Page 62 of Dusty Spur Ranch Cowboys

Of course. No discussion beforehand. No actual plan beyond a vague idea delivered after the fact.

I rub the back of my neck. “Okay.”

She talks some more, but I can hardly hear it. Anxiety zigzags through me. I can’t let Sadie down.

This is something I have to facilitate, but it’s so hard. Tori is way too unreliable, and we’ve been let down so many times.

But what can I do?

I lower the phone and stare at the dark screen.

The fellowship hall comes rushing back into focus around me.

People are already returning to conversations. Somebody starts another argument near the dessert table. Laughter rolls across the room.

Arizona gets cornered by three elderly women demanding to know where they can buy her music.

Life keeps moving.

Yet when I look back toward Sadie and think about the conversation waiting for us later, the room doesn’t feel quite as welcoming as it did a few minutes ago.

The warmth is still there.

I just can’t reach it right now.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Arizona

I’d forgotten how much I love rodeos.

Not the versions people see on television or hear about afterward over beers. The real thing. Being packed into metal bleachers with hundreds of other people while dust coats your boots and every ride feels like it could go spectacularly right or spectacularly wrong.

The entire place buzzes with energy.

Country music blasts from the speakers between events while vendors shout over one another, trying to sell brisket sandwiches, funnel cakes, and enough deep fried food to keep a cardiologist employed for life.

Horses snort and stamp behind the chutes. Gates slam. Crowds cheer. Kids run around with sticky fingers and cowboy hats three sizes too big.

I lean against the fence surrounding the warm-up arena, my guitar strapped across my back, and soak it all in.

A bronc rider bursts from the chute.

The horse launches into a series of violent bucks that should probably violate several laws of physics. Somehow, the rider stays seated through all eight seconds.

When the whistle blows, the crowd erupts. I grin so hard my face hurts.

“You’re looking at that horse like it just solved world hunger.”

I glance over my shoulder.

Annie Wright stands behind me balancing two cameras around her neck and wearing enough black clothing to absorb every ray of sunlight in the state. Her electric blue hair is braided over one shoulder today, making her look like a goth fairy who decided rodeos were her thing.

I like her.

Probably because she looks almost as out of place here as I do.

“That’s insulting,” I tell her.