by Nash, Willa
“I’m closing in forty minutes,” Jane said as she spotted me crossing the room, holding up a finger. “Not one second longer. Want to get home before the roads get dicey.”
Jane Fulson was a bit of a legend in Calamity. I’d met her only a few times on the nights Lucy had dragged me out for a cheeseburger and a drink, but Jane wasn’t a woman you forgot easily.
Her white hair was tied up in a twist with a few tendrils falling down behind her ears. Her skin was permanently tan, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth earned from years of hard work. Though it was open to the public, when you walked through the door to her bar, you knew you were in her bar. At Jane’s, the customer wasn’t always right. She was.
“One drink,” I promised and unzipped my coat, taking the stool one down from the other patron.
I cringed at my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The snow hadn’t been kind to my hair and it hung in limp strands down my shoulders to my waist. I hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning and my nose was red from the walk over.
Thankfully, the light was dim. Any brightness from the beer and liquor signs adorning the walls was soaked up by the tall ceilings and plethora of wood décor.
I cast the guy at my side a brief glance. Then did a double take as my mouth went dry.
Hello. Where had this hottie been hiding? I’d spent my fair share of time watching Calamity’s residents and I would have remembered him.
His broad shoulders were curled in as he bent to the bar, hunched over his glass. The ice rattled in his tumbler as he stirred the cocktail with a tiny yellow straw. His profile was perfect. Straight forehead. Strong nose. A chiseled jaw covered in stubble. Luscious lips turned down in a scowl.
He was wearing a long-sleeved thermal that molded to his roped arms. Strength oozed off his body and the muscled definition of his back. The face and the body were perfection, but it was the energy he exuded that rendered me awestruck.
He had this raw and rough edge. A simmering brood that wafted off his body in waves. A warning. A message. Stay away. A bead of sweat formed at my temple and I struggled to drag in the heavy, hot air.
The man sat just feet away, but he was in a world of his own. An invisible wall separated his stool from the others, keeping others locked away.
“What can I get you?” Jane slapped a paper coaster in front of me.
I blinked, lost in the haze of this man and forced my eyes forward. “Uh . . . gin.”
“Anything with that gin?” Jane asked, her gaze darting between me and the handsome stranger.
“Tonic, please.”
She nodded and went to work preparing my drink as I shrugged off my coat and put it on the stool at my side.
I was in simple black leggings. Beneath my cardigan, I’d pulled on a white tank top over my sports bra. There was a dollop of salsa on the hem from my dinner earlier when I’d lost control of a diced tomato. I shifted the edge of my cardigan to cover it up and ran a hand through my hair.
This was what happened when I acted on impulse. I ran into the one hot guy in Calamity and I was practically in pajamas with bedhead.
High five, Ev. Next time, just stay home.
Jane returned with my drink, setting it on the coaster before shooting a look at the clock over her shoulder. “Forty minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She grimaced at the ma’am before disappearing through a doorway that connected the bar to the kitchen.
Leaving me and my companion in utter silence.
The air around us was stifling. I lifted my drink with a shaking hand, sipping and savoring the juniper taste. I was tempted to gulp, to cool the fire thrumming through my veins, but I sipped.
Who was this guy? Curiosity got the best of me and I looked up to the mirror.
A pair of the bluest eyes I’d ever seen met my gaze. Blue like the ocean on a sunny day. Blue like the evening skies above the Montana mountains. An endless blue that swallowed me whole.
I tore my gaze away from the mirror and turned to his profile, wanting to see that blue up close.
It took him a moment to look over, and when he did, he only dipped his chin in a silent greeting. Then he went back to his drink, his shoulders hitching closer to his ears as he tried to shut me out.
His sandy-blond hair was cut short but the longer strands on top were damp. He hadn’t been here long either.
“It’s not fair,” I blurted.
