by Maisey Yates
And tonight, Faith and Hayley were out for drinks.
Of course, Hayley didn’t really drink, and Faith was a lightweight at best, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have fun.
They were also in Hayley’s brother’s bar.
They couldn’t have been supervised any better if they’d tried. Though, the protectiveness was going to be directed more at Hayley than Faith.
Faith stuck her straw down deep into her rum and Coke and fished out a cherry, lifting it up and chewing it thoughtfully as she surveyed the room.
The revelers were out in force, whole groups of cheering friends standing by Ferdinand, the mechanical bull, and watching as people stepped up to the plate—both drunk and sober—to get thrown off his back and onto the mats below.
It looked entirely objectionable to Faith. She couldn’t imagine submitting herself to something like that. A ride you couldn’t control, couldn’t anticipate. Where the only way off was to weather the bucking or get thrown to the mats below.
No, thanks.
“You seem quiet,” Hayley pointed out.
“Do I?” Faith mused.
“Yes,” Hayley said. “You seem like you have something on your mind.”
Faith gnawed the inside of her cheek. “I’m starting a new design project. And it’s really important that I get everything right. I mean, I’m going to be collaborating with the guy, so I’m sure he’ll have his own input, and all of that, but...” She didn’t know how to explain it without giving herself away, then she gave up. “If I told you something...could you keep it a secret?”
Hayley blinked her wide brown eyes. “Yes. Though... I don’t keep anything from Jonathan. Ever. He’s my husband and...”
“Can Jonathan keep a secret?”
“Jonathan doesn’t really do...friends. So, I’m not sure who he would tell. I think I might be the only person he talks to.”
“He works with my brothers,” Faith pointed out.
“To the same degree he works with you.”
“Not really. A lot more of the stuff filters through Joshua and Isaiah than it does me. I’m just kind of around. That’s our agreement. They handle all of the...business stuff. And I do the drawing. The designing. I’m an expert at buildings and building materials, aesthetics and design. Not so much anything else.”
“Point taken. But, yes, if I asked Jonathan not to say something, he wouldn’t. He’s totally loyal to me.” Hayley looked a little bit smug about that.
It was hard to have friends who were so happily...relationshipped, when Faith knew so little about how that worked.
Though at least Hayley wasn’t with Faith’s brother.
Yes, that made Faith and Mia family, which was nice in its way, but it really limited their ability to talk about boys. They had always promised to share personal things, like first times. While Faith had been happy for her friend, and for her brother, she also had wanted details about as much as she wanted to be stripped naked, have a string tied around her toe and be dragged through the small town’s main street by her brother Devlin’s Harley.
As in: not at all.
“I took a job that Joshua and Isaiah are going to be really mad about...”
Just then, the door to the bar opened, and Faith’s mouth dropped open. Because there he was. Speaking of.
Hayley looked over her shoulder, not bothering to be subtle. “Who’s that?” she hissed.
“The devil,” Faith said softly.
Hayley blinked. “You had better start at the beginning.”
“I was about to,” Faith said.
The two of them watched as Levi went up to the counter, leaned over and placed an order with Ace, the bartender and owner of the bar, and Hayley’s older brother.
“That’s Levi Tucker,” Faith said.
Hayley narrowed her eyes. “Why do I know that name?”
“Because he’s kind of famous. Like, a famous murderer.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Hayley said, slapping the table with her open palm, “he’s that guy. That guy accused of murdering his wife! But she wasn’t really dead.”
“Yes,” Faith confirmed.
“You’re working with him?”
“I’m designing a house for him. But he’s not a murderer. Yes, he was in prison for a while, but he didn’t actually do anything. His wife disappeared. That’s not exactly his fault.”
Hayley looked at Faith skeptically. “If I ran away from my husband it would have to be for a pretty extreme reason.”
“Well, no one’s ever proven that he did anything. And, anyway, I’m just working with him in a professional capacity. I’m not scared of him.”
“Should you be?”
Faith took in the long, hard lines of his body, the dark tattoos on his arms, that dark cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes and his sculpted jaw, which she imagined a woman could cut her hand on if she caressed it...
“No,” she said quickly. “Why would I need to be scared of him? I’m designing a house for the guy. Nothing else.”
He began to scan the room, and she felt the sudden urge to hide from that piercing blue gaze. Her heart was thundering like she had just run a marathon. Like she just might actually be...
Afraid.
No. That was silly. Impossible. There really wasn’t anything to be afraid of.
He was just a man. A hard, scarred man with ink all over his skin, but that didn’t mean he was bad. Or scary.
Devlin had tattoos over every visible inch of his body from the neck down.
She didn’t want to know if they were anywhere else. There were just some things you shouldn’t know about your brother.
But yeah, tattoos didn’t make a man scary. Or dangerous. She knew that.
So she couldn’t figure out why her heart was still racing.
And then he saw them.
