Lucy looked back to the long table and sighed. “Do you need anything? I have to go and make sure the champagne is ready.” Her eyes grew wistful. “I’ve been told something nice is going to happen tonight.”
Jesse looked over at the small party in the back of the bar. Laura and Holly and their men were all smiling and having a great time. He could take a wild guess at what was about to happen and why they would need champagne. It seemed to be a theme going around Bliss. Hope McLean and her men had recently gotten back from eloping in Las Vegas. There had been a huge party out at the Circle G not two weeks before. It looked like either Laura or Holly would be next.
“I’ll take another beer, sweetheart,” he told Lucy, handing her his empty mug.
“Me, too.” Cade finished his off.
“I’d like the usual,” Ty said.
Jesse and Cade both snorted. Ty’s usual was a piña colada.
Ty frowned. “I like sweet drinks.”
Lucy simply winked his way. “I know you do, Ty. Be right back.”
Lucy walked off, Ty’s eyes following her every move. His eyes went hard when she stopped in front of Michael Novack and her whole body took on a flirtatious air. Novack simply continued frowning. Jesse looked at the man with his thick beard and longish hair and hoped he bathed regularly. If Novack hadn’t hit rock bottom yet, he couldn’t be far away.
“What the fuck does she see in him?” Ty complained.
“I heard Novack nearly shot two people who walked on his land. He said he thought they were bears, but I don’t believe him. I think he’s a damn powder keg waiting to go off.”
Cade leaned back against his seat. “I heard they were nudists on a nature hike.”
The gossip mill was one of the best things about Bliss. “I heard it was aliens. Mel tried to talk to him, but Mike apparently doesn’t believe in them. Mel’s been leaving him pamphlets.”
You’ve Been Probed. What to do Next…was his favorite of the recent rash of pamphlets the town’s citizens had been putting out. Earlier today, Nell had come by Long-Haired Roger’s auto shop and left a flurry of Eat Vegan or Die Horribly flyers. Jesse thought Nell was getting desperate.
“I don’t care who they were. That man is on the edge. Why the hell is he still here?” Ty complained.
As far as Jesse had heard, the former US Marshal was here because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He’d lost his fiancée when she’d turned criminal and sold out the man they’d been charged with protecting. Michael’s fiancée had been willing to let Alexei Markov die, and she hadn’t cared if the town doc and Holly Lang had gone down with him. According to the gossip, Michael had quit his job the next day and rented a cabin and he hadn’t been seen for a month. When he’d emerged, he’d grown a beard and a paranoid attitude. And Lucy had promptly gotten a crush because, it seemed, she liked a bit of crazy.
Yeah, Jesse understood that.
His own bit of crazy walked in. The door to Trio swung open, and Gemma Wells entered with her swaying hips and crazy, bee-stung lips and that surly attitude, and fuck all, his cock did a dance in his pants.
She was here.
“Have you actually asked Lucy out, Ty?” Cade asked. His back was to the door, but he watched Jesse. Jesse nodded toward the wretchedly hot blonde as she moved through the crowd.
Ty sighed. “It’s like she said. We grew up together. Not here in Bliss though. We grew up in Creede. It’s a town north of here. As long as I can remember it was me and Luce and River. I guess I thought of them as friends for the longest time. Or maybe I thought Luce would always be there so I could do what I wanted and when I was ready, I would settle down with her. I waited too long. Now she laughs when I talk about us dating. And to be honest, I don’t actually ask women out. It just kind of happens,” Ty said, defending himself.
Jesse spoke, though he was actually busy drooling over Gemma. She took off her coat and revealed a tight V-neck sweater and skirt. “So you fall into their vaginas? Do you trip or is it a controlled fall?”
“Dude,” Cade said with a laugh, holding up his hand. “Nice one.”
Jesse high-fived his partner and nodded again, trying to force Cade’s attention to where it should be focused. Gemma had entered the bar on her own. And she walked right past the jukebox. What the hell was that supposed to mean? “She’s alone, but I think she’s going to give us a little hell.”
