Page 1 of Smokin’ Situation (Masked Men of Sage Springs #3)

Annie

I spun the empty glass in my hand, focusing on the bar top in front of me.

Typically, I was the person behind the bar, but not tonight.

With the Butterfly Ridge summer festival starting in the morning, I was granted a brief reprieve from bartending duties and was spending the evening at the distillery a few miles from the small cabin I shared with my sister.

But judging from the look on my on-again, off-again friend-with-benefits’ face, I would not like what he was about to say.

Things had been weird between Jayden and me for the last month or so.

I wasn’t sure exactly what happened, but he’d started acting weird after he’d recently gone to meet with a head chef candidate to run the kitchen at his new restaurant.

It was still in the early planning stages of construction, slated to be built on the other side of the large warehouse building that housed the distillery.

When he’d come back from his trip a little distant, I’d chalked it up to the fact that he’d returned empty-handed, but now I was wondering if there was more to it.

“Are you sure Hudson doesn’t mind you taking over my booth?

I know you were supposed to be running the kegs in the beer tent, but I really need to make this trip now.

I’ll only be gone a week, but if he needs you, I can always see if Colette minds covering for me.

She’s supposed to be home for a few days between trail tours. ”

This was one time in my life that I wished I could say no to people. At thirty-one, you’d think I would have stopped trying to be a people pleaser, but I said yes to things more often than I wanted to .

“Yeah, he got Reid and Hazel to take over service. Unless you’d rather have Reid run your booth instead.”

His cousin had pitched in a lot over the last few months since Jayden’s schedule had become a little more unpredictable in the aftermath of the accident his older brother, Tristan, had been in during February.

Jay didn’t share a lot of details, but I knew he was injured in a fire where he worked in Wyoming and had been burned badly.

While Jay and I had been more than just friends for years, we both knew the score and didn’t muddy the waters with things like involving our families, so I’d never met his brothers or his parents.

I obviously knew his cousin Reid because we’d been in the same grade and his friendship with Hudson.

But I’d never met Tristan because he had left town before I’d dated Jay when we were still in high school.

I didn’t blame Tristan for his accident, but it was another thing that had made the situation between Jayden and me more difficult.

Tristan had moved in with Jay after he'd recovered from his skin grafts, and had just recently moved out a few weeks ago to start his new job. But that meant that Jay’s place had been entirely off limits for hook-ups and my sister Reese hadn’t been thrilled at the idea of guys staying over at the cabin we shared.

So that left very few options for us to connect. My truck may have had a roomy cab, but I was beyond the days of backseat hookups.

Jay’s growing distance meant he hadn’t tried to initiate anything in a while.

We hadn’t always had a purely casual relationship.

In fact, we’d dated our senior year of high school before separating for college.

He’d come back home after dropping out of culinary school nursing a wounded heart.

I’d also had a similarly messy breakup around the same time, and our arrangement had been a way for both of us to let off some steam without the worry of any unnecessary emotional attachments.

“No, of course I wouldn't rather have someone else. I trust you. And you know just as much about the product as I do.” He was right, I’d been around since the early days when Jay set up a small still in his parent’s garage, and I’d even helped him christen the bar when he bought the warehouse that now housed his growing whiskey distillery.

At the time, he was busy trying to get his business started, and I was training to help my friend Hudson take over his dad’s bar.

Since then, we’d both protected each other from having to deal with dating in a small town to scratch an itch.

I loved him dearly, but I’d realized early in our arrangement that I’d never be in love with him.

He was as chaotic as they came, and I preferred life to be a little quieter when I wasn’t at work.

Jay was a daredevil, spending his downtime skiing black diamonds with his best friend Colette, hiking remote mountain ridges at high elevations or jumping out of planes and recording it to post on his YouTube channel and Instagram account.

I’d rather curl up somewhere with a book or watch a movie at home than go chase down the next adventure.

It was only a matter of time before one of us called it quits for good to pursue an actual relationship. And now that we were both over thirty, the thought that I might want something more than just casual was getting louder.

“I know this was a huge ask, and typically I would have just told the planning committee I wasn’t able to run a booth this year, but with how many roadblocks Noreen has already thrown up with the city council, I don’t want to rock the boat.”

I understood where he was coming from. Noreen, the head of the city planning board, had been a bit of a monster when she found out he had hired someone outside the ridge to design his expansion.

He was bringing in his friend Garrett—who was a commercial architect—to design the restaurant and run the construction project.

She’d falsely assumed her son would be used for the project, but her son designed log cabins, so he wasn’t exactly qualified to design a restaurant that was built into the side of a mountain. But good luck convincing her of that .

“It’s really not that big of a deal, Jay.

I’ve helped you before, and honestly, your booth is easier to manage than the beer tent.

If I need help, Mikey will be around, and I know Charley will help if I need it.

” That was one of the convenient things about living in a small town, if you needed something, there was never a shortage of people who were willing to pitch in.

It also helped that all the booths serving alcohol were grouped together behind the temporary fencing they used to keep the teens and underage college students from trying to sneak a taste. The last thing we needed was a bunch of drunk college students on summer break creating havoc.

“Yeah, you keep saying that, but I know how you get. You’d help me whether or not you want to, and I don’t want to take advantage of the fact that you’re a bit of a pushover.

You can tell me no sometimes.” His voice was teasing, but there was a kernel of truth to his statement.

I was a pushover when I wasn’t cosplaying a badass female bartender.

“It’s like you think you know me or something,” I muttered, only stiffening slightly when he walked around the bar and wrapped his arms around my waist from behind, nuzzling the side of my neck.

