Cowboy 12 Pack

by Cynthia D’Alba, Paige Tyler, Elle James, Donna Michaels, Shoshanna Evers, Randi Alexander, Cora Seton, Beth Williamson, Sabrina York, Sable Hunter, Lexi Post, Becky McGraw

  Yeah, she’d thought exactly that.

  “I didn’t mean to offend you,” she whispered. “Sometimes I talk too much and say the wrong thing. I apologize.”

  Bill didn’t respond.

  She pulled her shoulders back and shook her head to clear the tension inside her. If only she could clear the tension in the room.

  “Do you have time now to take me to see the bar?” she asked. It would probably be best to get back to talking business before she stuck her foot in her mouth again. “I’d love to see it in real life. The photographs were wonderful, by the way,” she added.

  Bill nodded mutely, his jaw clenching. He grabbed his black cowboy hat off the hook by the door, and set it on his head. He grabbed the keys to his truck.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I don’t have all day.”

  Allie groaned inwardly and followed him.

  “I have to grab my phone,” she said.

  He glared at her and she just shook her head. What else could she do?

  This was not how she’d imagined her first meeting with Bill Edwards. She’d wanted to impress him, to show him that she was worthy of his investment in her, and worth his faith in her.

  He had to have faith in her if he intended to pay for her to renovate and open the bar, right? After all, if he felt it needed to stay in the family, that had to mean that he considered her worthy of helping him do that. Right?

  Meeting Allie today must have been a big disappointment for him.

  Well, screw him—she’d prove him wrong, too. Bill Edwards may be an ornery asshole, but she was going to run the most kick-ass, profitable bar in the whole county, whether he thought she could do it or not.

  He’d signed a contract with her. So it didn’t matter how much she pissed him off, he’d better stand up to his end of the bargain.

  She wanted him to hand her a frickin’ checkbook, and stay the hell out of her way. It would be easy enough to forget she’d ever thought she knew him. That she ever liked him, when he was still only a ping in her inbox. Allie had a bar to open and a new life to begin—and no tall, handsome cowboy with too much money and a bad attitude was going to stop her.

  Chapter Three

  ‡

  ALLIE FOLLOWED BEHIND Bill as he led the way to the gravel parking area outside the farmhouse office. His long strides were too fast for her to keep up, which meant her current view of him was of only his muscular back, his shoulder muscles flexing through his shirt as his arms swung with determination, the bottom of a well-shaped ass clad in the dark denim just visible beneath his untucked shirt. Her gaze dropped to a pair of scuffed black cowboy boots.

  “So,” Allie said, rushing up until she stood by his side. He unlocked his truck with a click of a button on his keychain. “Thank you for taking me to see the bar. I know you’re a very… busy man.”

  Bill scowled at her from under his black hat, as if he couldn’t tell if she were being facetious or not. She didn’t know either. Maybe he was busy? Or maybe he was just busy being alone.

  “But I need to get down to business for a sec,” she continued. “I’ve given you a rather large sum of money, Bill. We signed a contract. I own half of the bar. And since I’m the one that’s meant to get this bar open and running again, I just want to make sure we’re starting on the right foot.”

  Bill leaned in toward her, until her back was mere centimeters from the shiny black pickup truck door. He moved slowly, as if—now, unlike moments earlier—he had all the time in the world.

  His face was close to hers. Uncomfortably close? Allie opened her mouth to ask him to say something (anything!), but he stopped her by opening the door she was leaning against with his long arm.

  “Ridin’ in the truck works better when ya actually get in the vehicle,” Bill said. “Little trick I picked up.”

  Allie snorted, unable to suppress her amusement at his dry tone, even if he didn’t deserve a reaction. “I’ll remember that.”

  The truck was so tall she had to grab onto the handle in the doorway frame and pull herself up. She looked out to Bill, who was still holding the door open for her, waiting for her to get situated.

  “All settled now? All right then.” He slammed the door, with a loud noise that made her jump.