Cade turned, his eyes widening as he caught sight of Gemma. “Damn, look at that. But she’s not alone.”
“I don’t fall in. I am careful about what vaginas I enter. Wait. That sounded bad.” Ty shook his head.
“No, it sounded like Ty.” Lucy put a beer in front of Jesse. “And who’s the gorgeous girl with Gemma?”
Ty turned, looking toward the bar where Gemma and her friend were settling in. “Oh, that’s Naomi Turner. She’s a nurse.”
“She’s been coming into Stella’s with Lynn almost every day. She seems nice.” Lucy glanced around the bar.
Naomi was her shield. No doubt about that. Even as Jesse stared at her, Gemma’s eyes slid his way and then she turned as quickly as she could when she realized he was watching. Nervous. She was a pretty deer who wanted to be fed by hand but wasn’t sure she was safe.
Cade sighed. “You’re the one who is always telling me to be patient.”
He didn’t want to be patient. He wanted to walk right up to her, grab her, and take her right back out the door. He’d been patient all week, giving her time and space, and now he wasn’t sure he could stand another minute of it.
But she was sidling up to the bar and not the jukebox. She’d brought a friend with her in case she needed an out.
All he could do was wait and watch and hope she was brave enough to take that step.
Ty shook his head as he sipped his frou-frou drink. “I’ve heard that girl is trouble with a capital T.”
Yep, Gemma was trouble, and Jesse figured they were the solution. He and Cade. It would be different if they were the kind of guys to fall into a girl’s vagina and then fall right back out like Ty, but Jesse had changed. Jesse wanted to get in a vagina he really cared about and spend a long time there. They could be good for her.
He had to convince her of that. And then he had to convince Cade. Yeah. He might need another beer.
* * * *
“Is he looking this way?” Gemma tried to not look back. It was hard. Her eyeballs seemed to have magnets and those two hot mechanics were pulling her sight their way. The minute she’d entered the bar, she’d caught a glimpse of them and her heart rate had tripled. She’d debated whether to come at all, but in the end, she couldn’t stay away.
They were ridiculously gorgeous. She still couldn’t forget seeing Bare-Chested Ape Man shirtless, showing off one of those chests that should only exist in the movies because it wasn’t fair to females across the globe. With his dark hair and piercing green eyes, Cade was stunning.
And then there was Jesse—the sweet one. He had light brown hair that brushed the tops of sculpted shoulders and a scruffy beard that made her wonder what it would feel like on her skin.
She shouldn’t have come out. She wasn’t going to that jukebox. No way.
Naomi turned slightly, as though she was looking for something behind her. When she turned back, there was a grin on her face. “Oh, yeah. He’s looking your way. So is his friend. Where are my two hot men?”
Naomi might envy her, but she wasn’t thinking about all the complexities. It was far too complicated. Jesse wanted a relationship. Cade wanted a little sex, but he didn’t honestly like her. She liked them both, but she wasn’t going to hang around.
Maybe she could spend some time with them. Just not forever. Forever was an idiot’s dream. But she still had needs. Lots of dirty, filthy needs.
And some not-so-dirty needs. She needed time away from thinking about how she’d screwed up her life and how her mom had a second chance. Would she get a second chance? She’d almost lost her mom. It had been easy to f
orget all about her own personal horror story when she’d been concentrating on her mom and the rounds of chemotherapy she’d been through.
“Are you okay? You went pale.” Naomi put a hand on her arm, feeling for her pulse. Naomi took her job seriously.
Damn her Swedish ancestors. “Sorry, I pale easily.”
Naomi grinned, even white teeth gleaming from her lovely face. “Yeah, you white girls do that.”
She returned her smile with a wink. “Bitch.”
“Back at ya.” Naomi looked down at her cell phone. “She hasn’t called. Maybe I should call.”
Gemma put her hand down on the phone. “Don’t. She wanted you to have a couple of hours out. She’s fine. She has your number. She has Doctor Burke’s number. Actually, he’s sitting right over there.”
