Warrior Girl: A Cowboy Romance (Wild Men Texas Book 2)

by Melissa Belle

  He hesitates. Just enough that I notice.

  “What is it?” I lean closer to him. Blake’s broad shoulders are a welcome shield from the rest of the booth. “You can tell me.”

  Logan inhales sharply. “I’m okay. I promise.”

  “Logan, seriously.” I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder. “If you need to talk, I’m here for you.”

  I blink as a series of bright flashes goes off, and I turn to see Jon with his camera pointed straight at us.

  I gesture at him to stop with the spontaneous picture-taking, but before I can turn back to Logan, Gigi’s sisters start exclaiming over me, from my “big” hair, to my “cute” accent, to the y’all I used when greeting them.

  “Did you and Logan have sex a lot when you were married?” Miranda, the chattier of the two sisters, asks bluntly.

  Blake spits his beer all over the table as he bursts out laughing.

  I rear my head back until it hits the wooden back of the booth, and Jamie whips his head over to me.

  “You said it was just a drunken Vegas thing,” he says. “That you don’t even remember saying yes.”

  Blake leans forward until he makes eye contact with Jamie. “That’s what she says.” He’s clearly had far too much to drink because he adds, “But Macey and Logan go back.”

  Oh, my God.

  “You do?” Miranda says. “How far back?”

  Blake grins from ear to ear at Logan. “Yeah, Logan. How far back? I think we’d all love to know since neither of you ever really said.” He turns to Miranda. “They’ve always been kind of weird about that. Very private. Hush-hush.” He puts his finger to his lips and winks at me.

  “Christ, Wild.” Logan shoves Blake’s half-full beer at him. “Keep your fucking mouth full with this instead of yammering on about shit you know nothing about.”

  I need to get out of here.

  “I’m going to um…check if they need help behind the bar.” I excuse myself, climb over Jamie to get out of the booth, and walk briskly to the safety of the bar where I immediately pour a customer two Lone Stars from the tap.

  When I glance back at the booth, Gigi has her arm wrapped around Logan’s neck and she’s whispering into his ear. I shake my head.

  When I glance away, I make eye contact with a very intrigued-looking Skip still sitting on a barstool.

  “I’m not a reporter for nothing,” he begins.

  “Don’t start,” I say to him.

  “A journalist isn’t that different from a bartender,” he continues. “We see things. Things the average person may miss.”

  “Skip…”

  “And what I saw over there,” he continues, “was that Mr. Darcy was a heck of a lot more interested interacting with his ex-wife than his future one. Seemed like a much more stimulating time for him, if you catch my meaning. In fact, I’m wondering why Mr. Darcy would get involved with another woman if…”

  “I swear to God, Skip, if you don’t stop right now, I won’t let you back in here,” I say.

  He takes the hint, but he doesn’t leave either. He sits right where he is, looking more confident than ever that The Cowherd Whiskey Saloon is the perfect place for him to learn everything he needs to know about the truth in Darcy, Texas.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Logan

  “Don’t blow this,” Gigi whispers into my ear as she pretends to be all lovey-dovey at the booth. “Remember that people are always watching. I know Macey does it for you, but…”

  Hell, truthfully, Macey’s the only one who’s ever done it for me. I dated other girls and tried to put Macey in my rearview so many times.

  It just never worked.

  “Okay, Logan?” Gigi says quietly. “Keep it together.”

  “Got it,” I murmur. “Now let me go so I can talk to Blake and make sure he shuts his big mouth.”

  I exit the booth and tilt my head at Blake to follow me.

  Within minutes, the two of us are on the front porch of The Cowherd, Blake with a drink still in his hand.

  I stare up at the sky, half-wishing I could disappear into the galaxy right about now. Just long enough until this whole mess is over.

  “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?” Blake takes a big swig of his beer and places it on the wooden porch railing.

  “Just processing my upcoming wedding,” I say. “It’s a lot to take in.”

