Page 154 of Knot my First Rodeo

I set it on the kitchen table and grab a knife from the drawer. As I slice the box open, I notice the smell. It’s not bad exactly, just stale like old cardboard and cigarette smoke.

The box flaps open and for a second, my brain refuses to understand what I'm looking at.

Photos, a stack of them.

My hand moves, pulling the top one free and turning it over.

What the ever loving fuck?

It's me. Standing in the chicken yard with the red feed bucket in one hand, hair blown across my face, mouth open like I'm in the middle of talking to one of the birds.

I turn over the next photo.

Me again. In the goat pen this time, one hand planted on my hip while Tripp laughs in the background. The angle is wrong. Farther away. Like whoever took it was standing near the edge of the barn, or behind one of the equipment sheds.

My fingers tighten around the paper.

The next one is from the rodeo.

The mechanical bull.

My stomach drops, and I flip another.

The arena. Clint holding me after I ran to him.

The photos slide against each other as I spread them across the table.

My breath comes in too shallow.

The motel.

I find that one near the middle, and what do you know, it's taken through the window. It’s my silhouette fucking Tripp.

I grip the edge of the table.

Someone had been outside that window.

The back door opens, and I jump so bad the knife clatters off the table and hits the floor. Briggs stops halfway into the kitchen, and his gaze moves from me to the scattered photos, then back to me.

Whatever is on my face must tell him enough, because his entire expression changes.

"Autumn."

My fingers are still wrapped around the edge of the table.

He crosses the room slowly and stops beside me; he doesn’t touch me at first. As he looks over the photos, his hand hovers near my back before settling there.

"I opened it," I say, even though that's obvious. "I thought it was clothes."

Briggs doesn't answer. He's looking at the pictures, and the muscle in his jaw shifts.

I swallow and force myself to pick up the motel photo.

"This was from that night."

His eyes drop to it.

"The window?"