by Tawny Weber
“Sonofabitch.” His eyes still bugging a little, Buck gave a slow shake of his head. “Boy, you are the spittin’ image of your daddy.”
Only in looks, he hoped.
But Laramie simply smiled.
“Hey there, Buck. How’s it going?”
“Sonofabitch,” Buck repeated, reaching over to slap Laramie on the shoulder. His eyes assessing, the bartender leaned his arms on the bar. “Look at you. I heard you’d been through town.”
“Art told you?” Laramie guessed, a little surprised his uncle had mentioned it.
“Art? Hell, no. That ole boy doesn’t even come down for supplies now that he’s got help on the ranch.” Buck shook his head, obviously as baffled by Art’s reclusiveness as Laramie figured Art was over Buck’s gregariousness. “You’re a legend, boy. Everyone talks about it when you come to town. They wonder what you’re doing up there in the mountains. What you’re doing when away. What they’re really wondering is who you’re doing here or there.”
“Not much to wonder about.” Laramie said with a shrug. His lips twitched as Buck’s expectant look faded into resigned acceptance when nothing more was forthcoming. “I’ll have a beer.”
“Draft okay?”
“Afraid I’m going to ask for one of those craft beers? You got any bacon-flavored beer back there?”
Laramie craned his neck as if checking behind the bar while Buck gave a gravelly chuckle. Turning to get the beer, the large man shot Laramie a look over his shoulder.
“Bet you could find some in town. Try Barclay’s Bar. They cater to the tourists and yahoos with more money than taste.”
His body tightening at the opening, Laramie forced himself to let it pass. If he jumped on it now, Buck would have word spread through Jerrick that Laramie was back and looking at the Barclays before Laramie wiped the beer foam from his lip.
Didn’t matter if it was explosives, women or information. Timing was everything.
So Laramie turned to rest his elbows on the bar and studied the crowd. Pretty impressive for five in the afternoon. “You’re doing good business, I see.”
“Well, that there’s why.” Grinning from one hairy ear to the other, Buck gestured toward the television screen that took most of one entire wall. “We got the biggest TV in town, kid. No better place to watch a game. Baseball, football, soccer, you name it. I got them all right here, on demand.”
He waved a slender black remote control.
“You wanna watch something? Usually I charge for special requests, but seeing as you’re Cole’s boy and back for the first time, I’ll make this one on the house.”
Having no option except to nod his thanks, Laramie chose a random game from the guide Buck offered. The bartender slapped his hands together, rubbed, then wielded the remote like a master.
“Impressive,” Laramie said, surprised to realize he was enjoying himself. He took a healthy swallow of his beer and watched the players take the field while gauging his timing.
“So a lot of the townies get in here?” he asked, referring to the people who lived inside the city limits. He didn’t figure Barclay had ever set foot in Buck’s. Not ritzy enough for his pansy ass. But people who worked for him might, and they’d be the ones who’d know where he could be.
“A few. We’re a little out of the way for most of them. Mostly they go to the meat market out on the highway. Less chance their old ladies will catch them than if they drank in town.” Buck rolled his eyes at the idea of anyone giving a damn what their wife or girlfriend thought.
Laramie listened to Buck ramble, waiting for any of the names Genius had provided. Aiden Masters’s call sign was apt, given that the guy had not only provided names but detailed dossiers on everyone from Barclay’s old man to his tailor.
“Hey there, ain’t you Laramie?” Interrupting them, a beefy guy plunked his basket of peanuts on the counter next to Laramie’s elbow and gestured for another beer. “Teddy Clemens, man. Sat next to you in Mr. Jones’s third grade class. Remember me?”
Third grade. Laramie frowned. Was that the year he and his mom had followed his dad from Texas to Wyoming and then Montana? What’d it been? Two months before Cole Laramie had scored two points shy of winning his saddle bronc competition and took his loss out on his wife before sending them the hell out of his face. Or was third grade the year Laramie had tried to convince his father to take him on the circuit with him by hopping on Old Blue? If he remembered correctly, the bronc had sent him flying over the fence and headfirst into a tree. He could still hear his father’s laughter over the ringing that’d sounded in his head.
