by Codi Gary
Her dad had wanted her to move home for a while, but she had never felt like she fit in with Silvie and her two perfect princesses. So she’d traveled for a year and finally started looking for a place to settle down. When she’d arrived in Loco two weeks ago, she’d paid cash for the Watering Hole and taken the keys with excitement. The only thing the previous owner hadn’t warned her about was the rough cowboys who frequented the bar. She’d met a few of them in the grocery store already, and they’d sneered at her when they found out she was from California.
Like Big Red.
Grinning at the nickname, she had to admit the crazy man was a good-looking guy, especially when he smiled. He wasn’t her type, though, even if she hadn’t been taking a break from dating. She liked men who were handsome without being muscle-bound gym monkeys, who liked the same kind of music and movies. Art-school types…
Which worked out so well for you last time, right?
Thus the reason why she should avoid men of all sorts, because she tended to attract crazy assholes. Her instincts could not be trusted.
Chapter Two
Saturdays were his best writing days, and for the first time in a month, Red woke up early and found himself in front of his laptop, tapping away at the keys. Maybe it was the burst of anger and frustration still boiling inside him from the encounter with California, but by the time he went to shower for movie night, he had ten thousand words down, not including the five thousand from the night before.
Movie night was a tradition going back to seventh grade, when his best friend, Jake Hansen, and he would get together for a genre-movie marathon at their little buddy Miranda “Rand” Coleman’s ranch. Rand was two years younger and feisty as a riled badger, but there was something about the spunky brunette that had drawn them in. They had spent almost every Saturday together for fifteen years and taken turns picking the genre. This week it was Rand’s turn, which made him wonder if they’d be stuck watching Eastwood, Kilmer, and Estevez pretend to be cowboys.
Not that Jake would say anything, not unless he wanted to sleep on the couch again.
It had been over a year since Jake and Rand had tied the knot, and the whole situation had put a strain on their relationship. Red had realized his feelings for Rand while she was pretending to date Jake. When Red had offered to marry her and help her secure her inheritance, he’d thought that Rand and Jake had been play-acting their feelings for each other. It hadn’t been until after Jake’s reaction to his proposal that he’d realized there was more between them. It had been hard when she’d picked Jake over him. After his initial anger, he’d tried to play it off as no big deal, but a small piece of him would always be Rand’s. Despite his disappointment, he was glad Jake had gotten over his issues and admitted his feelings for her. It wasn’t hard to see how much she loved Jake, and as long as she was happy, Red wouldn’t have to kill his best friend.
Still, sometimes their whole lovey-dovey smoochy-smoochy was hard to stomach.
At exactly six o’clock, Red pulled into the Double C’s driveway and parked in front of the house. The one-story ranch house with the wraparound porch had been his second home for half his life, and he didn’t even bother knocking as he came through the door.
“Hello!”
“Come on in,” Jake called from the direction of the kitchen, and Red walked into the room to find his best friend in front of the stove, flipping a quesadilla.
“Where’s Rand?” Red asked as he flopped down at the table.
Jake placed the quesadilla on a plate and turned around, his expression nervous. “She’s in the bathroom.”
“You okay? You look like you’re going to hurl.”
“No, that would be me,” Rand said, coming in behind him.
Red turned in the chair, and his heart skipped a beat at her pallor. Her normally tan skin was almost green, and her dark-brown eyes seemed too big for her face, with dark circles underneath them. Her brown hair was up in a messy topknot, and even her lips looked colorless.
Standing up, he helped her to a chair. “What’s the matter with you? Are you sick?”
Rand shot him an amused, tired smile. “You could say that.”
Jake grabbed a can of something from the fridge and handed it to her, kissing her forehead. Red watched the two of them, Jake’s face softening as he stroked her cheek and smoothed back a brown strand of hair from her face. Envy churned in his gut, but it was more than just his feelings for Rand. It was every time he was around them, he realized how lonely he was. Coming from a big family, he was used to being around people, and although he couldn’t wait to get out of his parents’ house, he missed the loud exchanges and having someone care where you’ve been. Their love made him wish he had someone in his life besides his damn cat.
