Page 189 of Dusty Spur Ranch Cowboys

Now Betty Lou waves both hands from three rows behind my family. Millie blows me a kiss from beside the aisle. Tommy Jones raises his coffee cup, and Sheriff Hank tips his hat.

I lean toward the microphone. “I was going to start with a song, but I think my welcoming committee deserves a little recognition.”

“We do!” Sadie shouts.

I grin at the sign again. “This might be the nicest welcome anybody’s ever made me.”

Emmett looks up at me then, smiling the same way he does every morning across the kitchen table, every evening on the porch, every time our eyes meet without either of us needing to say a word.

I spent years believing love asked people to become less of themselves.

Instead, I found three men and one little girl who made room for every part of me.

Sadie still wears the friendship bracelet I tied around her wrist after I unpacked my last box. Emmett rests an arm along the back of the bench behind her.

Red sits beside him, silver showing more through his beard than it did the night we met after a rodeo afterparty.

Once, I would’ve turned my laugh into another song about a cowboy I’d leave behind before either of us got too attached.

Now it belongs to the life waiting for me when I walk off this stage.

I settle my fingers over the strings and glance across the grandstand one more time. “This first song is called ‘Colter Creek.’”

The crowd falls silent.

I wrote it on the porch at Dusty Spur while Sadie colored beside me, Emmett helped break in a horse, Red found another fence that supposedly needed fixing, and Willy argued that every great song deserved a kazoo.

He still believes it.

He’s still wrong.

I brush my fingers across the strings, and the opening chord carries through the arena as I begin singing about the place I finally chose to call home.

The applause follows me all the way through the final chord, spreading across the grandstands until I lower my guitar with a smile. “You’ll make me think you liked it.”

“We loved it!” Sadie shouts from the front row.

I bow toward her. “I was hoping to impress you.”

“You did!”

“I’ll take that review.”

The crowd laughs as the announcer thanks everyone for coming and begins introducing the bronc riding. I wave one last time before heading down the steps, where Sadie launches herself into my arms the second my boots touch the dirt.

“You sang my favorite!”

“I figured I’d better,” I say, kissing the top of her head. “Otherwise I’d never hear the end of it.”

“You definitely wouldn’t.”

Emmett reaches us and slips an arm around my waist before kissing me. “You were incredible.”

I smile up at him. “I had the right audience.”

His eyes follow mine to Sadie, who grins from ear to ear. “And Uncle Willy,” she reminds me.

“Especially Uncle Willy.”