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"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh." She loops her arm through mine and steers us toward a high-top table near the window, out of the thickest part of the crowd. "So… Jagger?"

"He's just another cowboy," I lie.

She almost spits out her drink. "Right. And I'm the queen of the rodeo."

"You said it yourself. He leaves a trail of broken hearts all over the county. I definitely should stay away from him."

"Well, I was going to say he's never once looked at anybody the way he's been looking at you all night, and I've watched that man flirt with half this county." She glances back at him. "And he's not even playing hard to get. That's a first for him."

"Oh, come on. I doubt that's true," I claim, but want it to be.

"It is." She bumps her shoulder into mine. "Now what did you two talk about to make him not be able to take his eyes off you?"

I shrug. "Nothing specific."

Carla laughs. "Are you really going to keep me in the dark?"

Troy steps next to us and interjects, "There you are."

Mason pushes a round of ranch waters in front of us. "Looks like you ladies need a drink."

"We're good," Carla sings with a snip in her voice. Then she tells Troy, "You can get us another round in a bit." She grabs my hand and tugs me through the crowd.

The band starts a new song, louder than the last.

"What was that about?" I shout above the music.

"Nothing." She pushes into a circle of women and involves us in a new conversation.

The next half hour goes by in pieces. Carla drags me onto the dance floor with her and Troy for a song that's too fast for anybody to actually dance to properly.

Jagger watches from across the room in the same spot, his beer forgotten in his hand, not even pretending he's doing anything else. Every time I glance over, he's already looking, and every time, a butterfly flips before I can stop it.

He doesn't come find me right away. He lets Carla have her stretch of me. At one point, he leans against the bar talking to Mason and a couple of other cowboys even though he keeps glancing ovr

It's twenty minutes to midnight when he finally crosses the room, two drinks in hand. "Ranch water," he says, setting one down in front of me. "Figured you'd need reinforcements before Carla runs you into the ground."

"Do I look exhausted?"

"No. But I wouldn't want you to wear yourself out before the night gets interesting."

"Oh?" I ask, heat flying to my cheeks.

One corner of his mouth kicks up. He leans a hip against the table, close enough that his arm brushes my shoulder. "Did you miss me?"

"I was gone for half an hour, not a week."

"Feels like the same thing from where I'm standing." He tips his beer toward me. "You look like you've been thinking too hard."

"Maybe I have."

"About me?" He wiggles his eyebrows and grins.

I turn my glass in a slow circle on the table instead of answering right away. I'm hyper-aware of how close he's standing. The warmth comes off him even through the crush of bodies and the open windows letting in the cold night air. Then I blurt out, "Carla says you've flirted with half the county."

His jaw twitches. "Carla's not wrong. You gonna hold that against me?"