Steadfast (Iron Horse Book 3)

by Danielle Norman

  But I wanted to get this day over with, which was probably why we had bucked tradition and decided not to have a potluck after the funeral. People from the church had been bringing food by for the last month while Daddy was in hospice. I just didn’t want any more people traipsing in and out of the house telling us how sorry they were, which in the end ultimately led them to discussing the fact that none of us were married and someone was bound to offer up one of their relatives to help us out. As if we were so desperate to find a husband that we needed someone to give us their cousin’s son, who was probably still living in his mom’s basement and went by the name of Bubba. No thanks.

  I drove the five miles to our home, the one that I grew up in, the one that still smelled of oiled leather. The smell was an ever-present reminder of when Dad would bring the saddles in and sit there with a polishing cloth, and I realized that I wasn’t ready to go in, not yet.

  “You coming?” Holland stood in the doorway, front door ajar, waiting for me.

  “Hey, I’ll be back later. I’m going up to Marcus’s.”

  Or, more specifically, the Elbow Room, which was the bar he owned. Holland nodded, and I was back in my truck before the door even closed behind her.

  Fifteen minutes later, I was pulling open the door and walking into the dimly lit space that smelled of old smoke. It had been a few years since people were allowed to smoke inside, but the scent that was imbedded into the structure assuaged me. That smell wasn’t ever leaving. I remember when the previous owner had the place and my daddy would bring me up here as a kid, there were nights that the smoke had been so thick you could practically cut it with a knife. There had been no hope for the air filtration system to keep up.

  I waved at Marcus, who had already changed out of his dark suit and was wearing a T-shirt with the bar’s logo on the back, and slid into an empty stool. He and his brother had been two of Daddy’s pallbearers, but you wouldn’t have known it if you hadn’t been there. He looked as if today was just another day.

  “Well, I do believe I have my passport ready,” he hollered. I knew that he was trying to lift my spirits.

  “You may see London and you may see France, but you’ll never see my underpants.” I retorted, and I caught the beer he slid me down the well-worn pine top bar.

  I was used to all the comments and jokes about my name, had to be. When you were raised with two sisters and you all had names of fancy destinations, people expected you to be well...fancy. They were always shocked to realize that the only thing fancy about the Kelly girls were their names. The fancy one had been our mama, which was why she ran off with the first guy who promised to show her the world when I was ten years old. She’d wanted more than farm life. But not me, I could spend my days running the fields on Madam Mim, my horse.

  I downed my first beer, slammed the bottle onto the counter a bit too hard, and smiled when I realized that Marcus had been anticipating my mood and had the second one waiting. I started drinking as I scanned the room. The place was a cross between a dive bar and a honky-tonk. The walls were crowded with memorabilia from locals who had made it big or famous people who had visited. There were several photos from the movie The Waterboy with Adam Sandler since the bonfire party was actually filmed right here in Geneva, Florida. They also filmed a few episodes of ER with George Clooney here. That was when I was young and boys were still yucky, but I remembered all the moms and teachers going crazy.

  M.J. Tucker, a guy I went to high school with, was sitting at one of the corner booths, and I shook my head. I seriously considered calling his wife since he was hitting on Etta Hill. She knew—hell, everyone knew that M.J. was married. Then again, we also knew that Etta’s last name suited her perfectly, she was still the easiest hill to climb. Some things never changed, no matter how long it had been since high school.

  “Another one, please.” I turned to face Marcus to make sure that he’d heard me. He was standing behind the counter, lost in space.

  I took a long swig, I hadn’t realized how thirsty I’d been, two beers in ten minutes was fast even for me. Shaking my head at my realization, I followed the direction of Marcus’s gaze and saw a couple of women wearing denim miniskirts and crop tops. I fought back my urge to laugh at their shiny new cowboy boots. They were wannabes. Wannabe cowgirls, wannabe older than they were, and wannabe someone’s one-night stand.

