CHAPTER 4
COLT
T he Dusty Spur smelled like spilled beer, stale smoke, and a whole lot of memories I’d rather leave buried.
This place had always been exactly the same, but it was comforting in its predictability.
I leaned back in the worn, creaky chair and let the beer cool my palm, feeling the condensation trickle down my fingers as I tipped it to my lips.
I let the alcohol be a welcome reprieve after one hell of a day on the ranch, a day that had kicked my ass harder than I’d admit.
But I was grateful for a rare evening to relax.
Even if I knew I’d regret it when the sun rose in the morning.
But McCoy had practically begged me to come out after we left my parents’, and even though he wasn’t blood, he might as well have been.
He’d been my best friend since we were kids, and my parents loved him like he was their son.
If it weren’t for my inability to say no to him, I would’ve already been in bed by now.
The jukebox in the corner was crooning an old George Strait ballad about a woman who’d left and taken his heart with her, and a group of old men sat at the end of the bar, same as always.
The tension in my shoulders was just starting to unwind when I caught sight of Hunter’s six-foot-two frame cutting through the small crowd of people on the scuffed-up dance floor.
My brother’s jaw was set in the stubborn Calloway way we’d inherited from our father as he plopped into the chair opposite mine with enough force to make the rickety table wobble. The lines etched around his eyes told me his day on the ranch had been every bit as rough as mine.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, before taking another long drag of my beer.
“Where the hell have you been?” He flipped a coaster between his fingers. The cardboard disk cut through the air with each snap of his wrist, his movements quick and agitated.
“What crawled up your ass?” McCoy leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he shot a pointed look at my brother, but I wasn’t sure Hunter even heard him. His posture was stiff, every muscle wound tight, and it was such a rare display from someone who rarely let anything bother him.
“Cattle don’t feed themselves, Hunter.” I took another slow sip of my beer as I studied him. “That’s where I’ve been.”
His eyes cut back to me, the same shade of brown as our father’s. “I’m well aware of that, asshole. Where is your phone?”
“Right here.” I pulled it out of my pocket, and sure as shit, I had five missed calls from Hunter. “I didn’t realize I was required to check in with you like a damn parole officer.”
He leaned back in his chair, and the wood creaked under his weight. “You know, you can be a real dick sometimes.”
“Hear, hear,” McCoy chimed in, raising his beer in toast and clinking it against mine.
He was an ass, but Reid McCoy was like a brother to us.
Which is why I didn’t take offense to the way he laughed at my scowl.
I studied Hunter more closely, the twitch in his jaw, the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes now that I was really looking. Something had shaken him, and there weren’t many things in this town that could.
“Seriously, what’s going on?” I set my beer down, the glass clinking a little too loud against the uneven wood. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
He gave a bitter huff, his eyes still locked on that coaster like it held the answer to whatever the hell was eating him alive. “Might’ve.”
“Quit talking in riddles.” My voice came out rougher than I intended, a warning curled beneath the words. “Spit it out.”
“I was trying to call you to warn you she’d be here tonight.” He looked up then, studying my face, and whatever he saw made him hesitate. Long enough that my stomach twisted. “Blaire’s back.”
Two words. That’s all it took.
Everything inside me went still. My lungs betrayed me, seizing up, and my fingers tensed around the neck of my beer, wishing I could shatter the thing into a million damn pieces.
Blaire Monroe.
It had been a goddamn decade since I saw her last, but she was still carved into my bones like she’d never left.
Back then, this whole town had whispered our names as if they belonged together, but that was a different lifetime.
I leaned back in my chair, crossing my ankle over my knee and trying desperately not to let them see how affected I was by what he’d said. “Didn’t realize she planned on coming back.”
“I didn’t either, but I saw her at June’s when I was working on the western fence line,” Hunter muttered. “She was already out working in the fields by the time I was done.”
I stared straight ahead, jaw locked, while my pulse beat a furious rhythm at the base of my throat. I could picture her too easily. Knees in the dirt. Hair tangled from the wind. Mouth too quick for her own damn good.
“How’d she look?” I hated the question as soon as it left my mouth.
