Chapter 16
sixteen
. . .
brOCK
She was better at it than me.
During family dinner, she’d ask politely about my shoulder and pass me the rolls without our hands ever touching. I’d sit there remembering I’d had my mouth on her two hours earlier in the tack room.
Three days of that. Then the first shoot.
They wanted a clip of me teaching her to ride. Sienna set it up like the job it was. Propped her phone on a tripod on the fence rail, checked the light, and handed me Dusty’s reins. It was the oldest, laziest mare we owned.
She cracked open one of the Outlaw cans and set it on the post where the camera would catch it. Colt had been thrilled when she wrangled them into sending more. I’d caught him drinking a purple one at six in the morning instead of the usual coffee.
“There goes my shot,” Sienna muttered.
I turned to see that Moose had just planted his fluffy tail right in front of the lens and was barking like he’d been waiting all morning to do that.
“Cut,” she laughed, walking over to scratch behind his ears. “You’re not sponsored, buddy.”
I rested my arms on the rail and shook my head. “Tough crowd.”
She dragged Moose out of the frame, got him settled in the shade, and came back brushing dirt off her knees. Checked her phone, hit record, and nodded at me.
I led Dusty into frame.
“Alright. First thing, you gotta get on. Hands here.”
I put her hands on the saddle horn and brushed her knuckles doing it. Her breath caught.
“Don’t,” she said, still smiling for the camera. “We’re filming.”
“I’m teaching you to ride. Left foot in the stirrup.” I stepped in behind her, chest to her back, arm around to cover her hands. “Then you pull yourself up. I’ll guide you.”
“You’re doing that on purpose,” she muttered through her teeth.
Her hand stayed light on the horn. Steady. Dusty didn't so much as flick an ear.
Sienna glanced down. “She’s huge.”
“She’s asleep.”
I gave Dusty a pat on the neck and the old mare shifted forward. Sienna let out a surprised laugh as Dusty started ambling across the yard. For the next ten feet, she grinned down at me, just like she had the day we dragged that calf out of the ditch.
I kept pace beside her and put a hand on her knee to steady her when the saddle rocked.
“Brock. Your hand.”
I dropped it right away.
“That’s a good shot,” she said, like nothing had happened.
That’s how it went for the next few days. On camera, we gave them what they paid for. Off camera, my hands stayed on her waist a few seconds too long after every take, and she let them.
It got to be a problem.
Not the filming; that part I could handle.
It was the after. The second her phone went in her pocket and there was no reason to be standing that close anymore…
except I didn’t move, and she didn’t either.
A roping shot would end, and I'd realize I still had her hand trapped under mine on the rough hemp rope.
Wren caught us once in the barn. I was standing way too close, my fingers brushing the side of her neck while I pulled a piece of hay out of her hair. My sister walked through the doors and stopped dead, eyebrows damn near disappearing into her hairline.
I dropped my hand fast. “She had hay in her hair.”
“Right,” Wren said slowly.
I needed space to clear my head, so when the Big Horn and Buffalo rodeos came up, I had my gear bag packed before dawn.
“I’m going alone,” I told Sienna in the kitchen. “Small purses. Not worth the drive for both of us.”
I didn't tell her the real reason, which was that I needed eight seconds on a bronc and a few hours where I wasn’t within arm’s reach of her.
The doctor had said light duty, and I was already ignoring that part. Least I could do was not lose my damn mind.
I placed third at the Buffalo rodeo. Sat in the truck icing my shoulder on the dark drive home, just like the doctor told me to.
But the second I walked through the back door, none of it mattered. She was still up at the kitchen table with her laptop, hair falling out of its clip, looking at me with those soft eyes. The not-touching got hard again inside thirty seconds.
The money was the only thing keeping me from doing something stupid.
The last Outlaw deposit had already hit. Not a fortune, but enough to cover diesel and entry fees for a while. All for standing next to a pretty woman and pretending to drink cherry-lime rocket fuel.
On top of the Outlaw payout, a new sponsor made an offer. Ryder & Co wanted me in their fall catalog—good money just to wear their clothes and stand around for photos. I signed the contract the same afternoon Sienna put it in front of me.
I told Wyatt about it out by the equipment shed, where we could talk without the whole house hearing.
“Ryder,” he said. “The boots people?”
“Boots, shirts, all of it. They want me in the catalog.”
He let out a low whistle. “That’s not nothing.”
“We could finally catch up on the property taxes,” I said. “Maybe even get some feed stockpiled before winter.”
Before he could answer, the ranch radio on my belt crackled.
