Epilogue
brAXTON
I didn't like crowds. I didn't like temporary fencing. And I especially didn't like clients who described repeated threats as “probably nothing.”
The new Mustang Mountain rodeo grounds sprawled across acres of former pastureland, half-finished and already swarming with volunteers.
Vendor tents lined the west perimeter in uneven rows.
Trailers clustered near the main arena like shiny white teeth.
Families arrived early, their trucks kicking up dust that hung in the August heat.
Junior contestants ran everywhere—small girls in oversized hats, pre-teen boys practicing their walks, teenagers checking makeup in truck mirrors.
There were too many access points.
I'd grown up in Mustang Mountain, but these grounds were new. I liked knowing exits before I stepped into a room. I liked memory and muscle working together. Here, I had neither.
A woman in a bright yellow volunteer shirt waved at me from the registration tent. I nodded back and kept walking.
My truck was parked near the stock office—a double-wide trailer with a hand-painted sign that read MUSTANG MOUNTAIN RODEO ROYALTY WEEKEND in letters that looked like they'd been done by committee. The door stood open. Inside, I could hear voices.
I climbed the wooden steps and knocked once on the frame.
Orville Nelson looked up from a folding table covered in clipboards, schedules, and coffee cups. Ruby stood next to him, her hair pinned back, her glasses perched on her nose.
“Braxton,” Orville said. He stood and offered his hand. “It’s good to see you.”
I shook it. “Mayor.”
“Thanks for coming. We don’t know what we’re facing yet, but we know we’re in over our heads. I appreciate you helping us out.”
In the fifteen years since I’d left Mustang Mountain, I’d taken assignments to protect billionaires, professional athletes, and performers.
Not once had I ever been contacted about babysitting a beauty queen.
I glanced at the schedules spread across the table.
Every page had Addison Blake's name highlighted in pink.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Ruby's smile tightened just slightly. “Addison's handling some last-minute chaos with the junior contestants.”
“Where?”
“By the rodeo queen’s trailer. Or the main arena. Or maybe the vendor check-in.” Ruby waved her hand. “She'll turn up.”
That was the first problem. Threatened clients who “turned up” instead of staying where they were supposed to be rarely stayed alive long enough for me to fix the situation.
Orville must have read my face because he cleared his throat. “Let's go over what we know.”
He handed me a printed sheet full of messages, dates, and screenshots.
The first one was dated mid-July:
You looked beautiful in the parade. Next time, I'll be closer.
Then another from late July:
The crown suits you. But you should be careful who you trust.
And the most recent, dated almost a month ago:
Smile pretty, Addison. I'll be watching in August.
I set the paper down. “She reported these?”
“No,” Ruby said. “She mentioned them to me last week. Casually. Like they were fan mail.”
“They're not fan mail.”
“We know.”
Ruby leaned forward, resting her palms on the table. “That girl smiles too pretty when she's scared.”
I looked at her.
“She does,” Ruby insisted. “I've known Addison since she was sixteen. When something's wrong, she gets polite. When something's really wrong, she gets perfect.”
Orville nodded. “She dismissed the messages until the last one mentioned August. Then she agreed to let us bring you in.”
I scanned the schedule again. Addison was due at the queen trailer in fifteen minutes for a pre-event briefing. Then junior contestant photos. Then vendor meet-and-greet. Then opening parade rehearsal. Then arena walkthroughs. Then a sponsor dinner.
Every event was public. Every location was exposed.
“She agreed to change her schedule?” I asked.
“No,” Orville said.
“Limit her appearances?”
“Also no.”
I closed the folder. “Then what did she agree to?”
Ruby’s mouth twitched. “You.”
Great. It pissed me off when my clients didn’t take things seriously enough. “Where is she now?”
Ruby checked her phone. “She said she'd be at the queen trailer twenty minutes ago.”
“And?”
“And Addison runs late when she's helping someone.”
I straightened. “So no one knows where she is.”
Ruby hesitated. “Well—”
I was already moving.
