Epilogue #3
I shrugged, offering her a slow grin. “Figured I’d start slow. Didn’t want to scare you off.”
She arched a brow. “I don’t scare easily.”
Christ. That voice.
I leaned in, noticing when her eyes dropped to my mouth. “Good to know.” I eased onto the stool, giving her just enough space to keep things respectful. “Gage,” I offered, resting my forearm on the bar.
The bartender—Cal, a guy I’d known since grade school—sidled over and lifted his chin in greeting. “The usual?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And whatever she’s having, on me.”
She cocked a brow at that but didn’t protest. “Cabernet,” she said to Cal, then turned her gaze back to me. “That’s bold, offering to buy a drink for a woman who might not even tell you her name.”
I shrugged. “Guess I like a little risk. Also, I figured if you were going to send me on my way, you’d have done it already.”
Her lips twitched. “Confident.”
“I prefer optimistic.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, propping an elbow on the bar. “And what exactly are you feeling optimistic about?”
“That you’ll let me keep talking to you for a little while.”
Cal set the glass in front of her and popped the cap on my beer, sliding it across the bar. I took a long pull, trying not to look like I was buzzing from the fact that she hadn’t shut me down yet.
She considered me for a beat. “And what makes you think I’m worth the effort?”
I set my bottle down and met her gaze head-on.
“Because the second I walked in, I saw you and couldn’t look away.
” Not surprised, exactly, but something …
softer flickered in her expression. “You’re beautiful,” I continued, the corner of my mouth tipping up.
“Though you don’t need me to tell you that.
It’s not just the packaging, either. It’s the way you carry that beauty.
Like you know exactly who you are and fuck anyone who doesn’t know it, too. ”
She studied me for a long second. “That almost sounded sincere.”
“Because it was.”
A beat passed between us, quiet and charged, until she dragged her gaze over the crowd.
I watched as she took in the room, pausing every couple of seconds on a small group of women.
Folks dressed like they belonged in a Montana honky tonk on a Friday night.
The type of blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls most guys I knew would give their left nut to sleep with. Eventually, she turned back to me.
“Tell me something real, Gage,” she said, voice low. “Something you don’t say to every woman who sits at this bar.”
I stared down at my hands wrapped around the beer bottle, surprised by how much I wanted to give her exactly what she was asking for.
I lifted the bottle to my lips and took a long pull, using the moment to figure out why I wanted to tell this woman things I’d never said to anyone else.
“You looked untouchable when I first saw you. Still kinda do, to be honest. But now that I’m sitting here, you don’t seem cold. You seem … careful. Weary.”
Her eyes flashed—not with offense, but with something that looked like maybe I’d seen more than I was supposed to.
She set her wine glass down slowly, her expression turning thoughtful. “You’re good at reading people, then?”
“Only when I want to understand them.”
“And you want to understand me?”
“I want to know everything. Even if it’s just for tonight.”
“Hmm,” she hummed again, and I was beginning to think that was her way of filling the silence when she didn’t know what she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to stay quiet.
“What brings you to Bridger Falls?” I asked, steering the conversation away from my inadvertent proposition. To be clear, I wanted to sleep with this woman … whose name I still didn’t know … but I hadn’t meant to come right out and tell her that. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m just visiting.”
“Short trip?”
She hesitated. “We’ll see.”
“You ever been to Montana before?” I asked.
She took another sip of her wine. “Once.”
“And?”
“I liked it.” Her eyes met mine over the rim of her glass. “What about you?” she asked. “What are you doing here tonight?”
“Same thing everyone else is doing.” I gave her a half-smile, the one my brothers always teased me about, but which usually had a woman ready to drop her panties. “Blowing off steam after a long week.”
She shifted on the stool, crossing one leg over the other. “And what do you do for a living?”
Huh. Not the question I expected. I blinked, caught off guard by the shift. I figured she’d tease me for trying too hard to flirt with her, not pivot to job interview mode.
I found I didn’t mind the change in direction. Hell, I figured it meant she was interested.
I took another pull of my beer, considering.
I’d tell her anything she wanted to know—hell, I kind of wanted to—but first?
She had to give me her damn name. “I’ll trade you,” I said, setting the bottle back down with a decisive thunk and meeting her gaze directly.
“You tell me your name, and I’ll answer any question you have. ”
She held my gaze for a beat, her fingers drumming once against the bar in what might have been indecision. Then she relented with a faint smile. “Siena.”
“Siena,” I repeated, letting her name settle on my tongue. “Pretty name for a pretty lady.”
That earned me a soft, throaty laugh. “Don’t ruin it, Gage.”
I flashed her a grin. “I wouldn’t dare.”
She smirked into her glass, and I leaned back slightly on my stool, giving her the honest answer.
“My family owns Three Pines Ranch.”
Her brows arched slightly, and she leaned back against the bar, reassessing me. The surprise in her expression shifted to something that looked like impressed recognition.