He looked up at the mirror, at my reflection. Then he slowly brought his glass to his lips. The yellow straw was bent, folded over the rim and held by one of his long fingers. His grip practically engulfed the glass whole. “What’s not fair?”
Sweet lord, he had a good voice too. A shiver rolled over my shoulders at the rich and gravelly timbre. “Your eyelashes.”
He blinked, then took another sip.
I was sure he’d just keep on drinking and ignoring my presence for the next thirty-seven minutes, except then he turned and . . . bam. Those eyes trapped me like a bird in a cage.
No man had ever made me feel this way with a single glance. My pulse raced. I wobbled on my seat. Desire bloomed in my core. The full force of his Persian blues sent a tidal wave of ecstasy rushing my way.
“Who are you?” I whispered.
His eyebrows came together. “Who are you?”
“E-Everly Christian.” My tongue felt too big for my mouth.
He nodded and went back to his drink.
No way. He wasn’t getting off that easy. “Now it’s your turn. Who are you?”
“No one special.”
I hummed. “Nice to meet you, No One Special. Mind if I call you Hot Bar Guy instead?”
The corner of his mouth turned up.
Victory. I hid my smile in my drink, taking a long sip. I’d never been good at subtle. Shameless flirt was more my style, and though I hadn’t inherited much from my mother, her innate talent for being blunt seemed to have stuck. Good or bad, I usually said whatever came to mind.
“What brings you down here tonight?” I asked, not expecting an answer.
He didn’t disappoint. He simply sipped from his glass, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip.
Did he have any idea that just his presence was making me squirm on this stool?
“I was in need of a stiff drink.” I answered my own question. “And maybe a little excitement.”
“Probably should have come here earlier. You missed your window for excitement.”
I quirked an eyebrow and met his gaze in the mirror. “Did I?”
The sound of traffic woke me. The slush of tires on melting snow. I blinked awake, lifting off my pillow to shove the hair from my face. I didn’t need to check beneath the rumpled sheet to know I was stark naked.
And the space beside me was empty.
I flopped into my pillow and stretched as a smile spread across my face. There was an ache in my core. My muscles throbbed. I’d been deliciously used and pleasured last night.
Sometime before dawn, Hot Bar Guy—Hux—had disappeared without a word.
My laugh echoed in the empty apartment. “I love Calamity.”
Chapter Two
Hux
“Earth to Hux.” Katie snapped her fingers in front of my face.
I blinked and shot her a scowl.
“What’s with you this week?”
“Nothing,” I muttered, spinning in my office chair so my back was to her. Then I adjusted my aching cock and wished the hard-on I’d been sporting for three days would go the fuck away.
Except every time I closed my eyes, I saw a sparkling bronze gaze. Caramel irises flecked with dark chocolate and cinnamon. I saw creamy, smooth skin the color of melted honey.
It was worse at night, when I could still feel the whisper of her sweet breath across my ear. When I craved the dig of her nails into the flesh of my back. Or the way her tight heat clenched me like a fist as she orgasmed with a cry and milked my own release.
Fucking hell.
> I was rock hard.
“Hux.” Katie cleared her throat behind me.
“Yeah.” I didn’t bother turning. All I’d see was a scowl. Judging by Katie’s huff, she was losing patience.
Katie had been my friend for decades, and she knew my moods as well as I knew hers.
The two of us had gone to the same school—everyone in Calamity went to the same school. She was two years younger than I was, but since we’d lived in the same neighborhood, her parents had asked mine in fifth grade if I’d walk with her to school. We’d been friends ever since.
Katie was a little thing, standing a foot shorter than my six two, and there were times when she looked like she could fit in with this year’s Calamity Cowboys senior class. She’d been wearing the same thick, black-rimmed glasses for decades. Her light brown hair was chopped right above her shoulders, like it had always been.
There was comfort in her familiarity. She treated me the same today, yesterday, the day before, as she had when we’d been kids. I could always count on her, through thick and thin, which wasn’t something I could say about many people. Katie had been the one and only person to show up the day I’d gotten out of prison. She was one of the few people in this world I trusted completely.
