Chapter 2 #2
I watched as dusty and rough-around-the edges cowboys played pool. Blushed when they called me ma’am. Their casual hat tips altered my heart’s beat.
When the bells over the door jingled, I twisted in my seat. My gaze snagged on a man who looked like no one I’d ever gone for before. Six foot three, tall, rugged. Chiseled jaw, intense eyes. I shamelessly stared.
He was a walking heartbreak in a chambray shirt and brown Stetson.
His boots were sharp across the sawdust floor. The way he worked the crowd, slapping backs, buying drinks, told me he was a regular.
When the cowboy settled at the bar with a group of friends, I leaned low on the table, resting my chin on my forearms, and drank him in. I preferred to sketch with pencils, but this man? He could convince me to get out the clay and sculpt. I wanted to document every beautiful detail.
Pulling out a pen, I tore my gaze from the handsome stranger and sketched him quickly. Biceps, belt buckle, and those bright blue eyes. When I was finished, I tipped back the last of my drink. Considered my options. That pulse down below.
It had been a while and I was feeling brave, if not horny. So I tore the page from my sketch pad and headed his way. I’d always been one for knee-jerk, for snap decisions. Maybe it was the artist in me. Never wanting to settle, hating to wait. Tonight wasn’t any different.
I slid his sketch across the bar top and looked him in the eyes. “Sure look good in those Wranglers, cowboy.”
He laughed, and the sound lit me up. Bright and deep and bold. Like he’d been happy all his life. He took me in, attention raking down the off-the-shoulder sweater and ripped jeans I’d tossed on before leaving my motel room.
“That’s a hell of a line, sugar.” His face changed to a serious earnestness as he studied the drawing. “Hell of a drawing too.”
“I’m an artist.” I pinched my fingers together. “Only minimally starving.”
Another beautiful laugh. A shiver rolled down my spine.
“Hank Blue.” He held out a big hand.
Heat snapped between us as his rough, calloused palm pressed into mine. I committed the feel to memory. “Well, Hank Blue, I’m Bellamy.”
“Buy you a drink?” He stood, carefully folding, then tucking the drawing into his back pocket.
The gentleness with which he did so made me shiver.
A crooked grin overtook his face as he glanced back at his snickering friends. “Away from these animals.”
Hank claimed a high-top and I sat on the stool next to him. We drank whiskey and bonded over the loss of a parent, the feral joy-rage that possessed us when working to beat the New York Times crossword puzzle and our shared passion for Christmas.
“It has to be a real tree.” I waved my drink around like it was a gavel. Hiccupped. “Every day of the week.”
He set his glass on the table with a thud. “Hell, if you don’t find a live animal livin’ in it, you’ve gone wrong.”
I laughed, and it was like wildflowers blooming inside my heart.
“Now the real question,” I said, “is lights. White or multicolored?”
“Multicolored.”
Head tilted, I pressed my lips together. “Hmm. I prefer white.”
“Ain’t a deal-breaker, is it, sugar?” Hank’s heated gaze slid to me and held.
“No.” I bit my lip, heat flooding me in response to the nickname. “It’s not.”
“So, city girl, you find a lot of live trees in San Francisco?” He ran a hand over his sharp jaw.
I studied him, like I could memorize every beautiful angle.
“I try.” Leg dancing under the table, I propped my cheek in my palm. “It bother you? I’m not a country girl?” I went for flirty, even though my question was genuine. What type of girl would this man go for?
But my effort was in vain. The words came out strained. Or maybe just honest. Come to think of it, that’s what I’d been the entire night. Just honest with Hank.
He searched my face, a grin curving his lips upward. “No. You still look like a cowboy’s dream come true.”
My heart stumbled in my chest. “You’re a romantic, Hank.”
“Can’t blame me. Not when I got a pretty girl here beside me.”
A blush crept over my cheeks, and inside I swooned. “Is it true?” I nodded at his brown Stetson. “Wear the hat, ride the cowboy?”
He sat back, brow arched. “You want to find out?”
I let out a shaky breath. “Quite a line.”
“No line.” Gaze heated, he spun his empty whiskey glass on the table. “I want you to come back to my cabin.”
Despite my sweaty palms, boldness took over, and I ran a hand up his arm. “A cabin in the woods. Sounds ominous.”
He leaned in, lightly grazing a thumb across the arc of my cheekbone. “Ominous ain’t the word I’d use to describe what I plan to do with you, sugar.”
Awareness, desire curled that vibrating thread between us.
My core tightened, but I played it cool, arching a brow. “You take a lot of girls back to your cabin, cowboy?”
A serious expression overtook his rugged face. “Just the ones I want.”
My heart fluttered. My toes curled. In those six seconds of flirty bar banter, I already knew I loved a cowboy.
“Bell.”
I blink away the memory of being pinned against the wall of this very cabin that night. Of the moment he dropped to his knees and slid off my jeans to press a hot kiss to the inside of my thigh.
“What?” My voice comes out breathless.
As my mind clears, I take in the cabin again, discovering it’s darker than it was when we entered.
“We got a problem.” His shoulders lift with his heavy sigh.
“What is it?” I force my legs to move and drift to the window where he’s standing.
“That.”
I follow his finger to the sky. “Shit.”