He got up and so did a gorgeous dark-haired man. Alexei Markov, former mobster and a key state witness in some high-profile trials. Everyone in Gemma’s office had followed those trials, watching them like a gory soap opera. He’d been a spectacular witness. Charming and intelligent, he’d won over the juries. It was odd to see him here in small-town Colorado.
Holly, her fellow waitress from Gemma’s two-day stint at Stella’s, looked up as the men surrounded her. A hush fell over the whole bar. The music that had been rocking the walls was suddenly at a lull.
Gemma’s stomach took a long, slow dive.
“Hey, guys.” Holly got a faint grin on her face. “What’s going on?”
The big Russian got to one knee. “My dushka, Caleb and I have questionings for you. We wish to make offer you can’t to be refusing.”
Caleb grinned. “Sorry, baby, I let him watch The Godfather. But you’re not going to refuse us, are you?”
“I don’t know the question yet, so I don’t have an answer,” Holly shot back, but there were tears in her eyes.
Both men pulled out velvet boxes and diamond rings flashed.
“Yes.” Holly didn’t wait for the actual question. She simply started kissing them. One and then the other.
Patrick hadn’t proposed. Hadn’t bought her a ring. She’d brought it up over lunch one day. She’d laid out the business plan of their marriage and presented it to him. He’d agreed. No romance. No protestations of love.
Cam stood up. “Excellent, now we’ll show you how two men who don’t mind talking do this thing.”
That was why Cam had been smiling all afternoon. Cam was getting engaged, too. She wanted to be happy for him. She liked Cam. All she could think about was the date. Tomorrow’s date, really. It was burned into her memory since she’d sent out two hundred and fifty “save the date” cards with tomorrow’s date on them.
Cam’s partner, Rafe, got up beside him, both men looking down on Laura Niles, who put her hand to her mouth, tears pooling in her eyes. “Laura, it’s been a long road, but every turn led us right here.”
“Every stop sign and detour didn’t matter because we had one destination in life. You.” Cam reached out and touched her hair.
“We’re here now, and we won’t ever leave again. Laura, will you marry us? Will you build a life with us, a home, whatever family we’re blessed enough to have? Will you grow old with us and stare back at the life we were granted, happy it was a shared one?” Rafe asked.
“Oh, yes.” Laura accepted her rings.
Caleb looked at Holly. “What they said.”
Holly shook her head and hugged him. “I love you exactly the way you are, Caleb. You, too, Alexei.”
The whole bar erupted in a long cheer.
Tomorrow was supposed to be her wedding day. She’d planned that wedding out with the same type A-fueled adrenaline she’d used on her career. She’d found the perfect venue, the perfect dress, the right band. She’d concentrated on a wedding, but those people in the bar would have real marriages.
A warm hand covered hers. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. It wouldn’t help to think about it. Six months ago she’d been ready to get married, on the cusp of becoming a junior partner, had her whole life ahead of her.
And it hadn’t meant a thing.
She’d worked her ass off, done everything right, and it hadn’t paid off. Her mother had followed her heart and it had all gone wrong. And she still told Gemma to do the same.
Follow her heart? She hadn’t listened to it since she was a girl.
“It’s okay to be upset, Gem,” Naomi said. “I know what was supposed to happen tomorrow. Your mom had that wedding invitation on her refrigerator. When I first met her, she told me she had to live long enough to see her baby get married.”
There they were. Those tears that she always seemed on the edge of. Every time she was about to fall into self-pity, she thought about her mom. She took a deep breath. It was past time to pull up her big-girl panties. She wasn’t getting married tomorrow. She wasn’t a lawyer anymore. But she was still her mother’s daughter. “Well, it’s better this way. We get to spend more time together.”
Naomi sighed as though slightly disappointed. “Yes, you do, hon.”
“What can I get for you, ladies?”
Gemma felt her eyes widen. God, they grew them hot in this town. She’d seen him around the valley and at the barbecue in her mom’s yard, but she hadn’t actually met him. The man in front of her was at least six and a half feet tall, with emerald green eyes and pitch-black hair. His face was scarred, but it was oddly lovely on him, as though pain had molded him from picture perfect into something infinitely more interesting. She had to find her voice.