“Well, are you going to tell me what’s going on, or am I just supposed to stand here with my thumb up my ass while you two snuggle?”
A soft smile spread across Rand’s face, brightening her eyes, and Red waited for the blow he knew was coming. “I’m pregnant.”
Red looked from Jake to Rand, and his chest squeezed. “Are you serious?”
Jake grinned. “Believe me, man, we would not joke about this.” Red stared between them, taking in the news and trying to fight the sadness eating at him. He’d known Rand was in love with Jake, married to him, and they were happy, but this news crushed that small part of him that had been holding out. That hadn’t wanted to move on in case she changed her mind.
What kind of man hopes his best friends don’t stay happy? He felt like a grade A asshole.
Realizing he had taken too long to react, he overcompensated with a loud whoop. Leaping across the room, he picked Jake up and danced him around the room, giving him a few hard back slaps. He was hoping he hadn’t given away anything with his hesitation. It wasn’t as if he’d ever told Rand how he’d really felt.
Red set Jake back on his feet and kneeled down next to Rand, taking her hand in his. “That is fantastic! I’m so happy for you both.”
“Yeah, it’s great, except for me, morning sickness is pretty much all-damn-day sickness.”
Red squeezed her hand gently. “Ahhh, you better watch your mouth, little mama. You keep talking like that and that kid will come out swearing.”
In typical Rand fashioned, she pulled her hand away just to flip him off. “You’re an idiot. If you were puking up three quarters of what you ate, you’d curse too.”
“It will pass. Remember how sick Martha Stanton was the first few months? Then it just stopped.” Of course, Red couldn’t help adding with a grin, “Too bad she blew up like a hot air—ouch!”
Rand punched him in the shoulder, and Jake, laughing behind him, said, “You better watch it, she’s meaner than usual.”
The menacing look she sent her husband made Red glad he’d gotten off with a punch. He gave Rand a gentle hug. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled against his shoulder.
Red stood up, another teasing smile on his face. “So, did you get Knocked Up or Juno? Is Rand finally going to start watching chick flicks?”
“I will never get that addle brained.” Rand held up a stack of DVDs, grinning evilly. “It’s a Tarantino night!”
Jake slapped him on the back. “I am the luckiest man in the world.”
Red winced inwardly but agreed. Jake was a damn lucky man.
A few hours later, Red was driving back to his two-bedroom mobile home and decided it was about time to start getting his life on track. His feelings for Rand would probably never go away, but he couldn’t keep dwelling on unrequited love. Even the hero in his second book moved on from the woman who had broken his heart. Granted, that was fiction, but still, if he was ever going to start a life of his own, he needed to put his hurt behind him. Even if Rand and Jake didn’t know how much their love had affected him, they had probably felt his withdrawal the last year. Both Rand and Jake had been there for him through everything. He didn’t want to lose that.
&nb
sp; He needed to stop thinking about finding someone to make him feel better and concentrate on himself. He was a best-selling author. He was making good money, and he had just bought his own five-acre parcel eight months ago, and instead of building a house with the money he’d been saving, he’d bought a used modular to plunk down out there. He was getting close to thirty years old. He needed to grow up, because eventually it would be nice to come home to a wife instead of a cat.
Since when did you join the pity-party brigade?
He definitely didn’t want to go home now. They hadn’t even made it through Kill Bill Volume Two before Rand was passed out and drooling on Jake’s shoulder, and the image was branded in his brain. He’d watched Jake pick her up and carry her back to their bedroom, disappearing for a few minutes. When he’d come back out, though, they’d finished a beer and talked, but it had been strained. When Jake had finally yawned, Red had taken the hint to get out of there, but it was early, and he was too wired with conflicting emotions to sleep.
Why don’t you go home and write your novel?
