THE COP GREW larger in Jenny’s side mirror as he approached, his sunglasses glinting ominous light as she considered whether or not to make a run for it.
She might be able to escape. The highway was a nice, straight run here, and a gorgeous 350 V-8 engine purred beneath the hood of her 1978 Camaro, just waiting for her to punch the accelerator. The deputy would have to get all the way back to his SUV before he could even consider chasing her down. By then, she’d be a speck of bright yellow a mile down the asphalt. And hell, with the snow still five feet deep on either side of the road, she could just pull off onto any old trail and he might pass right by her.
Jenny flexed her fingers against the thin circle of the steering wheel. She was tempted. She knew how to run. It had always been her first instinct, and she’d pulled it off many times. But as she watched the cop’s hard-hewn jaw begin to tic in anger, she sighed and slumped in her seat. Deputy Hendricks knew very well where she lived. He’d written her address down on three separate speeding tickets, not to mention two terse warnings.
“Good Morning, Deputy Hendricks!” she said brightly, as if she weren’t easing her foot from a tempted hover above the gas pedal.
He didn’t return her greeting. He didn’t say anything at all. He just…loomed, his sharp cheekbones and hard-edged jaw a warning of danger. His lean body a threat of strength. The mountains looked small behind him.
Jenny made a valiant attempt not to squirm. “I thought I had a few more days on my tags.”
His hands were loose by his sides in a pose she recognized from the other five times he’d pulled her over. One hand near his gun. One near his baton. He’d never reached for either, thank God, but this time, both his hands spasmed into brief fists before relaxing into readiness again.
“End of the month, right?” she squeaked. She’d found him pretty cute on previous stops. Now she only felt nervous.
His hands closed one more time, and then he eased them open with deliberate slowness. “Ms. Stone,” he said, grinding out her name.
She aimed a big smile up at him, though her lips felt stiff. “That’s me.”
“Unfortunately, I’m well aware of that.”
“I—”
“Just as I assume you’re well aware of why I’ve stopped you today.”
“Is it—?”
“And no,” he barked. “It has nothing to do with your damn tags.”
She flinched at the way his voice filled her car.
In response, he cleared his throat and rolled his neck. “Excuse me,” he said in a much quieter tone, though the ends of the words were clipped enough to sound razor-sharp. “While I run your information to see if you’ve acquired any warrants for your arrest since the last time I stopped you.”
His heel scraped against the asphalt. Jenny leaned out. “Don’t you need my license and—?”
He threw a hand up to stop her words and muttered something she didn’t quite catch. Apparently he had no trouble recalling her name and birth date.
“Shit,” she groaned as she ducked back into her seat. He’d been lenient in the past, but last time he’d clocked her going eighty in a fifty-five, he’d been clear that his tolerance had worn thin.
One more ticket, Ms. Stone, and you’ll be called before a judge. You’ll lose your license for thirty days, at best. At worst, you’ll be charged with reckless endangerment.
“Of what?” she muttered to her steering wheel. “Chipmunks?” It had been November. Too cold for Yellowstone tourists and not snowy enough for skiers. She rolled her eyes as she heard the door of his truck open, but immediately after he slammed it, his footsteps sounded again. She watched him approach in her mirror, just as he had a few minutes before, but this time, she sank down a little in defense.
“Do you know how dangerous this is?” he growled before he even reached her window. “It’s the middle of winter, damn it! You could hit a patch of ice! You could—”
“It hasn’t snowed in two weeks,” she argued. “The roads have been bone-dry for days!”
“Are you kidding me? There’s snowmelt streaming across the road everywhere! And what if you’d suddenly come up on an elk? Or some stupid tourist stopped in the road to take a picture of a stupid elk? Are you…just…are you…?”
“Stupid?” she volunteered, hunching farther down in her seat. If she lost her license, she’d go mad. She couldn’t live without her car. Or rather, she couldn’t live without driving. It felt like flying to her. It felt like freedom. And it had been, three times now.
“Yes!” Deputy Hendricks yelled. “Stupid!”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. He’d never, ever lost his temper before.
He was silent for a long moment. A gas tanker drove past them, sucking the air through her open window, then hurling it back in.
Jenny shook her head. “I’m really sorry.” She meant it. He’d been kind to her and she’d promised not to speed again. And now here she was.
