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“Do I?” Jodie considered this. She loved Watchdog, and the guys and the women who had somehow become her closest friends. She loved knowing what everyone needed before they asked, always in control of the constant insanity of the office. She was the person who could find the form nobody else could locate, get somebody on a flight with six hours’ notice, remember whose certification expired next month, and explain to grown men with advanced military training why they still had to fill out their expense reports.

And then there were the dogs. Jodie didn’t think she could go a day without having a pack of well-trained, protective dogs to fuss over.

Her life wasn’t some sad consolation prize. She was happy.

“I’m not…disappointed isn’t the word. I’m happy here, working at Watchdog where I’m needed. I don’t need to be a rodeo star. I’m fine being ordinary.”

“Jodie, you are far from ordinary. I meant it when I said Kyle would be completely lost without you. They all would.”

Jodie grinned. “Thank you. Really.”

“So, if everything is great, what’s bothering you?”

Jodie stopped in her tracks. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

Arden’s eyebrows rose. “You said disappointed isn’t the word. What is it, then?”

Jodie grimaced. “It’s just that on the mountain…I was…helpless.”

“Jodie. You almost broke your ankle and you were abandoned. Those are circumstances way beyond your control.”

“That’s just it. I got myself into that situation against my better judgment. I let that asshole get the better of me because I felt like I had something to prove. When I was younger, that wouldn’t have happened. Back when I was a barrel racer.”

Jodie looked across the pasture. There had been a time when she had come flying out of a chute hanging onto a sheep for dear life while half the county screamed encouragement. She’d climbed onto untamed horses that outweighed her by a thousand pounds without thinking twice. And whenever she’d hit the dirt, gotten the wind knocked out of her, she’d climbed right back up again.

What the hell had happened to that girl?

Nothing, a little voice inside her answered.

Jodie frowned.

I could go to Sand Wash Basin. Two months from now.

Well. Apparently Ranch Girl had been sleeping, not dead.

Her ankle would be healed before then. And she did have veterinary training. She was out of practice with a rifle, but she just happened to work at a place with a kickass outdoor gun range where she could practice shooting darts.

The group was already losing Arden from the field team, and Jodie knew the records better than anyone. Maybe she didn’t have to sit behind a computer and wait for everybody else to tell her what happened.

“What if I went?”

Arden’s expression changed. “To Sand Wash?”

“If I’m cleared by then.” The idea was coming together faster now. “Not as the vet. Obviously, you’ll still need to find someone to replace you for that. But I could go as field support. Observer work, records, identification, tracking the horses as they come through. I already do most of that from home anyway.” Jodie paused. “And I could help whoever takes your place. I’m still a vet tech, even if I’m rusty.”

“And you want to.”

Jodie looked toward the horses grazing beyond the fence.

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Another thought occurred to her. “And if there’s enough time to get me trained and certified for the fertility-control work, I could help with that, too.”

Arden smiled. “Then get that ankle healed. Because if your doctor clears you, I’ll teach you everything I can before you go.”

“You will?”

“Of course I will. We’ll go through everything I normally do before I head out. As for the fertility control, if you need to practice, you know where the range is.”

“I was thinking that myself.”