Page 32 of September’s Cowboy Travis

Another cowboy beat my time later by less than two-tenths of a second.

Normally I'd have spent the rest of the afternoon replaying where I'd lost it. Maybe I'd gotten out of the box half a beat late. Maybe I'd let the steer get one extra step before I dropped.

Instead, I collected second-place money and gave Bandit a rub between the ears before I went looking for Kaycee.

I found her behind the rodeo office with her phone in one hand.

“You yelled again.”

She looked up. “Hello to you too.”

“You yelled my name.”

“I was surrounded by several hundred loud people. You can't prove anything.”

“Pretty sure I can find witnesses.”

“I'll challenge their credibility.”

I was about to tell her Addison would sell her out in under five seconds when Kaycee glanced back at her phone.

I stopped next to her. “Did you get an update?”

She nodded.

We moved farther along the side of the building, away from the volunteers going in and out of the office.

“The transfer wasn't random,” she said. “It isn't connected to the Pritchard payments or the questionable supplier transactions I've been tracing. I confirmed the originating account belongs to a legitimate entity that absorbed some of the older Cedar Draw holdings.”

“So somebody there sent me five grand?”

“It’s not quite that simple.” She pulled up something on her phone. “The payment was tied to the Parcel 17-B designation and your current lease. I still need more records before I can tell you why that old parcel number was used or why that amount was due.”

I hooked my thumbs through my belt loops. “That's the part I'd like to know.”

“I know. But I can tell you something else now.” She looked straight at me. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

I studied her face. She wasn't smiling, and she wasn't giving me the answer because she thought it was the one I wanted. “You're sure?”

“I have the evidence.”

She'd been saying the same thing from the first day we met. She didn't work off reputations, mine included.

“The money didn't come from Roy Pritchard or any of the supplier accounts involved in the livestock discrepancies,” she continued. “There's no indication you requested it, initiated the transfer, or knew anything about the account that sent it. As far as the audit is concerned, you're not responsible for that deposit.”

I rubbed a hand over my jaw and looked toward the arena. Five thousand dollars had shown up in my account, and the committee had flagged it. I'd spent the better part of a week expecting Mustang Mountain to decide this was one more mess I’d made for myself.

Kaycee had followed the money instead.

“What about the committee?”

“I’ll tell them the same thing.”

I nodded.

“You don't look all that excited,” she said.

“I am.”