He took a deep breath. His clenched teeth looked very white against his tan skin. “Jenny,” he said, the only time he’d used her first name since she’d invited him to three tickets ago. She glanced up but couldn’t puzzle out his expression behind his sunglasses. She’d never seen him with his glasses off. She worked at the saloon at night, so all her joyrides occurred during daylight hours. All she knew of him was his dark skin and sculpted jaw and wide mouth. Under his hat, his hair looked deep brown. The wide shoulders beneath his uniform jacket eased the insult of the tickets, and the cheekbones didn’t hurt, either, but for all she knew he had bug eyes that wandered in different directions and brows like a twitchy mad scientist.
But probably not.
He stared steadily down at her. Jenny’s heart fell. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “Just write the ticket. It’s my own fault, and I know you’ve tried to help.”
He watched her for a long moment, then cleared his throat and shifted. “Ms. Stone, you’re not some eighteen-year-old punk with too much testosterone and too little intelligence. Why can’t you just go the speed limit and save us both some pain? Why is that so hard? Even five miles per hour over and I’d be able to shrug it off. Just…why?”
She couldn’t tell him, because she had no idea. Driving made her happy. The feel of the power at her fingertips. The rush of the wind past her open window when the weather cooperated. And the faster she drove, the freer she felt. Fifty-five miles per hour wasn’t happiness. It was just more constriction. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But it makes me feel better that giving me tickets is painful for you. After all this time, we’re practically friends now, aren’t we?”
His flat mouth didn’t budge in the slightest. “I meant that writing another ticket will be painful for me because I’ll lose a whole morning in court testifying against you.”
Her heart sank and bleated an ugly curse on its way down. She was mad at herself, and terrified about the consequences, and just a tiny bit hurt that Deputy Hendricks didn’t feel some small affection for her. She’d always been polite to him. Cheerful, even as he wrote her a ticket. She wasn’t a bad person.
“I warned you last time.”
“I know.” She felt tears prick her eyes, and blinked them furiously away. If he was going to be mean, she didn’t want him to see her cry. “It’s okay,” she said again.
He walked away, thank God, because a tear had managed to escape and slip down her cheek. She swiped at her jaw and sniffed hard. She wouldn’t cry. It was her own fault, and even if Deputy Hendricks was being particularly hard-nosed, she wouldn’t cry. She wouldn’t. She deserved this, and he’d cut her enough slack. She sniffed again and scrubbed at her eyes.
The deputy cleared his throat from right beside her.
She froze in horror. He’d walked away to write her a ticket. What was he doing back so quickly?
When she snuck a glance out the window, she saw him holding out a business card instead of the thin paper of a ticket. “What’s that?” she asked, thinking it was a card for the attorney she was going to need.
“Take it,” he said gruffly.
She took it gingerly, barely touching the edges of the card.
“It’s information about a local driving class. I want you to promise to sign up. One, you need it. And two, it’ll help your case the next time I pull you over. Because I will give you a ticket next time, Ms. Stone. No questions. No leniency.”
“What?” she breathed.
“I’m serious. This is getting ridiculous. You’re too old for this crap, and you make a fool out of me every time I let you off.”
“I don’t mean to! I’m sorry! It’s not like I drive away thinking, ‘Yeah! I fooled the Man!’ I mean… Um…” She felt her face flame. His sunglasses stared down at her in unwavering judgment. Her attempt at a smile felt like a grimace as she held up the card. “I’ll take the class. I really appreciate this. I do every time.”
“Every time,” he muttered. “Right.”
“Each time,” she tried. “Both times. Well, this is maybe the third…”
“Yes,” he said. “It is the third. The third warning. The sixth stop.”
“I just get lost in thought. I don’t realize I’m going so fast. It’s kind of hard to keep her under sixty.”
His head turned slightly toward the hood of the car. “Maybe it’s time to buy a nice sedan.”
A tiny, horrified whimper escaped from her mouth.
“I bet you’d save a hell of a lot of money on gas. And it would have airbags.”
“I’ll slow down,” she croaked.
“You’d better. Or you’ll find out how easy it is to keep her under sixty when you’re not allowed out of the garage.”
“Yes, sir.”
His face tipped toward her again at her hoarse whisper. He stared for a moment. She could see her own tiny face looking pitiful and pale in the black lenses.
“Go on,” he finally said. “I’m not giving you an official warning because I don’t want any record of this. It’s an embarrassment. Drive safely, Ms. Stone. And slowly. Please? For the love of whatever it is you value?”
“Yes, sir,” she whispered again.
He stepped back. She waited, but he finally shook his head. “Just go before I change my mind.”
