“All right, kiddies,” Henry quipped as he pulled up in front of the Hotel Sidney bar. “Don’t have too much fun. And if you want to head home before Aaron gets off work, Linds and I will be in town until ten or so.”
“I’m not going to call and interrupt your date, Hen,” Jeremiah said.
The older man ignored that. “Lindsay gave you our cell numbers, right, Heather?”
Heather checked her phone and nodded. “Yep.”
“We gotta get you a cell phone for nights like this,” Henry said, meeting Jeremiah’s gaze in the rearview mirror.
“This is the first time in eleven years that I might need a cell phone,” Jeremiah retorted. He rocked forward to press a kiss to Lindsay’s cheek. “Thanks for dragging us into town. Have fun on your date.”
“You know we will,” Henry’s beautiful redheaded wife replied with a devious gleam in her eyes. It disappeared when she rotated in her seat, replaced by a gentle smile. “But seriously, call if you need to.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He slipped out of the back seat of Henry’s quad-cab truck and jogged around to open the door for Heather. They stood on the sidewalk and waited until Henry drove off before turning and heading into the crowded bar. At least two dozen men swiveled on their barstools or in their chairs to watch Heather saunter to an empty high-top table against the far wall. Jeremiah rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t blame them. She’d gone home to change while he’d made arrangements with Henry and Aaron for their rides to and from town, and his jaw had nearly hit the floor when she’d stepped out onto her deck. In boot-cut jeans that hugged her shapely backside, hips, and thighs and a faux-leather halter top with a cutout that showed a hint of cleavage, she was devastatingly sexy… and by the confident set of her shoulders that was exactly what she’d intended. Her long, rich dark hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, and she’d added a hint of dark eye shadow that made the fire in her blue eyes blaze.
God help any man dumb enough to get in her way tonight.
Beside her, Jeremiah was invisible in his best jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. Only a couple men spared him more than a fleeting glance. Not that he was surprised. He was only an inch taller than Heather, and despite eleven years of hard labor on the ranch, he had nothing on the bulkier men here—hardly competition to most of those ogling his companion.
They’d barely claimed their stools when a particularly brave man ambled over and leaned on the table between them with his back rudely to Jeremiah.
“You’re going to give this whole place heat stroke, woman,” the man said. “Let me buy you a drink to cool you off.”
Heather laughed. “Wow, that was cheesy. Sorry, pal. I’m not interested in anything you have to offer. So, if you’d be so kind as to piss off….”
“You’ve got a smart mouth. You might want to shut it before it gets your friend here in trouble.”
“You come on to her uninvited, and she has the smart mouth?” Jeremiah snorted. “Congratulations, dude. You are the jackass who gives the rest of us a bad name. I’d, uh, give you a prize, but I’m all out of Dickhead of the Week badges.”
The man whirled around to face him. “You want to start something? Is that it, little man?”
“I don’t… but she might. And if you’re dumb enough to take her up on it, you’ll find out quick that the phrase ‘hits like a girl’ ain’t an insult.”
The man glanced between them, then stalked away, muttering under his breath. Jeremiah bristled when the word bitch drifted back to him. He turned to Heather to apologize, but laughter danced in her eyes.
“Yeah, no shit!” she called after the man.
Without turning around, he flipped her off.
She laughed. “That was fun.”
Jeremiah let out a breath. “It kinda was. But I’m beginning to question the wisdom of inviting you out for drinks tonight. I’d rather not get into a fist fight, thank you.”
“Oh, come on. I know Henry taught you how to brawl properly. And I hear he was one of the best in his day.”
“I can hold my own, but that doesn’t mean I want to have to tonight. We’re supposed to be celebrating, remember?”
“Or commiserating.”
One of the waitresses came over to take their order, and while she was listing out the finger foods on special tonight, Jeremiah studied Heather. Earlier, when she’d stopped to see if he needed help, he’d thought she looked… troubled. With that and the aggression simmering just beneath the surface, she struck him as a woman fighting an internal battle. Since she’d made no mention of her boyfriend, he had a pretty good idea what it might be.
“You all right?” he asked when the waitress left to get their drinks.
“Not really.”
She didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t press her. The waitress returned with their drinks, and after Heather had drained half her strawberry daiquiri, she sat back and offered him a smile.
“You haven’t asked what my boyfriend will think of me going out with you,” she said.
