Bella Rose stepped down from her trailer, boots striking the packed dirt with a cadence that sounded like a challenge to the waking morning. The sun was already sharp as a branding iron on her skin, casting long shadows across the trailer lot and the dust swirling around the pens. She tilted her face upward, eyes closed, letting the warmth seep into her bones the way other women might sip champagne—slow, deliberate, intoxicating. Around her, the rodeo grounds were coming alive in a measured, ...