by Maisey Yates
So maybe he would give that a pass.
He was momentarily distracted by the arrival of Pansy and her fiancé.
They sat down at the table and Pansy launched into a story about how West’s half brother Emmett, who lived with them at their house, had gotten into an epic scrape with a bull on the Dalton family ranch. Hank Dalton was West’s father. Not his half brother Emmett’s father. But he had other half siblings through Hank. It was all pretty complicated, and a whole lot of mess as far as Ryder was concerned.
Logan and West tipped their hats in greeting to each other at the same time, and not for the first time it occurred to Ryder that the two of them shared more than a passing similarity.
And given who West’s father was, and given the fact Logan didn’t know his...it was enough to make a man wonder. If he were the kind that wondered about things like that.
“And how are you?” Pansy asked, tapping him on the forearm.
“Good,” he said.
Pansy had always been independent. She was a lot like him. And it felt good to be in her presence. Because half the time he felt like they were the only two people in the room who could fully understand each other without the use of words. Well, Sammy understood him. But that didn’t mean that she agreed.
The same things that resonated in him resonated in Pansy. And that was a gift he didn’t take for granted. He figured it was a piece of their dad that they carried around inside them.
“You neck deep in wedding plans yet?”
“Actually,” she said. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about. West and I would like to get married at Christmas. At Hope Springs. It means a lot to me. I want to get married in the old barn, and decorate it with some of Mom’s old Christmas decorations.”
“I like that idea,” he said.
“I was hoping you would. It’s important to both of us. West is learning a lot about family. I think it means a lot to him to have the wedding at a place that’s so meaningful to me.”
“Well,” he said, suddenly feeling a bit tight in the chest. “That’s...great.”
“I know you’re deeply uncertain about me marrying him.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I just can’t believe you’re getting married. That you’re the police chief. That you’re grown-up, and not just grown-up, but grown up well.”
“Because you didn’t think I could?”
“Because I didn’t think I could pull it off.”
“You don’t get all the credit,” she said, but her smile was good-natured.
“I get some of it,” he said.
“Sure,” she said.
Suddenly, the family conversation was broken up by someone approaching the table. “Hey, Sammy,” the intruder said.
Ryder recognized him as one of the guys that Sammy had been dancing with the last time they were all here.
“Care to dance?”
“Not right now,” she said.
“Come on,” the guy said in a cajoling tone that made Ryder want to rip his voice box out straight through his throat.
“I’d rather not,” Sammy repeated, her voice firm.
“I think you just need a little convincing.”
“I very much don’t,” Sammy responded, her eyes going icy and glittery.
The guy leaned in, like he was about to say something again, and Ryder stood up. “She said she’d rather not,” he said, feeling the bubble of murder start simmering in his blood.
“She can speak for herself,” the guy said.
This guy. He hated this guy. This guy that Sammy always seemed to attract. Such a nice guy. Who wore slouchy beanies and pants that were too tight. Who acted like he read tiny little books full of poems written by dead guys and made a business of turning his compliments into knives, guaranteed to slice beneath the skin so sharp the target wasn’t even aware of it until they’d been slashed all over. Guys who acted enlightened and said all the right things but didn’t seem to follow any of it up with action.
“She can speak for herself,” Ryder said. “And as a matter of fact, she did speak for herself, and you didn’t listen.”
“We’re friends,” the guy said.
“I’m her friend,” Ryder said, taking a step toward him, barely stopping himself from reaching out and grabbing him by the shirt. “And I know all of her other friends. You are not among them. And if you would like to continue to be among your friends here in the bar and not thrown out on your ass, I suggest you turn around and walk away.”
“I was just asking her for a dance. I didn’t realize you were going to pull some kind of alpha caveman bullshit and act like you own her.”
“Well, your use of the word man in regard to me is correct, as I’m the only one standing here. You’re just a boy playing at being smooth. And that’s the kindest description I have of you. At worst you are a man. Which means you know what you’re doing. Twisting up somebody’s words and trying to point them back around at them. Smiling so nobody will call you out. Well, I will. And I did. Now, get the hell away from here.”
Everyone at the table looked stunned, but the guy turned around and walked back.
“Little bit of an overreaction,” Rose muttered.
“It wasn’t,” Ryder said.
“I told him to go away,” Sammy said. “He didn’t. So...”
“That’s ridiculous,” Rose said. “Why should Ryder have to step in and say something when you said it?”
“Because men like that only listen to other men. And they like to pretend that’s not what they are, and you saw him, trying to act like I’m some kind of problem because guys like him make it so I have to be.”
“It would’ve been funny to watch Sammy handle him,” Rose said. “Because she would’ve ended up kicking him in the balls.”
“It’s true,” Sammy said. “If I had to, I would have.”
