Three Times The Knockin' Boots: A Why Choose Romance (Dirty Coyote Series Book 6)

Arlo 10

“We’d like you to move in with us… if you want to… I mean if you think that’s the right thing to do… I mean, we have a big place, with two extra bedrooms that you can have… that’s if you want to.” I knew I was making a complete fool of myself, but I couldn’t seem to get the words out.

Colt Johnson, Scotty Belmont, Tammy, and Mindy busied themselves with closing down the main bar, while Dion, Jackson, and I packed up some of our equipment. We never left our guitars at the venue, even if we were booked for several nights straight. Guitars were too easy to steal and impossible to replace, especially when they had sentimental value… which all of ours did.

She tilted her head to the side, like a sweet puppy trying to understand a human. I felt exactly like that bumbling human.

“What I’m trying to say is that we have plenty of room at our place,” I repeated with confidence. “And even though the cabins are comfy, you’re the only one out there right now. We moved into our new place a few days ago, as I’m sure Jackson already told you.”

She and Jackson had been working together now for most of the past two weeks. He couldn’t stop talking her up and how his attraction to her just kept growing. That was true for all of us. The more we were around her, the more we wanted that to continue.

“I’ve been so busy, I’ve hardly seen Jackson. When we did finally cross paths, it was all business all the time. I feel bad about that, but sometimes when I get into the thick of whatever I’m doing, I tend to get singularly focused.”

Once again, she sounded perfect for us. When we’re writing music or getting ready to go on tour, that was exactly how we were… totally focused.

The place was almost empty now, with only a few stragglers finishing up their drinks, while the staff cleaned up around them.

“Then let me fill you in on our new house. It’s furnished, and you could have your own wing if you want it. I know you’re busy right now with closing this place, but it’ll take us about a half hour to pack up our equipment. If that’s not enough time, one of us is more than willing to wait to escort you over. At least check it out. If you hate it, you can drive right back to your lonely, very empty cabin in the middle of a whole slew of empty cabins.”

She chuckled, and I saw the tension drain from her face and shoulders. Like she appreciated the whole idea of moving in with us—at least I wanted to believe that.

“I get it. I’m the only one there, and you’re right. I’m not too fond of that situation. I should be done here in about a half hour, at least that’s what Colt said. Your timing’s perfect, and most of what I need is already packed in my car. I didn’t get a chance to unload earlier at the cabin. Plus, you boys need more dance lessons, and considering this place is closed tomorrow, and if your place is as big as you say it is, a few private dance lessons might be in order.”

Then she smiled, and my world lit up. All it took from her to put me in a better mood and cause me to believe this idea Dion came up with for a group relationship might work out.

“Is that a yes, then?” I asked, while standing on the customer side of the bar. She’d been working behind the bar for most of the night, talking to the customers and serving up the occasional beer. She seemed right at home. The woman was a natural people pleaser. Tammy picked the exact right person to take her place. They were two of a kind.

“Absolutely!” she said, then scurried off to help with cleaning up. She wore jeans, boots, and a black western fitted shirt, with embroidered red flowers down the button line. I knew she’d spent some money on that shirt because I owned a few that looked exactly like it. I loved how she seemed so into the whole world of country. Like it was part of her DNA.

But then coming from Wyoming, I had a feeling she came from a long line of western folks.

Her long, dark hair covered most of her back, and I flashed on scraping it off her face when she did things to me I wanted again and again. I couldn’t help playing that day over and over in my mind. And even now, while I watched her load a dishwasher, I thought she was the absolute sexiest woman I’ve ever known.

“THIS PLACE IS huge,” Mindy said as she walked through our living room. It opened up to the second floor, and the fireplace brickwork went all the way up to the vaulted ceiling, causing the living room to look even larger. “You weren’t kidding when you said you had plenty of room. This is ridiculous.”

She kept looking around, wearing a surprised expression, exactly like we did when we first walked inside. The vastness of the place took you by surprise.