Jenny started the car, wincing at the roar of the engine. Normally, she loved that sound, but right now it seemed a little much. “Thank you,” she said again. “Really. Come in for a free beer sometime, okay?”
Maybe not the right thing to say to a deputy who seemed obsessed with road safety. Shoot. Jenny released the brake and pulled away. In her nervousness, she hit the gas too hard and as she pulled off the shoulder, the tires squealed. Just a little. Just enough to make her wish she was dead.
“Oh, God,” she groaned, eyes flashing to the rearview mirror as she left Deputy Hendricks behind in an unfortunate cloud of dust. Well, not a cloud. More like a tiny, harmless puff.
Heart pounding hard, Jenny drove back to town safely. And very slowly, keeping her eye on the speedometer the whole way. It didn’t feel very much like flying, but it was better than being grounded.
It might be time to make a run for it, after all.
* * *
NATE PULLED INTO THE lot of the Crooked R Saloon, and his gaze was immediately drawn to the yellow Camaro parked in the far corner. He felt his left eye twitch at the sight. That woman and her damned menace of a car.
He should’ve given her the ticket. He’d sworn to himself that he would. After issuing that last warning, he’d ordered himself to have a steel will the next time she flew past him.
In fact, each time he stopped her, each time she drove away, he told himself that was it. He wouldn’t be lenient again. If she deserved jail time, the judge would give it to her. It wasn’t Nate’s responsibility to decide. She was a repeat offender. She deserved whatever she got, even if she was always cheerful and sweet and apologetic.
But yesterday he’d seen her flying by again, a bright flash of yellow that shot adrenaline straight into his heart, and despite his rage and frustration and impatience, his resolve had been as weak as paper. She’d flashed that slightly crooked smile and called him “Deputy Hendricks” as if it were a private joke they shared, and…
“Fuck,” he growled as he made himself turn away from her car and walk toward the front porch of the saloon.
What the hell was he doing here?
His brain had snuck up on him to issue a reminder that whatever excuse he had to be at the Crooked R, it was flimsy as hell. But he did have an excuse. His cousin had needed to meet with him, so why not here? It had been thirty-two hours since Nate had pulled Jenny Stone over, so it was time for a reminder about that driving class.
Sure, she’d promised. She’d even shed grateful tears. But he didn’t think for one minute that she’d called about the class yet. Why would she, when she had yet another chance to push him toward insanity? Instead of doing what he’d ordered, she’d probably attach floating neon lights to the under-carriage of her car and get her windows tinted before adding a sticker about pigs to taunt him the next time she flashed her bumper.
He was just another cop fooled by a pretty face. Hardly a rare breed. And now here he was, at her workplace like a hormone-addled fool.
Nate slid off his sunglasses and walked into the saloon, cursing himself every step of the way.
The place was packed. Five-dollar pitcher night, he realized belatedly. Not the ideal place to have a serious talk with his cousin. Then again, considering how worried Luis had sounded, maybe he’d appreciate the roar of background noise. Whatever it was, he’d made it clear that he couldn’t invite Nate over to his own house.
Nate glanced around, meaning to look for his cousin, but somehow searching out a blond ponytail at the same time. And there she was, out from behind the bar, delivering a tray of pitchers. He’d never seen her outside her car. He’d never made her walk the shoulder to check for any telltale signs of inebriation. Reckless as her speeds were, her car always followed every curve of the road perfectly. Even when she spotted his lights, she eased into the stop, edging just far enough over to be safe, and never far enough to veer too deeply into the soft slope next to the highway. Jenny Stone was dangerous, but not in that way.
No, her danger lay in an entirely different set of curves.
“Damn,” he cursed as his eyes roamed down her body. He’d gotten several nice glimpses of cleavage before, and had even wondered whether she’d purposefully set free a button or two as he approached. But he’d had no idea she’d been hiding a perfect ass the whole time. He almost cringed at the sight of it. Beautiful and plump and not at all good for his tenuous hold on sanity when it came to her.
And then she dealt another blow. His gaze traveled back up her body just as her eyes moved over the room. They paused on him for a moment, then moved on, no spark of recognition flashing. Not even a hint of it.
She had no idea who he was. He was just another cop when he was in his uniform, and nothing but a stranger in street clothes tonight.
“Perfect,” he murmured, vowing right then that he’d talk to his cousin and then get the hell out of this place before his pride was permanently damaged by his sex drive.
Looking away from Jenny Stone, he caught sight of Luis raising a hand from a back table and headed gratefully in that direction.
