.
Inside the chute, the bull was body-slamming the thick steel bars, a move that could break a rider’s leg. One of the men, perched on the chute’s side rail, shoved a wooden wedge down next to the huge animal to hold him in place. Others pulled the bull rope tight around the bull’s body, just behind the shoulders. Cody Woodbine thrust his gloved left hand into the rope handle and wrapped the rope around the handle’s base. In the arena, Casey shifted and danced to keep his muscles loose. His teammates did the same. They had to be ready for anything.
The rules were always the same. At the rider’s nod, the gate man would pull a rope to open the chute, starting the all-important clock. With one hand gripping the rope handle and the other hand in the air, the rider would have to stay on the bull for a full eight seconds. For a successful ride, both the bull and the rider would be scored on the basis of fifty points each. For a buckoff, only the bull would be scored.
It was a simple system, but fraught with dangerous surprises.
All eyes were on Cody Woodbine as he hitched forward on the bull until he was sitting almost over his hand. At his nod, the gate swung open, freeing a ton of raw fury to surge into the arena.
Streaming snot and manure, Cactus Jack leaped and twisted, then went into a bucking spin to the right—bad news for a left-handed rider; but the young cowboy hung on as the digital clock ran up the time, displaying each second by tenths.
From the back of a bull, eight seconds could seem like forever.
The three bullfighters circled the kicking, spinning bull, ready for a dismount or a buckoff. Casey could see that Woodbine was losing his seat, leaning too far right as he struggled to outlast the clock. But the determined cowboy kept fighting, barely hanging on.
The eight-second whistle blasted. Woodbine had done it. But the young rider was in trouble. As he tumbled off to the right, his left hand twisted under the rope handle and caught fast. He hung against the side of the bull, flopping like a rag doll as Cactus Jack bucked and spun.
Casey flung himself at the bull, his left arm supporting Woodbine, his right hand working at the twisted rope. Joel and Marcus darted in to slow the beast, getting in his face, even grabbing a horn in an effort to distract him.
Seconds of spinning, jolting terror crawled past. At last, Casey felt the glove loosen. He pulled Woodbine’s hand free. The cowboy tumbled to one side and rolled clear of the pounding hooves. Dragged away by Marcus and Joel, he was safe. But Casey had gone down with him, and Cactus Jack was looking for somebody to hurt.
As Casey struggled to rise, the massive head filled his vision. The horns caught his padded vest with enough force to toss him high over the broad back. As the roper closed in, Casey’s body glanced off the bull’s side and crashed to earth.
* * *
Watching the event alone on closed circuit TV, Val Champion swallowed a scream. She pressed her hands to her face to block her view of the screen, but she could still hear the announcer’s voice over the cheers of the crowd.
“It’s an 85.5 for Cody Woodbine on Cactus Jack. But he’s going to need that shoulder checked. From here, it looks like it might be dislocated.” There was a pause. “And Casey Bozeman is back on his feet, shaken but ready to go. Those bullfighters are tough hombres. They’ve saved a lot of lives. And now, coming up is our next ride.”
Lowering her hands, Val sank onto one of the two beds in her room at the Park MGM Hotel. Casey was all right. He would live to face the next bull. And the next. But she wouldn’t be watching. She couldn’t stand it.
She and Casey were ancient history. She wasn’t supposed to care about him anymore. But heaven help her, she did. And caring hurt. It hurt so much that she never wanted to care again.
Hell, she needed a drink. She needed more than a drink. But she’d been clean and sober for the five months she’d been out of rehab. She had vowed to stay that way. Besides, her sister Tess would kill her if she smelled the faintest whiff of alcohol on her breath.