  He strode around to the other side of the truck wordlessly and climbed in with much more ease than she had. She couldn’t help but to look over at him, at the hard lines of his face, at the steel in his eyes as the engine revved.

  They rode off the property, down the long driveway that connected to a dirt road. When they got out of the ranchland, the connecting road was barely wide enough to let two cars pass. Unlike in busy Miami, no painted lines marked the streets. The mountains rose up around her, covered in evergreen trees, and the fields below teamed with horses, sheep, and cattle. They passed children playing in their yards, riding old bicycles that had probably been hand-me-downs from a few generations past, by the looks of them.

  Several properties had trailers on them, tiny mobile homes with cheery awnings outstretched before them, and dogs guarding chicken coops on the lawn. In Miami, it was rare for the people who lived in trailers to own their land, but these people apparently had lots of land. They put more money into the huge shops, barns, and livestock than they did to their own abodes.

  “The bar’s out a ways,” Bill said.

  “In town, right?”

  She should have made the trip out to Idaho to see the property before purchasing it, for sure—but if she’d done that, she would have been several hundred dollars short of the purchase price. Every penny counted.

  “You’ve asked about that already,” Bill said. “It’s on one of our busiest corners in town. That’s not saying much,” he admitted, “since our downtown is small even by small town standards. But when Uncle Freddy had the bar open, it was the most well-visited place other than church.”

  Allie laughed, then closed her mouth when he didn’t even smile. “Can you tell me what the bar was like, in your Uncle Fred…um, Freddy’s… time?”

  Bill shrugged, keeping his eyes on the road ahead.

  Maybe she’d asked the wrong question. But she wasn’t just making idle conversation—knowing what the people in town would expect, what they were used to, and what they’d like in the future was important to her. Could be important to the bar’s success… to her success.

  “He kept it low key,” Bill finally said, his voice quiet. “In the winter, it was warm and dark, and in the summer it was cool and dark. You could come in, sit down, order yourself a drink, an’ no one would bother you.”

  “That sounds…” Dull. But she couldn’t say that. She tried again. “That sounds quiet.”

  He turned his head to look at her. “Some of us like quiet.”

  “Not me.”

  “I noticed,” he grumbled.

  They pulled up to a stoplight at the intersection of Main Street and Huckleberry Road, the so-called busiest intersection in “downtown” Bear Creek Saddle. There were about six cars that she could see, parked in front of places of business. They were the only vehicle actually driving on the road.

  Not a good sign… This town was deader than she’d imagined. Looking through the window of a butcher shop, she could see a man unloading some large game to be butchered. Weren’t people supposed to go to the butcher to buy meat, instead of hand it over? And who had a whole shop just for a butcher, anyway? That was usually relegated to the back of the grocery store.

  “Is it always like this?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry… you’ll get your customers.” Bill looked over to her, and once again she was struck by how good-looking he was. “Us cowboys, we like to drink.”

  Allie smiled to cover up for the butterflies fluttering in her stomach. If Bill kept looking straight at her, she might have to close her eyes. It was that intense.

  “What’s your favorite drink?” she asked. “Wait—don’t tell me.”

  She had an uncanny knack for guessing people’s
drinks. It made her a good bartender, and hopefully it would be an easy icebreaker as a way to get to know the new townsfolk in her bar. Well… their bar.

  “I’m guessing you’re a double scotch neat type of guy,” she said, with way too much confidence.

  He started to look away, unimpressed, and she backpedaled.

  “No, wait!” Damn it, she was rusty. She lowered her volume. “You like whiskey. Double shot of whiskey on ice. You let the ice melt and nurse it.”

  Bill grunted and raised his eyebrows.

  “Am I right…did I get it?”

  He didn’t reply as they pulled into the back parking lot—really just a square of asphalt tucked behind the bar, and came around to open her door for her.

  “This is it,” Bill said.

  He extended his arm for her to grab hold of him, and she jumped out of the truck. His hand was surprisingly large, and warm. The calluses spoke of a lifetime of working on the ranch. But the pain in his eyes… he was broken.

