Chapter 18
Late March
Titus nudged open the back door with his elbow. His boots thudded on the cracked flagstone. Warmth from the firepit met his face at once. Smoke hung thick in the air while bourbon cut sharp through the cool Montana night.
Someone poured another round from a jug. Marisol by the look of it. The bourbon filled glass jars that passed from hand to hand. People stood close together everywhere he looked. Denim brushed bare calves. Sunburns showed from the afternoon spent stringing lights above the alley fence.
Supper-club staff in white aprons streaked with grease stood elbow to elbow with old ranch hands who had traded hats for bottle caps tonight. Folding chairs formed a tight circle around the fire.
Nobody minded whose knees bumped whose or whose laughter rose loudest. Near the fence line someone tuned a battered guitar between bites of cornbread.
He took in the scene without pause. His skin prickled and his neck flushed while tension sat tight under the celebration. The Mason jar felt sticky in his hand. He scanned for her. He always did no matter the room.
Kyla stood half turned by the deepest part of the fire. The hem of her dress skimmed the tops of her boots. Her laugh tangled with Marisol’s and cut above the noise. Someone passed her another jar.
She accepted it with both hands. Her face gleamed from whiskey and summer sweat. Coils pinned haphazard above her brow.
She caught him staring. She tilted her chin and flashed a grin that hooked his stomach. She mouthed something. It might have been come here or you are late.
Then she raised her drink high and pointed straight at him. Sly and unbothered. She called him out as plain as a barn bell.
He bit down on his own grin. Lately she had grown reckless with the way she held his attention in public. Ownership was no longer something she meant to keep quiet.
Last week he had barely escaped an earful from Ruthann about public displays not suitable for produce night. Tonight the postmistress sat halfway into the bourbon herself and argued the case for open-mouth toasts.
If anyone noticed how his whole body tuned itself to Kyla no one said a thing. At least not loud enough for him to call it out. Across the flames she stuck her tongue between her teeth in a gesture that would get her spanked if they were not surrounded.
Marisol nudged her side and whispered something. Kyla rolled her eyes and leaned back until her head tipped.
The fire threw her collarbones into relief. Her bare arms carried marks from earlier. The sight sent memory through him. Hands. Her lips. Her grip tight on his hips when she forgot everything but what she wanted.
He moved through the knot of bodies. Someone pressed a plate of lukewarm sausage into his free hand. Another shouted in his ear for a wedding toast.
He ignored both.
His gaze stayed pinned to Kyla. Closer now she slid her tongue along her bottom lip. Her mouth glistened. Red faded where she had licked the whiskey away.
Their eyes met and locked for a heartbeat. The space pressed in around them. She held the gaze. His neck flushed warmer. Behind her Marisol lifted her own jar and crowed to the almost-newlyweds before shoving Kyla with a shoulder.
Titus braced his stance. The earth underfoot felt less steady than usual. Not from the booze but from how near she stood. It kept crashing into him that after tomorrow everything would belong to her.
His last name. The place he laid his head. The space she had carved out beside him whether he had invited it or not.
Smoke caught at the back of his throat. “We’re running out of firewood,” someone behind him—maybe one of the co-op boys—yelped.
“Titus can damn well get married with a pile of ashes if he has to,” the postmistress shouted.
It barely registered. He kept his jaw tight. The Mason jar hung loose at his side. His heartbeat stayed stubborn. He took in the scene again. Kyla stood bare-armed and daring him. The night carried that last reckless permission. His mouth went dry. Bourbon helped but not enough.
She beckoned. Subtle. Only for him. Her finger crooked at thigh height. The jar in her other hand caught the firelight. A tiny tease. A secret invitation while the whole alley hollered none the wiser.
He wanted to cross that distance. He wanted to get her alone and take what the rest of town pretended did not happen when the lights went out and her knees met the mattress beside his.
He stayed put a moment longer. His eyes stayed on her. He savored the stretch between them. After tomorrow public or private would not matter. Her lips shaped a threat.
Do not make me come get you.
He almost dared her. People raised jars for toasts he never heard. All he had, all he wanted, was her. Brash and wide-eyed. Grinning at him like she was about to ruin his night for the better. He nodded tight and quick. A promise for later curled under his tongue.
Glass shattered on flagstone somewhere behind him. The noise jumped a level but he only half noticed. She was his home and his hazard both. Especially now with forever less than a night away.