“Are you okay?” she asked, concern lacing her kind voice.
I sighed and ran a hand over my face. “I’m good.”
I just couldn’t seem to get my mind off my night with Everly. What the hell had I been thinking? Hooking up with a woman in town was not what I was supposed to be doing right now.
“Is it Savannah?” she asked.
“Hmm.” Not a yes. Not a no.
“Any word from Aiden?”
I shook my head, finally turning around. If there was anything to get my mind off the mysterious and sensual woman I’d fucked three nights ago, it was my lawyer’s name. “He’s supposed to call me when he knows more.”
“Do you think they’ll assign a family services agent?”
“I hope so.” Because at this point, I wasn’t sure what else to do to get my daughter away from my bitch of an ex-wife. Not a topic I wanted to get into with Katie, so I leaned my forearms on my desk. She’d come in here for a reason. “What’s up?”
“Did you see the email about the commission piece?”
I shot a glare at the laptop closed at my side. “I hate email.”
Katie rolled her eyes and handed me the piece of paper she’d brought in. It was the email, printed out for me to read. Not only was she my friend, but she’d been working at my art gallery for years. She’d helped me build my business from the ground up.
Katie did everything at Reese Huxley Art besides paint. She acted as the receptionist in the showroom. She maintained my website and answered the emails I avoided like the plague. She kept the gallery’s books, doing her best to track whatever receipts I balled up and left on my desk.
Without her, there’d be no Reese Huxley Art.
I scanned the email, cringing at its length. The customer was requesting a custom landscape piece but without blue paint. She wanted a Montana scene with a river but without blue paint. She wanted it in the summer but without blue paint. At the end, she wrote P.S. NO BLUE in all caps.
“How am I supposed to paint a Montana summer landscape, with a goddamn river, and not use blue?”
Katie scrunched up her nose. “Should I just tell her you’re booked?”
I was booked. It wouldn’t be a lie. But money was money, and though I wasn’t hurting for it these days, I still remembered what it was like to live paycheck to paycheck, so I rarely turned it down, even if that meant I sacrificed my creative freedom. “Quote her fifty percent higher than normal if she doesn’t want blue.”
“Okay.”
Taking the paper, I wadded it into a tight sphere and tossed it into the trash can. “What else?”
“Nothing. It’s quiet.”
“It’s winter.”
We didn’t get much foot traffic in the winter, another reason I’d do this non-blue custom piece. I used the slow months to stock up on items we’d display and sell during tourist season and also to fill special orders.
“I think I might take off,” I said. “Head to the studio. You good here alone?”
“Of course.” She smiled, then spun on her ballet flats and walked out of the room, her footsteps no more than a whisper on the wooden floors.
Around my office, finished paintings wrapped in tan kraft paper leaned against the walls. My desk was littered with paper—empty coffee cups from the coffee shop, more emails Katie had printed for me to review, bills in envelopes that needed to be opened and paid.
All things I hadn’t gotten around to doing yet and doubted I would. Today, I’d come in to clean up this mess, but I just couldn’t focus. I couldn’t get Everly off my mind.
The image of her on that barstool was ingrained on my mind. The seductive and mischievous glint in her eyes. The innuendo dripping from her sultry voice. The corner of her lickable mouth turned up in open invitation. The second her tongue had darted out to wet her bottom lip, I’d been a goner.
Christ, she was sexy. I hadn’t been able to resist.
Hookups weren’t my style. Not that I was a damn monk, but usually I left town. I’d go to a neighboring place, like Prescott, where I wouldn’t risk running into a woman later at the café or coffee shop. The last thing I needed was more women spreading rumors about me around town.
Not that I gave a fuck what people thought of me. I’d been written off a long damn time ago. But I cared for Savannah’s sake.