Pushing on the gas, he ignored the voice of reason and headed to the only other bar in town, Wyatt’s Tavern. Red usually avoided Wyatt’s because the crowd was more keyed up than at the Watering Hole and he almost always ended up in a fight with some drunk cowboy with little-man complex. Sometimes it sucked being the biggest guy in town.
He pulled into the packed parking lot and blew out a deep breath.
Change was good, right?
* * *
Jessie wanted to get a look at the competition, and she had a few words for the crowd at Wyatt’s.
Rowdy. Loud. Assholes.
She’d been sitting at her little table in the corner for half an hour, and even though she’d finished her beer a while ago, she still hadn’t gotten up. Instead, she’d been eyeing the group of cowboys in front of the bar who grabbed any girl’s ass that passed and made obscene gestures as they walked away. Jessie had been in hundreds of bars and knew the type; they got drunk, and the bartender either kicked them out or let it go as long as they didn’t get violent. And it looked like the guy popping beer tops off behind the bar was the latter.
Wyatt’s was bigger than her new bar and used the extra space for a stage and large dance floor. Right now, the band played with a high twang that grated on her nerves. She was more of an alternative, top-forty girl.
Jessie saw a couple of the cowboy’s nudge each other and figured it was about another girl, but it was Big Red. Jessie ignored the warmth that spread from her chest to her abdomen as she watched him. For such a big guy, he moved with a quiet grace.
He seemed to be scanning the room for somewhere to sit, a scowl on his face, and when his gaze fell on her, his expression darkened. She didn’t even bother smothering her grin. Something about irritating the large man sent a flash of excitement through her body. She didn’t want to admit how many times Big Red had come to mind in the last twenty-four hours. There was something really wrong with her; that was all she could figure. Only someone with serious issues would go from sophisticated intellectuals to loud, brawny cowboys.
Or maybe you like him because he doesn’t hide his emotions like Will.
Why couldn’t she just put Will and what he’d done to her from her mind? When she’d met him, she’d been twenty, and Will had been an amateur filmmaker who wanted to follow in the footsteps of Stanley Kubrick. He was a mix of hipster and bad boy that made her feel daring and special. And the fact that her dad had hated his guts made her want to hang on to him more. It had taken a year of living with Will for her to see exactly what her father had known upon that first meeting: Will Archer was a dirty, lying scumbag. If only she’d realized it before he’d blown her reputation to shit.
She hadn’t found out about Will’s “home movies” until after graduation and she started going into job interviews. The first two had seemed promising, and she’d looked the part as best she could. Long sleeves to hide her tattoos, her blonde hair up in a twist instead of rolling wildly over her shoulders. But when she’d walked into that corner office and shaken the interviewer’s hand, he’d paused and his jaw had dropped.
“You!”
She’d had no idea what the man was talking about, no clue that Will had hidden cameras all over the bedroom they shared. She couldn’t have imagined that a man she’d loved and trusted could have taken their most intimate moments and sold them to the highest bidder.
She hadn’t even been the only one. She’d gone back to the apartment and searched through his computer until she’d found them all, dozens of videos of her and other women, all in their bed.
They’d arrested Will and confiscated his laptop, cameras, and videos. By the time Will had paid all of the parties’ restitution, she had ended up with five-hundred thousand dollars, which she’d used to drive across the country and buy her new bar.
Jessie Dale, born and bred California girl, settling down in nowhere Texas. Will would never think to look for her here, and the last thing she wanted was Will getting out and finding her.
She could still remember his violent reaction when they’d read the verdict. He’d yelled and thrown a chair until the guards had restrained him, slamming him face down on his lawyer’s desk. As they’d cuffed him, he’d turned and looked right at her. All the anger was replaced by an eerie smile that had left her feeling cold.
“I’ll see you soon, baby.”