“You know it?” I asked, turning my bottle in slow circles on the bar top.
She lifted a shoulder in the tiniest shrug, but I caught the way her fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around her wine stem. “I might.”
That surprised me more than it should have.
Most people within a couple of hundred miles knew the Mercer name. Hard not to when your family owned the largest ranch in the valley. But Siena didn’t strike me as the type who kept up with Western land dynasties. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be shocked.
Thanks to that damn Netflix show, my family had become low-level local celebrities in the past couple of years. I rubbed the back of my neck, still not entirely comfortable with the attention it sometimes brought.
“Lemme guess,” I said, watching her closely. “You’re a fan of overly dramatic ranch soaps.”
“I plead the fifth,” she said with a little smirk. “Let’s just say I’ve done my homework on the area.” She took another sip of wine before asking, “And what do you do on your family’s ranch?” She sounded genuinely interested, and not just because of the show.
I relaxed back into my seat, my chest expanding slightly as I talked about the place I loved most on Earth.
“I spend most of my time on horseback, riding fence, or looking after ranch equipment. In my copious amount of free time, I’m wrangling whatever project’s blown up that week or helping out my brothers.
” I chuckled and shook my head. “Never a dull moment.”
Her eyes sparkled with a mix of amusement and approval. She glanced around the bar, taking in the mix of patrons. “So you’re a real, honest-to-goodness cowboy, not one of these cosplayers.”
She waved her glass in a lazy arc, encompassing the guys in pristine Stetsons and clean, expensive boots who’d never seen a day of actual ranch work. The gesture was casual, but I caught the slight edge of disdain in it.
“That I am.” I took another drink, then added, “But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. The land’s in our blood. Always has been.”
That seemed to land with her. She went quiet for a moment, like she was weighing something, then leaned in a little closer. “What’s it like?” she asked. “Waking up every day knowing where you belong.”
That stopped me. I studied her for a beat, trying to figure out what she wasn’t saying.
Her question hadn’t come from nowhere. “It’s…
” My posture straightened as I thought about home, about the land that had raised me.
“It’s a gift. But it’s a responsibility, too.
The kind that doesn’t come with days off. ”
She nodded slowly, her eyes never leaving mine.
That was the moment I knew—whatever she was doing in Bridger Falls, it wasn’t just sightseeing or playing tourist.
That was okay. I liked a little mystery. But not too much.
“You gonna tell me what you’re doing here in Bridger Falls, Siena?”
She lifted her wine glass again, but didn’t drink. “Does it matter?”
Did it?
I didn’t typically make a habit out of knowing the life stories of the women I hooked up with, so why did I care about hers? I couldn’t say, only that I desperately wanted to know who she was.
She traced the rim of her glass with one finger, her shoulders dropping slightly as her eyes went distant for the first time since we started talking. “I’m here to make something of my own. Something that feels like mine.” Her voice softened on the last words.
“That sounds like a big swing.”
“It is,” she said. “But if I pull it off, it’ll be worth it.”
“Well, now I’m rooting for you, darlin’.”
She looked at me again, something soft in her gaze. “You’re trouble, Gage.”
“Good trouble, I hope?”
Her lips curved to the side in a seductive smile, the apples of her cheeks lifting. Her green eyes moved between my mouth and my eyes like she was making some kind of decision.
The air between us felt charged, like the moment before lightning strikes.
Finally, she reached for her purse—a sleek black thing that probably cost more than most people’s rent—and slid it onto her shoulder. But instead of standing, she hesitated, her fingers drumming once against the bar.
“You know what?” she said, setting her glass down and sliding off the stool in one slow, fluid movement that had my pulse jumping. “Let’s find out.”
My brows lifted. “Yeah?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice. Part of me had been expecting her to tell me it was nice meeting me before disappearing into the night.
She stepped close enough that I caught another hit of that intoxicating perfume, close enough that I could see the gold flecks in her green eyes. Her hand found my forearm, her fingers trailing down to my wrist in a touch that was barely there but sent heat shooting straight through me.
“I’m staying just up the road,” she said, her mouth brushing the edge of my jaw as she spoke. The warmth of her breath against my skin made me suppress a shiver. “Big white farmhouse with the green shutters. You know it?”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
She pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, and for a split second, I saw something flicker across her face—uncertainty, maybe, or surprise at her boldness.
But then that confident mask slipped back into place, and she said, “Give me ten minutes.” Her thumb brushed across my knuckles before she let go of my hand entirely.
She turned and walked away, her heels clicking against the worn wooden floor with each measured step. But halfway to the door, she paused and glanced back over her shoulder, catching me watching her with what was probably a dumbstruck expression.
That earned me a smile—the first genuinely pleased one I'd seen from her all night.
Then she was gone, leaving me staring at the door like an idiot.
Nine minutes later, I threw a twenty-dollar bill down on the bar and followed her like she was the pied fucking piper.