It bubbles up from somewhere deep. The kind of laugh that takes over your whole body. All the tension releasing at once—Tanner’s grip on my wrist, the fear of getting caught, Kai sprinting across the grass with a bag on his head.
“I wiped down everything before I jumped out,” Kai adds. “Wheel, door handle, gear stick. Saw cleaning wipes on the dash.”
“Convenient,” Carter manages.
“We’re all going to jail.” I wheeze, wiping my eyes.
“Nah.” Kai sprawls across the back seat, still naked, utterly unbothered. “No way Tanner has evidence that it was us. There was no camera in the Charger like the modern cop cars, so we’re good. But imagine the paperwork: ‘Some naked guy with a bag on his head stole my cruiser, and I couldn’t catch him.’ They’d laugh him off the force.”
He has a point. Tanner’s ego would never survive that story.
“Still.” I catch my breath. “Let’s never do that again.”
“Agreed,” Seth says, but he’s smiling.
“Here, Kai,” Seth orders. “Put pants on.”
There’s lots of shuffling behind me, and my seat keeps getting bumped.
Carter glances my way. He’s managed to get fully dressed while driving—still slightly damp, hair curling at his neck.
“You okay?” Voice softer now. “That got intense.”
“Yeah.” I nod, meaning it. “I’m good.”
“Tanner didn’t hurt you?”
I think about the grip on my wrist, the way he leaned in to scent me, and the revulsion still crawling under my skin.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”
Seth makes a sound. “He touches you again, and I’m destroying him.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah. You can.” His eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror, blue and steady. “Doesn’t mean you’re on your own anymore.”
My heart stutters to hear those words that embrace me.
“This kind of chaos normal for you three?” I ask.
“Usually just Kai,” Carter says.
Kai is chuckling. “Doesn’t matter. You’re stuck with us now, doll.”
Stuck with us.
I glance back at them. Kai, finally dressed. Seth, watching me with those too-seeing eyes.
Something dangerous unfurls in my chest.
I like them. God help me, I really do, and a damn lot. Not just my body responding to their scents, though that’s definitely happening, every nerve still humming from proximity. I likethem. The banter. The loyalty. The way they’d steal a cop car to protect each other without blinking.
And that’s the scariest part. Because I know how this story ends.
They’re rodeo men. Traveling circuit. Here for a few weeks, then gone, next town, next competition, next horizon. And I’ll still be in Honeyspur Meadow, pretending my heart isn’t scattered across three hundred miles of Montana highway.
I’ve always been practical about this stuff. Smart. Protective of myself in ways that Tanner taught me.
