by Nora Roberts
hatband. The decorations were, well, obsessively Western—silver horseshoes, wildflowers in cowboy boots and hat vases. More boots in table favor shot glasses, bandannas for napkins, burlap table runners. The cake had fondant to replicate cowhide, and the topper—the happy couple on horseback. It actually worked.”
“I wouldn’t mind having a boot shot glass,” Callen said.
“Well, I’ll see if any got left behind.” She glanced at the menu as she spoke. “What are Screaming Nachos?”
“Melt your face off,” Bodine told her. “Sounds good. We ought to get some for the table.”
“I don’t see any salads.”
For a second or two Bodine just blinked, then she threw back her head and howled. “Jessie, you come here for the red meat, the hot sauce, the beer, and the music. Rabbit might find its way onto the menu, but rabbit food won’t.”
She grinned as Rory and Chelsea came back with the drinks. “Have a drink, or two. It’ll all go down easier.” So saying, Bodine hailed Darlie and ordered a large platter of Screaming Nachos.
By the time Chase got there, the nachos were a memory—one Jessica feared would live in her stomach lining for years—and dinner was ordered.
“Sorry, had a couple things.”
“You missed the nachos—and they’re just as potent as I remember.” Callen lifted the beer he continued to nurse. “Dinner’s coming.”
“I’m ready for it. Place is filling up.”
Most stools at the bar had already been claimed. A few tables remained open, but at others people ate, drank, and talked so the noise pushed against the bartender’s playlist.
The band wouldn’t take the stage for nearly an hour, but dancers already circled the dance floor. The big square of plywood held stains from countless spilled beers, and infamously, nearly dead center, a faded bloodstain from a fight—over a woman, so the story went—nearly a decade before.
Dancers twirled under three enormous wagon wheel lights. When the band came on, the head bartender—the captain of the ship—would dim those lights from their current high-noon glare.
Callen might have imagined the evening differently, but he couldn’t find a single flaw sitting around a crowded table, elbow-to-elbow with friends—close enough to Bodine to smell her hair every time she turned her head.
He’d frequented places not dissimilar to the Roundup in his years away, drinking with friends, flirting with women with sweet-smelling hair.
But he knew without a doubt, for him, there was nothing like home.
It didn’t matter what they talked about, and with Rory at the table you’d never have a conversational lag, but eventually it turned toward Callen and his Hollywood experience.
“It had its moments,” he said when Chelsea, a little wide-eyed, asked if it had been exciting, glamorous.
“Mostly it was horses, but it had its moments.”
“Not too many,” Bodine put in, “as he never met Brad Pitt.”
“Never did.”
Rory pointed a finger at him. “Best female meet—movie-star division.”
“Well, that’s not even close. Charlize Theron.”
Now Rory went wide-eyed. “Kiss my ass. You met Charlize Theron?”
“I did. A Million Ways to Die in the West. Seth MacFarlane movie. Funny guy.”
“Screw MacFarlane. You met Charlize Theron. What’s she like? Did you get close enough to touch?”
“She’s beautiful, smart, interesting. I might’ve touched her in the general course of things. Mostly we talked horses. She’s good with them.”
“Before Rory lapses into a coma.” Bodine swallowed the last of her burger. “Best male meet, same division.”
“Pretty much as easy. Sam Elliott. I’m not going to say beautiful, but smart and interesting. And I never knew an actor to sit a horse better.”
“‘I still got one good arm to hold you with.’”
Jessica turned toward Chase, and the iconic gravelly voice. “That sounded just like him. What’s that from?”
“Tombstone. Virgil Earp.”
“He’s got a million of him,” Rory claimed. “Do Val Kilmer, Chase. Do Doc Holliday.”
Half smiling, Chase shrugged. “‘I’m your huckleberry,’” he said in a lazy Southern drawl.
“What does that mean?”
Chase looked at her. “It means, mostly, I’m your man.”
He looked away again, picked up his beer.
“So it’s a romantic idiom.”
Even as Rory snorted, Chase turned back to her. “Ah, I don’t expect Doc had romantic feelings for Wyatt Earp. You never saw Tombstone?”