  “Yeah, it is. Especially when you’re about to marry a girl you don’t love.”

  I don’t even bother to refute him. “You don’t understand.”

  “So enlighten me.” His jaw hardens. “I never took you for the kind of guy who marries for money.”

  The kind of guy who marries for money.

  I lose it. All this time I’ve been holding it together, keeping the truth from everyone I love. And I’m tired. I’m also buzzing from the alcohol, and my ability to think rationally is pretty much shot.

  So I take out my frustrations on the one guy who’s calling me out on the biggest lie of my life. The lie that I want to marry someone not named Macey Henwood.

  I jump on Blake so fast he’s not expecting it. I shove him up against the railing, but we both lose our balance when the rickety wood shifts. The two of us go flying down the three steps and onto the grassy front lawn of the bar.

  We roll around the grass, each trying to get a hit in.

  “You’re an ass for even intimating that I’d use somebody for money,” I snap as I dig my shoulder into his chest. “Don’t butt in where you don’t belong.”

  Blake’s always been quick, and he turns abruptly, pinning me beneath him. Breathing heavily, he says, “I don’t like seeing you doing something I know is all fucking wrong for you. And you fucking know it, too. And the fact is, I don’t actually think you’re marrying Gigi for money, but I can’t get you to crack, Wild. So are you going to tell me why you’re really doing this?”

  I open my mouth to confess, but movement on the porch gets my attention. I glance past Blake to the sight of Macey, Jamie, and Ben stepping out of The Cowherd. Ben hustles down the steps and grabs Blake by the back of the shirt.

  “Get up, you two idiots,” he says.

  The kid may be years younger than me, but he’s always been a hell of lot more even-tempered.

  Blake stands up, and Ben keeps his arms around him until he’s sure the two of us are done trying to take each other out.

  I get up, dusting the grass off my pants.

  Macey walks slowly down the three porch steps. She takes her time getting to us, and when she does, she looks between Blake and me for several seconds before saying, “I never could take you boys anywhere.”

  “Mace…” Blake starts to say, but she cuts him off with a wave of her hand in the air.

  Her whiskey eyes are smoldering with emotion.

  “I don’t want to know what you two are fighting over. But doing it on Cowherd Whiskey property when there’s a crowd of people, a reporter, and a cameraman inside? That’s unacceptable. We’re trying to keep the bar afloat, not lose it because of more drama and more bad press.”

  I swallow, and Blake looks contrite as he mumbles an apology. Macey sends him back inside, and Ben follows.

  I reach for Macey’s hand. “I’m sorry…”

  She pulls her hand back as Jamie comes down the steps. “Save it for later,” she says to me, her face unreadable. “Jamie and I were about to have a romantic moment of looking at the stars together.”

  Macey

  I’m bluffing to Logan. Jamie and I do look at the stars after Logan disappears back inside, but the moment is stilted and awful. I try to explain my relationship with Logan to him, but I don’t think he has a clue what to say. I wouldn’t either.

  I lead him back inside the bar, and by closing time, I’m single again. Not that I was ever truly taken.

  Jamie and I break up in a very public, very uncomfortable fashion after he’s had a few drinks and accuses me of lying to him about my marriage to Logan. W
e’re standing by the bar, but Logan witnesses the entire exchange, as do Skip, my parents, and God knows who else.

  Jamie storms out of the saloon, and I step outside after him, not sorry to see him leave. He refuses to take back the commitment ring, telling me it’s not worth enough to get a refund.

  Ouch.

  I stand out on the porch and listen to the familiar popping sounds from the backyard across the street. Over a month early, but the Hanson boys say every day is Independence Day for those of us lucky enough to be born in the great state of Texas. Red, white, and blue colors light up the Hill Country sky for a good twenty seconds as I slowly but surely work Jamie’s ring off my finger and into my jeans pocket. And then, I walk inside to the bathroom where I kneel down alone by the toilet and flush the ring into the water until I’m sure it’s drowned.