“Last time I checked, you didn’t need anyone’s permission to go out with a friend. And anyhow, I get the feeling he isn’t in the picture anymore.”
“Is that what this is? Just two friends out for drinks?”
He held her gaze for a moment, but then he had to look away. He took a sip of his rum and coke but almost choked on it; a lump had formed in his throat, and his heart raced erratically. He’d been waiting for this moment a long time. She hadn’t confirmed that she was single, but a woman still happily in a committed relationship didn’t go drinking with another man dressed like that with a look in her eyes like she wanted to make every man pay for what one had done to her. He opened his mouth to explain, then snapped it closed again.
Just go for it.
He dared to meet her eyes, and the brief flicker of vulnerability he saw in them gave him the courage to say what he needed to.
“If you really did break up with your boyfriend, I’m interested in applying for his position in your life—have been for a long time—but I’m not going to apply for it tonight. So yes, this is just two friends celebrating a birthday and the anniversary of an event that knocked a life onto the right track.”
She studied him for a long time with her eyes narrowed, but the fact that she didn’t immediately reject the idea of a possible future for them was encouraging.
Then, to his surprise, she raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
“Just… do me a favor?”
“Okay. What?”
“Try not to get me killed or thrown in jail tonight. I get that you’re pissed at men right now, but I’d rather not take the direct or indirect brunt of it. I have a full schedule tomorrow, and I don’t think the Hammonds would appreciate me taking tomorrow off after I already took half of today off.”
She nodded and toyed with her straw for a moment before taking a sip of her daiquiri. “Fair enough. I’d hate to be the reason you landed back in jail. What was it like?”
“Prison? I hated it. Concrete and cinderblock and steel, rigid schedules and routines, no privacy, no individuality, no sky….” He shuddered as the memories slunk out of the far reaches of his mind he’d banished them to. “I would honestly rather die than go back. It’s five years of my life I’ll never get back—five years I can’t think about without my skin crawling.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Worse.”
“Okay. I promise I won’t do anything tonight that’ll get you sent back.” Then she laughed. “We do make a pretty good team, though.”
Quietly and methodically, Jeremiah locked those memories away again and chuckled. “We do, don’t we.”
“What made you think I can fight?”
“It’s no secret that your dad is a Golden Gloves boxer.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he taught me.”
“Didn’t he?”
“No.”
He opened his mouth to apologize, but she smiled, a silent statement that no apology was needed. Frowning, he sipped his rum and coke and waited, sensing that an explanation was forthcoming. He couldn’t begin to clarify why he thought she knew how to fight; it was something he knew instinctively. She was too confident in her movements, and even face to face with a cringe-worthy display of macho bravado, she’d been entirely fearless.
“My father didn’t—still doesn’t—think girls need or should learn how to fight. But I taught myself anyhow with some help from my brother Curtis. It’s come in handy a time or two.”
“Might’ve come in handy tonight, too.”
She shrugged. “Sorry about that. You’re right. I’m in the mood for a brawl, and I shouldn’t even be pissed at men right now. I’m not, really. Mostly, I’m pissed at myself.”
“Why?”
“Because I broke up with a great guy. A perfect guy.”
Jeremiah lowered his gaze to his nearly-full drink. What could he say to that? He was here as her friend, but dammit, he’d watched her date and love other men for so long that the last thing he wanted to hear about was how perfect her ex was. Because he’d met Dustin once or twice, and the guy was perfect, and if he wanted to fight to get Heather back, Jeremiah had no hope of competing for her affection.
“Doesn’t matter how perfect he is if he isn’t right for you,” he heard himself say.
“Try telling that to my parents. They were hoping he’d be the one to finally make me settle down.”
“Make you settle down?” Jeremiah shook his head, struck by the words she’d used and the hint of despair that edged the anger out of her voice when she said it. He wanted to explore the emotion behind it, but something in her demeanor stopped him, giving a clear impression that it was an off-limits topic. “Out of curiosity, if Dustin was so perfect, why wasn’t he right for you?”
“Because I’m not.”
He blinked at her. Surely she wasn’t insinuating she wasn’t good enough for her ex. “Not what?”
“Perfect.”
She’d said it so quietly that the din of the bar almost buried it.
He leaned back, stunned by the undisguised vulnerability etched into her face. “What does that matter?”
