My Daddy Bodyguard (Lone Star Security #3)

Chapter 1

ONE

STELLA

He’s the grumpy, growly bodyguard, and I’m the sunshine kindergarten teacher with a cupcake problem—and today I meet him face-first, frosting-first, on Main Street.

Which is not the plan.

The plan is: deliver twenty-four chocolate-cherry cupcakes to the Valor Springs Rodeo Days bake sale, smile at the tourists, keep my kids from licking the petting-zoo goat, and pretend I am a woman whose life is perfectly together and not currently held up with bobby pins and a prayer.

Main Street looks like someone shook a snow globe and replaced the snow with glitter and red-white-and-blue bunting.

Banners flap from the old brick storefronts.

The water tower wears fresh paint like a Sunday hat—VALOR SPRINGS in proud navy letters.

The air smells like barbecue smoke and kettle corn and a tiny hint of horse.

I balance two pink bakery boxes against my hip and tack a smile on my face. “Almost there,” I whisper to the cupcakes, because yes, I talk to baked goods. Who doesn’t? They don’t talk back, which makes them the most supportive relationships in my life.

“Miss Hart!” A herd of small humans stampedes across the sidewalk—my kindergarteners, loose during parade rehearsal like rogue confetti. “Miss Hart, I saw a cowboy!” “Miss Hart, the goat ate my sticker!” “Miss Hart, what does ‘yeehaw’ mean scientifically?”

“Yeehaw,” I say solemnly, “is the sound joy makes when it puts on boots.” I do not trip. I do not wobble. I keep my adult life choices upright—

A goat the size of a labradoodle rockets past, trailing a stream of blue crepe paper like a comet tail.

My student Levi tugs at the ribbon around the goat’s neck.

The goat, insulted, goes airborne. Levi yelps.

The boxes teeter. I lunge— and slam into a wall of muscle clad in a charcoal henley and worn jeans that look illegal in seven states.

The boxes pop like party tricks. Frosting kisses a broad, suspiciously perfect chest. A steady hand catches my elbow. Another rescues a tilting tower of cupcakes mid-air with reflexes that should be studied by NASA.

“Easy,” the wall rumbles, voice low enough to vibrate my bones. “I’ve got you.”

I blink up and meet eyes the color of a Texas sky just before a thunderstorm.

Silver grazes the dark at his temples. There’s a faint scar along his jaw, one that says “ask me about the desert” and “I won’t answer.

” A Lone Star Security patch sits on his bicep—black star, crisp embroidery, authority stitched into fabric.

“Hi,” I squeak, eloquent as ever, and peel a cherry off his shirt. “You’re…wearing frosting. I—sorry. I am so, so—sorry.”

One corner of his mouth threatens a smile. “Does this count as a rodeo hazard?”

“Only if you’re allergic to cherries or public embarrassment,” I say because panic tastes like stand-up comedy in my mouth. “You saved the cupcakes. Hero status confirmed. The town thanks you, I thank you, science thanks you.”

The tiniest smile wins the battle of his mouth. “Science?”

“Long story,” I say, then drop my voice. “Some of my kids think ‘yeehaw’ is physics and I didn’t discourage them.”

He glances toward the goat, now headbutting a portable fence. “You’ve got your hands full.”

“You have no idea.” I realize he’s still holding my elbow, warm and solid and a little too anchoring for a girl who hasn’t had lunch. “I’m Stella, by the way. Stella Hart.”

“Jack.” His hand releases mine in a careful, deliberate way that makes it feel like a choice. “Jack Sinclair.”

Of course his name is Jack. All decisive consonants and clean lines and reliability. He looks like the type who would fix a leaky sink and also a geopolitical crisis with the same tool kit.

“Jack,” I repeat, like maybe if I say it enough times I’ll stop hearing how it sounds in my mouth. “Nice to meet you, Mister—um—Sinclair. Sorry I frosted you.”

“It’s just a shirt.” His gaze tracks the street the way men who’ve been in worse places track a horizon. Calm. Aware. “You all right?”

“Now? Great.” I shift the boxes he saved into the crook of my arm. “Before? Medium. Five out of ten. Would not recommend sprinting goats. Where did you come from? Like, logistically, not existentially.”

He tips his chin toward the courthouse square. “HQ’s a block over.” He nods at the wood gate leading to the Lone Star Security ranch. “We’re helping with parade safety.”

“Parade safety,” I echo, because my brain has decided to run a slideshow of Jack’s hands catching cupcakes. “Right. Super secure. Love that for us.”

“Stella!” My older brother, Wyatt, jogs up, baseball cap backwards, sheriff’s department tee clinging to his shoulders.

