Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Right now, she and her father were circling their horses in the narrow on-deck area behind the roping chute. The team in line before them shot out into the arena, hot on the heels of a sprinting calf, but he didn’t even follow long enough to see if they caught the head.
“You stare any harder, your eyes are going to fall out of your head.” Stacia took a swig out of a bottle of Coors Light, then propped her crossed arms one fence rail lower than his.
“You know drinking cheap beer gives you hairy palms, right?” LJ pulled his gaze away from the warm-up area.
Stacia smirked. “Not so fast as other things do.” She poked him with one sharp elbow. “Congratulations, by the way.”
“Second place.” He hadn’t competed in steer wrestling in a long time. A week wasn’t long enough to bring him up to speed, even for local rodeo standards. He winked. “I didn’t write home about it, but I did send a text message.”
She snorted and took another swig of beer, the sequins on her shirt catching the sun and daggering light straight into his eyes. Today, it was a longhorn bull stitched onto her tank top. “I don’t care if you got eighth as long as you came in ahead of Curt. Now I can remind him all year long that he’s getting old, and I can get more work out of him.”
“Hey, if you were using me for your own ends, you oughta cut me in. It’s only right.”
She pursed her lips. “Hmm, what do you need? Considering his time came in two slots behind yours, I bet I can razz him into doing most of your chores.”
“Let me save it up for a hangover day.”
Stacia tipped her beer to him. “Smart man.”
LJ looked out into the arena, tucking his smile down deep where she wouldn’t notice it. He’d been working on making friends around the ranch for weeks without any luck. When they all gathered to watch baseball games on Curt’s flat screen, he heard the cheering and laughter from farther down the row of employee housing, and he’d usually head up to Andra’s so he didn’t have to think about why no one had asked him along.
Today was the first day they’d seemed to loosen up around him. Something about dusting Curt off after he rolled in the dirt with a calf, fixing a busted clip on Annie’s rein right before she needed to do a hot lap with a flag. Here, they were all behind the grandstands together.