“Cousin,” he said as Luis flashed a tense smile and stood to give Nate a quick hug.
“Hey, Nate.”
Nate had hoped to start off on a positive note, but Luis didn’t look good. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
Luis’s tense smile disappeared in a flash, replaced by a pained grimace that even his goatee couldn’t hide. “Shit, man. I don’t know what to do.”
“Is it James?” Nate asked, his thoughts immediately going to Luis’s fifteen-year-old son. A ripe age for trouble, even for good kids.
“Yes… No!” Luis said. Then his head dropped. “I don’t know. I’m really worried. I don’t think he’s gotten mixed up in it, but…he might have.”
“Mixed up in what? Please tell me you haven’t done anything stupid. I know the concrete business has been slow lately, but—”
“No, it’s not me. It’s… You know Teresa’s cousin Victor came to live with us last year?”
Nate frowned. He’d met the kid once, and had his suspicions, but he’d never said a word. Teresa was a wonderful woman, quiet and strong with a will of steel. If a family member needed help, she wasn’t going to ask more of him than clean language in the house and scrubbed hands when he came to dinner. “I remember,” he finally said carefully.
“Everything seemed fine at first. He wasn’t exactly a hard worker, but he’s nineteen, you know? He took the job I offered and showed up every day. Okay, almost every day. Maybe he was a little lazy, but I kept my mouth shut about it to Teresa, because…”
Nate nodded. Teresa was as traditional a wife and mother as they came, and if she’d taken Victor in as one of her kids, that was that.
“Well, he quit a couple of months ago. Said he’d found other work. He wasn’t specific, but he was paying his rent. Even bought an old car to get around in. Frankly, I was too relieved to ask any questions. I should have, though.”
Nate’s gut tightened in dread. He had a feeling he knew where this was headed, and it was nowhere good.
Running a hand through his hair, Luis met Nate’s gaze for a moment, then let his chin drop. “Teresa let him borrow my truck one day. When I got home, I asked what had happened to it. It was muddy as hell, like it’d gotten stuck somewhere. The kid just smiled and said he’d been helping a friend move. I let it go. Teresa said he’d probably been out joyriding on a trail somewhere, but it felt off to me. He’s been cocky as hell about something lately. Two days ago, I followed him when he was supposed to be going to work. He ended up out at the cabin.”
For a moment, Nate had no idea what he was talking about. “What cabin? The family cabin?”
“Yeah.”
It was a run-down cabin down near South Park that had been in his dad’s family for years. Forty years ago, when his father had been newly married to Nate’s mom, her brother had come up from Mexico with nothing but a wife and hope for a better life. Nate’s dad had rented them the cabin for a few years, and eventually they’d bought it from him. Nate had spent countless summer days there, playing with Luis and his other cousins. But these days the place was vacant and falling in on itself.
“So he’s getting into trouble down there? Drinking, having sex?” But even as he said it, he knew that wasn’t what had Luis glancing over his shoulder. Nate looked around himself, and caught sight of Jenny, grinning from ear to ear as she set a pitcher down a few tables away, then passed out mugs to the cowboys who smiled back at her.
Nate pulled his eyes away and leaned closer to Luis. “Listen, if he’s cooking meth, I can—”
“That’s not it. He’s growing pot. That little bastard has a whole greenhouse set up out back.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. It’s a shit job, made out of two-by-fours and plastic sheeting. I can’t believe it hasn’t collapsed under the snow yet, but I guess the heaters and lamps are melting it off. It’s full of plants. And he’s clearing out more land, like he plans to expand during the summer. That’s why the truck is so muddy. He was trying to pull stumps out of half-frozen ground, because he apparently doesn’t have even half a brain.”
“Okay, listen. I’m glad you came to me. You’re not responsible for it just because it’s being grown on your land. This happens all the time these days. Somebody picks a secluded area, and—”
“It’s not just on my land,” Luis interrupted. “That damn greenhouse is sitting half on my land and half on federal forest. And that’s not the worst of it.”
Nate took a deep breath. “Do I want to know?”
“I have no idea, but I don’t know who else to turn to. I need your help, Nate. It’s…”
“Shit. Is James involved? Tell me the truth.”
