One Night Charmer

She wasn’t sure what a taciturn house would look like, but she had imagined his was taciturn. Not...homey. Certainly not immaculate and well kept. Which was silly, because for all that his bar wasn’t fancy, it was clean. So she should have expected his home to be the same.

She parked the truck and got out, walking toward that red front door that made a mockery of everything she’d thought about him. “Or it’s just a door.”

She scuffed her boot through the gravel in the driveway, leaving a pale line in the dust. She glanced around. It looked like there was a barn down the path that led away from the house. She squinted in that direction, wondering what was in there. Horses?

Horses were her weakness.

She shook her head and walked up the steps to the porch. She paused at the front door, swallowing hard before gathering her courage to knock. For some reason, no matter how often she saw him, an encounter with Ace felt like a whole event.

She could hear his footsteps as he approached the door, each one leaching a little more moisture from her throat, leaving it dry as sandpaper by the time the door swung open.

And...oh dear Lord.

He was wearing that typical lumberjack uniform of his. Flannel with well-fitted jeans. But his shirt was tucked in, and he had on a belt with a big buckle. And he was wearing a hat. A cowboy hat.

She was so done. She was a sucker for a cowboy, always had been. But put her favorite-least-favorite bartender in a cowboy hat and all the blood in her body rushed to her extremities.

“Good morning,” she said. “Afternoon, I mean. Noon?”

“Morning to me,” he said, stepping away from the doorway and back into the house. “You want some coffee?”

He disappeared without waiting for her answer. Or maybe he’d seen it in the glint in her eyes at the prospect of caffeine. After he retreated, she continued to stand there on his surprisingly homey porch, unsure of what she was supposed to do.

She poked her head in the doorway and blinked. The rest of the house was not as the porch had her believing. It was...pretty, sure. The natural wood beams and large windows gave the place a rustic charm, but it was...empty.

Well, not empty empty, but it contained little more than a couch and a large, rough-hewn table that looked like he’d straight up carved it out of a log. There were no photographs on the walls, no art, no mirrors.

There were empty beer bottles, standing sentry on every available surface like empty vases waiting for a daisy.

Unsurprisingly there were no daisies anywhere.

Ace returned a moment later, holding two coffee mugs in his hand. They didn’t match. One was black with a chip around the rim, and the other was shaped more like a soup bowl.

“I will take the industrial-sized one.” She reached out, flexing her fingers.

“Ladies’ choice,” he said, extending the mug in her direction.

“The lady chooses to have a tankard.” She wrapped her fingers around her bowl-o’-coffee and lifted it to her lips, looking around the sparse room. “I see what you mean about not being very big into decorating.”

“It’s serviceable.” His gaze followed her own, clearly taking stock of his surroundings.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway. You have swatches and samples and things?”

“You sound way too excited about that.”

“I am. Fabric choices get me hot under the collar.”

He laughed. “Excellent. This is my new strategy with women. Come back to my place and look at my flannel.”

“That would...” She looked him over and tried not to let her mind go to very bad places. Like what it might be like to look beneath his flannel. “Work. That would probably work.”

“Okay,” he said, walking across the room and heading over toward the couch, toward that big, striking table. “This is what I have.”

There was a stack of fabric samples on the table. Little square pieces of different material attached to cardboard. She walked over to them, crossing her arms and studying all the options. “Okay, what vibe are you going for?”

“Is there a particular fabric that says I want to spend my money on the most expensive alcohol in this place?”

She laughed, looking down. “I’ll tell you right now,” she said, reaching for one of the samples, “it isn’t this.” She ran a finger along the red-and-white checked fabric. “Unless you’re going for overpriced picnic by the sea.”

“Not so much. Look, I’m not a frilly guy. So this is all kind of beyond me. I sort of know what I want it to be.”

She looked around the room again. “Simple.”

“Yeah.”

“I like your coffee table,” she said. “I don’t see why you can’t go with something like that. Handmade furniture with some softer details.”

“What do you mean by softer details?”

“Lace. Lace with natural wood would actually be really nice.”

“I’m not... Lace?”

“Yes, lace. Unless you’re serving no one but lumberjacks you’re going to have to have something pretty. But I do think that we should do something with the rest of things that you like.”

