Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
WINSLOW
“Could I get another . . .”
The bartender didn’t slow as he passed by.
“Drink,” I muttered, slumping forward.
Pops had told me that this bar was where the locals hung out. Not only was it within walking distance of my new house in case I decided not to drive, but I was a local now. As of today, I lived in Quincy, Montana.
I’d told the bartender as much when I’d asked for his wine list. He’d raised one bushy white eyebrow above his narrowed gaze, and I’d abandoned my thirst for a glass of cabernet, ordering a vodka tonic instead. It had zapped every ounce of my willpower not to request a lemon twist.
The ice cubes in my glass clinked together as I swirled around my pink plastic straw. The bartender ignored that sound too.
Main Street had two bars—tourist traps this time of year, according to Pops. But I regretted not choosing one of those to celebrate my first night in Quincy. Given his attitude, the bartender, who must have thought I was a lost tourist, regretted my decision too.
Willie’s was a dive bar and not exactly my scene.
The bartenders downtown probably acknowledged their customers, and the prices were listed on a menu, not delivered using three fingers on one wrinkled hand.
He looked about as old as this dark, dingy building. Like most small-town Montana bars, the walls were teeming with beer signs and neon lights. Shelves stacked with liquor bottles lined the mirrored wall across from my seat. The room was cluttered with tables, every chair empty.
Willie’s was all but deserted this Sunday night at nine o’clock.
The locals must know of a better place to unwind.
The only other patron was a man sitting at the farthest end of the bar, in the last stool down the line.
He’d come in ten minutes after I’d arrived and chosen the seat as far from me as possible.
He and the bartender were nearly carbon copies of one another, with the same white hair and scraggly beards.
Twins? They looked old enough to have established this bar. Maybe one of them was Willie himself.
The bartender caught me staring.
I smiled and rattled the ice in my glass.
His mouth pursed in a thin line but he made me another drink. And like with the first, he delivered it without a word, holding up the same three fingers.
I twisted to reach into my purse, fishing out another five because clearly starting a tab was out of the question. But before I could pull the bill from my wallet, a deep, rugged voice caressed the room.
“Hey, Willie.”
“Griffin.” The bartender nodded.
So he was Willie. And he could speak.
“Usual?” Willie asked.
“Yep.” The man with the incredible voice, Griffin, pulled out the stool two down from mine.
As his tall, broad body eased into the seat, a whiff of his scent carried my way. Leather and wind and spice filled my nose, chasing away the musty air from the bar. It was heady and alluring.
He was the type of man who turned a woman’s head.
One glimpse at his profile and the cocktail in front of me was unnecessary. Instead, I drank this man in head to toe.
The sleeves of his black T-shirt stretched around his honed biceps and molded to the planes of his shoulders as he leaned his elbows on the bar.
His brown hair was finger-combed and curled at the nape of his neck.
His tan forearms were dusted with the same dark hair and a vein ran over the corded muscle beneath.
Even seated, I could tell his legs were long, his thighs thick like the evergreen tree trunks from the forests outside of town. Frayed hems of his faded jeans brushed against his black cowboy boots. And as he shifted in his seat, I caught the glimmer of a silver and gold belt buckle at his waist.
If his voice, his scent and that chiseled jaw hadn’t been enough to make my mouth go dry, that buckle would have done it.
One of my mom’s favorite movies had been Legends of the Fall. She’d let me watch it at sixteen and we’d cried together. Whenever I missed her, I’d put it on. The DVD was scratched and the clasp on the case was broken because I’d watched that movie countless times simply because it had been hers.
She’d always swooned over Brad Pitt as a sexy cowboy.
If she could see Griffin, she’d be drooling too. Though he was missing the hat and the horse, this guy was every cowboy fantasy come to life.
Lifting my glass to my mouth, I sipped the cold drink and tore my gaze from the handsome stranger. The vodka burned my throat and the alcohol rushed to my head. Ol’ Willie mixed his cocktails strong.
I was unabashedly staring. It was rude and obvious. Yet when I set the glass down, my gaze immediately returned to Griffin.
His piercing blue eyes were waiting.
My breath hitched.
Willie set down a tumbler full of ice and caramel liquid in front of Griffin, then, without giving him the fingers to pay, walked away.
Griffin took a single swallow of his drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then his attention was on me once more.
The intensity of his gaze was as intoxicating as my cocktail.
