Chapter 3 Quentin
THREE
QUENTIN
Quentin Ramos couldn’t believe he had voluntarily shown up to something called the Howdy Hoedown Mixer, yet here he was, fully sober, painfully alert, and standing on a slab of polished concrete in the middle of Montana.
This was the official kickoff party for Blood on the Prairie, a gritty, blood-soaked supernatural western where he was, somehow, the lead. His first serious role. His big dramatic pivot. His attempt to convince Hollywood he was more than cheekbones and magazine covers.
And this was how it started. With hay bales arranged as seating and shrimp cocktails served in ceramic cowboy boots. Nothing about this screamed prestige cinema. Nothing about it whispered awards season. Everything about it suggested a themed birthday party that had gotten out of hand.
Quentin adjusted his jacket and made himself circulate, smiling politely and nodding at people whose names he immediately forgot. He aimed for an expression that said confident leading man and landed somewhere closer to hostage negotiating his release.
His gaze swept the scene in helpless disbelief.
The open bar was pouring something called Rootin’ Tootin’ Ritas.
A country band was covering Johnny Cash with the enthusiasm of people who had been threatened.
Near the far wall, a mechanical bull launched an overconfident stunt coordinator directly into what would definitely become a workers’ compensation claim.
It was as if someone had gathered every Western cliché they could find, shoved them into a blender, and hit purée. Cowboy boots. Fringe. Flannel. A man in a ten-gallon hat attempted to lasso what Quentin sincerely hoped was a decorative cactus.
He weaved through the crowd, half-listening to someone explain their vision for authentic frontier grit, until his eyes landed on a bowl of chocolates labeled Cow Pies. A quiet laugh slipped out before he could stop it.
“Who names a snack after livestock droppings,” he muttered.
And then, uninvited and unwelcome, the thought arrived. Delly would have loved this.
His sister had adored themed events with her whole heart, the cheesier the better.
She once threw a farm animal birthday party for her cat and insisted every guest wear felt ears.
Quentin had been assigned goat, and Delly had laughed so hard she cried when she saw him, the sound bright and wheezy and unforgettable.
The smile faded before he could catch it.
She had been gone for years now. Cystic fibrosis had taken her slowly and cruelly and with a complete lack of fairness.
He had boarded a red-eye believing he still had time and landed just in time to learn how wrong he was.
He had missed the goodbye. Missed the last hand squeeze. Missed everything that mattered.
The guilt clung to him in ways success never seemed able to shake.
He should have visited more. Called more.
Shown up more. Instead, all he had were memories and moments like this one, standing in front of chocolate cow turds, swallowing emotion because his sister had believed fully in stupid jokes and committing to them with her entire soul.
He cleared his throat, shoved his hands into his coat pockets, and moved on before the feeling rooted him to the floor.
That was when he noticed another tray, this one stacked with small beige cubes and labeled Hay Bales. They looked vaguely dessert-adjacent and deeply suspicious. Possibly cake. Possibly tofu. Possibly insulation foam pretending to have aspirations.
Curiosity won. Just as his fingers brushed the top of a cube, a slender hand with long, surgically perfect nails collided with his. He instinctively tightened his grip, ready to apologize, until he looked up and met a pair of flashing evergreen eyes. Sadie Murphy’s.
His stomach performed the deeply unhelpful clench it always saved just for her.
She looked exactly as she always did. Bohemian, wild-haired, like a Free People catalog had achieved sentience and chosen violence.
She was stunning, and she hated him with a level of devotion normally reserved for ancient grudges and blood feuds.
He was fairly certain she would rather choke on an actual hay bale than share food, oxygen, or a two-second glance with him.
She had loathed him from the moment they met at Eden’s house, his best friend and her now sister-in-law.
No reason given, no explanation asked. Maybe he reminded her of an ex.
Maybe his face just activated her fight response.
Whatever it was, her disdain had been steady, reliable, almost comforting in its consistency.
And now fate, apparently bored and cruel, had made her the makeup artist on his film. In his Montana.
“Did you want this?” he asked, all innocence, even as he gave the cube a small squish and leaned back, holding it just out of reach. The petty gremlin in him stretched, cracked its neck, and took the wheel.
Her lips curled in that slow, evil way that made it feel personal. “Wow. You really wake up every day and choose to be like this, don’t you? Is it a personality trait, or a childhood condition?”
“A little of both,” he said, smiling wider. His gaze dropped and stalled.
She was wearing a milkmaid dress. An actual milkmaid dress.The kind of thing meant for frolicking through wildflowers, not verbally dismantling a man in a room full of novelty decor.
