Chapter 1
ONE
Sometimes there was only so much a man could take.
Dalton stormed through the doors of the Brass Rail, his head of steam boiling over.
“Hey, Dal!” someone greeted him, but he didn’t even bother to answer.
He was a bastard on a mission.
He searched the sea of cowboy hats for a certain tall, rangy, too hot for his own good son of a bitch in a Stetson who he was fixin’ to kill.
It was hard enough being single on Valentine’s Day.
It sucked being a single dad on Valentine’s Day.
But what was worse than being a single dad on Valentine’s Day was being a single dad on Valentine’s Day while your ex had the kids and then the said ex left the kids with a babysitter, so that he could go out with his new beau for Valentine’s Day.
He caught sight of his soon-to-be ex, the man’s jawline sharp enough to cut glass. He walked right up to Jack, spun the man around and then decked him.
Fuck that felt good.
Would have felt better if Jack had gone down, but the man was a cowboy, balls to bones, so he didn’t.
“Dalton? What the fuck?”
“Don’t you what the fuck me, you smarmy asshole. You leave our babies with a fucking babysitter so you can come out here and get a piece of ass? After telling me I couldn’t have them this weekend? I’m going to go pick them up, and then you can see them when I decide you can see them next.”
He’d bring the kids back in the morning, and they both knew it. As much as Dalton threatened, he’d never actually hold the kids against Jack. He just wished he could.
“The fuck you will. It’s my weekend!”
“You aren’t with them.” Was he screaming? He might be screaming. “You’re here on a damn bootycall.”
“Now you listen here—”
Dalton spun and stuck his finger in the middle of the chest of the altogether too pretty person that Jack was sleeping with.
Fucking.
Whatever.
“Don’t you even talk to me.”
Jack grabbed his arm. “You are embarrassing me,” he hissed.
He turned back to Jack, searching for something he remembered, anything that he’d fallen in love with in the man’s blue eyes. Last year, they’d made cupcakes with the kids, and he’d headed down to San Antonio to ride.
This year, he was waiting on divorce papers and trying to juggle a job and an apartment and two babies.
How life changed.
“Fuck you. Enjoy your fucking Valentine’s Day. I hope it was worth it.”
And he turned on his heel and headed up toward his truck, chin up, refusing to let the bastards see him shatter.
He made it two steps outside before Jack grabbed his arm, spinning him around almost like they were two-stepping. “Goddamn it, Dal, you don’t get to do that.”
“I don’t? Watch me.” He was so fucking mad, he was dancing from foot to foot. He probably looked like a demented version of that old Yosemite Sam cartoon, but he didn’t care. “Let me go.”
“No. You need to listen for a minute.”
“Let. Me. Go.” He stomped his boot heel right down on Jack’s arch.
Jack howled, letting him go, and he whirled, striding off to his truck, where he hopped in, slammed the door, and gunned the engine.
Not real mature, he knew, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Valentine’s Day sucked, and he missed his kids, and part of him wanted Jack tonight more than anything else in the world.
Too bad that wasn’t gonna happen.
He did have a beer and a steak waiting for him at home. He reckoned that was gonna have to be good enough.
“Well, that went well.”
“Shut up.” Jack could not believe that Dalton had just pulled that shit on him. Talk about unhinged, I have a temper, Texan drama. Good thing every damn asshole at the Brass Rail knew they were married, or things might have gone the ass-kicking route.
His cousin, Gabe, who he hadn’t seen since he was five, grinned and raised his bottle of Voodoo Ranger. The man was obsessed with an IPA. “I am a little insulted that he thought I was a booty call.”
Jack glared impartially at everyone around him. “I’m sure someone texted him to tell him I was out on a Valentine’s date.”
The right end bartender, Carl, was suddenly very busy wiping off a mighty clean spot on the bar.
“Really, Carl? Really? Who’s the one who grew up in this damn town? Me. That’s who. Not Dalton my soon-to-be ex. And this happens to be my cousin, Gabe, my mom’s oldest sister’s son.”
Not the best first impression for Gabe of their little Colorado town, now was it?
“Whoops. Nice to meet you, Gabe,” Carl said.
“Carl.” Gabe beamed. “Drama drama.”
“I told you to shut up.”
Gabe shrugged. “I think you’d be tickled.”
“What? Why?”
“Because he still gives enough shits about you to come down here and confront you in person. Sure, he tried to make it about the kids, but really, he was pissed that you were out with someone new for Valentine’s Day, dude.”
Jack sat with that for a minute. “Huh.”
“Now you see which way the wind is blowing, do you?” Gabe grinned at him. “This is serious. Obviously you two have, I don’t know, the chemistry of the whole wide world. What happened?”
Jack shrugged, and his cheeks went hot. “A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Whole lot of that, I guess.” He took a deep breath and fessed up. “The simple fact is he got hurt real bad, broke his back.”
“Car?”
“Rodeo.”
“Ouch.”
Jack nodded. “And, you know, it’s one thing when you’re a young buck.
It’s a whole ’nother thing when you got a five-year-old and a two-year-old to try to explain why Daddy’s in fucking San Antonio and possibly paralyzed from the neck down.
I told him it was time for him to retire right now.
Or he could just pick up his shit and leave. ”
Gabe winced. “He liked rodeo that much, did he?”
Jack didn’t think so. Hell, the man had never ridden another bronc, full stop. “I think he just got pissed off because I told him what to do. Nobody likes that.”
He’d made Dalton an ultimatum, and Dal had called his bluff.
From right there in the hospital, then Dal had cut him off at the balls.
“Oh, I see. How far along in the proceedings are you?”
“Way less far along than I told him.” Jack took a swig of his beer, and it crashed into his belly.
“Oh?”
“We agreed on a custody agreement, and when I say that, it literally means we agreed.”
Gabe blinked at him. “You don’t have a lawyer?”
He shook his head. “I haven’t gone to a lawyer. I don’t want a divorce.”
“And he does?”
“We haven’t talked.”
Gabe scowled at him a little bit. “So wait, let me get this straight. You want to make up with him, but you haven’t talked to him. I hate to be the bearer of stupid news—”
“Shut up.” He knew it was fucked up.
“I’m serious. It’s really hard to make up if you both just stay apart, and the longer you let it go…how long’s it been?”
“A year.”
Gabe shook his head. “Okay, you’re stupid. Officially. I mean that’s like hardcore romance novel stupid. That is the kind of bullshit that makes people stop reading books. Do you want to be the couple that makes people stop reading books?”
Jack leaned over, stared into his cousin’s eyes. Had he just had a stroke? He sure was babbling like he had.
Gabe shrugged. “True story. You’re going to have to suck it up, man. Go to him. You don’t have to apologize unless there’s something you’re sorry for, but you have to talk.”
Jack sighed, but Gabe had a point. “I don’t know if he wants to talk to me.”
“He drove out here and punched you in the nose because he thought we were going on a date. After a year. The man wants to talk. Trust me on this. I write romance novels. I know what I’m talking about.”
“You do what?” Now he knew Gabe’d had a stroke. Gabe looked like a truck driver and a surf instructor had made a baby and then added in a dose of lumberjack. “What kind?”
“Spicy gay ones. I’ll send you one on .”
That made him hoot loud enough that they drew stares again. He sure was going to be the talk of the town tonight. “Shit. Send it to my not-really ex.”