Lucy hugged her sister, holding her closer for a moment, longer than what might seem necessary even between two sisters who dearly loved each other.
“I’ve been sitting here for two hours waiting for you to tell me what’s bothering you,” Mia whispered.
“Bothering me?” Lucy leaned back, making sure her smile was bright. “Nothing bothers me. It’s a rule of the universe.”
But Mia’s amber eyes drilled right into Lucy’s head and it took every weapon in her arsenal to keep her smile in place. Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” ringtone blasted from deep in the purse on the chair beside her for the tenth time that night.
“You going to answer that?” Mia asked.
“Nope.”
Mia sighed, defeated. “You’re okay to drive?”
“Good as you.” They both glanced down at the plate of nachos and light beers on the table. Both beers were half-full. Growing up around an alcoholic had ingrained a certain caution around booze.
Mia squeezed Lucy’s shoulder and left, winding through the tables and out the door of the Sunset Bar and Grill. Lucy took a deep breath and turned toward the bar, pulling down the jersey Armani shirt she had bought at a resale shop. She wanted to give the girls a chance to do the convincing for her as she stopped a drunk train from leaving this particular station.
“Hey there, cowboy,” she said, stepping up to the man digging through his pockets for his keys while fighting to stay upright.
He yanked his keys free of the beat-up denim coat. “Found ’em.” He sighed, as if he’d been satisfied on some deep soul level by the appearance of those keys. He turned and she shifted into his way.
“Where you headed?”
“Home.” He glanced up and did a drunken man’s double take. Slow and sloppy. “Unless you want to have a drink with me?” His smile was charming despite the booze behind it and she smiled back.
“I think you’ve had enough. Why don’t you let me call someone to come pick you up?”
“No one to call.” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t I know you?”
She looked back at the man. At first glance he looked like every man under thirty who walked through this bar, with cowboy boots, a tan, weathered face and strong chin. But those brown eyes…
“Holy crap,” he muttered, listing toward her slightly. “Lucy Alatore. You showed me your boobs at the state football game.”
Oh, Lord. Reese McKenna. “One of my proudest moments.”
“I won that game.”
“Yes, you did.”
“Your boobs were pretty.” He stared down her shirt and she reached to hike her pewter jersey shirt up higher on her chest.
“Still are.”
“Can I see?”
“Nope. But how about I drive you home?”
“Well, now, I like an aggressive—”
“You’re drunk, Reese. And you can’t drive. Not like you are right now.”
He stared down at his keys as if he were waiting for their input. As if the two of them were old friends who had been in this situation before.
“Come on,” she said quietly. “I’ll take you home.”
“I don’t…I don’t want to bother you, Lucy.” His smile was embarrassed, and she saw a sweet glimpse of that luck-kissed boy she went to high school with.
“You and I know there aren’t any cabs around here, Reese.” She patted his arm, strong and thick under his shirt, while lifting her palm up for the keys. After a moment he dropped them in.
Lucy led him out into the cool, clean air of Wassau, California, population: Podunk. In city limits, there were about twice as many cows as people. Main Street stretched down toward the Sierras, lit up for a few blocks by four streetlights.
Her beat-up Civic sat in all its rusted glory to her left. But Reese’s keys had a fancy foreign emblem on the key chain and out of curiosity she hit the lock release button.
The lights that flashed belonged to a slick sports car crouched in the far corner of the parking lot, sticking out like a sore thumb surrounded by dirty pickup trucks.
Let’s see, she thought, beat-up Civic or fancy sports car?
It wasn’t even a question.
“We’ll take your car,” she said, the heels of her Prada-knockoff boots grinding into the gravel.
Please, God, don’t let that car be stick shift.
Reese climbed into the passenger seat and tucked his hat down over his eyes, looking like a man about to sleep it off.
“Hold up, Reese, where do you live?”
“Staying out at Jeremiah’s place.”
“Jeremiah Stone?” Well, well, well, this night just keeps getting better. Playing chauffeur to a drunken Reese got a whole lot more appealing with Jeremiah Stone at the other end. “I didn’t know he was back in town.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, and then, shifting deeper into his bucket seat, he seemed to pass out.
Stone Hollow was the ranch next to the Rocky M, the ranch where she grew up and was currently calling home. It was currently her home while her life in Los Angeles fell to pieces.
Jeremiah, five years older than her and Reese, had been a local legend in Northern California. A rodeo stud, he left town to make it big in the arena when Lucy was a freshman. Last she saw Jeremiah, he was on the front page of a grocery store tabloid and on his arm was a gorgeous country music star.
The car’s engine roared to life when she turned the key, the reverberations rumbling up through her body, and she felt as if she were sitting on top of a wild creature. She put the car into Drive—not a stick shift, God had been listening for once—and a familiar reckless thrill flickered through her chest as the powerful vehicle rolled onto Main Street.
She opened the window, letting the mountain air comb fingers through her hair and blow kisses across her cheeks. The neck of her shirt gaped and the air slid down into more intimate places.
Glancing sideways at the sleeping man, she grinned and gunned the engine, racing through the night up into the mountains.
Twenty minutes later she pulled to a stop in the paved parking area in front of the sprawling, two-story ranch house that sat in a pretty pocket of land just west of Rocky M. Fields were made silver by the bright moonlight, horses took on a mystical look as they shook their manes, their breath fogging slightly in the cool night.
Funny how things worked out. When she was growing up here, all she wanted was out. Away. She wanted adventure and culture. Excitement. Not dust.
But in Los Angeles for the past five years she found herself missing the smell of sun-baked junipers. In a city where wearing a cowboy hat was an ironic statement, she’d longed for the real thing. And after dating a bunch of cynical men in skinny jeans, she’d nurtured a yen for the kind of cowboy who would squash a guy in skinny jeans like a bug.
The front door opened, a rectangle of golden lamplight spilling out into the darkness. It had to be Jeremiah who stood there, judging by the long lean size of him, blackened against all that light. She was glad to see those wide shoulders of his because she had a feeling Reese was going to have to be carried out of this car.
She got up out of the car and waved.
“I