4. Temporary State #3
The song changed. Something slower, a fiddle and steel guitar, a ballad with a female crooning in a sultry way, the sort of two-step the Sapphire was built for.
The guy moved to pull Ivy closer, but forget burying anything—I was already off the barstool and crossing the floor before I knew what I was doing.
I didn’t cut in so much as arrive, glaring at the dude.
He took one look at me and backed off without a word, which was the smartest thing he’d done all night.
Ivy looked at my outstretched hand. That tiny mole above her lip shifted as her mouth curved. “What’s this?”
“One dance.” I took her hand and pulled her in, my other hand settling at her waist, and her fingers curled against my shoulder as we fell into the two-step like we’d done it a hundred times before.
We hadn’t. But her body fit against mine in a way that felt practiced, natural, like muscle memory for something that hadn’t happened yet, and suddenly my two left feet righted themselves.
Honeysuckle fragrance filled me up, and her hip brushed mine on every turn. Her fingers were doing something against the back of my shoulder, igniting every cell of my body, and sending blood rushing to my cock.
“Having fun, Calhoun? Making a connection with Lisa?” she asked, looking up at me with a sharp, amused expression, daring me to answer.
“She’s sweet.”
“And?”
“And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t play matchmaker with my evening, Wylde.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me? I put together a town event to help people meet. You’re people, and single. What’s the problem?”
“I don’t need help meeting women.” I turned her around the floor, and the motion pressed her closer into me than I intended. Her breath caught.
“Then what do you need?” Joking gone, her blue eyes, with the string lights reflected in them, took me hostage. My eyes fell to the line of her collarbone, the creamy skin there exposed in a way that was going to ruin my night if I stared at it too long.
“My sisters are pushing me to come home for Christmas,” I admitted, because it was easier than the truth and still honest enough to count. “Maybe for good. They’ve got a job lined up for me, and my mom needs help with the diner. I’m not exactly in the market for connections right now.”
Something moved behind her eyes, quick and controlled, like a door opening and closing.
But when she spoke, her voice was light.
Easy. The Ivy she showed the world. “Well then. If you’re leaving, the least you can do is help me recruit more ranch hands and eligible men for the next one.
” She patted my shoulder once, businesslike, even though her hand lingered half a beat too long.
“I need bodies, Calhoun. Warm ones. Preferably wearing cowboy hats, who can two-step?”
“And you want me to deliver a truck full of men every Friday night? I suppose that’s the least a friend could do.” The words came out gruffer than I intended.
The song ended. She stepped back, and my hand fell from her waist. The absence of her warmth against my palm registered like losing something I’d never owned.
She held my gaze for one more beat, and there it was again, that flicker of something real behind the performance.
Then she blinked, and it was gone, and she was just Ivy again, architect of Cowboy Night, a woman with a plan and no room in it for a man who was leaving.
“Great talk, cowboy.” She sashayed back to Daisy, and I watched because I couldn’t not watch her go, and then I went to the bar and ordered another beer and drank it in three long pulls, trying to will my cock to stand down.
The thing was, I hadn’t been with a woman in a long time.
Since the accident at sea. On purpose. And a man who hadn’t been touched in that long was bound to react when a beautiful woman pressed against him on a dance floor, her scent lingering in his lungs and her fingers curling against his shoulder.
Even if we were keeping each other friend-zoned.
I chalked it all up to deprivation. A body reminding itself it was alive on the anniversary of the day it should have died alongside Petty Officer Caleb Hollis on the deck of a ship in the middle of the Pacific.
That’s what I told myself, that it had nothing to do with Ivy. Simply a man who needed to get laid. But not here, definitely not with Lisa, and the one woman I wanted in this town was Ivy, who would barely look at me.
I made my excuses, paid my tab, and turned over my wingman duties to Jake to monitor Knox.
He protested my leaving fiercely, asking what he should do with Tina.
I took him aside and gave him some suggestions, most importantly to get Tina’s number before the end of the night.
Then I stumbled out into the cool Montana air.
The music faded behind me; the stars overhead intrigued me.
I hitched a ride back to the ranch with some other guys. The minute I arrived, I checked in on Silver. He was lying down on the wet hay I’d laid out for him earlier, dampened so that the dust wouldn’t get into his lungs, and his breathing was still labored.
I sat next to him, patting my hand down his neck in a repeated pattern. It seemed to soothe him, and it did me as well. Horses were emotional creatures, capable of understanding more than most people knew. Right now, at the end of a very long day, I needed all the emotional support I could get.