Cowboy Casual (The Calloway Ranch #1)

CHAPTER 1

BLAIRE

I barely blinked. Just another Thursday at Senator Monroe’s office, where my job as press assistant meant I spent half my time putting out fires before they spread all over the internet.

A few clicks, some carefully crafted lies, and by dinner, the world would be slightly less on fire and my father’s re-election chances marginally more secure.

I spent four years at Duke getting my marketing degree, and here I was, a glorified janitor for my father’s indiscretions and political messes. My professors would be proud to see that their star pupil’s primary skill set had become making scandals disappear before they hit the trending page.

But the name at the top of the email wasn’t my father’s. It was my fiancé’s.

The Chandlers had been bankrolling my father’s campaigns since before I came to live with him, their hedge fund fortune buying the influence that kept both families comfortable.

Four years ago, my father seated me next to Grant at a fundraiser.

I was finishing my last year at Duke, and my father’s eyes gleamed with approval every time Grant leaned in to whisper something that made me laugh.

Two hours and three glasses of merlot later, I’d mistaken his calculated attention for charm, and the next morning, roses crowded my tiny apartment doorway with a note that simply read, “Dinner? -Grant.”

That one yes led to a diamond ring that had been on my finger for the last fourteen months, and now the wedding was a little over a hundred days away.

I opened the email, and the images loaded one by one.

I noticed Grant first, then his assistant, who was splayed across his mahogany desk.

Her blouse was unbuttoned, and his fingers tangled in her dark hair while the other hand gripped her skirt, wrinkling the expensive fabric I’d complemented her on last month.

There was a hunger in his eyes I’d never seen in our bedroom.

More images followed as I scrolled, each one a blow.

My stomach clenched. There they were in a D.C.

hotel elevator, and the timestamp mocked me.

Taken exactly fifteen days after the engagement party my father had thrown for us.

Another showed them at some dimly lit bar.

Grant wore a navy suit with a pale blue tie I’d tied for him the morning of his keynote speech.

She draped her thigh across him, and his hand disappeared beneath the hem of her dress.

I scrolled through the evidence of his betrayal. In some, they were alone. In others, they exchanged secretive touches at campaign events where I stood just yards away, smiling for donors while his fingers found her waist.

The first photo was from thirteen months ago, and the most recent was from yesterday afternoon.

My vision blurred as I stared at the photos.

A laugh from the bullpen made me flinch, and my gaze landed on the framed picture on my desk.

Grant and I were at the Children’s Hospital benefit.

Grant’s hand gripped my hip, his fingers digging in enough to remind me to stand straighter for the cameras.

I’d wanted to wear the black dress I’d picked out myself, but he’d replaced it with the lavender gown that was hanging in our closet when I returned from work. “Trust me,” he’d said, his voice firm.

I waited for the rage, for the tears, but found neither. Instead, my fingers shook against the keyboard as the room tilted and narrowed around me. In that moment, I felt the snap of that invisible thread that bound me to this life, to my father’s ambitions and Grant’s possessive hands.

In its absence came the rush, the flood, the name I’d locked away years ago.

Colt.

I physically recoiled from my own thoughts.

No. Not now. Not him . I’d buried him beneath years of careful compartmentalization, sealed him away in the darkest corner of my heart where dangerous things belonged.

He’d gutted me in ways Grant’s betrayal couldn’t touch, yet here he was, the first name my mind reached for.

The contradiction made me sick. Hating him and the physical ache of wanting him after all these years. I feared what that meant about who I really was beneath all these perfect, polished lies I’d wrapped around myself like expensive armor that suddenly felt paper thin.

I stood so fast my chair clipped the wall and made the edges of my vision pulse.

There was a ringing in my ears as I willed myself not to look at the humiliating photos again.

Everyone in this office would see them soon enough, and I should have been doing damage control.

That was my job, but I suddenly couldn’t give a shit about this job.

Instead, I walked straight out into the hall, closing my office door behind me with a soft click. My heels echoed on the tile as I moved, mechanical and purposeful, each step meant to keep the panic from overtaking me.

