Chapter 6
CLAY
Nice.
Had Clay ever described a kiss like that before?
Nope. In fact, prior to Stevie Everhart laying a smacker on his mouth, he’d have said kisses between two people should never be nice.
They should never be polite. They should be sexy, sizzling, scintillating.
Hot and heavy. Full of promise – even the quick ones.
Hell, they should be downright dirty.
But then Stevie had fumbled the kiss, that chaste, closed-mouth kiss.
Her lips landing awkwardly on his but clinging with gusto and chasing his withdrawal, unwilling to let him go.
And the sound of her breathing filling his head – husky and heavy – not to mention that tiny little whimper somewhere at the back of her throat as he’d broken their lip lock.
That whimper had punched him straight in the chest.
It had been three days and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it. Thinking about how he so very nearly didn’t pull back. How he’d almost leaned in and given Stevie Everhart both barrels, slid his hands onto her ass and shown her exactly what her clumsy kiss was doing to his body.
How he wouldn’t mind going back for seconds.
Which was why he’d ridden to the other end of the ranch with the other cowhands for the last two nights, checking on the herds and patrolling fences, camping out beneath the stars and eating his mother’s beans around the campfire.
Anything to not be anywhere near Stevie because, as he’d told her, he wasn’t a first-time kind of guy.
That kiss had him wishing he was, and that was far too dangerous. So, yeah… staying away from the leggy blonde with the cutesy freckles was imperative.
Hence being at The Corral tonight, avoiding another cookout.
The ranch held them a few nights a week so all guests had the chance to attend at least one bone fide cookout under a dazzling Wyoming sky.
Clay usually avoided them like the plague and he sure as shit wouldn’t be attending any while Stevie was around.
But if he’d thought out of sight would mean out of mind, he’d been mistaken.
‘Clay!’
The exasperated voice broke into Clay’s wandering thoughts and he tuned back into his surroundings – to find Ivan, Dev and Beau all looking at him expectantly. ‘What?’
‘Another Bud?’ Ivan repeated slowly like Clay was hard of hearing. Or maybe dumb as a rock.
He sucked down the remnants of his first beer in two swallows, burping as he placed it back on the bar. ‘Sure.’
Beau, Ivan and Dev exchanged a look. ‘What?’ Clay demanded.
‘He’s been like that the last three days,’ Dev mused. ‘Staring into space.’
‘Have not.’
‘Distracted,’ Dev continued as if Clay hadn’t spoken.
‘Bullshit.’
‘Almost rode straight into a low-hanging branch at one point.’
Ivan threw back his head and laughed. He was six four, bearded and build like the Vikings in his ancestry, so it was a big, booming laugh that caught the attention of the handful of customers drinking on a Friday night.
Clay shot the ex-marine-come-farrier a quelling look, wishing he was able to refute Dev’s recounting, but he couldn’t.
He’d been thinking about Stevie’s little needy, frustrated whimper as they’d trotted their horses through an area of wood looking for some cows who had been spooked by the drone they’d been using and sought the safety of the trees.
If Dev hadn’t said something he’d have been knocked on his ass.
‘Only thing I know that can distract a man like that,’ Beau said as he cracked the lid of another Bud and put it in front of Clay, ‘is a woman.’
Dev nodded solemnly. ‘True that.’
‘Who is she?’ Beau asked with a grin. ‘Spill, man.’
Clay would rather nail his nuts to the floor of his pickup. He may have known Devlin for over twelve years, and gone to school with Ivan and Beau, but he wasn’t telling these assortment of scoundrels a damn thing.
Not that there was anything to tell.
‘Been a while since Casanova Clay Calhoun came out to play,’ Ivan mused. He was generally a man of few words but always up for some shit talk.
Clay clenched his jaw at the nickname he’d earned on the circuit. He’d revelled in it at the time and it had been well justified but as usual, anything to do with his old life put him in a bad mood. ‘Jealousy’s a curse, dude.’
Dev and Beau sniggered into their beers but Ivan, not remotely insulted, just nodded sagely and said, ‘Avoidance. Interesting.’
Jesus. Clay was not drunk enough for Ivan’s Friday night psychology. The man had come home from his last tour in Afghanistan five years ago, ploughed all his fucked-up baggage into shoeing horses and taken to reading philosophy.
Clay flipped him the bird. ‘Bite me.’
Which caused more sniggers but the worst part was, the universe chose that moment to really call Clay on his bullshit as the juke box flipped to a new song and the husky vibrato of one Stephanie Everhart singing her number-one hit joined the general hubbub.
