Bad News Cowboy

She snorted. “I could have called.”

“You don’t have a cell phone.”

“I have a landline.”

“You could send smoke signals.”

“Jack,” she said, exasperated, opening the passenger door and sliding out, not waiting for him. She went ahead and walked into the building, greeting everyone who was in attendance, already seated in a semicircle in the back room.

The front room had permanent seating and a stage for community theater. But they met in the back in a sterile environment that had a little kitchenette with bright orange countertops, a white linoleum floor and fluorescent lighting.

Long folding tables were set out with the promised punch and cookies. They looked mostly untouched.

The lonely punch and cookies weren’t all that surprising. They were more of a formality. An offering of refreshment because if there was going to be a gathering, refreshments had to be on offer. The laws of small-town etiquette.

There were only two vacant chairs, and it so happened that they were right next to each other, so any hopes she’d had of getting some distance from Jack were thwarted.

Her friend Sierra waved, but there were, of course, no open seats next to her. Sierra somehow managed to exude both femininity and strength. Kate had no fucking idea how you were supposed to exude femininity. Yet Sierra managed. Her blond curls were always perfectly set; her brightly colored eye shadow made her blue eyes glow. She was the classic sequined rodeo queen. Kate couldn’t even fathom trying to wear a sequin. It would just feel like trying too hard.

She wasn’t the type to ride with turquoise and rhinestone.

But sometimes Sierra made her wish that she was.

Eileen, the president of the group, was reading minutes, so Kate took her seat as quietly as possible. She kept her eyes fixed on Eileen and jumped when Jack took a seat next to her. Did he have to be so...warm? Yes, he was warm. Uncommonly warm. She could feel it even with a healthy bit of air between them. And it was distracting. And disturbing.

She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. But then she saw Jack’s denim-clad thighs in her peripheral vision and became completely distracted by that. They looked hard. And if they were like the rest of him, they were probably uncommonly hot. Temperature-wise. Just temperature.

She forced herself to glance away.

When Eileen got to the part where everyone brought up relevant business, Kate didn’t speak up, because she didn’t want to speak first. And also, the dry throat.

When it finally seemed that topics had been exhausted, from a need for new barrels for the arena they trained in at the fairgrounds to shared transportation to amateur events on the West Coast later in the year, Kate opened her mouth to speak. But Jack beat her to it.

“Hi,” he said, clearing his throat. “If you don’t know me, I’m Jack Monaghan. I used to ride pro in the circuit, though I haven’t for a few years. But I wanted to come today to talk to you about the possibility of doing a charity day at the upcoming rodeo here in Logan County.”

Eileen brightened visibly. “What sort of thing did you have in mind?”

“Well, Kate and I have been talking, and she was the one who told me I should come tonight.” He gestured toward her and she lifted her hand, twitching her fingers in an approximation of a wave. “We were thinking that it would be a chance for this group here to take part in some events. And I could get in touch with some of the riders I know coming through with the pro association. See if maybe they wouldn’t mind participating, either. You could all compete against each other. And we would work with the chamber of commerce both here and in some of the other towns to get food donated, as well. I have plans for the proceeds to go to a couple of the battered-women’s shelters and to help a local business that’s been trying to get disadvantaged women back on their feet after they leave abusive situations.”

“Well, provided we can secure the space, I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” Eileen said. “Can I get an informal count of who would be interested in participating?”

Nearly every hand in the circle went up, and Kate’s heartbeat increased, satisfaction roaring through her.

“That’s a good start,” Eileen continued. “We’ll just want to see which day the fairgrounds might be able to accommodate us. I’m willing to do that.”

“That would be great,” Kate said.

She was more than happy to let Eileen use her connections with the board at the county expo.

“Kate and I will work on the roster and the schedule of events.” Jack was speaking again, and volunteering her for things, things that they would work on together. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “So you can get in touch with either of us if you want to participate, and we’ll get you added to the list. If you don’t want to compete, we could still use the help. We’ll need a lot of volunteers to try and keep costs down. Because if it gets too expensive, we won’t have anything to donate.”