The contrast between the delicate fabric and the murderous intent in her eyes was deeply confusing and far more distracting than he cared to admit.
Especially since she was clearly drafting his obituary in real time.
He could practically read the headline in her glare.
He ate it anyway. Absolutely worth the very real possibility of blunt force trauma just to watch her expression implode.
“Delicious,” he said, chewing thoughtfully, like it was foie gras and not a science experiment that had briefly considered becoming dessert.
“Thank you. I made them.” Her voice turned sweet in a way that suggested poison. “Don’t worry. Next batch gets antifreeze. Seasonal twist.”
“Aww,” he said, dabbing his mouth with a sheriff’s badge napkin. “You shouldn’t have. No, really. You truly shouldn’t have. That tasted like lemon-scented drywall.”
Then, because survival instincts had never been his strong suit, he added, “Also, this party is awful.”
Her brow arched. “I helped plan it.”
She swept her hand around them like a deranged game show host unveiling prizes no one wanted. The hay. The snacks. The shrimp in tiny cowboy boots. “All me.”
“You orchestrated this yeehaw nightmare,” he said slowly, like he was confirming a diagnosis.
She lifted her chin, proud. “You’re welcome.”
"You threw a party that looks like a rodeo and a craft store clearance rack got into a bar fight. Why would you do this?"
“Because some of us still believe in fun,” she shot back. “And some of us,” her gaze dragged over him, cataloging flaws with professional precision, “need to be forcibly introduced to it before they fully evolve into a protein shake with abs and no discernible personality.”
He stepped closer, dropping his voice. “This is your idea of fun. Shrimp cocktails in footwear.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, sugar-sweet and lethal. “Did I fail to cater to your very specific aesthetic. Moody lumberjack meets gym rat with a superiority complex.”
He laughed. “You are deeply unwell.”
“And you’re not nearly as charming as you think you are,” she fired back, eyes gleaming with that unhinged sparkle that made his pulse trip. She looked annoyingly hot when she was about to commit violence.
He dipped his head, invading her space just enough to be annoying. “You sound nervous. Want to put that theory to the test.”
Her jaw ticked, eyes blazing, shoulders squared. She dropped her voice to a hiss. “We are going to be civil because we are professionals. But if you get in my way, I will make your life deeply unpleasant.”
He nearly choked on a laugh. She was glaring up at him like an angry little chihuahua.
Tiny, furious, and two seconds from sinking her teeth into his ankle.
God, she was ridiculous. Barely half his size, stomping around like she could bulldoze him with pure spite.
It was almost endearing if it wasn’t so damn infuriating.
She stepped in even closer, practically nose-to-chest with him now, and he caught the tiny flecks of gold in her green eyes. He could almost hear her thoughts whirring, running calculations on at least twelve different ways to verbally skin him alive and feed his pride to the crows.
“Out. Of. My. Way.”
She jabbed a finger into his chest like she was trying to reboot his heart or at least bruise his sternum into compliance.
He felt the bite of her nail through his shirt and, because his brain was wired like a frat boy with a gym membership, he flexed. Not intentionally, he told himself. Maybe a reflex. Definitely ego. Possibly a sad hope that she would notice.
She jabbed again, harder this time. And her eyes flicked down. Just a flicker, but it landed like a punch. Heat flared in her gaze, fast and dangerous, like a spark catching on dry brush.
He nearly said it: This town ain’t big enough for the both of us. Complete with a squint, a drawl, and maybe even an imaginary cowboy hat tip. But he didn’t. Some part of him still wasn’t ready to die.
Even so, she radiated the exact same energy as a giant red button labeled DO NOT PUSH. And of course, he was the idiot who never just pushed buttons. He hammered them like a sugar fueled toddler at a carnival, convinced the harder he hit, the more likely he was to win a stuffed bear.
Without thinking, he caught her hand at his chest, fingers curling around hers like a sprung trap.
“As long as you stay out of mine,” he murmured, voice low enough to trip alarms.
Her eyes flared with something wild and untamed. The kind of look that made his heart race and his brain start calculating bail money. This set was absolutely not big enough for the two of them. This was going to end in one of three ways, a restraining order, her in his bed, or both.
Then she yanked her hand back like it burned, her expression snapping into something cold and detached. Like she hadn’t just considered murder and foreplay in the same breath.
“Quentin!” A voice called, cutting through the tension like a chainsaw through silk.
He didn’t move. He just watched her, the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way she rebuilt that armor piece by piece with every controlled inhale.
Fine. He’d stay out of her way. He just had a feeling she was going to make that very difficult.