He leaned closer, his grin blossoming into a full-blown, sexy smile. Maybe it was the drink, the storm, or the aftereffects of the handsome cowboy lingering still in her mind, but damn, to a woman wanting to be held for a while, this guy was seriously tempting.
“Well, if my luck holds out, maybe you’ll be here when I get through?”
She offered him a smile. “I don’t think so.” He slid his fingers over hers, letting them linger on her skin. Charming was one thing, pushy another.
“You’re sure?” He lowered his voice.
“Steve, come on man! We’ve got money riding on this one.”
“Quite.” She slid her hand from his.
He stood, towering over her, giving her one last look at his powerfully sexy physique. “Maybe another time. My friends and I come up here a lot. The food…is excellent.” He tossed the bartender a look.
“You best get on in there, Steve.” Dusty nodded toward the friend who waited impatiently at the back-room door. “They’ll be starting without you.”
He swaggered toward the door, then glanced over his shoulder with a parting, impish grin.
“Good Lord,” she muttered and finished her drink.
“Mind if I offer a piece of friendly advice?” Dusty spoke, his focus intent on the pilsner he polished.
Aimee hopped off the stool and slid into her jacket. “You mean about Steve? Yeah, I know a player when I see one, no worries.” She tugged her purse over her shoulder. “But thank you for keeping an eye on a girl.”
A slow smile crept over the bartender’s face. “He and his buddies live a few miles down the road. They come in a couple of times a week to play pool. You okay to drive home?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks, Dusty.”
“Come on back anytime.”
Aimee smiled. Unless she was with someone, the chances were slim. She stopped at the end of the bar and turned to him. “Say, listen. Maybe you can help me out with something. You said you know a lot of folks around here?”
He shrugged. “Seems eventually, they all come through here. I’ve got the only jukebox and bar for miles around.”
She chewed her lip and wondered whether it was wise to inquire openly about the stranger on the ranch. What could it hurt? The worst thing she’d possibly find out was that he was married, recently divorced, or engaged in some bitter custody battle over his kids. She took a breath and charged ahead. “I was wondering about something…someone, actually.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Well, I stopped to get directions at this place up the road. Looks like a giant ski lodge down in the valley…south a little ways, just off eighty-nine.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I’m guessing you mean the Last Hope Ranch. Fine looking place. Jed Kinnison, God rest his soul, and those three boys created quite a cattle business down there. Hard workers, all of them.”
Aimee swallowed. “There’s more than one?” She tried not to sound giddy. “I only met one of them. He’s got dark hair, intense, kind of bossy.” She gave him a half smile. “Very bossy.”
“Yeah, that’d be the oldest of Jed’s boys—Wyatt. I heard Dalton and Rein had left on their annual sales trip.”
“Sales?” she asked, her mind simmering still on the old-fashioned name of Wyatt.
“Yep, Last Hope is one of the last working cattle ranches in these parts. Has been for as long as I’ve been around. Every winter they sell off some of the herd to feedlots down in Iowa and Missouri.”
“But Wyatt isn’t involved in…the sales?” Bartenders were a lot like beauticians, Aimee discovered. Get them started and they could dish on about anybody.
He chuckled. “Not Wyatt. No, he prefers to stay home, keep an eye on things at the ranch. Kind of a loner but a nice enough guy. Quiet. Now you take his younger brother, Dalton. There’s a social guy. You’d like him. Flirts like hell, loves to dance and kid around, but he has a good heart. The boy would give you the shirt off his back. They all would. Jed raised some real fine men.”
“Sounds like you have a lot of respect for them.” Aimee adjusted her purse and started to leave, her attention drawn momentarily to the loud ruckus going on in the back room.
Dusty glanced toward the sound, sighed, and waited for the noise to settle before he spoke. “Jed, rest his soul, did lot for this community. Rein is the third of Jed’s brood. His nephew that came to live with him when his folks were killed. Now there’s a guy with a head for business. He helped me get this place back on track after I hit a rough patch. Jed raised the three as brothers, left himself quite a legacy in these parts.”
