Knot Your First Rodeo (Wild Hearts Ranch #2)

Chapter 1

JUNE

My sedan rattles over the one pothole on More Street, the same pothole that’s been here since I was sixteen and backed my mom’s Buick right into it, and I can’t help but smile even as my tires thunk through it.

Some things in Honeyspur Meadow never change, and honestly? I kind of love that about this place.

I stifle a yawn and grip the steering wheel a little tighter as I turn onto the main road. This is what I get for joining the town committee.

Actually, no. This is what I get for being the youngest person on the town committee by a solid two decades, and also the only one without a spouse, kids, or a convenient excuse.

When Pete called twenty minutes ago, voice gravelly with sleep, asking if I could handle a small situation down at the station, I knew exactly what that meant.

“June, sweetheart, you’re the only one who can do this without waking up a whole household.”

The details Pete gave me were sparse: Someone from the rodeo circuit in town got into trouble at The Rusty Spur, ended up in a holding cell, and needs to be quietly collected before word spreads.

The circuit brings serious money into Honeyspur Meadow every year, fills up our motels, packs our restaurants, keeps the local economy humming, and the committee’s job is to keep that relationship solid and drama-free.

So here I am. Barely dressed, barely awake, driving through my sleeping town to bail out a stranger.

I sell houses, running my parents’ Sweetwater Creek Realty business. In my spare time, I photograph Honeyspur Meadow, hoping to put together a book of our rural area. So of course I want the best for our town.

I pull into a spot along the curb, right in front of the hardware store, and cut the engine. Farther ahead sits The Rusty Spur, lights still on, music thumping from inside.

Okay, June. Let’s do this.

I push open my door, and the cool air hits me.

It slides past my coat collar and down my spine, finding every gap between my clothes.

I’m wearing yoga pants stuffed into my nice cognac boots, a chunky cardigan that’s more holes than warmth at this point, and my coat, which is doing approximately nothing to help.

I lock my car and quickly cross the empty road, and I’m heading up the gravel path that leads off the main road toward the police station. It’s a squat brick building with too-bright fluorescent lights visible through the windows.

The glass door sticks when I try to pull it. I stumble into the lobby, catching myself on the doorframe.

Very smooth, June. Ten out of ten.

The warmth inside is immediate and welcome. I take a moment to let the feeling return to my face, then approach the front desk, where a woman sits, staring at a computer screen.

It’s Barb. We’ve met at approximately seven hundred town functions—she brought those dry lemon bars to the last town picnic—but she’s looking at me now like she’s never seen me before in her life.

Fair. I probably look like a disaster. I didn’t even glance in a mirror before I left.

“Hi, Barb.” I pull out my best I-am-a-competent-member-of-society smile. “Here to pick up someone. Pete should have called ahead?”

She blinks at me slowly, then takes a long, deliberate sip of her coffee. Maintaining eye contact. Establishing dominance.

I wait.

She sips.

We’re really doing this, I guess.

Finally, she sets the mug down with a pointed clink and raises one eyebrow. “Name of the person you’re picking up?”

Right. I dig my phone out of my coat pocket and pull up Pete’s text from earlier, scanning the message. “Seth Benton,” I say.

Something flickers across her face before her expression smooths back to professional boredom. “Wait here.”

She disappears through a door behind the desk, and I turn to survey the waiting area. There’s one other person here, a guy in the corner who looks like he lost a fight with a hay baler, staring at me with intensity.

I give him my sweetest smile, the one that says, I will end you if you try anything, and deliberately turn my back to claim one of the plastic chairs against the wall.

I check my phone again. No new messages.

The rodeo has been in town for four days now, and every motel is booked, every restaurant packed, and tourists are wandering the streets in brand-new cowboy hats, asking if we have Uber.

We don’t. We barely have reliable cell service on a good day.

Finally, a door at the back of the station swings open, and a female deputy emerges.

She’s hauling a guy big enough that hauling is probably an optimistic description. He’s more like… shambling under her guidance. A slow-moving mountain of a man, head down, dark hair falling over his forehead as he mumbles something that might be song lyrics.

Actually, no. It’s definitely song lyrics.

He half sings, half slurs the words to “Sweet Home Alabama,” his voice a low rumble that reverberates through the lobby.

The deputy shoots me a look that clearly says, Good luck with this one, and adjusts her grip on his arm as they approach.

