It had been long years since Laredo had made an entrance to a Denver social event with a woman on his arm. He hadn’t exactly thought it would be that big of a deal. After all, who was there to keep track of his social life beyond his father’s constant nagging? And yet the moment he stepped into the ballroom, he felt as though every single eye in the room was fixed upon him and Aria. It was worse than disconcerting. He felt an actual pit of dread opening up in his belly.

“Laredo!” Joe Hernandez practically shouted from the other end of the ballroom. “Come over here and say hi, you old dog! We thought you were never going to show up!”

Laredo clenched his teeth together and glanced at the display on his phone. The gala event had officially started less than four minutes ago. Laredo wasn’t late. In fact, the ballroom was only filled with a fraction of the people that would be here later. Joe and his cronies were gathered in a knot down by the bar. All of the men and their wives had drinks in hand. The lot of them looked as though they were predominantly whispering behind each other’s backs just as much or more as they were speaking to each other’s faces.

“Brace yourself,” Joe whispered to Aria. He put her hand firmly in the crook of his elbow. “The dragons are feasting.”

“You’re being overly dramatic,” she murmured back. “Just smile and pretend you don’t care. If all else fails, pretend you don’t remember who they are. It’s really humbling.”

Laredo couldn’t help it. A laugh slipped out as he walked toward his father. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Joe Hernandez’s frown as the man tried to understand what he was missing. Maybe Aria was right. Maybe it was better to keep his father off-balance as much as possible.

Then Aria leaned into his side, and he felt the inexplicable urge to wrap an arm around her and kiss her forehead. It was a natural inclination, probably the most natural inclination he had ever felt. He did manage to slip his arm around her waist. She leaned into him, and the two of them still managed to walk together.

It was a little bit crazy. He didn’t feel awkward at all. Laredo had always observed those people who walked around hugging each other. He’d wondered how they could manage to walk when they seemed so wrapped up in each other. It looked awkward. Yet, right now, it did not feel awkward at all.

“Ah, there you are!” Joe’s boisterous good humor was probably due to the huge pint of draft beer in his hand.

Laredo glanced at the beer and felt his mouth watering. It was so tempting to take the beer from his father’s hand and down the contents of the glass. A few of those and Laredo wouldn’t care what happened or what his father said. Alcohol was like that. It made things far more bearable.

“Miss Aria Callahan,” Joe said warmly. “Let me introduce you to some of my friends. Most of them are landowners. But a few are your neighbors. We have the Rogers family—they’re on your northern boundary. Then the Simpsons are on your southern side across the highway.” Joe jabbed his elbow into Mr. Simpson’s side. “They’ve got a hobby ranch a bit like yours, you know?”

Aria’s pleasant expression never slipped, but Laredo could not help but admire the iron strength in her voice. “I’m not trying to have a ranch, Mr. Hernandez. My farm is a farm today just like it was eighty years ago when my great-great-, however many greats, grandparents settled on the land. They bred horses. I breed and train horses just like they did. That’s how it goes. So, if you think we’re just a hobby operation, then maybe you’d better watch yourself since our horses are kicking butt in all of the competitions in the state.”

“Well said!” Simpson said, raising his pint mug.

There were lots of mutters and such around the group. Somewhere on the other end of the ballroom, a band kicked up a Western tune. There was a dance floor, and suddenly, that was the only place that Laredo wanted to be.

“Let’s dance,” he murmured to Aria. “Please?”

“Sure.” She offered one last polite smile to his father’s group, and then the two of them excused themselves.

Laredo took Aria by the hand and tugged her onto the floating wood floor placed in the center of the room. “Two-step?” he asked, raising a brow.

“If you think you can handle it.” The grin on her face was set off by the sparkle of her dark eyes. “I mean, you spend most of your time trying to convince me that you’re not a cowboy. So, how are you supposed to be able to handle a Texas Two-step if you’re really as much of a city boy as you pretend to be?”

“You don’t have to be a cowboy to dance.” He put one hand around her lower back and laced their hands together. Then he pressed his body against hers and began sashaying around the floor with the distinctive two-beat steps.

Dancing with Aria was like breathing. He could not believe how easy it was. With Helena, he had always had the sense that she was trying to keep space between them. She had held herself away from him, which had in turn made things awkward. Not so with Aria. She pressed her body against his so tightly that he could feel each and every breath she sucked into her lungs.

Her eyes were gleaming. They sparkled under the overhead lights. The sight was so beautiful that he had to keep reminding himself not to stop paying attention to where he was steering in the dance. She was so warm and supple against him. Her body mirrored each and every move of his. Their fingers were laced together. He could not stop thinking about the moment of ecstasy in the bedroom when hands laced together and bodies struggled to get closer as the heat and the excitement drove both man and woman to the edge of bliss.

The scent of her intensified as they continued to dance in a slow, deliberate rhythm around the ballroom. He loved the floral scent of her body. He loved the way he could smell her perfume mingled with his cologne. And in that moment, there was nobody else in the room. His father did not exist. There weren’t other ranchers judging him because of where he’d grown up. Right now, it just did not matter.

“Oh, look.” A sarcastic voice cut right through the beautiful moment and soured it almost immediately. “The loser actually found a female to bring with him. How embarrassing.”

