Chapter Three #2
Their eavesdroppers were really confused now. Fine.
“Yeah. Same. Though, you’re lucky. Your dad is actually dead.”
That earned him a laugh. Husky and rich. And he liked it. It was too easy for him to play this game with her.
“Why don’t you go out and mingle, Denver? I have work to do. And I haven’t spoken to my boss yet.”
Ah. Well, it was a good thing he had been playing vague then. He didn’t need to go letting the cat out of the bag so that
she wouldn’t continue to work here before she was ready.
“All right. See you tomorrow.”
He took another sip of beer and moved away from the bar.
And as soon as he did, a soft-looking blonde approached him.
She was completely opposite to Sheena’s looks.
Where Sheena was sharp and bold, this one was soft.
Big curls and round blue eyes. Pale pink lips.
Makeup, definitely, but the kind expertly engineered to make it appear that she didn’t have any on.
“Hi there,” she said. “I couldn’t help but notice when you walked in.”
“What exactly did you notice?”
She smiled. “That you’re sexy as hell.”
All right. Not that soft. Well. If he wanted some, he was going to get it. He resisted the urge to look back at Sheena.
“My name is Denver King,” he said.
“Delilah,” she said.
“Exactly how many men have surrendered their strength for you?”
She pursed her lips. “Not as many as have used that line on me.”
She’d called him out, but she seemed delighted that he’d used a line, and really, he couldn’t have asked for better. He didn’t
have to be lonely tonight. Not if he didn’t want to be.
Sheena felt out of sorts. She really didn’t like it. What the hell did it matter to her if Denver King had moved on and started
flirting with some cherubic-looking blonde? She didn’t want him hanging out at the bar flirting with her.
Flirting?
Had he really been flirting with her?
It just was so off-brand for both of them.
Denver wasn’t a flirt and neither was she. They were the type to get straight down to business, or at least that was her take
on him. But there was . . . There was a banter thing. Every time they started talking, it turned into that. A kind of rhythmic patter that felt too easy between them. That
made her feel warm.
She had watched Denver hook up with any number of women from this position behind the bar.
She felt safe behind the bar. Men couldn’t get to her unless she let them.
And if they tried to cross the barrier, she had a knife.
She also had a shotgun hanging on a hidden rack beneath the bar.
Because if shit went down, she wasn’t going to find herself lacking.
Yeah. She never wished she was on the other side of the bar. If there was a guy she liked, she went after him. And if not,
she didn’t. She wasn’t used to this weird, forbidden sort of sensation. This feeling of desire that was completely impossible.
“Sheena,” one of the guys down at the end, a regular, lifted his glass. “I need a refill.”
“I’m not your mama, Edgar,” she said. “So please and thank you will do.”
He looked suitably abashed, and followed it up with both a please and then a thank-you when she took his glass.
The truth was, Smokey’s was a pretty rough place but she managed it well. She was experienced.
She could deal with drunk, rowdy idiots; she could deal with guys who got overly friendly, or guys who were rude. She could
pour beer while she kept one eye on the handsome cowboy and his beautiful target across the room. Yet. She was great at her
job. She could do all those things.
Denver maneuvered the petite cutie out to the dance floor, and she watched the way his big hands settled on the woman’s hips.
Lord have mercy. Her thoughts went all to blissful hell. Because it was way too easy to imagine those hands on her own hips.
Gripping her hard while he . . .
No.
Sexual fantasies about Denver King were a big no.
Especially since now she was doing business with him.
She had seen him do this before, but she had never really watched him.
He had always been attractive. But she had tried to keep her distance, and there was something about breaking that barrier, something about coming to the ranch that morning, that made him feel too real. The axe throwing.
The easy conversation.
It made it too easy to imagine being a woman standing with him. Dancing with him.
She was never like this.
They finished the dance, and he pulled the blonde up the dance floor, touching her chin with his index finger and tilting
her face up toward him. And Sheena found herself moving to the other side of the bar without even thinking. “Hey, King,” she
said. “I need to talk to you for a second.”
He looked over at her, a flash of something in his gaze, but it wasn’t irritation, even though it should’ve been.
“Hang on a minute,” he said to his partner.
“Out the back,” she said, pointing to the employees-only door that led into the kitchen.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes,” she said.
She was jealous was what she was. Goddammit. It made her mouth taste sour. She wasn’t one for self-loathing but this really
put her there.
“Great.”
She pushed through the door, past Dulce, one of the waitresses, who was making out with Tom, the cook. She didn’t even pause
to look twice, Denver, on the other hand, stumbled as he walked on by, and out the exit, into the little gravel strip behind
the building. There was an embankment just past that, a grove of trees up toward the top. Deer often used it as a throughway.
But luckily, there were no looming deer tonight.
“Dulce and Tom?” Denver asked.
“Oh yeah. And then he goes right back to cooking your food. Just so you know.”
“Wow.”
“I know. She doesn’t want any of the guys to know that she’s hooked up, because she likes how big you tip when you think she
might bang you. That’s how simple you assholes are.”
“I’m not that simple,” he said.
“Aren’t you? You’re telling me you don’t intend to go home with that little wisp of nothing you’re chatting up?”
“I don’t see what business it is of yours.”
