She had been like every other dumb twenty-two-year-old who didn’t want to believe that she was, in fact, like all the other girls.

Well, she’d made her peace with that, because she was more than two years past all that, and a heartbreak sure offered a lot of clarity. She didn’t waste her time being outraged at that girl.

No. She knew where to put her outrage. It was on him. And there he was.

If this was a nightmare, she could take an umbrella out of the umbrella stand by the door and start whacking him with it.

She pinched her arm. It hurt, even through her heavy coat. But he was still standing there.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m trying to see if I fell asleep on my way up here. Or maybe hit a tree and I’m unconscious in a ditch, so I’m hallucinating the ghosts of back-when-I-was-stupid past.”

“Well. If you’re hallucinating, then so am I.”

“Great.” And she had fantasized about running into him before, even though she had never wanted to see him again.

That seemed like a pretty normal thing.

In her fantasies of seeing him again someday, she had imagined herself in a beautiful designer dress—not looking soggy from her tramp through the snow up to the lobby, and being caught off guard.

No. She had always imagined they would run into each other at some soiree, not that Flint would have any reason to be at a soiree, but it was her fantasy.

Realistically, she hadn’t thought it would happen, so she could imagine whatever scenario she wanted.

She had imagined that she would be dressed meticulously, looking every inch as wealthy as her music had made her, maybe with a handsome man on her arm—forgetting the fact that she hadn’t been on a single date since she and Flint had broken up—and the look of regret that would wash over him would be profound.

But she would be happy. And she would drink champagne, and she would show him.

Because the best revenge was living well.

She had written it into the song because he had said it to her. He had said that to her about handling her own father’s abandonment. And when she had written the song, she had hoped that he would hear it and appreciate the irony.

And now she found herself horrified by the realization that he had undoubtedly heard it.

Because all the self-protection that she had engaged in when he had broken up with her suddenly didn’t matter. Because she had put it all in a song.

She had known that, but knowing it and coming face-to-face with it were two very different things.

And this was in no way what she wanted. This was way too real. She preferred the glossy fantasy.

This was him. And it felt like the first time...

Before

She had no idea what the hell she was doing. She didn’t do this kind of thing. Didn’t go out and have drinks with extraordinarily handsome cowboys. He was extraordinarily handsome. She’d known that, though. Ever since she first started riding with the rodeo two years ago.

She’d gotten into it hoping to see her dad again.

It was so stupid. All of it.

Her little pursuits to try and make a connection with a man who didn’t give a shit about her at all. But she’d thought... Their paths would have to cross. Even when he wasn’t competing in calf-roping events, he was often doing odd jobs around the rodeo. It was his whole life. Plus, she’d figured... He paid attention to the rodeo circuit; he was bound to see her name.

Those were the two things her dad loved. The rodeo and country music. She was bound and determined that she was going to reach him through one of those ways or the other.

Funny that Flint had mentioned the taillights thing sounded like a country song.

She already knew it. She’d already made it one.

Of course, it wasn’t the demo that her manager was shopping. It felt too personal. She hadn’t played that song for anyone.

The frothy little love song that she’d recorded a couple of months ago when she’d found somebody who wanted to take a chance on her and push her to the labels was easier for her.

Not that anyone had shown any interest in it. But she did all the open mics that she came across while traveling for the rodeo, and that worked out pretty well for her.

Everything she did had a purpose. She’d joined the rodeo to find her dad, being in the rodeo let her travel, traveling helped her get her music out. That was how she did things.

But this... Having a drink with Flint Carson accomplished nothing. She didn’t know why she had kept talking to him. Didn’t know why she had stood there, unable to drag herself away. And she did not know why she’d said yes to this. But when she pulled up to the motel at the same time he did, and got out, crossing the dusty, two-lane Arizona highway to the little dive bar across the street, she stopped questioning it.

He opened the door for her, and she looked up at him, at his chiseled face, square jaw, strong chin. He had dark stubble over that jaw, and it looked rough, and she couldn’t deny that she felt her fingers itch slightly with the urge to touch it.

Which was very stupid. She liked to think that she was smarter than that. That her body was smarter than that. Because it knew the memories of what it felt like to be abandoned. Remembered what it was like to crumple down on the ground, on her knees, with the gravel biting into the denim as her father’s truck got farther and farther away and she gave in to her anguish. That was embedded into her soul. It was more keen, more real, than any desire to touch a handsome cowboy’s stubble could ever be. That moment of it being the last time she ever saw her father would always be more burned into everything she was than...than the dark blue of his eyes. Like worn denim. So compelling and enticing...

She took a deep breath and pressed on into the bar.

The floor was rough wood, and there were neon cactus signs all over the place. And also a pink flamingo. She admired the commitment to tackiness, even if it wasn’t totally following a theme.

There were a lot of cowboys and cowgirls already in there, people that she knew. She felt slightly embarrassed to be coming in with Flint, because why would anybody be with him unless they were going to sleep with him? She had never known Flint to hang out with a woman that he wasn’t going to hook up with.

Well. Allegedly.

Maybe she had sort of noticed him from across the bar before, and that was what some of the girls she was with had said about him... And maybe she had committed some of that to heart a little bit more than she ought to.

Maybe she had gone back to her room and scribbled down a few song lyrics about unobtainable men who were nothing but bad decisions wrapped in dust and denim.

Maybe.

She was an artist, though. She often wrote about things that she had no desire to experience. She often wrote about things that she would never do. Things she didn’t even want to do. She wrote about the human experience. Not necessarily her own.

The love song she’d recorded was a prime example of that.

She’d never been in love.

She thought about the song she’d written about her dad again, and shoved all that to the side.

“What will you have?”

“Uh. Beer?”