“Excuse me,” Ryder said, getting up from the table and heading toward the bar.
Sammy intercepted him halfway. “That wasn’t really necessary, was it?”
“Don’t start with me.”
“What? You can’t go acting like that just because we...”
“I would’ve done that either way,” he said.
“No, you wouldn’t have. You were far more inclined to let me fight my own battles before you saw me naked. And maybe you don’t remember it accurately, but I do. The blood is all down in your penis. I, however, remain clearheaded.”
He snorted. “Do you?”
“Yes,” she said, but her voice wobbled on the word.
“Well, every time some asshole hassles you, that was what I always wanted to do and since I’m in a space of wish fulfillment, why not do that, too?”
“Wish fulfillment,” she repeated.
“I told you. I wanted you for a long time.”
“I know,” she said, hushed. “I just find it kind of hard to believe.”
“Well, believe it,” he said. “If Iris hadn’t walked in earlier... I would’ve had you naked in two minutes.”
Her face turned scarlet.
A smile made the corner of his mouth twitch. “Sammy. Are you blushing?”
“No. I don’t blush. There’s nothing to be ashamed about. Sexual appetites are healthy and normal. And I am sex positive. So there’s no embarrassment that resides within me. And any that I may have felt I rooted out when I confronted my feelings about the poorly named walk of shame.”
“You’re just human, Sammy. Shame is part of being human. Shame is what makes some things fun.”
“That can’t be true,” she said.
“Sure it is. A little bit of guilt amps up the heat.”
“I don’t... I don’t think that’s true.”
“Clearly you were not raised Catholic.”
“I wasn’t.”
His lips twitched. “You’re missing out.”
She made a strange huffing sound.
“What?” he asked.
“This is weird,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because we are talking. We always talk. And I’m distracted by the fact that I know how you look naked. And that I would like to... There’s not really a delicate way to say it.”
“Don’t say it delicate, then,” he ground out.
His whole chest was tight. His body primed for her. It didn’t take anything. A side-glance. The brush of her fingertips against him.
This.
She bit her lip. “It’s messed up.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. Because you’re my friend. You’re my friend before you’re anything else. And being so distracted by the fact that I want to climb you like the tree outside your window is a problem.”
“Not for me.”
“You’re a man.”
“That’s stupid. When has what we had together ever been based on something that simple? I’ve been a man the whole time. It was never that simple. It was never like that. And you know it. What happened between us isn’t about just a simple chemistry between a man and a woman.”
He didn’t know why he cared about that at all. He didn’t know why he felt the need to belabor the point. It was fine to let her think that it was just that simple. Why did he need to make her understand what he couldn’t?
He didn’t know. Only that he apparently did.
She looked over her shoulder, and then back at him. “They’re staring at us,” she said, indicating the table full of his family.
“They are not,” he said, directing his focus to them. Well, hell. They were.
When his eyes connected with Iris’s she lowered them quickly, going back to her beer and playing like she hadn’t just been staring. But she had been.
Which meant they really were giving off some kind of a weird energy, because he and Sammy talking to each other shouldn’t draw attention. Not from his family.
They were too used to them.
He was certain the whole town figured they slept with each other. Most people would never understand the kind of relationship that they had. Hell, at this point he didn’t understand it, either, but that was what happened with introducing sex into the mix.
It made less sense. Not more.
A funny thing, because he knew that a lot of people thought that men and women couldn’t have that kind of connection.
Now he was beginning to question it. Since theirs had exploded so brilliantly. “I’ve half a mind to drag you into that bathroom over there.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Carve our names on the wall.”
It was a well-known Gold Valley tradition that when people hooked up in the bathroom at the saloon they carved their names there as a memento of the occasion.
“They would know,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t feel shame.”
“I don’t,” she said. “But I am a little bit worried about what will happen with my place in your family if...”
“It’s fine,” he said. “Nothing is going to happen to that.”
She nodded slowly, her eyes full of skepticism.
“Hey,” he said. “One thing I know for sure in this life is that there are certain things you just don’t get through if you don’t have your family. And you are family, Sammy.”
“Not the same, though,” she said softly.
He couldn’t even figure out a way to argue with that, because obviously it wasn’t the same. If it was the same then he wouldn’t have been able to make love to her the way that he had. If it was the same, then he wouldn’t have spent the past seventeen years caught in a strange place that existed somewhere between desire and duty. Between his intention to be like a knight guarding a maiden, a man who would never take advantage of the woman who depended on him the way that she did. And his desire to have her. Hold her.
Lay her down on the bed and press himself inside her the way that he had done only the other night.
His desire now to let things go back to the way they were, and to absolutely cave the face in of that bastard who had come and hit on her. Like she didn’t belong to him.
He knew that was messed up. He didn’t much care.
