“You just need to stop thinking!” She spun me under her arm. I stumbled, she caught me, and we both cracked up laughing.
For a few minutes, I let myself enjoy it—the music, the spinning, the heat of the crowd. When the song ended, a tall cowboy in a crisp plaid shirt stepped up beside me, hand out. “Care to dance?”
A month ago, I might have said yes just for the experience. Not tonight.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I don't know how to two-step. I'd crush your boots."
He took the rejection well and turned his smile on Wren instead. She shot me a look over her shoulder as she took his hand. I just waved her off with a wink.
I made my way back through the crowd. Brock was right where I’d left him, stuck talking to a man in a white Stetson. He stood stiffly, giving short nods. The guy was talking away, but Brock's eyes were locked on me the whole time I crossed the room.
Then the guy clapped Brock on his left shoulder. Brock winced in pain and looked away from me.
I was only five feet away when someone stepped right into my path.
“Well, if it isn’t Wilder’s little bunny.”
I stopped short. Dawson stood there with a beer in his hand and a smug grin on his face. Without his riding vest, I almost hadn’t recognized him.
“Excuse me,” I said, trying to step around him.
He moved to block me again. “You two put on quite a show today. Rollin’ around in the dirt like that.”
“Move, Dawson.”
He took a slow sip of his beer. “I’m just curious. This whole manager thing—does it just mean following him around with your phone, or is throwing yourself in front of loose horses part of the job too?”
“Getting out of the way is usually the goal,” I said flatly. “You should try it sometime. Maybe if you worried more about your own job instead of mine, you would’ve lasted longer than three seconds today.”
His smirk vanished, his grip tightening around the neck of his beer bottle.
“It’s real easy to talk shit from the safe side of the fence,” he said, raising his voice over the music. “But I’ll bet my whole tab you wouldn’t last four seconds on that thing.”
He jerked his bottle toward the mechanical bull in the center of the room. It was a beat-up plastic thing wrapped in scuffed fake cowhide, sitting on an inflatable mat. The motor whined as it spun and flung some guy off hard. The crowd roared with cheers as the operator killed the machine and started resetting it.
I glanced down at my denim cut-offs and low-cut tank top. It was showing way more cleavage than I remembered. Fantastic. This was easily the worst possible outfit for getting thrown around on a mechanical bull in front of the entire bar.
“That’s what I thought,” Dawson sneered.
I looked back at the bull. Its fake, painted-on red eyes stared blankly across the bar. The tequila was buzzing in my veins, and I was tired of playing it safe.
Screw it. It was my last night.
I met Dawson’s gaze, gave him a sweet, dead-eyed smile, then stomped down hard on his toes with my full weight. He grunted as his beer sloshed everywhere. I didn’t even look back. I turned and marched straight toward the inflatable ring.
The operator raised an eyebrow but still helped me over the padded barrier. I grabbed the worn leather horn, shoved one boot into the stirrup, and started to swing my leg over.
I didn’t even get my other leg across the saddle before a hand clamped onto my hip and yanked me backward. I lost my balance, boots slipping on the mat, and spun straight into a solid wall of muscle—Brock’s chest.
His fingers dug in right above the bruise his belt buckle had left earlier, holding me tight. "Are you out of your damn mind? You’re still hurt.”
“I’m aware,” I shot back, even as my side gave a sharp twinge. “But Dawson bet his whole tab I couldn’t last four seconds, and I’m making a point.”
"You don't have to prove anything to him."
His jaw tightened. He looked past me. I turned to follow his gaze.
Dawson was still standing there holding his beer, but the smirk had completely fallen off his face the second he saw Brock’s expression. He took a quick step back, set his beer down on a nearby table, and disappeared into the crowd.