“No.” Now Jessica’s gaze circled the table and the looks of amusement or shock. “Uh-oh, am I about to be tossed out of here?”
“Ought to see the movie” was all Chase could say.
When the table as a whole began to grill her on what Westerns she had seen, or hadn’t, she was treated to Chase’s mimic quotes from John Wayne through to Alan Rickman.
As entertaining as it was, she was relieved when the band took the stage—to cheers and applause—ending the inquisition.
They busted right out with a song she didn’t recognize any more than she had the quotes from Quigley Down Under.
“We’re up.” Rory grabbed Chelsea’s hand, spun her out onto the dance floor.
“Said I’d take you dancing.” Callen stood, held out a hand for Bodine’s.
“We’ll see how good you are at it.”
He was pretty damn good. He had a way of holding her right in, moving with her and against her in a prelude to what they both knew was coming. She laughed, twirling easily when he spun her out, then gave him a taste of her own by shifting on the way in so her back pressed to him. Undulating.
“You learned some new moves,” he said in her ear.
She tipped her head back so their lips almost touched. “I’ve got more.”
She twirled again, let him draw her in, and hooked an arm around his neck as she matched her steps to his.
“You sure as hell do. What have you been up to while I’ve been away, Bodine?”
“Practicing.”
At the table, Jessica watched the dancers. A lot of stomping, spinning, and what she thought of as scooting. While Bodine and Callen did all of that, they coated it with a layer of sex.
She’d never thought of country-western dancing as sexy.
When the second number picked right up after the first, Chase cleared his throat. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
She angled toward him. “That would make us about even here, as I’ve never done this kind of dancing in my life. Why don’t you teach me a little?”
“Ah … I can try.” Rising, he took her hand. “You’re probably going to need another drink after we’re done.”
“I’ll risk it.” After she reached the plywood, she turned, put a hand on his shoulder. “Right?”
“Yeah, and…” He put an arm around her waist. “We’ll just sort of … Can you walk backward in those shoes?”
“I can run backward in them. And—” She took it on herself, raised their joined hands, executed a twirl out, then back to him. “No worries.”
“You’re already better than I am.”
She smiled. They seemed to be moving around the floor just fine. “I can teach you if I have to.”
* * *
About the time the women took to the floor to “Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy),” and Jessica learned—or tried to learn—her first line dance, Jolene and Vance Lubbock headed home.
They’d taken what they called their Escape from the Kids Night—a once in a blue moon event. The intention had been a quiet dinner—something dimly recalled from before the advent of three kids under six—and a movie that didn’t have any sort of animation or talking animals.
Along the way, Jolene realized what she really wanted to do with the four precious hours they’d roped in a babysitter. She directed Vance to get on and off Interstate 90, and check int
o a Quality Inn.
He didn’t put up a fight.
For the first time in more than a year they had energetic, wide-awake, uninterrupted sex. Twice.
Then a third time after Vance ran out to get food from the eatery next door.
While they couldn’t quite pull off a fourth, they indulged in a long, hot shower where no one called out for Mommy or Daddy.
They drove home again in the dreamy afterglow, vowing to make Motel Sex Night a regular event.
“We’ll make more of an effort.” So relaxed she wondered she didn’t slide out of the seat, Jolene smiled at the father of her children, remembering why she’d married him in the first place.
“Next time, we add a bottle of wine.” Vance kissed her hand.
“And some sexy lingerie.”
“Oh, baby!”
She laughed, sighed. “I love our babies, Vance. I couldn’t imagine life without them. But oh my God, having a few hours not being Mommy first? Once a month. We can do once a month.”
“It’s a date.”
He kissed her hand again, absolutely and blindingly in love with his wife. He saw the gray lump on the side of the road, took it as roadkill. Had already passed it when his brain registered what his eyes told him.
“Vance!”
“I know, I know. Hold on.” He hit the brakes, backed up.
“It’s a woman. I swear it’s a woman.”
“I see her. I see.” He edged the car to the shoulder. “You stay here.”
“I will not!” Jolene pushed out even as he hit the flashers. “God, Vance, she’s half-frozen. Get the blanket out of the truck.”
