“Ready to have some fun?” Dead asked.
Quickdraw had stopped right beside them. His truck was caked with mud, and his wipers were slowly scraping the thick stuff off his front windshield. He was facing the new players and revved his engine.
“I see ’em!” Quickdraw called.
In front of them, Two Shots was bogged down in mud and had gotten out to push while Cheyenne was behind the wheel and had the driver’s side door open, yelling directions to him and giving the truck some gas.
“Let’s go help them!” Raven said.
“Yes ma’am!” Dead hit the gas and made it to them in seconds. Quickdraw, too.
The boys skidded to a stop, and Raven, Dead, and Quickdraw bolted out of the trucks. The mud was shin-deep and hard to move in, but this was a rare benefit to being a cow shifter. Raven was strong.
“Need a big push!” Cheyenne yelled.
The other trucks were slipping and sliding toward them, and time wasn’t on their side!
Panting, Cheyenne slogged through the muck in her motorcycle boots, the boys on either side, and put her hands on the bumper.
“Hit the gas when we say!” Two shots called.
“One!” Dead yelled. “Two! Three!”
Raven put all her weight into that push, fear fueling her. Those trucks were getting closer. Too close!
The boys beside her pushed, too, and the truck moved. Forward…forward.
“Keep pushing!” Two Shots ordered.
Raven barely kept her balance as she pulled her boots through that deep mud, and it was hard to keep up. The bull shifters beside her drove with their powerful legs, and the tires caught traction.
“Keep going, don’t stop!” Two Shots told Cheyenne.
And she did. She forced that truck right out of the bog, at the expense of slinging mud all over Raven and the boys.
Dead shielded her with his body, hugged her close until the mud stopped spraying, but she was already a mess.
And when she opened her eyes and looked up at him, his grin was reaching all the way to his bright eyes. “You look so hot when you’re dirty.”
Whatever she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that, and she had no idea how to respond with those loud trucks getting closer, so she sloshed up on her tiptoes and kissed him quick. She gasped when he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder. She laughed breathlessly as he ran clumsily out of the mud hole to his truck, his boots making sucking, squishy noises with every step. Quickdraw was doing the same thing, and that man still didn’t have a shirt on. His outfit was now couture de mud.
She waved at Cheyenne, but her new friend had her phone up taking pictures. Oh, yeah, lovely. Raven definitely, probably, looked like a super model right about now.
She bounced hard as Dead started jogging toward the truck on dryer land. All six trucks had reached them and were circling, spraying mud. Dead and Raven scrambled into the truck, and Dead yelled, “Hell, yeah, here we go!” as he hit the gas and turned them away from the muddy bog Two Shots had been stuck in.
The next hour went by in a snap. It was full of yelling and cheering and cussing when they got too close to other trucks. It was full of muddy fishtails and Dead slipping his hand to her thigh on every straightaway. It was full of good old boys hanging out of passenger windows and pairs of trucks pulling off to rest and chat while they watched the chaos in the muddy field.
Dead didn’t seem to care that she was getting mud on his seats. He just seemed happy. At ease, and after his dream last night, seeing him like this in his element loosened something inside her heart.
Could a woman fall in love with a man in a day? Could a shifter?
It was hard to look away from him, from the smile on his face, and his happiness filled her insides with something big. That man was utterly consuming.
Fun boy.
Tough boy.
Hilarious boy.
Didn’t-get-knocked-down-for-long boy.
Caring boy.
Her boy…
Dead didn’t know it yet, and she would be slow about revealing her feelings, but she thought something mighty big about him.
“You falling in love?” he asked suddenly as he was easing into a muddy turn.
Rattled that he’d read her mind, she blurted out, “What?”
“The way you keep lookin’ at me. You falling in love?”
Her cheeks, her cheeks, her damn flaming cheeks. She pressed her fingertips there and looked out the window to hide from him. “Focus on driving, wild man. You promised to keep me safe.”
He didn’t say anything, but when she dared a glance back at him, he had this knowing little smile on his face.
“Oh, hush,” she muttered.
“I didn’t say anything,” he told her innocently.
Dead pulled off the main muddy drag and headed for the RV park. He pulled up to Two Shots’ truck that was headed in the opposite direction. Two Shots rolled down his window. “Where are y’all going?”
“I’m gonna get this one in the shower and take her to breakfast before we have to hit the road.”
“Did you have fun?” Cheyenne called to Raven from the passenger seat.
“Honestly? I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in my life!”
Dead was beaming as he waved and drove off. “You’re so freakin’ fun,” he told her when they reached the RV park. “I know you were nervous at first, but you tried it, and now look at you.”
She looked down at herself, covered in mud and filth. She couldn’t even read the Battle of the Bulls logo on her cut-up T-shirt anymore. “I’ve seen muddin’ on movies, but never thought about it being like that. We were going so fast.”
“Watching stuff on
