Things were awkward with his adventure coordinator, even now, on the day of the competition, when they should have been concentrating on their ride. Despite both their efforts to keep appearances up, Trevor knew no one on Team Wildhorse could mistake the tension that simmered below the surface of every little interaction between them—and every major argument.

"Trevor, for the last time, no I did not bring a change of jeans, so these are going to have to suffice!" Sabrina exclaimed.

Trevor didn't think the blonde could drive her fists into her hips any harder if she tried. His own body language was likewise broadcasting his discontent; his crossed arms and squared shoulders made him a formidable figure, but Sabrina didn't appear to notice his signals for her to back down.

"And for the record," she continued, "I don't appreciate you fashion-policing me in front of our teammates!"

She wasn't doing much herself to keep their argument private. Pete, Lorne, and Rodrigo all openly exchanged looks. The five of them were gathered along the outermost fence line of the arena, near where their team's designated area had been set up.

The small rodeo—which featured locals and their own mounts, rather than bulls and broncos off the circuit—was held every year on Frank Buckton's property, which was about five times bigger than Wildhorse Ranch. Participants and spectators came and went, stopping to stroke the competing horses and chat excitedly with one another. One acre had been set up expressly for food trucks to park. The festive atmosphere was a stark contrast to the storm presently brewing between Trevor and Sabrina.

"You guys want to go grab a churro or something?" Rodrigo suggested.

Pete and Lorne hastily jumped down from the fence to join him. Once Trevor was certain the three of them were out of earshot, he rounded on Sabrina to set her straight…but she once again beat him to the punch.

"Why are you so obsessed with my ass, anyway?" She stood within inches of his face, and it would appear that now she had decided to lower her voice to a fierce whisper. The hot gust of her breath across his face made him shiver. It had been a week since he had gotten her alone in the barn, but the memory of her body pinned beneath his—and the sounds she had made—was never distant from his thoughts.

"You damn well know why," he growled in response. "But right now, that's beside the point. What you're wearing isn't anything like the pair of jeans you were practicing in all week. It didn't occur to you that material that restrictive might negatively affect our chances of winning the rescue race?"

"It seems to me like there is a lot of negativity around here—and a lot of restrictions," Sabrina noted. Her baby blue eyes flickered tellingly to his mouth. Clearly thoughts of their interlude in the stable weren't far removed from her memory, either. "Are you feeling frustrated by something, Trevor?"

Trevor didn't deign to answer that. They both knew just how frustrated he was. But there had been too much work to get done around the ranch, and their paths had rarely crossed during the day beyond the time they put aside to practice—which they were never alone for. Pete, Lorne, and Rodrigo competed here every year in calf-roping and cutting, and were ecstatic that Sabrina had been willing to foot the bill for them to put together a legitimate team. They intended to rep Wildhorse in every event and take home the prize money, along with the gaudy gold trophy—if Sabrina didn't find a way to lay her hands on it and upcycle it into something first.

But competing as a team meant very little alone time, aside from this current moment of privacy that had been granted them. Trevor didn't know which was worse at this point: no time at all with the woman who fired up his deepest desires or time only to butt heads and argue over her tight-fitting clothes.

"Kiss me," she said suddenly, and he was about to throw up his hands in defeat and sweep her into his arms when the others returned, bringing with them a bounty of churros. Sabrina turned away from Trevor to accept the offered snack with a noise of approval.

"Thanks, Rod! I haven't had one of these in forever!" she gushed, as if the only pleasure she sought in life was fair food and her prayers had been answered.

As if she hadn't just offered herself to him to be taken in full view of everyone.

Trevor was going to hit the roof if he didn't get away from her. He retreated to Tex's side, double- and triple-checking the saddle placement and shooting occasional glowers over the horse's back. Sabrina chatted the others up cheerfully. She was doing this on purpose, he decided, as payback for his comments on her jeans. She was making his carefully-ordered life absolutely unlivable in every aspect.

"Churro?" Several minutes later, and Sabrina was peering around underneath Tex's neck and offering him a fried-dough olive branch.

"I have no idea what the hell I'm supposed to do with you," he said.

"Oh, I'm sure you can think of a few things." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. Tex craned his head around to investigate the churro, and she quickly held it out of reach of his horsey lips.

"You are seriously testing my focus here, Sabrina," Trevor growled. "Our event is next. In fact…."

His eyes followed Ellie Buckton, Frank’s wife, as she made her way out to the center of the arena. The smattering of applause from the last event died off, and she switched her microphone on. "All right, ladies and gentlemen!" she crowed. "Next up, we have the rescue race!"

