19
“I like this bar,” Ruby says, her eager eyes glowing as she drops onto a stool at the high-top table.
I settle beside her. “Better than Nowhere?”
She gives a mock gasp before a teasing smile appears on her pretty face. “I don’t know. Will there be another handsome cowboy carrying me out of here tonight?”
Something sharp stabs me in the chest at the thought of Ruby in another man’s arms. “If you want to start another bar fight, sure.”
She props her chin in her palm and smiles. “Maybe I will, Cowboy.”
When she calls me “cowboy,” it’s like throwing an accelerant on my heart.
After a full day of showing Ruby around Resurrection—with a better attitude than I had the first time—I’ve taken her to the Neon Grizzly on Main Street.
Though the bar is loud, it’s honky-tonk-lite, catering to a mix of tourists and locals.
Muted TVs play country music videos, while servers wearing mechanic aprons fight their way through the crowd. It’s safer here. No fistfights.
What isn’t safe is what I’ve just done. Without meaning to, I’ve taken Ruby on a goddamn date.
All I could think about earlier today was seeing her. Helping her with her to-do list. Apologizing for scaring the shit out of her. Plus, I won’t lie. It feels great to take a break from the ranch, even for a night. I needed a day out, and she was the perfect person to distract me.
Only she’s not a distraction. She’s Ruby. The girl who twists me up inside every time I glimpse her gorgeous face.
It’s been a long time since I haven’t let the ranch fill my days with work from sunup to sundown. I’m busy, but these days, I’m never too busy for Ruby.
My stomach clenches as my eyes settle on her delicate profile. Her rose-gold hair’s wild around her. The purple strap of her sundress has slipped off her shoulder. She’s crossed her legs, causing the hem of her sundress to ride high, exposing the smooth underside of her thigh.
I scrub a hand over my beard, glancing down at my dirty blue-jean shirt and muddy boots. Damn if I don’t feel like a peasant sitting next to a princess. “I should have cleaned up,” I grumble.
“No,” she squeaks and then bites her lip. “I like you better like this.”
“How’s that?”
“Dirty.” A pink flush stains her cheeks. Damn, she looks cute.
The waitress appears, flapping an impatient hand. “Drinks?”
“You pick,” I tell Ruby. “It’s your night.”
She gasps. “How is that fair? You finally took a day off in what? A millennium?”
I smile at the truth of her words. “Something like that.”
“My night, huh?” Uncertainty fogs her face as her eyes scan the chalkboard menu. “How about ...a whisky pickleback shot and two beers.”
The waitress disappears.
I drum my hands on the table. “Now you’re speaking my language.”
“What? Rough and rowdy? Or grumpy and glowering?”
I laugh. Caught off guard by the sound, Ruby and I both jump.
Jesus. When was the last time I laughed like that?
“See ...” she says, her small hand fanning out to cup my jaw. “You can laugh.”
I roll my eyes, fight my ever-widening smile. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it.”
“Oh, I am very used to it, Cowboy. No take backs. You must now smile at me at least two percent of the time.”
Well aware the whole damn town has its eyes on us, I grunt.
It’s instinctual, the way I reach for her, the way I need her.
I pull her stool closer, wanting her next to me so I can inhale her strawberry scent and bask in her sunshine glow.
I can’t keep my hands off her. I’d fight the world for just her smile.
There’s something about Ruby that calms the strife and the bullshit inside of me.
She’s different from what I’m used to. From what I thought I wanted or needed. I try not to compare women to Maggie. Especially not Ruby. They are completely different species. Maggie was like a storm cloud, and Ruby’s a gentle breeze. But the one thing they have in common is their hearts.
I might be made of gravel, but Ruby—she’s made of gold.
Ruby spears me with her big blue eyes. “I’ve never been in a bar before. Not like this.”
Screws tighten in my chest. The more she talks, the more it sounds like she’s lived in a tower her entire life. It doesn’t sit right with me. But before I can ask, she leans in and whispers, conspiratorially, “So, what do we do?”
