Chapter 4 Mason
Mason
When I walk into the bar just before last call, the bachelorette party is still going strong. The music has completely changed, and Sierra Daniels is leading a very drunk group of women in a passionate singalong to “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child.
At some point, she donned a Miss Behaving sash. Upside down and backwards.
The bar is decently busy, and the Friday-night crowd, a mix of locals and visitors, is fairly riveted on the spectacle of nine drunk out-of-towners going hard on the karaoke.
We don’t have karaoke, so the girls are singing loudly to be heard over the late-night volume of the music—using empty cider bottles as microphones.
I grab an unoccupied table near the bar, followed closely by Jace and my brother’s best friend, our orchard manager, Evan Garnett.
It’s been a long day—Evan and Jace helped me work on the house all evening, and I told them drinks are on me tonight.
I’m not even sure if Jace told Evan the real reason we’re here.
Once again, I’m looking at her.
I’ve kept in touch with my bar staff, and according to their updates, the bachelorette party enjoyed the free nachos and wings I sent them, eventually ate dinner, and took over the jukebox shortly after their eighth bottle of cider.
At least all the singing and dancing will help them sweat out some of the alcohol.
Jace puts in an order for us with Oscar at the bar, as Evan and I sit back and take in the show.
If I’d ever been under the impression that the purpose of a bachelorette party is to celebrate a woman’s impending wedded bliss, this little performance would’ve proven otherwise.
With a bunch of drunk women belting out such fuck you songs as “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “No Scrubs,” and “good 4 u” at the top of their lungs, anyone walking into the bar would sooner guess they’d stumbled into a divorce party.
I can only assume Same Penis Forever isn’t in charge of the song selection.
I limit myself to a few shots with the boys and sip a couple of Traditional Dry ciders while I take it all in. The way Sierra keeps serenading the bride, and getting the crowd singing along, and generally enthralling the entire room.
Or maybe it’s just me who’s enthralled.
Sierra doesn’t look my way once. She hasn’t noticed I’m here, or doesn’t care, or maybe she’s just too drunk to notice anything beyond her immediate surroundings.
At last call, the ladies all throw back a round of Sea Haven violet gin, the bride’s arm slung around Sierra’s neck as they cackle at some shared joke.
The music mellows out a bit, and toward the finale of a passionate group singalong to Kacey Musgraves’s “High Horse,” the party finally starts to slide out of hand.
Party Animal climbs up on a table singing lead, followed closely by Sierra and Troublemaker singing backup, and while Jace applauds along with the rest of the crowd, Evan and I exchange a look.
We set down our drinks, get to our feet, and approach the party.
“Sorry, ladies,” Evan announces, his booming ex-military voice carrying easily over the music, “but you’ll need to come down from there. For your safety.” He offers Party Animal and Troublemaker a hand, and they appear eager to comply with his request.
Evan has that effect on women.
Sierra stops sing-shouting along to the song, looking affronted as Evan helps the others climb down. “Don’t let men rain on your parade, ladies!” she shouts—into her microphone/cider bottle. “Don’t give away your power! You are perfect just the way you are—!”
Then she notices me standing directly below her. She stares, open-mouthed, as I offer her my hand.
She takes it and jumps down, stumbles, and falls into my arms.
My pulse races at the unexpected full-body contact.
She blinks up at me, cheeks flushed, her green eyes bleary. “You came back,” she gushes. She feels hot and damp, and I wonder if she realizes that she’s smushed herself right up against me, her breasts flattened against my chest.
My cock has definitely noticed.
“I own the bar,” I remind her.
“Oh. Right.”
“That was quite the performance.”
“Oh, I know all the songs,” she says. As “High Horse” ends and “Hotel California” starts playing, she grows heavier as she sags against me, staring up into my eyes, and the room around us gets blurry again, like no one else exists except as some vague concept.
Maybe I’m just drunker than I thought.
“Water.”
Her gaze drops to my mouth. “What?”
“Have you been drinking water?”
She blinks. “I think so. Maybe?”
“Let’s get you some.”
“Okay.”
She makes no move to extract herself from my arms or support her own weight.
The tempo of “Hotel California” kicks up and she starts to sway a little, moving with the music. And singing along, though she clearly doesn’t know all the words.
I resist as she tries to dance with me, my pulse thudding and my cock inconveniently hardening. “I should really help close up the bar . . .”
My staff don’t need my help. But I am trying to be a gentleman here. She is very drunk.
