Chapter 7
cade
Iwasn’t going to come to The Rusty Spur. I was going to stay home, enjoy the solitude while Evie was having a sleepover with her best friend.
But then Dodge called me from there, mentioned in passing that Sarah Kirk was dancin’ with Kaz, and I decided I needed some greasy onion rings and a beer.
It’s past nine when I get there, and the place is wall-to-wall noise. The band is hammering out an old Brooks & Dunn tune while boots stomp the dance floor in time.
I nod at Moxy, who smirks as she slams down shot glasses hard enough to scare off ghosts.
“Boss.” My foreman raises his beer to me.
“Dodge,” I murmur, feeling like a fucking moron for being here. I came because she was here, and I wanted to see her ‘cause how it went at the Dunns unsettled me.
I didn’t like who I was with her. Didn’t like how I talked to her. Sure, I hate her, but I’ve got no business seeking her out and then cussing her out for existing.
“She’s there.’ Dodge jerks his head.
“She who?” I ask blandly.
I’m not looking for her.
The hell, I’m not.
Dodge gives me a long, unimpressed stare, and I, as surreptitiously as I can, look for her.
She’s at a table with some folks, laughing at something Kaz says, her head tipped back, hair catching the neon glow. Kaz leans in too fucking close, his easy grin flashing like he’s just claimed her attention for himself.
Something sharp tangles in me, burning, knotting hard.
He follows my line of sight and claps me on the shoulder. “You want a beer, boss?” he asks, his eyes on me, pointed.
“Sure,” I mumble, my jaw tight.
“You gotta start admitting some truths to yourself,” he advises.
My foreman is not just my employee, he’s also my friend.
Barney Holland earned the nickname “Dodge City” in his first week in Wildflower Canyon. He’d come up from Kansas looking for work. A bar brawl broke out at The Barrel & Bridle, and he single-handedly hauled three fighting cowboys outside before the sheriff arrived.
Someone joked it was like the O.K. Corral all over again, and the name stuck.
Now, six years later, Dodge is my right-hand man at Blue Rock Ranch. Calm in a crisis, loyal to a fault, and smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.
He knows a little about what went down with Sarah, but he doesn’t know everything. Or maybe he does. We haven’t talked about it. But he does know that she affects me ‘cause I gave everyone strict instructions that we use Bodie as our vet, come hell or high water.
“Just get me a beer,” I grunt.
“Cade?”
“What?” My jaw is tight. I can’t stop looking at her.
She doesn’t belong here, smiling at my friends like she has a right. She forfeited that years ago.
“I’m gonna get a beer, and you’re not goin’ to start no trouble, are you?” Dodge waits until I look at him, and he holds my gaze.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That means that I was a fool to have mentioned to you that Dr. K’s here.”
My nostrils flare. “When the fuck did she become Dr. K to you?”
He sucks in a breath and lets it out in frustration. “You gotta get a grip, alright?”
“What the fuck ever.” I wave at him and walk…to her table.
“Cade,” he calls out.
I ignore him.
“Evenin’,” I drawl as I come up to the round bar table. The women are seated on the barstools while their men stand by them, their drinks on the table.
Hunt is next to Joy, and Kaz is standing between Bree and Sarah.
I slide in next to Hunt, across from Sarah.
He greets me with a slap on the back while Aria nods. Joy narrows her eyes and gives me a smile that’s tight enough to hold a fence post upright.
“Cade.” Kaz shoots me a warning look that clearly says, Behave.
Christ! These are my friends, and they’re all looking at me like I’m the enemy. She did this. Turned my people against me.
Fuck her. They’ll see who she is and drop her, like I did, like we all did.
“Here.” Dodge inserts himself next to me, thumping a longneck in front of me.
She looks uncomfortable as hell. Good! She has no business getting all cozy with my people. First Bodie and now these good men and women? They don’t know her like I do.
“Dr. K, how’s it goin’?” my foreman asks her as he bumps his shoulder against mine—another friend who’s telling me to behave.
“Dodge.” Her voice is tentative, soft, hesitant.
“You know each other?” I want to break every bone in Dodge’s face for how she’s looking at him, all soft and tender.
“We met last week at the Horseshoe,” Dodge explains. His tone is also wary, also tacitly telling me to rein it the fuck in.
“The Horseshoe?” I sneer. “I thought Eunice wasn’t gonna feed you.”
The air gets tight.
“Cade.” This comes from Mav, who’s got a soft spot for Sarah because she helped out Aria when no one else would, ‘cause she couldn’t afford a vet and needed one badly.
That was Sarah for you, right? She’d play the good girl and get into your life, and then she’d….
“What?” I bark. “Eunice was pretty clear the last time she went to get food that she don’t serve her kind.”
“Well, then she went ahead and took care of her cat, and she’s got no problem with it now,” Joy hisses. There is no warmth in her eyes now. She knows me well. She takes care of Evie. We’re friends. It annoys the hell out of me that she’s taking Sarah’s side on this.
I shake my head. “It’s funny, isn’t it, how everyone is pretending to forget what a lying piece of trash you are, Sarah.”
Color drains from Sarah’s face. She slowly pushes off her barstool and then, without a word, walks out.
Aria hisses and stands up.
“You’re just an asshole, aren’t you? I expected better,” Joy flings at me. “Hunt, can you drive us home?”