After that, much-less-organized conversation broke out in the room, a buzz of excitement surrounding them.

“Okay, I think that concludes official business for the evening,” Eileen said above the din.

Kate stood, and Sierra rushed across the circle and to her side. The other woman spared a glance at Jack, a half smile curving her lips upward, a blush spreading over her pale cheeks. She was doing it again. Exuding. Sierra West was beautiful—there was no denying it. She was even beautiful when she blushed, rather than awkward and blotchy. Kate had a feeling that she was just awkward and blotchy.

“This is such a great idea,” Sierra said. She reached out and put delicate fingers on Jack’s shoulder, and everything in Kate curled into a tight hissing ball. She did not like that.

“I can’t take much credit,” Jack said. Except he really should have been taking all the credit.

“I’d love to participate in a barrel racing event,” Sierra went on.

Jack cleared his throat and took a step away from their little huddle. “Well, just give Kate a call about it and she’ll add your name.”

“And anything else I can do to help...”

“We’ve got it,” Jack said.

Sierra looked confused at Jack’s short reply, as though no man had ever turned down the opportunity to spend extra time with her. “Okay. I will...call Kate, then.”

Jack nodded, his jaw tense. And Kate was perversely satisfied by the fact that Jack didn’t seem at all enticed by Sierra’s clear interest.

On the heels of her satisfaction came annoyance at said satisfaction. Jack could do what he wanted with whoever he wanted.

Though Sierra was one of her few female friends and she had to admit it would be weird if the other woman was sleeping with someone Kate was so close to.

Jack. Sleeping with Sierra.

Immediately, she pictured a messy bed and a tangle of limbs. Jack’s big hands running down a bare back. Long hair spread out over a white pillowcase. Only, for some reason, the woman in her vision wasn’t a blonde with a riot of luxurious curls. Instead she had straight dark hair...

Kate bit down on the inside of her cheek. “Yes,” Kate managed to force out, “call me.”

“Hey, some of us are headed to Ace’s,” Sierra said. “You want to come?”

“I came with Jack...”

“That’s fine,” Jack said, cutting her off. “She can go. We’ll both go.”

“Great.” Sierra smiled brightly. “See you there.”

Kate rounded on Jack, the tension from earlier taking that easy turn into irritation. “Did you just give me permission to go somewhere?”

“I’m your ride.”

“Yes. My ride. Not my dad.”

He chuckled. “Oh, honey, I don’t think for one second that I’m your dad.”

“Stop calling me that,” she said, ignoring the rash of heat that had broken out on her skin when he’d spoken the endearment.

It made her angry because she was not his honey. Not now, not ever. She clenched her teeth and her fists, turned, and walked out of the room, headed out into the warm evening air.

“I can’t call you honey, I can’t call you Katie. I can’t win,” he said, his voice coming from behind her.

She turned around to face him. “You could call me Kate. That’s my name. That’s what everyone calls me.”

“Connor calls you Katie.”

A strange sort of desperation clawed at her chest. “Connor is my brother. If you haven’t noticed, you aren’t. Now let’s go to Ace’s.”

CHAPTER FOUR

JACK WAS FEELING pretty irritated with life by the time he and Kate walked into Ace’s. He was pretty sure his half sister had attempted to make a pass at him, and Kate was acting like he’d put bugs in her boots.

He also couldn’t drink, because he was driving.

Irritated didn’t begin to cover it.

He was getting pretty sick and tired of Kate’s prickly attitude and now he’d gotten himself embroiled in a whole thing with a woman who was the human equivalent of a cactus.

He really needed the drink that he couldn’t have.

Though maybe if Kate had one, she would calm the hell down.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked.

“A Coke,” she said.

“You want rum in that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because making an ass out of myself in front of a roomful of people is not on today’s to-do list. I’m a lightweight.”

He laughed. “Okay, I’m a little bit surprised that you would admit that.”

“Why?”

“You’re the kind of girl who always has to show the boys up. I would think you’d want to try to drink us under the table.”

She arched her brow. “I’m way tinier than you. I’m not drinking you under any table.”

“All right, one Coke for you.”

