8 Endless Seconds

Eight seconds is all it takes to change everything—and for bull rider Verge Calloway, it's the only kind of forever he's ever trusted.

On the PRCA circuit, Verge is a force. He chases buckles, bruises, and the deafening roar of the arena crowd to drown out a grief that follows him from town to dusty town. It's a life that works perfectly—until Shiloh Hayes shows up and refuses to be ignored. She's razor-sharp, relentlessly stubborn, and has exactly zero interest in a man who earns his living getting thrown off two-thousand-pound animals. She buried her father because of this sport. She's not about to lose her heart to it too.

What begins as clipped words and deliberate distance crackles into something neither of them bargained for. Every pointed remark between them carries an undercurrent neither can quite name. Verge sees past the walls Shiloh has spent years perfecting, and she sees something in him that terrifies her more than grief ever did—hope.

Set against the grit and glory of the American rodeo circuit, *8 Endless Seconds* is a slow-burn western romance that earns every hard-won moment. Sydney French crafts two characters whose wounds run deep and whose stubbornness runs deeper, building tension that feels as charged as the seconds before the gate swings open.

Because sometimes the most dangerous ride isn't in the arena—it's letting someone close enough to matter.