Page 15 of Wrangled Up (Menage a Trouble #2)

How was it that a town ten hours north of Reedy boasted a bar so like The Hellion that he was afraid to look toward the back corner for fear he’d spot Christian at the pool table?

And Tucker had sat too long in the local diner in this run-down town, simply because the atmosphere brought Claire to mind.

“Bit early to be drinkin’,” the bartender said as he set a glass with a foamy head before Tucker.

“Yeah, well, I intend to hold down this stool all night.”

“Just don’t get rowdy and we’ll be friends.”

Tucker wrapped his fingers around his glass and raised it in offering.

“Deal.” He downed the cool beer and found it didn’t taste as much like swill as he’d expected.

Above the bar, an old TV was mounted and the midday news was just coming on.

Tucker stared at it through news of house fires and wanted pictures.

But when the anchorwoman started relating car accidents, Tucker averted his gaze.

“You aren’t from these parts,” the bartender noted, wiping glasses.

“Nope. ”

“From south, near Reedy, is my guess. I’ve heard that drawl before.”

Every muscle on either side of Tucker’s spine tightened. His shirt pulled across his shoulders. He’d stopped here to get away from home, but he’d only succeeded in finding himself a poor man’s Reedy.

What was happening with his ranch right now? There was no doubt in his mind that Christian was there, seeing to the operations as Tucker had asked.

That didn’t mean Tucker didn’t feel like a Grade-A asshole for abandoning all of his work to Christian. That burn of shame was reaching an unbearable point. Maybe he could do something to help ease his friend’s way—wire money to cover his time, expenses on the ranch, and to even hire a ranch hand.

Christian could handle it. When his friend committed, he did it with all of his being.

Had he also committed himself to taking care of Claire’s needs?

You’re the ass who shoved them together. Now man up.

He dumped the last of his beer down his throat. “Another. ”

“I’ll keep a tab.” The bartender’s eyes sharpened, but he didn’t press for more information from Tucker about his origins. He probably figured that over time, the alcohol would loosen his tongue, anyway.

“Name’s Jones,” the gray-haired man said as he set a fresh beer on the bar.

Tucker pinched his hat brim. “Lan—” He couldn’t give his real name. If this man knew Reedy, he knew the Langleys. Tucker’s family owned too much land to be ignored. He pretended to belch to cover his pause. “Lander.”

Jones leaned against the bar and studied Tucker. “Knew me a Lander or two from that way. They’d all be dead and gone now though.”

Tucker’s heart pitched and rolled. Nausea flooded in on the spurs of the sharp pain.

His Lander was gone too, but Jones wouldn’t mean Heather.

Tucker swung his gaze back to the TV. A commercial for car insurance was on.

He locked his gaze to it as if it were the most exciting broadcast he’d ever seen.

Jones took the hint and rooted around in the cooler at his feet, shifting bottles until the clinking drove Tucker mad .

“Another beer.”

“Try this one,” Jones said, popping up with a dark, longneck bottle.

He slid it across the bar until Tucker could wrap his fingers around the frosty outside.

The mere coolness beneath his fingers roused images of Christian.

Of the man bared, cock in his fist, pumping violent spurts over his chest and fingers.

“Hell,” he muttered under his breath. He took a swig. The liquid pooled on his tongue, igniting more images of his sessions with Christian. Drinking away his sorrows was only bringing his ghosts closer. They crowded around him, pulled at his clothes, threatened to strip him.

He’d never intended to bind his emotions and sexual fantasies to his friend. When they’d started jacking off together, it was for pure male release. Somehow, though, Tucker could barely get off alone without bringing Christian into his mind.

He wasn’t gay.

But hell, he wasn’t exactly straight either, was he, if he got off on seeing his friend gain pleasure?

“You likin’ that beer, cowboy?” Jones asked .

“Sure. Nice and cold, ain’t it?”

Jones grunted and heaved a case of whiskey onto the counter. As he began to unpack it, he talked. “I know a truck driver from Reedy. Passes through here and stops for a drink every time.”

“Yeah?” Tucker asked out of politeness.

Jones gave him his back. “By the name of Mickelson. Jake.”

The dark brew hitched in Tucker’s throat, and he nearly choked. Convulsively, he swallowed twice. Jones, with his back still to Tucker, hadn’t noticed. He set bottle after bottle of liquor on the bar top with precise clinks.

“Yeah, there’s a wanderer for ya. Last I heard, Mickelson hadn’t been home for more than an overnighter in ten years.”