Laramie studied the ruddy face as the other man cracked a peanut, tossed the nuts high to catch in his mouth while the shells hit the floor.
Nope.
Laramie had a lot of memories. But none of this guy.
But he hadn’t been raised by the head good ole boy of the good ole boys’ club for nothing. Laramie knew how to play the game.
“Hey there, Teddy. What’ve you been up to all these years?”
“Running cable for the phone company, man. It pays good, and keeps Barb happy.” As if Laramie had expressed an inkling of interest, Teddy reached around to pull a chained leather wallet from his back pocket and started showing off pictures. “That’s my Barb. Check her out, Buck. Looking good with that four pointer, ain’t she?”
As Buck and Teddy admired the woman and/or the deer, Laramie nursed what was left of his beer and let their conversation roll around him. Just as he was pondering the oddities of life and the uselessness of ever thinking you’d gotten away from the past, Teddy nudged his arm.
“Didn’t your mama work for Barclay?”
Yeah, she had. Right up until the old man fired her for taking too many days off to deal with his daddy’s funeral. His face set at the memory, Laramie nodded.
“That SOB, he sure ain’t improved with age. Repossessed my daddy’s farm a few years back.” His affable face angling into a sneer, Teddy crushed his next peanut so the dust powdered his belly. “That man is mean as a rattler and twice as ugly.”
And there it was.
His opening.
Making a show of leaning back on the stool and crossing one booted foot over the other, Laramie did another quick recon of the room. Two guys bending over the pool table were too close to the jukebox to hear. Buck had his eyes glued to the game on his big screen pride and joy, and the other handful of patrons were drunk.
“What about his son? Did he ever leave town to become the king of the world like he figured he deserved?”
“Sterling?” Teddy laughed, spraying bits of peanut across the bar. “He’s too lazy to be king. He’s just biding his time until he can dip into daddy’s money.”
“Not lazy,” Buck corrected. “Uppity. That boy thinks he’s too good for the likes of us.”
“Got himself engaged to Cora Mae’s girl. Talk about hot.” Leering, Teddy blew on the tips of his fingers.
“Watch your mouth,” Buck interrupted, swapping empty bottles for full ones. “Don’t be bad mouthin’ Sammi Jo. That girl worked hard to get out from under her mama’s reputation.”
“Hard enough to land herself the son of the richest man in town,” Teddy argued, his face settling into stubborn lines. “Sounds an awful lot like Cora Mae to me.”
“Deserves better than Barclay, that’s for sure,” Buck muttered, whipping a rag out of his belt and rubbing it over the bar. “Cheatin’ bastard.”
Barclay was cheating on Sammi? Aiden hadn’t geniused that out in his research. Laramie’s fist clenched tight against the urge to punch something.
“Ain’t married yet,” Teddy pointed out, gesturing with his beer. “Guy’s got a right to do whatever he wants before that ring’s shoved on his finger.”
“A promise is a promise.” Buck gave Laramie a look from under his bushy brows as if daring him to say different.
Nope. Laramie agreed. Promises were sacred. But agreeing would put Teddy on the defensive, so Lara
mie simply tipped back his beer for another swallow.
Besides, he knew the less he said, the more blanks they’d fill in.
“He’s doing Janette Glass. She moved here, what? About three years ago?” He looked to Buck for confirmation. “Waitress at the bar on Second Street.”
“I heard tell that he was seeing that widow who owns the dry cleaners.”
“My ma heard it from ole Bill who runs the liquor store that Maggie Conner comes in every third Friday of the month to pick up a bottle of that fancy French wine that Barclay likes. Then they have a ron-day-vous at the Red Roof Inn.”
“Cheap bastard making her bring the booze,” Buck muttered.
While Teddy, Buck and a few others joined in to share the private details of Sterling Barclay’s life, Laramie simply gathered the information he needed.
