by Cara McKenna
Christ almighty, sleep was going to elude him tonight, wasn’t it?
***
Raina eyed the clock for at least the fiftieth time that night. Eleven thirty now, and no sign of Miah.
“You’re awful twitchy tonight.” This from Vince, sitting across from her at the bar. He had a stack of quarters at his elbow and a beer before him, waiting to play the winner of the pool game currently underway.
“Don’t I know it,” she said. “This is like the night that won’t end.”
“I’ll try not to take that personal.”
Eyeing the cigarette tucked behind his ear, she thought she understood his addiction for a change. She’d seen Miah last night and this very morning, yet here she was, itchy and restless for another taste. She changed the subject. “You find yourself a job yet?”
“Probably. I’m going in to talk to my old boss at Petroch tomorrow morning.”
“Didn’t you tell him to fuck himself when you quit?”
“And?”
She laughed. “It’s a memorable way to say good-bye.”
“My mom needed to go to Elko for a doctor’s appointment, and he wouldn’t give me the day off. Asshole should fuck himself. But that’s all water under the bridge. What should matter is that I was never once late for that job, never once threw my back out—or claimed to—never started a fight—”
“And likely never turned one down.”
“That’s totally different.”
“Sure it is. Well, good luck, anyhow . . . No Alex tonight, I guess,” she noted. “It’s pushing midnight.”
Vince shook his head. “Passed his cruiser on the way here—he’s on duty.”
“Good.”
Vince’s nostrils flared with a long breath. “He’s a fucking mess, isn’t he? He was bad before I went in, but it’s only gotten worse.”
“And you didn’t see him after your homecoming.” She’d told him about it when he’d come in. “He could’ve been hit by a car. He could have fallen and split his skull open. It seems like the longer his granddad’s been sick, the worse he’s gotten himself.” She understood grief all too well, but not Alex’s way of coping with it. “We need to do something. Somebody needs to talk to him.”
“I’m game,” Vince said with a shrug.
“Good. And maybe see if Tremblay would, too. Talk to him together, maybe. Hard to ignore both your friend and your boss.”
“I’m not talking to Tremblay, let alone sitting in the same room as him.”
She crossed her arms. “For Alex? Come on, Vince.”
“That dick put my ass in prison. Not jail, fucking prison.”
“He’s the sheriff—that’s his job. And you deserved every month of it. What was the charge? Drunk and disorderly conduct?”
“Plain old disorderly, thank you very much.”
“Because they didn’t get around to Breathalyzing you, I can only imagine.”
“It was bullshit, whatever the case.”
“Well, I’m sure Tremblay disagrees. And for Alex’s sake, maybe set your delicate feelings aside long enough to consider it. I don’t want to wake up one morning and find out he died in the night of alcohol poisoning.”
“And you think I do? But let me talk to him on my own first. Man to man.”
“Sober,” she said.
“Naturally.”
Could a man like Vince really manage that, though, she had to wonder—a naked show of concern and caring, without liquor to loosen his softer emotions? Raina wasn’t all that certain she could herself.
“Promise you’ll try,” she said.
He made the Scouts sign, and she rolled her eyes. “If you’re a Boy Scout, I’m a virgin.”
“Where in the heck were you going after last call that night, anyhow?”
Raina paused, unsure what to say. She’d let Vince infer that she’d been driving when she’d come across Alex, and made no mention of Miah. And though Miah was the picture of gentlemanly discretion, it wasn’t the sort of secret that would stay hushed up for long, not in a town this small.
“I was hoping to get laid,” she said.
Vince laughed. “And did you?”
“No, I did not.”
“Do I know the guy?”
“You may.”
“Who—” Vince turned at a shout from the pool table. “Guess I’m up.”
“Guess I’m saved by the bell.”
Vince shot her a little look, one that said, plainly, This talk ain’t over.
Raina flicked her hand to tell him to get a move on. Once he had, she went back to her usual routine, reading a page or two of her book, filling an order, tidying up, checking the clock . . . entertaining the odd filthy thought about what might happen the next time she and Miah found themselves alone together. He’d approached her those first two nights, and she’d come after him this morning. That left the ball in his court, she figured, and she prayed that maybe his self-control would prove as flimsy as hers. She doubted she could go more than a couple days before she took matters into her own hands—
She turned at the telltale squeak of the screen door popping open, then the clack as it settled back against its frame. And goddamn if her heart didn’t leap to her throat. She had to smile to herself, thinking that man must have it even worse than she did. Didn’t seem possible, but here he was.
No bike engine had announced Miah’s arrival and he was wearing his hat, so he must have driven. He looked fucking good, too, in jeans and a black sweater, gray collared shirt setting off his tan. Their eyes locked, but he’d spotted Vince as well, and he made a beeline for the pool table to clap his best friend on the back, just as Vince was lining up a shot. Raina smiled at the split-second of murder that passed across Vince’s face before he realized who’d slapped him. The men hugged, chatted briefly, then Miah hooked a thumb toward the bar to say where he’d be.