She felt a rush of heat move over her body as he raised his hand and gripped the brim of his cowboy hat, tipping his head down slowly in a brief acknowledgment.
She swallowed hard, her throat sticky and dry, then reached for her soda, feeling panicky. She took a long sip, forgetting there was rum in it, the burn making her cough.
“This is concerning,” Hayley said softly, her expression overly sharp.
“What is?” Faith asked, jerking her gaze away from Levi.
“You’re not acting normal.”
“I’m not used to subterfuge.” Faith sounded defensive. Because she felt a little defensive.
“The look on your face has nothing to do with the fact that he’s incredibly attractive?”
“Is he?” Faith asked, her tone disingenuous, but sweet. “I hadn’t noticed.”
Actually, until Hayley had said that, she hadn’t noticed. Well, she had, but she hadn’t connected that disquiet in her stomach with finding him...attractive.
He was out of her league in every way. Too old for her. Too hard for her.
Levi was the deep end of the pool, and she didn’t know how to swim. That much, she knew.
And she wouldn’t... He was a client. Even if she was a champion lap swimmer, there was no way.
He was no longer acknowledging her or Hayley, anyway, as his focus turned back to the bar.
“What’s going on with you?” Faith asked, very clumsily changing the subject and forcing herself to look at Hayley.
She and Hayley began to chat about other things, and she did her best to forget that Levi Tucker was in the bar at all.
He had obviously forgotten she was there, anyway.
Then, for some reason, some movement caught her attention, and she turned.
Levi was talking to a blonde, his head bent low, a smile on his face that made Faith feel like she’d just heard him say a dirty word. The blonde was looking back at him with the exact same expression. She was wearing a to
p that exposed her midriff, which was tight and tan, with a little sparkling piercing on her stomach.
She was exactly the kind of woman Faith could never hope to be, or compete with. And she shouldn’t want to, anyway.
Obviously, Levi Tucker was at the bar looking for a good time. And Faith wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him, so Blondie McBellyRing might as well be the one to do it.
It was no skin off Faith’s nose.
Right then, Levi looked up, and his ice-blue gaze collided with hers with the force of an iceberg hitting the Titanic.
And damn if she didn’t feel like she was sinking.
He put his hand on the blonde’s hip, leaning in and saying something to her, patting her gently before moving away...and walking straight in Faith’s direction.
Four
Levi had no idea what in the hell he was doing.
He was chatting up Mindy—who was a sure thing if there ever was one—and close to breaking that dry spell. He’d watched the little blonde ride that mechanical bull like an expert, and he figured she was exactly the kind of woman who could stay on his rough ride for as long as he needed her to.
A few minutes of banter had confirmed that, and he’d been ready to close the deal.
But then he’d caught Faith Grayson staring at them. And now, for no reason he could discern, he was on his way over to Faith.
Because it was weird he hadn’t greeted her with more than just a hat tip from across the room, he told himself, as he crossed the rough-hewn wood floor and moved closer to her.
And not for any other reason.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said, ignoring the intent look he was getting from Faith’s friend.
“Small towns,” Faith said, shrugging and looking like she was ready to fold in on herself.
“You’re used to them, aren’t you? Aren’t you originally from Copper Ridge?”
She nodded. “Yes. But until recently, I haven’t lived here since I was seventeen.”
“I’m going to get a refill,” her friend announced suddenly, sliding out of her seat and making her way over to the bar.
Faith was looking after her friend like she wanted to punch the other woman. It made him wonder what he’d missed.
“She leaving you to get picked up on?” he asked, snagging the vacant seat beside her, his shoulder brushing hers.
She went stiff.
“No,” Faith said, lowering her head, her cheeks turning an intense shade of pink.
Another reminder.
Another reminder he should go back over and talk to Mindy.
Faith was young. She blushed. She went rigid like a nervous jackrabbit when their shoulders touched. He didn’t have the patience for that. He didn’t want a woman who had to be shown what to do, even if he didn’t mind the idea of corrupting her.
That thought immediately brought a kick of arousal straight to his gut.
All right, maybe his body didn’t hate the idea of corrupting her. But he was in control of himself, and whatever baser impulses might exist inside of him, he had the final say.
“She vacated awfully quickly.”
“That’s Jonathan Bear’s wife,” she said conversationally, as if that was relevant to the conversation.
Well, it might not be relevant. But it was interesting.
His eyebrows shot up, and he looked back over at the pretty brunette, who was now standing at the counter chatting with the bartender. “And that’s her brother,” Faith continued.
“I didn’t pick Jonathan Bear for a family man.”
“He wasn’t,” Faith said. “Until he met Hayley.”
Hayley was young. Not as young as Faith, but young. And Jonathan wasn’t as old as Levi was.
That wasn’t relevant, either.
“I haven’t been to the bar since it changed ownership. Last I was here was...twenty years ago.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-eight. I had a fake ID.”