“Base camp, this is Alpha Team. Requesting backup at the south pasture gate. Over.”
I closed my eyes and took a slow breath, then unclipped it.
“Colt, I’m talking to Wyatt. What do you want?”
“The hinge on this gate’s busted. I need you to hold it while I weld it. Over.”
“Use the C-clamp in the toolbox,” I said. “It’s a one-man job.”
There was a long pause of static.
“I could,” his voice crackled back, dropping the military act completely. “But then I’d be doing it alone, and I thought maybe you’d want some quality time with your favorite brother. To bond.”
I looked at the radio. “Are you really that lonely?”
“Why rely on cold, unfeeling tools when I have a strong older brother built for manual labor?” Colt said brightly. “Take your time. I was gonna take a break anyway. Out.”
“He just wants an excuse to lay eyes on you and make sure that shoulder’s actually holding up,” Wyatt said quietly.
I crossed my arms and looked away. “The shoulder’s healing.”
“Good.” Wyatt leaned back against the shed. “But you know, you don’t have to carry all of it.”
“I know.”
“I’m just saying. You took the worst of that hit in the alley, you’re still riding hurt, and now you’re doing those videos on top of everything else. You’re spread real thin right now, Brock.”
I didn't answer, mostly because he wasn't wrong, but partly because the real weight on my chest wasn't the schedule or my shoulder. It was the woman currently sitting in my kitchen.
“Does Sienna know?” he asked. “About the money or how tight it’s been?”
I picked at a fleck of rust on the shed door. “No, and keep it that way.”
“Why?”
Because she’d look at me with pity. And I couldn’t stomach that.
“It’s not her problem,” I said, making my voice hard. “She’s here to do a job. That’s all.”
Wyatt looked at me for a long moment. He’d raised Maisie on his own. He knew exactly what a man sounded like when he was lying to himself.
“Right,” he said. “A job.”
He pushed off the shed like he was heading for the house, but after two steps he stopped and turned back.
“You know, Maisie said something at breakfast.”
“Yeah?”
“She said you’ve been smelling like Sienna’s flowers lately. Not just some days. Every day.” He fixed me with a slow look. “Then she asked if that made Sienna her aunt.”
My mouth went dry.
“She’s a kid,” I said. “Kids ask about everything. Tell her Sienna’s not her aunt.”
“I did, and then she cried a little, because she likes her. So, will you tell me what’s going on between you two?”
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You do smell like her perfume. You two won’t look at each other at the dinner table. And you’ve been jumpier than a stray dog all week.”
My jaw locked.
“If she’s just doing a job, fine,” he pressed. “But Maisie’s getting attached to her. So I need to know right now—are you letting her leave, or not?”
Wyatt and Wren inherited our mom’s green eyes, and I’d always found it damn near impossible to lie to either of them when one looked at me like that.
I let out a harsh breath, the fight draining out of me.
"It’s not a matter of letting her. She's got a whole life back in Chicago. I can't make her stay." I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck. "But yeah, we’re together."
His shoulders dropped. The hard edge left his face. Before he could smile or clap me on the back, I stepped closer.
“But you can’t say a damn word, Wyatt. If this gets out, Sienna loses her job, and it’d be my fault.”
He gave a single nod, then reached out and gripped my hand, pulling me in for a quick, rough half-hug.
“I’ve kept worse,” he said. “Your secret’s safe.”
I stood in the yard for a minute after Wyatt went inside, the sun hot on the back of my neck, then took the truck down to the south pasture. Colt didn’t actually make me lift the gate—he found the C-clamps the second I showed up—but I sat on the tailgate and handed him tools while he welded.
As soon as we finished, he was off the clock. By the time I got back to the house, it was pushing ten. Colt had already showered and was reeking of aftershave, tearing down the dirt road toward the tavern in town.
The house had gone quiet, Dad's door shut and the TV off.
I had my own room in the far corner of the house, with a door that opened onto a stretch of porch facing the Bighorns. I'd left it open, and the cool night air drifted inside, carrying the scent of dry earth.
I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, listening to the quiet until footsteps sounded in the hall.
Sienna stood in the doorway in an oversized T-shirt and bare feet, her hair loose and backlit by the hall light. She'd never come to this side of the house before. I wasn't even sure she knew where my room was.
“This is a bad idea,” she whispered.
“It’s a great idea.”
She stepped inside and closed the hallway door softly behind her. She stood there for a second, taking in the boots in the corner and the wide glass door left open to the night.
“You have your own porch,” she murmured.