“The bedrooms are up on the second floor and encircle this room on three sides,” I told her as I rolled in her bright-red, hard-shell suitcase. Her pickup truck was loaded down with suitcases and boxes, but she only pulled this one out.

“The two bedrooms Arlo was referring to are on one side of the second floor, and one of the rooms is big enough for almost anything you want to do with it,” Dion told her as he stood near the massive fireplace. The hearth was as tall as he was, and even longer.

We had all waited for her at Dirty Coyote, and she followed us over. I drove our monster van that we always used for this kind of venue. Jackson had volunteered to drive with her, but there was no room for another human in her truck. She said she only had one more load and no furniture to speak of other than a TV and a small desk and chair.

We would help load her up tomorrow and bring over the rest of her stuff, if, in fact, she decided to move in. If she didn’t want to move in, we would still move her to the cabin tomorrow, but we were hopeful that once she saw this house, she wouldn’t want to leave.

And so far, judging from the look on her face, I thought we had a good shot.

Jackson stayed behind while Dion and I escorted her upstairs. I could tell something negative was brewing in his head, so I didn’t want to stir it up for him. Whatever Jackson wanted to do was fine with me.

Most all the floors in this house were made of repurposed wood, with a flat finish to retain their natural weathered look. The realtor seemed to know every detail about the place and liked to keep us informed as we did our final walk-through. Some of country’s royalty had even stayed here for a while, one of them being Johnny Cash. I didn’t know if Mindy would be impressed by that bit of trivia, so for now, I kept it to myself.

The walls were painted a dark-rust color, and all the ceilings were painted the same cream. No white walls anywhere, which we appreciated. We saw enough white walls in all the various hotels we stayed in while we toured. We’d developed an aversion to white walls in our own living spaces.

“Oh, this place is incredible,” Mindy said as she made her way inside one of the two rooms we’d decided would be a good match for her. This first room was decorated in teal blue, browns, and dark gold. It had a queen-sized bed that dominated one wall, and a chaise lounge sat under a bank of windows.

It needed a woman’s touch to make it come to life, but it was a crazy big room with a TV that took up half the far wall. I flicked the switch on the wall as we went in, and the TV became a roaring fireplace, complete with sound effects.

“This is the nicest and biggest bedroom in the house,” I told her.

“And you’re offering it to me?” she asked, as she made her way over to the bed. “Shouldn’t one of you take it? This is amazing. The fireplace effect is perfect, and it’s bigger than my entire apartment in Cricket.”

“It’s all yours… that is if you want it,” I told her, hoping she’d stay. We were all hoping she’d move in with us. Even Jackson had said he’d be okay with it. He still had his reservations, but he wasn’t ready to tell us where those reservations were coming from. For now, Dion and I were just happy he wasn’t against it.

“And you turned on that fireplace effect from a switch on the wall? What the hell?” she asked, amazed at the ease of how things worked in this house.

“Yeah, and it switches to a TV with all the streaming services by using the remote. It’s a smart remote. The kind that’s voice activated,” Dion told her. “Plus, this room has the best view of the mountains and the river.” But she was too busy checking out the private bath. It had the best showerhead, as well. And you could get four people in there, easy… if she ever wanted to.

“Wow,” she said from the bathroom. “Just wow!”

Dion turned to me and grinned. I knew he was getting happier as she toured the house.

“Don’t forget there’s another room that goes with this,” I reminded her. “Not quite as big but still nice.”

“I already forgot,” she said. “This room will be plenty. Really.”

“If you’re going to stay, we want you to be comfortable. Besides, we don’t have any use for the room, and it’s just next door to this one. You need to check it out,” Dion told her, standing in the doorway now. Trying to entice her.

“Okay, but if I take the two rooms, I insist on paying rent,” she said.

“No need. You’re teaching us how to dance, remember?” I told her, anticipating the possibility of her moving in with us. I’d dreamt about it and thought about what that might look like, but I never thought it could actually happen. Now that it seemed inevitable, I couldn’t help but get excited.

