Chapter Two #3
where at any moment a fight could break out. Not that he wanted to fight. If he
broke a few fingers he wouldn’t be able to draw or sculpt, and then where would
he be?
Still, he’d been surprised at the changes Sawyer taking on a
girlfriend and a partner had wrought. The fire hadn’t helped.
There were blinds now instead of the threadbare shades that
covered the windows, and where once there had been three kinds of glasses—beer,
wine, and rocks—there were martini glasses and different kinds of wine glasses.
And apparently now there were wines beyond red, white, and pink. He should know
because Brooke had commented on being able to order a Sauvignon Blanc.
Damn, she looked good, but Shane was right. There was
something dark in that girl’s eyes.
“She’s in some kind of trouble.” He took a long sip of beer.
“Told you.” Shane sat beside him. “I’m wondering why she
decided to order a ride. I can’t imagine her brothers wouldn’t let her borrow a
car. They have several. Unless she didn’t want them to know where she was
going.”
“Why would… You think she’s looking for someone?” Bay asked,
not taking his eyes off her. Brooke Harper was made of delicate lines and
generous curves. She was a study in contrasts. She was solid, with hips and
breasts and a healthy figure, but there was a fragility to the woman, too. He
tried so hard to capture it in drawings, and more importantly, the sculptures
he felt the desperate need to make. Like an impulse he couldn’t control.
Stef Talbot supplying him with materials, letting him
experiment with things like marble that he would never be able to afford, was a
godsend. If the man hadn’t been so good-hearted, he could have pulled some
seriously Mephistophelean shit with him.
He wondered if Brooke would be impressed with his proper use
of a literary figure. He wondered if she would be surprised by how much he and
Shane read. Not that they were well educated. They’d barely made it through
high school, but part of that had been the chaos after their parents had died.
They’d never had a real chance at college. The rodeo had
been their salvation.
The question now was how long they kept doing what they were
doing. How long until they put down roots and tried to build something that
might have a chance at lasting?
“I think she’s looking at us,” Shane said, his voice going
low.
There weren’t a ton of customers on a Thursday night. There
were a few people in the booths, but the majority of patrons this evening
seemed to be at the private party. “I wonder how they know each other.”
“Cleo and Brooke went to school together.” Sawyer Hathaway
was polishing glasses at the end of the bar. He was a huge, kind of
brutal-looking man who only softened up with his girl and partner and
tight-knit group of friends.
Bay wished they had a group like Sawyer seemed to have in
Lucy and Ty and River. The four had gone to school together and grown up
alongside one another, and still held those ties through adulthood.
Shane was his only tie to anyone, really.
“Where did they go?” Shane seemed way more comfortable with
the big guy. “I know they recently built a school here. Was there another one?”
Sawyer huffed out a laugh and replaced the glass. “Oh, we
didn’t have a school here in Bliss when I was growing up. We got our asses on a
bus and drove forty-five minutes to Del Norte to go to school. Rain or shine or
blizzard, we all went.”
“You went to school with Brooke?” Bay wasn’t much of a
talker, but he couldn’t help but ask.
Sawyer’s dark eyes narrowed. “You two interested in Brooke?”
“Yes.” They said it at the same time.
Neither of them liked to prevaricate.
Would she be impressed that he knew how to properly use the
word prevaricate? She’d seemed interested in Bobby Farley’s education. He
didn’t think a real limo would be so easy to listen in on, but he wasn’t going
to complain.
For a moment he thought they’d made a mistake. Sawyer
studied them like he was planning to throw them out on their asses. “Aren’t you
two the little assholes who hit on Rachel Harper before she married the twins
in an attempt to force them to buy her at Stef’s auction?”
Not their proudest moment. “We were doing it as a favor for
a friend. That friend being Stef.”
“We respect Mrs. Harper and her marriage very much,” Shane
tried.
A brow arched over Sawyer’s eyes. “Do you? Would you do it
again?”
“Absolutely not,” Shane began.
