Page 3 of The Last Dance You Saved

GIA: Hey now, Gemma, that olallieberry pie was supposed to be for me and the baby.

I smiled as I typed my response. I couldn’t help taunting my sister-in-law after the way she’d abandoned me for just such a pie on our last girls’ night.

ME: Are you going to eat it or use it for foreplay again?

RY: Who says we can’t do both?

GEM: She’s alive! Tell us how you did, Sadie, before I lose my dinner over sex talk!

ME: I won!

MADS: *** money falling from the sky GIF *** Okay, moneybags, what are you doing with all that cash?

A sense of panic hit me at the question. I had so many secrets I was keeping from my family these days when normally I was an open book. I wasn’t sure why I hadn’t told them about the ideas I’d first doodled on napkins and then started to assemble into an actual business plan. Maybe because I wanted to prove I could do it on my own after being handed the bar. Maybe because, in going down this path, I was shutting doors on my past instead of reopening them like my family wished I would.

The emptiness that had quickly replaced the small sense of victory at my win returned.

With fingers that shook, I typed my response to Maddox’s question.

ME: I have some plans for the land around the bar.

MCK: *** eye roll emoji *** Bar. Bar. Bar. That’s all I hear from you these days. At least spend a little of that dough on yourself. You’re in Vegas! Go shopping, buy yourself something nice, and see a show. Maybe do some of that dancing you love so much.

I hesitated. Maybe I should. Maybe it would kick the emptiness out of my soul for a few minutes before I turned to the more serious topics I planned to tackle this week.

ME: Maybe.

MCK: I saw a picture of the competition’s sponsor on the website. He looks like he’d have some nice dance moves.

Rafe’s dark-brown eyes flashed before me, sending a thrill down my spine once more.

RY: Who the hell are you talking about?

MADS: He looked like a slick asshole. This may be the one and only time I disagree with McK.

My smile grew at the protectiveness of my brothers. Even though Ryder had teased about sex at the beginning of the chat, it had only been to rile the others. He didn’t want to think about me, the baby of the family, actuallyhavingsex any more than Mads did.

ME: I need to change and get food before I pass out from starvation. Love you all.

GEM: Stay safe, Sassypants. No drinking from anything but a bottle that you open.

MADS: Maybe you shouldn’t go out alone.

GIA: Sadie is perfectly capable of kicking ass and taking names.

Gia’s faith in me swelled my heart. At my request, she’d graciously spent hours over the last year teaching me some of the offensive and defensive moves she’d learned as a former undercover agent for the NSA. Originally, it had simply been so I knew how to toss a rowdy customer from the bar without getting hurt, but it had ended up giving me back some of the confidence I’d lost.

Almost three years after being shot, I was still weak in places I despised. Still had curves and wobbles on my frame I’d never had before spending months in recovery. But I was tighter and firmer now than I’d been last year.

Tighter and firmer in more than just my body. I finally had a plan for my future sketched too. It sometimes felt as empty as the dart championship I’d won, but it was a goal. A direction to move in that would leave behind another Hatley legacy. That had to matter, didn’t it?

As I ditched the straitlaced shirt and pants I’d needed for the competition, I stared in the closet at the other outfits I’d brought with me. They were all work clothes—jeans and T-shirts and worn cowboy boots. Not a single dress.

My phone pinged again, and I pulled it out to see a private message from my oldest brother.

RY: You know how I feel about you wasting your time and money on the bar. When are you going to figure out what you want, Sassypants? Go after your dreams instead of spending your life keeping a dying bar alive.

It was an argument we’d had multiple times over the last year. When I didn’t respond, he added on.