The queen trailer sat near the main arena, gleaming white with RODEO ROYALTY WEEKEND painted in gold script along the side. The door hung open. Inside, two teenage girls in matching sashes sat on a bench, scrolling their phones.
“Addison Blake?” I asked from the doorway.
One girl looked up. “She left like ten minutes ago.”
“Where did she go?”
“Junior lineup. Some kid's horse spooked.”
I turned and scanned the grounds. The junior lineup area was a fenced pen near the livestock barns, but I didn't see a crowd or commotion.
The other girl added, “Actually, she might've gone to the feed room. Someone said a goat got loose.”
I headed toward the supply barn. How was I supposed to protect a woman who couldn’t keep to her own damn schedule?
The feed room sat behind the main livestock pens in a low metal building. I heard the crash before I reached it. Just a loud metallic bang, followed by a very polished female voice.
“Nobody panic. He can smell fear.”
I stepped inside. The room smelled like hay, dust, and stress. Feed barrels lined one wall. Halters and lead ropes hung from hooks. A small brown-and-white goat stood in the center of the floor, his head lowered, his eyes fixed on the woman in front of him.
She stood behind an overturned barrel in a crown and sash, like being cornered by livestock was just another scheduled appearance.
Dust caked her custom boots. Her honey-blonde hair had started the day in soft waves and was losing the fight one strand at a time.
And her green eyes tracked that goat like she was negotiating with a hostage-taker instead of an animal with horns and poor manners.
For half a second, my brain did something useless.
It noticed her. Not the crown. Not the sash.
Her. The curve of her mouth when she was trying not to panic.
The way she held herself tall even with fear pressing in.
The ridiculous, inconvenient fact that she was beautiful in a way that didn’t soften the danger around her. It sharpened it.
Then the goat shifted toward her, and something low in my chest went tight.
Mine.
The thought came out of nowhere, hard and primitive enough to piss me off. She wasn’t mine. She was a client I hadn’t even officially met yet. A threatened woman in a public place with no sense of self-preservation and too many people watching.
That didn’t stop every instinct I had from wanting to put myself between her and the rest of the world.
A junior contestant—maybe ten years old—stood near the door, tears streaming down her face.
“He hates me,” the girl sobbed.
“He doesn’t hate you,” the woman said, her voice calm. “He’s just emotionally unstable.”
The goat bleated.
I leaned against the doorframe. “That animal weighs eighty pounds and has you pinned behind a feed barrel.”
The woman in the crown slowly turned her head and gave me a smile. It was bright, perfect, pageant-ready, and totally fake.
“I’m negotiating.”
“Looks like you’re losing.”
Her smile slipped just enough to show me the woman underneath all that polish. “He’s emotionally unstable.”
“So is half this town,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I’d let them corner me.”
Her eyes narrowed. Not much. Just enough. Good. Fear looked wrong on her. Irritation suited her better.
The goat bleated again and took two steps toward the door.
The junior contestant gasped.
That was when I moved. I stepped between the goat and the open doorway, crouched slightly, and held out one hand. The animal stopped, his nostrils flaring. I waited, giving him time to decide I wasn’t a threat. Then I caught the loose lead rope trailing from his halter and straightened.
I handed the rope to the junior contestant. “Walk him around for a few minutes. He’ll settle.”
The girl took the rope with shaking hands and led the goat outside.
When I turned back, the woman in the crown was watching me.
She’d stepped out from behind the barrel, her posture straight again, chin lifted, that smile sliding back into place like armor.
Her hands were tucked behind her back like she was holding something she didn’t want me to see.
Probably her phone. Probably another threat she wanted to keep to herself.
That tightened something in me all over again.
“You’re not with the livestock crew,” she said.
“No.”
“Are you a sponsor?”
“No.”
“An angry parent?”
I almost laughed at that. The thought of me being someone’s dad deserved a minute I didn’t have. “Not today.”
Her smile widened, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Then who are you?”
“Braxton James.”