“Oh, yeah.” Bay might not always pick up on social cues, but
he felt like Sawyer might be his people. “Max is an asshole. I would do it
again in a heartbeat, but my brother thinks we probably shouldn’t flirt with
Brooke’s sister-in-law since we’re into her. Miss Rachel is nice and lovely,
but it was always Brooke.”
A smile broke out over Sawyer’s face. “You are going to
drive Max crazy. I approve.”
He wasn’t sure what Sawyer’s approval meant, but he was
willing to use it to test some boundaries. “So you grew up with Brooke?”
“I was a few years older,” Sawyer said, relaxing against the
bar. “I always kind of felt for her. Not that I have feelings, per se, but it
must have been hard on Brooke since she was the only kid in town. Ty lived in
Bliss. River was closer to Creede. Lucy and I lived on this side of the
mountain, but honestly, even if we had been in the valley, she was years
younger than us. She was a freshman when we were in our senior year. All of her
friends were at school, and she was alone during the summers.”
He didn’t like the thought of that. He and Shane had been
alone a lot since his mom didn’t like having anyone in her home. But they’d had
each other. He looked toward the party room. Brooke seemed like the life of the
party. She was laughing at something a ridiculously handsome guy said. He
studied the man for a moment and then relaxed. That dude was gay. He’d been in
the art world long enough to recognize the signs. Well dressed, perfectly
groomed, and he was not looking at her chest. Also, he’d briefly held hands
with another guy as he passed him a glass of wine. “She looks like she has
friends now.”
Sawyer glanced behind him. “Oh, I think she’s about to
discover her old friend Cleo is in a bit of a bind. Wyatt overheard them
talking about how the costume designer for this season up and quit two days ago
because she fell in love with… It was either a squatcher
or the big guy himself. Wyatt needs to learn to listen better if he’s going to
gossip.”
Shane sat forward. “That sounds like she’s hanging around
for a while.”
“I heard she was here for a couple of weeks. She’s on some
kind of sabbatical with that job of hers, but I’m not so sure that’s going to
work out.” Sawyer nodded to his waitress and started pouring out a beer. “I’ve
seen her a couple of times since she started there. She and Lucy have gotten to
be good friends since she graduated from college. River, too. It’s funny how
that small age gap that meant she was left out of most things as a kid doesn’t
mean that much now. We’re all on the same playing field, if you know what I
mean. I think those three get along because they’re invested in their careers.”
“Why do you think it’s not going to work out?” Bay asked,
trying to keep Sawyer on track since for a dude who didn’t talk much, he was
chatty as hell this evening. Normally he preferred companionable silence, but
they were talking about the one thing he liked to hear. Brooke Harper.
Sawyer passed the waitress the glass and began filling
another. “She doesn’t seem like she’s happy. Even when she’s here she’s always
calling back to the office. From what Lucy can tell she doesn’t have friends in
New York. She works all the time, and she doesn’t feel like she’s getting
anywhere. If I was a betting man, she’s stuck and doesn’t know how to get out.”
“So no boyfriend?” Shane asked.
They had come to that conclusion back at Christmastime, but
it had been months and she could have met someone.
“Not that she’s mentioned to the girls,” Sawyer replied,
finishing up the order, and then his whole face lit up. “Hey there, Teach.”
Sabrina Leal slapped her bag on the bar and hauled herself
onto the stool next to Shane. She was a pretty woman in a yellow dress and a
matching cardigan, her dark hair in a bun. She was the quintessential
schoolteacher, if one forgave the whole engaged to two men thing. “Wedding
planning with my sister is going to drive me insane. I need tequila.”
Sawyer winked her way. “I told you. We should go to Vegas.”
“No Vegas.” Wyatt had walked in after Sabrina. He gave Bay
and his brother a wave. “Hello, Bay. Shane. You two doing okay?”
“If we went to Vegas, you wouldn’t have to wear a tux,”
Sawyer insisted. “I kinda thought we would be able to outvote Teach here since
I can’t imagine Van or Hale in a monkey suit.”
“I think a tuxedo is appropriate, and so does Van.” Wyatt
managed to sound oddly prim for a dude who used to run with one percenters.