Marisol aimed for his ribs and nearly sent sausage and whiskey to the dirt. She took his current drink from him, then shoved a full Mason jar into his grip.
“You trying to pace yourself or are you already too old for this?” Her smirk made it a challenge, not a question.
Titus shot her a glare but the corners of his mouth twitched up. The bourbon burned hotter than the fire and slid raw down his throat.
It coated his tongue with smoke and oak. His cheeks pinched tight from the kick. Marisol howled and dragged Kyla into the jeer.
“He sips like somebody’s abuela.”
Before Titus could answer, Ruthann’s voice carried clear as a town crier and pointed as barbed wire.
“Y’all hush and mind your manners now. Time for the groom to get sentimental.”
No, he screamed mentally.
This was a town tradition, but he thought he’d hid anything that could be used against him in a moment like this.
The postmistress, half lost in her shawl and with hair teased wild by the wind, climbed onto an old tree stump near the pit.
She waved a stack of envelopes over her head. It took Titus a breath to recognize the battered paper. Corners thumbed. His handwriting cramped in blue ink.
Old notes.
Months of them.
“Ruthann—”
His warning died.
She grinned too wide.
“Ladies and gentlemen, witness for the court,” her voice rose. She thumbed through his words then began in a stage whisper that cut straight through the smoke. “To the woman who made me forget my own name in the space of one dinner.”
The crowd yelped.
Laughter broke out.
“Give us the dirty part!” Emmitt shouted.
Ruthann needed no invitation. She straightened and deepened her voice in mock gravity. “I want to taste the sweat on your collarbone. I want you pressed belly-down on my table, legs splayed, begging for my hands.”
A roar went up. Boots stamped the flagstones. Marisol shrieked with delighted horror. Bourbon jar jammed between his knuckles, Titus stood frozen. Torn between bolting for the exit or yanking Ruthann from her perch.
Kyla covered her face, but the tears slipping between her fingers came from laughter, not shame. She shook with it. Shoulders bouncing. Hair falling loose. When she managed to breathe, she let her hands drop. Her eyes found Titus.
Ruthann kept going, savoring every syllable. “I want you so full of me you forget your name. Well.” Ruthann fanned herself to raucous applause and arched her brows at Titus. “Boy’s got poetry after midnight, I will give him that.”
His neck flushed. Rage and pride shared the same short fuse. They were not secret anymore. He glanced at Kyla. She watched him with her head tipped back. Gaze open and sharp.
Through it all, Kyla never looked away. Never shrank. Her lips parted, ready to bare her teeth or her heart. He had never been sure which.
He raised his jar in salute and answered Ruthann’s next bawdy accusation with a lopsided smirk.
“Damn straight,” he growled, voice low. “I meant every word.”
The words were for Kyla.
For everyone else, he did not much care.
Kyla shoved away from Marisol. She swung herself onto the iron lip of the old tractor rim. Every face turned. Her hem bunched high. Fabric clung to the muscle at her thigh. She set her feet wide and raised the whiskey jar high. Arm steady. Queen and outlaw both.
“Let me say it plain since y’all have so much damn interest.” Kyla grinned wider. Savage and sweet. “I promise,” she said, raising the glass like a challenge, “to keep this man guessing every single day. You think you are ready for me tomorrow? You will not be.”
A strangled silence settled over the pit.
Titus exhaled slow.
She was outrageous.
Fearless.
His.
Before the silence stretched too far, he shoved through the crowd. He dropped his jar. He reached her in ten strides. Her fingers curled around his wrist, tight and possessive. She half leapt. Thighs locked at his hips. Titus caught her. Her face inches from his.
“You want spectacle,” she whispered, mouth slick with whiskey. “Let us give them a show.”
He crushed her against him. Lips collided.
He tasted fire and bourbon and the wild of her skin.
Her laugh tumbled straight into his mouth.
She bit him for good measure. Hips rolled once.
His arms cinched around her strong enough to keep them both steady while the crowd yelled and boots pounded applause into the stones.
Kyla’s ankles locked at the base of his spine. She kissed him harder until the world narrowed to haze and pulse and promise. “Told you,” she murmured into his ear. “I am not scared.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Titus growled into her hair, rough with desire.
They crashed from the light into dark. Gravel rattled under boots. Her grip stayed steady on his shoulders as he half carried, half dragged her toward the barn. Kyla’s laughter filled every slip and stumble with something unrepentant.