Laredo exhaled slowly. He was very tired of Paul Weatherby and his not-so-subtle bad behavior. It was one thing to harass a Hernandez. Flying W Weatherbys and the Hernandez ranchers had hated each other for what seemed like decades. That animosity should not extend to people like Aria who had the misfortune of having land located in proximity to both ranches.

But before Laredo could say anything, Aria utterly beat him to it. She leaned out from behind Laredo’s shoulder and pegged Paul Weatherby with a withering glare. “So, tell me, Paul, was it you the other night ripping through my fields and tearing down my fences? Or was it just your minions doing your dirty work?”

“Excuse me?” Paul stopped smiling. “I don’t tear down fences and rip up fields. That’s not my thing.”

“No?” Aria stood there with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to one side. Her sable brown hair touched her shoulders and perfectly framed her face. “So, it was your minions, then. I should have known. A man like you would never have the balls to do something on his own. Men like you only issue the orders and watch other people do the hard work.”

“What?” Weatherby sneered. “Like that drunk you’re standing beside right now?”

“Drunk?” Aria’s mocking voice mocked Laredo too. He felt shame and wished he could make it stop. But Aria wasn’t done. “He’s not drunk. He hasn’t had a drink. Pretty much the rest of the room is drunk. I think you’ve probably had a few too.”

“Why do you say that?” Weatherby sneered.

Aria curled her lip at him. “Because you’re standing here having this conversation. Right? And there’s no way a guy like you could do that without a bit of liquid courage to push him on.”

“How dare you!” Weatherby drew himself up tall. “I’m a police officer!”

“Which has always baffled me.” Aria tapped her upper lip with the tip of her index finger. “Doesn’t the police department realize that the reason you do so well as a captain is that you need to ride on the shoulders of other, more competent, men? It’s the way you’ve built your ranching business. It’s the way you win with your horses. And it’s the way you deal with people in your personal life.”

“You bitch!” Paul Weatherby actually lunged at Aria.

Laredo’s instincts kicked in fast. He threw out his arm. Weatherby bounced off as though Laredo’s forearm was an iron bar. He was flung back a few steps, but that put him down and not out.

Before Laredo could even guess what was coming, Weatherby swung a full right cross. The blow caught Laredo across the jaw, but it was a glancing blow. It rocked his head back just a bit on his spine but did not leave him reeling like Paul Weatherby had intended. Instead, Laredo was left glaring at Paul and leaning forward with a distinct look of hatred on his face.

“You realize you just threw the first punch,” Laredo growled at the useless police captain. “As a law-abiding citizen, you know what that means.”

“You can’t touch me!” Weatherby boasted. “I’m a policeman, and that would be assaulting an officer of the law.”

“Except you’re not on duty and you’re not in uniform,” Laredo pointed out. “That means you’re a private citizen just like us.”

Weatherby’s nostrils flared for a brief moment. Laredo was almost sure the man was going to take another swing, until the chairman of the Cattleman’s Association—Bud Alder—walked up at right that very minute. He had another, shorter, man by his side.

“Boys,” Bud drawled. “I wanted to introduce both of you to Mr. Henry King. He’s the chairman of the rodeo board and the man who will be making the final recommendation and decision about the new stock contract.”

Paul Weatherby seemed to immediately forget the quarrel. He stuck his hand out and shoved it right underneath Henry King’s nose. “Let me introduce myself, sir. I am Paul Weatherby of the Flying W Ranch. I am honored to meet you.”

Henry King’s reaction was very curious. He shook the offered hand, but after that, he thrust his lower lip up against the upper one and created a very odd sort of expression. “Fat bulls.”

“Excuse me?” Weatherby looked confused. “Did you say fat bulls?”

“Yes.” King was nodding, a grave expression on his face. “Your bulls are fat.”

Weatherby shook his head, immediately launching into a campaign to save face. “Our bulls are thousands of pounds of muscle, sir. Each one is carefully bred and then fattened to appropriate industry standards.”

“For breeding bulls maybe,” King muttered. The man looked as though he was in his eighties, but his rheumy eyes were bright with intelligence. “A bucking bull needs muscle or it can’t even buck out the full eight seconds. That means the cowboys get easier rides and the prize money gets paid out far more often. A bull is supposed to be hard as hell to ride.”

Laredo felt as though the words were bursting out of his mind, a product of being raised on the Hernandez ranch by a man like Joe Hernandez. “A rodeo bull must be fed a huge calorie diet, while being maintained on a steady exercise regimen that is so subtle that he does not realize that it’s happening. We pen our bulls on a huge set of hills. They have to walk up and down the hills every time they want to get something to eat or drink. It means we have to feed them more, because they burn calories, but they’re also stronger.”

“Hernandez bulls are good bulls,” King muttered. He gave a nod and then smacked Laredo on the shoulder. “Your daddy wouldn’t allow any other kind on his ranch.”

Laredo was very tired of people thinking that Joe Hernandez still had anything to do with the day-to-day running of the operation anymore, but for the most part, the way that they did things did come from Joe. And right now, Laredo was just too tired to argue.

“Thank you, sir,” Laredo said respectfully. “I hope you’ll remember that when you consider the contracting bids.”

“Oh, we will, young man,” King told Laredo before he and Bud walked away. “We most certainly will.”