loop up above her head, right to left. Her wrist was loose. Her body swayed slightly on her feet in motion with the circling rope.
“That’s it! You’ve got it going.”
Griff and Jesse and the others echoed Luke’s cheer. Emma risked a quick upward glance and saw that her loop had, indeed, begun to open up. Not a wide circle like Luke’s, but sort of a long oval in the shape of a giant cucumber. She increased the pace of her arm, remembering to keep her wrist loose, and the cucumber became a watermelon.
“Good,” Luke shouted. “Can you feel how your movements affect the lariat?”
“Yes, I feel it.” She focused more on making her wrist work like the axle of a wagon and the lariat the turning wheel.
The watermelon became a pumpkin.
“Now look at your target. Take aim, and when you’re ready, you’ll release the lariat when it swings around to the front. Keep your movements smooth. Have you got your eye on your target?”
A movement a little ways beyond the stump drew Emma’s attention. A line of steers wandered past on their way to the watering hole. An idea took shape and bloomed in an instant. Leave the stumps to Rebecca. She would lasso a cow.
An oblivious steer stopped and lowered its head to tear up a mouthful of grass.
“Yes,” she shouted back to Luke. “I see my target.”
“Okay. Whenever you’re ready, let her fly.”
She did. The release wasn’t quite as smooth as she planned, but at least the lariat sailed through the air and didn’t slap her in the face. The pumpkin shriveled back into a cucumber, and the long loop wavered unsteadily before dropping toward the ground.
When it landed, Emma could hardly believe her eyes. The loop had managed to snag on the point of one long steer horn. Startled, the animal raised his head, and the rope slid all the way over the horn.
With a shriek of victory, Emma pulled the rope tight. She turned her head to grin at Luke.
In the next moment she was jerked off her feet. Instinctively, she grasped onto the rope and was pulled face first across the ground as the startled steer took off in a run.
“Emma!”
Luke’s voice sounded from somewhere behind her, but she couldn’t look back at him. Her eyes squeezed tight as she was dragged across tall grass and prickly sagebrush bushes. She was dimly aware of other voices joining Luke’s—Rebecca’s and Papa’s—and farther away, Jesse’s and Griff ’s.
Her body sailed over dips and ripples in the land like a stone skipping across a pond. Her shoulders felt as if they had been pulled from their sockets with every ditch. The shouts behind her persisted, and she managed a backward glimpse.
A parade of people ran after her. In the lead, Luke’s face shone blood-red, and his hands cupped his mouth as he shouted. Behind him, Rebecca had gathered her skirts above her knees and seemed intent on proving that she could still outrun the boys. Papa was close behind Rebecca, and Charlie brought up the rear. Every mouth was open as they screamed in her direction.
Finally, Luke’s voice rose above the chaos, and she heard what he was saying.
“Let go of the rope! Let go!”
Until that moment, she had not realized that she still clutched the rope in a death grip. Well, of course. What a dunce.
She let go with her left hand first, and dropped her arm behind her back. When she’d freed herself from the coil of rope, she released her right hand. Her wild ride across the prairie ended abruptly, with her face planted in sagebrush.
Luke caught up with her first. She found herself being lifted off the ground by strong hands, and in the next instant her body was turned and crushed to his. His arms encircled her with such force she couldn’t manage to get air into her lungs.
She didn’t care in the least.
“Emma!” She heard his voice break. He relaxed his hold and held her at arm’s length. “You scared the dickens out of me! You could have been killed.” His eyes moved as he searched her face. “Are you okay?”
Okay? Well, mostly yes, except for her head ringing from his embrace. She took a quick inventory. Her hands stung from where the rope had burned them. Her shoulders ached. Where was her apron? Gone somewhere. Grass and dirt and even sticks clung to her dress, and a large rip along the side seam showed that Papa’s trousers would need to be