Page 84 of Buck ’Em Cowgirl

I nodded. “Me too, Cowgirl. Me too.” My smile dropped. “I heard you got a record amount sold at the auction,” I whispered.

“Mhmm.” She nodded and reached up to my chest, slowly placing her raw fingers against my shirt. “Hey, Beau?”

“Yeah?”

She let out a slow, tired sigh, her hands falling back to her sides. “Can we get out of here?”

My chest tightened, a slow warmth spreading through me at her words as I reached for her hand, lacing my fingers through hers.

“I know the place.”

27

Fable

“When I said I wanted to get out of The Dive, I didn’t mean shoveling shit in a barn,” I muttered, hands on my hips as I watched Beau haul a barrel of hay toward the stalls.

“Be honest, Cowgirl. You’re not doing a damn thing.”

I laughed as he set the barrel down and swung open one of the stall doors.

“This is Ginger.”

I hesitated at the entrance, eyeing the horse as she shifted in place. I’d been around horses when I was younger, but my head was still spinning from earlier at the bar.

My panic attack wasn’t about Beau, it was everything else. I loved my life here. I loved the work with Kline, the rhythm of the ranch, the way the days asked something real from me and actually gave something back. Leaving Chicago didn’t scare me the way I’d always assumed it would.

But some days, like tonight, it felt like I’d stepped into someone else’s story and dared it not to notice.

Like I was an impostor in borrowed boots and one wrong move would expose that I was still learning how to live inside this version of myself, still catching up to the choices I’d already made. And seeing Beau again, seeing the way he looked at me like he could read the mess under my skin, had left a hot, humiliating edge of shame I couldn’t shake. Shame that made me want to scrub myself raw.

I took a slow step inside. “Hi, Ginger,” I murmured.

Beau smiled as he moved to the side of the stall and set down her food. I leaned against the stall, watching him move.

His black shirt clung to him in places I shouldn’t be noticing. His jeans hung low on his hips. And there was the damn belt buckle—gold, with a bull carved into it. He was a living advertisement for temptation.

I didn’t know what it was, but when he looked at me, I felt like he saw more than I was willing to give. Like he could feel the hesitancy in me, the push and pull of wanting to be here, but also wanting to run before I let myself get comfortable.

His gaze flickered to mine. “You’re staring, Cowgirl.”

I snapped out of it, clearing my throat. “You got a lot of nerve accusing me of that.”

He chuckled, shaking his head as he finished spreading the hay, then turned his full attention to Ginger, running a hand down her side with effortless ease.

I wished I could live like that.

Harleigh had said I’d been doing better lately. And she wasn’t wrong. Most days, I was better. I could get through a full shift without spiraling. I could eat without counting every possible consequence. I could breathe and not feel like my own body was a trap.

But “better” didn’t mean gone.

It just meant the anxiety lived a little farther back in my head. Still there, though. Still waiting for the right moment to reach forward and wrap its fingers around my throat.

I watched Beau brush over Ginger’s coat and tried not to flinch at the intrusive thoughts that always came with it: the dirt, the germs, the unknown. Tried not to let the shame creep in, the memory of the bar, the heat of wanting and the ugly part afterward where I wanted to scrub myself raw. Tried not to let it swallow me before I even stepped closer.

There were moments where I got close. Moments where the fear didn’t suffocate me, where I could exist without thinking. Moments where I lived.

But most of the time, the fear still won. Most of the time, I stayed on the sidelines, too afraid to step in.