He stared without hesitation. He stared with bold desire. His gaze raked down my black tank top to the ripped jeans I’d put on this morning before checking out of my hotel in Bozeman.
I’d spent four and a half hours driving to Quincy with a U-Haul trailer hitched to my Dodge Durango. When I’d arrived, I’d immediately jumped into unloading, only breaking to meet Pops for dinner.
I was a mess after a day of hauling boxes. My hair was in a ponytail and whatever makeup I’d put on this morning had likely worn off. Yet the appreciation in Griffin’s gaze sent a wave of desire rushing to my core.
“Hi,” I blurted. Smooth, Winn.
His eyes twinkled like two perfect sapphires set behind long, sooty lashes. “Hi.”
“I’m Winn.” I held out a hand over the space between us.
“Griffin.” The moment his warm, calloused palm grazed mine, tingles cascaded across my skin like fireworks. A shiver rolled down my spine.
Holy hell. There was enough electricity between us to power the jukebox in the corner.
I focused on my drink, gulping more than sipping. The ice did nothing to cool me down. When was the last time I’d been this attracted to a man? Years. It had been years. Even then, it paled in comparison to five minutes beside Griffin.
“Where are you from?” he asked. Like Willie, he must have assumed I was a tourist too.
“Bozeman.”
He nodded. “I went to college at Montana State.”
“Go Bobcats.” I lifted my drink in a salute.
Griffin returned the gesture, then put the rim of his glass to his full lower lip.
I was staring again, unashamed. Maybe it was the angular cheekbones that set his face apart. Maybe it was the straight nose with a slight bump at the bridge. Or his dark, bold browbone. He was no ordinary, handsome man. Griffin was drop-dead gorgeous.
And if he was at Willie’s . . . a local.
Local meant off-limits. Damn.
I swallowed my disappointment with another gulp of vodka.
The scrape of stool legs rang through the room as he moved to take the seat beside mine. His arms returned to the bar, his drink between them as he leaned forward. He sat so close, his body so large, that the heat from his skin seeped into mine.
“Winn. I like that name.”
“Thanks.” My full name was Winslow but very few people ever called me anything other than Winn or Winnie.
Willie walked by and narrowed his eyes at the sliver of space between Griffin and me. Then he joined his doppelganger.
“Are they related?” I asked, dropping my voice.
“Willie Senior is on our side of the bar. His son is mixing drinks.”
“Father and son. Huh. I thought twins. Does Willie Senior have the same glowing personality as Willie Junior?”
“It’s worse.” Griffin chuckled. “Every time I come through town, he gets crankier.”
Wait. Did that mean . . . “You don’t live in town?”
“No.” He shook his head, picking up his drink.
I did the same, hiding my smile in the glass. So he wasn’t a local. Which meant flirting was harmless. Bless you, Quincy.
A hundred personal questions raced through my mind, but I dismissed them all.
Skyler used to criticize me for going into interrogation mode within ten minutes of meeting someone new.
One of many critiques. He’d used his profession as a life coach as an excuse to tell me anything and everything I’d been doing wrong in our relationship. In life.
Meanwhile, he’d betrayed me, so I wasn’t listening to Skyler’s voice anymore.
But I still wasn’t going to bombard this man with questions. He didn’t live here, and I’d save my questions for the people who did: my constituents.
Griffin looked to the far end of the room and the empty shuffleboard table. “Want to play a game?”
“Um . . . sure? I’ve never played before.”
“It’s easy.” He slid off his stool, moving with a grace that men his size didn’t normally possess.
I followed, eyes glued to the best ass I had ever seen. And he didn’t live here. An imaginary choir perched in the bar’s dusty rafters gave a collective yeehaw.
Griffin went to one end of the table while I walked to the other. “Okay, Winn. Loser buys the next round of drinks.”
Good thing I had cash. “Okay.”
Griffin spent the next ten minutes explaining the rules and demonstrating how to slide the pucks down the sand-dusted surface toward the point lines. Then we played, game after game. After one more round, we both stopped drinking, but neither of us made a move to leave.
I won some games. I lost most. And when Willie finally announced that he was closing at one, the two of us walked outside to the darkened parking lot.
A dusty black truck was parked beside my Durango.
“That was fun.”
“It was.” I smiled up at Griffin, my cheeks pinching. I hadn’t had this much fun openly flirting with a man in, well . . . ever. I slowed my steps because the last place I wanted to go was home alone.
He must have had the same idea because his boots stopped on the pavement. He inched closer.