Page 16

Sawyer was kicked back on an overturned bucket by the firepit, boots up on another, a cocky smirk plastered across his too-young face. A couple of the other hands lingered around, smoking, talking, letting the day settle into their bones. No one laughed at Sawyer’s jab, though. They wereallsmarter than him.
The kid couldn’t read a room if someone spelled it out for him in boot leather.
"Shut your damn mouth, Sawyer," muttered Cal Tate, an older cowboy, as he tipped the ash from his cigarette.
Sawyer grinned wider. "What? Just sayin’. Nash kept her underhim, didn’t he? Had Hunt watchin’ herback, too. But Nash is dead now, and the new boss don’t want her here. She ain’t got no protection anymore."
I finally stopped, rolling my shoulders like I was working out a kink in my neck.
Slow. Measured.
Then I turned to Sawyer and took one deliberate step forward. The flickering fire threw shadows across my face, and doubt slid into Sawyer’s smirk.
"You think I needed Nash Wilder’s protection?" My voice was low and easy like I was just making conversation.
Sawyer hesitated, but that idiot pride of his kept him from backing down. "Ain’t that?—”
"Because if you think that," I continued, getting closer, "then you’ve got a real short memory. You were here last year when I put down that green colt that flipped and shattered his leg, weren’t you? You were there when I ran off those rustlers near the south fence, weren’t you?"
Sawyer swallowed. I smiled. Not the warm kind.
"Boy, I’ve been working this ranch since you were still askin’ permission to stay up past dark. You think I need a man to keep me safe?" I kicked the bucket his feet were on, and his boots hit the ground.
The fire crackled.
Sawyer sat up, and I knew he was contemplating if he’d live to see another day if he struck me, which was what he wanted to do. That was the problem with bullies; they let their cocks lead them around.
Cal laughed, low and knowing. “She’s got you there, dickwad.”
Sawyer was about to stand up, fury on his face, when I kicked the bucket he was sitting on, and he fell on his ass.
Cheers went around the cowboys and the hands; someone whistled.
“On your ass, asshole,” Jace cackled.
I turned around and walked toward Hunt’s truck, feeling their eyes on me.
Sawyer had wanted trouble. Lucky for him, I was in the mood to give it to him. Hunt was itching to fire him, but if we were going to kick out every fuckwad who decided to play a misogynistic asshole in ranch country, we’d not have enough people to run the place.
Blackwood Prime was a twenty-minute drive on a cozy street off Main in the town of Wildflower Canyon.
Maverick owned part of it, so I ended up there for drinks and food with him and his sister. I couldn’t afford to come here regularly, not on my salary, but then again, it was my friend’s place, and there was a standing order never to charge me a cent, though I did pay my bill in tips. Maverick had given me carte blanche to eat and drink there, but I was happy at the bunkhouse and only came around when he or his sister, Joy, insisted.
This wasn’t my kinda place. I did better at a honky-tonk bar, where the beer was cold and cheap, the musicwas loud, and nobody cared if your boots left horseshit on the floor—in fact, it was expected.
Places like The Rusty Spur, where Hunt and I would grab a pitcher after a long day, listening to old cowboys argue over who had the best cutting horse—back in ’92. Or The Barrel & Bridle, a bar just off the highway, where ranch hands played poker in the back, and the jukebox only took quarters. Those were the places I liked spending my money.
On rare Friday nights, Hunt dragged me to Raider’s Dance Hall, where the floors were scuffed from decades of two-stepping, and the neon signs buzzed as steady as the steel guitar from the live band. And when we just wanted to sit and drink without the noise, we’d go to The Broken Bit, a hole-in-the-wall joint off Highway 82, where Miss Patsy poured the strongest whiskey in town and didn’t put up with anybody’s bullshit.
At Blackwood Prime, though, the leather was polished, the wine list long and mostly in French, Spanish, and Italian, and instead of hay and stale beer, you were assaulted with the smell of expensive perfume.
Rich white men pretended they had grit, and men with grit pretended they had money. The food was expensive, the lights dim and intimate, and every conversation felt like a deal being brokered over high-priced bourbon.
I didn’t belong here. And I didn’t even care to.
I spotted Maverick Kincaid before he saw me—at the bar, his Stetson on the counter like a damn crown. Hissister sat next to him, talking animatedly, hands moving as she spoke.
The moment her eyes landed on me, her face lit up like a sunrise.