Brokedown Cowboy. Maisey Yates

to come soon now. Promise me that you’ll get the barn rebuilt. Or go to Hawaii.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, get the barn rebuilt.”

      “Why, because Jessie wanted it?”

      “No, because you wanted it.”

      He had wanted it, though he could barely remember wanting much of anything. Could barely remember being the man he’d been three years ago, ready to start a new phase of his life, everything stretching ahead of him all bright and sunny and new. Instead of a wasteland of routine, of loneliness and grief that never seemed to ease no matter how much time passed, no matter how much he drank.

      “It’s hard to remember back that far. Or at least it’s difficult to remember why I cared.”

      “You cared because this ranch is in your blood. It still is, Connor. I know it is.”

      “Right now the ranch is just under my skin. I spent hours trying to get damn cows back into their pens. Not coincidentally I want to eat a hamburger.”

      Liss clapped her hands together. “Right. So let’s make the hamburger happen. The question is, do we want to go to Ace’s? Or the diner?”

      “I sort of feel like throwing sharp things at a corkboard. So I vote for Ace’s.”

      This was good. If they went out, there would be no more chance for talking. Because there would be too much laughing, and drinking and interacting with people who weren’t him. So Liss wouldn’t be able to hold him under the microscope to the same degree she just had. Their conversation had gone to way too much of a navel-gazing place.

      Liss pulled a bright pink rubber band from around her wrist and quickly swept her hair up into a ponytail. “I should just go put some makeup on.”

      “What do you need makeup for?”

      “If the barn needs painting, you have to paint it, right?”

      He stood and stared at Liss, standing there fresh-faced, and damn pretty in his opinion, and puzzled over why she would need painting. “Natural wood is good, too,” he said, somewhat lamely. He was bad at complimenting people. He was out of practice. Not that he’d been all that good at it even when he was in practice.

      “Thank you,” she said, her cheeks coloring a little bit. “I think I will at least add a little bit of stain, though. I don’t know. This metaphor has gotten weird.”

      “Okay, you go paint. I’m going to hop in the shower because I smell. I’ll only be about five minutes.”

      * * *

      THE BAR WAS CROWDED, as per usual on a Sunday night. It was very likely most of the town had gone from church straight to drinking. But likely it was needed to get them through the workweek that lay ahead.

      But in spite of the impending doom of Monday, the atmosphere was exuberant. Country music was playing over the jukebox, almost every table filled, a small crowd gathered by the dartboards. Some people were still in coveralls, wearing the evidence of the day’s labor, while some were still in suits and ties, evidence of labor of a different sort.

      All the bits and pieces of Copper Ridge collided here, and it was easy to see why.

      The whole bar had a rustic feel to it, knotted wood on the floor and on the walls, exposed beams on the ceiling. There was half a red rowboat mounted to the ceiling, old fishing nets spilling out of it. It was everything a coastal hole-in-the-wall needed. And, in defiance of its hole-in-the-wall appearance, it had darn fine food.

      “You know what you want?” Connor asked.

      “Fish-and-chips. Tartar sauce and malt vinegar.”

      He nodded once. “Snag a table, will you?”

      “Sure. Just a Diet Coke to drink.”

      He nodded again, walking over to the bar. She couldn’t help but watch him go. He had put on a plaid button-up shirt, pushed the sleeves past his elbows, revealing that tattoo that fascinated her so much, and the muscles that fascinated her equally.

      Only Connor knew what the tattoo meant. He’d come back home one Saturday with the start of it and finished it over the next few weeks. But he’d never said anything about it. And she had never asked. Because the omission was so glaring, it had to be purposeful.

      So she let him have it. But after today, she was starting to think she let him have a few too many omissions.

      She’d been livid when she’d discovered the paperwork. But then he’d said all those things, and her heart squeezed tight, and all the anger had sort of leaked out and drained away.

      And it was impossible to be mad at him now, as he was ordering her food and standing there with his broad back filling her vision, slim waist tapering down to slim hips and... Well, there was no use denying the fact that it was a damn fine ass.

      Her cheeks got hot, and she looked down at her hands. She was not going to keep staring at him. Not like that.

      She looked up again when he pulled his chair out and sat across from her. He set her Diet Coke down in front of her, his own hand wrapped around a dark brown beer bottle. “Food will be up in a minute.”

      “Good,” she said, “I’m starving.”

      She looked up, behind Connor, and saw a group of three women, all bleached blonde, all much more made up than she was, staring Connor down. Blonde number one leaned over and whispered something to blonde number two, who then turned her focus to Liss, her frosted-pink lip curling upward into a sneer.

      Well, Liss had clearly been measured and found wanting.

      Blonde number three tossed her hair over her shoulder and stuck her chest out, as if she was gearing up to go on a mission. And her mission seemed to pertain to Connor.

      Oh, dammit. They were headed this way. All of them were headed this way. They made their way up to the table, one moving to Connor’s left, the other two standing on his right. “Hi.” The one Liss had arbitrarily dubbed number three spoke first. “My friends and I had a question.”

      Connor looked up, a crease between his brows, his lips pulled down into a frown. “Yes?”

      He looked so confused, it was almost cute.

      “We were just wondering if your table mate here is your girlfriend or your sister?”

      Liss sputtered.

      Connor’s frown deepened. “You came all the way over here to ask me that?”

      Number three, whom Liss clearly should’ve named number one, reached out and touched Connor’s forearm. Ran her manicured fingertips over the vines of his tattoo. Rage burned in Liss’s chest. She’d never done that. She had never touched his tattoo, and some random woman was trailing her fingertips over the ink on his skin.

      “It seemed important,” she said, winking at him. Her eyelashes were fake. Liss was certain.

      “She lives with me,” he said, turning his attention back to his beer.

      “Doesn’t really answer my question,” Blondie said.

      “I don’t see why I should,” he said, his tone uncompromising.

      The woman rolled her eyes and gestured to her friends to move on. “Sorry you aren’t in the mood to play, honey,” she said, her parting shot as she wiggled back over to the other side of the bar.

      Liss snorted. “Can you believe that?”

      “What?”

      “Obviously, they did not think I was pretty enough to be your girlfriend.”

      “I don’t see why they cared.”

      She arched a brow. “Do you really not see?”

      He shook his head. “Not really.”

      Liss looked closely at his face