“It’s Elisa who thinks she should be able to get married in her deputy
uniform.”
Sabrina laughed at the idea. “She’s joking. I mean not about
wearing a frilly dress, but about the polyester uniform as wedding wear. My
sister is not as into elegance as I am.”
“She called her bougie,” Wyatt explained.
“Well, you know there’s a dress designer in town right now.
Like a real New York City, works-for-a-design-house designer,” Shane pointed
out.
Oh, his brother was smart. If Sawyer was right and she
wasn’t happy in the city, maybe working some Bliss jobs would show her how nice
it was here.
The city was a problem. He’d never felt comfortable in a
city as big and cramped as New York. It wasn’t like Stef hadn’t tried. Somehow
when he got surrounded by all that concrete and metal, he couldn’t breathe,
much less work. He found his peace in the simple things. The mountains and
pines. Soft grass under his feet. The sound of the river rushing by.
But he would try it if it meant being close to her.
Of course, it would be way better if she decided to stay
here in Bliss.
“Seriously?” Sabrina had perked up. “Because Alamosa is the
closest place with an actual wedding shop, and it doesn’t have much. Teeny can
order a lot of what we want, but I want some work done on my dress. It’s the
right silhouette but it needs some…oomph, if you know what I mean.”
He did not, but he was going with it. “You should ask
Brooke.”
“She works for Bianchi,” Shane added.
“Seriously?” Sabrina asked. “I met her, and she said she did
something in design. I didn’t realize it was fashion. I’ve heard of Bianchi.
I’ve wanted a pair of their palazzo pants for years.”
“She designed the navy ones from this spring’s collection,”
Bay offered.
“How the hell would you know that?” a very familiar voice
asked. Brooke.
He winced and looked at his brother. “She’s right behind me,
isn’t she?”
Shane nodded.
“I seem like a creepy stalker now. Don’t I?” It was good to
know what he was going into. If he turned around. He could pretend she wasn’t
there. The stool turned, so if she moved, he could move, too. He could keep
turning, and at some point he would get a chance to run, and he could live in
the woods for the rest of his life.
“He’s good at recognizing what I like to call artistic
tells,” Shane began. “You showed us some of your sketches. Bay is an artist. He
recognized your style.”
Thank the universe for Shane. His brother was so much cooler
under pressure than he was. Shane didn’t regularly think about running into the
woods and becoming one of those dudes who got misidentified as a Sasquatch,
though apparently there was love for them out there too, if the runaway costume
designer was any indication.
Did Brooke have a thing for Bigfoot?
He turned since his brother had given such an excellent non-stalkery explanation. “That’s right. You talked about
working real hard on those pants. You said you thought they were coming back in
style and wanted to put your own flair to them.”
She stared for a minute as though trying to figure something
out. “It was my first big addition to a line. I did some T-shirts and
accessories. The palazzo pants were well received.”
“Because they were awesome,” Sabrina said with a grin.
Brooke flushed, a pink tone hitting her skin, and he
wondered if she blushed like that all over her body. If her skin would be that
sweet shade of pink when he got her naked and spanked her pretty ass.
And that was a mistake because his jeans weren’t all that
forgiving.
“Thanks,” Brooke said. “I love a good pair of leggings, but
there are days when I need the freedom of those pants. It’s good to see you
again, Sabrina. I hear congratulations are in order.”
Sabrina practically glowed as she showed off the one-carat
ring her men had bought her. They’d asked her to marry them on New Year’s Eve
right here in the bar.
“Yes, and I hope you’ll be able to come,” Sabrina said as
Brooke inspected the ring.
There was a lot of talk about venues and parties and stuff.
He was watching Brooke. So was his brother. Wyatt moved behind the bar and
talked to his partner. Likely about them, because they were probably back to
desperate stalker vibes.
Brooke ordered her second glass of wine and thanked Sawyer.
She promised Sabrina she would help her with the wedding dress and then nodded
Bay and Shane’s way.
And left.
“Now she thinks you’re a complete weirdo,” Sawyer said with
a cheeriness that Bay had never associated with the big guy.
Yep. That chance was probably blown.