ONE
STELLA
He’s the grumpy, growly bodyguard, and I’m the sunshine kindergarten teacher with a cupcake problem—and today I meet him face-first, frosting-first, on Main Street.
Which is not the plan.
The plan is: deliver twenty-four chocolate-cherry cupcakes to the Valor Springs Rodeo Days bake sale, smile at the tourists, keep my kids from licking the petting-zoo goat, and pretend I am a woman whose life is perfectly together and not currently held up with bobby pins and a prayer.
Main Street looks like someone shook a snow globe and replaced the snow with glitter and red-white-and-blue bunting. Banners flap from the old brick storefronts. The water tower wears fresh paint like a Sunday hat—VALOR SPRINGS in proud navy letters. The air smells like barbecue smoke and kettle corn and a tiny hint of horse.
I balance two pink bakery boxes against my hip and tack a smile on my face. “Almost there,” I whisper to the cupcakes, becauseyes, I talk to baked goods. Who doesn’t? They don’t talk back, which makes them the most supportive relationships in my life.
“Miss Hart!” A herd of small humans stampedes across the sidewalk—my kindergarteners, loose during parade rehearsal like rogue confetti. “Miss Hart, I saw a cowboy!” “Miss Hart, the goat ate my sticker!” “Miss Hart, what does ‘yeehaw’ mean scientifically?”
“Yeehaw,” I say solemnly, “is the sound joy makes when it puts on boots.” I do not trip. I do not wobble. I keep my adult life choices upright?—
A goat the size of a labradoodle rockets past, trailing a stream of blue crepe paper like a comet tail. My student Levi tugs at the ribbon around the goat’s neck. The goat, insulted, goes airborne. Levi yelps. The boxes teeter. I lunge— and slam into a wall of muscle clad in a charcoal henley and worn jeans that look illegal in seven states.
The boxes pop like party tricks. Frosting kisses a broad, suspiciously perfect chest. A steady hand catches my elbow. Another rescues a tilting tower of cupcakes mid-air with reflexes that should be studied by NASA.
“Easy,” the wall rumbles, voice low enough to vibrate my bones. “I’ve got you.”
I blink up and meet eyes the color of a Texas sky just before a thunderstorm. Silver grazes the dark at his temples. There’s a faint scar along his jaw, one that says “ask me about the desert” and “I won’t answer.” A Lone Star Security patch sits on his bicep—black star, crisp embroidery, authority stitched into fabric.
“Hi,” I squeak, eloquent as ever, and peel a cherry off his shirt. “You’re…wearing frosting. I—sorry. I am so,so—sorry.”
One corner of his mouth threatens a smile. “Does this count as a rodeo hazard?”
“Only if you’re allergic to cherries or public embarrassment,” I say because panic tastes like stand-up comedy in my mouth. “You saved the cupcakes. Hero status confirmed. The town thanks you, I thank you, science thanks you.”
The tiniest smile wins the battle of his mouth. “Science?”
“Long story,” I say, then drop my voice. “Some of my kids think ‘yeehaw’ is physics and I didn’t discourage them.”
He glances toward the goat, now headbutting a portable fence. “You’ve got your hands full.”
“You have no idea.” I realize he’s still holding my elbow, warm and solid and a little too anchoring for a girl who hasn’t had lunch. “I’m Stella, by the way. Stella Hart.”
“Jack.” His hand releases mine in a careful, deliberate way that makes it feel like a choice. “Jack Sinclair.”
Of course his name is Jack. All decisive consonants and clean lines and reliability. He looks like the type who would fix a leaky sink and also a geopolitical crisis with the same tool kit.
“Jack,” I repeat, like maybe if I say it enough times I’ll stop hearing how it sounds in my mouth. “Nice to meet you, Mister—um—Sinclair. Sorry I frosted you.”
“It’s just a shirt.” His gaze tracks the street the way men who’ve been in worse places track a horizon. Calm. Aware. “You all right?”
“Now? Great.” I shift the boxes he saved into the crook of my arm. “Before? Medium. Five out of ten. Would not recommend sprinting goats. Where did you come from? Like, logistically, not existentially.”
He tips his chin toward the courthouse square. “HQ’s a block over.” He nods at the wood gate leading to the Lone Star Security ranch. “We’re helping with parade safety.”
“Parade safety,” I echo, because my brain has decided to run a slideshow of Jack’s hands catching cupcakes. “Right. Super secure. Love that for us.”
“Stella!” My older brother, Wyatt, jogs up, baseball cap backwards, sheriff’s department tee clinging to his shoulders. He is two years older, ten inches taller, and thinks he’s my father when our actual father is out fixing tractors. “You okay? I saw—” He stops when he sees Jack, evaluation sliding over his face like a shade. “Sinclair.”
“Sheriff,” Jack returns, which is hilarious because Wyatt is a deputy and will argue the difference out of sheer principle.
“Deputy,” I correct under my breath.
