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“Quaint alert! Who gave this place the right?”

“ So cozy. Did I tell you I stayed in one of these at Joshua Tree?”

The voices trickled through the fog of sleep until they pricked the edge of Jean’s consciousness. Her eyes flew open.

People were in her wagon.

“That one had a hot tub though,” the second voice continued.

“Nice.”

“I know.”

“Too much to expect around here. It’s like we’re playing Prairie Dog Village.”

Snorting and cackling ensued. The intruders didn’t sound dangerous. Rude, maybe, but if Jean held very still, they might leave, and she could go back to sleep.

“You’re so funny. Are you using something different on your skin?”

Jean frowned, failing to see the connection.

“Yes! Thank you for noticing. It’s a clean beauty company my cousin started. Very niche. I could probably get you on the list—”

“Excuse me,” Jean interrupted, sitting up. She was tired of playing dead while a multilevel skincare marketing scheme unfolded next to her bed.

Two lithe young noncowboys stared back at her. One had a cascading black ponytail and the other’s hair was short and acid yellow. Judging by the not-from-around-here outfits, they had also been expecting a different kind of festival, with fewer chuckwagon suppers.

Ponytail clutched her chest. “Jump scare.”

Jean had the distinct impression she was waiting for an apology. “This is my wagon.”

“We thought it was empty,” the one with short hair said. “Everyone’s at breakfast.”

“Can you imagine?” Ponytail turned to her friend, Jean’s existence forgotten.

“I bet it’s that gray gloop they put on biscuits.” Short Hair gave an exaggerated shiver.

“What even is that?” Ponytail asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“I don’t know.” Short Hair leaned in. “Should we try it?”

“You are so bad,” Ponytail replied, with a little kitten swipe at her friend’s arm. “They are so bad,” she added for Jean’s benefit. “I really shouldn’t, but I probably will.”

“I might eat bacon,” the one with Mountain Dew hair confessed, eliciting a gasp from Ponytail at their daring. The pair exited without a word of farewell.

“Bye,” Jean said to the empty wagon. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’ll be here in my bed, trying to get some sleep. Even though two randos just walked in and had a whole-ass conversation about breakfast foods.”

Not that Jean was hungry, or ever would be again.

She settled onto her back, pulling the covers up to her chin.

Being awake didn’t appeal, because then she’d have to think, and thinking would mean remembering, so she closed her eyes and tried to recall every relaxation technique she’d ever heard about.

Breathing exercises. Finding her third eye.

Singing that ninety-nine bottles of beer song—nope. No beer.

Out of desperation, she started counting sheep. She’d made it to thirty-seven when a loud beep-beep disturbed the early-morning quiet. It sounded like a garbage truck backing up. With her luck, it was headed straight for the wagon.

Jean considered lying there and letting it haul her to the dump, but she still had her pride. Some of it, anyway. Sighing, she dragged herself out of bed to peek through the door.

It was not a garbage truck after all. Someone was delivering a portable toilet.

“A little on the nose,” she told the forklift operator, who wouldn’t be able hear her over the noise. Jean knew her life was in the crapper. There was no need to rub it in.

The extra facilities were probably for Adriana Asebedo’s full crew, who were due to arrive today. Her prebreakfast visitors must’ve been the first wave.

Adriana “Charlie Is My Honey Baby!” Asebedo.

Retch .

Jean shoved down the memory of almost kind of liking her on the ride to Deadwood. All that was in the past. Now she hated everyone, including herself.

It had felt good in the moment to call Charlie out, spewing the magma of her anger in a lightly cowboy-coded rant.

Where did he get off leading her on all over again?

What was he doing following her around and bringing care packages and being handsome in her general direction?

That wasn’t just dishonest. It was mean.

Only then, as Jean was leaving, she’d heard Charlie’s voice—speaking into the microphone, of all things.

For such a mild-mannered guy, he managed to shock her with disturbing frequency.

Jean should have made him play truth instead of dare, back in that bungalow of lies.

It would have saved her a lot of heartache.

I could leave right now . There was a sliver of comfort in the thought, until she remembered that her best friend was out of town, her apartment sucked, and she’d need to find at least three new jobs the second she got off the plane.

And the odds of ever seeing Charlie again once she flew home were pretty much nil. Unlike Eve, Jean didn’t run in the same circles as a future beer baron, much less the pop star girlfriend he pretended not to have. This was basically her last chance to get any kind of satisfaction from him.

