In retrospect, Allie Grainger probably shouldn’t have been texting and walking while crossing East Exchange Avenue during the 11:30 a.m. cattle drive.

Her bad.

In her defense, her bestie, Tasha, had just been dumped by the love of her life, and Allie was nothing if not a good friend. Unfortunately, Tasha texted while Allie was on her way to a job interview during her lunch break from her receptionist’s position at the Fort Worth Stockyard Visitors’ Center.

Allie was strolling past a living diorama of Fort Worth’s colorful past—shirtless, Wild West reenactors portraying rugged cowboys by shoeing horses, repairing wagons, and pitching hay. A throng of camera-clicking gawkers surrounded them.

Normally, she would have slowed down for the eye candy. She appreciated a hunky cowboy as much as the next girl, but today, her mind was half on Tasha, and the other half on her impending interview at the popup art gallery going up inside the Cowboy Hall of Fame.

The job was temporary, but if she landed it, she’d finally be using her art degree and it would be a feather in her resume cap. Plus, the added income would keep her from having to move back in with her parents, at least until she could find another roommate.

The day was miserably hot. Soaring over one hundred degrees already with no relief in sight. Perspiration collected on her brow and in her cleavage. So much for shower fresh.

Over the last few days, the city had been suffering rolling blackouts from the strain of overworked air conditioning systems on the electrical grids. Two nights in a row, she’d awoken in complete darkness, sweaty to the core. Mom used the blackouts as an excuse to try and lure her back to the suburbs, but Allie could handle a little heat.

Her thumbs flew over the iPhone keypad. Head down, she stepped off the curb, and returned her best friend’s text. How R U holding up?

Tasha’s text bubble exploded with poop emojis.

Allie’s heart twisted for Tasha, who just last week, believed her boyfriend, Tag, was on the verge of proposing. Shitty. Got it. Anything I can do?

An emoji of an angry woman chasing a wide-eyed, wild-haired, screaming man with a rolling pin popped onto her screen.

Allie wrote: He’s not worth the jail time.

A second text box flashed onto the screen, this one from her mother. Good luck with the interview. Fingers X’d.

Thnx, Allie texted.

??? Tasha texted back.

Allie: Oops. That was 4 my mom.

Tasha sent a yellow, smiley-faced, eye-rolling emoji.

Mom: Allie? U there?

Allie: Mom, stop the helicopter.

Mom: Just wanted U to know I’m in your corner. And if U don’t get the job, U can move back home. Dad and I will pay 4 UR PhD.

Allie blew out her breath. No way in hell-o. She punched in: TY. I’ll call U after the interview.

Tasha: Huh?

Fiddlesticks, she’d texted the wrong person again. Gotta go, Allie wrote to both Tasha and Mom, her thumb posed over the “send” button.

But she never got a chance to push it.

A loud booming noise shattered the lazy summer morning. Sharp. Sudden. Crack!

She jerked her head in the direction of the noise. Was someone shooting off Fourth of July fireworks ten days early? Or could it be a gunshot?

Rumbling shook the earth. People gasped as the sound of galloping hooves thundered across the ground. The dozen head of cattle, trotted out daily for tourists, had been on their way down Exchange Avenue toward their grazing pasture. The boom had startled them, and now they’d outpaced their drovers and were stampeding straight toward her.

Allie’s mouth dropped open, and the steamy morning air, mingled with dust kicked up from the cattle, rushed across her tongue.

Run!

But she couldn’t move. The faint dings of fresh text messages sounded from the cell phone still curled in her palm. Heat rose off the asphalt, mixing with the pungent aroma of cowhide The bulging, frightened eyes of the charging longhorns stared right through her.

Uh-oh.

Run! Run!

Rubbernecking sightseers were lined three feet deep on the sidewalks framing the wide thoroughfare. The sea of bystanders leaned forward on a collective inhale like spectators at a rodeo, curious to see if the champion bull rider had eight seconds in him, or if the bucking bull would bash his head.

“Run! Run! Run!” the crowd screamed.

Too late. The cattle were already there. No time to get out of the way.

If Allie hadn’t been lucky by fate, and optimistic by nature, she might have lost her cool. But her childhood stint in the cancer ward had taught her an important lesson, and she did what she’d always done with things got tough.

Calmly, she closed her eyes, said a prayer of gratitude, and waited for a miracle.

* * *

The woman stood in the middle of the road with such calm, her face turned to the sky, eyes closed, seemingly oblivious to the stampeding cattle bearing down on her. She was either a full-fledged crackpot, dumb as a fence post, or suicidal.

But when it came down to it, what did it matter? She was in the path of disaster.

Undercover detective, Kade Richmond, wasn’t supposed to call attention to himself, but if someone didn’t do something to save the loony lass, she was going to get flattened by the small herd of terrified longhorns.

Kade didn’t hesitate. He threw down the hammer he’d been using to pound out a horseshoe against an anvil, shoved through the gawking horde, and sprinted to the middle of the avenue.

