Tracy comes up beside me, and her presence calms me down. At least for now.

“All right guys, we’ve got a show to put on tonight,” Tracy says, and her voice is even and sure. “Maguire, you're setting the schedule for the riders.” The older cowboy up front nods at her order.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Have Shaw and Tate as your backup, and Gina on the barrels. The rest is your call.”

“You heard her,” Maguire says, and the rest of the handlers fall into action.

“Megan,” Tracy calls to a woman that’s been standing off to the sides. “You’re on cart seven tonight.”

“What?” I hear someone snap from the group of beer girls, then Nina pushes her way forward. “What did you just say?”

“Megan, there’s extra shirts in the office if you want to come with me,” Tracy says to the woman, who is now grinning from ear to ear.

“You’re not giving the janitor my job,” Nina pops off.

“You’re right, Nina, I’m not. I’m giving you her job. You can scrub the toilets, or like Bronco said, there’s the door.”

I want to howl with pride at the look on Nina’s face. Nina turns to the other cart girls, who all back away from her like she just farted. Then I have to hold in a laugh as she flips the bird at the two of us and marches out of the Circle C.

“I guess she’s not cleaning toilets?” I tease, and Tracy shrugs.

“I guess not.”

Chapter Thirteen

Tracy

The night started off smoothly enough. We had a normal crowd, nothing too crazy. Then it started to spread through our small town and into the city that Bronco Layne was not only at the Circle C tonight, but he now owned it. We’d ended up at full capacity and had to turn people away. We’ve never had to do that before, and Bronco wasn’t even riding tonight.

It’s a bit of a reminder of who he really is. I try to keep my ears from not overhearing the buckle bunnies talk about him. Mostly people wonder why he’d buy this place to begin with. There are all kinds of whispers going around. I hate that so many remind me that Bronco and I might live in the same world but we’re still so far apart.

Thankfully I’ve been all over the place and could push most of those thoughts from my mind. It was easy to get lost in work because it was all hands on deck tonight. At one point, even I was slinging beer to help out some of the girls, but I did what I had to do. What’s better is that no one gave me any shit for the first time. I’m not sure if it was because of Bronco’s speech or the fact that there was no time. Still, no matter how busy I was, thoughts of him lingered in the back of my mind.

When we make the last call for drinks, which we always do thirty minutes before the show is over, I finally get to catch my breath.