Going Hard: Steele Ridge Series

by Kelsey Browning

  And Lord, a temporary hookup sounded just right to Carlie Beth’s long-neglected girl parts right now. But Dave wasn’t a one-night kinda guy, and Carlie Beth had no interest in developing anything more with him. Truth be told, she wasn’t even attracted to him. And that was downright pitiful because he was a nice man even if his looks were average. But she’d learned there was no explaining what set off a spark between a man and woman.

  Austin shoved his helmet back so far that it flew off and hit the ground with a bounce. His dark hair was as sweaty as hers and had curled against his forehead and neck, making him look like a boy-band lead singer after an energetic concert. His chest bowed out and he advanced on Dave. “What’re you trying to say? Carlie Beth is a nice girl and you’re talking to her like she’s some—”

  “Hey, hey. I think this whole conversation took a sideways turn.” With some quick footwork, Carlie Beth stepped in between them. She wasn’t a girl, nice or otherwise. And all she’d wanted to do was get this job done and get paid. She certainly hadn’t expected some strange pissing contest between her apprentice and one of her best repeat customers. “Thank you both for your kind invitations of dinner and music, but I’m not available tonight.”

  “Maybe some other time.” Dave jammed his hat back on his head, but the movement couldn’t disguise his scowl. He gave Austin another shit-on-my-shoe look, then glanced at Carlie Beth. “You seeing someone else?”

  He damn well knew she wasn’t. Gossip in Canyon Ridge flowed faster than the upper Nantahala River when they opened the dam each year. “No, but—”

  “Then expect me to ask again.” Dave strode toward his waiting crew-cab truck, and the driver’s side door shut with a definitive slam.

  “He’s a dickhead,” Austin huffed, glaring at Dave’s truck as he pulled away. “He should know you’re way above him. Too pretty for an old balding guy like him.”

  Carlie Beth flipped down her visor so Austin wouldn’t see her squeeze her eyes closed. She’d been taking care of herself and her business since she was her apprentice’s age. While he was thinking of bands and beer, she’d been worried about raising her baby. And she’d made a life—a good one—and she damn well wasn’t a dog treat to be growled over by a man she wasn’t interested in and a boy who worked for her.

  She’d committed to training Austin to be a blacksmith and she would do that to the best of her ability, which meant she had to throw a blanket over whatever ideas he had about her being more than his boss. “Not that it’s any of your concern,” she told him. “But if I want to date Dave, that’s my business.”

  And as for Dave, she needed these soulless welding jobs. They were what put food on her and Aubrey’s table. She might just have to say yes to a dinner if that’s what it took to stay on his good side.

  Jesus, what a world she lived in.

  A place where a blacksmith had to resort to sushi prostitution.

  2

  Carlie Beth’s estimated half hour stretched to a full one when she checked the cattle guard’s wings only to discover weak joints there as well. If she hadn’t already done such a good patch job on the thing, she might’ve felt obligated to advise Dave to buy a new one.

  Hmm…maybe she could start fabricating guards and gates herself. At least then they’d be quality. Which would also reduce the opportunity to fix them in the future. Her work was not shoddy, that was for damn sure. Plus, projects that size would take all the room in her forge, something she wasn’t willing to give up.

  She checked her welding machine to make sure it was secure on the trailer, swung herself up into her old but beloved SUV, and headed back into town. Thank goodness Austin had his own wheels so she didn’t have to deflect any more invitations. But she still didn’t have time to swing by her house and get cleaned up if she planned to be at Triple B on time. Randi’d had enough of a struggle lately without worrying about her staff’s punctuality. Carlie Beth would just have to make do with a quick shower in Randi’s private bathroom at the bar. If Carlie Beth went in looking—and smelling—like this, she wouldn’t score a tip all night. And Aubrey’s next orthodontist bill was coming due.

  She parked in the almost empty lot behind the building and grabbed her boots and uniform of jeans and a white T-shirt embroidered with Blues, Brews, and Books over the right breast. When she opened the back door, she was momentarily blinded by the change from bright spring sunshine to the stockroom’s darker interior.