The audience erupted into excited cheers. Trevor watched the teasing expression on Sabrina's face sober up fast. Evidently, she hadn't noticed how many people had collected in the stands in the last five minutes. There wasn't an empty seat in the house.

"Everyone's favorite event," he supplied. He untied Tex and started to lead him toward the other assembled competitors. "Come on," he said as he mounted. "We're up third. Get up behind me and I'll ride you out to your position when the time comes."

Pete took the churro back, and Sabrina mounted, settling in behind Trevor. She wrapped her arms around his waist, and his muscles tensed reflexively. He had to focus. He couldn't let himself be distracted by all the little details of their partnership now—like the way one of her slender arms hugged him beneath the band of his belt….

The first racers were a young couple, little older than teenagers. They failed their event when the rider had to come around twice to rescue his partner, but the wide smiles on their faces as they galloped back to the start clearly showed that they were having the time of their life. The audience responded with rousing cheers once the pair had successfully crossed the finish line.

The next couple was older—likely in their thirties—and a lot more experienced. They came hurtling across the finish line in less than thirty seconds, and Ellie turned the mic back on long enough to announce that the competition's record had just been broken.

Sabrina's arms clenched nervously around his midsection. Trevor laid a pacifying hand on her elbow and squeezed.

"Here we go," he muttered below his breath. He trotted Tex out into the center of the ring.

When he felt Sabrina’s hands leave his waist, he reached around to grab her arm and ease her drop to the ground. But instead of letting go, he bent low in the saddle and tugged her against the saddle.

Kissing the top of her head, he whispered against her hair. “Let’s show them how good you are.”

Sabrina lifted her head in surprise, the look of uncertainty on her face shifting to a smile. Giving him a brief nod, she stepped away from him to take her position waving to the crowd who cheered them on.

“That’s my girl,” he called out to her before turning Tex around and trotting over to the start line. He grimaced when Ellie called out that they had to beat thirty seconds.

Adjusting his stance in the saddle, he petted Tex’s neck. “You ready?” The horse tossed his head in response, pawing lightly at the ground.

As the gun went off, Tex leaped forward easily reaching a gallop as they rapidly ate up the distance to Sabrina. To her credit, her stance was relaxed as she awaited their arrival.

Taking the tight turn around her, his arm was out before he thought about it and he was hoisting Sabrina onto the saddle behind him and heading back to the finish before she was fully seated. Her “oomph” followed by the tight grip of her thighs against his was all the reassurance he needed.

When they crossed the finish line, they were met with absolute silence as everyone looked to Ellie who squinted at her stop watch. Holding it up, she yelled into her microphone.

“Twenty-eight seconds!”

* * *

"Another round of shots!" Pete cried. He slammed his empty glass down and signaled the bartender as the bar broke into raucous laughter and cheers of approval.

"You guys!" Sabrina exclaimed in pleased exasperation. "You're going to drink away all our prize money before we even get home!"

Despite Sabrina's half-hearted protests, the Wildhorse team had been drinking on the house for the better part of the evening. The winning team always drank on the house at The Tin Horseshoe.

The jukebox blared, the booze flowed, and the atmosphere was charged and festive. Marcy, his ex, was trying to catch his eye from across the room, but Trevor only had eyes for one woman, and she happened to be seated right next to him.

He leaned across his stool to whisper in Sabrina's ear, "Just be glad they haven't tried drinking out of the trophy yet." The hand that wasn't holding his beer hovered over the small of her back, and Sabrina relaxed back into it. She seemed fully conscious of what she was doing, and he reveled in her own secret signals. Every glance of hers he caught seemed somehow coded; every lyric of every country song that came up on the jukebox seemed somehow written for this moment.

"I tell you!" Lorne whooped. "That's twice the record for the rescue race was broken in one competition! I've never seen that, not in any event in any year! Now it's the two of you who hold the record." He clinked his shot glass with Sabrina's. "And the way the boss carried you back across that finish line like that…" He cocked a sly eyebrow. "In some counties, the two of you'd be married."

Trevor recalled only too well the way their bodies had nested and rocked together as one. He eyed Sabrina sidelong, but the little blonde refused to meet his gaze. She was smiling fit to split the seams of her gorgeous face, but his intuition told him she was imagining the exact same thing. The expert way she worked her hips in the saddle…every clench and slide in perfect tandem with the way his body moved—no wonder they had won so handily. They were a good fit when it counted.