Aimee smiled, even more curious why it was she’d never heard any of them mentioned by her peers at school. Still, she supposed teachers and ranchers didn’t necessarily run in the same circles, unless of course they taught their children. Which left a question burning in the mind of any red-blooded, single woman. Were any of them married? That was a question for her friend, Sally. “Thanks, Dusty.”
She waved a quick good-bye and hurried to her car. The snow had slowed to intermittent flakes by the time she climbed in and turned on the ignition to warm it up. She glanced at her watch and realized she had just enough time to get home and register for the online poetry class she promised Sally she’d take. Aside from her duties as End of the Line’s elementary music teacher, Sally moonlighted as an online instructor through Billings Community College. She spotted the map on the seat, picked it up, and thought of Wyatt’s sincere concern for her safety. True he hadn’t smiled much…at all, in fact, but his gaze was kind, if not tinged with a puzzling look that made her want to know more about what he’d been thinking. Still, in the entire time she was alone with him, she never felt threatened, as she had around Mr. Metallica in a public bar.
Aimee tucked the map into the console between the seats and eased her car out onto the main road. For as early as it was in the evening, she could’ve shot cannon down the street. Like a scene from It’s A Wonderful Life, the store fronts were dark, in contrast to the festive holiday wreaths waving in the wintery challenge of the wind. Small white lights dotted the branches of the dwarf trees along the businesses, twinkling with each northerly breeze. A twinge of melancholy hit her. She missed not being at home with her parents, especially this time of year. She wondered at the wisdom in accepting a job in a place so remote that it was truly worthy of its name—End of the Line.
She glanced down at the map and remembered the encounter earlier with Wyatt Kinnison. An interesting man and a challenge if ever there was one, if what she’d heard about him was true at all. Then again, she’d never backed away from obstacles before. Maybe there was more to why she was there than she’d considered. After all, it was the season of miracles.
Other Books by Amanda McIntyre
Contemporary
Kinnison Legacy series
Rustler’s Heart (II)
Rugged Heart’s (I)
Undercover Temptation
Private Party
Unfinished Dreams
Mirror, Mirror
Wish You Were Here
Historical
The Master and the Muses
Tortured
Forbidden Pleasures
Winter’s Desire
The Pleasure Garden
Dark Pleasures
The Diary of Cozette
The Christmas Promise
Time-Travel
Sweet Magnolia series
Fallen Angel
Wild & Unruly
Paranormal
By The Light of the Silvery Moon
Risky Business
Tir’NanOge’
About the Author
Growing up the daughter of a father who was a distributor for a New York Magazine Publishing firm, Amanda usually had her nose stuck in the latest issue of Vampirella or a Hitchcock Mystery book.
Amanda has been referred to as a "true artist in the writing realm' and her zest for life inspires her "character-driven" stories. Her passion is to take
ordinary people and place them in extraordinary situations, delving into the realm of potential and possibility as she watches them become the heroes and heroines of their own stories. She counts herself fortunate to be able to do what she loves, aspires to stay fresh and unique to her voice and listen to her readers.
A member of RWA, and a multi-genre hybrid author, her work is published internationally, in audio, in e-book and in print. She currently writes sizzling contemporary and erotic historical romance, and while she believes everyone deserves the HEA, (happily ever after), frankly, the road there isn’t always a smooth one, which makes it all the sweeter when it happens!
You can follow Amanda on her social networks by visiting her website at http://www.amandamcintyresbooks.com
Copyright 2014 Amanda McIntyre
ISBN-13: 978-0-9904820-0-0
Cover design by Sahara Kelly and P and N Graphics
Editorial Services by Kristina Cook
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now or hereafter
invented is forbidden without written permission of the author/publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are from the author’s
mind and used as a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual events, locales, persons—living or
dead—is entirely coincidental.
Published by Amanda McIntyre
http://www.amandamcintyresbooks.com
Interior format by The Killion Group
http://thekilliongroupinc.com
The Dark Seduction of Miss Jane Page 33