“Oh, it isn’t. Though, you did make those yahoos sitting at my bar think that I was at your house this morning because we
hooked up. And I don’t really give a shit about that. I like to be an enigma. But what I won’t be is humiliated. I don’t especially
want them thinking that I hooked up with you, and then you went and hooked up with somebody else right in front of me.”
“You grabbing me like a jealous lover probably isn’t helping your cause.”
“Oh, it is. Again. I do like to be unknowable,” she said.
“What do you actually want?”
“I figured you came here for a reason.”
“Yeah. Delilah.”
She arched her brow. “Is that her name?”
“I believe so.” He suddenly didn’t look quite so certain.
“I see you’re ready to pick out china patterns.”
“I’ve never really understood what that meant.”
She shrugged. “Hell if I know. I’ve never lived in a house with china.”
“So, what is it you wanted to talk about?”
“Just . . . So, you did talk to your siblings?”
Yes,” he said. “And they’re on board.”
She felt like there was something he wasn’t telling her.
But she really didn’t need to know all his hopes and dreams. She was being a little bit of an idiot right now.
And she couldn’t rightly say why. Then it made sense.
Because how long had it been since she had hitched her wagon to anything or anyone?
She wasn’t especially trusting. Never had been.
And that’s why this felt strange. She was hitching her resolutely solo wagon to a King of all people.
But then, she supposed their wagon had been hitched for a long time. Whether she especially wanted it to be or not.
“I don’t have a lot of practice with this. Having business partners. Or partners of any kind,” she said.
“Well, I do. You know all of Four Corners is run as a collective. And there’s a reason for that. It’s how you get by when
times are tough. It’s how you keep going, even when it seems like things aren’t going your way. I’m a big fan of having people
around to back you up.”
He had always seemed like a lone wolf to her. It was weird to hear him talk about it like that.
“Well, I’m glad one of us has some experience with it. Because I don’t.”
“I’m happy to teach you all about teamwork,” he said.
He really was such a compelling man. And she saw a lot of men. More than that, a lot of men were into her. Well, they were
into what they thought she represented. They thought she was a wild girl, based on her looks. In reality, it was a bit more
complicated than that. But she didn’t care whether or not their impression of her was correct.
Not wanting an attachment definitely seemed to make men think she was something like wild.
Being confident made them think that too. Wanting control only made them think it even more. That was fine.
Men didn’t usually intrigue her.
There were a lot of handsome men in the world.
Denver King happened to be both tall and handsome, which was a potent combination. Though, not one that had ever especially appealed to her. She preferred men around her height. Really, she just preferred things to feel a little bit more equal. She thought that was fair enough.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy looking at him. For a minute.
Just a minute.
His jaw was square, his manner forthright and confident. He was the kind of man who didn’t seem to be afraid to look anybody
in the eye. That meant that he was either honest, or he was a very good liar. She had been around a lot of liars, though,
and Denver didn’t have the manner of a liar. Not really.
“Okay,” she said.
She wasn’t sure exactly why she didn’t have a sharp rejoinder for that. She should. He was being a bit heavy-handed. She was
allowing it. Which was not her MO. It didn’t matter how attractive a man was; he didn’t get to run roughshod over her. Not
that Denver was running roughshod. He was just suggesting a little bit more joint work than she had been fully anticipating,
and . . .
Well, why argue? Really. It was his place. And he knew it. She would bring her team and they would check the place out. It
would be good.
Tonight she would give her notice . . . She was well on her way.
“All right. Well. You go get back to your other . . . teamwork, I guess.”
“Sure,” he responded.
She watched him walk back into the bar, and she hung out in the back for a moment, realizing that what she’d done was stake some kind of claim on him, make it public that they had a connection, which they had both been careful to never do.
Not that people didn’t know. It was a small town. Everyone knew that her dad used to work with Elias King. Everyone knew that
he had died trying to collect money from some poor guy who felt threatened, backed into a corner.
She’d been glad the day that the judge had found that the man had acted in reasonable self-defense.
More people didn’t need to have their lives ruined by her dad. He was dead; he couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.
In fact, his death had only made her life clearer. Better.
She had always known that she couldn’t rely on anyone to take care of her. And still, when you had a father in the house with
you, you hoped. She had hoped. That one day, that man would show up and show out. That he would protect her. That when she
told him that she was in danger he might . . .
No. Losing that for real, it had been a gift in a way. And this would be too.
She wasn’t going to get all tangled up about it.
It was just change.
That was one thing she couldn’t say she was a major fan of.
And there had been a lot of change over the last few years, because what was raising children but enduring change?
Getting them out of the nest was essential. It was how you knew you had done your job. But it also made everything different.
And each time one of her sisters had flown the nest, it had been difficult.
But now she was left with a new path. A new way forward.
She went back inside, and was there just in time to watch Denver walk out of the bar.
She looked around, trying to see whether or not the blonde was still there.
Delilah.
Lord almighty, what an obvious name. It was probably a fake name. One she used when she wanted to let the men know she was
a woman of ill repute, since she looked like a baby doll with a wig.
Well. Whatever. Fake siren was gone too.
Good for him. A body like his would be wasted if it wasn’t getting sex regularly.
Good for him.
She turned back toward her regulars. “Anyone need a refill?”