Her search for the right words played out across her face, but in the end, she couldn’t find them and only shook her head. It might be a breach of etiquette, but he stood and walked around the table and held his arms out to her. She surprised him again when she didn’t hesitate to slip into them. When she dropped her head onto his shoulder, he couldn’t be sure which of them was more distraught—he’d never seen her like this, and he didn’t like it. She was always so sure of herself.
But no one could be strong all the time.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “That your family doesn’t support your decision and that you aren’t sure you made the right one.”
She didn’t respond immediately, and when she did, her words shocked him again.
“But I did make the right one,” she murmured. “Even if I didn’t want to admit it until just now.”
The last she’d said in barely more than a whisper, and he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to have heard it. If she’d had more than half a strawberry daiquiri, he might’ve thought it was the alcohol talking. Since he wasn’t sure how to respond, he didn’t say anything, and sooner than he was ready, the moment passed, and she slipped out of his arms and returned to her seat. She flagged the waitress down and asked for a shot of Captain Morgan. As soon as she had it in her hand, she tipped her head back and gulped the shot, twitching her fingers at the waitress to request another.
For the next hour, Jeremiah nursed his rum and Coke. As appealing as a nice buzz sounded tonight, his reason for drinking in the first place had long since faded into the background of his thoughts. He wanted to keep his conversation with Heather on less volatile subjects, and to do that, he needed a clear head.
When a Fallout Boy Song came on the stereo—Thnks Fr Th Mmrs, he thought—Heather jumped to her feet with a tipsy cheer and dragged him to the corner of the room that served as a dance floor. The people gathered there weren’t dancing so much as bouncing in place to the beat with arms lifted and waving in sync. The surge of self-consciousness was drowned out by a rush of desire when she moved in so close that their bodies bumped frequently, and when the song ended, she draped her arms around his neck, and he saw the intent in her eyes with barely enough time to avoid the kiss.
It took every ounce of his will power to tilt his head back with her lips so close to his. Everything in him wanted to close the distance and see if she tasted as good as he thought she would.
Disappointment flickered across her expression, but after a moment, realization burned through it.
“Just friends tonight,” he whispered near her ear. And even though it might kill him to resist if she tried again, he was determined to uphold that promise.
“Wow,” she said. Something close to awe widened her eyes. “You meant it.”
“Yes, I did.”
“I guess I’m not used to that. I kinda like it.” With her arms still locked loosely around his neck, she started swaying to the slow song now playing. A thoughtful frown drew her brows together. “How come you never asked me out before tonight?”
“A lack of opportunity,” he replied.
She lifted a brow.
“And maybe I’ve always thought you were way out of my league.”
“Huh. Here I thought you were just shy.”
“That, too. Have I been that obvious?”
“Kinda, yeah. But in a sweet way.”
Any other time, that reply might’ve come across as condescending, relegating him to the friend zone so many men dreaded, but tonight, sweet seemed to be exactly what she needed. Still, he couldn’t help but ask, “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always had this feeling that you liked me but you’d never make a move unless I wanted you to. It’s refreshing. There’s no pretense. Just….”
He waited what seemed like minutes for her to finish her thought, but then she only shook her head again. The song ended, and the one that came on after it was one neither of them cared much for, so they returned to their table. When the waitress stopped by to see if they wanted more drinks, Heather asked for another daiquiri and then turned back to Jeremiah.
“I thought you wanted to drink tonight,” she remarked.
“Guess I didn’t need to after all. To be honest, I never got much into the drinking scene, and the last time I was in a bar was… Christ, eleven years ago—with Joe’s ex-girlfriend right before Aaron offered me the job on the ranch.”
“Joe?”
“My brother.”
She narrowed her eyes, trying to remember, and suddenly, she paled. “The one who…?”
“Killed Aaron’s wife before killing himself? He’s the only brother I had.”
“Until you met the Hammonds.”
Nodding, he let out a chuckle. “Until I met the Hammonds.”
“I’m glad they offered you a job on the ranch. It’s nice to hear a sad story turn in a happy direction for once.”
“Yes, it is,” he murmured. He flagged the waitress down and asked for a water. Lifting it in a toast, he said, “To us. And to finding peace and happiness from the chaos.”
Grinning, she clinked her glass to his. “To us.”
As he watched her sip her daiquiri, he wondered if this latest twist in his story was real. Was the woman he’d admired for so long really sitting across the high-top table from him, smiling with such sweet sympathy and warmth? This twist, like all the others, had a surreal quality, but the glass was too cold in his hand, the music too loud, and Heather’s smile too beautiful to be nothing more than a creation of his imagination.
