“I never would,” I promise him. “I’m just having one drink. Even if Mom hadn’t been kill…”
I stop speaking, and silence hits the room.
In an effort to break it, I go for a joke. “Can I give you a ride on the back of my bike?”
“No. I wish you’d throw that thing in the ocean.”
“You and my dad both. But I’m not giving it up. Not for anyone.”
Chapter Four
Lucky Cowboy has a laid-back vibe to it, and the sounds of live music fill the back half of the bar. As I stand inside the doorway and look around, I freeze when I see the number of people. I’m not a huge fan of crowds, and I strain to find Jamie Beth. I spot her in a corner booth with a few of her work friends I’ve met before, and I hurry over.
“Mia!” Jamie’s red hair is piled up on her head in a cute bun-thing, and she jumps out of the booth to hug me. “Let’s go talk at the bar. It’s quieter up there.”
Jamie orders a shot of tequila, and I get a beer. I let Jamie complain about her day for over five minutes, including her usual grievance.
“Why do I live in Montana?” she says with a wide arc of her arm around the distinctly western bar. “Cowboy hats are everywhere! Do you know how hard it is to find a guy in town who’s not a cowboy? Mulligan’s is the same way.”
I hold up a hand. “Your boss does sound like an ass, I’m so sorry you hate your job, and there are a lot of cowboy hats in this bar.” I clear my throat. “I learned something today. It’s…not great. You want to hear?”
Jamie’s green eyes grow round. “You aren’t my best friend since we were in diapers for nothing. You know I love a good piece of news. What is it?”
“I have to find a husband stat.”
She bursts out laughing. When I don’t join her, she gasps.
“Wait, you’re serious? But you don’t even like dating! Why do you need to get married? And we’re not that old…are we? You’re only thirty-two. If you want to marry someone, you’ve got time, honey. No need to force anything.”
“Not according to my father.”
“What?” She makes a face. “What’s your dad got to do with this conversation? What am I missing?”
“Everything.” I proceed to fill her in.
When I’ve finished, she’s bouncing up and down on her bar stool. “You’re going to marry first!”
“So not the point,” I say.
“I know. And we’ll get to the heart of this in a second. But remember when we were nine and we made that bet? I bet you a horse that you’d marry first. So, on your wedding day, you have to gift me one of your horses.”
I shake my head. “You know that my dad sold the ranch after my mom passed away.”
“He sold it to your mom’s brother, Ned. All the horses are still technically in your family. I want Sprinkles.” She claps her hands like she’s still nine years old.
I kiss her cheek. “I love you, JB. But you aren’t getting Sprinkles. She’s old and set in her ways, and she’s never leaving Matilda Ranch.”
“Darn. The only things I like about Montana are the horses and the big sky.”
“You used to like cowboys if I recall,” I tease her.
“Shut up. We’re not talking about the past. This is the present, and I’m in a cowboy-free zone.” She taps the ring finger of my left hand. “What are you going to do about your problem? I’m assuming you’re planning to see it through.”
“Of course I am. I just need to find someone willing to go through it with me.”
Jamie sweeps her arm around the room. “You’ve got a bar full of willing single men here. Just bat those gorgeous baby blues, sister.”
“Right. I’m not picking up a stranger in a bar.”
“But you’re rocking the hot corporate look as usual. That skirt highlights your legs.”
“Excuse me.” A cute guy—without a cowboy hat on—walks up to us. He grins at Jamie Beth. “Would you like to dance?” He gestures to the makeshift dance floor over by the live music stage.
Jamie turns to me. She’s a good friend—the best—and she won’t leave me here alone if I’m not okay.
But I know that look. She’s ready to party. And I know she needs to let off steam.
“Go ahead,” I tell her. “I’ll text you if I’m leaving.”
As soon as I’m alone, a large, muscled man pushes up to the bar. He knocks into my arm, causing me to spill my nearly-full beer all over his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” I say automatically. My parents’ training in politeness was too ingrained in me.
The guy turns to face me, and I immediately stand up off the stool. I don’t like the glazed look in his eyes. Even half-hidden below his cowboy hat, his expression spells danger.
“Hey!” he says to me, jabbing his finger into my chest. “You did that on purpose.”
I roll my eyes. “You bumped into me. Relax.”
Wrong thing to say.
He pushes me, and my ass slams into the back of the stool.
And I’ve had enough.
“You want me to report you for assault?” I nearly shout at him. “I suggest you back off.”
His laugh is crude and unpleasant. “Little lady, you ain’t doing nothing to me.”
Before I can react, he grabs me by the arm and spins me, pulling me hard against him.
“I’ll show you what I can do to you, though,” he says angrily in my ear.
Oh, fuck.
Chapter Five
Declan
Arch, Tex, Jared, Max, and I slip in through the back of Lucky Cowboy and grab a booth. We might be the only guys here not wearing cowboy hats. I may live on my cousins’ Wild Ranch, but I’m no cowboy, and I don’t like to fake anything. I’ve got my baseball cap pulled low on my head, hoping to get through the night unrecognized.
