One Wild Night

by Melissa Cutler

  Oh, It’s big

  And it’s long

  That list you made of all my many wrongs.

  Oh, it’s thick

  And it’s strong

  That relief that I’m feeling now that you’re done gone.

  And it’s hard, so hard, for you, I know

  But, babe you’re never gonna find another man who’s so well hung as me.

  Oh, you’re never gonna find another man,

  Who’s as damn well hung as me.

  After the second verse, the guitarist launched into an extended solo, as was their usual practice when performing it live, to give Gentry time to interact with the crowd. Except this time, he thought, fuck it. Time to ride the bull.

  He set his guitar aside and leapt off the stage into the crowd with his microphone in hand. The people parted, catching on that he was headed to the mechanical bull at the back of the room. Up close, Johnson the Bull looked far less intimidating. Its mangy hide was fraying at the edges, and it bore scuffs on its sides from countless boot heels. But if the crowd in the bar cared about its phoniness, they didn’t show it.

  Not the mechanical bull, nor Gentry.

  He sang the final verse and coda of “Well Hung” while straddling the bull, then let the band rip into another extended instrumental solo while he nodded to the bar employee waiting for his signal to start it bucking.

  With the microphone in his raised right hand and his left hand holding fast to the bull’s leather straps, he managed to hold on for the whole eight seconds of jerky motion, much to the delight of the onlookers. He fell from the bull to the mats with as much style as he could, though his back had started to spasm. Looked like his mechanical bull riding days were done. Oh darn.

  On his way back to the stage, someone stuffed a Texas state flag in his hand. With a wink, he handed it off a few steps later to the very same blonde who’d gotten tossed off Johnson before the show. Once upon a time, she’d been exactly his type. But his blood hadn’t boiled for any woman in quite some time, not since his last girlfriend, Cheyenne, had dumped him very publicly the year before. Still, he faked a sizzling moment of connection with the blonde, capped with a kiss to the back of her hand, then jogged to the stage.

  For his last number, he located the bride-to-be in the audience. He wasn’t known for his slow songs, but he did have in his arsenal a dirty little ballad about a couple on their wedding night called Garter Belt.

  Natalie Blevins and her fiancé, Toby, made their way through the crowd from their seat of honor on a raised seating section in the back. Gentry had watched Natalie grow up from afar, mostly through photographs on Neil’s desk and the tales he told of her. Gentry knew absolutely nothing about Toby Weissman, but he seemed nice enough, though way too spineless to handle having Neil Blevins as a father-in-law.

  Both kids looked way too young to get married, but that was probably only because Gentry was no spring chicken himself, as his back twinges during the bull riding had reminded him. They were probably in their early twenties, which was the age Gentry had been when he’d gotten married—and gotten divorced, for that matter—so he wasn’t in any position to judge. But, damn, did their youth make him feel every one of his thirty-six years.

  Natalie and Toby mounted the stage stairs tentatively, clearly uncomfortable in the spotlight, which was odd given that there were five hundred guests expected at their wedding the next night. It made Gentry wonder how much say Natalie had gotten for her own wedding or if she and her intended groom were as much puppets in Neil Blevins’ country-music empire as Gentry was.

  Two chairs appeared from somewhere, probably thanks to a bar employee, and Gentry directed the couple to sit while he serenaded them. It was fun to watch both the bride and the groom’s cheeks go bright red with every bawdy lyric. The crowd ate it up.

  As the song ended, and with the audience cheering and the band playing an extended coda, Gentry hugged Natalie and presented her to the crowd for applause. He then peeled off his aviator glasses and stuffed them onto Toby’s face. To top it off, he gave the young man his brass knuckles, which looked absolutely ridiculous on Toby’s slim, pale fingers. As a final touch, Gentry held both couple’s arms up like they were champion boxers and he was the ref, much to the crowd’s delight.

  Then Gentry beat it the hell off the stage, leaving the happy couple in the spotlight to the great delight of their family and friends—and leaving him to shed the remains of his stage persona and take his first deep breath in hours.