  Although Randi would kill her a hundred times over if she waltzed into the bar looking like this, Carlie Beth would die of dehydration if she didn’t get something to drink. Right this second.

  Her eyes adjusted now, she hung her clothes in the storage area and eased open the door into the bar. A quick glance around revealed no sign of Randi or anyone else.

  Perfect. A quick in and out with a glass of Cheerwine, and she’d be home free.

  A vee of sunlight splashed across the wood floor, signaling someone coming in the front door. Carlie Beth bolted behind the bar and crouched down. Maybe she could snag a drink and get out before whoever it was saw her. She grabbed a highball glass and quickly filled it from the soda gun. The sweet scent from the soft drink was too much of a temptation and she gulped down several swallows, making her head contract in a painful brain freeze. “Ugh,” she moaned but went back for more, draining the glass.

  “Dean,” a male voice said from somewhere disturbingly close by, “I talked with the GM and straightened out the misunderstanding about your surgical consult. Believe me, he wants you back on the ice as much as you want to be out there.”

  At the man’s rumble above her, every tiny hair on Carlie Beth’s body did a Don King imitation. She hadn’t heard that voice in years, not until his mom’s sixtieth birthday party a few months back. He’d called out to her, his smile just as charming and sinful as she remembered. Panic had swamped her, and she’d hightailed it out of there, leaving her best Pyrex bowl in the middle of the food table.

  But one night fifteen years ago that voice had whispered the smoothest dirty talk Carlie Beth had ever heard directly into her ear. While the man himself was sliding inside her.

  “Yeah, this is exactly the reason you pay me the big bucks.” His low laugh shimmied through Carlie Beth. “I’ll check in with you when I get back to town.”

  His Carolina Boy drawl had matured into the intoxicating smoothness of expensive artisanal whisky. And she knew the risks of bingeing on it.

  “Anyone here?” he called out. “Because I could sure as hell use a drink.”

  An arm came over the bar top to snag a glass and she squeezed closer to the shelves. The next time she had a craving for a Cheerwine, she would stop at the Sack & Snack before coming in here. But for now, she was trapped.

  “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m making my own.” His words were accompanied by the sound of liquid being poured.

  She could pretend she was in a bubble, unable to see or hear anything, and just waddle her butt back to the hallway. But she wasn’t a timid little girl. She was a grown woman. A strong woman, who didn’t hide from things. Okay, so maybe she’d hidden a thing or two, but she had to face the man she knew was on the other side of this bar.

  Carlie Beth filled her lungs with air, then lifted her head.

  He was leaning over the wood expanse, staring down at where she was crouched next to the extra shot glasses. Every molecule she’d just inhaled whooshed back out.

  He shouldn’t impact her this way. He couldn’t impact her this way.

  His eyebrows drew in over his nose. “Carlie Beth, what are you doing back there? And why do you look like you just lost a mud-wrestling match?”

  Griffin Steele was one of those men born on a day when God was in an excellent mood. Artfully mussed golden-brown hair and eyes the blue of titanium welded too hot. A face that made angels break out into The Whip and a smile that made women like Carlie Beth lose their panties.

  Fifteen years ago, those laugh lines around his eyes and mouth hadn�
�t yet put in an appearance. Now, they hinted that he was a man who’d been around the block. Probably in a Mercedes Benz with a number of beautiful women riding shotgun. At that thought, something that felt oddly like jealousy sparked inside her midsection.

  No, that was just her stomach growling from missing lunch. Because one look at Grif and she’d realized he was the masculine version of the Mad Batter Bakery’s sinful hazelnut cream cheese puffs. Delicious, but so dangerous. Few women could resist that kind of temptation.

  You can. You have. And you will.

  With Grif staring, uneasiness swarmed over her. The sweat on her skin was cooling, making her shiver. Her hair was half stuck to her face, half a bedraggled tail hanging limp on her shoulder. No makeup. Not a speck. Seven-year-old jeans and a Canyon Ridge band booster T-shirt from Aubrey’s drawer.