Her smile stayed perfect on the surface, but everything behind it changed. I watched her cycle through a few emotions… recognition, then frustration, and finally fear. And damn me, I hated seeing that last one on her.
“You’re my security problem,” she said.
“I’m your security solution.”
“That’s exactly what a security problem would say.”
I didn’t smile, but she did. Brighter now. Too damn bright.
I’d spent too many years watching people pretend not to be scared. Addison Blake was all shine at first glance, the kind of woman who knew how to walk into a room and make everyone look where she wanted them to look. She had the crown, the smile, the perfect posture, and the polished voice.
But her hands were shaking. Not much. Not enough for anyone else to notice.
It was my job to notice.
She checked the doorway without meaning to. Just a flicker of her eyes, fast and automatic, like she’d been doing it all morning. She had put herself between a crying child and a loose animal without hesitation, but now that the danger had shifted back to her, she was pretending it didn’t exist.
I cataloged all of it in three seconds… the fear, the stubbornness, and the way she made me want to close every door, block every window, and keep every stranger on these grounds ten feet away from her until I knew which one had been watching.
That was a problem.
I didn’t get possessive over clients. I didn’t get distracted by green eyes and dusty boots and a woman who smiled like she’d rather bleed than admit she was scared. And I sure as hell didn’t have feelings.
But Addison Blake looked at me like she’d already decided I was going to be another man trying to manage her, and some reckless part of me wanted the right to prove her wrong.
“We need a briefing,” I said.
“I have appearances.”
“Your appearances are exactly why we need a briefing.”
She tilted her head. “I’m not a package you get to move from place to place.”
“No.” I stepped closer before I could think better of it. Close enough to see the gold flecks in her eyes. Close enough to watch her breath catch before she hid it. “You’re the person I’m making sure gets home alive.”
For a split second, her mask slipped. Her smile faltered. Her shoulders tensed.
Then she covered it with a laugh. “I think you’re being a little overly dramatic, Mr. James.”
“And you’re very good at pretending this isn’t serious.”
Her jaw tightened. That shouldn’t have made me want her more, but it did.
She wasn’t soft or helpless or fragile. Scared, yes, but not weak.
“Here’s how this works,” I said. “You don’t go anywhere alone. You tell me before you change locations. You don’t dismiss threats. You forward every message to me. And you don’t sneak away because you think I’m being overly dramatic.”
Her chin lifted. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. Stop smiling when you’re scared.”
Her breath caught.
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed. She glanced down, and her face went still.
“Addison.”
She didn’t move.
I reached her in two steps and took the phone from her hand. I should have asked. I should have kept the distance professional, but the look on her face killed every polite instinct I had.
The message was simple. The photo wasn’t. It showed the two of us. Addison stood behind the feed barrel. I was by the door. It had been taken from outside moments ago.
The text below read:
Cute bodyguard. He won’t always be there.
Heat moved through me, clean and cold. Not anger. Worse. Focus.
I scanned the doorway and the grounds beyond. There were too many people… families, volunteers, vendors, stock hands, tourists, and junior contestants running past with ribbons in their hands.
Any one of them could have taken that photo. Any one of them could have been close enough to watch her breathe.
My hand tightened around the phone before I made myself loosen it.
I handed it back. “Still think you don’t need a briefing?”
Addison stared at the screen. Then at me. “You’re not going to let me out of your sight, are you?”
“No.”
She let out a frustrated exhale. “Great.”
I stepped past her toward the door, already mapping the grounds in my head. Too many blind angles. Too much movement. Too many places for someone to hide and watch her from twenty feet away.
“Braxton.”
I stopped.
Addison stood in the center of the feed room, her crown slightly crooked, her smile finally gone. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“And you think I’m in actual danger.”
I looked at her. At the phone still clutched in her hand. At the fear she was trying so hard not to show.
“No,” I said. “I know you are.”
I walked out into the August heat and scanned the crowd again. Somewhere in that sea of families and volunteers and junior queens, someone was watching her. And now they knew I was watching back.