“When the going gets tough, the tough… don’t go,” Jean announced to the empty wagon. Not the most stirring battle cry of her life, but she wasn’t in peak form at the moment. Surely she’d feel better when she finally accomplished what she’d come here to do.

There was only one way to find out.

It took four outfit changes to settle on the right look for the occasion: another tissue-thin bodycon dress with a wrist full of jangling bracelets.

On her way to the house, Jean passed scurrying roadies unloading thick cables that absolutely did not make her think of snakes. Golf carts buzzed back and forth, a counterpoint to the distant sound of hammering.

She nodded at the security guards stationed at Charlie’s front door. It was the same pair she’d met on the casino outing, which must mean their boss was inside.

Too late to turn back now. Jean pictured herself storming in like Maleficent, patron saint of uninvited guests.

Following the sound of voices, she found most of the younger members of the house party in the living room. Adriana gave her a nod of greeting, which Jean forced herself to return with a tight smile.

Not her fault , she reminded herself. This is one hundred percent on Charlie .

Dragging her attention from the pop princess, Jean noted that even the normally standoffish Emma and Margaret the grump had been pulled into Adriana’s orbit.

Though at least in Margaret’s case, she appeared to be uncomfortable in such close proximity to a megacelebrity.

Guilty conscience? Either that or she was wincing at Smithson’s attempt to “charm” their special guest with a monologue about sailing.

Good to know he hadn’t upgraded his material in the last decade.

Conspicuously absent from the group was Charlie. Probably still in bed, after a strenuous night with one (or more!) of his girlfriends. Jean swallowed the acid at the back of her throat.

As if summoned by her thoughts, Charlie clattered down the stairs. Jean waited for him to lock eyes with lover girl and share an erotically charged smolder, but he didn’t so much as glance in Adriana’s direction—or Margaret’s. Charlie seemed more concerned with the floor.

“Has anyone seen Emma?” he asked.

“She’s right there.” Smithson jerked his thumb at Emma Koenig. “Talking to me. Take a number, Chuck.”

“Untrue,” Emma said, without looking at Smithson.

“Not that Emma.” Charlie bent to look under a side table. “My snake. She’s not in her habitat. I think she might have gotten loose again.”

Amid the general commotion—shrieking, jumping onto furniture—Jean noticed several interesting facts.

The first was that Smithson screamed like a teen girl in a slasher movie.

The second was that Adriana Asebedo turned to Margaret first, even though she had two gigantic bodyguards in shouting distance.

Then again, her protection detail looked freaked, while Margaret remained stoic as always.

No doubt she was used to snake-related emergencies from spending so much time with Charlie, whereas that kind of thing didn’t come up as often on stadium tours.

“Can we go to your workshop?” Adriana asked. Margaret shrugged, not meeting her eyes.

Emma (the human one) stood. “I will join you, if I may.”

Smithson opened his mouth, and they all knew what was coming next.

“In your dreams,” Margaret snapped, before he could ask. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Excuse me,” said Charlie, pushing past him. “I think I saw something move. Under the couch.”

That cleared the room in record time, with Smithson leading the charge, in the sense that he shoved in front of the women.

“What a hero,” Jean muttered.

Charlie looked at her questioningly.

“Not you. Him.”

“Oh.” He shifted his feet, staring at the rug. Jean didn’t know if he was looking for snakes or avoiding her gaze. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not really.”

“Good, good.” He shook himself. “I mean, not good. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Are you?”

He hesitated, as if sensing a trap. “Yes?”

Jean sniffed. “How about you? Did you have a restful evening?”

“No.” Charlie rubbed his jaw.

“Something troubling you?”

“Yes.” He seemed relieved she’d guessed.

“Pangs of regret, perhaps?”

“More like things left unsaid. Or possibly said but not heard?”

“You mean your poem.” Jean let him sweat. “If I had heard it, who’s to say any of that was the truth?”

“It was all true.” He frowned. “Except the ‘Rawhide’ part. I don’t know where that came from.”

How could he stand there blushing and stammering like her sweet snake guy when all evidence pointed to him being Charlie the Casanova instead? Enough of this confusion.

“I’ll help you look for your snake.”

His face lit up. “Really?”

She shrugged, like the Good Samaritan she was pretending to be. “We should probably start in your room. The scene of the crime.”

“Oh. Good idea.” He stood there, smiling shyly at her.

“I don’t know where it is,” Jean reminded him.