Chapter Three
“You guys want to go out tonight?” Denver asked.
He was painfully aware that he was the last man standing in his family. Everyone was paired up, and the times of going out
to Smokey’s to pick up women were definitely far in the past.
He didn’t want to go to Smokey’s to pick up women, though; he wanted to go to talk to Sheena. Though, why, he didn’t know.
Because they were going to meet tomorrow, so it seemed a little bit ridiculous to roll up to the bar. But if he was going
to do business with her, on his property, he wanted to really get more context for her.
Daughtry and Justice looked up at him. Landry wasn’t there anymore, having gone home with his wife and daughter an hour ago.
“I might head on home,” said Justice, looking in the front room, where his wife was sitting.
“Me too,” said Daughtry.
Because they wanted to have sex.
Assholes.
Well, or maybe it was true love; he wouldn’t know. He could understand the sex thing. The companionship thing was a little bit beyond him.
“You don’t need a wingman,” said Justice, slapping him on the back.
“If anything,” Daughtry said, “I bring the room down quite a bit given that I’m a cop.”
“We know you’re a cop,” said Denver. “But thanks.”
He realized that his brothers had lives that they wanted to be involved in. That they wanted to live. And he . . . Well, he
had spent any number of years doing anything for his younger siblings. And they all had people in their lives that they would
do anything for. But he wasn’t the person. Because he was the caregiver. And it was a damn sorry thing, to get his underwear
in a twist about it, but . . .
He was alone.
Dammit. He didn’t need to go thinking about that. Didn’t need to go thinking like that. It was ridiculous. His brothers were
here. They were devoted to their wives. As they should be.
He would just go out by himself. It was fine.
“Okay. Well. Have a good evening then.”
“Are you . . . moving us on?”
“Yes. Because I want to go out. And you don’t.”
“Yeah, but we could stay for a little while longer.”
“No. Go home. Sleep with your wives. I have business to attend to.”
“Are you that horny?” Justice asked.
“Do you want the answer to that question, Justice?”
Justice just looked back at him. “I thought we shared things, Denver.”
“I’m glad you guys are married. Because I’m going to go out and pick up all the women that you would’ve picked up. It’s a
public service at this point.”
He did relish that. The way his younger brothers looked at him just then. Like they weren’t entirely sure if he was serious or not. And he wasn’t going to tell them one way or the other.
“Okay then. We’ll leave you to your foursome, I guess.”
Denver snorted. If only.
What he really wanted to do was go talk to Sheena. He wasn’t going to tell them that. He had had a moment of mystique, and
he wasn’t going to do anything to disrupt that.
When his brothers cleared out, he stripped his shirt off, and went into his bedroom. It was weird, living in the house now
that it was just him. He didn’t notice all that much, truth be told, because they were all out working together during the
day, and then they often came for dinner. But it was different. Even Penny’s—their surrogate sister’s—soft presence was missed.
She was living in town, and she came out less and less frequently.
It was not like him to sit around being maudlin about his life. He didn’t know what his problem was.
He put on some body spray, and a black T-shirt. Because it was nice when a man smelled good. And his brothers could talk shit
all they wanted about stuff like that, but it was appreciated. He really could get laid if he felt like it. He didn’t have
to be lonely. That was the thing. Companionship for a night was always on the table for Denver.
And for a second, he considered it, because he felt like the odd one out. And there should be something good that he got out
of that.
If they were going to go home to be with their wives, why couldn’t he go be with a stranger?
He huffed about that all the way to his truck. He got in and turned the engine on, before heading out down the long dirt driveway
that would carry him to the main road.
King’s Crest was a little piece of paradise, a funny thing given that for a number of years his father had turned it into something toxic.
Yeah, there was a time when it hadn’t been so great. But he could see it differently now. Surrounded by those purple mountains’
majesty, with the fields that had his cows. His. Bought with his money.
He was a gambler; it was true. But his gambling had paid off.
He and Gus McCloud, Fia King—back when she’d been a Sullivan—and Sawyer Garrett had set this place up to be something like
paradise, after the hill of their youth. A place where even he managed to play well with others. More or less. They helped
each other. They exemplified the kind of humanity that he wanted to believe existed. Maybe it did or maybe it didn’t in the
broader world. But the important thing was, it existed for them.
They had made it.
