Page 40 of Smokin’ Situation (Masked Men of Sage Springs #3)

Annie

“You sure you don’t want me to take you back to the ranch?

” Hazel asked, turning her Jeep onto the main road and heading toward town.

“It’s on the way, if you need to get something.

You know Hudson would understand if you don’t feel up to running the bar tonight. Tripp will probably come to look for—”

“No.” My voice was curt as I cut her off. Shaking my head, I watched the trees pass while I stared blankly out the window. “I’ve already started over from nothing once this week, what difference is twice going to make?”

“You’re not starting over, Annie. I’m sure once they talk, and things calm down a bit, he’ll want to see you.” She may have been certain, but I wasn’t so convinced. “You don’t look at a woman like that and just walk away from her.”

Biting the inside of my lip, I fought back my remaining tears, determined to not show up at the bar a sobbing mess.

People were already going to feel sorry for me when they found out about my cabin, I didn’t need to add in the fact that I got dumped by both Harding brothers on the same day.

Not that whatever Jay and I had been doing for years was more than a friendship with perks.

The rift I’d created was going to cause ripples across town that I’d never live down.

It was the situation with Tripp that was going to crush me if I let it. And I wouldn’t let it. I’d survived heartbreak before, and I’d survive it again. Even if that brooding bastard had taken a huge chunk of me into that house earlier, and I was terrified I’d never get back .

His scars were on the surface—visible to everyone, but mine were a dark secret I pushed deep inside and never let anyone else see.

“You know you’re welcome to stay in the apartment for as long as you need, but don’t use it as an excuse to run from something good. You’ll regret it if you do. Running away from your problems never works, trust me, I’ve done it enough to have expert level avoidance certification.”

“There’s nothing left to run from, Haz,” I murmured, suddenly wishing I was going into the bar with my usual armor of jeans and a T-shirt. The dress that had felt liberating to wear a few hours ago left me feeling exposed.

“And here I thought they handed out PhDs in wisdom when they gave you permission to serve alcohol, but apparently all they handed you was the inability to see what’s right in front of your face.”

Biting my tongue, I returned to looking out the window on the quick trip to the bar, closing my eyes and trying to center myself when I saw the parking lot full of cars. It was time for me to turn on the charm and forget there was a gaping hole in my chest.

Once she parked, I opened the door to leave, but she placed her hand on my shoulder. “If you need me, call from the bar phone and I’ll come back to get you.”

Unable to look at her for fear I’d burst into tears again, I nodded, closing the door without a word.

The back hallway was quiet when I let myself in the door to the kitchen, the familiar smell of fried food making my stomach turn instead of comforting me like it usually did.

While I didn’t always love being here, this place was like home to me.

It was the one thing that had been constant in my adult life, and while I couldn’t control the people who patronized it, I could control my workspace.

Hudson was in the office at his desk when I passed by the door. I’d hoped to go unnoticed, but he called my name when I tried to slip past him .

“Annie? I thought you had something else going on this afternoon?” he asked, glancing up at me from the stack of papers on his desk with a frown. It may have been a holiday, but there was always paperwork to do when you were the boss. “I may have to be here, but you don’t.”

“Plans changed, so I thought I’d take you up on your offer for some hours.”

He tilted his head to the side, eyes scanning my face in a way that made me feel exposed. Hudson Rivera may have been oblivious to social cues sometimes, but he wasn’t an idiot.

“You sure you’re feeling up to it? I just offered because I didn’t know what your plans were. Thought having a distraction might keep your mind off things.”

I knew he was talking about the fire, and that my sister and I had probably lost everything, but I needed the bar to keep my mind away from how my social life had spectacularly exploded.

With Jay being swamped with the restaurant expansion at the distillery and Tripp admitting he rarely came in here, I was hoping I could just ignore them until they forgot I existed.

If only it was that easy to erase the time I’d spent with both. Jay had been a distraction from my loneliness for years, and Tripp had felt like the beginning of something real. A person I could let down my walls with and connect to on a deeper level.

