Chapter Seven
Two days later…
The Nevada desert still held the heat it had gathered all day, warmth rising off the gravel lot in slow waves as Law eased his truck off the highway and rolled to a stop in the overflow lot across from the Rusty Spur Dance Hall.
He left the engine running for a moment and studied the place through the windshield.
Low building. Weathered wood siding. Neon beer signs glowing through the front windows in uneven reds and blues. The sign over the door buzzed faintly where a few bulbs had burned out, the light flickering across a porch crowded with people drifting in and out of the entrance.
The gravel lot was full.
Pickup trucks lined the front of the building and spilled along the roadside shoulder, dust hanging in the air where another truck had just pulled in.
Laughter carried across the lot. A group of women in boots and denim stepped off the porch, one of them already dragging on a cigarette while the muffled thump of country music pushed through the walls—fiddle, steel guitar, and the heavy rhythm of a dance floor in motion.
Friday night.
The kind of place locals packed shoulder to shoulder once the sun went down.
Which was exactly why it held his attention.
Law’s gaze moved past the porch to the line of trucks parked along the front of the building, scanning them the way long habit had taught him to scan anything unfamiliar.
Sage’s vehicle stood out immediately.
The small dent in the rear bumper caught the swing of the lot light, and Law recognized it without having to think about it. He’d noticed it weeks ago after Sage clipped a gatepost at the ranch and pretended the damage had always been there.
Sage was already inside.
That alone didn’t sit right with him.
Law didn’t move for a second.
Then he shut off the engine and stepped out into the warm night air, gravel shifting under his boots as he started across the lot toward the bar.
Another truck door closed somewhere behind him.
The sound was faint, but Law slowed anyway.
A second later, footsteps came up beside him, and Black fell into stride as easily as if they’d planned it that way.
Law turned his head just enough to look at him.
Black lifted one shoulder.
“Relax,” he said. “I’m just here to watch.”
Law let the words pass without answering and turned his attention back to the bar.
Pushing through the door, he stepped into a wash of sound and warm air thick with beer and dust.
Country music rolled through the room from a jukebox somewhere along the far wall, the steady twang of steel guitar cutting through bursts of laughter and the sharp crack of pool balls colliding.
Boots scraped across worn wooden floorboards.
Glasses clinked. Someone near the bar shouted for another round.
The place was busy and crowded—the kind where half the room knew each other and the other half didn’t ask questions.
Law paused just inside the doorway, letting the noise and movement settle around him while his eyes adjusted to the dim light.
Black stopped beside him. “Who are we looking for?”
Law’s gaze moved slowly across the room.
“Sage.”
One of two bars ran along the left wall, crowded to all hell.
Men leaned over it with their shoulders nearly touching while several bartenders slid longnecks and fancy drinks across the polished wood.
Couples sat near the dance floor with their chairs tipped back.
Others clustered around tall tables, watching dancers move to the rhythm of the song.
In a side area, a rack of pool cues leaned against the wall beside tables where groups of locals argued over a shot.
Normal. Busy.
Law kept scanning.
Toward the back of the large front room, the lights dimmed slightly where rows of smaller tables lined the wall, the shadows deeper there, and the noise of the dance hall faded just enough to make conversation easier.
That was where he saw him.
Sage sat alone at a table near the back corner, the position tucked behind a thick support post that cut off any direct view of the front door.
One elbow rested on the table, fingers moving restlessly around a cup of what looked like coffee while his gaze tracked every person who walked by.
Who was he waiting for?
Even from across the room, Law could see the tension in the line of his shoulders, the way Sage leaned slightly forward in the chair like a man who had no intention of relaxing until someone—or several someones—finally showed up.
Law didn’t move for a moment.
Then he started toward the tables in the back. None were open, so he took up a position against the wall just out of Sage’s line of sight.
“I’ll get us two beers,” Black said.
“Make sure he doesn’t notice you.”
“Got it.”
Black worked his way into the crowd. As big as he was, the man could melt into it like nobody’s business.
The front door opened, letting in a spill of cooler night air and the brief wash of headlights from the gravel lot.
Law had been watching Sage, catching the shift in him before he fully understood it.
A man stepped inside and paused just past the threshold while the door swung shut behind him.
Unlike most people walking into a place like this, he didn’t glance toward the bar or hesitate to get his bearings.
Instead, he stood there a moment, composed, letting his eyes move slowly across the crowded dance hall.
Even from across the room, Law could see he didn’t quite belong.
Pressed shirt. Dark jacket. Crisp lines that hadn’t seen a ranch in their life.
The man lifted one hand and adjusted the knot of his tie with an easy, practiced motion before stepping farther inside. His gaze moved across the bar, the dance floor, the tables along the wall—
—and then stopped.
Law followed the line of sight.
Straight to the back corner.
Straight to Sage.
No hesitation after that. The man crossed the room at an easy pace, weaving through dancers and clusters of people without breaking stride.
By the time he reached the back tables, Sage had already gone still.
The man stopped beside the table. For a brief moment, the two of them simply looked at each other.
Then he pulled out the chair across from Sage and sat down.
Black appeared beside Law a moment later and handed him a bottle.
“Thanks.”
Black took a swallow from his own beer, then followed Law’s line of sight across the room.
His eyes settled on Sage’s table.
“Who’s that?”
Law took a long pull from the bottle, the cold beer cutting through the dry desert heat still lingering in his throat. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes never leaving the two men at the table.
“Dunno.”
The bottle lowered but stayed in Law’s hand, his attention fixed on the back corner of the room. From this distance, the music and the crowd swallowed whatever the two men said to each other, but words weren’t necessary to read the shape of the conversation.
The man who’d just arrived sat easily in the chair, one arm resting along the back like he had all the time in the world. Calm. Comfortable. The kind of posture that said he controlled the pace of whatever was happening at that table.
Sage looked different.
Not scared—Sage wasn’t built that way. But tight. Shoulders drawn in slightly, his body leaning forward as if every muscle was braced beneath the surface.
The man spoke for a while, barely moving except for the occasional tilt of his head. Sage answered once or twice—short responses if Law had to guess.
After a moment, Sage reached into his jacket and set an envelope on the table between them.
The man didn’t rush it—just watched as he picked it up, opened it enough to check the contents, then folded the flap closed again.
Looked like cash.
Another swallow of beer. The bottle creaked slightly in Law’s grip.
Something about the scene sat wrong in his gut.
The conversation continued for another minute or two, the man still relaxed, Sage still tight in the chair like he was waiting for the moment he could stand up and leave.
Across the room, Law watched every second of it.
The conversation ended as abruptly as it had started.
The man pushed his chair back and stood, smoothing the front of his jacket with one hand like he had nowhere else he needed to be. Sage didn’t stand with him. He stayed where he was, elbows resting lightly on the table, eyes following the man as he stepped away.
The tie was adjusted again as he crossed the room, the motion small and practiced.
Law tracked him the entire way—filing away his face, his build.
No glance around. No hesitation. Just that same calm confidence as he moved through the crowd, weaving past dancers and clusters of people without ever breaking stride.
A moment later, the front door opened.
Cool night air spilled briefly into the dance hall before the door swung shut again behind him.
Law took another swallow of beer.
Across the room, Sage still hadn’t moved.
He sat there a few seconds longer, shoulders tight, eyes fixed on the table, before finally leaning back like the tension had drained out of him all at once.
Something was going on in Sage’s life.
Something he hadn’t said a word about.
Law lifted the bottle again, gaze still fixed on the back corner of the room.
One thing was certain.
He was going to find out what it was.