Sammi’s fiancé was a cheating snake, they all agreed on that. His business partner Carl was shady enough to give wide berth, but the man must be good for something because business was way better than Sterling was capable of.
But nobody said anything that hinted toward a motivation for kidnapping, nor did they voice a single suspicion over the man’s recent absence.
Laramie carefully committed the details to memory. He’d follow up, double—maybe even triple—check before he broke it to Sammi Jo.
Then he’d have to figure out how to tell her that the man she was about to marry was a lying, cheating jerk without using that news as an opportunity to strip her naked and introduce her to pleasures beyond her wildest dreams.
Three hours, a quick march over Devil’s Hall Trail, an icy shower and a shot of tequila later, and Laramie was ready. He dropped onto the couch in his cabin, thrust his legs out in front of him and grabbed the phone. He never used the landline, wasn’t here to talk to people. Maybe the battery was dead.
He held it to his ear, grimaced at the dial tone, then dialed Sammi’s number.
He wasn’t avoiding temptation he assured himself as the phone rang. He wasn’t at all concerned at what might happen if his news caused her to cry, tempting him to pull her into his arms for comfort. He was saving her the embarrassment of having to explain his presence if he went into town to give her his news in person.
Laramie hunched lower on the couch and shook his head.
God, he was doing a whole lot of lying to himself lately.
Before he could debate the merits and drawbacks of this new form of self-deception, Sammi answered.
“Hello.”
“Sammi Jo.”
“Laramie.” The word was breathy with curiosity, hesitation and a hint of embarrassment. “Did you find out anything?”
He hesitated.
“Just confirmed a few things, filled in a few blanks. Nobody around here seems to have reason to kidnap Barclay or suspicions of anyone who would.” He drummed his fingers on his knee and debated. Then, because he figured she deserved it, he went with the truth. Or, at least, some of it. “He doesn’t have much in the way of admirers around here, or respect for that matter.”
“Oh.”
He heard a creaking he recognized as bedsprings and almost groaned. Trying not to picture her in bed, not to wonder what she was wearing, Laramie filled her in on the rest of the details. Well, almost the rest. He couldn’t quite bring himself to tell her she was being cheated on. He’d planned to. He meant to. But, dammit, she sounded devastated enough hearing Barclay was an ass. Maybe it was better to let that sink in before hitting her with the rest.
With that in mind, Laramie straightened upright, ready to end the call.
“You don’t like him, either, do you? Sterling, I mean. I can tell when you talk about him.” There was no censure in her tone, no accusation in her words. Just simple curiosity.
Curious himself, Laramie settled back into his slouch.
“I haven’t seen the man in over a dozen years. My views are based on old impressions and probably not accurate,” he pointed out.
“Are you avoiding answering?”
Laramie grinned at the irritation in her words. He could imagine the look on her face, that chin raised up and her pretty green eyes narrowed.
“I never liked the guy’s attitude,” Laramie finally admitted. “He had everything right there at his fingertips. Instead of appreciating that, he’d take what little others had.”
“Did he take something from you?” she asked.
Laramie frowned as he actually felt sympathy coming through her quiet words.
“Sammi Jo, do you actually think anyone ever took anything from me?”
Before the words had left his mouth, though, his gaze shifted to the window and the copse of trees beyond sheltering his mother’s grave. She’d been taken from him, but he didn’t figure life counted.
“But you haven’t seen Sterling in years. Don’t you think people can change?”
“No.” His laugh was a little bitter as Laramie looked around the cabin where he’d spent most of his early years. How many promises had been made in this very room? Vows to quit drinking so much, promises to spend time with the family. To be more responsible, to quit blowing the rent money, to be in town for a father-son camping trip.
Not one of those promises or the hundreds of others had been kept.
“Never?” Her tone was filled with chiding doubt.
“Not without a drill sergeant riding their ass. And they still slide right back into their old habits the minute the threat of AWOL is lifted.”