He is two years older, ten inches taller, and thinks he’s my father when our actual father is out fixing tractors.

“You okay? I saw—” He stops when he sees Jack, evaluation sliding over his face like a shade. “Sinclair.”

“Sheriff,” Jack returns, which is hilarious because Wyatt is a deputy and will argue the difference out of sheer principle.

“Deputy,” I correct under my breath.

Wyatt’s mouth twitches. “You can take that up with the ballot box, Firecracker.” He eyes the frosting constellation on Jack’s chest. “We doing dessert-based security now?”

“Trial run,” Jack says dryly. “Initial results are sticky.”

“Look at you, being funny.” I beam, then realize I’m beaming and dial it back to ‘acceptable female human smile.’ “Jack saved the cupcakes and probably my elbow. We’re fans.”

Wyatt gives Jack that older-brother head tilt that translates to: I carry a badge and a shovel and I’m not afraid to use either. “Appreciate the assist.” Then, to me: “Stay near the gazebo, okay? There was some idiot joyriding down County Route Six last night. Might be in town. Keep your head up.”

My smile stalls. “I’m always on guard,” I lie. “I’m like an owl.”

Wyatt lifts a brow. “Owls have excellent survival rates. Be an owl.” He nods at Jack in a way that says conversation To Be Continued and jogs off toward the barbecue pavilion.

“Protective,” Jack observes.

“Bossy,” I amend, balancing the boxes. “But yes. He means well. He just forgets I am technically an adult with…taxes.”

“Taxes,” Jack repeats, like he’s cataloging my skills. “And cupcakes.”

“And stickers,” I add. “And existential yeehaw questions. And also—uh—if you hear a rumor at the diner about someone’s brake line mysteriously…um. Never mind.” I laugh too brightly. “Gotta get these to the bake sale. Thank you, Jack. For catching my desserts. And me.”

His gaze warms by a degree. “You’re welcome, Miss Hart.”

“Stella,” I correct, because his “Miss Hart” makes my insides turn to mush.

“Stella,” he says, testing it like a piece of gear. “Watch your step.”

I pivot—watch my step—and nearly step into a pallet jack left abandoned behind the gazebo. “I’m fine!” I announce to no one, dignity flapping like a bunting streamer. I hustle to the bake-sale table, deposit the boxes, and inhale like I just outran a longhorn.

“Those your famous cherry bombs?” Mrs. Kershaw, head of the PTA and benevolent queen of the bake sale, snaps lids open with clinical satisfaction. “Lord, girl, you’ve outdone yourself. Did you hear about the fireworks delay?”

“Fireworks? No, I was busy with a cupcake disaster.” I repeat, reorganizing napkins that don’t need reorganizing. “What about them?”

“Supply truck broke down outside of town.” She clucks.

“Parade marshal says it’s fine, but you know me—if the good Lord wanted us to trust men with clipboards, He’d have given them common sense.

And—oh!” She leans in, eyes bright. “Are you bringing a date to the two-step tonight? Your brother says he knows a nice accountant from over Abilene way—”

Over Mrs. Kershaw’s shoulder, I catch a flash of charcoal henley and the glint of a star patch.

Jack stands a few yards away with two other men from Lone Star, all attention, all stillness, the kind of stillness you learn when movement gets you noticed.

He scans the block again. His gaze snags on me and holds.

I lift my hand in a little wave. He nods, almost imperceptible.

Heat zips through me, fast and baffling.

“I am absolutely not bringing an accountant,” I tell Mrs. Kershaw, who believes no woman’s social life is complete without someone to discuss deductions with. “Tonight I’m supervising five-year-olds with glow sticks.”

“Bring the accountant next time,” she says. “Men who can balance a ledger are God’s gift.”

“Is there a verse for that?”

“Proverbs.” She winks. “Probably.”

I laugh and wipe a smear of frosting off my wrist. The square hums—vendors calling, kids squealing, a fiddler testing notes under the gazebo.

Across the way, a stack of hay bales looms behind the parade float staging area, bound with twine, a cheerful backdrop for the “Valor Springs Welcomes You” banner.

A teenager on a ladder yanks at the banner’s cord.

It sticks. He yanks harder. The cord gives. So does the stack.

Time does a weird, syrupy slow.

The top bale tips. The stack shivers. The ladder wobbles.

I don’t think. I move.

“Hey—” I lunge toward the kid as the top bale lets go— an arm bands around my waist and yanks me back, hard.

I spin into a chest I already know is unreasonably capable.

The bale slams to the ground where my toes were, bursting in a puff of golden chaos.

