Bella Rose stepped down from her trailer, boots striking the packed dirt, the morning sun already sharp as a branding iron on her skin. She tilted her face up, closing her eyes, drinking in that warmth the way other women might sip champagne. The rodeo grounds were coming to life slow and steady — the low murmur of cattle shifting in pens, the metallic clang of gates, the scent of hay laced with diesel smoke from rigs idling nearby.
She headed toward Samson’s pen, her stride easy but her mind already working through the day’s chores. The buckskin nickered at her approach, ears forward, the kind of horse that carried both her grit and her dreams. Just as her hand reached for the chain at his gate, a voice drifted over.
“Hey, Rose.”
She turned. Joselyn was walking up, hat brim tipped low,