“Please?” she pleads.
A shiver runs down my back and my nipples actually harden.
When my feet remain rooted to the floor, she pouts dramatically.
The second I let her go, Jace swoops in to dance with her. She smiles, delighted, as he whirls her away, and irritation climbs up my spine one vertebra at a time, finally lodging in my throat as I watch them dance.
Jealousy.
Humanity’s most useless emotion.
I stalk behind the bar, raise the lights and turn the music down low, and tell the staff, “Closing up.”
As they hurry to clear up tabs with other customers, I open Sierra’s tab and comp most of it.
I print out the bill, leaving a couple of rounds on it so she won’t make a fuss.
Something tells me if I comp the whole thing she’ll make a big deal out of it, and at this point she probably has no idea what’s actually supposed to be on it.
Abby charges Sierra’s credit card and gives it back to her, along with a big glass of water, interrupting her dance with Jace.
By then, the bar has cleared out except for the bachelorette party. While the rest of the girls pay up, Sierra checks her phone.
I take a seat with Evan as he finishes his beer, keeping an eye on her—and pondering what I’m going to do about her.
See her again when she’s sober, hopefully.
Jace is busy talking up Bad Influence and Raging Diva now, probably trying to figure out if they’re into threesomes.
I can’t believe I let him dance with her.
My pulse is beating in my dick, making it hard to think straight. And those shots I downed are making it so much easier to undress her with my eyes.
That loose shirt that keeps sliding off her shoulder . . . gone.
The stretchy yoga pants on that fantastic ass . . . also gone.
Panties . . . ripped off with my teeth.
That long, silken ponytail spilling down her naked back, bra ripped off and tossed to the floor as I slam my mouth down on hers . . .
She drifts over to our table, and I stare.
“Excuse me,” she says politely, like we’re meeting for the first time and she didn’t just flatten her body against mine so tightly, I’m still fighting down the hard-on. “Do you know of anywhere in town I can get a room for tonight?”
This surprises me, and it takes me a moment to respond. “I thought you were staying at the Twisted Tree guesthouse.”
She looks confused.
“June Spencer’s guesthouse,” I clarify. “Isn’t the whole bachelorette party staying there?”
“Oh. Right.” She glances over her shoulder at the other girls. “I’m not with them.”
“You’re not?”
“I just met them tonight. Fun girls, but no.” She looks at me worriedly, twists her lip between her teeth. “I asked them where they’re staying tonight, but they said they’d booked all the rooms. It’s full.”
I consider that. “June’s guesthouse is the closest thing to a hotel around here. We have a couple of B&Bs, but those are full, too . . .” I look to Evan to verify this.
“They book out in advance from May to October,” Evan tells her. “Including mine. Nearby towns, too. Every bed is full right now, leading up to Sunshine Fest. It’s a pretty big thing around here.”
Sierra frowns and sits down with us. “I know. That’s why I’m here.”
Okay, that is interesting. The festival is a few weeks away.
So she’s not just here for two days?
“June Spencer said she’d provide lodging for me,” she says, poking at her phone. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of her all day, but no luck.” She peers up at us. “I guess I’m stranded?”
Jesus. Leave it to June.
“Where was she putting you up, if not the guesthouse?” Evan asks her.
“A private cottage. That’s what she said. Why?”
Jace snorts as he overhears, sitting down with us. “Cottage?”
“Yeah. That’s what June said.” Sierra frowns. “A cozy cottage.”
Evan and I exchange a glance. June’s putting up Sierra in that old shack behind her house?
Nope. That seals it. Tomorrow, I’m finding her somewhere decent to stay. Even if it means evicting Jace and his roommate from my place next to the bar and making them sleep on my couch together.
“I guess I could just walk over there with the girls now . . .” Sierra glances over at the bachelorette party, who are gathering up their things to leave. “Maybe if I just show up at the guesthouse, someone can let June know I’m there, and she can direct me to my cottage . . . ?”
“It’s midnight,” Evan points out. “June’s seventy-six. And if she’s anything like Mason’s grandpa, you wake her up now, she’s more likely to shoot you.”
Sierra’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out, as maybe she considers the likelihood that June Spencer sleeps with a gun under her bed.
“Well, shit. I mean . . . could I crash on the couch in your office, then?” She looks to me, gorgeous green eyes flooded with hope and drunken desperation. “I’ll pay for it, of course.”
The answer to that would be a resounding no.