“You sure you want this big lug?” she asks, sounding like she’s offering me a burden rather than a human being.

“Does he have any other options?” I stand up, trying to get a better look at him. He’s still not lifting his head, too focused on his private concert.

He continues to sing, seemingly lost in his own little world right now.

“Not at two in the morning, he doesn’t, as he’s not going back to the bar after the chaos he created,” the deputy confirms. “He’s all yours if you think you can handle him.”

“Lucky me. And yeah, I’ve reined in bulls before.” I approach them, and that’s when I finally get a proper look at what I’m dealing with.

He’s tall. Six-two at least, maybe more, with the kind of shoulders that look like they were designed to fill doorways.

Even slouched and swaying, there’s no hiding the breadth of him.

He’s thick through the chest, strong through the core, with powerful legs.

I’m five-six, so compared to him, I’m tiny, but I’m not backing down.

He’s wearing jeans and boots. His shirt is charcoal or navy, hard to tell in this lighting, a button-up that probably looked crisp hours ago but has since surrendered to whatever trouble led him here.

It’s untucked on one side, and the sleeves are rolled to his elbows, revealing forearms that make my mouth go dry.

Holy mother of—

They’re ridiculous. Corded with muscle, dusted with dark hair. His hands are big, fingers long and capable, and there’s a faint scar visible across his knuckles that suggests tonight’s fight wasn’t his fight.

He’s swaying gently, still humming under his breath, head still ducked so all I can see is dark hair, shorter on the sides, longer on top, and that shadow of stubble along a jaw.

The deputy releases him, and he stumbles slightly, catching himself with a grace that seems accidental. Then he lifts his head.

Oh.

His eyes are blue. The color of summer skies and mountain lakes and those perfect cloudless days you remember your whole life.

Even glazed and unfocused, even rimmed with exhaustion and whatever else is running through his system, they’re the kind of eyes that stop you in your tracks and make you forget what you were about to say.

They find mine, and something in my chest does a lazy flip.

He’s stunning, with a face made for trouble.

High cheekbones, a strong nose with a slight crook, full lips that curve into a slow smile as he registers my presence.

There’s something almost boyish about his expression despite the sheer masculine size of him.

He grins at me entirely too confidently for someone who’s being collected from a jail cell, and I feel that grin all the way down to my toes.

“Hello there.” His voice is low and rough, and a buzz runs down my spine. “Didn’t know they let angels into places like this.”

I arch an eyebrow while the deputy chuckles. “Save it, cowboy. I’m nobody’s angel, and you’re nobody’s prize catch right now.”

“That so?” He tilts his head, considering me, and his smile widens. “Because from where I’m standing, you look pretty heavenly to me.”

“From where you’re standing, you can barely stand.”

He laughs at that, and somehow that’s worse than flirting. A laugh like that shouldn’t be allowed at two in the morning. It’s too genuine, too inviting, too likely to make a girl forget her purpose.

“Fair point,” he concedes, swaying again. Then he straightens up—or tries to—and attempts a bow that nearly sends him toppling. “Seth Benton, at your service. And you are?”

“June. I’m your ride.”

“June.” He says my name like he’s savoring it, rolling it around on his tongue. “Pretty name. Pretty girl.”

“Flattery won’t get you home faster. Let’s go.” I reach out and grab his elbow, my fingers barely making a dent in the solid muscle there. Even through his shirt, I feel the heat of him, the coiled strength. “I’ve got a bed waiting for me, and it’s not going to wait forever.”

“A bed?” His eyebrows shoot up, and that grin turns downright wicked. “Darlin’, I like where this is going.”

“My bed. Alone. While you sober up at the motel. Move it.”

I start steering him toward the exit door, nodding my thanks to the deputy as we pass. He comes along willingly enough.

“You’re bossy,” he observes cheerfully. “I like bossy.”

“You won’t like it when I leave you on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere.”

“You wouldn’t do that.” He’s still grinning.

“Try me.”

He laughs that warm, rumbling sound and stumbles into my side. I brace myself, but it’s like trying to stabilize a redwood—he’s solid, heavy, and entirely too close.

And that’s when I catch his scent. There’s alcohol there, sure—whiskey, probably—sharp and unmistakable, but it’s faint. A top note rather than the main event. Underneath it, there’s leather, coffee, and the sweetest chocolate.