His parting words, the violence she hadn’t even realized he had inside him, and that smile had warned her she had never met the real Will Archer until that moment. She wasn’t the type of woman to be scared or intimidated by any man, but that little insight into Will’s dark side had her packing her shit and leaving town before the sun set that night. She’d mulled over their relationship a lot those first few weeks and realized there had been signs of Will’s true character. She had just ignored them. Maybe if she hadn’t been acting like such a spoiled brat, her life wouldn’t have been screwed all to hell.
Men should have been the last thing on her mind, but she was actually disappointed when Big Red turned away from her and went to the bar. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten over his dislike of her renovations, but that was just tough shit. She was here to stay, and he wasn’t going to intimidate her.
But Red wasn’t the only one who seemed unhappy with the Watering Hole being closed. She’d gone into the hardware store for more paint today, and a dopey-looking guy with some pretty fantastic tattoos had questioned her at every turn. When she’d finally, and with as much patience as she could muster, told him that when she had a reopening day in mind, he would be the first to know, he had gone off to talk to another customer, shooting her disgruntled looks all the while. She’d heard the owner call him “Bubba” as he was walking out the door, and it reminded her of the movie Sweet Home Alabama. Only instead of the welcome home to the place you always belonged, she was getting a more get the hell out of town vibe.
So, she was going to have to put aside her issues with the local’s music and their closed-minded attitude and make some friends. The lady who owned her hotel seemed nice, but besides that, Jessie hadn’t met any other women who hadn’t taken one look at her and turned up their noses. Then again, she’d found that most women were a pain in the ass to be friends with. She’d always hung with more guys than girls.
Her gaze found Big Red again by the bar, and she played with the label of her bottle as she contemplated befriending the foul-tempered man. One thing was for sure…if she could get him to accept her plans for the Watering Hole, it was a step in the right direction.
Considering his reaction to a little plaster and paint, do you really want to be around this guy when he explodes about something major?
He was also the only person who had really talked to her, besides Bubba the Interrogator, and she had no interest in listening to him yammer on. Besides, she was tired of sitting in the corner by herself. She was bored, and the tall, burly cowboy was the only kind of distraction she was wi
lling to seek out.
Despite her reservations, her boredom won out, and she got up and maneuvered through the crowd toward him. When she tried to get past the group of cowboys, though, one of them blocked her way.
“Well, hey there, darlin’. Haven’t seen you before.”
“Not interested.”
She tried to move around him again, and he blocked her once more. “How do you know? You haven’t even heard my best line.”
Jessie eyed him up and down, a smirk settling over her lips. “Sorry, but you must be this tall” —she held her hand several inches over his head, and he looked up— “to ride.”
The cowboy puffed up on his stacked boots and gained an inch on her, including his hat. “Wait a minute. You’re that woman from California, the one who bought the Watering Hole.”
“How did you guess?” Jessie knew she was just riling the little prick, but really, who could take him seriously with his pants so tight?
Either he missed the sarcasm because of the noise, or he was just an idiot. “Because you’re the only uppity bitch I’ve met tonight.”
She covered her chest with her hands. “Oh wow. That really hurts.”
He caught her tone that time, because he grabbed her arm in a viselike grip. “You’ve got a real smart mouth on you for an outsider. Seems like your mama—”
The cowboy stopped talking when a large hand grabbed his shoulder and jerked him around. “Let the lady go.”
Jessie didn’t know who was more surprised by Big Red’s rescue, her or the cowboy, who swallowed so hard she’d swear his Adam’s apple disappeared.
Jessie looked over and noticed that the rest of the cowboy’s group had finally realized their friend was in trouble and were backing him up. The cowboy’s grip tightened on her arm, and his face flushed.
“Why don’t you mind your own business, Red?”
Jessie was tired of their staring contest, and her arm was starting to tingle with pain. Stepping into the cowboy, she hit him across the trachea with the side of her other hand, and he released her to clutch his throat, falling back against his buddies, gasping. Rubbing her arm, she glared at the cowboy, then shifted her attention to Red.