I chuckle. “We drink. We people watch. And then we dance.” I point at the band, which is just one guy in suspenders and a top hat, setting up his guitar and an amp.
“That’s Marvin. He swears aliens abduct his cows every Tuesday, but he can play a mean cover of ‘All Along the Watchtower , ’ so we refrain from tarring and feathering him in the square. ”
Giggling, she claps her hands together in delight. Right on time, the drinks arrive. “Like I said, I love this bar.”
“Yeah, well, just wait for him to bust out his Irish jig.” I lift my shot. “Cheers, baby.”
“Cheers.”
Ruby takes the shot. I hide a smile at the way her eyes fly open. “Wow,” she breathes. “That’s strong.”
“Hey, check it out.” I point at a muted TV and Ruby’s eyes follow. On screen, Grady, wheeling a guitar, stars in his first music video. “That’s my little brother.”
She flashes me a grin. “Another brother?”
I take a swig of my beer. “Yup.”
“Big family,” she muses, tapping a nail on the table.
“Getting bigger by the second.” I pull out my phone and show her the photo of my nieces. “My baby sister just had twins. Cora and Daisy.”
“Oh, Charlie,” Ruby says, her eyes lighting up as she swipes through the photos. “They’re beautiful.”
Pride swells in my chest. “They are. Need to make it down to Nashville one of these days.”
Ruby’s gaze flicks to my face, assessing. “You like kids?”
“Yeah.” I clear my throat, the admission like a switchblade in my gut. “I do. I love kids.”
As one of six, I want the mess and chaos that comes with a big family. Whatever the world threw my way, I had my siblings. No dull moments, lots of laughter, love. Family rests at the core of who I am as a man. It’s everything that’s important, that matters in this world.
When I glance over, I see Ruby’s lost in thought, her light dimmed.
I don’t like it. Reaching over, I smooth a hand down her bare arm, wanting to make her happy. “You all right?”
“I’m fine,” she says on an exhale. She takes a sip of her beer and shrugs a slender shoulder. “Just ...taking it all in.”
So that’s what I do too.
From my seat, I can see the entire bar. Couples two-step across the dancefloor, and there’s a group of cowboys playing darts. Tina, off tonight, sits with her husband at the bar. An unfamiliar group of city kids, wearing backward baseball hats and polos, pound shots at a horseshoe booth.
That’s when I see Wyatt and a woman with a mass of blue-black curls, her lips red as a crime scene.
He’s at a corner table cozying up to Sheena Wolfington, My brother nods at me, but returns his attention to Sheena, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close.
Sheena, a stylist at the House of Hair, has tried to work her way through us since we came to town. But we’ve all been smart enough to leave her alone.
Until now.
What the hell is Wyatt doing?
Sheena’s trouble. Stilettoed, murderous, cold-blooded trouble.
I swear when I spy Fallon. She floats through the room like a shark, eyes narrowed, her slender body tense as a rod.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
Talk about the triangle of doom.
“Charlie?” Ruby’s soft voice calls me back. “What is it?”
“Nothin’,” I say, not wanting her to worry over Wyatt’s bullshit.
The faint strum of guitar strings catches my attention. Marvin’s butchering an old Alan Jackson song.
Fuck this. Fuck worrying about Wyatt. Fuck work.
Time to get this girl in my arms.
I slip Ruby’s hand into mine. “You wanna dance?” I ask, lifting a brow. “Check off that to-do list?”
I’m rewarded with a smile brighter than a hundred suns. “Yeah. I’d love to.” Her adorable nose scrunches. “I just don’t know how—”
“I got you.”
Before she can slide off her stool, I pick her up by the waist and set her next to me, my hand on the small of her back. She gasps when I whirl her into a spin.
