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The cowboy I’d dubbed Romeo the night he crashed into me—half-dressed, smelling of sweat and leather and something darker, something wilder—right there behind the chutes at the Cow Country Rodeo last month.

I hadn’t meant to see him.

Hadn’t meant to feel that pull.

But I had.

And now, I seem to be looking for him everywhere.

He’s been here before, always alone, always quiet.

He stays for a drink or two, leans against the bar with that easy, careless confidence, then disappears before midnight—usually with someone eager to go home with him.

Lots of buckle bunnies in this town. All skinny and skilled.

Who knew?

I pretend I don’t care.

I pretend it doesn’t bother me, the way women circle him like he’s some prize stallion up for auction, whispering, giggling, eyeing that damn belt buckle like it’s a ticket to something worth having.

I pretend I don’t want him.

Because I do.

But I also know better.

Cowboys like him? They don’t stay.

And women like me? Ultra curvy with extra baggage—and I don’t just mean my wide hips and bubble butt.

We don’t get fairytales.

Not here. Not in Dry Creek, New Jersey, where I ended up after high school, trying to escape a past that still clings to me like the ghost of a storm.

I’d had no idea cowboy culture was even a thing in New Jersey.

But now I do.

And I can’t stop thinking about the one cowboy who hasn’t even looked my way since that day we ran into one another.

But men always leave, at least, that’s my experience.

After my father left, Mom packed up what little we had and brought us here. To a town I didn’t know, to a house I’d never set foot in, to a man I never even knew existed.

Gramps.

Turns out, my mother had a father. And not just any father, a stubborn, salt-of-the-earth, no-nonsense kind of man who had once been everything to her.

Until they had a falling out that sent her running, barely more than a kid herself, looking for something—someone—to hold on to.

She found my dad.

She got pregnant, they got married, and for a little while, he stayed.

Until one day, we just weren’t enough.

Then he was gone.