She laughed. “I didn’t expect that.”
“What? That I’m thirty-eight or that I had a fake ID?”
“Either.”
Her pink tongue darted out and swept across her lips, leaving them wet and inviting. Then she looked down again, taking a sip of whatever it was in her glass. He wondered if she had any idea what she was doing. Just how inviting she’d made her mouth look.
Just how starving he was.
How willing he would be to devour her.
He looked back at Mindy, who was watching him with open curiosity. She didn’t seem angry or jealous, just watching to see how her night was going to go, he imagined.
And that was exactly the kind of woman he should be talking to.
He was still rooted to the spot, though. And he didn’t make a move back toward her.
“Are you going to be too hungover after tonight to come over to my place and discuss your plans?”
She looked behind him, directly at Mindy. “I figure I should ask you the same question.”
“I’m betting I have a lot more hard-drinking years behind me than you do.”
“I’m twenty-five,” she said. Like that meant something.
“Oh, nothing to worry about, then.”
“Four whole years of drinking,” she said.
“Did you actually wait to drink until you were twenty-one?”
She blinked. “Yes.”
“You know most people don’t.”
“That can’t be true.”
He didn’t bother to hold in his laugh. “It is.”
“I’m sure the...” She frowned. “I was about to say that I’m sure my brothers did. But... I bet they didn’t.”
She looked comically shocked by that. Who was this girl? This girl who had been lauded as a genius in a hundred articles, and designed the most amazing homes and buildings he’d ever seen. And seemed to know nothing about people.
“You know the deal about the Easter Bunny, too, right?” he asked.
She twisted her lips to the side. “That he has a very fluffy tail?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. That one.”
He didn’t know why it was difficult to pull himself away. It shouldn’t be.
Dammit all, it shouldn’t be.
“How about we meet up after lunch?” he asked, pushing the subject back to the house.
“That sounds good to me,” she said, her tone a little bit breathless.
“You have the address where I’m staying?”
“Text it to me.”
“I will.”
He stood and walked away from her then, headed back toward the woman who would have been his conquest. He had another drink with Mindy, continuing to talk to her while she patted his arm, her movements flirtatious, her body language making it clear she was more than ready to have a good time. And for some reason, his body, which had been game a few moments earlier, wasn’t all that interested anymore. He looked back over to where Faith and her friend had been sitting, and saw that the table was empty now.
He didn’t know when she had left, and she hadn’t bothered to say goodbye to him.
“You know what?” he said to Mindy. “I actually have work tomorrow.”
She frowned. “Then why did you come out?”
“That’s a good damn question.” He tipped back his drink the rest of the way, committed now to getting a cab, because he was getting close to tipsy. “I’ll make it up to you some other time.”
She shrugged. “Well, I’m not going home. Tonight might not be a loss for me. Enjoy your right hand, honey.”
If only she knew that even his right hand was a luxury. In shared living quarters with all the stuff that went down in prison, he’d never had the spare moment or the desire to beat off.
There was shame, and then there was the
humiliation of finding a quiet corner in the dirty cell you shared with one or two other men.
No, thank you.
He would rather cut off his right hand than use it to add to all that BS.
It was better to just close off that part of himself. And he’d done it. Pretty damn effectively. He’d also managed to keep himself safe from all manner of prison violence that went on by building himself a rather ruthless reputation.
He had become a man who felt nothing. Certainly not pleasure or desire. A man who had learned to lash out before anyone could come at him.
The truly astonishing thing was how easy that had been.
How easy it had been to find that piece of his father that had probably lived inside of him all along.
“Maybe I will,” he responded.
“So, are you really working early?” Mindy asked. “Or are you intent on joining that little brunette you were talking to earlier?”
Fire ignited in his gut.
“It’ll be whatever I decide,” he said, tipping his hat. “Have a good evening.”
He walked out of the bar with his own words ringing in his head.
It would be what he would decide.
No one else had control over his life. Not now. Not ever.
Not anymore.
Five
The next morning, Faith’s body was still teeming with weird emotions. It was difficult to untangle everything she was feeling. From what had begun when Hayley had called him attractive, to what she’d felt when she’d watched him continue to chat with the blonde, to when she had ultimately excused herself because she couldn’t keep looking at their flirtation.
She realized—when she had been lying in her bed—that the reason she had to cut her girls’ night short was that she couldn’t stand knowing whether or not Levi left the bar with the pretty blonde.
She was sure he had. Why wouldn’t he? He was a healthy, adult man. The kind who had apparently had a fake ID, so very likely a bad-boy type. Meaning that an impromptu one-night stand probably wouldn’t bother him at all.
Heck, it had probably been why he was at the bar.
Her stomach felt like acid by the time she walked into the GrayBear Construction building.
The acidic feeling didn’t improve when she saw that Joshua was already sitting there drinking a cup of coffee in the waiting room.