“That hardly repays you for giving me an entire wing of your house. I have to repay you for this, somehow. How ‘bout I cook breakfast on the weekends?”

“Are you a good cook?” I heard Jackson ask from behind us.

“Um, not particularly,” she said. “But I have to do something.”

When I finally turned to Jackson, he carried a bottle of champagne and four red Solo cups all stacked up on the top of the bottle.

“Darlin’, you can do anything you want, and we’ll consider it even. And that includes doing nothing at all but just enjoying the place. All we want is for you to say yes. We’ve needed a woman living with us for a long time. I brought up this bottle to celebrate. Don’t make me take it back downstairs unopened,” he said.

“Then you better pop that cork, big guy, because there ain’t no way I’m passing up this kind of opportunity. Between you three, these two rooms, and my new job, I must have landed in some sort of fairy tale. I can’t believe my life could be so good. I don’t know how long this will last, how long I’ll stay, or y’all will stay, but for now, I’m happy… really happy.”

“Oh, baby girl, we’re just getting started!” Dion muttered, right before he laid one on her.

And with that, the hoots and whistles that came out of us were downright red-dirt country. The irony in watching the two of them kiss didn’t make me jealous. Not even a little bit.

Instead, I thought it was one of the hottest visions I’d ever had. My best friend loving on a woman I cared about, a woman I’d had sex with, and the woman we were sharing.

Yep, the hottest thing I’d ever seen.

But when I glanced around, I didn’t think Jackson had the same reaction. The look on his face was like a deer in headlights. Like he couldn’t look away, but he also knew if he just stood there, it might be the end of him.

And in the next moments, he popped the cork off the champagne, which stopped the kiss, and we all focused on celebrating Mindy’s decision to stay… at least for the foreseeable future, and in our business, that was all we could ever count on.

I WOKE UP lying next to Mindy, in her new bed, in her new room. A nice vision, to be sure. Unfortunately, we were still dressed except for our boots. And to make matters even worse, Dion slept on the other side of her in the same clothed condition I was in. Not wanting to wake either of them, I slipped out of the bed, grabbed my boots, and made my way to my own room.

Jackson was noticeably missing both from her bedroom and his own room. I passed his room on the way to mine, and no sign of him. His bed looked as though he hadn’t even touched it. I could smell coffee, so I knew exactly where he was hiding on this fine morning.

I quickly showered, shaved, and made myself presentable in jeans, and a black T-shirt, then headed for the kitchen to grab some of that coffee. I didn’t know what Jackson did to it, but whenever he made that first pot, it was some of the best coffee I ever tasted.

“Hey,” I said, as I grabbed a mug from the cupboard and poured in the elixir until the mug was almost full.

“Morning,” he answered. He stared at his iPad, and I knew he was looking over the country music charts to see what songs were trending and what songs had already fallen out of favor.

“Where’d you sleep last night?”

“Didn’t. Not really. Too much shit swirling around.”

Jackson did that every now and then… stayed up all night, then took a nap sometime during the day, and went on about his business. He never slept more than five hours during the night anyway. Said his body didn’t need it, and, looking at that big, muscled body of his, I’d say that was true.

The first thing he bought when we moved into this place was workout equipment. It arrived yesterday, and Jackson already had it set up inside one of the larger sheds out back. The man didn’t mess around. When something needed doing, he just went and got it done.

“Does any of that swirling shit have to do with Mindy?” He didn’t like to talk about his emotions, but I thought I’d give it a go.

“Has everything to do with her. Don’t know if I can do this… share her. It’s not in my character.” He didn’t look at me; instead, he stared down into his coffee mug. He wore a black and gray checkered western shirt and tattered jeans. He leaned on the table as if he needed it to help hold him up.

“How’d you feel when you saw Dion kiss her?” I had to ask, thinking that must have hit a nerve.

“Shocked. Sick. Jealous. Hurt. And a whole bunch of emotions I don’t have names for.” He finally gazed over at me, then leaned back in his chair. His face drawn, like he’d been seriously thinking about this all night.