He may have been understanding when he found out I hadn’t exactly been celibate before we met, but I had a feeling his attitude might have been a little different if he knew the man I’d been involved with was his brother.

There was an underlying tension between the two of them I hadn’t expected.

Tripp seemed more concerned with how his brother had treated me earlier—although I’d deserved it.

I should have ended things with Jay before I let my feelings for Tripp develop as much as they had, and maybe if we’d done a little more talking and a little less flirting, we’d have discovered this connection before things blew up like they had .

He’d been prepared to just get in his truck and drive away. To leave without a word and not give me a chance to speak with him. If Jay hadn’t acted like a jackass, he would have. But I wouldn’t give him the chance to break my heart.

Hazel had been reluctant to leave, trying to get me to wait until they came back outside, but I could read the room. Neither of them wanted me there.

“Annie? You okay?” Hudson asked, closing his laptop and pushing back from his chair.

With my chin quivering, I nodded, knowing my friend would see right through me if I opened my mouth right now.

He stepped in front of me, tipping my chin up with a finger, and I couldn’t stop the tear that escaped.

Hudson had known me since I was a melancholy, gangly preteen, and while he could be a bit of a grump, he’d been a loyal friend for half my life.

While a hint of his last name might be on the River Run Tavern sign out front, we’d turned this place into what it was today together.

“There’s no shame in taking a break,” he whispered, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and tucking my head into his chest. “You’ve had enough thrown at you in the last week, don’t pile on more because you feel guilty for taking some time off.”

“I’m okay,” I replied, but my voice cracked, so he pulled me in tighter, kissing the top of my head. Being with Charley over the last several months had softened him, and I appreciated the hug more than he knew.

I drew in a shaky breath and tried to push the look on Tripp’s face earlier when he’d rounded the corner of the house from my mind, because he wasn’t my concern right now. Not anymore.

“We both know you’re lying, but I’ll let it go for now.

Food service has been slow, but the bar could probably use a restock.

Apparently, since fireworks have been banned, that means you have to sneak off and use copious amounts of alcohol to escape your family members and not explosives,” he joked, but he wasn’t exactly wrong.

I just didn’t have any family members left to escape, and I rarely drank, so I used avoidance as my method of distraction from my problems.

“Well, since I know your best friend and your sister are at his parents’ house, I guess I don’t need to knock before I go into the storage room,” I muttered, and my forehead bounced against his chest when he let out a chuckle.

There had been an incident in there right before Hazel moved out with the two of them doing something at least partially unclothed.

I didn’t ask many questions, but Reid had insisted he was just trying to correct bad memories.

“Thank fuck they moved into his apartment together,” he grumbled, and I couldn’t hold back the giggle. “People need to quit doing kinky shit in my bar.”

He hadn’t been as resistant to his formerly slutty best friend shacking up with his baby sister as we’d all expected. Sometimes when people just made sense together, it was easier to put away the hurt feelings.

If only that applied to my situation. I knew technically I’d done nothing wrong since I wasn’t in an exclusive situationship when I met Tripp, but the timing of finding out who Jay was to him was kind of a clusterfuck.

Although I couldn’t change how hard I’d fallen for Tripp, or Tristan, or whoever he was to everyone else.

To me, he’d had the potential to be everything.

Only relying on the universe dealing me with a fair hand hadn’t exactly worked out in the past. Going through adolescence with a traumatized younger sister and a grandmother struggling to balance two kids who’d lost their parents while dealing with the grief of losing her son had been hard.

Maybe that was why I’d leaned on Jay so much.

He’d been there through the hard parts, and when he wasn’t acting like a jealous asshole, he was a good friend. A friend that I could probably now add to the tally of people I’d lost. But I was the one dead to him, not the other way around.

“I’ve got some things to finish up in here while Charley’s spending the afternoon with her dad at the ranch, so if you’ll get the bar back in order while I do that, the new bartender can stay on service for the night shift until they need you. It’s been steady today, but not swamped.”

“Sounds good,” I said, reluctantly stepping out of his hold. “Let’s hope you didn’t fuck up my organizational system too much while I was gone.”