Luis slumped. “I don’t know. He’s a good boy, but he loves his cousin. Looks up to him. And I found out he skipped school last week. The same day Victor borrowed the truck. Regardless of what Teresa wants, if I was sure James wasn’t involved I would’ve just called you and had your guys go out and shut it down and arrest that little shit. But if he’s pulled James into it…”
“Listen. Even if James is marginally involved, he’s a good kid, like you said. He’s only fifteen. He won’t—”
“He’s fifteen, yeah. And he’s almost six feet tall, and he’s got brown skin and the last name Hernandez, just like me. To a lot of people around here, he doesn’t look like a good, harmless kid. He looks like an ad trying to scare people about dangerous illegals.”
“Come on, Luis. People around here know you and your family.”
“Yeah. And some of them probably remember when I was a kid and got up to no good.”
Nate sighed. He’d forgotten about that. Luis had gone through a rebellious stage, and rebelled himself right out of school a couple of times. And into jail once after stealing beer from a local gas station. The same kind of trouble lots of kids got up to, but it was different when you were one of the few brown-skinned kids in the school.
“I’m scared, Nate. If my boy’s involved and it’s on my land, it’s going to look like a whole damn Mexican family operation.”
“You’re as American as I am,” Nate snapped. “I shouldn’t even have to say that. We were both born right here.”
Luis raised an eyebrow, and Nate didn’t bother arguing further. Sure, Nate bore the Hernandez name, as well, but it was his middle name, not his last. And he had his father’s gray eyes and lighter skin than his cousins. He knew it wasn’t the same for him.
He cursed and ran a hand over his jaw. “All right. Listen. Is there anywhere you can send James for a few days? Maybe a week? Doesn’t Teresa’s family live in Colorado?”
“Yeah. Maybe I can arrange something. But I’d have to pull him out of school. Teresa won’t like that at all.”
“You’re going to tell her, though, right?”
Luis’s eyes shifted away.
“Come on, man. You have to tell her.”
“She won’t like it. Better to lie. If I tell her, she’ll want to let—”
A sudden shadow cut off Luis’s words. “Hello, boys! You’re not conspiring to lie to an innocent woman, are you?”
Luis flashed wide, panicked eyes up at Jenny, whose ponytail was still swaying from her abrupt appearance. “What?” he yelped.
She waved off his alarm. “I’m a bartender. Believe me, I see it every day. Just be kind to her, okay?” Smiling, she tipped her head toward Nate to include him in her advice, but still didn’t seem to recognize him. “You gentlemen want a pitcher?”
Luis shook his head, but Nate said, “Sure.”
Her eyes flickered down his body. “Light?”
Nate was suddenly damn glad for all the hours he put in at the gym to keep in shape over the winter. “Bring us the real thing. We’ll indulge.”
She flashed that smile again. Wide and open enough that it shouldn’t have felt intimate, but did. He’d thought that smile was something secret for him. But no. It was just her. She offered it to everyone in the crowd.
Good to know.
Nate laughed at himself as she turned away, already moving toward the bar to get their pitcher. But while he was still shaking his head at his own foolishness, Jenny jerked to a stop, frozen midstep.
Luis was leaning toward him, but Nate held up a hand and kept his eyes on Jenny as she slowly pivoted.
She frowned and cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed at him. And then her face broke into a grin wider than any she’d ever given to him.
“Deputy Hendricks?” she asked.
He tried not to feel thrilled. “Yes, ma’am.”
She laughed, her blond hair swinging as her chin tipped up. “Oh, my God! I didn’t recognize you without the shades!”
“Yeah, I noticed,” he said dryly.
“It’s not my fault! You look totally different. Not nearly so scary.”
“Still a little scary, though, I gather?”
Instead of answering, she just stood there looking at him for a few long seconds. “My God,” she finally said. “Look at you. You’re a real person.”
“That’s just a rumor.”
“Okay,” she said, still smiling. Then she shook her head. “Okay. Well, the beer’s on the house, Deputy.”
“It’s Nate,” he responded.
Her eyebrows rose. “I like that.”
She liked that. Thank God she finally turned away, because Nate knew he looked far too pleased with her opinion of his name.
“Hey,” his cousin said, the worry in his voice making it clear he’d already dismissed any idea of the cute server. “What the hell am I going to do, man?”
Nate kept his eye on Jenny Stone’s swinging hips until she was swallowed by the crowd at the bar before he gave up the vigil and met Luis’s eyes. “No kidding around, are you asking me as a cousin or a cop?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Both?”
“We’ve got two options, but whichever way we do this, I don’t want James around. If you want me to handle this as your cousin, I’ll do that. We send James away to keep him out of the fight, we tear down the greenhouse, burn the plants and put the fear of God in Victor. But that means he’s got to go. You have to be sure Teresa understands that. I can do this on the quiet, but he has to leave.”