  This was what happened when Carlie Beth put off doing laundry. Her face went hot because although she was a mere bra size bigger than Aubrey, that shiver had woken up her nipples, now clearly visible against her snug shirt. “I…uh…wait tables here. I was just grabbing a soda before getting cleaned up.”

  She tried to get her legs to work, but the damn things were apparently just as affected as her lungs. Get your shit together, you two.

  “Looks like yours is empty.” Grif leaned farther over the bar top and held out the glass he’d already filled. “Here. Take mine.”

  She couldn’t tear her attention away from his hands. Those long, talented fingers were able to finesse a curveball and a woman’s curves. Tan and obviously strong, they did more for her than seeing another man’s naked body. “No, I couldn’t—”

  “I insist.”

  So he was still a gentleman, something she’d found hard to resist years ago and couldn’t seem to hold out against now, either. Her hand was shaking as she reached up and took the lowball glass. She tried not to touch him, but it was impossible. Her fingertips grazed his knuckles, shooting heat up her arms and into her torso.

  Grif’s gaze dropped to her chest, held there for long enough to make the soft fabric of her bra feel scratchy and binding, almost unbearable against her tight nipples. When he finally looked up, his eyes had darkened to navy.

  She knew that color.

  It was the color of sex.

  “The waitstaff isn’t supposed to drink while working,” she said, trying to keep her voice steadier than her knees. Unable to stand being at such a disadvantage for a single second longer, she gave her thigh muscles a pep talk and drew herself up to her meager five-foot-three height.

  But her legs were still unreliable and she desperately needed whatever was in the glass she was gripping like it might grow wings and fly away. Bracing a hip against the bar, she took a deep swallow.

  Son of a monkey!

  There wasn’t a drop of soda or water in that glass. If she had to guess, it was a double shot of high-end Glenlivet. She inhaled, and the air burned all the way down her throat and lit a brushfire in her stomach.

  “Not what you were expecting?” Grif’s wide smile dazzled her, making her head reel with the effect.

  “Nope.” She wheezed through the pain. “But just what the doctor ordered. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go get cleaned up.” With as much dignity as possible given her disheveled appearance, she flashed a smile at him and turned toward the hallway.

  “Carlie Beth.” Grif’s whisky-tinged voice came from behind her. “Aren’t you going to give me my drink?”

  Not a chance in hell. Rather than answer, she gulped the rest of the liquor and tossed the empty glass to him.

  Twenty minutes later, Carlie Beth was headed back toward the restaurant and bar, feeling moderately in control after coming face-to-face with Grif Steele. Hot water, a ponytail elastic, and Just Peachy lipstick could do that for a girl. Still, she practiced a little yoga breathing before pushing open the door into the bar.

  B. B. King was playing softly on the jukebox and the first person in her path was Randi, eyebrows raised. Her hair was a golden waterfall down her back, highlighting her enviable green eyes. “Drinking on the job, huh?”

  For Pete’s sake. “How did you—”

  “I can see how those two might make a girl very thirsty.” A smile lit up Randi’s face, and she gave a head tilt toward the men sitting at a barnwood table in the corner. The light from the rustic silver pendant above highlighted their handsome faces.

  Hmph. Grif must’ve said something to Randi about needing a refill. Carlie Beth tried to ignore him and instead studied the man who’d joined him while she was showering. Jonah Steele had dark shaggy hair that looked as if it hadn’t seen the sharp end of a pair of scissors in months. He happened to glance up and grin at her, pleasure clear in his hazel eyes. Oh, that one had a mischievous streak when he was a kid. At ten years old, he’d hacked into the school’s computer network just before report cards went out. Strangely enough, every student in Canyon Ridge made honor roll that term and had been given an unexpected school holiday. From what she heard around town, Jonah’s propensity for trouble mixed with fun hadn’t changed one bit.

  But even through his smile, she could see his face was now shadowed with seriousness, something that made her think he’d suffered damage he couldn’t quite erase.

  Carlie Beth nodded at him, then grabbed a short apron from behind the counter. Tying it in a perfect bow around her waist, she kept her attention on a vintage Lance crackers sign on the wall. It promised just right…right now!