He took a long swallow of his water, glad he hadn’t ordered another drink because he wanted to remember every vivid detail of this night.
Please, God, don’t let this be a dream.
* * *
Heather opened her eyes and was disoriented for a moment. Other than the glowing dash lights and the bazillion stars, it was pitch black out. When had they left town? She must have dozed off at some point with her head on Jeremiah’s shoulder, but she wasn’t in any hurry to detach herself from him. There was something about him right now—a stillness or a quiet patience—that was incredibly soothing. And she wasn’t drunk. A little buzzed, sure, and relaxed, but plenty sober enough to appreciate whatever quality he emanated that she needed.
“You seem to be in a much better mood,” Aaron said quietly on her left. “I’m glad you decided to go out with Heather.”
“Yeah. We had a good time.”
They were silent for a moment, and she sensed an unspoken conversation passing between them.
Finally, Aaron let out a chuckle. “Took you long enough.”
Jeremiah snorted. “Yeah, yeah. It was definitely worth the wait, though.”
“The best things usually are.”
They lapsed into silence again, and Heather couldn’t help but smile at the confirmation that Jeremiah had indeed been hoping for a date with her for a long time. And yet he’d never acted on it. A lack of opportunity, he’d said earlier when she’d asked. But there had been times between boyfriends when he could’ve asked her out, and he hadn’t. Why not? And what had changed?
Her mind was too lazy to bother trying to find an answer for that right now, but she couldn’t deny that she was suddenly very curious to see where this would go. Some of the things he’d said today…. They made her want to know him better, to find out who he was beyond his reputation. Because she was damned sure after his comments on the side of the highway and then at the bar that his reputation was not a remotely accurate representation.
The quiet in the cab of Aaron’s truck and the hum of the road beneath the tires lulled her into a blissful half-conscious state, and too quickly, it was all over. Aaron pulled up in front of her cabin and announced their arrival.
“Time to wake up,” Jeremiah murmured close to her ear.
“Can’t be,” she mumbled. “I’m having too much fun.”
“Me, too. But I’m also exhausted, and I know you are, too—you slept the whole way back. Besides, I’m sure Aaron wants to get home to his family even if he’s too polite to say it.”
He didn’t give her the chance to come up with more excuses for why they needed to stay right where they were; he unbuckled himself, opened the door, and slid out. She shivered at the sudden loss of his body heat. She expected, since they’d gone out as friends, that he’d climb back into Aaron’s truck as soon as she was out of it, but he walked her to her door.
“I didn’t know you were such a gentleman.”
“Tracie made sure of it.”
“Thank her for me.”
They stood on her deck for almost a minute, neither of them wanting to say goodbye, and Heather glanced over her companion. He stood with his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels a few times while he waited for her to head inside. Impulsively, she hugged him.
“Thank you for salvaging my birthday,” she whispered.
“You’re most welcome. And thank you for giving my crappy day a pretty fantastic ending.”
This time when she leaned toward him, testing his decision to keep tonight in the realm of friendship, he didn’t lean away. Emboldened, she touched her lips to his, and when he still didn’t retreat, she deepened the kiss. Then he was kissing her back like he was trying to restrain himself but couldn’t.
Her head spun, and it had nothing to do with the alcohol she’d consumed tonight.
Who knew Jeremiah could kiss like that?
When he pulled away, he rested his forehead against hers for a moment, and in the dim glow of her neighbor’s porch light, she caught sight of a ghost of a smile on his lips.
“Can’t wait to try that again when we’re both totally sober and you aren’t on the rebound,” he murmured.
“Me, neither.”
“Goodnight, Heather.”
He turned away and trotted down the steps, and then he was gone.
She watched Aaron’s truck all the way to the highway.
Whoa….
She’d thought only to enjoy a fun night with a friend to get Dustin off her mind. When she’d showed up at the bunkhouse to take Jeremiah up on his offer of mutual celebration and commiseration, kissing him had certainly not been part of the plan… but when they’d danced, she hadn’t been able to get the idea of kissing him out of her head. It was way too early to be indulging in a physical attraction—she’d broken up with Dustin just this morning, for crying out loud. And besides, the problem was that her attraction to Jeremiah wasn’t purely physical. Not even close. The way he’d stood up for her with that macho jackass without getting all macho and possessive himself…. She liked it and what it said about him. There was a lot more she liked, but thinking about it tonight wasn’t going to do her any good. She needed to push Dustin the rest of the way out of her heart first.
