Lost Rider(108)

He turns, and without a word, picks me up bride style and continues to march to his truck, my laughter echoing around us. Maverick effortlessly opens the truck door, has me in the seat, and is walking around to his door. The whole time his smile never dims.

“Well, cowboy, you’ve got me. Now what are you gonna do with me?”

He reaches out and grabs my hand. “Hold on.”

He cranks the truck, the vibrations making goose bumps pepper my skin. When he takes off with a jump out of the PieHole’s side parking area, I settle back with a smile plastered on my face and enjoy the ride. He revs the engine when we pass Quinn standing outside the shop’s bays. Her hands on her hips and a huge streak of black grease across her forehead. She smiles brightly and waves back. Mav turns up the radio, and with some old Lynyrd Skynyrd cranked up, he drops his foot and rumbles through town.

Content not knowing where we’re going, but knowing I love the man who’s taking me there, I look out the window with a smile on my face. If following him blindly keeps him looking as carefree and happy as he does right now, I would follow him to the moon.



MAVERICK

I pull off into the road, right after the turn-in to our house, and throw the truck into park. It was one of the first things I did before starting construction—adding an additional drive that would take people directly to the main barn. I can still get to everything from our personal property, but this way we can keep our lives separate from the training camp.

Leighton looks over at me in confusion before glancing out the window. I wait, knowing she’ll see it without me having to point it out. We had never discussed this, and I know it was a risk without her input, but I have no doubts my girl will understand what brought this about.

All it took was a call to an old friend up in Montana, a former rider like myself that took his passion for welding and made it a thriving business after he left the circuit, and part one of my plans for today was in the works. It was harder than I thought to be home a night early, hiding out back in my old bedroom at the Davis ranch, but seeing Cliff install his work this morning made it all worth it.

I hear her gasp and I look proudly from where she’s sitting to the huge wrought-iron arch ten feet from the road, over the gated entrance.

MAVERICK JAMES RODEO SCHOOL.

The large bold letters, with two huge posts connecting them to the black fence below, were created as spotlighting to what is being built behind those closed gates.

“You . . .” She gasps, her head shooting from the gate to look at me in shock before whipping her head back to gaze out the window.

“It’s important to me, Leigh, that this is just as much a part of you as it is me. The Davis name, that isn’t me . . . not anymore.”

“But honey,” she starts, her breath hitching, “people are coming for you. Maverick ‘The Unstoppable’ Davis.”

“They’ll still get that, darlin’. Doesn’t matter that Davis isn’t up there, not to them, but it does to me. They wouldn’t be gettin’ that if it hadn’t been for the woman who saved me.” She opens her mouth, but I shake my head to silence her. “If you want to argue with me later, you can, but not yet.”

She frowns, but after searching my face, she just gives me a curt nod before settling back against the seat to wait.

I put the truck back in drive and move to the keypad in front of the gate, punch the code in, and wait for our path to clear. I drive down the lane, looking ahead and seeing how much progress we’ve made in the months that have passed since signing the deed to the property. The old barn was finished a few months back, the bright red-and-white paint standing out against the green fields around it. The small bunkhouses that scatter around it were finished shortly after. The medical and equipment buildings were close to the main barn. Each of the training arenas were close to being finished. There were only a few more things left to complete, but for the most part, we’re almost ready to start going through the thousands of applicants that had started applying and pick our inaugural class of students.

Once I made news of the school I was starting public, there wasn’t a fledgling rider around that didn’t know about my training program and want to join. On top of four other instructors that I handpicked, Trey would be leaving the circuit to join me here after the season ended. He had come out to meet Leighton and see the land a month after I turned down his offer, and didn’t even give me a chance to get the question out before he was making plans to move to Pine Oak.

By this time next year, we’ll have a full staff and riders living here, spending their days learning from the best. There isn’t a training school in the United States that can offer the kind of knowledge that Maverick James Rodeo School will.