  Ha. With Grif sitting across the room, there was nothing right right about now, that was for damn sure. “Not interested,” she said cheerfully to Randi.

  “You’d have to be dead not to be interested.”

  Then drop her six feet under, because she had no plans to get close to anyone in the Steele family. It was too dangerous, not only to her mental state but to her complete state of being. “Which station am I taking tonight?”

  Randi checked the plastic clipboard where she mapped out the waitstaff assignments in erasable marker. “Looks like three.”

  Carlie Beth’s head popped up, but she didn’t look at the table situated smack-dab in the middle of station three. “You did that on purpose.”

  The purple marker tapped against Randi’s bottom lip. “Why in the world would I do that?”

  “I have no idea,” she snapped before she caught herself. Not the way to treat a friend, Carlie Beth. So she let out a deep breath and smiled. If she made too big a deal of this, Randi would get suspicious, and she didn’t need anyone poking around in her history with a certain Steele brother. “Sorry. Just a tough day.”

  “You’ll be the first one I send home tonight.”

  “Thanks.” For a second, Carlie Beth gave a fleeting thought to asking another waitress to trade tables, but quickly nixed the idea. She could handle serving Grif Steele beer or whisky or whatever else he wanted to drink. No sweat off her brow. No water off her back. No…no…yeah, she had nothing else.

  Might as well get this over with.

  She grabbed a serving tray and headed directly for Grif and Jonah’s table. “Gentlemen, can I get you a refill?”

  “Hey there, Carlie Beth,” Jonah said.

  Grif propped an elbow on the table and leaned in, his grin never faltering. “That was some quick cleanup work.”

  She set her teeth in what she hoped looked like a smile instead of the lockjaw it was and stood there undergoing Grif’s slow scrutiny. His scan started at her feet, covered with her favorite cowboy boots, bad-ass black with a red flame stitch and toebug. They were from a custom boot shop in a little Texas town called Prophecy. She’d splurged on them when she sold her first commissioned blacksmithing project.

  His perusal was slower than pouring molasses in January, and it took every bit of Carlie Beth’s self-discipline to keep from shifting from foot to foot. He took in her bootcut jeans and checked out her white vee-neck T-shirt as if it was the most interesting fashion to come off a European runway.

  Do NOT respond
. She mentally chanted the three-word command to her nipples. And good Jesus, she’d talked more to those two sluts in the past half hour than they’d been touched in the past two years. And they listened about as well as her childhood pet, a golden retriever, had when he’d been on the scent of something.

  Which was not at all.

  When Grif finally made it to her face, Carlie Beth was about to jump out of her skin. She’d never understood that phrase until this moment. But if her bones and muscles and nerves could find a convenient exit, they would leave her epidermis lying on the bar floor like a bear-skin rug.

  “A testament that Ivory soap can work wonders.” His eyes sparked with amused interest.

  Carlie Beth casually braced a hand on an empty chair to shore up her wobbly knees. “Now that you two have checked behind my ears, can I get you something else from the bar?”

  “Oh, ho.” Jonah chuckled and shot a look at his brother. “Now that sounds like a challenge.”

  No, no, no, no.

  But of course Grif smoothly rose to his feet, his elegant dress shirt hugging his chest and tapering into obviously expensive gray slacks. He’d hung the matching jacket over his seat and turned back his shirt cuffs in two precise folds. He rounded behind her, taking his sweet time with deliberate steps, and Carlie Beth’s body responded to his nearness as if an epic thunderstorm was rolling in, electricity sparking all over her skin.

  His fingers trailed lightly over her ponytail, and its weight was off her back only to land on her left shoulder, where the strands teased one of her apparently deaf nipples. Then Grif touched her ear, just a stroke of his fingertips along the outer rim, but the shock that zipped through Carlie Beth left her breathless.

  Lord have mercy, he smelled so good. Like a stack of new hundred-dollar bills being fanned in front of her nose. Fresh, crisp, and with the indescribable undertones of success.