Love Under the Western Skies

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ

ᴍᴀᴅɪꜱᴏɴ

➵➵➵➵➵➵➵❂➵➵➵➵➵➵➵

Come work for Sawyer Western Management my dad said, it'll be fun he said.

What a load of shit.

I was just supposed to be the social media manager, instead, I'm sitting in the Tulsa airport waiting for my connecting flight to Missoula to then drive an hour and a half to Steve Rogers ranch in Goldspring. All because he couldn't be trusted to not tarnish the good name of Sawyers. He just had to go and sleep with last year's rodeo queen, didn't have her sign an NDA, and that allowed her to run her mouth two months ago about how he got her pregnant and never showed up again. Dad nearly doubled over from the news and I was called in to babysit the National Barrel Racing Champion.

"How long are you going to be gone?"

I was startled as the voice came through my headphones, my best friend Rae was on the phone with me, keeping me company and probably trying to make sure I didn't have a breakdown in the middle of the airport. My dad didn't give me a chance to put up a fight, once he decided that I was the right fit for what he wanted, my name was on a plane ticket before it was even mentioned to me. And if there's anything I've learned in my twenty-five years of life is that you don't argue with Nash Sawyer. Not on what you're having for dinner, or for when he's set his mind on sending you to babysit a seven-month-old and a thirty-year-old. The seven-month-old I didn't mind babysitting, the thirty-year-old was a different story.

"Who knows, I know for at least half the season, when the rodeo comes back to Texas I think Dad will reconsider."

I heard her sigh dramatically, "That's like four months away."

I was aware, and I wasn't thrilled about it either.

"I'll call you every day I promise," I stood up when early boarding was called, Dad always made sure that I was settled as one of the first on the plane. He used to have me traveling a lot as a kid, at first it was to California to visit my mom, but when she stopped wanting visitations, it was to fly to whatever city he was in for rodeo weekends. The habit has yet to go away as an adult. "I have to go, Rae, love you."

"Try not to kill him, love you too!"

I tried to be understanding when my Dad came to me about Steve's situation, I just thought he needed someone to vent to so I let him talk, I didn't interrupt, and then he told me I had a month to tie up any loose ends, slapped a one-way ticket into my palm and told me I was Steve and Rhett Rogers babysitter. That led to me being on a plane, barreling through the air, leaving behind Houston, Texas, and starting again in a bedroom at Rogers Ranch.

God, I need a drink.

I, of course, knew who Steve Rogers was, I knew of him long before Dad signed him and the scandal. He was the pretty boy on the rodeo grounds, talented, charming, and beautiful. He had people throwing themselves at him left and right. I thought he was attractive, but attractive doesn't equal a decent person. And after the news of what happened, the angry call from Savannah when she got pregnant, and the hundreds of dm's I've had to go through since Rhett's birth changed my opinion on the man. I just hoped that he was able to get his shit together fast enough so I could go the hell home.

The flight wasn't nearly long enough, and when I got my rental car I sighed. Of course, Dad got me a truck, and it came with a brand new car seat, already installed. I'd have to have Steve check it because I was way over my head when it came to things like that. I tossed my suitcase into the bed, and my backpack landed in the passenger seat, heavy with new contracts Steve had to sign and I had to send back to the main office at the end of the week. I hadn't even started this job and I was already ready to go home.