Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Teller
“That place could be anything.” I paced in front of Tenor’s desk. On the other side of the wall of windows, the distillery was bright. Sunlight filtered from the many windows around the building. It wasn’t five o’clock yet, but I had to leave soon. If I sat at my desk, I’d nod off. After a restless night of sleep, worrying that I’d overstepped— No, I had pushed it and I knew it.
It would have been easier to stop breathing than it would’ve been to not kiss her. Yet I worried I’d lost the trust I was trying to build with her.
The taste of her though. She’d had a handful of jelly beans before I’d kissed her, and she’d been a sweet dessert I wanted to devour. A mere whisper of a touch, and it had me wound up a million different ways inside.
“She doesn’t want it to be anything,” Tenor said for probably the third time.
“The building has it all. Do you remember, before Scooter put in a bar, that place was a restaurant?”
The corner of his mouth twisted up. “One we feared getting hepatitis in. That’s why it was shut down.”
I sank into the chair across from his desk. “No, it was closed because the guy who bought it from the original owner had a record.”
Tenor snapped his fingers. “That’s right. He was a sex offender, and he was hiring nothing but fifteen-year-old girls. Scooter got a helluva deal on that place.”
I grunted. “She doesn’t want to run a bar.”
“What makes you think that?”
“There’s no passion.”
He pushed his glasses up. “And you know what she’s like when she’s passionate?”
She got a flush on her cheeks, and the more worked up she was, the farther down her neck it went. Those hazel eyes of hers spit fire, just like they had each time I had said her hated nickname. Only she didn’t hate it. Not when I said it. And that was what she disliked. Her blush told me so.
Tenor sat forward, his mouth dropping open. “You and Madison?”
“No.” I laughed. If Tenor had seen the way she’d leaped away from me, he’d chortle too. “I’ve just gotten to know her. She’s no-nonsense and she’s defensive as fuck, but there’s something she’d rather do in life. She’s never had a choice, but she does now. The bar is stripped down, but it’s got an office and bathrooms. It’s as close to a lump of clay as it can be.”
“So what would the obstacle be?” He scratched the back of his neck. “The two biggies for people are time and money.”
“She works long damn hours at the home, but she has a stretch off. If she wanted to open a bare-bones bar, she could do it before your wedding.”
“So it’s money.”
“She paid fifty grand for me.” And she’d said it was so she wouldn’t get screwed over. Had she worried about hemorrhaging cash for poorly done jobs? Or that she’d get overcharged? Most people worried about that, but they didn’t go and buy a bachelor to coordinate much of the work. “If she’d ask me for advice, I’d be able to help her better. Fuck, I’d be able to help at all.”
A slow grin spread across Tenor’s face. “She’s hurting your pride left and right.”
“No.” Yes, goddammit. I had so many damn ideas. We could talk budget, business strategy, and goals. Yet she kept me damn near in the dark. Did she even have a plan beyond Make It Flatlanders Again?
Tate pushed into the office. “Thought I’d catch you two. Scarlett’s been asking wedding questions and I don’t have answers.”
Tenor’s grin stayed in place. Mention of Ruby or his upcoming wedding tended to do that. I’d been the lone single Bailey for almost two years and I hadn’t gotten less envious of my stupidly happy youngest brother.
“Just show up,” Tenor said. “That’s all we’re asking.”
Tate’s mouth flattened into a line. “And you are clearly not married with kids yet. You can’t just show up, and Scarlett will sit out the end of the world if she doesn’t have clear instructions for who needs to wear what.”
Tenor and Ruby’s wedding was next month, but it was purported to be a low-key affair. Instead of having it at Mama’s place, they were doing it at Tenor’s house. I was wearing what I’d worn to the rest of my siblings’ weddings. They’d all been casual affairs at their homes or at Mama’s.
“Two o’clock.” Tenor hooked his fingers behind his head and reclined in his chair. “Church casual since I know Scarlett won’t feel comfortable sending kids to a wedding in jeans. Curly’s is catering so Mama doesn’t have to cook.”
“Mama wants to cook,” I said.
“I know, but then everyone will be rushing to help her with food. Ruby wants relaxed. She wants guilt-free.” His grin widened. “She only wants me.”
I didn’t bother holding back my groan. “Fuck, you’re pathetic.”
Tate slapped me on the back. “You will be too one day. Happens to all of us.”
