Clean then Brave
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Ongoing<5 mins
Last published Wed, Oct 15, 2025
When the dust settles, what's left is grit, heart, and a little bit of honey.
Layne Brooks was born in a saddle. A barrel-racing prodigy with a reputation built on speed and stubbornness, she's spent her whole life chasing the next run-until a fall at the Hamilton County Fairgrounds breaks more than her collarbone. It cracks open her world.
Tessa McCrae left Waco looking for a reset and found it behind the bar at Cooper Creek. She's steady, sharp, and quick with a comeback-everything Layne isn't when the crowds fade and the lights go out. What starts as shared banter over bourbon and honey becomes something deeper, steadier, and a little terrifying for them both.
As Layne fights to heal and Tessa tries to protect her heart, the two women learn that sometimes courage isn't about the clean run-it's about showing up again, bruised but brave.
Set against the dusty glow of small-town Texas, Clean Then Brave is a slow-burn romance about second chances, the rhythm of rodeo life, and finding love that holds as hard as it hurts.
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#562
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Hudson Tate is a first-class bull rider with a chip on his shoulder and a long-standing rule-never trust a city girl. After too many broken promises and one too many high heels in the dirt, he's earned his reputation as the rodeo circuit's most irresistible player-and its most guarded heart. Then comes Callie Monroe, a top-ranked barrel racer with a sleek look and a city-girl reputation that rubs Hudson the wrong way from the start. She's too polished, too confident, and too good at pretending she doesn't care what people think. Hudson can't stand her-until he starts noticing the calluses on her hands, the way she trains her horse before dawn, and how she talks about the land like she grew up breathing it. Turns out, Callie isn't who he thought she was. Raised on a dusty ranch and shoved into city life by family pressure, she's spent years fighting to prove she belongs back in the saddle-and not in some glass tower. As tensions turn to sparks, Hudson is forced to face the one thing he's avoided his entire life: letting someone in. But with both their careers on the line and past wounds refusing to heal, will love be enough to rope in a cowboy who's always ridden solo?
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