“Vodka tonic.”
The Bartender God winked her way. “Sure thing. You’re Gemma, right? The new office manager at the station?”
“Through nefarious means, yes.”
A brilliant smile crossed his face. “Excellent. You give Nate hell, hon. And you should know that all your drinks are on the house. I know how hard it is to deal with that man.”
She couldn’t help it. She smiled back. “You’re Zane Hollister.” Callie’s other husband. Callie had been into the station several times, but Zane hadn’t stopped by. They lived not a quarter of a mile from each other. He’d cooked dinner in her mom’s yard while he’d talked to Cade. She worked for the man’s partner, but she hadn’t taken the time to meet him.
He gave her a salute. “I am indeed. I’m the one who’s going to make sure you don’t kill your boss. Lunches are on the house, too. You’re part of the family now.” He turned to Naomi. “How about you?”
“White wine spritzer. And heavy on the spritzer. Just one. Thanks.” That was Naomi. Always in control. It was probably a good thing in a nurse.
“Will do.” The wretchedly hot bartender turned and started mixing drinks.
And Gemma sat there for a minute. She didn’t buy the family business. It wasn’t true. He’d only said it because they needed someone to man the phones. “Part of the family” was one of those things someone said to get a person to do what they wanted. That was all. Bliss wasn’t any different than the real world. It just liked to say it was.
And where were all the non-hot guys? It was stupid. She was in a rural small town. It should be filled with men she would never sleep with, but no, not Bliss, Colorado. Bliss, Colorado, had to be the world’s epicenter for sexy men.
She took a sip of her vodka tonic when Zane passed it to her, her eyes wandering. So many beautiful men.
And she couldn’t even handle Patrick. No. She shouldn’t be sitting here thinking about Jesse and Cade and whether or not she should go to the jukebox.
Like they truly wanted her anyway. There weren’t a whole lot of available women. The men left had to double team. But they hadn’t latched on to Naomi, and Naomi was gorgeous and sweet.
“Miss Turner.” The doctor set his empty glass on the bar along with a delicate martini glass. “It’s nice to see you out and about.”
Naomi turned his way, a big smile on her face. “Lynn insisted. She said she wanted some alone time.”
Her mother
had been stubborn about it. They’d been in Bliss for almost three weeks and her mom had finally pushed them out so she could be alone. Or so she would know they were out having a good time and being social.
Doctor Burke leaned against the bar. “She knows what she wants. She’s been through enough. She should have her way now. As long as she makes her checkups, she’s going to be fine.” The doctor gave Naomi what Gemma thought was supposed to be a smile, but it kind of looked like a shark sizing up his dinner. “Which is why you should seriously reconsider my offer.”
The first stop they’d made in Bliss was at the Bliss County Clinic run by Dr. Caleb Burke, who happened to be Dr. Caleb Sommerville, ridiculously wealthy and well-trained doctor. She’d studied up on many of these people before she’d let her mother come here. The doctor had been a plus for the town.
Its reputation as the murder capital of the US had not recommended it.
But her mom wouldn’t be deterred. She’d wanted to come home, and she’d fought cancer for years, so Gemma had come with her.
Years when Gemma had been chasing money and position. It was during that time her mother had fought for her life. The cancer had invaded her breasts. They’d started with lumpectomies and then mastectomies.
And all the while Gemma had been in New York trying to conquer Manhattan and making an idiot of herself.
“I have all her records,” the doctor continued. “I’ll help in any way I can.” His lips suddenly curled up. “And if you’re around for a while, maybe you can come to the wedding.”
Naomi’s face lit up. “Oh, are you getting married? I hadn’t noticed.”
He flushed a deep red, but it was charming on him. “I wanted to do a private thing, but Laura and Holly are best friends, and they should have a double wedding, you know. Well, I think I’m getting married. I mean, I am, but maybe not legally. No. Wait. Alexei’s got mob people after him and his real fake name is still Howard. I think it has to be me, right? And I have the money. And speak English. Well, mostly. Yeah. I’m signing the papers, but it’s Bliss, so we’re all getting married.”
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