That was the problem. He was somewhere out in the middle of a vast field where he couldn’t find a single give-a-damn. Not a one. And every bit of intent that he felt as far as not making a scene, doing what was right, all that—he couldn’t access it anymore. It was gone. Even looking over there at his family giving them far more than a cursory bit of attention... Yet, he found he just didn’t care like he should.
“Samantha,” he began. But she darted away toward the bar. And he followed, feeling a little bit irritated by her avoidance.
But when she turned to face him there was something slightly impish on her face, and he had to wonder if he was...being treated to Sammy’s version of flirting. Damn. He didn’t really know what to do with that.
“Two beers,” Sammy said.
Laz looked between the two of them. “Glad to see you worked it out.”
“Worked what out?” Ryder asked.
“Whatever it was the two of you were stewing about the other night.”
“Were we stewing?”
“She was,” Laz said, stepping away from the bar and going to grab what they had ordered.
“I might have maybe propositioned him slightly,” she said.
Ryder nearly growled. “You did?”
“We hadn’t done anything yet. And you were being possessive. And irritating me. And I was trying to prove that I didn’t need you to complete my objective. It didn’t work.”
“You’re a little witch, you know that?”
“Not the first time I’ve heard that.”
“What exactly are we doing here?” Ryder asked.
“Aren’t we just playing it by ear?”
Laz brought the beers back and Sammy took one, lifting it to her lips.
“I’ve got them,” Ryder said, handing the cash over to Laz and watching as Sammy brought the bottle of beer up to her lips again. The whole thing felt deliberately sexual.
“You don’t have to buy me a drink.”
“I think I do.”
“I’ll just go over there,” Laz said, excusing himself from the middle of them.
That didn’t really bother Ryder, either. If the other man read the sexual tension between them that was all the better for his purposes.
He found that he wasn’t all that invested in hiding what had happened between them at all. Because Sammy seemed to thrive as a sunbeam shining through the trees. A little bit winking around the shadows here and there, but not shining full out.
It left her the opportunity to be coy. To be a little bit ambiguous and naughty. And she enjoyed that. It was obvious enough to him.
He wasn’t going to allow it. Not caring who was watching her, what they might think, he reached out and stopped her beer bottle as it began to make the journey up to her mouth again. “Don’t look at me like that while you take a drink, Sammy, unless you plan to make good on that little promise later. If you want to use your lips and tongue on me, go right ahead and keep teasing. Otherwise...rethink.”
That earned him a shocked expression. And it was a hell of a thing to have managed to shock Sammy. But then, that was becoming more and more normal as he stepped outside the box that he had built for himself. As the two of them began to forge new territory. Where he was someone he didn’t recognize and sometimes she was someone he didn’t know, either. He didn’t know that he liked that part of it. Redrawing those boundaries and setting foot onto uneven ground. But it was part of it. And there was nothing that could be done about it. Not now.
He
r lips twitched. “Yes, sir.”
And that bratty little comment sent a lightning bolt of heat straight down to the part of him that craved her the most. His gut went tight, his blood running hot. “You think I’m safe,” he said. “Because you’ve only known me as your friend. Because I had myself on a leash every time I was ever around you. Because I decided a long time ago not to be this when I was with you. But you don’t know all of me, Samantha, so if I were you I would tread a little bit more carefully.”
“So many threats,” she said. “So many promises. And we’re still standing here.”
“Do you want to go?”
“Maybe we should.”
“Are you going to leave me again tonight?”
“Are you going to let me?”
He gritted his teeth. “I only let you because I couldn’t think straight. And yeah, that was me retreating. Not knowing how in the hell to handle what had just happened between us. I was being a coward.”
“I thought you told me to quit messing around with cowards.”
“Yep. And I’ll quit being one. You come to my bed tonight, you’re staying all night. Understand me?”
“Well, then I guess I know where I’m sleeping.”
She walked away from the bar and headed back toward the table.
She was intent on tormenting him tonight, and he wasn’t even all that mad about it.
No. Because she would be in his bed tonight. Something had changed. From the sugar cubes to this moment. And maybe it was just good old-fashioned temptation and neither of them were doing a very good job of turning away from it. But then, they didn’t want to. He didn’t want to. Why the hell should he? Really, why? There wasn’t a damn reason in all the world to deny what they wanted. So why should they?
Sure, she didn’t want to do the baby thing now, and that was probably for the best. Because he didn’t want to do the wife and child thing.
He didn’t.
But a chance to explore some of the heat between them? Yes. Now he knew one thing for sure. There was no halfway with him. And he knew that was going to take some doing for Sammy to accept. It made sense to him. A kind of sense, anyway. That they would keep each other in this regard the way that they had kept each other before. But this time, they would share a bed.