He snorted, sitting down on the couch, propping his foot up on the coffee table they were currently discussing. “There’s only one way I like lace.”

“And that is?”

“As women’s panties.”

Heat shot down her spine like a lightning bolt. “Well, you are not using my panties for your curtains. But I assure you that lace has other uses. Picture it. We can do tables made with natural wood, I bet we can coordinate with some people in town. Who all have you helped out, Ace?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” He rubbed his chin, the sound of his palm scraping over his stubble making her shiver a little. She held more tightly to her coffee, hoping that its warmth would erase the chill, or whatever it was, that had just raced through her.

“I know we don’t know each other that well, but I see you at a lot of different functions. And even when you aren’t there, your drinks are there. I know that you donated beer and soda for Connor Garrett’s barn raising. You also provide drinks every year for the Fourth of July barbecue. I think there are a lot of people who’d be willing to return the favor, people whose skills you could make use of. Your brewery would be a showcase for local talent. And I’m not suggesting you go around asking people to give things to you, but I think you could probably get some handcrafted furniture for decent pricing.”

He clasped his hands and raised his arms, placing them behind his head. “That isn’t a terrible idea.”

“Please, you have to be more careful, Ace. You’re going to inflate my ego beyond all recognition.”

“Then you’ll be insufferable.”

“Absolutely.” She rubbed her hands together. “I’m already planning on the best method to make your life a living nightmare.”

“Suggesting I use lace curtains in my brewery is actually a good place to start.”

“Don’t be a drama queen, Ace. Nobody likes that. Or so I’m told. Frequently.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. But I actually like the idea about using local furniture, art, whenever we can. Because if the point is to give tourists a great place to get a sense of Copper Ridge, then that’s what we need to do.”

“I imagine you’re not going to have any trouble getting local distribution for your beer, either.”

He straightened, then stood, making a very male noise that seemed...gratuitous. Like he was just stretching noisily to remind her that he was a man and she was...vulnerable to his powers of testosterone. “I imagine not.”

“Your excitement is catching,” she said, treating him to her fakest smile.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not your sorority sister.”

“I was not in a sorority.”

“Well, there you go. Busting stereotypes all over the place.”

She lifted the coffee mug to her lips, taking another sip. “Absolutely to change the subject, because the one we are currently on basically amounts to you being an ass... What’s in your barn?”

“Is that a double entendre?”

She made a face. “No, what could that even mean?”

“Well—”

“No. Please don’t tell me what it could mean.”

“I didn’t take you for a prude, Sierra,” he said, his voice suddenly getting warm, thick. Certainly not the sort of tone he should be using with her, since he didn’t like her, and she was a waitress. His waitress. His waitress that he didn’t like.

“I hide my Puritanical streak underneath my short shorts.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Her throat tightened, her whole body getting tingly. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“What?”

He looked innocent. Which really wasn’t a great or authentic look on him. “We shouldn’t banter.”

“A little banter isn’t going to hurt.”

“Banter is dangerous. Especially good banter.”

“Maybe. But it won’t go anywhere, because you’re the one who has to beg.”

She nearly choked on her tongue. “Well, I’m not going to. I was trying to change the subject. A gentleman wouldn’t stop me from doing so.”

“I never said I was a gentleman.”

“Clearly.”

“And we actually did change the subject.”

“But you commandeered my subject change. You didn’t answer my question.”

He sighed. “I have a few horses.”

“Okay. How do you keep horses and sleep until noon?” she asked.

“Well, I pay a couple of kids to come by and feed them in the morning before school. Seriously. I stay up too late to get up in time to take care of them. But, I do like to ride when I have days off.”

He had a cowboy hat. And horses. He was quickly becoming Sierra brand kryptonite.

Except for the part where he was a giant jerk, and her boss.

“Like, do you trail ride or...”

“Sometimes.”

“Does your family own horses?” Her own behavior mystified her. She shouldn’t be trying to get to know him. She should be sticking to the script. If she was going to be here, then they needed to be menu planning, or discussing wall sconces, or something. They did not need to be discussing his horses, or his background in horsemanship.

“No. They don’t. I got into riding when I took a job at a ranch mucking stalls. One of the guys was an old, retired rodeo cowboy. And, since I was sixteen, I thought riding bucking broncos sounded like a great idea.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

He nodded slowly, touching the end of his hat. “Yes ma’am. Once upon a time, I was a rodeo cowboy.”