“I changed,” she pointed out stiffly. “And I didn’t have a drill sergeant or any threats hanging over my head.”
“Sammi Jo, you might have grown up, but you’re exactly the same as you were when you were a kid.” Laramie grinned at her gasp. It didn’t take a genius to catch the clue that he’d insulted her.
“You’re still as feisty and strong as you were taking on bullies when you seven,” he said, starting to relax as he enjoyed himself. “You still stand up for yourself and you believe in happy endings. Your hair is darker, but it’s still vividly unique. You’re gorgeous in a way that sets you apart from others. You’re patient and you’re kind. You follow the rules even when you don’t want to and you’re too responsible for your own good.”
Realizing he was a sentence or two away from sounding like a lovestruck idiot, Laramie clamped his mouth shut. He had never said anything so revealing to a woman before. Outside of duty, he wasn’t sure he’d ever actually said that much at one time in his life.
The words hung in the air, mocking him.
But, fist shut tight in his lap, Laramie couldn’t wish them back. Not if they helped Sammi see how amazing she was just being herself.
“You make me sound a lot more interesting than I am,” she said quietly. Then he heard the mattress creak again. Good. His body loosened a little. He’d do better if he wasn’t imagining her in bed. He could hear the soft echo of her bare feet pacing what sounded like a wooden floor. “Except for the rule following. That sounds a little uptight.”
She said it as if it was an insult.
“I wouldn’t say it’s—”
“I’m not uptight,” she interrupted. “Rules and responsibility are important, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to have fun.”
His rumbling stomach telling him it was time to eat, Laramie pushed to his feet. Normally he’d use dinner as an excuse to end the call, but he was enjoying talking with Sammi too much.
“I didn’t imply—”
“Just because security and stability are important to me doesn’t mean I’m a stick-in-the-mud prude. I can do plenty of fun, nonuptight things,” she interrupted again.
Bread in one hand, lunchmeat in the other, Laramie could only laugh.
“I never said—”
“You made me come.” Her words slid over him in a sensual caress. His body heading straight for hard-on city, Laramie set the food on the counter. He had the feeling he was going to want both of his hands and all of his focus for the rest of this conversation.
“Sammi—”
“You made me feel amazing.”
“You deserve to feel amazing,” he said automatically. “Why does it surprise you?”
At her silence, an odd suspicion hit him.
“Sammi Jo, you’ve had sex before, haven’t you?”
Her hesitance only added to his suspicion.
“Yes. A few times. A while ago.” She huffed. “It wasn’t very good, if you must know.”
“How long is a while ago? A week? A month?”
She mumbled something indistinct.
“Say that again?”
“Three years.” The words weren’t a whole lot louder this time, but they were distinct.
Food forgotten, Laramie dropped to the couch. His brain boggled at the idea of three months, let alone three years without sex. Sure, he supposed it was doable. But not for someone as sensually responsive as Sammi Jo.
“But you’re engaged. Haven’t you and Barclay...” He couldn’t even say it. Not when the words might put the image in his mind of the lusciously sweet Sammi Jo with that cheating dumbass.
“No.”
“Are you—” What was the term? “Saving yourself for your wedding night?”
“No. I mean, yes, we would then, but it’s not like we’re saving it or anything.” Her words were filled with frustration. Understandable, considering what she was saying. “We’re just not that kind of couple.”
“And you’re willing to marry the guy?” All he could do was shake his head.
“I didn’t think it mattered.” Her voice dropped a couple of decibels. “I didn’t think I was the sexual type.”
Laramie had to figure that thinking was due to her growing up knowing more about sex than most guys he’d served with. A part of him wanted to end this conversation here and now, before his jeans got any tighter. But he couldn’t let her go on thinking something that was so blatantly wrong.
“Sammi, I’ve been with a lot of women of damn near every sexual type,” he said slowly, choosing his words as carefully as he’d choose tools to diffuse a bomb. “If I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that everyone has their trigger. Something that opens the door to pleasure. If you haven’t felt it yet, you simply haven’t found the right key.”