Tucker firmed his jaw. For ten years he’d neglected Claire. When she’d related this information to Tucker, he’d wanted to punch the man’s teeth down his throat. Now the urge was stronger.

A protective cloud rose in his skull that had nothing to do with three beers in half an hour .

“Not right when a man doesn’t have a home. Or has one and runs from it.”

Tucker’s gut clenched, threatening to hurl all the beer he’d drunk from it. He jammed a boot heel into the floor. “Restroom?”

“That-a-way.” Jones pointed to a blackened corner of the bar without turning.

Tucker made his way into the bathroom, which smelled just like a bar facility. The wooden walls of the single stall were carved from top to bottom with initials and dirty words. Above the urinal, someone had written “Piss Ripples” in permanent marker.

And below that, was a tiny C someone had painstakingly nicked out of the drywall, probably with a pocket knife.

Tucker squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck, he couldn’t even relieve himself without them haunting him. Christian and Claire. He’d left them. Didn’t they at least deserve word from him?

What would he say if he called them though? I’m in a Podunk town that’s not at all like Reedy yet exactly like Reedy, and I can’t get you two out of my fucking mind .

No, better to let them heal some from the pain he’d more than likely inflicted.

Tucker would stay away for a while longer.

But how long would it take to get his head on straight?

It had already been two years since Heather had been buried, and he felt as much turmoil now as he had then. Lost. Confused.

Or maybe that was the beer talking, after all. His head had gained a pleasant fog. He zipped up, washed his hands and strode straight for the bar where he polished off the last of his longneck and asked for another.

Jones eyed him. “Better pace yourself there, son. I like you. I don’t want to kick you out of the bar by noon.”

“Another,” Tucker grated out.

With a sigh, Jones reluctantly placed a beer before him. “This’ll be your last until that big hand moves around the twelve there.”

Tucker gave a huff of laughter. “Yessir.”

The corner of Jones’s mouth twitched with a smile.

Clearing his throat, Tucker plunged through the opening he’d been waiting for. The only way to assuage his guilt was to remind himself of what he’d walked away from— Claire deserved so much better than a wounded man.

“Now back to this Mickelson fella,” Tucker said. He knew the man—had run into him a few times in town and disliked him even before he knew what a horrible parent he’d been to Claire. While he’d never spoken of it with her, Tucker knew she’d been hurt by her father.

And anyone who hurt Claire had it coming, as far as Tucker was concerned.

“Says he’s got a daughter, a pretty little thing, who lives in Reedy,” Jones said.

Pretty little thing isn’t the half of it.

He brought the bottle to his lips but didn’t drink.

Instead, he drowned in memories of Claire’s arms around his neck, swaying to the jukebox.

The first time she’d met him here for a date, Tucker had stumbled.

Actually tripped over the threshold coming into The Hellion.

All he saw were blue cowgirl boots and legs and curls.

Lots of curls.

His fingers convulsed around the bottle.

The fog in his brain swirled, and he found himself setting the bottle down and opening his mouth. Exactly what he hadn’t wanted to do.

“You know her?” Jones asked.

“I know Jake Mickelson’s girl. Pretty well.” He eyed Jones, daring him to question him further.

“That so? Hmm.” Jones stroked his goatee, blinking into the dimness at nothing in particular.

“Yeah, she’s a waitress at the diner.”

“And more than that to you, I can tell from your voice.”

Tucker swigged and set the bottle precisely in the water ring again. “That too. It seems to me that her father has no right to be in here blowing smoke up your ass with his proud daddy act. He doesn’t even know her.”

Jones folded his arms and stared at Tucker for a long minute. “Seems like you’re running from something too, Lander.”

He winced at the use of Heather’s last name. “Well, I haven’t been gone for ten years.” Not yet.

“Glad to hear it.” Before Tucker could ask for another beer, Jones set one before him .

Tucker glared at the label on the bottle.

He kept telling himself that he was dying to get back to Reedy so he could sit in front of Heather’s headstone and relive their sweetest moments.

In reality, he didn’t feel soft brown hair under his fingers, but dark curls.

He wasn’t picturing himself in the cemetery but on his front porch with Claire on his lap, rocking to the beat of the countryside after a hard day’s work.

Watching Christian mount the stairs with a grin.

He’d been a coward to leave. It wasn’t too late to return, nor was it the right time. He was in a funk, useless to his horses, his friend or his girl. Until he got his head screwed on straight—maybe with the help of a nonstop beer IV—he was going to sit here and hold down this barstool.