Page 7 of Swift and Saddled

Between Gus, the hard-ass but also dedicated, efficient, and hardworking oldest son, and Emmy, the fierce but also kind and caring champion barrel racer, it felt easy to get lost. I didn’t have an identifier like they did.

I was just Wes.

And that was fine. I didn’t mind, but I was still excited to have something that was mine.

I heard the floorboards behind me squeak.

“How are you feeling about today?” Amos Ryder’s gravelly voice came from behind me.

“Good,” I said. “It feels weird that it’s finally here.” My dad rounded the kitchen counter and stood across from me now.

He was wearing his classic Wranglers and cotton button-down. Before he started work, he always rolled the cuffs of his shirt up so you could see the faded swallow tattoos on his forearms.

“What time is the designer getting here?” he asked.

“Nine-thirty. Are you coming back here, or do you want to meet us at the site?” I asked.

“I’ll meet her here,” he said as he took a sip of his coffee—without letting it cool. I didn’t know how he drank it when it was still scalding. “This is your project, Weston. You don’t need me to be at the site. You can do this.”

If there was one thing that Amos Ryder always did, it was believe in his kids. And Brooks, too, I guess. And we didn’t even do anything to earn his unconditional support for us. He just did it. I mean, I guess that’s how some parents were. But still.

I was fucking terrified of letting him down.

I rubbed a hand down my face. “I know. It’s just—” I paused for a second, trying to think how to word my thoughts. I’d always been second in command—third, if we were getting technical. I lived in Gus’s shadow, knowing that he would end up running the ranch one day. I’d never done anything on my own. “It’s a big deal” is what I settled on.

My dad nodded. I think he understood the part I wasn’t saying. “What’s that?” he asked, gesturing toward the bag on the counter.

I didn’t really want to tell my dad how the bag came to be in my possession, so I just said, “A friend left it at the bar last night.”

Amos raised his eyebrows in question. “A friend?”

I swallowed. “Yeah. I brought it home because I didn’t want it to end up permanently smelling like cigarette smoke,” I said nonchalantly, I hoped.

My dad’s eyes narrowed, just a little, before he shook his head and took another sip of his coffee. “All three of you need to get better at lying.”

Chapter 4

Ada

I’ve made a lot of stupid decisions in my life—really stupid decisions—so you’d think that I’d understand that stupid decisions have consequences.

For example: If you choose to marry an asshole, your marriage is going to suck. If you choose to eat nothing but old Doritos for dinner, you’re probably going to wake up hungry. And this is my new favorite: If you impulsively decide to kiss a stranger in a Wyoming dive bar, you will lose your iPad.

Which you need. For your job. That you start today.

Excellent.

Now I had to show up for the first day of my biggest job to date without my planner, renderings, color schemes, product spreadsheets, and basically everything else I needed. Because not only did I leave my tote at a bar after kissing a stranger, I left it at a bar that doesn’t even have a phone number. Which honestly feels kind of illegal.

But the whiff of cigarette smoke coming from my hair toldme the Devil’s Boot didn’t care too much about the legality of having a phone number.

So not only would I look like an idiot on my first day, I would also have to return to the scene of the crime and risk running into the handsome cowboy stranger, which would lead me to another stupid decision.

Because goddamn.

I could not get that kiss out of my head. I dreamed about what would’ve happened if the bartender hadn’t caught us. Would he have kept going? In my dream, he slid his rough hands under my shirt and dragged them up and down my body. I undid his belt. He lifted me off the ground. I wrapped my legs around his middle. He pinned me against the wall and—

“Double shot vanilla latte for Ada!” The barista’s voice shook me from my inappropriate ninea.m.fantasy.

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