The hallway outside my office was lined with campaign posters, and today the images of my father felt like sentries watching me, silent and expectant. I tried to draw a full breath, but the air stuck in my throat and went nowhere.

I picked up my pace, crossing the bullpen and weaving past the clutch of interns hunched over their laptops.

Someone tried to get my attention, but I brushed past, offering only a brittle smile I hoped passed for apologetic.

The elevator was slow as hell, so I ducked into the stairwell, grateful for the emptiness and the way the steps forced my body to move.

Three flights down, I stopped, leaning against the cool cement wall. My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I yanked it out, half expecting a message from Grant. But it was my father’s assistant’s name looking back at me.

Judy: Senator Monroe would like for you to meet him in his office immediately.

I stared down at the screen as if my entire future hadn’t just imploded.

I should have been thinking about Grant.

His betrayal. The years I’d spent smoothing his rough edges, convincing myself we were in love instead of two people playing assigned roles in someone else’s strategy.

I should have been furious or at least humiliated.

But standing in that cold stairwell, an emptiness clawed through my chest, a ravenous, familiar void that didn’t belong to Grant at all.

The realization ached inside me like a bruise pressed too hard, spreading from my sternum outward until even my fingertips felt tender with the truth I’d spent years denying.

My body remembered what my brain had worked overtime to forget.

His thumb tracing the freckles across my collarbone, the lake water dripping from his eyelashes as he surfaced beside me, the way my name sounded like a prayer when he whispered it against my neck at dawn.

I hated how easily these memories returned, how they still burned beneath my skin while Grant’s betrayal felt like nothing more than a paper cut.

I despised myself for it, for looking at evidence of my fiancé’s infidelity and feeling only relief tangled with shame. The pain of losing Colt had carved hollows inside me I’d filled with pretty lies and my father’s approval.

I started to turn back toward my father’s office, because that’s what the text demanded and that’s what a dutiful daughter would do. But my body revolted. My hand hovered above the banister, knuckles white against the chipped paint, and I looked up the stairwell, concrete spiraling overhead.

Then my gaze dropped, my ears ringing, and saw an exit sign pulsing red at the base of the stairs like a dare.

I pressed downward, footsteps echoing against the steps, and the farther I got from the office, the easier it was to breathe.

My body was moving faster than my thoughts, and that felt like freedom.

By the time I hit the last step, my legs were numb.

I didn’t hesitate at the landing, didn’t even process what I’d do next.

Instead, I barreled toward the side exit, shoved open the steel door, and found myself in the narrow alley between the Monroe Senate offices and the looming black glass of Chandler & Chandler.

The sun hung low between the tall buildings, gilding the edges of everything it touched and forcing me to shield my eyes.

When the door slammed behind me, I tried to breathe as my reflection fractured across the dark, mirrored windows of Grant’s building.

Three days ago, I’d walked through those same doors with his favorite sandwich and a smile, playing the role of the doting fiancée for an audience of receptionists.

I should’ve stopped to think and called my father.

I should’ve done what I’d been trained to do.

But all I could see was Grant’s hand on another woman’s thigh, and the way his smile had always held a flicker of calculation.

For four years, I’d filed myself down, smoothed away any parts of me that might snag on propriety or expectation.

Now something untamed and forgotten stirred beneath my ribs, screaming for me to be reckless, even as my father’s voice in my head listed all the ways this would destroy everything I’d worked for.

I could feel myself being torn between the wild-hearted girl my mom had raised me to be and the dull woman my father had created.

Grant’s building was emptying for the evening.

Men and women in tailored suits filtered out the revolving doors, but I didn’t slow down.

I ignored the polite smiles offered by familiar faces.

A few gazes caught on me, lingering a bit too long, and my skin prickled beneath their stares.

The knowing glances made my stomach twist. Had they all seen the photos already?

Or worse, had they watched Grant and his assistant slip in and out of his office for months while I’d been the oblivious fiancée?