Goddamn right, that’s where you’ll be. Raina smiled as he approached, and slid a coaster across the wood. “Evening.”
“Evening.” He dipped his brim as he took a seat and eyed the bottles. “Just a beer, I think.”
“Two seventy-five,” she said, and uncapped a longneck for him.
He tossed four bucks on the counter and she knew not to bother giving him change. “Fancy seeing you here again,” she teased. “You’re becoming quite a regular.”
He spoke quietly. “You crash my workday, I crash yours. Plus I’ve been finding it hard to stay away.”
“Have you, now?”
“Trust me, I fully intended to be asleep by ten.”
“Is there something you’re needing besides the beer?” she asked, smiling.
His gazed dropped to her mouth for a breath. “Something only you can give me.”
“I suspected as much. Well, I hope you’re feeling patient, because there’s no way I’m closing early.” Business was brisk tonight, thanks in no small part to the fact that Thursday was payday for the quarry rats.
“Anticipation never hurt anybody,” Miah said, holding her eyes with those dark ones.
She got caught in that stare, overheated in a breath. She swallowed, liking this sensation—it wasn’t like her to let a man get the better of her, to say nothing of letting him know it—but Miah’s intentions were sweeter than most. Let him gloat, if he felt so inclined.
“You look real pretty tonight,” he told her.
She laughed. She was wearing what she did every day—what she’d been wearing this morning when she’d hunted him down out on the range. “Thanks. You’re looking real good yourself.”
Miah eyed her up and down, the look so openly lustful, so unlike the Jeremiah Church she thought she knew, it sent blood rushing low, flushing her from her face to her sex. His lips parted, seeming poised to speak, but two customers sidled up then and he shut his mouth with a little smirk.
Raina silently cursed her patrons as she filled their pitcher, poured their shots, and made their change. Once they’d gone back to their table, she leaned
down on the bar and smiled at Miah.
“Yeah?”
“You looked like you were about to say something.”
He sipped his beer. “Nothing fit for public consumption.”
“Tease.”
The front door popped back open then, and a handful of Miah’s own employees came marching in.
“Here comes trouble,” she said.
He looked over his shoulder, waved at the ranch hands, then turned back to face her. “Now we’re definitely not getting out of here before last call.”
She sighed and grabbed a couple empties off the counter. “This is shaping up to be the longest goddamn Thursday in history.”
Chapter Seven
What Miah would’ve given for a fire alarm just then. For any distraction that would send everybody out into the night, everybody but him and Raina.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off her. Each little motion—the twist of a cap, a swing of her hip to shut the register, a peek at her bare lower back when she bent to open the cooler—they stacked up inside his body like kindling, threatening to ignite and burn the whole fucking bar down.
At long last, the ranch hands had their pitchers and their change and had moved to a table in the front, and Raina circled back around to his end of the bar.
“Come outside,” he said. “Out back.”
She glanced to her left and right. “You see some employees around here that I forgot I hired?”
“Just for a second.”
She sighed, then panned the barroom. Everyone’s glasses and bottles looked full enough, so she tossed her towel on the counter. “You get two minutes,” she muttered beneath her breath. To the room she said, “Gotta change a keg. Nobody steal anything.” She shot Vince a look where he stood by the pool table, and he nodded.
With his chest feeling light and his heart pumping quick, Miah headed for the front door while Raina disappeared through the back. He wondered how many fellow customers noticed him jogging past the windows to round the building, but on the other hand it was tough to care. Not when those lips were waiting around the other side.
She was leaning beside her old truck by the back door, arms crossed. She had to be cold, wearing just her tank top against the chill, and Miah vowed to take her mind off it.
“This better be good,” she told him, her grin pure mischief.
“Challenge accepted.” He wouldn’t put it past her to set a timer to mark the two minutes, so he pushed his hat back on his head and dove right in—cupped her jaw, leaned close and kissed her, deep. He felt and heard her breath hitch, then her hands were on his arms, squeezing his shoulders under the sleeves of his sweater. Christ, but he loved the way she touched him. Hungry and shameless.
“I’ve missed you,” he whispered, fingers tangling in her hair.
“It’s been twelve hours.”
“Feels like fucking forever, though.”
A soft laugh warmed his lips. “Yeah, it does.”
“Come out tonight.”
“Come up, tonight. Upstairs.”
“No. To the springs,” he said, and stooped to kiss her throat, trapping her thigh between his.
“Upstairs, to my nice warm room.”
“Out east. It’s a full moon.”
“It’s a queen-sized bed.”
“The springs,” he said again, close to pleading, he wanted her so bad. “It’s been years.”
Years since he could last remember being out there with Raina. With her, and Vince and Casey and Alex, and a couple girls from their high school, maybe a ranch hand or two, if he remembered right. Good old-fashioned drunken group skinny-dipping, Fortuity style.