It had happened to all of them. Every single one of my siblings. Even some of the fosters my parents had cared for over the years, like Myles. But the one time I’d been in love, my heart had gotten ripped out, and Madison had known before me.
“Teller’s pissy because Madison won’t stroke his big, thick ego.” Tenor’s eyes twinkled. Bastard.
Tate’s laugh boomed through the room. The packagers downstairs and across the building could probably hear him over the whirring of the equipment.
“You both suck,” I muttered. “I’m just trying to do the job she bought me for.”
“You want to do it like you want it done,” Tenor pointed out again.
“Ah.” Tate’s shit-eating grin was still in place. “You’re not the boss over at Flatlanders.”
“It shouldn’t be Flatlanders,” I snapped. “They put a dress on ET, but he was still a wrinkled little bugger. Giving Flatlanders a facelift won’t help. People will show up wanting the dive bar. They’ll expect Allen to serve them and not give a fuck. Everyone’s going to expect mixed drinks that have only a drop of soda, but Allen moved to Washington. Madison is too smart to load her drinks up with the most expensive ingredient, so at the minimum, she’ll charge more. And that’ll piss people off from the start.”
I was breathing heavily after my rant.
Tate crossed his arms and studied me. Tenor had unhooked his hands from behind his head and leaned forward. They exchanged a look, then pinned both of their stares back on me, each with a brow raised.
“What?” My crankiness knew no bounds.
“You’re worried about her,” Tenor said.
Irritated, maybe. Frustrated. Vexed. Yes, I was goddamn worried. “The bar isn’t going to run like it used to, but she’s convinced it will.”
“You don’t give a damn about the bar,” Tate said. “You’re worried about her.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“It’s Madison,” Tate insisted, his gaze appraising.
“I never hated her.” My attitude during my run-ins with her over the last few years streamed through my head.
Tenor tapped his fingers against his desktop. “Everything you said rubbed her the wrong way.”
Tate smirked. “But I think you want to rub her the right way.”
“Jesus, Tate.” The sight of her in nothing but a sports bra and underwear flashed in my head. There’d be so many right ways with a body like that. She was strong, and for once, I wouldn’t have to hold back— No. I was not looking for a fuck, and definitely not with the prickliest woman I’d ever met.
My brothers shared another knowing look.
“You two are pissing me off,” I growled.
Tenor kept tapping his fingers.
I pushed out of my chair and stomped toward the door, but Tate sidestepped, blocking me.
“Let’s talk about this,” he said gently.
I straightened to my full height, but that was the same as Tate’s and he’d never been intimidated by me a day in his life. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“You care about Madison and you’re worried she’s making the wrong decision.” His calm tone should be infuriating, but goddammit. He was right.
“I know she is.” I ran my fingers over my short beard. “This makes me sound like a prick, but she doesn’t know enough about the business to pull a dive like Flatlanders out of the hole it had likely been operating in.”
“She had enough money to buy you,” Tenor said.
“Life insurance,” I answered.
“Didn’t any go to her nephew?” Tenor asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe there’s a trust or something.”
“Everything was left to Madison?” Tate said, a crease forming across his brow. “The bar, the life insurance, and even their parents’ old place? From what I heard, a lot of people are pissed they didn’t know it was for sale before she accepted an offer.”
All of her neighbors would’ve put an offer in. “Who’s she going through?”
Tate’s lips pressed together like he tasted something sour. “Sal Longwood.”
“Fuck.” Sal was slimier than a northern pike and his teeth were just as sharp. For someone who didn’t trust easily, she’d gone for the least trustworthy guy. “Why the fuck would she use him?”
“Wasn’t he friends with her dad?” Tate asked. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I’d have to ask Mama.”
“I’ve gotta talk to her.” I tried to step around Tate, but he stopped me by pushing his fingers into my chest.
He didn’t let me pass him. “You’re going to go charging in there, demand to know why she’s working with a sleazeball like Sal, rant about the mistakes she’s making with the bar, and then you’re going to wonder why the hell she’s upset and won’t talk to you?”
My chest rose and fell under his quelling hand. That had already been happening, minus the Sal business. “Maybe.”
“Remember when Madison’s dad lost his shit at a parade and punched a horse?” Tenor asked.
How could I forget? Punching a horse had made Karl Townsend an instant villain, as if we hadn’t known he was before that. The guy had yelled instead of talking. He had sworn like he’d been getting paid per “fuck.” Several businesses in town had banned him from entering, thanks to his legendary temper.