  When I return from the restroom, George and Ben insist I take a break while they put up the chairs and kick everyone out.

  I walk to the liquor room and spend a few minutes patting Mr. Bingley and getting him his food. Then, I leave on my desk light—I know I really must be off if I’m letting Mama talk me into giving Jane Austen’s ghost a nightlight—and head for the picnic table behind the bar.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I take my diary out of my purse but change my mind about reading it. Instead, I lie down on my back on the picnic table and look up at the stars. Another perfectly dark night here in Hill Country, and the Big Dipper and Orion shine clearly.

  Just me and the night. It feels good. It feels simple. It feels so unlike my life right now. I miss the days when Logan and I would camp out together. I miss Logan.

  The door creaks open and Logan appears beside me. Lying down next to me and incorrectly pointing out the Little Dipper. You always were the worst star-gazer, I tell him. He tells me to shut up, but he smiles.

  “I thought you were in the liquor room. Your desk light is on.”

  “Long story involving my mother,” I say. “Don’t ask.”

  I reach over to move my purse out from under his legs and onto the bench. Logan watches the movement of my hand carefully.

  “What’d you do with your ring?” he says.

  “Another long story.”

  “Want to talk about it? What happened with him?”

  “What do you think?” I ask him.

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. I know it wasn’t something shocking.”

  “How do you know?” I say. “It could be shocking. I could have gotten knocked up just like my mama did.”

  “You could have,” he says. “Except you didn’t. Did you?”

  “What if I had? What if I were about to have some other man’s baby right now? How would that go?”

  Logan props himself up on his elbow and stares down at me. “You’re on the pill. You’ve always been on the pill.” He pauses. “Well, except for the first time. But we were always so careful, and I know you always are in general.”

  “I’m not on the pill anymore.”

  Now Logan’s really staring at me.

  “But you’re correct,” I add. “I’m not pregnant. We didn’t even have sex. Not once.”

  He lets his breath out like he hasn’t breathed this whole time. “Mace…”

  I wave my hand in the air. “Your fiancée is obviously a lot more secure in her relationship with you than my—whatever Jamie was—was with me. You two seem to have worked everything out even after Blake said all that crap.”

  “Yeah.” His voice sounds strained. “Blake’s an ass.”

  “He means well.”

  “I know.”

  We lapse into silence as we keep looking up at the stars. Finally, I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t stand not knowing, and even though I’m scared of the answer, I have to know.

  “So, is it the sex?”

  Logan doesn’t answer me. The night makes for a good cover.

  “The conversations?” I press.

  Still nothing.

  “The boobs?” I joke. “Seriously, what is it?”

  Long pause. And then…

  “She saw me painting in the desert, and she stopped and asked me what I was painting. I told her it was life. And she was hooked. She said the rich boys she’s dated are all the same—boring and spoiled. She said I was interesting, and she and her father asked me out to dinner. So I went.”

  My breath catches in my throat.

  “So there I was,” he says. “Sweaty, needing a shave, angry at my father, trying to paint my way out of a bad mood. I was standing there in the middle of the loneliness of the hot afternoon desert sun, and Gigi appeared out of nowhere. She said…” He pauses, and for a second I think he’s going to say something different, before he finishes with, “She said she thought we’d be good for each other.”

  My heart comes into my throat.

  Logan stops abruptly, and I reach over to touch his hand.

  He grabs mine and holds on before letting it go. “Does it bother you a lot?” he asks me.

  I shrug.

  “‘Cause it would bother me,” he says.

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Even though I do. I know exactly what he means.

  “It would bother me if you got engaged out of the blue like this,” he says. “It would hurt. Honest, if you got engaged at all, it would wreck me.”

  I don’t answer him. But I feel better knowing that he feels it, too. The separation from something that never was. Because despite all our unspoken moments together, Logan and I never went on a proper date.