* * *

ACE HAD NO IDEA why he was telling Sierra all of this. He didn’t like to talk about his past. Didn’t like to talk about the decade he’d spent away from Copper Ridge. Because it led into dangerous, murky territory that he barely allowed himself to think about, much less have a conversation about.

“I didn’t know that. I guess, I thought you’d been running the bar forever. Or maybe that you worked at the bar. But, I would’ve been, you know, not legal drinking age when the bar actually changed its name to Ace’s.”

“Are you calling me old?”

“Well, you’re older than me.”

“Not that much,” he said, sounding slightly perturbed.

“How long have you had the bar?”

“About seven years.”

“Yeah,” she said, scrunching her nose. “I was only eighteen when you took over then.”

“Ouch.”

He was suddenly very conscious of the decade that stood between his and Sierra’s ages. Of course, he had always known that he was older than her, he didn’t need to tally up the years to figure that out. She was shiny. Sparkly. Regardless of whatever was going on with her father, she retained the kind of innocence that was difficult to keep into your thirties.

“Oh, come on. Men get better with age. Women just start shedding their sequins.”

“Bullshit. Fashion magazines might want you to believe that, but trust me when I tell you I’ve had some of the best nights of my life with women over the age of forty.”

He had said that to get a response out of her. What he hadn’t anticipated was the response it would elicit in him when her cheeks turned a deeper shade of rose. “I only wanted to know about your horse riding, Ace, not about the other kinds of riding you do.” Her tone was biting, dry. She was not as unaffected as she was trying to pretend.

Which was good, because he wasn’t unaffected at all.

She had to beg. Thank God for that edict. Because it was the only thing stopping him from grabbing her and pulling her flush against his body, backing her up against a wall, bending her over some furniture.

He’d made a rule, and he would damn well stick to it. He wasn’t completely beyond the pale. He wasn’t unable to control himself. He was not that far gone.

You are.

Maybe he was. But in this, he wouldn’t be. He would stand strong.

Yeah, that’s a real moral high ground, Thompson. You won’t touch her unless she begs you for it. And if she does, you know you will.

“It’s been said I have no shame,” he said. “It’s probably true.”

“Oh, I would say more than probably.”

“Do you want to see the horses?” He wasn’t really sure what either of them was doing. They could act as irritated with each other as they wanted, and they probably were that irritated with each other, but they were also coming up with excuses to stay in each other’s company.

Probably because she had the nicest rack he’d seen in a while, and he really liked looking at her ass when she walked. He was that basic.

“Yes,” she said, a wealth of subtext beneath the agreement.

Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe she just wanted to see the horses. Maybe he was a pervert.

“You said you barrel race,” he said, heading toward the front door, hoping some of the fresh air would dispel some of the tension between them. “You doing much of it now?”

“No,” she said, walking onto the porch just ahead of him, taking the steps two at a time down to the driveway. And yeah, he watched her ass.

“Why not?”

“My horse is at my dad’s house.”

“And you aren’t.”

She looked over her shoulder, her blond curls bouncing. She was eternally bouncy, even when she was annoyed. “Right. Because, massive falling-out.”

“So you said. So what happened? He cancel your credit card?”

“Do you honestly think that’s the only thing I could possibly worry about? My fingernails, a credit card. Some rich bitch must’ve screwed you over good.”

That stopped him in his tracks. “Why would you say that?”

“Come on. You didn’t just wake up one morning deciding that girls like me are ridiculous. Someone taught you. I’m rich, but I’m not stupid. You’re right, my life has been pretty easy. And a lot of people are nice to me because of where I come from. A lot of it’s fake, and I’m aware of that. But being wealthy doesn’t automatically mean people are nice to you. A lot of people resent you for it. You think you’re the first person to hate me on sight? I already told you, you aren’t that original.”

He wasn’t in the mood to talk about Denise. But then, he never was. Still, the path of least resistance in this case was to tell just enough of the story to satisfy her curiosity. “My ex-wife.”

That stopped her in her tracks. “You were married?”

“Yeah. For a couple of years.” Three years. Closer to four. He remembered every single one, because it was easy to mark them with Callie’s age.

