She screamed, and Theo didn’t think—he whipped an arm around her and yanked her out of the way. He dropped her on her feet and bolted off running as fast as he could, hell bent for the pasture.
In what must be less than a minute but felt a lot longer, he reached the pasture, swung onto a horse bareback, dug in his heels and galloped across the field after the runaway.
* * * * *
Big hands came around Sadie’s shoulders. Stunned by what happened, she looked up at the man holding her.
“Are you all right?” Cort Bellamy asked.
She nodded, even though she wasn’t. Every second that ticked by, the gravity of the situation hit her. She’d nearly been trampled. This was exactly the reason she hated anything to do with ranches or rodeos, and at this point in life, she’d steer clear of zoos too.
Men sprinted around the building, and Cort released her to run after them. Sadie dragged a big breath of air into her lungs but it did nothing to calm her racing heart. Did she hop into her truck and leave as fast as possible? Or follow the others and see what was going on?
Did she want to find out what Theo was doing to catch that runaway horse?
Hands trembling, she steeled herself and rounded the building. A wide open field spread in front of her. Horses scattered as one galloped flat out through it, crossing to the next field in a blink.
And behind it—a horse and rider.
Her heart flip-flopped as her slow, shocked brain put two and two together and came up with the sum total that Theo was crazy, exactly like most of the men she knew.
Around her, guys cheered him on. Some were laughing at the situation. And even Cort didn’t appear to be worried as Theo closed the gap. She held her breath when he threw a lasso.
One of the guys cupped his hands around his mouth and booed at his miss.
Sadie expected Theo to reel the rope in and throw, but he convinced her of what she believed all along—men’s brains didn’t operate the same as women’s.
He leaned over his mount’s neck, spurred it faster and drew up next to the runaway.
“He’s gonna make a jump,” Cort said.
“He can’t be that reckless. Hitting the ground at that speed—”
Sadie made a choked, strangled noise in her throat that had both men glancing her way, and they said no more. She wrapped her arms around her stomach to force it to settle as she looked on at what would surely be a tragedy unfolding before her eyes. Yet she couldn’t look away. She hadn’t been in the arena the night Jackson died, and she was always grateful for it. So why couldn’t she look away now?
She swallowed the bile rising in her throat as Theo’s mount lost speed and the runaway pulled ahead. This is insane! She wanted to cry out, but it wouldn’t do any good—he’d never hear her and her words wouldn’t stop him anyway.
The guys let out a collective cheer when he drew even with the runaway. Before she could even gulp in a breath to hold it, he sprang off his galloping horse onto the runaway.
She screamed when he tilted, hanging off the side, clinging by the strength of his powerful thighs and a one-handed grip on its mane.
“Get up!” Cort bellowed in encouragement.
The horses and rider were so far away it would take the guys ages to reach him if anything happened…
Next thing she knew, Theo popped upright on the runaway.
A sickening relief washed over her—until she realized he had to bring that horse under control.
The abandoned, better-trained mount slowed his gait. It trotted along behind Theo and the runaway.
Sadie’s insides shook like a tree in a windstorm, and she clenched her hands against her sides while more worry than she should be feeling for the cowboy swallowed her in a tidal wave.
She wanted to pinch her eyes shut. If he fell off and got killed before her eyes…
She opened her eyes wide and continued to stare, as if the force of her will would keep him on the horse and give him the skill to bring it to a stop.
“That horse has always been trouble. We’ve been tryin’ to train it for what? Six months?” one of the ranch hands asked.
“Some are easier to train than others. Theo can manage.” Cort shielded his eyes with a hand. “He’s slowing.”
His words hit her full force in the chest but did nothing to ease her palpitating heart. She squinted into the sun, gauging the horse’s speed. Sure enough, Cort was right.
Next thing she knew, Theo had a rope around its neck, slowed it to a walk and then dismounted. When his boots touched earth, the guys gave a resounding cheer. She couldn’t even manage a feeble gasp, because her lungs were so constricted, her heart still raced and she shook more now than a minute ago.
Theo grabbed the rope and turned to walk the runaway back toward the ranch. He issued a whistle that sounded faint from here, but the other horse trotted over to him. He mounted it in a smooth glide of sheer muscle and started back with the other horse in tow.
Whoops of celebration filled the air, but she couldn’t think past what could have happened. She was never a worrywart. Far from it. As a kid and teenager, there wasn’t a challenge she wouldn’t take when it came to horseback riding. While her parents fretted, she jumped, barrel-raced and put a few more wrinkles on her momma’s face.
That old Sadie’s spirit of adventure got crushed when her husband died.
Some of the guys walked out to the field to take the horse from Theo. He nodded to them and grinned and then looked around. When his gaze fell over her, she experienced the ripple of attraction that had spurred her to take a different sort of risk the minute she rode into Crossroads.
Maybe she hadn’t totally lost her spirit of adventure after all.
Theo dismounted and let the guys take that horse too. They clapped him on the back and his grin widened.
“Haven’t seen that sort of action from you in a while, Theo. Thought that show-off in spurs I hired might have lost his gumption.” Cort pounded his back.
“Glad I caught up with her.” Theo said something else she didn’t hear and separated himself from the guys.
As he strode toward her, she drank in everything about the cowboy, from dusty hat to boots and in between the roll of his shoulders and pull of denim over his strong thighs. Show-off in spurs… She didn’t want anything to do with a guy who sported that nickname.
Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe.
She folded over as panic swept her. What was happening? The air crushed from her lungs, and she couldn’t even drag a molecule into her chest.
“Sadie? Sadie!” He ran the last few feet to her, grabbing her around the middle. “What happened? Are you sick?”
Anxiety, panic and more pressed down on her like cement dumped over her. She whirled, and somehow forcing her legs to move, ran for her truck. Behind her, the thud of his boots kept beat with the pounding of her heart. When she reached her truck, she folded forward, hands on knees, chest heaving.
“Sadie, are you gonna throw up?” He swiped the hair off her face, holding it back in one of the most humiliating moments she’d experienced in a long while.
After a minute, her panic began to flow away, along with the nausea. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Damn, honey. You don’t need to apologize.”
She slowly straightened and scrubbed an unsteady hand over her eyes.
“Are you sick?” he asked again.