Her Heart is in the Rodeo

Chapter 1

Rhylann's POV

You can never truly say your alone until your me. I'm 20 years old and I live in Louisiana on a big ranch my grandparents left behind to me. It get's pretty boring sometimes, but Jasper, my buckskin gelding, keeps me on my toes.

It's currently 5 AM and I'm getting up to go check on all of the horses. I throw on a pair of pants, a t-shirt and my Ariat's. I walk to the kitchen to start the coffee maker, then go and brush my hair and my teeth. Once I finish that, i head off and make my coffee and head out the door.

I walk to the barn and open the heavy doors. I flip the light switch to find all the horses stick their heads out of their stalls and whining.I chuckle and head to the tack room to start filling up feed buckets, the mare's and babies being first. I have a total of about 40 horses, so I always have my hands full.

After filling up the buckets with feed, I fill Jasper's, Red, and Oliver's feed buckets since they were in the barn, and loaded the rest on to the back of the golf cart. I slowly made my rounds filling the feed troughs, and made sure everyone was where they were supposed to be.

I hear a vehicle pulling up, and I turn around to see my older brother's truck pulling up.

"Hey bro. Whatcha need?" I ask

"Well, first I need to check up on Red, and second, I came to remind you about the rodeo tonight." He explains. I nod at him, and watch him walk off to red's stall.

After all the horses stop eating, I go grab the troughs from the field and throw them over the fence, deciding to go prepare Jasper for the rodeo tonight.

I grab my show tack from the living quarters in my trailer, and set up a stand to set my saddle on. I grab my camouflage saddle pad as well, deciding to practice quickly. I grab Jasper's halter, leading him to the crossties to be brushed down and tacked up.

I brush him out, spray some fly spray on his feet, and walk to get my saddle pad and saddle. I lift my saddle on top of the saddle pad on Jasper's back, and tighten the cinch and breast collar. I walk and grab his bridle and bit from the trailer, it matching my saddle pad. I walk back to Jasper, watching him easily take the bit.

I have my brother hold him, me putting my foot in to the stirrup swinging myself into the saddle. I check my cinch quickly, then ask my brother to go open up the arena and set the barrels out. I warm up Jasper by riding him down the driveway and back a few times, finally happy with the warm-up. We wait at the gate, my brother ready to time.

I give him to go signal and dig my heels into Jasper's side, making him go into a full gallop. We went around the first barrel perfectly, the second one my foot slightly touching. The third and last barrel i cut it to close, ending up in me almost knocking the barrel down. I balanced it out with my foot quickly, and we shot back through the gate.

"15.75 seconds! Fastest time I've ever seen you do! You definitely are going to win tonight!" Jax, my older brother exclaims.

"Thanks bro. Want to head inside for lunch after I untack Jasper? We have to leave soon too." I say.

"Let's just load up the horses and stop and get something. I'll untack and load up, you go get everything ready" he replies.

I nod my head and walk to my house, taking a quick shower, putting on a new shirt. I grab the bag I had packed the other night, quickly shoving my show boots inside and grabbing last minute essentials.

I head out the door, my brother already waiting for my in my truck with the trailer hooked to the back. I hop in the driver seat, throwing my bag in the back. I pull up directions on my phone, before heading out. We blast Bob Segar and the Silver Bullet band, us singing along to every song. Soon, we arrive at the fair grounds. I leave my brother to set up, me going to register myself and Jasper.

I grab a sheet and fill out the same sheet I see every time:

Name: Rhylann Star

Age: 20

Birthday: April 19

Height: 5"10

Horses name: Jasper's Fools Gold

Horse's sex: Gelding

Horse's age:6

I turn it in with a bright smile, and turn to walk out the door. As soon as I turned though, I ran into something rock hard. I opened my eyes after the shock to see bright green eyes looking down at me.

"Alright there little lady?" He asked with a smirk. I huffed.

"Actually, I was just fine until you knocked into me. And I'm not little!" I glared.

He just chuckled.

"Name's Brantley. Brantley McHone. What's your name?"

"Names Rhylann. Rhylann Wilson" I smirked at him.

He gave me a lopsided smile.

"Well, I hope to see you racing tonight. Good luck to you." And just like that, the conversation was over.

I walked back to our trailer, Brantley on my mind. Who does he think he is!?!