Clay hadn’t been particularly tuned into the songs being played but this one felt as if it had floated right out of the juke box and wrapped tentacles around his chest just as it had that first day he’d heard it on the radio.
Beau’s fingers tapped on the wooden bar top. ‘I fucking love this song. She totally deserved that Grammy.’
‘She’s at the ranch,’ Dev said.
Clay bit back on the urge to scowl at one of his best friends.
Dev wasn’t bragging, it was just a fact being passed on in general conversation, and as far as he knew the dude ranch hadn’t signed any kind of NDA with the rising star, but still…
it felt like an invasion of her privacy and it itched under his skin.
Beau’s eyebrows raised. ‘No shit?’
‘For a month,’ Dev confirmed.
Ivan’s eyebrows raised. ‘A month?’
‘Taking a break from the city,’ Dev supplied. ‘Learning about ranch life. She told me at the cookout on Monday she was hoping to write some new songs, too.’
A spike of something hot and prickly shot up Clay’s spine that she hadn’t mentioned that to him, but then… he hadn’t exactly been open to conversation. Or cookouts.
‘What’s she like?’ Beau asked.
Dev grinned. ‘Total babe.’
Clay’s knuckles whitened around his beer bottle as the urge to throttle Dev took hold.
He opened his mouth to interject before the conversation devolved into some lurid treatise on her feminine attributes typical of men shooting the shit in a bar drinking beers.
But he needn’t have worried as Dev continued.
‘And she’s really sweet,’ he added. ‘Quiet and polite. Softly spoken. A bit like the way she sings.’
‘Not a diva?’ Ivan asked.
‘Hell no,’ he rejected. ‘Mags was saying she doesn’t mind mucking out a stall.’
Clay blinked. Mucking out a stall? She wouldn’t be the first guest who insisted on the whole country experience including getting their hands dirty, but he couldn’t picture her doing it somehow.
‘She seems to be enjoying herself,’ Dev added, ‘despite her weekend cowgirl vibe.’
Again, Clay wanted to open his mouth and object to how Stevie had just been framed, but wasn’t that what he’d thought of her only a handful of days ago? With all her new clothes and shiny belt buckle?
‘Her mother’s a little intense. She’s Stephanie’s manager so I suppose it’s her job to keep everything rolling smoothly.’ Dev took a swig of his beer. ‘What do you reckon, Clay? You gave her a riding lesson.’
All eyes were once again on him as Ivan murmured, ‘Did he now?’
Great. Just what he needed. Ivan putting two and two together and getting seventy-fucking-six.
‘She’s alright,’ he said with as much disinterest as he could muster whilst avoiding the quiet speculation in Ivan’s eyes.
‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want the world to know where she is so maybe let’s keep it under our hats, huh? ’
Admittedly there was hardly the population base in the small Wyoming town in the middle of nowhere to cause any kind of issue, and Beau and Ivan weren’t guys who traded in gossip, but Clay knew a little too much about media interest to be blasé.
Officially done with this topic, Clay stood and drained the last of his beer as the final notes of Stevie’s song washed over him. ‘Who’s up for losing some money at the pool table?’
‘Ha!’ Dev clapped him on the back, draining his beer too before indicating to Beau he’d have another. ‘I’m always up for whopping your ass.’
Clay smiled to himself as Dev took the bait and they moved to the back alcove through the brick archway, beers in hand.
It was worth the trash talk just to shut him up about Stevie.
Beau had kept the bar pretty much the same since he’d inherited it from his mother.
It was still all dark wood panelling, rough wooden floorboards and exposed brick that was lit with lurid red lamps mounted on the walls.
Out in the bar area were a half dozen booths with red leather seats and an area that became a dance floor on Saturday nights when The Corral was usually jumping with town folk looking for the best hot wings in town.
Occasionally there was some live music to really sweeten the pot.
In the alcove, two pool tables were situated with enough room between and around them to accommodate several groups of people playing at each table.
The felt glowed green and welcoming beneath the naked overhead fluorescent tubes.
Racks for the cues were attached to the back wall, which was decorated with memorabilia from Clays pro rodeo days.
Official PRCA photographs of him mid-flight riding broncs, several of his belt buckles and a half dozen framed newspaper headlines from the Redemption Gazette about the local home town hero.
Clay ignored them all as he lay a ten-dollar note on the dark wood rim of the table and said, ‘Money where your mouth is.’