He remembered every stolen glimpse of Raina’s naked body in the lantern light, though all those other girls had faded to obscurity. He’d had cheap bourbon stinging his lips, and he could see her face now, lit warm and golden, and reflected as a blur in the restless current. Those shoulders dotted with water drops, that bold laugh in the night air. He’d fallen in lust with her for as long as that little party lasted, and shelved his feelings the next morning, still thinking her too wild for him, too unpredictable, all of it a trick of the alcohol. He wanted that night to do over, this time without tamping down the instincts and impulses that had left him as dizzy as the steaming water.
“How do we know there won’t be a dozen of your hands down there, getting up to the same nonsense we did at their age?” she asked.
“Unlikely—half of them are already here. Plus there’s always my truck.”
“Or your bed. Jesus, you’re so much weirder than you seem.”
“You want to dumb down what we’ve got between us? Douse all those flames for the sake of some sheets under your back?”
“When you put it like that . . . What kind of thread-count are we talking? Hotel quality?”
He smiled. “Shut up and let’s kiss.”
“Guess a girl can’t really argue with that rebuttal.”
She welcomed his hungry mouth, every stroke of her tongue and tease of her lips winding him tighter. He eased off with a pained sigh, his nose brushing her cheek. Palms sliding down to her sides, he memorized the rise and fall of her ribs, her heat through soft cotton.
“I should be in bed, asleep,” he whispered, and pressed his face to her neck, breathing deep. “Goddamn, it’s like I’m addicted to you.”
“I know the feeling.” Her fingers curled into fists around his shirt, but only for a beat before she let him go, smoothing her hair as she stepped back. He just about died of deprivation in that moment.
“Remember where we left off,” she said. “I have a bar to tend.”
“And I have a long two hours to suffer through.”
“You and me both.” She unlocked the back door, smiling as she disappeared inside.
***
Raina felt so flushed and flustered, she wondered if every last one of her customers could see it. Her hair was curling at the nape of her damp neck and she fanned her face with her paperback.
Vince sat down across from her, just as Miah entered behind him for the second time that night.
She grabbed the empty bottle Vince set on the wood. “Don’t tell me you lost. Thought I was the only person who could beat you at pool.”
“And Casey,” Miah cut in, grabbing the stool next to Vince’s.
“True. I don’t think I’ve ever known anybody to beat your brother,” Raina said to Vince.
“Small wonder. Your dad let him play in here from the time he was about twelve.”
“Born grifter,” Miah said, and lifted his beer.
“And I was going to win,” Vince added. “Dominated that guy the whole fucking game.”
“So you scratched.” Raina handed him a fresh beer.
“Not the same as losing.”
“Think you’ll find it is.”
“According to every rule book ever printed,” Miah chimed in.
Vince flashed them each the finger as he took a long draw off his bottle.
Raina was leaning on the bar, just across from Miah, and he had his hands resting beside his beer. Too late, she realized how close they were—nearly touching knuckles. She straightened quickly. Too quickly.
Vince’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, shit.” His attention snapped back and forth between them. “You two?”
Miah held his tongue, but Raina knew when the jig was up. “Yeah. Us two.”
“Since when?”
“Tuesday.”
He shook his head, and the gesture could’ve been saying any number of things. That he thought they were doomed; that he’d seen this coming for years now; that Vince felt that if she was going to bang one of their little social circle, it ought to have been him. Raina had her money on the latter.
In the end, he just sighed. “Well, good luck to you. God knows Church needs it.”
Miah rolled his eyes.
“Thank you, Vince,” she said. “That’ll make a beautiful toast at our wedding.”
Miah’s gaze jumped
to her face, but he had to know she was joking—anyone who mistook Raina for the marrying kind would have to be a special kind of deluded.
“Bit surprised it took this long, actually,” Vince said. “You hooking up with one of us.”
“Not really. You guys were like my stinky older brothers when we were younger.”
Though of course she’d entertained the odd horny thought about Miah over the years, and indeed Vince. Alex had always been too serious for her taste, growing up, and Casey was . . . Casey was Casey.
But on the whole, when you spent as much time running wild through the badlands and bumming around an auto garage with four guys, you knew them too well to be in much danger of falling. Case in point, she’d heard way too many details about Vince’s various conquests to find him even remotely mysterious. Though, of course, a petty part of her had always enjoyed being the queen of her little harem of nice-looking men.
“Miah was with me,” Raina told Vince, “on Tuesday, when we ran into Alex.”
“Almost literally,” Miah added gravely.
“Vince said he’d talk to him.”
Miah nodded. “You’re closer to him than the rest of us. I’ve been too much of a fucking coward since his drinking got nasty.” He sighed. “Jesus, Vince, you should have seen him. Could’ve been a bum in the gutter, not a sheriff’s deputy.”
“Fuck.”
“We’re losing him—the guy he used to be. He told me on Tuesday night, he got asked to leave the volunteer firefighters over the weekend. Because of the drinking.”
Vince shook his head. “Shit. He loved that goddamn gig.”
“I know.”
“If only earning himself a second chance could be the motivation he needs to get himself together,” Raina offered.
“I’ll mention that when we have our talk,” Vince said.
“Good. And if this shit keeps getting worse, I might have to bar him, for good.”