He turned and headed toward the bar, and to his surprise, she followed him rather than going over to the table where her friends were already seated. “Why are you buying me a drink?”

“I was hoping to trick you into getting drunk so you wouldn’t be so uptight,” he said, because he always said what was on his mind where Kate was concerned. Neither of them practiced tact in the other’s presence.

She sputtered. “I’m not uptight.”

“You’re something.”

Kate’s lip curled upward. “Now I don’t really want you to buy me a drink. I don’t like your motives.”

“I’m not going to sneakily give you a rum and Coke. I’m ordering you a soda.”

“But it was not born out of generosity.”

“Will you please stop making it impossible for me to do something nice for you.”

“But you aren’t doing something nice for me,” she insisted. “You were trying to...calm me. With booze.”

He turned, and Kate took a step back, pressing herself against the bar. He leaned forward, gripping the bar with both hands, trapping her between his arms. “Yes, Katie, honey, I was.”

Her dark eyes widened, her mouth dropping open. Color rose in her cheeks, her chest pitching sharply as she drew in a quick deep breath.

He looked at Kate quite a lot. He saw her almost every day. But he’d never really studied her. He didn’t know why in hell he was doing it now.

There wasn’t a trace of makeup on her face, her dark lashes long and thick but straight rather than curled upward to enhance her eyes. There was no blush added to her cheeks, no color added to her lips. It exemplified Kate. What you saw was what you got. Inside and out.

And for some reason the tension that had been gathering in his chest spread outward, spread around them, and he could feel a strange crackling between them. He wasn’t sure what it was. But one thing he was sure of. He’d made a mistake somewhere between calling her “honey” the first time, days ago, and the moment he’d pressed her up against the bar.

Everything he knew about her had twisted. The way Kate made him feel had shifted into something else, something new.

If it had been any other woman at any other moment, he might’ve called it attraction.

But this was Kate. So that was impossible.

And then the sort of dewy softness in her eyes changed, a kind of fierce determination taking over. She took a step away from the bar, a step closer to him, and reached up, gripping his chin with her thumb and forefinger, tugging hard, bringing his face nearer to hers. “Look, Jack,” she spat, hardening every syllable, “I think you need to back off.”

Her skin was soft against his, her hand cool. Her hold was firm, uncompromising, like Kate herself.

Unlucky for her, he didn’t compromise, either.

He leaned in, closing some of the distance between them. Her lips parted, and for just one moment he saw Kate Garrett soften. But it was only a moment. Then the steel was back, harder than ever. He waited for her to back down, waited for her to step away and hiss at him.

But she didn’t. She simply stood there, holding him fast, her breasts rising and falling with each indrawn breath.

The noise faded into the background, and the people around them turned into a blur as his focus sharpened on Kate. The only thought he had in his head was that this was without a doubt the strangest moment of his entire life.

They were playing chicken—he knew her well enough to realize that. She was challenging him, and she thought he would back down.

That was fine. It was almost normal. It was the undercurrent beneath the challenge, the one making his heart beat faster, making his stomach feel tight, that was giving him issues.

She leaned in slightly and without even thinking, he took a step back, breaking her hold on his chin. Breaking whatever the hell thread had wound its way around them.

“I’m going to get you that soda,” he said, knowing his tone sounded way harsher than he intended. “Go hang out with your friends. I’ll meet you over there.”

He expected her to argue, but she didn’t. She just nodded and moved around him cautiously, her dark eyes glued to his for a moment before she averted them and made her way to her group.

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Well, that was fucking weird.

“Monaghan,” Ace, said sidling over to his end of the bar. “Can I get you something?”

“Two Cokes,” Jack said, resting his forearms on the bar.

Ace laughed and pushed his flannel shirtsleeves up. “Sure. You want me to start a tab for that?”

“I’ll pay now,” Jack growled.

Ace grabbed two glasses and filled them with the nozzle beneath the bartop. “So... Kate Garrett?”

“What about her?” Jack asked, feeling irreversibly irritated by the other man now. Because he could feel himself being led somewhere, and he didn’t like it.