  Rolling my eyes, I waved a hand in front of Marcus’s face to get his attention. The man always lost his shit around booty and breasts. Once again, some things never changed.

  I cleared my throat and waited with a giant grin on my face.

  “Holy shit, London, you just got here. You might want to slow down a bit.” He cleared away the bottle but still reached behind him and grabbed me another.

  “Don’t judge, you know damn well that it’s been a hard day.”

  “But you’re driving.” Marcus tried to argue before handing me the bottle. “Just promise me that you aren’t leaving until I say so.”

  I chuckled dryly and nodded. Yeah, I had no intention of wrapping myself around some telephone pole.

  “How you holding up?”

  “Really? I’m in a bar, dressed all in black, and resembling a lost little girl. Worse yet, I feel like one. Can we talk about something else, anything?” I took a swig from the bottle and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Not the most ladylike action, but it was fitting for the way I was feeling.

  “Have you checked out the latest Hustler magazine?”

  “Holy shit, Marcus.” I laughed so hard I almost choked on my drink. “Don’t tell me you read that shit. Oh my god, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one.”

  “That’s my girl, that’s the laugh I’ve been missing.” Marcus reached forward and wrapped his giant paw of a hand around mine.

  “You know you wouldn’t have to resort to those types of magazines if you’d stop being such a commitment-phobe. I swear that I don’t know who is more sex depraved, you or the women you hook up with.”

  I’d been ragging on him since high school when our world was divided into two groups: helmet head or fans of helmet heads. And group two was what the helmet heads called Future Fags of America, otherwise known as FFA. Marcus and I were FFA all because we grew up on farms. But both groups had their own set of popular kids, except for Marcus, he was the one that was determined to buck the system. He wanted to sample the goods on both sides of the fence.

  “Look who’s talking. When was your last relationship? Oh wait, never because you are too damn committed to the ranch. You need to get out and have some fun, let loose. We need to go out sometime—you can be my wingman and help me find someone and I’ll help you.”

  “God, I love you, Marcus, but the last thing I want to do is let you loose on my own species. You are what I like to call a man whore.”

  Trying to feign injury, he threw his hands over his heart and acted as if my words were causing him to have a heart attack.

  “You know that does not work on me, right?”

  “If you disapprove of my love life so much, then maybe you should be my dating coach, tell me what I’m doing wrong and how to find, you know, the one.”

  Whoosh, my beer spewed everywhere. “Fuck, warn a girl next time you’re going to say something like that, won’t you?”

  “Is someone choking? I know mouth-to-mouth. Hey, Marcus, a bottle of beer, please.”

  I turned at the familiar baritone voice and tried to ignore the way it sent shivers straight to all the right parts of me. I slowly moved my eyes from his boots up his jeans, to his black T-shirt, and then to the gorgeous face. Yep, speaking of man whore, it was Braden Fucking McManus.

  “You okay there, London? I’m assuming that you really don’t need mouth-to-mouth.”

  “That’s debatable, depends who’s asking. If you’re offering.” I threw my hands over my mouth. Oh shit, I said that aloud. It was supposed to stay in my head. Beer, I had beer tongue. That slippery thing that held nothing in.

 
; Braden coughed, making me think that maybe he was the one that needed the mouth-to-mouth and I’d be willing to practice on him.

  Embracing my alcohol-infused bravado, I dropped my hand and gave him a wink instead of cowering away from my slip-up.

  “You’ll have to excuse her, Deputy, she’s had a bit much tonight.” Marcus laughed as he looked at me and tried to extract the bottle from my hands, but I held on for dear life.

  “Shut up, this is only my third,” I mumbled to Marcus even though he wasn’t paying attention. Oh my God, this was Braden fucking McManus. I’d had a crush on him since we were in middle school. Of course, we never spoke because he was too busy being homecoming king, prom king, and the class president. He’d always been so out of my league.

  I averted my gaze from Marcus and turned toward Braden. His muscled arms flexing was almost as good as watching porn. I could totally get off to this. Damn. The protruding veins made it difficult not to look at him.