The ladder clatters. The kid squawks, hopping down like a caffeinated cricket.

“You all right?” Jack’s breath brushes my temple, steady and unruffled, like he didn’t just pull me out from under potential hay doom.

“I—yes,” I pant, adrenaline fizzing. “Ten out of ten. Would recommend not being pancaked.”

He releases me slowly, palms skimming my sides with a care that makes my skin go hot and my brain go oh. “You always run toward falling objects?”

“I run toward problems,” I say, because bravery sounds better. “I am a woman of action. Also poor spatial reasoning.”

Jack’s gaze flicks to the twine. The cut ends are clean. Too clean. He doesn’t touch them, but I see the calculation land behind his eyes.

“It was just loose,” I say quickly. “Things shift. It’s gusty. Physics.” I do that bright laugh again, the one that sounds like property damage. “I’m fine.”

“Mm.” He studies the teenager, who is apologizing to the banner like it has feelings. “You should stand over here.” He guides me three steps left, positioning me between two picnic tables, out of the path of—what?—rogue hay, runaway goats, joyriding idiots?

It should feel bossy. It feels like oxygen.

“Miss Hart?” A mother I recognize from the school drop-off line appears, preschooler on her hip. “My Maisie says she left her teddy at the petting zoo and she won’t stop crying.”

“Operation Teddy Retrieval,” I say immediately. “On it.” I look up at Jack. “Duty calls.”

“Stay where there are people,” he says, like the square itself is a shield. “And if you see anything that makes your gut go tight—”

“Run toward it,” I joke.

“Text your brother,” he corrects, mouth almost smiling. “And me. Give me your phone.”

“Oh,” I say, too quickly.

He takes my phone without touching my fingers—how does he do that?—and types with ruthless efficiency. My screen flashes with a new contact: Jack Sinclair. He hands it back. “For cupcakes,” he says blandly, as if either of us believes that.

“For science,” I counter, and then I’m moving again, because Maisie’s lower lip is trembling and I’m a sucker for a mission with a stuffed-animal objective.

The petting zoo is a chaos meadow—kids, straw, goats with philosophical eyes. We find Teddy hunkered under the fence, a fur ball of tragedy. Maisie clutches him like a shipwreck survivor.

By the time we weave back to the square, the fiddler’s found a jaunty tune and the kettle corn line is three grandmas deep. The hay bales are restacked and re-twined. Jack is across the way now, speaking into a radio, one palm cupped to his ear, attention narrowed. The patch on his arm gleams.

My phone buzzes.

Jack Sinclair: You forgot to breathe after you laugh like that.

I blink. Then another bubble pops up.

Jack Sinclair: Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle. Just…breathe.

I stare at the screen, warmth spreading through me in a ridiculous, fizzy bloom. I look up. He’s not looking at me. He’s scanning the street again. Working. But the message sits in my hand like a steadying palm between my shoulder blades.

I inhale. Exhale. Breathe.

“Stella!” Wyatt again, this time with a coffee and a look that says he found a thing to worry about and plans to adopt it. “Everything good?”

“Fine,” I say, bright and harmless, because if I tell him about the cut twine he’ll build a bunker out of hay and suspicion. “Are you…friends with Jack Sinclair?”

Wyatt’s jaw ticks. “We’ve worked together. He’s solid. Why?”

“No reason,” I say, which is female for fourteen reasons, none of which I’m admitting to my brother in public.

“Stay put when the parade starts,” he orders. “And text me if you see the blue F-150 with the dented quarter panel. Might be our County Six joyrider.”

“Copy that, Deputy.” I salute, then wince when he grins, because now I’ll never live that down.

The loudspeaker screeches. The parade marshal booms something about line-up in ten. Kids shriek with the kind of joy that bounces off buildings and into your bones. The sun finds the shiny new paint on the water tower and turns it halo-bright. Valor Springs breathes in, collective and hopeful.

I tuck my phone into my pocket, and watch as Jack and his team take their posts. Calm. Ready. Edges like the country line between safe and sorry.

Maybe the hay twine was nothing. Maybe the fireworks delay is just a truck with bad timing. Maybe I really am a woman whose life is held together with bobby pins and prayer, and that’s enough.

But when Jack looks over, just once, and our eyes catch like flint— I think maybe this is the start of a different kind of plan.

One with a grumpy, growly bodyguard. One where the small accidents aren’t accidents at all.

One where a girl like me learns to breathe when a man like him says so, and also to run, and also to stand very, very still when standing still is the safest thing.

“Yeehaw,” I murmur to myself, and this time it sounds less like science and more like a warning and a promise.