Montgomery men aren’t shy about knowing their way around a dance floor. It’s what we were raised on—country music, two-stepping, and honky-tonks. Dancing gets your boot in doors, gets beautiful women in your arms, and right now, I’m a happy man.
“Scoot your boots, baby,” I drawl, locking my hand to hers.
Ruby laughs and hangs onto me. She’s light in my arms as I bring her into an easy two-step that she soon gets the hang of.
One song turns to two turns to three.
We cut our own private square on the dance floor, burning it up like wildfire. Tightening my hold on her, I keep her close, careful to keep her away from other idiots on the dance floor. Some asshole knocking into Ruby isn’t happening.
“Charlie,” she breathes, her smiling growing. “You’re going to spin me out of my shoes.”
I grin down at her.
The hem of her sundress flares up, and in that moment, I know God invented dance floors just so he could watch Ruby twirl in a skirt.
“That’s how you know you’re doing it right,” I murmur against her lips.
I hold her tight to my chest, pushing her into my body, wanting all of her against me.
She giggles as I give her a twirl and rest a palm on her ass.
Taking her hand again, I spin her out. When she comes back into me, I dip her low, tipping her head back until her hair meets the floor.
Her lithe frame snaps back up, and all I can do is marvel.
She’s gorgeous as hell, with her messy hair and flushed cheeks, all carefree and wild and blooming.
But then Ruby’s pulling away, her eyes wide and fearful. “Oh,” she gasps. “I need to stop, Charlie.”
Before I can grasp what’s happening, she tears out of my arms and grabs our table, rocking our second round of drinks. Beer sloshes over the sides of the glasses.
I don’t think. I just move.
I’m by her side instantly.
“Ruby?” I glance down, scanning her for injuries. “Darlin’, you okay?”
With a flinch, she doubles over. Her eyes fall shut, her knuckles white as they clench the tabletop. “I’m fine. I got dizzy for a second.”
“You’re not fine,” I say gruffly, unsettled by her pale face. Her breathing’s shallow, and she looks like she’s going to faint.
A feeling I haven’t felt in years rises within me. Care.
Fuck. I care about her.
I wrap an arm around her waist, glancing around for the back door. “We’re going. Right now.”
“No!” She straightens up and I brace her against me. “No way. We’re not leaving.” Her laugh is shaky. “I don’t do this a lot. Drink. Dance. I just need to catch my breath.”
“Don’t argue with me.”
“I’m not. I’m convincing you.”
“Are you sure?” I study her, dangerously close to tossing her over my shoulder and hauling her out of the bar. She can argue with me all she wants back at my place.
“It’s my night, Cowboy.” Stubbornness flashes in her big blue eyes, and some of my worry ebbs. “I’m having fun. I don’t want to leave.” She slides a hand up my chest and my entire body locks at her calming touch. “Please, Charlie, let’s—”
A hard crack cuts off her words. Instinct has me stepping in front of her, shielding her with my body.
The bar falls silent.
That’s when I see Fallon’s palm tear away from Wyatt’s face. His left cheek flames bright red as they glare at each other. Then, Fallon mouths something that looks like fuck you and storms out the back door.
I frown, noticing the way Wyatt half-rises to go after her, but Sheena tugs him back down beside her.
“Jesus,” I growl.
This will be all over Resurrection. In a town this small, gossip spreads like wildfire.
“What’s happening?” Ruby whispers. She grips my shoulder, standing on tiptoes to see better.
Dragging a hand down my face, I turn to her. “I take back what I said about Wyatt. He is an idiot.”
“I should talk to her.” Ruby gives my arm a squeeze before looping her purse around her chest and rushing to follow Fallon outside.
I shoot my dumbass brother a glare as Sheena coos over him.
I’m pissed. Really fucking pissed. Wyatt’s gone too far with Fallon. Whatever he’s doing, my brother needs to learn not to fuck with a good woman’s heart.
I glance at the back door where Ruby disappeared and wonder if I should take my own damn advice.
I wonder if it’s already too late.