  Braden moved his arm to take a swig off his bottle, and it finally broke my hypnotic lock on him. I glanced up and noticed that he’d been watching me.

  I gave him a head bob.

  What?

  I gave him a fucking head bob. The only thing missing was the Jersey accent, and I would have been all Joey Tribbiani from friends. “How you doin’?” I wasn’t cool. I couldn’t pull that off. What was I saying? Even Joey Tribbiani couldn’t pull that off.

  “So, Sergeant, what are you doing in here tonight?” Marcus continued talking as if I hadn’t just made a fool of myself. I owed the guy a home cooked meal. Thank you, Marcus.

  “I’m a lieutenant now. But Braden is fine. I just got assigned back to the East District, so I thought I’d pop in.”

  The two chatted about Braden being back in Geneva, and I sat there listening. God, even his neck was sexy.

  Braden cut his attention to me. “How you doing, London? I heard about your dad. I’m sorry for your loss.”

  I nodded my thanks and took another swig of my beer.

  “Is it true that you’re going to stay and run the ranch?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Voice, London, use your voice, I mentally reprimanded myself. “Yeah, my sisters and I. We each have our own skills anyway. I’ve always handled the books and the cattle ranch, Holland is a horse whisperer if there ever was one, and Paris is a whiz with organic stuff. She keeps our fields beautiful so the horses and cattle always have new grazing areas. Between the three of us, we might equal one Samuel Kelly.”

  “I’m sure you’ll make your dad proud.”

  Marcus smirked playfully as he stole glances at me, trying to tear me from my melancholy and tease me because he knew that I’d had a crush on Braden McManus since we were in sixth grade. I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat and shot Marcus a deadly glare. Braden looked at me, then nodded lightly. He had this presence about him, and it was overwhelming.

  Or at least I was overwhelmed when he slid onto the barstool next to me and made himself comfortable as if he was going to stay a while. The air around me got thin, making it hard to breathe.

  I studied his face a bit longer in the dim lighting of the club. He was absolutely one of those men who only got better looking with age. He was rugged with his steel jaw, which seemed to have been carved by an expert sculptor and gave him a calculated edginess. His hair was almost black and was messy in a way that could have been an accident or could have taken him fifteen minutes to get it to look like that. His mouth...oh, that mouth, it was curled into a friendly, inviting grin.

  I’d bend over backward for my sisters, but Braden McManus, I’d bend over forward for.

  Damn it, London, don’t go there.

  The trance I was in was broken when I heard Marcus faking a cough. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw his mouth crack in to a mischievous grin. “So, Braden, how’s the family?” Marcus asked as he grabbed a cloth and wiped off the bar.

  “Good, Mom and Dad still live in the same house. I think that my mom is enjoying being retired, but my dad is bored as hell.”

  “How about your wife?” Marcus held up one finger. “Hold that thought.” Marcus turned to answer the phone, which left me with nothing to do but wonder who the hell Braden had married. Was he happy? I bet she was beautiful. He probably married some cheerleader type.

  “Hey, I gotta run, that was my mom.” Marcus lifted the half-door that kept people from walking behind the bar.

  “Is everything okay?” I leaned forward on my elbows, and my heart ached with worry for Marcus and his brother, Asher. Marcus’s mom was several years older than my dad had been, and something happening to her today of all days was almost too much.

  “Yeah, she’s fine, but I have to run. Don’t worry about your tab; they’re on me. If you need anything else, just ask Jett.” He gestured toward the bartender at the other end of the bar before adding, “Braden, it was nice seeing you, and I hope you stop in again.”

  “I’ll start coming by more.” Braden held out his hand, and the men shook before Marcus turned to me. “Listen to me, call your sisters or call my brother, hear me?”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll make sure she’s fine,” Braden assured him.

  I rolled my eyes and then gave Marcus my most motherly stare. “I better not find out that you skipped out for some booty call. You know that it’s okay to have a dick with standards.”