“Sounds like you’re in love with her.” I hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but sometimes, the situation called for it, especially when I was dealing with Jackson.

“I thought about that angle, but damn, I hardly know her. How can I be in love already? Is that even possible?” He genuinely looked as if this confused him. As if love couldn’t happen this fast, even if that were exactly what he’d been feeling.

“Hey, big guy, anything’s possible. You ever been in love before?” I knew very little about Jackson’s past. He wasn’t the kind of guy who talked about himself much, even when everyone else was sharing similar stories. He usually held back and merely commented on the story, but he rarely added his own to the conversation.

“Once, when I was fifteen. It consumed me. Never had that feeling before and don’t know if I ever want it again. She… well… she died.” He let out his breath, then pulled in another, and went on. I could tell this was one of the hardest things he’d ever shared with anyone. “Carol, that was her name. She and her parents were on a road trip. There was an accident. Her parents lived, but she’d taken her seatbelt off to lie down on the backseat, and well, she didn’t make it.”

“Oh man, I’m so sorry.”

It still caused him a whole lot of hurt. His eyes welled up, and his voice kept hitching when he spoke.

“Thanks. It was a long time ago. I was a kid. You’d think I’d be over it by now, but I guess I’m not. Funny how some events never leave you, no matter how much time has passed.”

I knew this was still raw from the look on his face. It still tore him up, but I couldn’t see the connection. Not really.

“What does that have to do with Mindy or the situation we’re in now?”

He hesitated for a couple of beats, then went on, “Carol already had a boyfriend. She and I were just friends, but I was in love with her. She never knew how I felt. I hated seeing her with Jerry. It drove me crazy whenever they kissed in front of me or held hands. I wanted that. I wanted her, and I was getting ready to tell her as soon as she and her parents got back home from their trip.”

“But that never happened because she never came home again, right?”

His eyes watered, and something inside me broke apart for this guy I’d been traveling with and making music with for the past eight years. He wasn’t only a friend, but we were brothers on the same journey. This information was crushing.

“Oh, she came home again… in a casket,” he whispered.

“Fuck, man. That’s some powerful stuff. No kid should have to go through that. Like I said, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Thanks, and now, seeing someone I have feelings for with someone else just brought all that hurt back up again.”

“You should talk to Mindy about it. Might do you some good.” It was the only thing I could think of to help him. I didn’t have the words to help mend his heart, but I hoped that Mindy would.

“She doesn’t need me to dump my shit on her.”

“You’re not dumping; you’re sharing. Big difference.”

“I don’t know… I…”

And before Jackson could finish his sentence, Dion and Mindy walked into the room, holding hands and laughing about something. They both looked as if they’d just stepped out of the shower… together. Hair still wet but wearing clean clothes… no shoes.

Jackson immediately stood. “I’m outta here!”

And he walked out of the kitchen and out of the house.

“What the hell did you say to him?” Dion asked me, as if I did or said something that would cause that reaction in Jackson.

“It’s not about me… it’s about him. He’s having some deep issues with all this. Issues that date back to when he was a teen.”

It wasn’t my place to tell them what Jackson had told me. That was up to Jackson.

“Maybe my moving in here wasn’t such a good idea after all,” Mindy said, her happy mood shattered.

“It’s complicated. You and Jackson need to talk.”

“Is he angry at me for something I did or said?” she asked, as she walked over to the coffee pot.

“No. It’s nothing like that. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

And before any of us knew what was happening, Jackson stormed back inside and went right up to Mindy. “If this has any hope of working, you and I need to talk. Like right now. No waiting around. This needs to be said while I can still get it out.”

“Can I grab a cup of coffee first? I have a feeling this may take a while.”

“Sure. I’ll grab one too, then I need everybody else to give us the room.”

Dion was about to protest until I elbowed him in the ribs. “You got it,” I told Jackson, as I pulled Dion out of the kitchen. I hoped Jackson and Mindy could work it out. If that weren’t possible, I didn’t see how any of us could write one melody or lyric that would be worth a shit.