“Okay. Yeah. We could do that.”
“But,” Nate added, letting the word hang there.
Luis gave him a weary look. “But what?”
“Are you sure he’s working alone? If he doesn’t have a truck, how did he get all this set up in the first place? And where did he get the money? The plants, the heaters, the lamps. Do you really think he built that greenhouse and started clearing that land on his own?”
Luis had gone pale. “If James…but he doesn’t have any money, and he’s only missed one day of school!”
“I don’t mean James. But that’s the other reason I want him gone. I want to watch the place. See who’s coming and going. And I don’t want to see James. If Victor isn’t the only one involved, if he’s not the money and the brains, I’m going to have to handle this as a cop, and I can’t have any reason to mention James in the reports.”
Luis looked grimmer than ever.
“How do you want to handle it, Luis?”
“Christ. Victor isn’t a great guy, but he’s not a criminal mastermind, either. He’s working for someone. Some guy who uses kids to do the dirty work, I’m sure. Will you check it out for me?”
“Yeah. You’ll send James away?”
“He’s going to be out of school for a day or two next week for Presidents’ Day, anyway. I’ll tell Teresa that John Lopez needs help with calving over in Casper. She’s always liked that guy and she keeps complaining that James needs to learn how to work harder.”
“Has calving started yet?”
“Hell if I know.”
Jenny arrived with the pitcher, and she paused as if she’d say something, but someone called her name from another table and she flitted away with an apologetic smile.
Nate poured two beers and slid one toward his cousin. “Teresa’s going to find out about all this, you know. You can’t hide it for long.”
“I know.” Luis closed his eyes for moment. “But I don’t want to tell her until I know the extent of it. Otherwise she’ll convince herself it’s nothing and we should sweep it under the rug.”
“It’s big money these days, cousin. People get shot over it. Remember that. You could’ve been killed just going out to the cabin if the wrong person was waiting. There was that case up in Gallatin Forest last year. A hiker ran across a crop in a federal forest and someone shot him to keep him from talking. Luckily, the shooter had bad aim.”
Luis nodded. “Yeah. I know. Damn it. That little shit Victor has put my family and my livelihood in danger. And if he’s involved James…” He took a deep breath. “I can’t just let it go. I’ll call you when James is on his way, all right?”
“Perfect.”
Luis only drank half his beer before he blew out a deep breath and stood. “I’ve got to get going.”
Nate stood and gave him a tight hug.
“Thank you, man. I don’t know what I would’ve done about this if you weren’t around.”
“Does that mean you’ll stop calling me The Fuzz behind my back?”
Luis slapped his shoulder and stepped away. “Hell, Nate. You know that was because of that mustache you tried to grow to be more like me in high school. I figured you became a cop just to try to live down the nickname.”
“If you want my help, you’ll keep that quiet.”
“Got it.” Luis’s smile faded. “I’ll call you.”
Nate sank back into his seat and topped off his beer. He wasn’t going to take any unofficial law enforcement action, but he could poke around the cabin a little without stepping too far outside the rules. There might be some personal danger, but Nate was willing to risk a lot for the sake of Luis and his family. Luis was more like a brother than a cousin. Nate had a sister, but she was a few years older and had always been more of a second mother than a playmate. But Luis…if he needed help, Nate would step up any day.
“Hey!” Jenny suddenly appeared, her head tilted toward the front door of the saloon. “I hope your friend’s coming back. I can’t let you drive if you drink that whole pitcher on your own. I’m sure you understand. The cops around here are real uptight.”
Nate raised one eyebrow and refused to meet her smile.
“Right. Ha! So, anyway…” she drawled.
“Luis isn’t coming back, but I promise not to finish the pitcher by myself.”
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“No. I’m on my own.”
“I could…” Her eyes slid to the chair Luis had vacated, but then she just flashed a wide smile. “I’ll check back on you later.”
Nate looked from the chair to her. “I wanted to talk to you, actually. Care for a drink?”
“Yes! I was just about to take my break. I’ll be right back.”
He watched her ponytail bounce as she hurried toward the bar. If someone had asked him an hour before, and if he’d allowed himself to be completely honest, he would’ve said that sitting down for a drink with Jenny Stone was the goal of the evening. But at this point, he had no idea if he should be satisfied or just embarrassed that he was so damn easy for her.