“You and her are...”

“What? No. Fuck no.”

“It looked like something to me. So I wondered.”

“It was nothing,” Jack said, ignoring the rush of heat in his blood that made him wonder if it was more than nothing. “Just messing with her.”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Ace said, smiling broadly. “Anyway...why not?”

Anger surged through Jack’s veins. “For one because I like my balls where they’re at. And if I ever touched Katie, Connor and Eli would remove them. And then Liss would sew them onto the top of a winter hat as a festive decoration. Additionally? She’s a kid.”

“She’s not a kid,” Ace said, his eyes fixed across the room. “And I’m not the only one who realizes that.”

Jack turned and looked and saw Kate nearly backed up against the wall by some asshole cowboy who had his hat tipped back and his jeans so tight his thighs were probably screaming for mercy. He was leaning in, holding her hostage.

Because he was an asshole. And never mind that Jack’d had her cornered only a few minutes ago. It was totally different. No matter what Ace thought, he wasn’t trying to get into her pants.

But that guy was.

“Excuse me,” Jack said, grabbing the sodas and moving away from the bar.

He stalked across the room, his eyes on Kate and the cowboy. And then he stopped, the two frosty glasses sweaty in his hands. He had no clue what the hell he was doing. About to bust in on Kate flirting with some guy... Chad something, if Jack remembered right. Your standard frat bro with spurs.

Not the kind of guy he would recommend she talk to. But she could if she wanted to, and he had no say in it.

She was right. He wasn’t her older brother.

A fact he was very aware of right then.

So instead he paused at an empty table for two and set the drinks down, flicking an occasional glance over to Kate. But he didn’t sit. Not until he got a read on the situation.

She looked over the guy’s shoulder and locked eyes with him, just for a moment, and then her expression turned defiant. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, batting her eyelashes in a near-cartoonish manner.

Then she arched her back, thrusting her breasts outward, and Jack about choked on his Coke. She was... Well, she was being pretty obvious but Jack wasn’t sure she knew what the hell game she was playing.

She isn’t a kid.

No, she wasn’t, but she flirted like a fifteen-year-old who’d only ever seen it done in bad teen movies. Why hadn’t anyone ever...talked to her about this shit?

She was over there throwing herself to the wolves. She was playing the game, and she had no idea what the prize was.

He thought back to his rodeo days. To the way he and the other guys had been with women. Love ’em and leave ’em...fast. But those women had known just what they were asking for and Kate so clearly didn’t.

Watching her with this guy, who couldn’t touch the skill the guys on the circuit had, Jack had a sudden vision of her surrounded by the type of guy he knew waited for her in the pros...

Yeah, lamb to the slaughter was what came to mind.

She was just so damned naive.

She tilted her head to the side, putting her hand on the guy’s shoulder, laughing loudly enough for him to hear her.

Then the cowboy leaned in and said something, and Kate’s face flushed scarlet, her posture going rigid against the wall. She was saying something back and then the guy leaned in closer.

Jack took a couple of steps closer to the couple—so he could tell Kate her ice was going to melt and make her Coke taste like sadness, not for any other reason—and it put him in earshot of the conversation.

“If you want to get out of here,” Chad was saying, “we can get in my truck and I’ll take you for a real ride. Especially if you’re into giving a little head.”

And in a flash Jack saw Kate walking out of the bar. Getting into that truck. Undoing that asshole’s belt and lowering her head to...

“Okay. Enough.” Jack took two long strides forward, his blood pounding hot and hard. It was time to intervene.

* * *

KATE FELT A SHIFT in the air, and it was welcome. Her conversation with Chad had started out well enough, and she could tell it had annoyed Jack. Which was sort of the idea after the shit he had pulled earlier.

Buying her alcohol to make her sweet, pressing her up against the bar, looking at her like she was a fucking sunrise or something. Setting off a burst of heat low in her stomach that made it impossible to pretend anymore that she didn’t know what was happening.

Attraction. That was why his presence made her feel itchy. Made her feel restless and hot, like a spark ready to ignite.