“I’m calling nine-one-one.”
“Get the blanket first. She’s got a pulse. She’s alive, honey, but she’s freezing out here. I can’t tell if she’s hurt anywhere. She’s got some scrapes, some nasty scrapes, and she’s hit her head or someone hit it for her.”
He tossed his wife the blanket, pulled out the flares.
“I’m calling for an ambulance.”
Jolene tried to warm the cold hands with her own, looked at her husband in the red light of a flare. “Tell them to send the police, too.”
A little after midnight the Lubbocks gave their statement to the responding officer while EMTs loaded the unconscious woman into an ambulance.
* * *
Chase drove Jessica home. Rory’s idea, she thought, not because he wanted to link up the two of them, but because—clearly—he’d wanted the chance to linger with Chelsea.
“I imagine they’ll shut the place down. Your brother and Chelsea.”
“Rory’s not one for leaving a party until he’s dragged out.”
“I appreciate you taking me home. I couldn’t keep up with them.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble.” He shot her a glance. “Seems like you had a good time.”
“I had a great time. I learned two line dances, danced with a man named Spunky, and ate Screaming Nachos.”
“A lot different from back East.”
“Worlds.”
“What would you do on a night out like this back home?”
“You mean in New York?” Closing her eyes, she thought it out. “I’d probably have dinner—probably Asian—with some work friends, then go to a club—probably techno—where a martini cost as much as two full rounds tonight. I’d dance with complete strangers, pretend I was interested in what they did for a living or their issues with their exes, then I’d take a cab home.”
“What’s techno?”
Absolutely charmed, just charmed down to her now-aching toes, she smiled at him. “Electronic music. What do you do on a night out if it’s not the Roundup?”
“Oh, I don’t go out a lot, I guess. I like the movies though.”
“Westerns.”
“Not just Westerns. I just like movies. I went out to visit with Cal once a couple years back, and got to go on a set. A location sort of thing. Not a Western, but this period piece about this woman trying to keep her farm going after her husband dies. Fourteen Acres, it was called.”
“I saw that movie. That was a good movie.”
“You like the movies?” he asked as he pulled up in front of her building in the Village.
“Despite the dearth of Westerns on my list, I love movies.”
“You ought to see Tombstone.”
“I’ll do that.”
He charmed her again by getting out, rounding to her side of his truck, opening the door for her. She considered telling him he didn’t have to walk her to her door, but she wanted him to.
They’d spent the evening dancing, talking, and, unless she read him wrong, flirting.
She might have been a woman with a hard-and-fast rule about cabbing home from a club night alone. But the Roundup was no club. And Chase Longbow was no stranger.
“Have you settled into your place here?”
“Chase, I’ve been here for over six months. I’ve been settled in.”
She unlocked the door, turned back to him. Decided. “Why don’t you come in and see for yourself?”
“Oh, I don’t want to bother you.”
She rose on those aching toes, brushed her lips over his. Sometimes a woman has to take charge, she thought. And grabbing the front of his shirt, she yanked him forward.
It only took him about ten seconds to stop being shy.
* * *
On the drive home, Bodine stretched her arms, rolled her shoulders. “You had a fine idea, Skinner. Dinner and dancing was just right.”
“I’ve got other ideas.”
“I bet they’re fine, too. I need you to turn up here, into the resort.”
“That’s the long way around.”
“Depends on where you’re going.”
He knew where he wanted to go. Onto those nice, fresh sheets with her under him, but he made the turn.
“There’s something so pretty about the dark and the quiet. Take the left road here. I don’t know how people sleep in the city, with all that light and noise.”
“It has its moments.”
Curious, she glanced toward him. “Would you ever go back to it?”
“I hate saying never, but there’s no pull for me. I guess I missed the dark and the quiet.”
“We got plenty of it. Slow down, make this next left right there.”
“That’s not a road, Bo.”
“No, it’s not a road. But it’s a cabin. And look here.” She drew out a key, held it up. “What I just happen to have.”
He looked at the key, looked at her. “You are a smart and interesting woman.”
