The Bull Rider's Homecoming. Allie Pleiter

He’d once wrapped an injured arm in tape and ridden through an event only to have it leaked later that that arm had been broken in two places. If common sense ruled the day, he shouldn’t even be standing up, much less contemplating an all-star comeback.

      Luke leaned in. “Look me in the eye right now and tell me it’s impossible. Tell me I don’t stand a chance.”

      It was just like Luke to find the one inch of plausibility and stretch it into a mile. It was highly unlikely that he’d make a full, flawless recovery—it was foolish beyond reason to bring the media into it—but she couldn’t sit there and tell him it was impossible, much as she wanted to.

      “You stand a very small chance. Minute.”

      He leaned back, victorious. “Itty-bitty’s all I need. You know that.”

      “But if you push yourself too hard and too fast then you stand a much larger chance of doing yourself serious harm. The you-won’t-get-up-and-walk-away-from-it kind of harm. Luke, I don’t see why you have to do this. And with press watching. It’s not worth the risk.”

      “Maybe not to you.”

      Ruby scrambled for a way to talk him out of this before his agent came and turned it into a hopeless two-against-one. “Explain it to me, then. Make me understand why it’s worth it to you to risk the rest of your life to get a spread on eight pages of a magazine.”

      “Ten,” Luke corrected. And she wasn’t really surprised when he added, “Plus the cover.”