Tate grunted. “He said we shouldn’t complain since he hit animals instead of his worthless kids.”
I had winced at that, in the middle of the parade with over half the town watching. A young, doe-eyed Madison had shrunk against her mom, only to be shooed away.
Well, hell. “She had a shitty upbringing. No wonder she isn’t staying at that house.”
“She might need the money.” Tate scratched his beard. “I hate to spread gossip?—”
I guffawed. “Oh my god, you love it. Don’t think I haven’t seen you hanging out in the gas station, getting your morning coffee so you can keep tabs on the town.”
The gas station had a breakfast nook that was full of old farmers and ranchers and retired business folk each day. Sometimes, I’d been half tempted to linger myself.
Tate smirked. “Dad used to say if you wanted real news, find out where the retired people hang out.” His grin turned affectionate. “Scarlett also pays in kisses per rumor. But anyway, when Madison moved back to town, the old bank president commented that she wouldn’t find a place to live. Her husband left her with a shitload of debt.”
“School loans.” Since the asshole had let her support him through law school.
Tate nodded. “That and credit cards. Auto loans. He said the asshole was driving a seventy-thousand-dollar truck.”
“Bet the fucker is still driving it too.” Madison’s old beater had probably come off the family property. “Divorcing a lawyer couldn’t have ended well for her.”
“Ruby probably knows her better than anyone in town,” Tenor said, “but she says Madison is hard to get to know. She’s all about business and won’t share much of herself.”
Guilt wound its way through my gut, leaving an inky feeling behind. She had no one, and she’d been used and discarded by everyone. I was a bossy asshole who made her defensive.
How did I change that?
Madison
A small bag of root beer jelly beans sat on the pool table. Teller had pulled up two of the nonbusted barstools for us to sit on. He had papers spread out on the green felt, each sheet filled with his chicken scratch.
That was too harsh a term. His handwriting was strong with slashes. Even his print resonated confidence. This man didn’t question a single thing he did.
“So those are our options for plumbers.” He shuffled another sheet of paper on top of his pile. It listed plumbing companies, one local, two from Livingston, and three from Bozeman. None of them had called me back when I had tried to get someone out to help replace leaky faucets in the house before I put it on the market.
One of the guys in Livingston had told me that he wouldn’t touch my house if my mom crawled to him on her hands and knees to apologize. Another said she still had outstanding invoices my mom had disputed.
I studied the list, rife with rates and timelines. “You didn’t tell them where it was for, did you?”
“That’s why there’s only six.”
He’d used his name, and he’d probably done it without second thought. For me. He’d do it for anyone, but he was here, throwing the Bailey name around for me.
He tapped another list. “Here are the electrician estimates.”
I picked up that neat list, hyperaware of his proximity. The heat between us from yesterday was gone. He was professional, kind, and efficient. It was irritating.
I refused to become one of Teller’s many fangirls, but here I was, wishing he’d look at me with a spark in his eye.
Dropping my attention to his notes on electrical estimates, I choked. “Oh my god. Are they rewiring the building?”
“No, it’s just that expensive.”
Despair weighed me down until I worried I’d crash through the wooden floor. The bathrooms would need new toilets, sinks, and partitions and cosmetic work. “What if they find issues while doing the work?” My question came out more frantic than I’d intended. I didn’t have the funds for more. As it was, I was waiting for the house sale to close so I could have enough to cover what I needed. The money shuffle was the cost of bidding on Tenor.
His gaze stroked across my face. “You’ll have to plan a buffer. Always overestimate because there will be delays and problems.”
I sucked in a shaky breath. My stomach heaved. How the hell was I going to do this?
“You forget you paid a considerable amount of money for my work.”
I wasn’t forgetting much when it came to him. Most of it came back to me when I was trying to sleep.
He dug a small notepad out of the pocket of the flannel shirt he’d draped over the other end of the pool table. “I can replace toilets, Maddy. And sinks. I made a list of supplies I’d need.”
“What about awful wallpaper that’s probably been peed on?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “I don’t know about the women’s restroom, but if pee is all that’s on the walls of the men’s room, I’ll be surprised.”
My laughter took some of my stress with it. Another reaction he didn’t have a problem coaxing from me. “I didn’t mean...” He’d been nothing but a decent man. He might’ve taunted me with Mad Maddy, but he’d left me wanting to hear him say it again. I thought I’d get thrown in jail if I heard someone utter that awful nickname at the wrong time, but now it turned me on. He might be a bastard for that, but only because I needed to sleep, not masturbate. “I didn’t mean for this to be immense. Project managers make bank.”