He wanted to experience that with her out of the saddle. He wanted her, and she knew it. She had to know it. He pressed the small of her back a little more firmly and was rewarded when her hand alighted on his knee beneath the table. He felt a stirring between his legs, but took a casual sip of his beer before entering back into the conversation.

"Sabrina's got this…this…" He gesticulated vaguely in the air above his head and chuckled. "This Christmas tree ornament she hangs above her door. Everywhere you go, ain't that right, Sabrina?"

"Yes, Trevor, that is right."

He was intent on driving her home tonight, so he set the beer down unfinished.

"But it's not a Christmas ornament," she continued for the benefit of the Wildhorse team. "It's something my grandfather gave me. I've always thought of it as a token of…good luck." She shrugged.

"I'll drink to that." Rodrigo raised his glass. "It certainly paid off for us today."

Marcy was making her way across the room now. Trevor snatched the hand in his lap and pulled Sabrina off her stool.

"Come on," he said as he dragged her out to the dance floor.

"Where are we going?" she inquired suspiciously. She tugged on their joined hands, only lightly resistant. "You're not actually pulling me out here to dance, are you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" Trevor wheeled and tugged her fully into his arms. There were a few other couples out slow dancing already. He could hear the jeers coming from his employees at the bar, but knew it was only a matter time before they started clamoring to follow suit before they got left without a partner. "You're the most beautiful woman in this room," he said as they started to sway together.

"Oh, I don't know…" Sabrina blew a stray strand of hair out of her eyes and glanced up at him. "That's your ex, isn't it? The redhead over in the corner? She's pretty stunning."

"Rodrigo's already taken care of it," Trevor replied. He watched as his stable hand crossed the room to tip his hat and offer Marcy his arm. Marcy took it with a delighted smile, and they made their way out to the dance floor.

"So, is it really over between the two of you?" Sabrina asked. Trevor glanced down to take in the expression on her face. Even in the low light of the bar, her cheeks glowed warm and pink from the alcohol. She was starting to get a tan, he noticed. It only brought out those kissable freckles of hers even more.

"Yes. It's been over between us for a long time."

Sabrina gazed into his eyes. He saw a flicker of relief pass across her face. He tightened his grip on her a little more.

"While we're making confessions, there's more to that story about your grandfather's star," he mentioned. "Whatever you didn't want to say in front of the others, you can say it to me."

Sabrina turned her face away and pressed it into his shoulder. "I take that star with me everywhere," she said finally, "because of what it represents. My home burned down when I was eight years old. I remember the smoke. I remember my dad pulling my sister and me out of bed. I remember watching the fire take it all while we stood across the street. Even with such a huge fire blazing, it was so cold that night.

"We went to live with my grandparents for a bit after that. I always loved visiting them on their ranch in the summer, but try as I might, I couldn't make it feel like the extended vacation they wanted me to think of it as. So, they put me to work harder than ever, to help me take my mind off things…and they made every day more fun and challenging enough that I felt real satisfaction with what I had achieved. I started to look forward to getting up in the morning again. And by the end of it all, when we were ready to move out and start all over, Grandpa pinned that star to my chest so I would always remember what a star I was. I felt so proud. I realize how silly it sounds for a grown woman to be saying this to you," she finished abruptly.

Trevor could feel her heated cheeks through the fabric of his shirt. He was so stunned with Sabrina's story that it was several moments before he realized they had stopped dancing. He resumed with the next beat, and she followed his lead, moving with less self-assurance than she had before.

"It's not silly," he promised her. "Sometimes the people we love and the important memories tied to them imprint themselves on things. Hell, I polish my father's old rodeo saddle every morning, even though I never intend for anyone to ever use it again. It's the first thing I do when I get up, and the last thing I look at before I shut the lights off in the barn."

"I had no idea," Sabrina whispered. She looked up at him again, and this time Trevor stopped dancing deliberately. He smoothed a strand of hair back from her face and fought the inclination to lean in. He still didn't know how far she wanted to take this thing with him.

"You want to get out of here?" he asked in a throaty whisper.

Sabrina nodded. Then: "What about the horses? Don't they still need to be trailered and taken home?"

"Pete will see to it," he said. "We drew straws earlier to see who'd be in charge of the trailer."

"Very diplomatic of you, Mr. Wild," Sabrina said approvingly.

Trevor offered her his arm, and she looped her hand through it. They walked out of The Tin Horseshoe together, never pausing to look back.