It was the worst. It was literally the worst. Worse than knocking over a barrel at a key moment, worse than a fresh cow patty between your toes and even worse than trying to eat a salad without ranch dressing.

Worst. Worst. Worst.

And so she had decided to try to parlay that attraction into an interaction with Chad. Because if she was that hard up for a little male attention, Chad was certainly a better bet. Also, the idea of being into Chad didn’t fill her with terror and a whole lot of “dear God no.”

But that was before he leaned in and told her just what he’d like to go in the back parking lot and do with her.

And she had no idea if she was supposed to want to, if she was supposed to be flattered, or if she was supposed to punch him in the face. She was just too shocked to process it. Fascinated, really. That somehow a little conversation and back arching had turned into...that.

But she didn’t have any time to process it, because a deep voice broke the interaction between her and Chad and broke into her muddled thoughts. “Is there a problem here?”

It was Jack. And she wondered then if him moving closer was the shift she had felt. Disturbing. On so many levels.

“I don’t think there’s a problem here,” Chad said, tugging his hat down, when only a few minutes earlier he had pushed it back. “Kate?”

“No,” Kate said, “no problem.” She was feeling completely at sea and in over her head, but she wouldn’t admit that, not to Jack. She would fight her own damn battle. If she was even going to fight it. Maybe she would go in the back parking lot with Chad and undo his belt in his truck as he had suggested.

The thought did not fill her with arousal. In fact, it kind of made her feel sick. So she supposed she wouldn’t be doing that. But Jack didn’t have to know that.

“You look uncomfortable, Kate, and from where I was sitting, it looked like this bonehead was blocking your exit.”

Chad turned to face Jack, pushing his hat back again. That was one annoying nervous habit. “How is it your business, Monaghan?”

Jack chuckled and crossed his arms over his broad chest, the muscles in his forearms shifting, and in spite of herself, Kate felt her heart rate pick up a little bit.

“It’s my business because anyone who’s bothering Kate has to deal with me.”

“Oh, really?” Kate all but exploded. “Anyone bothering me has to deal with me, Monaghan. End of discussion.” And now she was just pissed. She turned her focus back to Chad. “And you. I wouldn’t go out back with you and do...that...even if you bought me a whole dinner at The Crab Shanty.”

“Oh, come on, Kate. You are obviously asking for it,” Chad said, his tone dripping with disdain now. “Shoving your tits in my face like that.”

And suddenly, Chad was being pulled backward, then spun around and slammed up against the wall. Jack was gripping the collar of his shirt, his forearm pressed hard against the other man’s collarbone. “If you’re in the mood to get your jaw broken tonight, then keep talking,” Jack said, his voice a growl. “Otherwise I’d walk away.”

A hush had fallen over the bar, all eyes turned to Jack and Chad.

And on her, too. She had lost control of the situation, and she didn’t like it at all.

“Jack, don’t,” Kate said.

“Are you actually defending this dickhead?” Jack was incredulous.

“No. But I don’t need your help to say no. Let go.”

Jack released his hold slowly, but there was still murder glittering in his blue eyes. “Whatever you want, Katie.”

And then Chad lunged at Jack. It was a mistake. Before Kate could shout a warning, Jack was in motion. His fist connected with Chad’s jaw, the sound rising over the lap steel that was filtering into the room from the jukebox.

“What’d I tell you, asshole?” Jack looked down at Chad, his expression thunderous. “I would’ve let you off because she asked. But since you made it about you and me... Hopefully, you don’t have to get that wired shut. Drinking out of a straw for six weeks would really suck.”

Jack stepped over Chad’s crumpled form and walked out of the bar. Kate looked around the room. The only people who were still watching were members of the rodeo club. Everyone else had gone back to their darts and their drinks. A punch-up in Ace’s wasn’t the rarest of events. But seeing as Jack had just punched out one of their own, the club was still interested.

“Well, he was being an ass,” Kate said, turning and following the same path Jack had just taken out of the bar.

It was downright chilly out now, the fog rolling in off the ocean leaving a cool dampness in the air. She could hear the waves crashing not too far away but couldn’t see them because of the clouds.