“I need you to work with him, Tarr,” Tucker had told him. “You’ll get seventy percent of his fee, but dude, you’re better than me with a rope—heck, you’re better than him, after being gone from the circuit for a couple of years.”
Tarr could still see the pleading in Tucker’s eyes.
“He elevates our whole facility,” Tuck said. “And he signed, because you’re here.”
“Fine,” Tarr had said. “But Tucker, I’m retired.”
“Sure, you are,” Tuck had said easily. “You’re not riding the rodeo. You won’t have to go to rodeos.”
“Really? As his roping coach, I won’t be required to travel?” Tarr did not believe his best friend for a moment, and he met Briar’s eyes as she looked up at him from a drawer in his cabinetry.
“So, what do you think?”
“I think it’s all amazing,” he said, wrapping one arm around her waist.
“I think you’re distracted.” She gestured with one open palm toward his kitchen. “Where are your plastic zipper bags?”
Tarr looked blankly down his pale blue cabinetry—which he’d painted himself, thank you very much. “Um, I’m sure they’re in a drawer.”
Briar scoffed. “I literally showed them to you fifteen seconds ago.” She toed the drawer in front of them. “They’re right there, and I asked if they’d be too low.”
“They’re great there,” he said.
“What were you thinking about?” she asked.
“Tucker and Stetson,” he said. “I need you to be really firm with me, sweetheart. I don’t want to travel the circuit.”
“No traveling the circuit,” she said. “Got it.”
“Like, throw a fit. Threaten to quit at the farm. Tie me to my bed frame. Anything. I do not want to travel with Stetson. Tuck can advise him while they’re on the road. I can watch film and give advice over the phone.”
Briar giggled. “I’m not going to do any of the above.” She raised her eyebrows at him and turned back to the now-empty box that held the glassware. “Tie you to the bed frame. Do you hear yourself?”
He tipped his head back and laughed too. “Maybe I’ll throw a fit and threaten to quit.”
“I’d like to see you do that.” She grinned at him and broke down the box with her bare hands. “Now, what else have you got for me to do? I promised Bobbie Jo I’d go look at some new lambs with her this afternoon.”
“You’re going to go look at lambs?” He surveyed the wreckage that was his house, with boxes and bins everywhere. “I’m in a crisis here, honey.”
She took a step back and cocked her hip. “Throw a fit about me leaving, then. Let me see what that looks like from you, and if it’s good enough, I’ll stay.”
“Good enough?”
“You’ll need practice if you think you can throw a fit about traveling with Stetson in a convincing manner.” Her eyes glittered like sapphires, and Tarr counted her as his single greatest blessing.
“I’m the luckiest man in the world, you know that?”
“Is this part of your fit?”
He smiled and shook his head. “You’re my favorite person ever.”
“Stop it.”
“I won’t,” he said, taking a step closer. “When I wake up, my first thought is of you, and I love it. If I catch a glimpse of your blonde hair shining in the morning sun out in the Goatel, my whole day is made. When you let me stop by your office with lunch, and then we take an extended lunch hour, it gives me enough oomph to get through the afternoon.”
“I’ll show you some oomph,” Briar said dryly.
He took her into his arms. “I love you, my thorny Briar.” Tarr leaned closer and breathed in the scent of her skin and hair and neck. “Tell me your truth for today.”