Without a second to spare, with bellowing cattle bearing down on them, Kade scooped her into the crook of his arm…thank God she was petite…hoisted her against his hip, and ran as fast as her weight—and his cowboy boots—would allow.

Which wasn’t quite fast enough.

Just as he reached the curb, a longhorn caught him, clipped his shoulder, spun him full circle, and sent a jolt of searing pain down his arm.

Jelly beans and jawbreakers.

Kade stumbled, staggered against a huge old pecan tree root growing up out of the sidewalk. The sweet-smelling bundle of woman in his arms made a soft sound of distress. His gut clenched like an angry fist and his pulse pounded in his throat.

Had he hurt her?

His intentions had been honorable and succinct. Distressed damsel. Rescue her. But now? Her breasts were pressed flat against his side and the hard beads of her nipples were making him feel things he had no business feeling. Unnerved, he set her down beside the tree and put a hand to her shoulder to steady them both.

“Oh,” she whispered. “My.”

He stepped back and studied her. His mind was addled, rattled. All he could think about was how good she looked in that skimpy white skirt and filmy navy blue blouse with a heart-shaped cutout at the center of her cleavage.

Was she even wearing a bra?

C’mon, Richmond. He had no business letting his thoughts graze freely. He was nothing to her, just the chump who’d risked blowing his cover to save her pretty little fanny. Time to let her go and get back to work.

Cameras flashed. Cell phones clicked. The chattering crowd surrounded them.

“What a hero!”

“This is so going up on Facebook.”

“Mamas, do let your babies grow up to be cowboys.”

Well dammit, so much for anonymity.

He kept a restraining hand on her elbow and looked down into eyes so blue they were almost purple. Her lips were the color of fresh strawberries, plump and red and shiny. Her skin beneath his hand was warm, delicate, yielding.

“You okay?” he asked, his tone coming out unexpectedly brusque as he straightened. The shade from the pecan tree overhead provided scant respite against the late June heat.

She blinked, and those purple-blue eyes framed by black lashes so thick they could double as paintbrushes, knocked his heart sideways. Her gaze caught his, brushfire hot.

Kade’s head spun, fast and dizzy. That bugged him. He hated feeling out of control. Dehydrated. That was it. He’d been standing in the relentless sun all morning, pretending he was a blacksmith in 1885. He was dehydrated. Had to be it. This little slip of a thing couldn’t shove him that off kilter.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“You should watch where you’re going,” he said, still sounding like Billy Goat Gruff. “You almost got creamed.”

She bobbed her head as if she agreed, but she was already sneaking a peek at her cell phone screen.

Kade grunted. Some people never learned.

She made a sudden clucking sound with her tongue, and he thought of the way mother hens called to their young. “You’re hurt!”

“What?”

She reached out cotton-candy-pink fingernails to touch his shoulder. “You’re bleeding.”

The sharp tip of the longhorn had jabbed his skin where his right arm attached to his shoulder. One long, shallow slash. No biggie. No stitches needed. He’d had much worse in his rodeo days.

Kade tugged a red bandana from the back pocket of his jeans and awkwardly tried to tie it around the cut with his left hand.

“Here,” she said in that throaty voice of hers. “Let me.”

Before he could tell her “no”, she’d already plucked the bandana from his hand and was dressing his wound.

The crowd oohed and aahed and took more pictures, and that’s when he realized they thought her rescue from the stampeding herd was part of the living diorama.

He resisted an eye roll. Tourists.

The drovers had gotten the longhorns under control and were guiding them toward the pastureland. End of excitement. The tourists started dispersing.

The woman bent her head as she tied a knot in the bandana, and he could smell her scent, an oddly compelling combination of watermelon, lemons and honeysuckle. Her fingers were quick and competent.

His stomach pitched and dipped.

“There you go,” she chirped and patted his bicep.

“Thanks.” His voice came out rough as a cheese grater.

“Thank you,” she said. “For being in the right place at the right time.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. Why did he want to know? The sooner he got back to his undercover assignment the better.

“Allie.” Her smiled was as bright as a halo. “Allie Grainger.”

“Ka—” He stopped himself before he gave his real name, and supplied his undercover alias. “Rick Braedon.”

“Nice to meet you, Rick. Thank you for saving me.” She sent a coy glance as if she might be interested in him, and by damn, he was interested in her, but then without another word, she turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Leaving Kade to wonder if he’d imagined the whole damn thing and his arm tingling strangely where she’d touched him.

“May I have my picture made with you?” asked an elderly woman who was holding up a camera. “I traveled all the way from Pittsburgh to have my picture taken with a real live cowboy.”

Because he couldn’t think of a way to get out of it gracefully, Kade agreed. Besides, from this angle, he had a pretty good view of the side entrance of the Cowboy Hall of Fame. The place he had under surveillance. The place the FBI suspected was about to be hit by an art thief during the upcoming Fourth of July art festival.

The very same place that sweet, clueless Allie Grainger had just stepped inside.