  Larry handed him a cold water bottle the minute he stepped backstage. “I’d call that a grand slam, all right. The bull was a great touch.”

  “Glad you enjoyed it because I think that was my last time on a mechanical bull. I’m lucky I didn’t throw my back out. That Johnson’s kind of an asshole.”

  “Most Johnsons are,” Nick tossed out.

  True enough. Before he could say as much, a bright-eyed young man got in his space, smiling up at him. “Gentry Wells! This is awesome. I don’t care what they said about your last album. You still got it.”

  Gentry used to be caught off-guard by backhanded compliments like that, but no longer. “It’s all good,” he said instead. Easy-go-lucky, that was him. Not a care in his badass country music world.

  “You’ll always be one of the great ones,” the guy tossed out as he handed Gentry a magazine for him to autograph.

  Shee-it. Gentry ought to just stamp Has Been on his forehead.

  “I’m still bummed that you and Cheyanne split up,” the guy continued. “She’s so hot.”

  “Well aren’t you just a bag of sunshine,” Gentry said as he signed the magazine and handed it back.

  Cheyanne, the sweet and sexy lead singer in an up-and-coming country band, had been his latest in a long stream of short-term monogamous relationships since his divorce more than a decade earlier. He and Cheyanne had made headlines as a country-music power couple, which had been great for both their careers in the short term, but even that hadn’t been enough to keep him from getting bored and checking out, until Cheyanne had finally had enough of his neglect.

  Striving to make lemonade out of lemons, he’d turned the experience into an epic breakup anthem that turned out to be not-so epic, if the sales figures and lack of airplay were any indication. How ironic that he hadn’t been able to turn a country album about heartbreak into a hit, a hard truth that had him feeling more like a fraud than ever. At least he’d had one positive decision come out of all of that. He finally realized that healthy long-term relationships weren’t in his nature and it was time to stop pretending that they were.

  So he was done with monogamy, done with pretending to be the kind of man who stayed. Ironic, that. “Beer O’Clock” might be his biggest hit, but it was also the furthest from the truth. And his most honest single, “Born to Leave,” had been his least successful. Well, his second-most-honest single after “Well Hung.” A man’s got to tell the truth sometimes.

  Larry shooed the stagehand away, then dropped a pint of beer in Gentry’s hands. Another prop drink for his grand exit. “Don’t listen to them. You can’t win ’em all.”

  “They’re right,” Gentry said, staring at the foam. “Look at me, playing a wedding rehearsal dinner. Guess this was a glimpse of my future, coming full circle. Rise and fall of a country music giant.”

  Nick rubbed his thumb and index finger together in the universal symbol of the world’s smallest violin. “Boo Fuckin’ Hoo.”

  Larry brushed imaginary lint off Gentry’s shoulder. “Nick’s right. You’ve got to stop talking like that. Everybody knows there’s no crying in—”

  Nick speared a finger at Larry. “Don’t say it. Don’t you dare.”

  But it was too late. Gentry’s funk had been lifted, and he was smiling despite himself. Larry and Nick were always good about bringing him back down to earth when he got lost to his anxieties.

  “You wanna hang around and watch the other acts with me?” Nick asked. “Plenty of tail to cat
ch. I saw you winking at that blonde. Weddings do have their perks. All these bridesmaids and women who are in the mood for romance. I definitely plan to capitalize on that all weekend long.”

  That was one thing about Gentry’s girlie underpants—they kept him celibate, his mind on his music and nothing else because there was no way in hell he’d strip down in front of a hot little number while wearing those. Gentry slapped Nick on the back and handed the untouched beer to him. “If they’re looking for romance, then I don’t know why they’d mess with me.”

  To Gentry’s trained musical ear, there was a country song in that “chasing tail” phrase—something about catching lizard tails as a boy to growing up and catching tail in the clubs as a man. Now that he’d committed to Neil Blevins that he’d write his own music for the next album, he owed it to himself to sit down and get the lyrics on paper. Just what he needed, another oversexed, innuendo-laden song to add to his portfolio. But if it kept his star burning and kept his producers and fans happy, then what did he care?

