Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Marci
“Marci! Come sit with us for a minute!” Sadie Rose and Calliope King wave me over to their booth at the diner where I work. I’ve just finished the weekly prep and my waitressing night shift doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes, so I join them, but I don’t sit.
“What’s up, ladies? What are you all doing out tonight?”
Sadie grins, then points at the door where a tall man in butt-hugging wranglers and a dressy western shirt has just walked in, expensive leather boots on his feet and a Stetson on his head. “We came to ogle the new goods in town. Hot rodeo Daddies!”
“What she said,” Calliope agrees. “But we’re married women, so we can look, we just can’t touch.” Her mouth turns up in a sassy smile when she looks at me. “You, on the other hand… can do whatever you want. So, come have a seat and enjoy the view.”
“And then, later, when you’re off work, enjoy more than just the view and tell us all about it so we can live vicariously.”
I roll my eyes but join them just in time to see another group of hunky cowboys swagger through the diner and head to the bar. They are awfully sexy… and it has been a very long time, but…
“Oh please,” I gripe. “I’m here to do my job, nothing else. And afterward I’ll go home to my cats and a glass of wine just like I do every night. I’m just an old lady past her prime, not a sweet young thing like you two, who any of these cowboys would be happy to take home, husbands be damned.”
As if to prove my point, a new man walks in and winks at Calliope as he passes.
“And that’s my cue to get to work,” I say, standing.
My friends don’t let me off that easy. Sadie grabs one of my hands, and Calliope grabs the other. “Listen, we’re not saying you have to jump into bed with the next set of cowboys who walk through the door,” Calliope says.
“Yeah, we just don’t want you to sell yourself short,” Sadie agrees. “You’re a smart, beautiful and kind woman who any man or men would be lucky to know. You just have to believe that yourself, and they’ll see it too.”
Ouch. That hit a little too close to home, but I laugh it off and raise my eyebrows. “Oh now it’s men? Multiple?”
“Well… This is Blue River…” Sadie answers, referring to the fact that most of the newcomers are in throuples instead of conventional relationships.
“You both just have one man,” I point out.
“One, two, three, four.” Calliope shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, Marci. Just be open to whatever comes your way this week.”
“So a big ball of nothing?” I scoff, my self-deprecating humor back despite their best efforts to be encouraging.
“Oh, stop that!” Sadie smacks my arm. “I have a good feeling about it. This is going to be your week, Marci Townsend. I can feel it. And I have a sense about these things.”
“Oh, okay.” I roll my eyes again. I can’t help myself, but I give them a crumb because if I don’t they’ll never let me go and I do need to get to work. “Fine, I promise to be open to whatever this week and to try to see what I supposedly have to offer,” I manage. “Can I go to work now?”
“Yes, go.” Calliope waves me off and Sadie actually smacks my ass as I walk by. I turn to glare at her in time to notice two very gorgeous young cowboys watching the interaction with smirks on their faces and raised eyebrows.
They meet my gaze and the taller one winks. I flush from head to toe and turn on my heel, rushing for the bar as fast as my feet will carry me.
Once there, I clock in, don a half-apron and take a deep breath to steady my nerves.
Remind me not to sit with Calliope and Sadie right before my shift ever again. They’ve got me all twisted up and I can’t concentrate.
Before I have a chance to un-twist myself, the cowboys that had watched Sadie smack my butt and winked at me afterward come up to the bar.
I can barely breathe and I feel like I might puke from embarrassment, but they just order two cold beers, and take a seat in the far corner of the bar. The wink they gave me earlier seems already long forgotten.
Of course it is. You’re not the kind of gal guys wink at and mean it.
The mean inner voice is back already, but I like her. She’s comforting. She’s familiar. She’s honest.
The truth is, I’m good at being alone. I’ve been doing it for a very long time. And if by some miracle a guy walked through those doors who actually wanted me, I wouldn’t know what to do with that.
So it’s for the best that drop-dead-gorgeous cowboy and his friend are sitting in the back, huddled together, not giving me a second glance.
I tell myself I don’t care. That that's exactly what I wanted. That the wink Mr. Tall and Handsome had given me hadn’t laced a thread of hope through my insides. That they’re far too young for me. That my pussy is probably full of cobwebs and wrinkled, it’s been so long.
But somehow, the scathing familiar voice doesn’t feel so comforting this time. And she certainly doesn’t feel honest.
I think we just went from best friends to mortal enemies and I don’t know what to do with that.
I serve five more cowboys then stand behind the bar pondering my current predicament.
I’ve just resolved to have a long hot session with the battery-operated boyfriend that’s been living in my drawer without the light of day for far too long when I hear a voice in front of me.
“Excuse me, Miss?”
I glance up and my heart stops.
He’s right in front of me. Mr. Wink. I stare at him, my mind racing, trying to latch onto a coherent thought, and have just started to open my mouth, hoping words will come out when his friend joins him. His smile is a little shyer, but just as sexy.
It takes me a moment to recover from the way they’re looking at me. I tell myself they are just the flirty type or that my imagination is running wild after my conversation with Sadie and Calliope.
I swallow hard and lick my lips. “What… uh… What can I do for you?”
“We were just wondering if you could tell us what there is to do for fun in a place like this?”
“Oh, uh… sure.” There isn’t much, but I start rambling anyway, wiping the bartop with a dust cloth as words fall out of my mouth.
“Well, there’s not much in the way of nightlife.
Just a few more bars. Taverns, really. If you like hiking and fishing, there’s a lot of options, of course that only works on the few occasions the weather is cooperating-”
I stop short when he grabs my hand, the one that was wiping imaginary spills.
“And we were wondering if you knew anyone who might be interested in being our tour guide for the night. We’d like someone we could show the ropes.”
I falter, blinking and tilting my head in confusion at what very much felt like an invitation. Until he got to the end at least. Now I’m wondering if English is even their first language.
“Don’t you mean someone to show you the ropes?” It’s a weird phrase to use about a tour guide anyway, but I ignore that part.
Winking Cowboy licks his lips, then lets his smile stretch across his entire face. “Oh no, ma’am. We’re rodeo wranglers. We’ve got the ropes. Just no one to… show them to.”
“Oh.” My face heats. Oh. Sexy, kinky cowboys. And I’m pretty sure they’re hitting on me.
I’m about to convince myself I’m imagining that when he lifts my hand to his mouth and presses a kiss to my knuckles. “Maybe you’d like to volunteer,” he murmurs, his voice deep and low.
Speechless and not sure I’m even awake, not sure this entire evening hasn’t been a jacked-up dream, I manage to nod. Then by some miracle I find my voice. “I’m uh… I just started my shift. I’m working until closing.”
“Midnight seems like the perfect time to start our… exploring.”
My eyebrows shoot to my forehead. Okay, I was not imagining that. He definitely just propositioned me.
“I… I don’t even know your name.” Or names. The guy holding my hand had done most of the talking, but this was still Blue River. And they’d definitely seemed like they were together a few minutes ago. Is the quieter one just a very bad wingman?
“We don’t know yours either.”
“M-Marci”
“Well Marci, it’s a pleasure to meet you. Name’s Tripp. And this here,” he jerks a finger at the other man, “is Levi.”
And then he says the one thing I wasn’t expecting. The one thing that has my heart stuttering, my pussy flooding, and my brain wondering just how deep in over my head I am.
“But you can just call us Daddy.”