  Completely broken.

  Allie looked at him and tried to smile. Her new bar was a small, one story building, made out of cement blocks that had been stucco’d over and whitewashed.

  “Plenty of folks park here, an’ enter through the back way there,” Bill said, pointing to an old door with the paint peeling from it.

  A chain, meant to keep the door locked, instead hung limp at the side of the doorframe.

  “Oh no,” she gasped. “Did someone break in?”

  “Well,” Bill said, “the usual. Happens when any building is abandoned. Kids think it’s their new clubhouse. I did it back in my day too, so I can’t blame ’em.”

  “A clubhouse,” she repeated.

  “Even the older guys, they sometimes go in to drink since it’s convenient.”

  Allie nodded, determined not to make it into a big deal. If even the owner of the bar didn’t care that kids had probably vandalized the inside of his uncle’s bar, then why should she? Hell, Bill probably joined those guys drinking in his bar. A private party of sorts.

  Everything had to be fixed up and painted anyway.

  “Come on,” Bill said.

  He put his hand on the small of her back to lead her. The intimacy of the gesture took her by surprise—especially since back at his office, he seemed to be doing everything he could to avoid even looking at her.

  His touch warmed her skin through her T-shirt. It was bold of him, but either Bill wasn’t aware of that, or didn’t care. He led Allie—his hand still on her—to the front entrance that came in off the sidewalk. Next-door to the bar was a bank. That was good, since the bank wouldn’t be open during their busiest times at the bar. Less noise complaints.

  The front window had been boarded over.

  “Is there glass behind that board?” she asked.

  Bill cocked his head to the side. “Broken glass. They’re all broken. The boards are what’s new.” He pointed to some charred wood piled up by the side of the building. “That’s from a little fire that broke out inside last month. I think some of the guys got too drunk to keep their flames down.”

  Allie turned to him in exasperation. “This was your Uncle Freddy’s bar. Don’t you care? This was his livelihood and you haven’t even maintained it.”

  Bill looked down at her from his height advantage, his steel gray eyes staring into hers with an intensity that burned her like fire.

  He took his hand off of the small of her back, and she missed it immediately.

  “I don’t know how they work things in Miami,” he said, saying the name of the city as if it were an insult, “but I don’t know who the hell you think you’re talkin’ to. Don’t you scold me like I’m some naughty kid you wanna spank.”

  This was all wrong. It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Her first day with her new business partner—how had she already screwed up so royally?

  She shouldn’t say anything more. But as Bill had already witnessed, staying quiet had never been her strong suit. No reason to change now.

  “You owned this bar long before I bought in,” she said, anger creeping into her voice. “You had an obligation to take care of it. Even if you couldn’t run the business, how hard is it to keep it locked up and safe?”

  “I told ya the place needed fixin’ up. You’re actin’ like I lied to get you to buy in.” He took his cowboy hat off and ran his large hand through his black hair in frustration.

  “Repairs are coming out of your wallet,” she snapped. “You led me to think you’d closed up the bar right as your uncle left it, and waited till now to reopen, with my help.”

  “Yup,” he said. “That’s what happened.”

  “I knew it needed fresh paint, new flooring maybe, cosmetic fixes. You didn’t tell me you and your buddies were sneaking back in and making fires on the floor. That kids were breaking windows for fun.” As if of their own accord, her gestures got bigger, accusatory. “Or was that you breaking those windows?”

  Bill grabbed her hand from out of his face, and held her wrist captive. “You’re actin’ like you’re gonna poke my eyes out, and I can’t have that.”

  No one had ever restrained her before, or stopped her from getting in their space. Not that she usually did that. This man, this cowboy…he brought out the fire in her. None of it made sense. In that moment, she didn’t know if she hated him, or respected him for not taking her crap.

  Allie instinctually knew that if she’d calm down, get out of his face and back off, he wouldn’t still be holding her wrist. Instead, she clawed at his hand with her free one, until he took hold of her other wrist as well.