  Man, oh, man, was he jaded.

  “Think I’ll get some fresh air.” He’d never spent much time in hill country, but what he’d seen since his arrival at Briscoe Ranch Resort, he liked. Maybe he’d rent out the villa the resort had put him up in for the rest of the spring. God knows his empty ranch didn’t do a thing for his sanity. “Catch you two tomorrow. And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  “Jeez, don’t wish that on me. You’re damn boring these days,” Nick called out after him.

  With a chuckle, Gentry set out across the darkened resort grounds in the direction of the equestrian center. With any luck, he’d find it unlocked because there was nothing like looking a horse in the eye to get a man right with himself again—and maybe come up with another hit song in the process.

  * * *

  Skye took a sharp corner at a speed that would’ve been way too fast for someone who hadn’t been driving the same winding, two-lane country roads of Dulcet all her life. The speed got her heart racing a little, which was pleasant enough, but it was hardly the cure she needed, given the date from hell she’d just escaped from.

  And by hell, she meant the most boring hour and a half of her life, spent at a barbecue joint in Fredericksburg listening to her date drone on and on about his car repair garage. He’d talked so much that he’d barely had time to eat before his food got cold. Skye had counted the drops of condensation that had slipped down the brown bottle of his beer to pool on the gray Formica table, only losing count when he decided he’d done enough talking and it was time to put the moves on Skye.

  With a kiss to her hand, he declared, “I’ve never felt this way so instantaneously about a woman before. I’m spellbound with you, and I think you and I are going to have a real future together.”

  That was enough of that. She’d slid off her stool and grabbed her purse. One flippant excuse and five long strides had her out the door and on the way to her car.

  It was her third date that week alone and the tenth new guy she’d gone out with since she’d agreed to that damnable spell her mom had conjured. She should be more grateful for the sudden influx of eligible bachelors in her life, shouldn’t she? But she’d never felt so suffocated before.

  Around the next turn in the road, she spotted a man standing next to a broken-down truck on the side of the road who was trying to flag her down. He looked like his engine had overheated. He was handsome and rugged—and would probably want to marry her within moments of her stepping out of the car, if the last few weeks had taught her anything. But even if she wasn’t already fed up with the male gender that night, Skye didn’t make a habit of pulling over to help strange men after dark when she was driving alone.

  “Not tonight, buddy. Sorry.” Hopefully someone else would be along soon to give him a hand.

  She tapped the radio’s power button. “Halleluiah!” blared the speakers, mid-chorus of what was apparently her new theme song, “It’s Raining Men.”

  She growled out her frustration as she smacked the power button hard. The coin in her bra dug into her skin. True to the song, her world had been raining men since her mom conjured the spell. But Skye was beginning to believe the adage “Be careful what you wish for” because, though every man she met fit her parameters—local, good looking, kind, and ready to settle down—none of them were quite right. Not one of them inspired her to want to take a chance on forever—or even a second date.

  Skye was in no mood to go home and deal with her sister, Gloria’s, hunger for every juicy detail about her love life. Normally, Skye didn’t mind that Gloria had taken to living vicariously through her since her husband, Ruben, had died in combat three years earlier. It had to be tough being a working single mom, especially with her two rambunctious kids, which is why Skye had invited Gloria and her two kids to move in with her after Ruben’s death. Normally, Skye loved living with them, but she just didn’t have the patience to sit and detail her evening to Gloria every single time she went on a lousy date. What Skye needed was a thrill, a fix. Something wild and just for her. What she needed was a late-night trail ride.

  Smiling, her nerves instantly less agitated, she started planning the route that she and Vixen, the horse she regularly borrowed from James Decker, the owner of Briscoe Ranch’s equestrian center, would take that night. Out in the field on her favorite trail, there would be no way any men would surprise her. She could be alone with the wind and the night and her need for speed. At the fork in the road that led north to her neighborhood or west to Briscoe Ranch Resort, she lingered at the stop sign while she texted Decker to let him know her plan.

