“Brock. Your hand.”
I dropped it right away.
“That’s a good shot,” she said, like nothing had happened.
That’s how it went for the next few days. On camera, we gave them what they paid for. Off camera, my hands stayed on her waist a few seconds too long after every take, and she let them.
It got to be a problem.
Not the filming; that part I could handle. It was the after. The second her phone went in her pocket and there was no reason to be standing that close anymore… except I didn’t move, and she didn’t either. A roping shot would end, and I'd realize I still had her hand trapped under mine on the rough hemp rope.
Wren caught us once in the barn. I was standing way too close, my fingers brushing the side of her neck while I pulled a piece of hay out of her hair. My sister walked through the doors and stopped dead, eyebrows damn near disappearing into her hairline.
I dropped my hand fast. “She had hay in her hair.”
“Right,” Wren said slowly.
I needed space to clear my head, so when the Big Horn and Buffalo rodeos came up, I had my gear bag packed before dawn.
“I’m going alone,” I told Sienna in the kitchen. “Small purses. Not worth the drive for both of us.”
I didn't tell her the real reason, which was that I needed eight seconds on a bronc and a few hours where I wasn’t within arm’s reach of her.
The doctor had said light duty, and I was already ignoring that part. Least I could do was not lose my damn mind.
I placed third at the Buffalo rodeo. Sat in the truck icing my shoulder on the dark drive home, just like the doctor told me to.
But the second I walked through the back door, none of it mattered. She was still up at the kitchen table with her laptop, hair falling out of its clip, looking at me with those soft eyes. The not-touching got hard again inside thirty seconds.
The money was the only thing keeping me from doing something stupid.
The last Outlaw deposit had already hit. Not a fortune, but enough to cover diesel and entry fees for a while. All for standingnext to a pretty woman and pretending to drink cherry-lime rocket fuel.
On top of the Outlaw payout, a new sponsor made an offer. Ryder & Co wanted me in their fall catalog—good money just to wear their clothes and stand around for photos. I signed the contract the same afternoon Sienna put it in front of me.
I told Wyatt about it out by the equipment shed, where we could talk without the whole house hearing.
“Ryder,” he said. “The boots people?”
“Boots, shirts, all of it. They want me in the catalog.”
He let out a low whistle. “That’s not nothing.”
“We could finally catch up on the property taxes,” I said. “Maybe even get some feed stockpiled before winter.”
Before he could answer, the ranch radio on my belt crackled.
“Base camp, this is Alpha Team. Requesting backup at the south pasture gate. Over.”
I closed my eyes and took a slow breath, then unclipped it.
“Colt, I’m talking to Wyatt. What do you want?”
“The hinge on this gate’s busted. I need you to hold it while I weld it. Over.”
“Use the C-clamp in the toolbox,” I said. “It’s a one-man job.”
There was a long pause of static.
