Page 85 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

“You were always going to keep working. I know that.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Annie

By the time I pull into the rodeo grounds, the sky is doing that late afternoon Pacific Northwest thing where it can’t decide if it wants to be gold or gray.

The clouds hang low over the mountains, bruised purple at the edges, while the last of the sunlight spills over the arena fencing in warm stripes.

Dust swirls under truck tires. Somewhere nearby, a horse nickers. Country music crackles faintly from a speaker that sounds like it has survived at least three decades and one bar fight.

It should feel chaotic.

Instead it feels like breathing.

Not because my life has magically become less of a mess. It absolutely hasn’t. I still have a missing SD card. Still have the memory of that note tucked under my windshield like a threat with neat handwriting.

Still have Silas Harlan looking at me like I’m both a liability and something he wants to lock in a tower. Still have the memory of Cody Harlan kissing me like he was trying to prove a point he didn’t understand himself.

And Duke…

Nope.

Not doing that right now.

This, tonight, is mine.

Or as close to mine as anything in Colter Creek gets.

I kill the engine and sit, fingers resting on the steering wheel, letting the peacefulness of the car wrap around me before I have to step back into a world full of people, questions, and eyes.

My camera bag sits in the passenger seat beside me, and my thumb taps once against the strap.

Twice.

Three times.

A rhythm only I know.

Then I grab the folder Millie from the bakery passed along at the Sunday potluck—event notes to help me photograph the whole thing—and climb out.

The rodeo grounds are already half alive.

Temporary pens line one side of the arena. A couple of volunteers wrestle with folding tables near the concession stand. Kids run wild in boots too big for them while their parents pretend not to notice.

The bleachers catch the last of the light, weathered silver and familiar. There’s a banner hanging crooked over the gate that reads COLTER CREEK RODEO in big red letters, and no one has fixed it because apparently asymmetry is part of the rustic charm.

“Wright!”

I look up just in time to see Sammy Brooks marching toward me with a giant smile on his weathered face.

He’s built like old barbed wire and bad coffee. Late fifties, maybe early sixties. Sun-leathered skin. Ball cap pulled low. Clipboard clutched against his chest like it contains state secrets.

Which, given the way this town treats rodeo season, maybe it does.

“You’re late,” he barks.

I check my phone. “I’m four minutes early.”