“I already make bank.” He tossed the notepad onto his shirt. Then he pointed to the roof, the walls, and the floor. “The basics are good. The electrical hasn’t caused issues up to this point, so I don’t anticipate an electrician finding something. Same with the plumbing. This building has been through a lot, but it’s been kept up.”
The nerves in my stomach calmed. “I just need it to make money.”
“Other than because life is expensive, is there another pressing reason?” He gathered up the papers with the estimates he’d collected like he was giving me space to answer. Or he was preparing to get his head bitten off.
I ran my bottom lip through my teeth, debating how much to share. His collection had to have taken a good couple of hours. I owed him something and I had little more than words. “Just Mom. Long-term care is ungodly expensive. It’s why I used the fifty-grand for you. It’d buy only six months, and I needed long-term. But it’s better than living with her again.”
His look wasn’t pitying, and for that, I was relieved. “I understand.” He fell quiet for a moment, his forehead wrinkling. “Can I ask you something?”
I wanted to smooth my fingers over those lines across his brow. He was one of those guys who got better with age. If he started graying, there’d be a rash of silver fox obsessions popping up all over Bourbon Canyon. “I can’t promise I’ll answer.”
He grinned and it shot straight to my belly, curling and winding, yearning for his touch. “If I know anything about you, it’s that. Mad Maddy.”
I shot him a glare, but I preened inside. He kept smiling and stoking that fire only he lit inside me.
“Why did Scooter leave everything to you? Or did Wendi and their kid get something?”
“Logan has a trust he’ll get access to when he turns twenty-five.” My brother had called me drunk one night after the divorce and told me that he was changing everything so I was his beneficiary. “I’d like to leave this bar for Logan when I’m gone.”
“You miss him?”
“He’s one of my only family members left.” I had my nephew and my mom and that was all. “I wish I could spend more time with him, but I refuse to use him as a pawn in Wendi’s games.”
“Her games can wreck a person. I doubted my decisions when it came to women a long time after her. How could I have been so clueless?”
“Sex does that to a man.” I was only half teasing.
“Did it to me then, and I’m not about to let it happen again.”
“You’ve never let anyone close after her?” He’d asked probing questions and I’d told him none of it was his business. He had every right to do the same. Had he been struck with this same yearning to learn more when he’d been bugging me?
The shake of his head was small. “I went to the far extreme of no attachments until I had to finally admit that I was becoming the bad guy. Just because I claimed I didn’t want commitment didn’t mean that I wasn’t fully aware the girl I was dating wanted more. Then when I finally did want more... Eh, it’s a small town. The dating pool is a koi pond.”
“Nothing but orange speckled fish?”
“Nice enough fish, but none I’d build a pond for in my backyard.” Why was that so satisfying to hear? He glanced out the window. “It’s getting late. Since tomorrow’s Sunday, I can be back after I help with chores.”
The reminder that he worked two jobs weighed on my conscience. “No rush. Really. You need to rest too.”
He rose. “I get into trouble if I’m idle. That’s what Mama used to say.”
“Used to?”
He chuckled and I went to the front door to close the cheap-ass blinds I’d bought for the windows while we were renovating. A light rain fell outside and the streetlights glared off the pavement. I almost didn’t want this night to end.
There was no almost about it. He’d leave for the night, but I’d sense his presence everywhere.
An engine revved from a pickup turning the corner.
A “woo-hoo” rang into the night a millisecond before something crashed through the window. I cried out and jumped back as glass rained down at my feet. Another crash sent me scurrying back. Then another. Something grazed my leg as I jumped back again. I hit a hard chest.
Teller gripped my shoulders and hauled me to the side, behind the protection of the door. He spun me around, held me at arm’s length, and searched my body. “Are you all right? Did it hit you?”
I shook my head. My heart beat in my throat, a rapid thump that made it hard to speak. “N-no. I don’t th-think so.”
He dashed toward the door as the roar of the engine grew fainter.
Once again, glass covered the floor and there were gaping holes in the front windows. Three bricks rested among the shards. Someone had thrown them at my bar.
Just once, I wanted something in my life to go right. And if it went wrong, I didn’t want Teller Bailey to witness it.