Shaking her head, she headed into her house. She closed the door and frowned at her living room, unable to remember turning on the light beside her couch before Henry and Lindsay had arrived to drive her and Jeremiah into town.
“About time you showed up.”
She jumped and turned toward his voice. With her hand over her pounding heart, she glared at her brother, who sat in her shadowed dining room at her table with a look on his face too dark to be explained away by the lack of light. “Fuck, Curtis. What the hell are you doing here?”
“What is wrong with you?”
Now, where had she heard that before? Right. Their mother had used those exact words only this afternoon. “If that’s all you came to say, get out.”
“You ditched your family to go out drinking?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time my family drove me to drink,” she snapped.
She wandered into her kitchen without bothering to turn on any more lights and yanked the water pitcher out of the fridge. Curtis followed her in, standing a few feet away with his arms folded tightly across his chest and a deep scowl contorting his handsome face.
“You made my wife cry, Heather.”
“Maybe she should’ve kept her Brown family judgments to herself.”
“She’s your friend. How could you do that to your friend?”
“Guess she’s not as much of a friend as she used to be.”
“She says you went out with Jerry Mackey.”
“Jeremiah,” she corrected. “And so what?”
“For one, didn’t you just break up with Dustin this morning?”
She glanced at the clock on her microwave. It was just after one. “Technically, it was yesterday morning. Besides, we went out as friends, so what does it matter if I just broke up with Dustin?”
“Fine, whatever. But Jerry Mackey?”
She met his gaze over the rim of her glass. “Jeremiah.”
“He’s a felon, Heather.”
She set her glass on the counter hard enough to slosh water out of it and whirled on him. For half a minute she stared at him, seething and unable to put her anger into words. Once upon a time, Curtis had been the one member of her family she could count on to be reasonable. When had he turned into their parents?
“The Hammonds wouldn’t have hired him let alone kept him on for over a decade if they had even the tiniest doubt about him,” she snarled. “People make mistakes, Curtis. And people change.”
“Not that much.”
“Sure they do. You have. You used to be the first in line to give someone a chance, but you’ve turned into a judgmental asshole just like the rest of our family.” She shoved against his chest, herding him toward the front door. “Get out of my house.”
He hesitated on the threshold of her home with his hand on the doorknob and the door opened a crack, letting in a draft of cold, damp spring air. The disdain in his sneer sickened her, and it took more strength than it should to keep her fist balled at her side.
“You’re really going to let a felon come between us?” he asked.
It was amazing, the way disappointment dripped from his words. How did he do that?
“I needed a friend tonight, and that felon was a better one to me than my own family.”
She shoved him out the door and slammed it behind him. Turning the latch on the dead bolt, she put her back to the door and slid down it. She pinched her eyes closed to stop the tears from coming, but they came anyhow. Fumbling with the laces, she loosened her wrist band, pulled it off and hurled it. Unable to stop herself from crying, she tipped her head back and let the tears roll silently down her cheeks.
The old doubts ratcheted up. Had she made a mistake going out with Jeremiah tonight… in kissing him? Compared to Dustin, what did he have going for him? He was a ranch hand driving a beat-up old truck living in a bunkhouse with another ranch hand. Even if he wanted to find another job, that felony would make it difficult; Devyn was a small town, and many people remembered the drug ring and Jeremiah’s part in it far better than she did.
Heather sneered.
That was her family talking.
With the tears slowing, she massaged her wrist as if that alone could make the pain and anger go away.
To hell with them and what they wanted and what they expected of her. Every decision she’d made with a thought to gaining their acceptance hadn’t been right for her. Dustin—as great as he was—wasn’t right for her. What he wanted from life wasn’t what she wanted. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted, but she was certain Dustin and his dreams for the future weren’t it.
Kissing Jeremiah tonight… that was the first thing she’d done in a long time that had felt right, and she would not apologize for it or regret it because her family thought it was wrong.
She pushed to her feet, swiped her tears from her face, and retrieved her wrist band. With jerky movements and a dark scowl, she stalked across the house and climbed the stairs to her room in the loft.
It didn’t matter what her family thought. This was her life to live, not Curtis’s or Brock’s or Brianna’s or their mother’s or their father’s.
It was easy enough to think it. The trick was remembering it.