  “Get off me!” she yelled. She looked around the empty street. Could people see? There was no one, just her and Bill Edwards.

  “Stop actin’ like you’re ready to fight me,” he said, stepping in close, his breath hot on her cheek. Her hands were trapped between his broad, muscular chest, and her own body. “Stop screamin’ at me.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “You should be a redhead with all that fire in you. On the phone, in emails, you seemed calm, organized, like you had your shit together.”

  “I do,” she said. “You don’t know me.”

  “I’m gettin’ to.”

  Ugh. It was true. He was getting to know the part of her she’d hoped to keep hidden—the part that was scared to death about taking on a project this huge on her own. The part of her that worried she wasn’t going to be able to move on and make a life for herself without her ex-husband.

  “What are you gonna do now, Allie?” Bill slowly, carefully, relaxed his grip on her wrists. He slid his hands up to cradle her own. “You gonna back out now?”

  Chapter Four

  ‡

  “NO,” SHE WHISPERED. “I’m not going to back out. Running this bar is my future. This has to work.”

  “It will,” he said. “What’s done is done. Uncle Freddy was another father to me. Losin’ him was—” Bill shook his head, as if to stop himself from saying too much. “I didn’t think of it as ruinin’ his livelihood. I just didn’t stop folks who still wanted to use the place, ’cause we all missed it. We missed him.”

  His anger before, she knew, was a thin veneer over the pain he had felt when his uncle had passed. And the passing of his wife not too long before that…

  “Let’s go inside,” she said.

  “All right. But if you start scoldin’ on me again we’re gonna have a problem.”

  She shook her head, just enough to acknowledge him. Yes, he was acting like a prick, but he’d been through a lot. And maybe, judging by the sorrow he exuded behind his don’t-fuck-with-me façade, he was still going through it.

  “Go on in,” he said. “Door’s…unlocked.”

  She held up the key he had tossed at her back in his office. “Guess these were just ceremonial, then.”

  Bill shrugged. “You looked like the kinda girl who means to keep things locked up.” He smiled—a glimpse of the man she knew from his emails.

  “Okay then,” she sai
d simply. “Bar time.”

  Please don’t be a complete tear-down.

  The door opened with a creak. Fix noisy door, she noted.

  Inside the bar, white sheets covered chairs, which had been stacked up like small barricades around the room. What had those chairs been for? There were no tables that she could see.

  The actual bar top itself took up the entire back wall. It too was covered in white sheets, to keep the thick layer of dust that had accumulated on the sheets off of the wood.

  Above, the shelves for the alcohol held various random items instead: a rifle; a small pile of matchbooks; a football, worn with age.

  “Where’d all the alcohol go?” Allie asked. “I mean, when your uncle died, wasn’t this place still running and stocked? Did someone steal all the booze?”

  “No,” Bill said. “Nothin’ like that.” He gave her a look from under his hat. “We didn’t sneak in and drink it, either.”

  She widened her eyes innocently, as if that wasn’t exactly the thought that had gone through her mind.

  “Uncle Freddy got sick about a year before he died,” Bill explained. “The bar closed when he had to take an early retirement. He sold everythin’ he could to pay for his medical expenses. That’s why all the tables are missin’, and half the chairs. There used to be couches, too. It used to be a good place to sit and drink.”

  “How come he didn’t sell the bar himself?” she asked.

  Bill looked at her like she was crazy. “This is the family bar. It belongs in the family. That’s why he left it to me—he wanted me to take over right then an’ there, but I couldn’t. Not with me an’ Melody havin’…problems. I was just tryin’ to do right by my wife.”

  His face stilled, as if he had said too much.

  “You probably have enough money to not need to take on a partner like me,” Allie said, walking around the bar, studying every detail. “I imagine you could have taken your money and renovated it yourself, and hired a bartender to manage it on your behalf—without giving up your full ownership.” She nudged a chunk of plaster with her foot before looking at him. “Why take me on? Why give me half the bar?”