“Well, I know we haven’t had much time alone for the last few months, but we could try to change that when I get back from this trip.”

The flutters of anticipation I normally felt around him had been fading, the once intense passion had settled into near dormant embers.

I was still attracted to him, but it was also starting to feel like maybe continuing whatever was going on between us was just setting us up for a messy break down the line.

Obviously, our relationship wasn’t emotional, so it wasn’t going to be a breakup , but he was my friend, and I didn’t want to have to start avoiding him when our situationship fizzled out. Our friend groups overlapped, and I wasn’t looking forward to when things inevitably got weird.

“We’ll see,” I evaded, letting out a heavy breath when he moved away.

Typically, when he was getting ready to go out of town, he would invite me over to get a fix to tide him over, but I wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with it right now.

And he wasn’t offering either. If he wanted it, I would have already been bent over his desk, laid out on top of the bar, or straddling him on the mats in the warehouse where he practiced kickboxing and riding him until we both…

“You okay? You look tired. Maybe it’s time to go home and get some rest. I know you’ve been taking on a lot of late shifts lately.”

But I’d taken those shifts voluntarily. My boss—and mutual friend—Hudson had decided that maybe work-life balance was something important, so he had cut back on late nights at the bar to spend time with his new live-in girlfriend, Charley.

And his little sister, Hazel, who typically ran the food service aspects of the bar, had fallen in love with her brother’s best friend and now only worked sporadic late-night shifts.

We’d trained some new servers, and I’d taken on a barback along with a new part-time bartender for extra coverage on my nights off, but I didn’t really have a lot going on in my personal life.

And the last few months, with Jay being less available, had made that clearer.

So, I’d done what any other workaholic does, I’d thrown myself into extra shifts so I could pretend that I wasn’t lonely.

“This should be my last trip for a while. If this chef finally commits to moving to the ridge to run the restaurant with me, then I won’t have to chase her all over Colorado anymore.”

There had been grumblings that Jay had a history with the chef he was trying to coax into moving to Butterfly Ridge.

I only knew what I’d heard from other people, because he was uncharacteristically tightlipped about the situation, but I knew once he had his mind set on something, he rarely let it go.

That was part of why he’d been so successful in getting his distillery operational and all his plans for expansion in motion in such a short time.

I admired that kind of drive, but it also felt like maybe I was getting left behind as he transitioned into this new part of his life.

“You know, I think the two of you would work well together,” he casually mentioned, not looking at me while he ran a cloth across the smooth wooden surface of the bar. “I’m going to need someone who can develop a cocktail menu. Know anyone who might be interested?”

It wasn’t the first time he’d mentioned working together, but I didn’t want to mix business with pleasure.

Especially with how unsettled our situation felt lately.

I’d seen how awful it could turn out when a relationship ended with a coworker, and even though I’d been much younger then, I didn’t have anywhere to go if things turned out like that again.

“I’m good where I’m at,” I whispered, not wanting to elaborate. “But thank you.”

He nodded and dropped the subject, thankfully able to take a hint. I appreciated he thought I was capable, but working with him on a full-time basis was not a risk I was willing to take.

Reese had built a life in Sage Springs, and since my sister and I were all each other had left, I was happy maintaining the status quo and continuing to run the bar with Hudson.

I didn’t have grand plans to open my own business, so I was comfortable right where I was.

And despite being an introvert when I wasn’t working, I liked the challenge of it.

Sure, it could get tiresome dealing with the college students, and every once in a while, we had some stubborn asshole tourists who created chaos, but I had bouncers—and sometimes servers—I knew would take care of it.

“Want me to follow you home?” he asked, tossing his dirty cloth toward the bin underneath the counter.

“Nope, I’m a big girl. I can handle navigating dark country roads at night.”

He nodded, pursing his lips while he scratched at the scruff covering his chin. “Just be careful. I know you can handle your own, but with the festival and the holiday coming up, sometimes people get behind the wheel when they shouldn’t. Just promise to text me when you get home.”

“You worry too much.”

The fourth of July was less than a week away, and every extra cabin in the county was currently rented out to the summer tourists who came to admire the beautiful mountain views.

It was good for business, but there were also dangers when you had new people driving on poorly lit mountain roads at night in a place they weren’t familiar with.

Reese had been telling me the same thing with her job as a nurse at the hospital.

She’d dealt with her fair share of the usual sprained ankles from inexperienced hikers and heat sickness from people who didn’t hydrate themselves at an increased altitude.

She’d also mentioned she already had treated some nasty burns related to fireworks—even though we were currently under a burn ban.

It was something I hadn’t mentioned to Jay. He was still reeling after seeing what had happened to his brother and I didn’t want to stir up bad memories since he’d told me he had reservations about his brother joining the volunteer fire department now that he was back for good.

“Sometimes I feel like I don’t worry enough,” he sighed, then flipped off the lights over the bar before he led me toward the back door of the warehouse. “And I just want to make sure that you’re safe.”

At the door, he backed me against the frame, pulling me into a tight hug and kissing the top of my head. I squeezed him back, appreciating that he was so concerned, but I’d been alone long enough that I could handle myself.

“Text me when things wrap up tomorrow,” he whispered into my hair.

Nodding, I released him and leaned back, looking into his eyes. “Everything will be fine. There are usually enough volunteers around that I’m sure if I get busy, I can rope someone into helping.”

He cupped my cheek, rubbing the pad of his thumb across my skin as he stared down at me. “I’ll be back before the end of the week. My schedule will be less hectic after the festival, and we can spend some more time together. I promise it’ll be different when I come back.”

But his schedule wasn’t the only thing different when he returned.