After years of playing in the pros, I’ve gotten comfortable being approached by strangers for selfies and autographs. But tonight, I’m not in the mood to socialize.
My teammates, on the other hand, are happy to cut loose.
Within the hour, Arch is hanging out with a redhead next to our booth, and Tex is chatting up her blond friend. Jared and Max are in a more serious mood, and I’m right there with them.
“You guys doing all right?” I ask them as Arch and Tex do body shots with the two women a few feet away.
Jared rolls his shoulders. “We will be.”
Max tips his glass of whiskey back into his mouth until the glass is empty. “Liam says this will bring us closure. Catching the killer.”
“You think it will?” I ask him.
He shrugs. “I’m not as optimistic as my big brother.”
I’m not sure what to say to that. The Storm brothers’ family situation is so heavy.
“I hope the guy goes to prison for life,” I say.
“Thanks, Dec.” Jared nods at me appreciatively, and then he glances to his left. “Hey, the blond hottie one booth away is staring at you. I bet she’d be fine with a one-night thing.”
I shrug. I’ve got too much to worry about right now to be thinking about a one-night fuck. But that’s just an excuse. The truth is, I can’t remember the last time a woman caught my attention. I never thought I’d be thirty-eight and single, but here I am. I want a wife and kids. At least, I always did. But somewhere along the way, my little brother figured his shit out before I did. And now I’m about to become an uncle with no future as a father in sight.
“When did you last go home with someone?” Max asks me.
Too long.
I glance toward the bar. My gaze slides past the hordes of women and snags on—
Her.
A woman with hair so dark it would make a midnight sky look pale; toned, bare legs she’s got crossed where she sits on her stool; and the most amazing laugh as she throws her head back in amusement at something her friend just said.
Her friend leaves, and I’m still fixated on her. Which is why, when some asshole pushes into her on his way
to the bar, I react.
I’m out of my seat and shoving past Max before I know what I’m doing. I vaguely hear Jared calling to me, but I’m too focused on rescuing the woman at the bar to stop.
I’m about five steps away from clocking the asshole when I realize she doesn’t need saving.
He’s got her pinned from behind, and I watch in admiration as she slams her high heel onto the top of his foot. He drops one hand off of her, and she elbows him in the solar plexus, forcing him to drop his other hand. She spins around and jabs a finger in his face.
“That’s what you get for touching a woman without permission.”
I’ve reached them now. “Is there a problem?”
The woman turns toward me. “No, thank you.”
The man takes one look at me and runs off like the coward he is.
Without thinking first, I reach out and brush a stray hair out of the woman’s face. As my fingers lightly touch her soft cheek, a powerful jolt of electricity shoots through me.
Fuck.
I shove my hands into my jeans pockets. “That was impressive handiwork,” I say. “You certainly took care of him.”
“Self-defense class,” she says casually. “My father made me take it.”
“Smart dad,” I say.
She smiles. I back up to give her room to return to her stool, but as she steps toward it, she stumbles.
She throws out a hand and it connects with my chest. I catch her by the waist to make sure she stays on her feet.
“I’m good,” she says quickly. “Thank you.”
But she doesn’t remove her hand, which is warm against my heart.
I swallow. “Can I buy you a drink?”
She nods. “That would be nice. It’s been a day.”
Five minutes later, we’re seated at a table for two around the corner of the bar. We each have a bottle of beer in front of us. I don’t think my teammates can see me from here, but I’m not worried about them interfering. We have an unspoken code between us—if one of us is with a woman, the rest of us know to keep our distance.
“So, what do you do?” I ask her. I purposefully don’t ask for her name because I’m not sure where this is going, and I don’t want to give out my name if she’s only with me for that reason.
“I’m my father’s right-hand woman for our family PR firm. He’s been supposed to retire for ten years.”
I chuckle. “Doesn’t want to give up the reins, huh?”
“Bingo.” She fixes those blue eyes on me. “What about you?”
I exhale and take off my hat, sure she’ll recognize me.
But there’s no flicker of recognition in her eyes.
And suddenly, I’m nervous.
I’m so used to puck bunnies pawing at me after games that I’ve forgotten how to act around a woman who wants to know me as a man and not a hockey player.
“I’m a professional athlete.”
I wait for the squealing.
It never comes.
She stares at me. “Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
“You play a sport for a living?”
I nod.
“Rodeo?”
I chuckle. “Definitely not.”
She smiles. “You don’t seem like a rodeo guy. That’s the only kind of professional sport I have any clue about. I work with ranchers and cowboys.”
“Oh, yeah?”
She nods. “Our company specializes in helping ranchers who want to hold onto their land. We provide different ways for them to bring in money to ease their financial stress.”
“That’s cool. What kinds of ways?”
“You name it, we’ve probably tried it. Dude ranches, corporate retreats, parties, and events…I’m in charge of outreach and marketing. I lead presentations to sign new accounts.”
“You must be good at what you do.” This woman has no issue taking charge—and for once, that gets me even more stirred up.
