Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
RHETT
I pull a worn box down from the top rack of the storage closet and send a cloud of dust flying across the small space, immediately sending me into a sneezing fit that, quite frankly, pisses me off. I’ve been irritable all day, and I know going out last night is part of it, but it’s also the bone-deep exhaustion of life lately, of feeling like I’m always waiting for something else to go wrong.
Maybe going out to Williamson County last night wasn’t the smartest move, but I needed to blow off a little steam. It’s not even that I drank enough to be hungover—I cut myself off before Colt could drag me into his mess—but I didn’t get home until well past midnight and was up again not four hours later when James started crying from the room down the hall.
Melody’s been in and out of the hospital over the last four months. When the doc found the cancer, everything in my family’s world changed on a dime. Melody was immediately sent to a bigger hospital in Houston where they started her on rounds of aggressive chemo and radiation. Brooks spent most nights there to be with her, and the rest of us took turns watching the boys and filling in for him on the ranch and here at the bar. It’s been a lot.
Initially, I figured the impact of her diagnosis would be like anything else that had struck the Bennett family: quick and disastrous. And while I was right about the disaster it caused, I was dead wrong about it being quick. For four months my family has been in an ongoing cycle of hell, trying our damndest to support Brooks while Melody fights for her life.
Carrying the box back out to the public bar space, I set it on the seat of the nearest stool and look around to inventory all the holiday decor that needs to come down. I hate that it was even put up—such a waste of time. Our family didn’t have much good to celebrate this year, and people don’t exactly come to Wild Coyote looking for a dose of holiday spirit.
Nah, this is a place people come to hide from the rest of the world. In addition to the ranch itself, Wild Coyote has been a decades-long fixture for town corruption and lawlessness. This is where people come to lose themselves to the bottom of a bottle, to sit in the dark with their misery and pretend like everything outside these four walls doesn’t exist. It’s no secret most of the Saddlebrook Falls townsfolk give it a wide berth, but we still have dedicated regulars who help keep the lights on.
My great-grandfather opened this place during the Great Depression, when breaking wild horses wasn’t bringing in enough money to keep the ranch afloat. He figured people had plenty of reasons to drink, and he was right. The bar kept him and my great-grandmother from having to sell off pieces of the ranch—a move that’s undoubtedly categorized as the biggest failure any Bennett could bring upon their family.
That land has been in my family’s name since before Texas became a state, and my great-grandfather Earl wasn’t about to lose it because of a stock market crash and bank failures that had nothing to do with our family name. He figured out a way to push through—same as we’ve been doing my whole life.
“Hey.” A voice sounds from near the front door, and I drop the piece of red tinsel I just plucked out from an old wall sconce. I turn to find Kasey standing with two cases of beer stacked in his hands and another on the ground at his feet. “Could use some help here.”
I shove past the box and reach him in a few strides. “Sorry,” I mumble. “Didn’t hear you come in.”
He cocks his head. “You okay?”
“Yeah, just . . . busy mind, I guess.”
Kasey deposits the cases of beer onto the bar top. “Wells said you got in late last night.”
I roll my eyes, setting the third box down beside the others. Leave it to my little brother to rat me out. “Yeah, well, it was my first time out in almost a month. I needed to get out of that house. It ain’t a crime.”
Kasey spends nearly every night in his own cabin on the ranch. Sawyer was home for a month during the holidays, but he had to head back to school about a week ago. Wells has been spending more nights at the big house than his own cabin lately—he and his girl, Layla, have been pulling night duties with the boys while Kasey and I run the bar. He bartends too when we need him to, but Layla is so good with the kids and, despite all the heartache, I think he likes playing house with her.
Everyone knows I’m better suited here than at home, trying to wrangle three little boys without hurting their feelings over my complete lack of patience. Kasey is good with them like Wells is, but he’s been managing all Bennett-related business operations since Brooks has been away—something no one would trust me with. Honestly, no one trusts me to help with anything outside of breaking horses and pouring drinks, and I can’t say I blame ’em.
“You have your own cabin, you know,” he says, pulling me back to the present.
I don’t have the heart to tell him that the cabin our parents handed down to me is depressing as hell. It’s the one Dad used to live in, before he and Mom took over the big house when Grandpa got too old and tired to run things. I was only a kid back then—before Wells was even born and Sawyer was still running around in diapers—but I remember how hectic life was for us in that little two-bedroom space. It was before Dad’s accident but well after his heavy drinking had taken root, and that cabin was much too small for Mom to hide it from us.
