Page 3 of Knox

Knox was tired of standing on the sidelines, watching everyone else spread their wings. Live the life they’d dreamed about.

He cast another look at the bull machine.

His gaze snagged on a brunette standing at the bar. He might not have even noticed her—she wasn’t necessarily trying to grab attention in her baggy jeans, Converse tennis shoes, an oversized gray shirt tucked into the front of her jeans. She wore her dark, shimmery hair back in a ponytail, a cap on her head, and no makeup. As if she might be in hiding.

Or worse, about to bolt. She wore the skittish look of a newborn calf as she tucked her lip between her teeth and eyed a couple cowboys leaning against the bar who’d noticed her too.

Knox didn’t like the way their gazes ran over her, but he wasn’t her keeper.

Still, he couldn’t help but watch as she stepped up to the bar, nudging between the two men. One of them had a bright orange tattoo of flames that encircled his neck. She glanced at one, then the other, her mouth a tight line, then pulled out her wallet. The bartender retrieved a bag from along the back wall—ah, takeout of some kind.

“Here you go, bro,” Tate said and handed Knox his beer. “Sorry to be the one to spill about Mom. She called to see if I was coming back for her big six-oh bash.”

Right. She’d been peppering Knox about that party since her last birthday. “She’s hoping Ford can get leave—”

“Do SEALs get time off?” Tate took a sip. “And Wyatt is in the middle of his schedule. And who knows where Ruby Jane is—last time I talked to her, she was headed to Prague—”

Someone bumped him from behind, and he sloshed beer over his cup, onto Knox, who stepped back, avoiding a drenching.

“Don’t touch me!”

The voice behind Tate caught Knox and he turned, finding the source.

The brunette. She was untangling herself from the grasp of one of the cowboys, her pale blue eyes wide, jerking away from him.

It ignited something primal and dark inside Knox, and he started toward her without thinking.

Tate grabbed him by the shirt— “Watch out!” He pointed to the scattering of greasy chicken wings soaking up the sawdusted floor of the tent.

And Knox wasn’t certain what happened, but the climatic ending included her jerking hard away from the cowboy’s grasp, turning, and fleeing through the crowd.

Knox met the eyes of her assailant, a man with gauged ears, an eyebrow bar and a port-wine stain curling up his neck, and Knox must have worn something dark in his expression because the man held up his hands. “She tripped. I caught her.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Knox snapped, his gaze searching for her, but she’d vanished.

“She left her wallet,” said the bartender, holding up the black clutch.

And before Cowboy could reach for it, Knox grabbed it.

Without a backward glance at Tate, he pushed through the crowd and out into the night.

Overhead, stars gathered like spectators to the balmy Texas night, the sounds of the nearby carnival in distant exhilaration, the tall Ferris wheel glimmering against the rodeo grounds. Neon green lit up the path that led to the red-splashed stock barn.

He spotted her, quick walking down the path.

“Stop! You dropped your wallet!”

She didn’t turn. Instead, of all things, she took off in a run.

What the—

And he didn’t think it through, just reacted, sprinting after her.

Maybe she hadn’t heard him.

She cut a right at the path that ran between the stock barn and the massive beer tent, toward a parking lot filled with RVs, horse trailers, semis, and cargo trucks. The pathway, out of the splash way of lights, darkened, and he barely made out the shadows as she—

Ducked into the stock barn?

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