Page 42 of July’s Cowboy Dallas

“And?”

“And Addison runs late when she's helping someone.”

I straightened. “So no one knows where she is.”

Ruby hesitated. “Well⁠—”

I was already moving.

The queen trailer sat near the main arena, gleaming white with RODEO ROYALTY WEEKEND painted in gold script along the side. The door hung open. Inside, two teenage girls in matching sashes sat on a bench, scrolling their phones.

“Addison Blake?” I asked from the doorway.

One girl looked up. “She left like ten minutes ago.”

“Where did she go?”

“Junior lineup. Some kid's horse spooked.”

I turned and scanned the grounds. The junior lineup area was a fenced pen near the livestock barns, but I didn't see a crowd or commotion.

The other girl added, “Actually, she might've gone to the feed room. Someone said a goat got loose.”

I headed toward the supply barn. How was I supposed to protect a woman who couldn’t keep to her own damn schedule?

The feed room sat behind the main livestock pens in a low metal building. I heard the crash before I reached it. Just a loud metallic bang, followed by a very polished female voice.

“Nobody panic. He can smell fear.”

I stepped inside. The room smelled like hay, dust, and stress. Feed barrels lined one wall. Halters and lead ropes hung from hooks. A small brown-and-white goat stood in the center of the floor, his head lowered, his eyes fixed on the woman in front of him.

She stood behind an overturned barrel in a crown and sash, like being cornered by livestock was just another scheduled appearance. Dust caked her custom boots. Her honey-blonde hair had started the day in soft waves and was losing the fight one strand at a time. And her green eyes tracked that goat like she was negotiating with a hostage-taker instead of an animal with horns and poor manners.

For half a second, my brain did something useless. It noticed her. Not the crown. Not the sash. Her. The curve of her mouth when she was trying not to panic. The way she held herself tall even with fear pressing in. The ridiculous, inconvenient fact that she was beautiful in a way that didn’t soften the danger around her. It sharpened it.

Then the goat shifted toward her, and something low in my chest went tight.

Mine.

The thought came out of nowhere, hard and primitive enough to piss me off. She wasn’t mine. She was a client I hadn’t even officially met yet. A threatened woman in a public place with no sense of self-preservation and too many people watching.

That didn’t stop every instinct I had from wanting to put myself between her and the rest of the world.

A junior contestant—maybe ten years old—stood near the door, tears streaming down her face.

“He hates me,” the girl sobbed.

“He doesn’t hate you,” the woman said, her voice calm. “He’s just emotionally unstable.”

The goat bleated.

I leaned against the doorframe. “That animal weighs eighty pounds and has you pinned behind a feed barrel.”

The woman in the crown slowly turned her head and gave me a smile. It was bright, perfect, pageant-ready, and totally fake.

“I’m negotiating.”

“Looks like you’re losing.”