The grin that spread across his face was wide and familiar and so completely devoid of shame it was almost a talent.
"Well, there she is!" He spread his arms. Spread his goddamn arms like he expected me to run into them. Like I was nine years old and he'd just pulled up to the house after a week away. "Kiddo! Look at you. All grown up out here playin' cowgirl."
I didn't move. Barely breathed.
He dropped his arms. Tilted his head.
"Aw, c'mon now. Don't be like that. Your old man comes all the way out to Montana to see you and you can't even say hello?"
"Who's this?" Rhett's voice cut clean across the yard. He wasn't looking at Denny.
He was looking at Wyatt.
Still leaning against the truck. Still smiling.
Rhett had identified the threat before anyone told him which one it was.
Denny answered like it was a cocktail party. "Name's Denny Jennings. I'm Calvin's daddy." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. "That there's Wyatt Cole. Rides the circuit. We're in town for the?—"
"The rodeo." Rhett's jaw was tight. "Right."
Denny clapped his hands together once, like the introductions had gone real well. "Your daddy here was kind enough to let me know my girl was workin' on the ranch. Haven't seen her in—Lord, how long's it been, kiddo?"
He said it like the timeline was fuzzy. Like maybe it was three years or five. Like he'd just been real busy.
Sixteen years wasn't absence to Denny Jennings.
It was an oversight.
"Long time," I said. Two words. The minimum.
Wyatt pushed off from where he'd posted up beside Denny. Hands easy at his sides. Boots crunching gravel at a pace that said he had all day. He didn't stop next to Denny.
He walked past him.
Straight to me.
Close. Too close. Close enough that I could smell his cologne—the same cheap shit he'd worn when I was fifteen, still clinging to his skin like it had stained him permanent. Close enough that Rhett went rigid beside me, the lead rope creaking in his fist.
Wyatt looked down at me. That smile that hadn't changed—warm and easy and practiced—the one he'd given me the first time he'd told me I was pretty. The same one he'd worn while he held my wrists above my head and told me to relax.
"Calvin." He said my name slow. Like he was unwrapping something. "Look at you."
He reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
The touch was light. Casual. The kind of thing a boyfriend might do. To anyone watching, it was nothing.
But his fingertips dragged. Traced the curve of my ear, grazed my jaw, lingered a half second too long on the side of my neck before his hand dropped back to his side. The whole time, his eyes held mine—patient, proprietary, daring me to flinch.
I didn't.
My skin screamed where he'd touched it. Every nerve ending firing in the wrong direction, sending signals my body hadn't had to process in sixteen years. Fight, flight, freeze—all three slamming into each other behind a face that gave him absolutely nothing.
Not a flinch.
Not a blink.
Not one goddamn thing.
