Page 8 of August’s Cowboy Braxton

"Someone was inside my trailer."

"Yeah."

"Someone who knows where I keep my things."

Braxton looked at me. His expression hadn't changed, but something in his eyes had. Something hot and angry and barely contained. "You're not staying here."

"Where am I supposed to go?"

"Somewhere with locks that actually work. Somewhere I can see every entrance. Somewhere they don't already have access to."

"Braxton—"

"This isn't negotiable, Addison."

I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him I'd dealt with worse, that I could handle this, that I didn't need a man making decisions for me.

But someone had been inside my trailer. Someone had touched my crown. Someone had stood in this space and imagined me sleeping here.

"Where?" I asked, resigned to the fact that I might need to start listening to him.

Braxton exhaled, his shoulders tight. "My family's ranch."

"I thought you didn't live in Mustang Mountain anymore."

"I don't."

"Then why⁠—"

"Because it's the safest place I know."

The drive took twenty minutes along winding mountain roads that narrowed the farther we got from town. Braxton didn't say a word. His hands stayed steady on the wheel, his gaze jumping back and forth between the road and the rearview mirror like he expected someone to follow us.

No one did.

The ranch appeared at the end of a gravel drive, tucked against the tree line with a view of the valley below. The house was small, weathered, and dark. Just silence and shadows and a heavy stillness.

Braxton parked and climbed out without looking at me.

I followed him to the front door. He unlocked it, stepped inside, and flipped on the lights.

Everything inside looked frozen in time. Sheets covered the furniture. Dusty family photos lined the walls. Four tall chairs crowded around a kitchen table. Everything looked like it was exactly where it had been left, like someone had walked out years ago and never come back.

Braxton moved through the space with quiet efficiency, checking the windows, locking the doors, and turning on lights.

"You can take the bedroom upstairs," he said. "I'll stay down here."

"Braxton."

He stopped.

"What happened here?"

His expression closed. "Nothing that matters anymore."

He walked into the kitchen and pulled a glass from a cabinet without looking, like his hands remembered where everything was, even if he didn't want to.

He filled it with water he didn't drink then turned to stare out the window at a view I wasn't sure he was seeing.