  Moments later, he replied. I’ll unlock the stable for you. Have fun.

  Suddenly, the night air felt electric. The leaves of the oaks she passed shimmered a crisp, deep green in her headlights, and the moon shone in stark brightness against the fathomless sky as she drove west to the resort. But mostly, the thrill came from realizing that there were no more bewitched men waiting to woo her around every bend in the road or certainly none on the well-trodden trail through the canyon to the south of the resort. Just her, Vixen, and Mother Nature.

  She turned on the radio again. This time, it was playing “Proud Mary.” Skye cranked it up, rolled down her window, and sang along all the way to the stable. In the parking lot, she’d only taken a few steps when she heard her name. Thinking it might be Decker, she turned. Her heart sank. So much for her man-free evening.

  “Oh, Enrique. This is … a surprise.” She and the resort’s new masseuse had gone on two dates, on the first of which he’d revealed to her that he was writing his great American novel in his spare time and on the second of which he’d spent half their time together reading excerpts aloud to her.

  “The stars drew me here to you tonight, my lady.”

  She closed her eyes. “I am not your lady.”

  He brushed his fingers over the tips of her hair. “So modest. Like a flower waiting to bloom.”

  Okay, that was one word that should never be used to describe her, which highlighted how screwed-up this spell was. The men it had brought her weren’t falling for her because of who she was or what she brought to the table. They barely registered anything real about her. She jerked her head away. “I have to go.”

  “As you wish,” he murmured.

  She took a step, then whirled around, her finger spearing through the air. “Don’t follow me.” She wasn’t usually so harsh, but her nerves were frayed.

  She stomped the rest of the way to the stable, taking her irritation out on the dust and gravel path. On the way, she reached into her bra and took out the blessed—no, cursed—coin. She was so over this little experiment. On the other hand, maybe the spell really had worked. She certainly didn’t need a man in her life anymore.

  The first thing she noticed when she rounded the corner to the stable was that the light was streaming through the cracks of the wood. That was sweet of Decker to leave the lights on for her. But the moment she pushed the
door open, she bit out a “Oh, hell no.”

  In the middle of the aisle stood a tall, strapping man. He was holding a broom, and it looked like she’d caught him mucking out a stall.

  Not another one. She couldn’t get away from them.

  It didn’t matter that this one was the best-looking man yet who’d been sent her way. He wore a backward ball cap over dark blond hair just a shade too long to be respectable, a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off to reveal several expansive tattoos and that had been tucked haphazardly into a pair of low slung, distressed jeans that fit him just right in all the places and ended with dusty brown cowboy boots.

  He noticed her right away and, for a beat, they stood and looked at each other. She watched his blue eyes rake over her. “Didn’t mean to trespass, but the door was open and I couldn’t help myself. You a hotel guest too?” He chewed each word with a sexy growl of a drawl. Behind a dusting of stubble, his chiseled jaw tightening with approval of what he saw in his assessment of her.

  Nice try.

  She’d seen that look before. Way too often lately. “No. But I came here to be alone.” Before the spell had been cast, she would have never been so affronting, but the barrage of men had frayed her politeness. She now found it impossible to demur.

  With smiling eyes, he leaned against the broom handle. “I suppose we’re at an impasse ’cause so did I. But, uh…” His gaze turned languid as he perused her body again. “I’m pretty sure there’s room in here for both of us.”

  The drawl didn’t sound Texan, if she had to guess. “So you’re a guest at the resort?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  That yes, ma’am was like a lasso around her hips, urging her toward him a step at a time. Was it possible that he wasn’t a local, which meant he hadn’t been summoned by the spell? “You’re not from around here.”

  He shook his head. “Oklahoma. I’m in town for a wedding this weekend.”

  Hope and interest surged through her. “Random question: are you Catholic?” Not that Skye cared, but thanks to her mom’s interjection while they were casting the spell, every prospective date she’d encountered since that night had been.