“Yeah, well,” I respond, “figured Wells might need help with the kids.”
Kasey’s eyes narrow. “At one in the morning?”
I shrug. “James woke up not long after, looking for a snack.”
Kasey sighs, his eyes softening. “He’s been hungrier than a hog lately. Must be going through a growth spurt.”
Thinking about those boys growing up without their mama around to see them twists a knot in my stomach, and I busy myself with pulling down the Christmas lights that are stapled around the door frame. I’m still annoyed we have this shit up at all, but Kasey wanted to decorate, like he does every year. Says it helps lighten the mood in this place.
I hear the clinking of glass as Kasey fills the fridge below the bar with the bottles he’s just brought in. “Gonna be another busy night,” he calls out from where he’s hunched over.
No shit , I think. It’s Saturday, our busiest night of the week. Fridays are a close second, though I’m sure Wells was still able to get out of here by nine last night to get back to Layla and the boys. I’m on closing duty tonight, but Kasey will still probably be here until around eleven. “How’d things go last night?”
“Eh.” He knocks a shoulder up before reaching for more beers. “Not too bad. Old man Gerry closed the place down with me—most everyone else was out before midnight.”
Gerry was the oldest person in Saddlebrook Falls. He knew my grandfather well and is one of the only people who ever defended him to the rest of town. Things between the Bennetts and everyone else didn’t grow sour until Grandpa grew into a feral teenager and caused trouble everywhere he went. He had a wild hare up his ass and tore through this town like a tornado on wheels, chasing girls and starting fights with anyone who looked at him sideways. He calmed down in his old age, but the damage to our family name had been done.
Our dad certainly didn’t help things. As the oldest of three boys, Dad should have been a good example for his younger brothers, just like Brooks and Kasey were for us. But Dad was wilder than Grandpa ever was, and we’ve all been dealing with the repercussions of his actions for as long as I can remember.
“How is that old man?” I ask.
Kasey smiles. “Still kickin’, that’s for sure.”
I grin before I pull out my pocketknife to pry the staples from the wooden frame.
* * *
Four hours later, there’s a steady stream of people flowing through the door. At max capacity, the cramped bar holds about forty patrons, which isn’t a whole lot compared to most other bars. But the way these people suck down liquor keeps Kasey and I busier than two beavers in a hurricane, and I’ve already lost what little scraps of patience I had today.
“Rhett,” Sunny Cooke calls from the corner of the bar, his sweat-stained collar stuck to the side of his sun-weathered neck. “Beer me!”
I hold up the four bottles of Coors Light I’ve got between my hands. “Little busy here, Sunny,” I bite back.
“Yeah, yeah,” Sunny mutters, turning back to his brother Boone, whose eyes are already glazed over.
Sunny and Boone aren’t technically from Saddlebrook Falls—they live in a run-down shack out past county lines, selling fresh eggs from their chickens and whatever else they can find worth a quarter or two. I can’t imagine they’re able to make much money that way, but they still somehow end up here a couple times a month and spend enough of it to get piss-drunk. We usually have to drag them out the door because they don’t stop drinking ’til we force them to, and by the looks of things, Boone is halfway there.
I bring the bottles I’m holding to a high-top out on the floor and drop them on the table’s surface between eager hands, scooping up the empties before I head back for the bar. The jangle of the bell above the door sounds and, on instinct, I turn to look at a young couple walking in.
My gaze immediately locks in on the girl, on her smokey green eyes surrounded by long lashes and strawberry blonde hair curled to frame her pretty face, the strands much lighter than they’d looked in the dark last night. I stop dead in my tracks.
Olivia.
Those beautiful eyes grow wide as saucers when she sees me, like she didn’t expect to find me here. Not sure how, since this is my family’s bar . . . but I’ve also never seen her in here before, so her surprise could be genuine.
I watch her throat bob before she looks up at the guy she came in here with, an uneasy smile spreading across her face. I, too, turn my attention to the lanky kid next to her and frown. Jesus . Didn’t take her long to find a new one. The guy grins at her, wrapping a long arm around her shoulders and leading her farther inside.
