Chapter 1
ONE
WEST
Dusky Nights and Neon Lights
The bar’s heartbeat slams through my dusty bones. Music from several decades ago serenades every patron. At least, the ones paying attention to the crooner on the stage, who spends more time staring at his reflection in the glass behind the bartender than at the crowd enamored by his performance.
I grip my water and watch the curly head sway with the rest of the mob on the dance floor in the pit below. She’s the only reason I’m here. No other.
Wilder West, rave king.
Yeah, that wouldn’t be written on my headstone. Not this year, not fucking ever. I’m only here for one woman, and she’s trouble.
Hell, seeing more of her is the reason I left Coyote Falls almost a year ago in the first place. One of.
Four black-painted walls offer little relief from the sweaty crowd that pulses with chatter no one can hear anyway.
I can’t stand closed-in rooms like this one.
It’s beyond poorly designed from my point of view.
Every exit is nailed shut to keep the ever-present line that weaves its way around the block from inadvertently entering through a fire escape that no longer functions the way it should.
The longer I stay in the firetrap, the stickier my skin grows on several levels. Not only because the air is thick with sweat, last night’s body fluids, and a distinct lack of innocence.
The curly head I’m stalking—ahem, watching—dips as she shouts something to her friend on the stage. The singer smiles as he unbuttons his shirt and flings it down at the crowd. Nope, not the crowd. Just to the girl I’m watching.
She crushes the sweaty, ripped flannel shirt to her chest like it’s a deity’s gift while I’m left staring at a pasty chest with no muscle definition whatsoever.
Nothing—from either a gym or hard work. I know that’s not exactly a healthy masculine view, but I appreciate a worker who puts in the hours and gets a little dirt under his fingernails.
This guy is more heroin chic with his protruding rib bones.
My lip curls. “Fuck me. Is that what she thinks is prime grazing land?” I stare at the blazing field of white for a little longer and then turn away, glaring at the bottom of my water tumbler.
“City boys are made different, you know? I could get into it.” Dustan Carter, my current rodeo trainee and a flirt extraordinaire, rests his back against the bar.
He faces in the opposite direction to me, surveying the thrumming crowd.
“But if he’s already taken…” He shrugs good-naturedly in my periphery, a come-hither smile playing at the corners of his lips.
I groan, a scant inch from banging my head on the bar top, but then stop myself.
In no way do I want to collect DNA from the sticky surface.
“If you’re gonna eyeball everything in sight for the next hour, including him, then head home, kid.
I got enough problems without wondering who you knocked up by morning. ”
Dustan grins broadly. “Glad someone appreciates my prowess.”
“Jesus Chri—”
“Nightie-night. Don’t let the pretty grunge nurses bite.” He winks as he passes me, slapping my rump like I’m breeding livestock.
“She’s a paramedic.” I take the bait and swallow it whole without thinking and shut my eyes. “Kid, I swear—”
“Byeee,” Dustan singsongs as he sashays away, wiggling his ass.
I groan again, and the bartender tops up my water, offering me a sympathy grimace. I’ve bitten off well more than I can chew with my newest mentee, but in no way could I resist the chance to train the kid who has at least the talent of Cordell Rand and the X factor of Coyote’s Jesse Duke.
“West?” A hand tentatively touches my back.
I bite back the sound that threatens to escape my throat the moment she touches my body. Because that noise is not publicly palatable.
“Yeah.” I swing around to face my best friend’s baby sister.
The same curly-haired sister who has been strictly off-limits for the past decade. Nothing should have changed since I up and left Coyote Falls. So why am I here, watching her? I can’t pretend it’s purely for her protection.
Not-so-baby sister from the way she’s dressed, in a sparkly black top that barely covers her toned stomach, the tiny little straps suspending the scrap of material across her shoulders.
I take in her bare muscular, tanned arms, and the lacy black thing around her hips that barely qualifies as a skirt.
Christ, I hope she doesn’t bend over in that thing. Or maybe I do.
Yeah, I’m headed straight for a special circle of hell reserved for the men who perv on their best friend’s siblings they vowed to never touch a hell of a long time ago.
“It is you! I thought it might be.” A giant smile beams across her face as she muscles between patrons to wrap her arms around my chest. Well, torso, because even with her heeled boots, her head barely makes it to my nipple level.
It’s cute that her hands almost meet in the middle of my back. Not quite.
Can’t say that about rocker boy, now, can you?
My blood heats the moment she’s within range. “Hi, Winnie.” I keep my arms fixed by my sides. Winnie is the stuff bunkhouse dreams are made of. If I touch her, we’re both fucked.