  I turned my gaze to Braden, who was beating his chest and making a loud choking noise. “You okay there?” I patted his back and felt his body heat radiate through my fingers.

  “Yep, I might be the one who needs mouth-to-mouth. I just never imagined hearing London Kelly saying something like that. The girl I remember was much quieter.”

  Marcus let out a loud snort. “Amazing how girls can fool you, huh?”

  I shook my head, trying to clear away the thoughts of putting my mouth to Braden’s mouth, and decided that one more beer shouldn’t hurt, four wasn’t going to kill me, it would just help get rid of that thing...shit...what was it called? Oh yeah, a filter. “Jett, can you hand me another beer?”

  Getting Even

  Chapter One

  Adeline

  The screeching sound of the tires as the V8 American muscle car pulled into a parking space in one fell swoop was one of Adeline Morgan’s favorite sounds in the world. The only thing better than that was shopping.

  She sat in her seat a few minutes and let the song, which was playing far too loudly, finish before she cut the engine. The abrupt absence of the rumble and music in the afternoon air hit Adeline like a shiver of anxiety. There was a comfort in all things car and speed, but she was late, so she forced herself not to crank the engine again.

  Adeline pushed the solid steel door open and slid from her seat before straightening her black bodycon dress, which clung on to her curvy figure. Then she slipped her four-inch black leather heels back on—one did not drive a muscle car with heels on—and grabbed the bags from the passenger seat.

  The Iron Ladies office took up the majority of the fourth floor of one of the many tall buildings in downtown Orlando, and it was more of a home to her than her actual house was. The main office, like other rooms in the company, stood immaculate with white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows that revealed a large view of the city.

  Adeline walked past the desks that sat in an open floor plan and into the boardroom. A large oil painting of giant handcuffs hung on the opposite wall, and in the center of the room was a large mahogany table. Around said table were some unhappy faces. Well, all except Melanie, she was pacing the room.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Melanie stopped pacing long enough to glare at Adeline. “Really? The client’s been waiting nearly an hour.”

  Adeline shrugged and fell into her seat next to Sunday before setting her bags onto the table in front of her. “Sorry, my lunch break lasted longer than usual.”

  “Told you so,” Sunday said a little too happy.

  Adeline winked at Sunday. “No one knows
me better than you do.”

  “Depends what truck stop we go to, I’m sure there’s a few bathroom’s that have poetry written in your honor and we could learn a thing or two.” Olivia reached into her pocket, pulled out some money, and handed it over to Sunday, obviously having lost a bet. Sunday grinned triumphantly, tossed Adeline half the take, and turned back to her laptop.

  Adeline flipped Olivia off and laughed, knowing full well that Olivia’s harsh barb was only a joke.

  “Well, now that we’re finally all here, can we interview the client already?” Melanie asked, glaring between the two of them.

  “Fine by me,” Sunday said, clearly not really paying attention she was too absorbed in her computer.

  “Who’s the client anyway?” Adeline asked.

  “Some lady.” Sunday never lifted her eyes from her laptop screen.

  Adeline rolled her eyes. “You think? I was assuming that we were still Iron Ladies and not men. But, then again, maybe you all voted to change that while I was out.”

  Olivia sighed. “How about I bring her in for the interview, and thereafter you two can argue about whatever gender you think the client is?”

  “Whoa, someone’s in a bad mood today.” Adeline let out a low whistle.

  “Adeline, you’re late . . . again. You come in here with this I-don’t-care attitude. But, damn it, I know you well enough to know that, if I look in those bags, there is probably something for me in there that I’m going to love.” Olivia slapped her hands onto the table as Adeline leaned forward, reached into the aforementioned bags, and pulled out the most awesome black leather vest.

  “I’ll get her.” Melanie headed toward the boardroom doors. “And for goodness’ sake, Olivia. Put that thing away.”

  “Yeah, Olivia, put that thing away.” Adeline smiled as Olivia gathered her oil rag and kit to start reassembling her baby Glock.