“It comes naturally to me, I guess. Maybe because I grew up on a ranch, so I get the cowboy mentality.” She sucks in a breath as her sky-blue eyes find mine. “I’ve never dated an athlete, though. Or a cowboy. I’ve only ever dated corporate guys before. Which is funny because my uncle is a sports agent. But I tend to tune out whenever he talks about his work.” She throws her head back again and laughs.
And I want her badly.
“So if you only date corporate types,” I say slowly, “that means you normally date people like yourself?”
“Yes. Precisely.”
I reach out my hand. “I guess we’re opposites then.”
As my hand covers hers, the current I felt between us when we touched at the bar is about a thousand times stronger. She feels it, too. I can tell because she noticeably shivers. Her eyes darken, and she flips her hand palm up so we can link our fingers together.
“Opposites, huh?” She swallows noticeably. “That could be interesting.”
My dick hardens inside my jeans, and I shift in my chair. “You’re beautiful,” I say to her, surprised at the stark honesty in my voice.
“Thank you.”
“What’s your name?” I ask her suddenly, unable to stop myself from wanting to learn more about her.
“Mia.”
“I’m Declan.”
She smiles at me. “Nice to meet you, Declan.”
“Same here.”
And then she shocks the hell out of me when she says in nearly a whisper…
“Do you want to get out of here?”
I throw some bills down on the table. “Absolutely.”
Chapter Six
Declan
I don’t bring women back to my place, but this feels different somehow.
I drive us through the bar parking lot as Mia directs me to where her motorcycle is parked.
“I love riding a bike. I’m not supposed to with my contract, though.” One of the many things I’m looking forward to doing when I retire.
“I love it, too,” Mia says with feeling. “After I stopped horseback riding, I needed an outlet. My best friend and I were bored one weekend, and we ended up at a vintage motorcycle fair. I decided then and there that my first big purchase would be a bike.”
“Was it everything you thought it would be?” I ask her.
Her voice drops. “Somewhat,” she says cryptically. “You know…not everything heals the soul like you want it to.”
I give her a second look, but she doesn’t say anything more.
I hop out, and together we roll her motorcycle up onto the back of my truck using some planks lying in the rear bed. And then, we drive through the quiet streets until we reach the outskirts of Wilcox.
“I thought of moving to this town,” Mia says as we pull through the back gates of Wild Ranch.
The sign to the ranch is only at the front gate, and Mia doesn’t ask me anything. I’m still trying to figure out how to tell her who I am, and I’m wondering if she’d even recognize my full name. She certainly wasn’t impressed much by the fact that I’m an athlete. She didn’t even ask me what sport I play. And I found that so refreshing that I didn’t say more. As much as I love it, sometimes talking about hockey all the time gets tiring.
“It’s so close to Missoula. And it has beautiful views of the mountains,” she says.
“That’s one of the reasons why I love it,” I agree.
“God, this ranch is amazing,” she says as we roll through the long tree-lined drive and past the main house. “I miss living on one. I loved having all that land, especially riding my horse every day.”
“Do you still have your horse?” I ask curiously.
“She’s retired from riding, but she’s still in the family.” She sounds wistful when she adds, “My aunt and uncle live on the ranch now. They have someone do most of the work, though. What about you? Is this ranch yours?”
“No, my cousins run it,” I say. “Their parents ran it before them, and now that they’ve retired and are traveling a lot, it’s been passed
down to their three sons.”
“So you have three cousins?”
I chuckle. “I’ve got a lot more than that. In this family alone, there’s another son and a daughter, but they live elsewhere in town. My dad had five brothers, and all of them had kids. Not all are here in Montana, but most at least come to visit.”
“You’re not from here, though, are you? Your accent sounds Southern.”
“I grew up in Louisiana, but I spent time in the summers in Montana. Between this ranch and my other uncle and aunt’s home, the whole town was like a second home to me.”
I pull up outside my log cabin and kill the engine. Then, I take Mia’s bike off my truck. I walk it up next to the cabin and drop the kickstand.
As soon as we step inside, I lift Mia up by the hips. She wraps her legs around me, her skirt riding up to her waist.
I groan and rock into her as I flick the lights.
Despite living on a private ranch, I can’t have too much security. I turn off the security alarm I had specially put in when I moved here from Denver.
As I swing her around and step further into the cabin, I tease her mouth with mine. I’m not quite kissing her, not quite tasting her.
“You’re gorgeous,” I say into her lips.
She surprises me by circling her arms around me in a fierce hug. “So are you.”
And she still doesn’t know who I am. As we reach the living room, I let her down to the floor, already feeling the absence of her warm body as she steps forward and looks around.
“How long have you lived here?” Mia asks as I take her coat.
“A year and a half.” When my contract was up in Denver, I just wanted to go home, and Montana was willing to sign me whereas New Orleans wasn’t. I was going to retire a couple of years ago, but I realized I wasn’t quite ready. So, I signed on with the Kings for a new adventure.
But I don’t tell Mia any of that. I’m enjoying the feeling of her being with me just for me far too much to bring up anything about my career.
“I adore log cabins,” she says. “And this one’s so homey.”
She’s wandering around my living room, peering out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the open fields just visible by the moon.
Declan (Wild Men Book 8) Page 3