  But never dating doesn’t make this any easier for me. If anything, it hurts more. To know that we never tried and failed; we just never tried at all.

  “I thought about us,” I say into the night air.

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you were away in West Texas, I thought about what it would be like if we…”

  “If we what?” he prompts me.

  “If we tried dating. I was going to ask you, but…”

  There. I’ve said it. My secret is out.

  “Are you serious?” He curses under his breath. “I’m sorry—of course you’re serious.”

  “But obviously our timing was off,” I say in a bright tone. “You’re happily engaged, and that’s that. I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “No.” Logan reaches for my hand again and squeezes it once before letting it go. “You should have. I’m glad you did.”

  The back door opens with a bang. I jump and sit up, certain it’s going to be Gigi thinking I’m hitting on her fiancé.

  But it’s Ben, whose eyes widen when he sees who I’m with. “Hey, Small Woman.”

  “Small Woman?” Logan says, still on his back.

  “Mace here is Small Woman in the Queen Austen play.”

  “For one night only,” I say. “Just opening night.”

  “You’re Small Woman?” Logan laughs. “But you can’t act.”

  Ben laughs with him.

  “Yes, I still remember my one acting experience as Catherine in Northanger Abbey.” I glare at Logan. “You laughed so hard I could actually hear you from the stage.”

  “I could hear you and I was ten rows away,” Ben says to him.

  “You’re a writer, not an actress,” Logan says. “Nothing to be ashamed of. So why are you in the play? My mom never mentioned it.”

  “It was a last-minute thing,” I say vaguely. “Mama thought I could learn to emote.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Logan puts his hands over his eyes.

  Ben coughs. “So George left, and I’m on my way out. Do ya’ll want me to lock this door too?”

  I nod. “Yeah. I’ll walk to my car from outside. Thanks, Benny. Actually, can you turn on the back light so we can see?”

  Ben gives me an amused grin and does as I ask then shuts the door with a wave.

  Logan sits up next to me and taps my diary between us on the table. “I thought you’d finished it.”

  “I have. But G
inny…” God, this sounds stupid. “She’s insisting that I read through the old entries. Like a cleanse.”

  His expression shifts. “A cleanse?”

  “Mm-hmm.” I pick up the diary and make a show of flipping through it. “This is filled with old stories. She thought I should read them.”

  Logan takes a closer look at my face. “That must be hard.”

  I try to wave it off. “It’s fine.”

  But he keeps looking at me steadily until I say, “Okay, fine. It sucks. But the thing is—it’s having a secondary benefit of helping with my writer’s block.”

  “Sounds like it’s important then.” He gestures to the diary. “Would it help to have a friend there when you read them?”

  I startle. “I don’t know.”

  “I know everything already,” he says. “You can’t surprise me.”

  “You’re such a guy.” I roll my eyes. “You don’t know everything. You don’t know what was going on in my head during those events.”

  “Do you want to tell me?” he asks seriously. “I’m a good listener.”

  “I don’t know. It feels weird.” I scratch at a peeled section of the wooden table. “In other Macey Henwood news, since my writer’s block has lifted, I finally began my novel.”

  Logan sits up straighter. “No fucking way.”

  I smile. “Yes way. I’m nearly sixty pages into it, actually. I had seventy-five, and then I scratched the entire thing and had to start over, but…”

  Logan grabs my hand and swings me off the table into an impromptu dance.

  I close my eyes and resist wrapping my arms around his back and burying my face in his neck until all the pain of what’s actually happening between us disappears.

  Logan makes sure he maintains an appropriate body-length between us as he moves us in a slow two-step around the table. “I’m so proud of you.” He grins at me. “My kick-ass writer friend.”

  I’m going to kiss him if he keeps sweet talking me like this. I’m going to run my hands over his chest and down his back and over his perfect ass. I’m going to stick my tongue in his mouth and never want to stop.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight