She felt hands slam into her, her feet leave the ground and suddenly she was in the air – for one, two, three seconds and then down again, landing heavily, rolling through the sand. She stopped face down, dizzy and disoriented. She looked up. The bull was still running. But not after her.

Nathan was heading towards the far side of the ring, leading it away from her, twisting back to see where the animal was, the sound of its snorts like a wind at his neck.

In sheer horror at the scene – he would be gored, trampled – she screamed for him, gathering herself up, her feet scrabbling to find purchase as she watched him run. He was agile, fit, staggering his direction like a switchblade.

He looked over at her. ‘Get behind the board!’ he shouted at her. ‘The board!’

She heard him this time and she began to look. Where was the closest? But they were staggered in quarterly intervals and . . . this stadium, it had to be seventy metres wide. Nowhere was close.

She went to run but her ankle gave out from under her and she cried out. She must have hurt it in the fall.

‘The board, Charlotte!’ He had run out of stadium in the other direction and was running back towards her now. And that meant, so was the bull.

She began running as fast as she could, the limp bad, but adrenaline pushing her onwards. The burladero was maybe ten metres away, eight . . .

Underfoot, she could feel the vibrations of the animal as it got closer, the desperation in Nathan’s eyes as he charged towards her . . .

Five, three . . .

He reached out, grabbing her arm and yanking her hard, pulling her with him behind the board just as the bull slid and slammed horns-first into it.

She screamed, trembling uncontrollably as Nathan pulled her into him, his back to the board and creating another layer of protection as the bull pawed and circled, snorting behind them out of sight.

‘Fuck, Charlotte! Fuck!’ he said angrily, the adrenaline still coursing, his breathing coming hard as he held her by the shoulders and looked her up and down, checking for injuries. She could see the panic in his eyes, the tension in his body as he checked and double-checked she was okay. ‘Fuck—’

His gaze met hers, naked and true, and suddenly her world narrowed down to just the two of them behind that board – no bull, no baby, no wife, no reason why they couldn’t be what everything was telling them they should be. He kissed her with all the urgency that had impelled him to cross a stadium to save her, to outrun a bull, his passion a need that she be okay, be here.

But they weren’t alone and the sound of the bull running again made them pull apart again, jumpy. Nathan tightened his arms around her like a wall, holding her head to his chest as he looked around them, looking for help. ‘It’s okay, we’re safe here,’ he murmured. ‘He can’t get to us here.’ But he was looking tense and every second seemed like a minute. What was taking so long? She was shaking still.