He gripped the steering wheel, and continued on toward Smokey’s. He felt a twisting sensation in his gut. Like he was stepping
out of bounds, which was silly. He shouldn’t feel that way.
Yeah, they had rules, but she had upended them by coming out to King’s Crest today, and there was nothing wrong with him reciprocating
by getting into her territory. The parking lot was already full of pickup trucks that ranged from envy inducing to pitiable.
That was ranch life. And you couldn’t really tell whose life you should actually envy based on their truck. Plenty of guys
decided to stick with old reliable who never let them down, rather than getting saddled with a payment they couldn’t handle.
He whipped into the drive and pulled his truck up beside a faded blue Ford.
He got out and he could hear the music thumping inside. A line dancing beat, but he had a feeling nobody was line dancing. No. On a Friday night, people were plastered against each other as tightly as possible as soon as they could be.
Ranch life was hard. That wasn’t to say there weren’t some real salt-of-the-earth guys out there who did the work and went
home to a wife and family. But the truth was, a lot of them worked hard and relaxed harder.
It was just the way of things.
When he opened the door, it was as wall-to-wall packed as the parking lot suggested, guys in tight jeans, girls in short shorts.
But then he zeroed in on her. Behind the bar, her movements were confident. She had on that same tank top she’d been wearing
earlier, as she took orders, shook drinks, slung beer from the tap.
Her dark hair was up in a high ponytail, and her makeup was even more dramatic than it had been earlier.
The local men knew better than to hang out and drool on her at the bar. She had put paid to that pretty early on. But there
were some out-of-towners there, leaning over and trying to chat her up. Right now, her expression was something like dismissive,
but he knew that it could turn violent quickly if somebody got on her nerves.
He moved deeper into the bar, and he saw the moment that she sensed his presence. Her shoulders went tight, and the corner
of her mouth twitched. He didn’t know why he knew that was about him, but he did. She didn’t turn to look at him. Yet he knew
that she felt him all the same.
“Howdy,” he said, sidling up to the bar and taking a seat on one of the shiny red stools. She turned then, slowly.
“What’ll it be?”
She didn’t acknowledge him personally, nor did she betray any shock at his presence.
“What do you recommend?”
“Pacific Northwest Lager,” she said. “On tap.”
“Great. I’ll have that.”
“Coming right up.”
She turned and grabbed a pint, pouring some of the piney liquid into it.
She slid it down the bar. “Am I starting a tab for you?”
“Sure.”
“All right.”
He watched as she continued to interact with some of the other men sitting in the bar. A few women came up, sweaty with red
cheeks from dancing, laughing while they ordered drinks. Sheena’s demeanor softened with them, and she joked and laughed without
some of that defensiveness in place.
He wished that he could experience that. It was a strange wish. A strange impulse.
He didn’t quite know where it had come from.
He took a sip of his drink, and she turned, her eyes meeting his as he took a draw of the cold beverage. She watched him for
just a moment too long for it to be casual. He didn’t know what to make of that.
“Sitting at the bar tonight?”
“I came to talk to you,” he said.
She arched a brow. “Why?”
“I thought we might have some things to discuss.”
He felt a ripple of interest around him. Sheena looked to the left, where three men were clearly eavesdropping, and then looked
back at Denver.
“I don’t think we have anything to discuss.”
“It’s only that you left my place so fast this morning.”
Only the color mounting in her cheeks betrayed her irritation.
“I had somewhere to be.”
He could tell that there was a lot of interest around them now, considering that it was probably easy for those men to imagine
why she had been leaving his house early this morning. They would be wrong. But it was kind of funny.
“I thought you ranchers were busy.”
“Damned busy,” he said.
“Then I wouldn’t think you had a bunch of extra time to sit around shooting the breeze.”
“No, I guess not.”
He shouldn’t be enjoying this. Shouldn’t enjoy sparring with her. Hell, if she were a different woman he would’ve said that
it was flirting.
He looked away from her, and at the sea of people in the bar. There were plenty of attractive women out there on the dance
floor.
“I just wanted to let you know that I’m feeling really positive about things,” he said.
“Well, good,” she said, her tone cool. “I hate to think that I was dealing with a wishy-washy cowboy.”
“No, ma’am. My family is on board too.”
That was an overstatement.
“Oh goody. I would tell you that you can come out to dinner and meet my parents but . . . sadly.”