Page 3 of Hawt Cowboy
“Take your victory lap,” I say, stepping to the side so the next wave can flood him. “Then meet me by the sponsor tent.”
“Or,” he says, tipping his hat just enough to see my eyes clear, “you could walk me there.”
I shouldn’t. I know better than to put myself next to his body and that smile and the humid thrum of everything that saysdanger. But walking him also keeps him within my reach, and reach is control, and control is the whole point.
“Fine,” I say. “Move.”
We cut through the tide. He’s taller than the noise. People part for him the way they part for parades and wreckage, compelled by the same impulse. He thanks the kid who hands him a Sharpie, asks a rancher if the drought hit him hard this year, tells an old timer he remembers watchinghimride when he was ten. It’s a neat trick—humble without bending, generous without giving anything away. I make a note for the internal file I keep in my head:Not just swagger. Knows how to read a room.
We pass the open gate where the arena dirt glows rust-red under stadium lights. Heat ripples off it in waves that carry the smell of sweat and something metallic I don’t want to name. For a second my chest tightens—muscle memory of another cowboy, another tunnel, a laugh against my hair, a lie warm as a brand. I clamp the thought down so hard my molars click.
Cash glances over, like he heard it. Or maybe he’s just that tuned to his audience of one.
“You okay?” he asks, and the question’s so unvarnished I almost stumble.
“I’m fine.”
“You looked like you swallowed a thorn.”
“Occupational hazard.” I tip my chin toward the sponsor tent ahead, white canvas glowing like a landed moon. “Time to make nice.”
He looks, then back at me. His voice slides velvet-soft. “You think I’m some wild thing that can’t be tamed.” He steps closer, and the smell of leather and soap wraps around me like a hot August night. “Maybe you just never tried holding on.”
The line hits low—where adrenaline and memory live side by side and don’t ask permission. I keep my face smooth, my tone lighter than I feel. “I don’t hold on to my clients, Mr. Dalton. I leash them.”
“Now that,” he says, smile turning slow and wicked, “sounds like fun.”
I ignore the flush that climbs my throat and lift the tent flap. Inside, Oklahoma politeness and corporate money shake hands over coolers sweating in the heat. The floor is temporary board laid over dirt, and it creaks under my boot heels as I move to intercept a sponsor before he corners Cash with a fishing story from 1998.
For the next ten minutes, I run the choreography. Cash says the names I whisper, hits the cameras from angles I angle him toward, side-steps a joke that would’ve turned into a minor wildfire last season. It shouldn’t satisfy me as much as it does to watch him follow my lead. Not perfectly—he’s allergic to perfect—but close enough to prove he can.
Between photos, a teenage rider hovers at the edge of our cluster, clutching his hat like it might float away. Cash sees him, peels off. “You keep your free hand high,” he tells the kid, demonstrating with an easy flick of wrist and shoulder. “Loosenup your hips, or you’ll lock and eat dirt. Promise me you’ll wear the vest.”
The kid nods so hard I’m afraid his head will topple. Cash ruffles his hair and comes back, and I don’t know what to do with the way my ribcage rearranges.
“He’s green,” Cash says, almost apologetic.
“I saw.” My voice is steady. “That was good.”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked.” I let my eyes flick over his face, a deliberate assessment. “I’m recalibrating.”
He looks like he wants to ask what I’m calibrating from, what it cost me to learn the contours of men like him. Instead, he reaches for a bottle of water, cracks the seal with his teeth, and takes a long drink that shouldn’t be indecent and absolutely is.Damn, he’s handsome and can’t even help it.
“Media bullpen in five,” I remind him. “Keep answers tight. No swearing. No commentary on the judges.”
“No swearing?” He leans close enough that his hat brim shadows my cheek. “What if I sayhell yeswhen you tell me I did good?”
“I won’t be telling you that.”
“You already did.”
I open my mouth and shut it again, annoyed to find he’s right. My phone buzzes—Marlene—because timing is a vulture. I glance at the screen and send her a quick text:Made contact. Containable for now.It’s not a promise. It’s a prayer I don’t believe in.
When I look up, Cash is watching my hands like he’s learned something from how fast I type. “Boss breathing down your neck?”
“She breathes on the entire department.”