Hunt gets up and wraps his arm around Joy.
“Hell, boss,” Dodge mutters under his breath.
I drink my beer like nothing happened. ‘Cause nothing did, I tell myself, but I can still see how pale she got when I attacked her.
Aria, Joy, and Hunt disappear into the crowd, and my heart starts to pound.
I came here to…what? Not this. I was going to be smarter and controlled, but instead, the minute I see her, I become a loose fucking cannon.
“You do know how to clear a room.” Kaz toasts me, his words dripping with sarcasm.
Mav plants both hands on the table and leans down, his eyes locked on mine. “What the fuck was that, Cade?”
I set the beer bottle down slowly, not in the mood to be lectured. “I called a spade a spade, that’s all.”
“No,” he snaps. “What that was…was you bein’ a grade-A asshole. And one I’m ashamed I ever called a friend.”
That stings. “Come on, Mav, you don’t know—”
“I do know,” he contradicts evenly. “I know that your family and this town railroaded a kid who said she’d been assaulted.”
“She lied,” I bark, loud enough that a couple of heads turn.
“That’s fuckin’ thin brew,” Kaz mutters, shaking his head, disgust plain on his face.
Mav slams a fist on the table, rattling glasses. “This ain’t 2015 anymore, Cade. It’s 2025. We believe women now as we should’ve then. You don’t get to repeat an old story like it’s new evidence.”
Heat crawls up my neck. “You got no clue what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Yeah, Mav, you weren’t there. She played Cade and Landon,” one of my brother’s friends calls out from the bar.
“What I know—” Mav raises his voice, scanning the room like he wants everyone to hear it—“is that woman’s been workin’ her ass off savin’ your animals and mine. Y’all need to show some fuckin’ respect.”
I push away from the table and step into Mav’s space. We’re eye to eye, shoulders squared, and for one long beat the whole Spur goes dead quiet, waitin’ for fists to fly.
Kaz lays his hand heavy on my shoulder. “Easy, cowboys. This ain’t the time or place.”
But then Pony—Noelle’s cousin—snorts loud enough to carry. “Sarah Kirk was always a slut. Cade’s better off.”
“Shut your damn mouth,” Mav growls, spinning to fix Pony, who’s an asshole on a good day, with a stare that could light a fuse.
He then looks around and raises his voice, “All of you, listen up. Dr. K’s a vet, and she’s part of this community now.
Y’all wanna hold onto something from ten years ago, that’s on you. Don’t drag it into public.”
“Yeah,” Moxy chimes in from behind the bar. “Treat everyone right, or you’re outta the Spur for a month. No exceptions.”
I hate it. Hate that it’s Mav standing up for Sarah, when that used to be me. Hate it more that he’s protecting her from me. I came in here feeling guilty for the way I lit into her at the Dunn ranch, and now I’ve gone and done worse.
Humiliated her in public.
Again.
I shove out the door, the spring night cool against my face. Footsteps scrape behind me, and I turn to see Kaz.
I shake my head, silently telling him to fuck off.
“Go easy on her.”
“Kaz—”
“You don’t go easy on her, you’re gonna regret it,” he speaks over me, his voice solid as a gun barrel.
I exhale sharp, eyes flicking up at the stars. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you need to pull your head outta your ass.” Kaz tucks his hands in his pockets, but his eyes don’t waver. He’s serious as a snakebite.
That rattles me. Because there are a hundred rumors about Kaz—about who he really is, where all his money comes from.
On paper, he’s just a dealmaker who bought up ten thousand acres, shut down the cattle operation, and turned it into a playground for rich men to play cowboy.
But I’ve known him since we were teenagers.
Not well, but enough to know he didn’t leave here and come back flush with money for no damn simple reason.
And despite not being a rancher, he’s got his fingers in half of Wildflower Canyon.
“What do you know?” I demand.
He shakes his head solemnly. “Nothin’ I can share.”
“Then why the fuck are you talkin’ to me?”
He smirks. “Because a man who keeps chasin’ down a woman he claims to hate…maybe doesn’t.”
“Christ.” I drag a hand through my hair. “You talk in riddles, man.”
“Let me ask you somethin’, Cade. You ever think maybe she wasn’t lyin’?”
My breath locks, and it’s got nothin’ to do with the cold night air. “What’s that?”
“What if she was tellin’ the truth?”
“About what?”
A flicker of impatience crosses his face. “You know damn well what. Don’t play dumb.” He tips his hat. “Gotta get Bree home. You drive safe.”
And with that, he leaves me stewing in my own thoughts.
My phone pings. It’s Dodge asking me if I want a ride—probably thinks I’ve lost my mind.
Folks say I’m a good man. Polite. A solid father. Somebody who shows up when his neighbors need him.
But none of that feels true tonight. Hell, it hasn’t since she came back. Because ever since Sarah Kirk set foot in this town, I’ve been a man split in two—hungry to see her, desperate to erase her, and so damn tired of how much it still hurts.
I text Dodge that I’m going home, that I’m fine, and that he should stay and enjoy his evening.
I get into my truck and stare at the flickering neon sign that reads: The Rusty Spur.
What the fuck did Kaz mean by asking me if she wasn’t lying? Of course, she was. Right? Because anything else is unthinkable.