Cordell might be prepared to deal with me walking out on him and the ranch at Coyote Falls up north, but he won’t appreciate me screwing with his little sister’s life one bit. Not when their fledgling relationship is so recently renewed.
“What are you doing here? I thought you were up at Coyote.” Winnie puts in an order for a double shot, yelling twice as loud as the volume of the room requires to be heard.
I glance back at the bartender and lift a single finger. “One. On my tab.” I’ve been covering Dustan’s drinks for the night while I’ve stayed sober. A bonus for his hard work for the week and for being my automated wingman for the past hour while I’ve moped over the girl in front of me from afar.
Okay, so my masculine opinions aren’t the only thing unhealthy about me.
I don’t get into how long I’ve been gone from the ranch, and Winnie doesn’t notice the omission. “Have you met Tom Jacobs, up on the stage? He’s so good. Did you hear him sing? He’s got such a wonderful voice. And he makes a mean chicken salad sandwich too,” Winnie gushes in a single breath.
I’ve always found her attitude cute, but tonight, hearing her talk about another man, I’m struggling to stomach it.
“Looks like you could stand to eat a few.” I hold a hand out to shake with the rock star of the moment loping up behind her.
I receive a limp squeeze in response. “Fantastic to meet you,” I say dryly, relieved to find the man has reclaimed his shirt, though I’m not sure if I want Winnie more covered up, or him.
“Same,” the man murmurs, his voice thready and distant, though his gaze is sharp as he takes me in, how I look at Winnie. He shifts behind her, one hand grazing her back.
A shot of pure possessiveness lurches through my system. I pocket my hands to prevent myself from doing something stupid that I promised both myself and my protégé earlier I wouldn’t.
He whispers something I miss in her ear.
“Save that angel voice of yours,” Winnie informs her pet rock star, bossy as fuck as always.
I grin at her sass. At least that hasn’t changed in the last few months.
“You’ll need your volume for your patients tomorrow, and you know it. Weekends are always busy as hell.”
My grin fades. “You work together?” My brow dips as I recall a certain Hottie McNurse conversation between her and Lanie, my best friend’s wife-to-be, an eon ago back at Cord’s ranch. “Wait, is this—”
“My friend and workmate,” Winnie stresses as she interrupts me in a too-loud voice between songs. She stares at me in a way that dares me to continue that statement on pain of death.
I’m severely tempted to find out what that sort of ending feels like at her hands. The corner of my mouth quirks at the idea of the potential suicide run. Perhaps Dustan shouldn’t have left me alone after all.
Winnie’s eyes flash.
All right, beautiful. I’ll back it up. For now.
I clear my throat and tear my eyes away from her to focus on the pale man who has held her attention for so long.
“You’re Winnie’s workmate, huh? Do you, uh, drive the ambulance together?
” For all the years I’ve known Winnie, I literally have no idea how being a paramedic works. Suddenly I’m out of my depth.
Winnie rolls her eyes, slides the drink on the bar out from under my arm, and throws it back. “No, silly. He’s a nurse—”
Yep, I was right.
“—at the hospital. I deliver him patients. Well, not him directly—”
“Sometimes,” interjects Hottie Tom Rock Star McNurse.
“—but usually he’s on similar shifts to me. We often have three a.m. sandwich dinners together.” She shares a soft smile with him that twists my gut.
“Who watches Sally when you’re working nights, now that Lanie’s moved up to Cord’s permanently?” I bark the words out.
Anything to remove the soft smile from her face that’s not aimed at me.
The tactic works, maybe all too well. Silence falls between us as the bar grows rowdier. Rock Star McNurse looks away, studying the stage.
“I either use a neighbor.” Winnie pauses. “Or I call Brad,” she adds stiffly.
Ah, the never usually named ex-husband, who she’s not supposed to see. Ever. Shit. I put my foot in that one well and truly.
“I’m sorry, Winnie,” I murmur, letting my fingertips graze her bare elbow. The contact zings between us. Her breath stalls, and I know she experienced it too. Don’t you deny me. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Well, you did.” She jerks back like I electrocuted her.
She’s right, dammit. I did. The contact slices through me too, a zing that runs from my arm, into my shoulder and heads south so damn fast I can’t keep up.
I need space. Need air. Anything to regain a semblance of sanity right now.
“It’s good to see you, Winnie,” I say softly, stepping back from her before I make another mistake. I need to be away from her before I do something I shouldn’t. Something I promised myself I’d never do.
But the way she eyes me as I head for the door makes me wonder if I shouldn’t stay.
Not tonight, cowboy.
I’ve already broken the look but don’t touch rule that I set myself. If I stay and watch her dance any longer tonight, who knows what else might happen?
I haul my ass out the door. It’s safer this way.