She took off her hat and slapped it against her thigh. This uncertainty was enough to make her crazy.
And then the sound of galloping hoofbeats brought her head around.
"Halloo!"
She whirled to find Adam on the approach, riding toward her, riding in the wrong direction. At least if he wanted to win the race.
"What's the matter?" He reined in and dismounted almost in one movement, expression worried.
"He's lame in his front foreleg. Our race is over."
Adam strode up to her and wrapped his arms around her. She clung to him for only a moment. She could allow herself that long to lament the race she wouldn't win.
She pushed away from him. "You'd better get going. Buster and I’ll take the train to Chicago, maybe even watch you cross the finish line.” She tilted her head to the side. “How'd you know to come back, anyway?"
"I was taking a short break for water when Johnson told me you were walking. Are you sure he can't continue?"
She nodded even as Adam went back to his horse. Probably ready to saddle up.
But he began unlashing his saddlebags.
"What are you doing?"
He kept at it. "You're riding Domino. I offered him to you before the race started. He'll help you win. He's got it in him."
Hot moisture pooled in her eyes, and she quickly blinked it away. "I can't—"
"Of course you can." Now he moved to her gelding and began to unlash her saddlebags. "The rules were that you could have two horses as part of the race." He shrugged. "I just rode your second until this point."
Adam had knownwhat he had to do from the moment the older Johnson brother had told him Breanna was walking her horse back toward town.
Now she was looking at him as if he were crazy as he held out her saddlebags to her, waiting for her to secure them and then ride off on Domino. Maybe he was crazy. He kept remembering her fall from the horse. What if she fell again? Scar-face and his friend were out of the race, so it wasn't a worry that one of them would try to attack Breanna again. Anything could happen.
But he couldn't hold her back.
She didn't reach for the saddlebags. "Adam, I can't."
She'd told him her most secret dreams. Traveling and adventure andfamily. All right, that one he'd figured out on his own.
Maybe he couldn't give her adventure, at least not more than this race, but he could give her this. The prize money would be a start for her.
She needed to win. For herself.
So he took the step between them. He pressed the leather satchels into her hands. "You started this. Finish it." He kissed her temple and gently untangled the gelding's reins from her fingers.
"I'll watch over him for you. We'll see you in Chicago."
He started walking backwards. She still hadn't moved, was looking at him with luminous eyes.
"He'll try to pull the reins out of your hands. Don't let him pull rank on you."
Her lips lifted in a small smile.
She shook her head, then stepped toward Domino. It was quick work for her to tie off her saddle bags and adjust the stirrups.
Adam kept walking backward so he could have one last look at his cowgirl as the fierce determination she'd begun the race with returned to her features..
"Godspeed," he called out.
