KNOT YOUR FIRST RODEO
WILD HEARTS RANCH
I’ve been pretending so long that I almost forgot what I was hiding from.
Seven years ago, my parents handed me a bottle of suppressants and told me a comfortable lie:Being a Beta is easier, sweetheart. No one needs to know.
So I swallowed the pills. Buried the Omega. Built a life in my small Montana town where no one looks twice at plain, boring Beta June.
Then the rodeo circuit blows into town, and a 2:00 a.m. phone call sends me to the local jail to bail out one of its stars, a blue-eyed cowboy who’s barely coherent but somehow knows exactly what I am.
He calls me his scent match. Fights my psycho ex in the street. Holds me like I’m precious.
And by morning, doesn’t remember my name.
But his pack doesn’t forget.
Kai sees straight through my lie with one look. Carter’s easy charm makes my suppressants glitch. And Seth watches me like he’s trying to remember something important, something just out of reach.
Three rodeo stars. One pack searching for their Omega.
I’m standing right in front of them, choking on a secret that’s clawing its way out.
The circuit leaves in a few weeks. My ex is hell-bent on destroying anyone who touches me. And every time these Alphas get close, my carefully constructed life cracks a little more.
I spent seven years being no one.
Now three cowboys are making me want to betheirs, and that’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever craved.
1
JUNE
There’s a special place in hell for whoever invented 2:00 a.m. phone calls, and I hope they’re seated right next to the guy who thought decaf coffee was a good idea.
My sedan rattles over the one pothole on More Street, the same pothole that’s been here since I was sixteen and backed my mom’s Buick right into it, and I can’t help but smile even as my tires thunk through it. Some things in Honeyspur Meadow never change, and honestly? I kind of love that about this place.
I stifle a yawn and grip the steering wheel a little tighter as I turn onto the main road. This is what I get for joining the town committee.
Actually, no. This is what I get for being the youngest person on the town committee by a solid two decades, and also the only one without a spouse, kids, or a convenient excuse. When Pete called twenty minutes ago, voice gravelly with sleep, asking if I could handle a small situation down at the station, I knew exactly what that meant.
“June, sweetheart, you’re the only one who can do this without waking up a whole household.”
The details Pete gave me were sparse: Someone from the rodeo circuit in town got into trouble at The Rusty Spur, endedup in a holding cell, and needs to be quietly collected before word spreads. The circuit brings serious money into Honeyspur Meadow every year, fills up our motels, packs our restaurants, keeps the local economy humming, and the committee’s job is to keep that relationship solid and drama-free.
So here I am. Barely dressed, barely awake, driving through my sleeping town to bail out a stranger.
I sell houses, running my parents’ Sweetwater Creek Realty business. In my spare time, I photograph Honeyspur Meadow, hoping to put together a book of our rural area. So of course I want the best for our town.
I pull into a spot along the curb, right in front of the hardware store, and cut the engine. Farther ahead sits The Rusty Spur, lights still on, music thumping from inside.
Okay, June. Let’s do this.
I push open my door, and the cool air hits me. It slides past my coat collar and down my spine, finding every gap between my clothes. I’m wearing yoga pants stuffed into my nice cognac boots, a chunky cardigan that’s more holes than warmth at this point, and my coat, which is doing approximately nothing to help.
I lock my car and quickly cross the empty road, and I’m heading up the gravel path that leads off the main road toward the police station. It’s a squat brick building with too-bright fluorescent lights visible through the windows.
The glass door sticks when I try to pull it. I stumble into the lobby, catching myself on the doorframe.