My daughter was dealing with enough shit. The last thing she needed was for some woman I’d fucked to harass her to get my attention. Almost as worse would be for April to get wind of it and make my life even more complicated.
My ex-wife seemed to have a bead on everything I did around town. Where I ate. Where I drove. Where I slept, even if it was here at the gallery on my couch against the wall, currently littered with blank canvases. Hell. No one, especially April, needed to know that I’d let Everly drag me to her studio apartment, where I’d fucked her senseless.
I rubbed a hand over my face, shaking away the image of Everly’s coffee-colored hair falling in silky strands down her chest. Her rosy nipples peeking through the strands. Her hands braced on my chest as she rode me. Her hips circling as she moved, up and down on my cock. Her mouth parted, just a bit, as a rouge flush crept up her chest.
“For fuck’s sake,” I muttered, shooting out of my chair.
Enough already. It was a one-night stand, nothing more. She was just a woman with a hot body and some sexy as fuck hair.
But damn it, that had been the best sex of my life. Everly had held nothing back. Neither had I. We’d come together in a rush of mingled breaths and tangled limbs and curled toes. No inhibitions. No limits. That woman had met me beat for beat, and we’d fallen together like wild, practiced lovers.
Not that I knew anything about being in a long-term relationship. The only lover I’d taken more than once had been April and look where that had landed me.
Prison.
There weren’t many people I truly loathed in this world, but my ex topped the short list.
April and I had been foolish kids when we’d gotten married. We’d been in love—if you could call it love at that age. The minute she turned eighteen, we drove the two hours to Bozeman, the closest town of any size to Calamity, and walked into the courthouse like we owned the damn place. Then we spent a weekend in a motel—a low-budget honeymoon—before coming home to tell our families we’d gotten married.
We rented a dumpy trailer, one her parents and mine frowned upon. She worked as a clerk at the grocery store for minimum wage. I took a job doing construction with a local crew.
Things were tight, but we were able to afford rent, gas and food. That wasn’t enough for April. She didn’t like the step down in monetary status. Why she thought things would be different, I had no clue. She’d known I didn’t have any
money when she’d said I do.
But she wanted more. A nicer house far away from the trailer park. A new car. New clothes. So I took the graveyard shift at a gas station.
For a year, I listened to her complain that I wasn’t doing enough by working two jobs. So I worked harder, desperate to make her happy, to make this marriage work. Then on a rare night off, she dragged me to a party with some new friends. A group of guys were playing a poker game in the garage and invited me to join in.
That night, I won three hundred dollars.
Two weeks later at another party, I brought home five hundred. April loved it. So I kept playing and playing. I found new games, some in town, but most were outside Calamity. I learned quickly how to play. How to bluff.
How to cheat.
Then came the game that destroyed my life. The game was at a guy’s house outside of town. Some fancy prick who liked to flaunt his wealth before us lesser mortals. He invited ten of us who played often to his table. Maybe if I had realized sooner that my sleight of hand worked better with a paint brush, things would have been different.
But I was too young at nineteen and too stupid—too arrogant—to think I’d get caught.
Eventually, everyone gets caught.
The rich guy called me out for cheating. He came after me and beyond that, I don’t remember much.
He hit me. I hit him. Cheating at cards wasn’t my only talent back then. I also knew how to fight.
I put him in a coma for two weeks.
He moved away from Calamity before I got out of prison, but according to the rumors, he wasn’t as bright as he’d once been.
The public defender assigned to my case pled self-defense. The judge saw right through the bullshit and sentenced me to two years. Two years that I paid without argument.
I would have fought harder for a reduced sentence if I’d known April was pregnant.
She divorced me while I was inside. The papers arrived during my first month. I didn’t fight that either.
She took every one of my possessions from that trailer to the landfill. She drained our checking account, leaving me with nothing. She told the entire town of Calamity that I’d been manipulating her for years, that she’d been afraid to leave me because of my temper.