He gritted his teeth.

“To a rich girl. Who had daddy and credit card issues, I take it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Predictable.”

“You keep saying I am.”

“It has nothing to do with a slashed credit card,” she said. “I don’t... My father isn’t who I thought he was.”

“I know how that goes.”

“Your ex-wife?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded, bringing himself into step with her. “The very same.”

“You know what it’s like. And you know that sometimes you have to leave.”

Except he wouldn’t have left. “That’s true,” he said, even though in his case it absolutely wasn’t.

“It was pretty bad,” she said, kicking a rock.

“Are you going to hint around about it, or are you going to tell me?”

“Why would I tell you?”

He treated her to his best smile, the kind that got him laid more often than not. “Because I’m the bartender. Everyone tells me their secrets.”

“When they’re drunk. I’m not drunk. Unless you spiked my coffee.”

“I don’t give out free alcohol. Plus, I don’t let my employees drink on the job. You are technically on the job.” Which he said more as a reminder to himself. Because he also didn’t allow himself to check out his employees’ asses.

“I don’t think I can tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said, “you hate me. Why should I trust you with my secrets?”

“I don’t hate you.”

He didn’t like her. Not beyond the look of her anyway. But he’d hired her, and he was taking her to see his horses. So, obviously he didn’t hate her.

“Well,” she said, “you are not Team Sierra.”

“In fairness, if I’m team anything, I’m probably just Team Tits and Beer.”

“They appreciate your support, I’m sure. Not enough love happening for boobs and brew.”

“I have all the love in the world.”

She upped her pace, walking a few steps ahead of him. “My dad had an affair.”

“That sucks.” It did. He could barely have a conversation with his dad these days, mostly because he didn’t know how to talk to him. Didn’t know how to pick the undesirable words out of his vocabulary anymore, didn’t know what topics to bring up. His dad had no idea what Ace served at his bar, but in fairness, Ace had no idea what his father’s latest sermon was about.

Or any of his sermons for the past seventeen years.

“Yeah. It sucks,” she said. She stopped, turning to face him. “It really sucks.”

“Were you close to him?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to be close to my dad. Which I guess is kind of a red flag when you think about it. But...” She paused, angling toward the mountains. She closed her eyes for a second, the breeze catching hold of her hair and tangling it around her face. “He was my hero.”

She opened her eyes, turning back to Ace. “I don’t suppose he can be that anymore. And I don’t know how to talk to him when he’s something else. He was Superman. To me. He couldn’t do anything wrong. I remember hugging his leg because it was the only thing I could reach. And even though I grew, he stayed this giant. Really, he’s just a man. And I... I don’t really know how to deal with that.”

He tried to imagine that there was a bar top between them, and a little more alcohol on her end. And then he tried to figure out what he would say in that situation. Well, he probably wouldn’t say much of anything. He would just nod and pour another drink. But that wasn’t an option here.

Apparently, he counted on alcohol being a crutch even when he wasn’t the one drinking it.

“People surprise you,” he said finally. “In terrible ways.” He’d said as much to her the night he’d driven her home. That people were liars and couldn’t be trusted. A grim life motto, maybe, but it kept him grounded.

“Thanks, Ace. I feel like I should really get that put on a T-shirt.”

“Don’t put it on a T-shirt. You can’t read it when you’re wearing it. Maybe mount it to the wall.”

“I’ll keep that under advisement.”

They approached the barn and he pulled the door open, the motion kicking up a cloud of dust and the scent of hay. It was a good smell to him. A strong one. One that rooted him back to a simpler time in his life. Before marriages and custody battles and breweries.

When he’d loved to ride, and that was all he’d needed.

There had been a whole lot of clarity in the ring. Other people might find it crazy. That he’d found a kind of calm on the back of a bucking bronco, but he had. Pounding hooves, flying dirt and people cheering faded into one indistinct blur, until it shrank, receding into total silence.

One wrong move on his end or the horse’s made the difference between glory and getting your ass stomped into cowboy dust beneath angry hooves.

That had been the clearest he’d ever thought. His body, his brain...his soul—if he had one—all worked together in those moments. One unified machine. It was something he could never go back to, because the man that had saddled up for the rodeo back then was a completely different man.

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