Page 33 of Sexting the Cowboy

“You’re not.”

“I was thinking about work.”

“Work. Right.” She stands and stretches. “I’ve got to go set up near the arena. Don’t melt, okay?”

“Not promising anything.”

When she’s gone, I stare at my reflection in the stainless steel of the supply cabinet. I look tired and a little flushed, the way people look when they’ve been running toward something they shouldn’t.

Or maybe that’s just me.

It’s wrong. It’s completely, absolutely wrong. He’s Reno’s father. That alone should be enough to scare me straight. But nothing about Brick feels like danger. He’s steady. He’s grounded. He talks like the world is something you can still fix if you try hard enough.

Maybe that’s what I’m looking for. Someone to stand with in the chaos.

“You’re losing it,” I tell myself. “Get it together.”

The morning blurs into heat and noise. Riders in, riders out, minor injuries, dislocated fingers, bruised egos. I move on instinct, autopilot, caffeine, anything that doesn’t involve thinking about the way his hand brushed mine when I patched him up yesterday. Anything that doesn’t sound like his laugh.

Anything that doesn’t make me think about when I wanted to kiss him.

But by evening, the air cools and I can’t ignore it anymore. The pull is still there—stupid, strong, relentless. Like the gravity between two storms about to collide.

When the last patient leaves and Jaden packs up, I finally pull out my phone. His name sits at the top of my messages, taunting me. I should delete it. I should throw the phone into the nearest manure pile. Instead, I stare at it until the sun dips behind the stands.

Jaden calls over his shoulder, “You good?”

“Fine,” I say automatically.

“You heading out?”

“Yeah.”

He nods, too tired to pry, and disappears. The moment he’s gone, the silence roars. I stare at Brick’s contact like it might combust on its own.

Don’t do it, I think.Don’t. But I do. I drive home faster than legally allowed and plop onto my sofa and call him.

It rings twice before he picks up. His voice is deep, low, the kind of sound that fills every space it touches. “Doc. Didn’t expect you.”

“Hi,” I manage. My throat’s dry. “Sorry, I—this was probably a bad idea.”

“I like bad ideas,” he says, and I can hear the smile in it.

“I shouldn’t have called.”

“And yet here we are.”

I laugh softly, nerves cracking open like ice. “You’re impossible.”

“You keep saying that,” he drawls. “But you keep proving yourself wrong.”

I sink onto the edge of my bed, pressing the phone tighter to my ear. “You’re distracting.”

“Good. Means I’m doing something right.” His voice rumbles lower now, velvet wrapped around gravel.

I can picture him perfectly—shirt half-undone, hat tossed on a chair, boots by the door. He sounds tired but happy, like the kind of man who knows how to take his time with everything. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?”