I move behind the bar where I have a better angle to study him. He’s an angular-looking city boy with slicked-back hair and a shirt so starched it’s practically wearing him. Looking back at Olivia, I find her flushed as she takes off her denim jacket. Blood flows to the surface of her soft cheeks in a way that both excites and irritates me. Something about the way she can’t stop glancing in this direction, like she can sense my impatience about this whole thing, has me standing a little straighter. The smell of her perfume from last night—sweet and ripe like a basket full of peaches—floods through my memory, and I have to force my attention onto a stack of cocktail napkins.
Thankfully, Kasey notices when they sit down and works his way over there. We’ve all been in this godforsaken town our whole lives, so I know Kasey and Olivia know each other, but neither of them rushes to mention it. “Evenin’,” Kasey greets them warmly. “Can I get you folks something to drink?”
“Two White Russians,” City Boy replies, and I almost snort. Figures he’d order something with fucking milk. I’m pretty sure the open gallon in the fridge has been in there for almost a month, but I don’t stop Kasey as he turns to work on making their drinks.
I need to distract myself before my tongue starts flying, so I bend to grab two bottles of Miller Lite from the fridge and walk them over to Sunny and Boone. “’Bout time,” Sunny mumbles bitterly as I set them down.
I plant both hands on the bar top and lean down to look him right in the eye. “You know something, Sunny? I’m getting real tired of you two comin’ in here and actin’ like the world revolves around your sorry asses. You don’t like the service? Find somewhere else that’ll deal with your shit.”
Boone starts laughing, a wheezy, obnoxious sound, and slaps his brother on the shoulder. “Aw, Sunny, lighten up. These boys treat us good.”
I grin. “Yeah, see. Listen to Boone.”
Sunny clicks his tongue. “Listenin’ to Boone never leads us anywhere fucking good.”
Boone stops laughing, eyes squinting as he tries to look serious. “Well, fuck you, Sunny.”
“Hey,” I warn. “Don’t get yourselves all twisted now. You start fighting with each other in my bar and I’ll be the one to finish it, you hear?”
“That a threat, Rhett?” Sunny looks at me like this would be a fair fight.
“That’s a promise,” I confirm before stepping away, inhaling a deep breath through my nose to stem the tingle in my fingers. I shake out my hands and beeline it for Kasey. “Those two idiots are on their last drink.”
He looks in Sunny and Boone’s direction. “Already?”
I nod. “Yep.”
“All right. I’ll give them the good news when they’re done with that round.” He pats my shoulder and gives me a once-over. “You cool?”
“Yeah. Just . . . annoyed.”
“Okay. Well, take it easy and let me handle them. I’m gonna grab some more bourbon from the back—you okay for a minute?”
“Yeah,” I say through a sigh. “I’m good.”
Kasey nods and heads for the back office, and I see City Slicker is headed for the hallway too, likely for the bathroom.
I take the opportunity to plant myself right in front of Olivia.
She straightens, her manicured fingers reaching for the square napkin that rests on the bar between us. “You’re here,” she says, the words slipping through full lips I can’t resist watching.
My own mouth curves into a wide smirk. “You thinkin’ about me, peaches?”
The napkin crumples in her hand and her cheeks flush crimson. It’s a beautiful display of what I can only assume is her discomfort, which leaves me feeling a bit at odds with my ability to have that effect on her. “I didn’t know you worked here,” she says in a hushed whisper.
“It’s my family’s bar,” I say back. She winces, like somehow that’s worse than me just working here. The lingering silence is taut. “You really didn’t know I’d be here?” I ask.
She shakes her head, straightening in the tall barstool. “No. If I’d known . . .” A flare of determination settles over her, a confidence that makes my chest spark. “I knew your family owned the bar, but I guess I didn’t realize you’d actually be working in it. I didn’t know where else in town to meet Tony without anyone noticing.”
“Tony?” I parrot, looking toward the dark hallway he disappeared down. “Who the fuck is Tony?”
“My date,” she says coolly.
I scoff, shaking my head as I stand back to my full height. I don’t have time for this shit.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, defensive.
I take in the ferocity in her eyes, the tight press of her plump lips. God, she’s one hell of a looker. Too bad she wastes it all on guys like Tony and the greasy douchebag from last night. “Nothing, sweetheart.” I knock my knuckles against the bar’s surface. “Have a good night with your date.”
She looks like she wants to fire back, but Tony comes walking around the corner and stops her from saying another word.