Hunter’s face was almost sympathetic. Almost. “She looked good.” He cleared his throat. “Hot as hell.”
I grunted, tossed back the rest of my beer, and slammed the empty bottle down harder than necessary. “Good to know some things don’t change.”
He opened his mouth to say something else but froze as his gaze caught near the entrance of the bar. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I followed his gaze as the front doors swung open, and there she was. She stepped into The Spur and the neon lights flashed against her fair skin.
Her hair had deepened in color, the curls I remembered smoothed into waves. Every bit of her looked different, but I would know her anywhere.
Before my mind could fully process what was happening, my body had already reacted. My skin buzzed with the memory of her touch, yearning to feel it again, and my heart pounded so hard in my chest that all I could hear was the thundering beat in my ears.
The years she’d been gone had transformed the girl I knew into something far more dangerous.
Her legs stretched endlessly beneath those denim shorts, toned and so much longer than I remembered.
The soft swell of her hips caught in the neon lights, casting shadows I’d never traced before, highlighting contours on a body I’d once known better than my own land.
She didn’t see me at first. She was too busy laughing at something Maggie Dawson said beside her.
“Breathe, Colt,” Hunter mumbled under his breath. “Jesus, and you thought I looked like I’d seen a ghost.”
I managed another breath, slow and heavy, even though it felt like my chest couldn’t find the room to expand. “I’m fine.”
But I wasn’t. Not with her moving through the crowd, her eyes flicking over the room with a quick, practiced sweep.
Her fingers absently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, revealing the constellation of freckles along her jawline.
She smiled gently and tilted her chin as she passed old faces like she didn’t know she’d sent the whole damn bar into a slow spin.
And just like that, I was eighteen again—drunk on her laugh, chasing her through fields where time seemed to slip away, desperate to keep up with the way she saw the world.
Back then, I thought I’d spend my life chasing her chaos, but then she walked away because I’d told her to.
And somehow the world had kept moving on without her.
But time hadn’t dulled a damn thing. Not for me.
And now she was back in my town, on land that ran through my blood, and under my skin like she’d never fucking left.
The last time I’d heard her name had been a little over a year ago. June had dropped it into conversation as if it wouldn’t tear me apart.
“She’s getting married, you know.”
I’d merely grunted in response, feigning indifference, and changed the subject so quickly that June hadn’t dared bring her up again.
But I agonized over every damn word as I got piss drunk off a bottle of Jack. I’d spent half the night imagining what she’d look like with a white dress wrapped around her body and her curls swept up to reveal the freckles that scattered over the curve of her neck.
I shouldn’t have cared, but I couldn’t get the picture out of my head. I couldn’t shake the thought of some other man slipping a ring onto her finger, getting every part of her I had once believed was mine.
I’d only spent one night looking her up online, but that was enough to tear me in half.
I blinked, trying to clear my head, but I couldn’t force myself to look away from her. Instead, my eyes wandered slowly down the line of her arm, past the curve of her waist, until they finally fixed on her left hand. Her slender fingers were wrapped around a glass and completely bare.
There was no ring in sight, only a hint of a tan line circling her fourth finger where one might have been.
I should have felt guilty about the way relief surged through me at the sight of her naked hand, but I didn’t.
Maggie leaned in close and whispered something to Blaire, causing her to cover her mouth as laughter fell from her lips. The sound hit me like whiskey, warm, burning, and intoxicating all at once.
She shook her head softly and flashed a smile at the bartender. Her lips moved, probably ordering a drink, and despite the loud music and the space between us, I couldn’t look away.
Then she turned her head, her eyes scanning the bar once more, and the collision of us was inevitable.
Her gaze snagged on mine, and I swear the whole goddamn world stilled. The music faded, the crowd disappeared, and for one breath, one single heartbeat, our past and present crashed into each other.
Her lips parted, her smile vanishing, and her brown eyes widened. Her throat worked once, twice, the delicate muscles tensing so hard beneath her freckled skin I could track the movement.
And when our eyes locked again, the pain bleeding through her carefully composed exterior was unmistakable. It cracked across her face like lightning splitting a midnight sky, spreading to the slight quiver of her full bottom lip.