Wilder (The Wild Ones 3)

“No worries. I get it,” she states, her eyes on Hale’s back.

She looks away and clears her throat, and I sigh, wishing I knew what the hell to say. She’s not exactly the type who likes getting pushed.

Kai clears his two rows first, sweat glistening on all the exposed skin of his body by the end. He drops the axes, smirking over at me.

No doubt it’s written all over my face that I’m planning to steal him away. He’s less oblivious these days.

“The race is on for second! Don’t quit yet, boys!” Penny shouts.

“Get the lead out of your ass, Wilders!” Greta shouts to her remaining two sons. “This is our event!”

“Don’t you dare let the Vincents beat you!” Kylie Malone snaps, jumping up and down.

I’m not even sure when she and Liam returned. Then again, my eyes keep going back to my distraction, so I’ve probably missed more than I realize.

“Wind and air and earth and rain! Life brings us closer; we’re all different and the same!” Mrs. Nickel…sings…while doing some weird dance.

Her husband is Native American, and he watches her with fond pride. She doesn’t look Native American at all, and I’m almost positive that’s not a Native American song or dance…so I’m…still at a loss.

Hale crosses the line next, and Kylie drops to her knees, covering her face, as she screams, “Noooooooo!”

Reese almost smiles, but she wipes away the expression while quickly looking away from Hale just as he turns to look over at her.

“Race is on for third!” Vick shouts, but immediately after one of the Nickels crosses.

“Now you’re getting beat by a Nickel?!” Kylie asks in a way that suggests she can’t believe she’s having to say that.

“Shut it! You haven’t won a single event ever!” Jared snaps just as he finally crosses the line seconds before Hunter Wilder.

From there, everyone is seconds apart, crossing the line, as Kylie mock sobs into her hands.

“That was cold,” she whimpers. “I don’t have muscles.”

“You only even compete with Lilah because you can’t hang with me and Krysta,” Nila tells her friend with a wicked smile.

Krysta slaps five with Nila on the way by, and then she starts flipping through…is that a dictionary?

“What are you doing reading a dictionary at a time like this?” Greta asks Krysta, looking truly baffled.

“Looking up what aloof means,” she tells her.

Reese coughs in surprise, and I smile to myself, looking away from Krysta and back to Kai. He’s propped against a tree, eyes on me like he’s been watching me the entire time, lips curved in a sly grin.

He’s way better at seduction than I am.

“Oh, come on, Eric! You let Benson’s pretty-slash-city boy twin beat you! Even Liam could have done better than this. At least I lose to quality competition!” Kylie shouts.

Deacon turns an incredulous look toward her as he pants for air.

“No offense,” she adds like that makes it less insulting, giving him a thumb’s up.

Liam clears his throat from behind her as he gives her a disapproving look.

“No offense to you either,” she says, grimacing. “Maybe I should stop talking.”

He bends, lifting her off the ground, and I return my attention to Kai like there are magnets attached to my eyes.

He’s still staring, and for whatever reason, I feel flushed. The weight of his gaze eventually wears me down worse than anything else he does.

It’s intense to have all his attention. Being Kai Wilder’s official girlfriend means I get a lot of that intensity. Even if I hadn’t been in love when I came back, it would have taken me less than a week to fall hard.

It’s probably best I didn’t jump in with both feet from the very beginning, because I’d have been in over my head from the start. I’d have never left, and I wouldn’t have known how mundane life seemed outside of Tomahawk. I now have a healthy appreciation for this slightly crazy town full of nosy, quirky, and occasionally reckless people.

The race comes to a complete halt, and the firewood starts getting collected by some of last month’s competitors who didn’t make it to the finals, according to Bill.

“Here,” Sally says, thrusting the soda at Reese without looking away from the sweaty, exhausted men.

“What took you so long?” I ask her curiously.

“I dropped the first one when this competition started. I wasn’t expecting it to be so…calendar worthy. Now it’s over, and I really, really don’t know why these guys are so single,” she tells us, never looking away.

“Wait for it,” Benson says, standing with a sleeping Lilah in his arms, carrying her off like he’s finished watching.

Lilah fell asleep?! How is that even possible?

“I got twenty-fourth!” Porter Nickel angrily shouts, drawing our attention.

“No the hell you didn’t! I got twenty-fourth! You’re twenty-fifth!” Eric Malone shouts.

“Are they really arguing about the second-to-last and last place?” Reese asks like she can’t believe it, even though she spent five weeks in this town and around a lot of these people.