by Diane Leyne
“You.” His voice was deep and smooth and made her stomach flutter again like a little tiny butterfly was trapped inside, before she tamped it down, ruthlessly. She hadn’t given up on Owen yet. And if she were ever going to give up on Owen, it would be for a nice guy like Doc Adams, not this tall, dark, dangerous-looking man. Doc, with his kind green eyes and his sandy brown hair that always seemed to be in need of cutting, was the kind of guy who would be loving and loyal to the woman he gave his heart to. This dark-haired, grey-eyed stranger looked like a love ’em and leave ’em type. No, that wasn’t right. He looked like a fuck ’em and leave ’em type, but maybe that was just what she needed to move on from Owen.
He and Doc could not be more different. Doc was sweet and kind. This man was hard and sexy. He’d give her what she’d been missing these two years while she’d waited for Owen. She knew it. She could sense that he might even be a Dominant with a capital D. The Doms of Satisfaction all treated her like Micah’s innocent baby sister. If she went into the club, it seemed like almost all activity stopped until she left. She didn’t think he’d care that she was Micah’s sister. He wouldn’t care whose sister she was, not if he wanted her, really wanted her, which was hardly likely. He could have his pick of subs if he went into the club. Besides, she was waiting for Owen, she told herself. The two-year limit had two more weeks to run and she was going to see it out to the end, she insisted to herself.
Hell, it coincided with her two-year commitment to Micah, too. She had a lot of thinking to do in the next couple of weeks. He could run the place without her now, but did she want to leave? She wanted more time to paint, which she could do anywhere. She liked life in Satisfaction and had made a lot of good friends, but how could she even bear to stay in Satisfaction and see Owen every day?
But that was in the future. Right now, she had this super-sexy stranger to deal with. He was just flirting with the help, but he made her smile. She knew the type, though, and didn’t take him seriously. He probably flirted without even realizing he was doing it.
She started to answer, flustered despite herself as she had a sudden fantasy of throwing herself at him in response to his request, but he just laughed before she could say anything and added, “But if you aren’t on the menu, I’d love another draft and a cheeseburger with all the fixings. I’ve been smelling that one.” He indicated the next booth over where Doc was sitting. She was shocked to realize that his gaze was locked on her and he didn’t seem pleased about something.
“Sorry, cowboy. This place only serves booze and finger foods. They brought their own from Candy’s diner just down the street. She’s a great cook, but no liquor licence.” She checked the time. “It’s 7:15. If you like, I can call Candy and have her whip one up for you, if you hurry on down and pick it up. Your booth and your beer will be waiting when you get back.”
He grinned and her stomach fluttered like a whole flock of butterflies were trying to get out.
“I think I’m in love!” he declared before sliding out of the booth. Jules was so nervous that she forgot to step back and when he stood, they were so close she could feel the heat of his body. She looked up, way up. He was so tall and solidly built, with broad shoulders and long legs. She felt an almost overwhelming desire to reach out and touch his broad chest or maybe nuzzle the tuft of curly black hair peeking out of the neckline of his tight, white T-shirt. He placed his large hands on her waist and lifted her up, placing her gently to one side so he could exit.
Jules felt her heart pounding in her chest as he dipped his head and she knew, she just knew, he was going to kiss her. Without conscious thought, she closed her eyes and tilted her head. She felt his lips briefly touch her forehead and then he was gone, and she just knew her cheeks were a flaming red from her mistake.
She stood for a second while she got her breathing under control and then looked casually around. Trace Johanson was behind the bar and he gave her a smile and a wink. She couldn’t look at Blake. Thank goodness her brother and Owen weren’t around. It was Thursday night, and Micah wouldn’t be in until later and when he did come in, he’d probably spend most of his time in the private club in the back. And if Owen came in, he’d be hanging in the back with her brother.
Looking around, there weren’t many others there, and the ones who were were either glued to the television screens showing a college football game or in the side room playing pool. It would be okay. Before she forgot, she fished her cell phone out of her jeans pocket and called in the order for the stranger. Maybe he would eat there and leave town and she wouldn’t have to deal with the way he upset her equilibrium again. She was in love with Owen, damn it. She’d come home to Satisfaction determined to show him that she was more than Micah Durrance’s little sister.
* * * *
Blake Adams finished his burger and swallowed down the last of his beer. He’d love to spend the evening hanging out and flirting with Jules, but he knew she’d be working hard and barely have time to chat with him as the night wore on and the place got busier. Besides, he had another early morning coming up. He wiped his mouth and stood, leaving a few dollars for the beer, looking around for Jules, but she was behind the bar, serving a couple of cowboys who were laughing and flirting with her.
They all flirted with her and she flirted back good-naturedly. He knew that he didn’t need to be jealous. She was good at what she did. She made all the customers feel welcome. And if they made themselves a little too welcome, he knew she could take care of herself. He’d seen her knock more than one cowboy who was a little too free with his hands flat on his ass.
He couldn’t blame them for trying, though. She looked so cute, dressed up like a pocket-sized cowgirl, her cowboy shirt knotted below her breasts, her skin-tight jeans clinging to a rounded ass made just for a man’s hands to squeeze.
Walking through the swinging doors, he headed down the steps, his eyes going to the big, unfamiliar pickup. It was black, but so covered with dust that it looked almost grey.
He walked toward the Harley and saw the man standing in the shadows leaning against the truck.
“What took you so long, Deck? I was expecting you yesterday. You ready to clue me in on what the hell’s going on?”
Chapter 2
The sexy stranger had come back with his burger and had finished it along with another beer, and now he was in the side room playing pool with a couple of the regulars. Cara and Leah, the other two waitresses working that night, had started at eight, and they were jostling with each other for the chance to serve him while Jules was stuck behind the bar helping out Trace.
It was a Thursday night and the Whips and Spurs saloon was medium busy, not busy enough to have two full-time bartenders on duty, but enough so that Trace occasionally needed her to lend a hand.
The bar was located in Satisfaction Texas, just off the highway. Satisfaction wasn’t large, but it was only a few miles from Kinsdale, and on Friday and Saturday a lot of folks from there dropped by. They were ninety minutes outside of El Paso and a bit further from Austin and Dallas. They didn’t get too many from there, but there were enough folks within driving distance so that they were always busy, almost too busy, in fact.
They also got a regular flow of tourists as it was done up like a typical western saloon, with a hitching post outside and a water trough for horses, the swinging half doors used to enter the saloon. The barmaids, except for Jules, dressed like old-time saloon girls, straight out of an old John Wayne movie, which also appealed to the tourists. The bar was doing so well that it was getting far too crowded on the weekends. They were getting popular with the college crowd, too, as the students from the local agricultural college over in Kinsdale had taken to driving over to play pool and see if they could get in the private rooms in the back that they’d no doubt heard stories about.
She checked the clock. Micah still hadn’t arrived yet. She’d come home to Satisfaction two years ago when Micah had declared that he was going to restore the Whips and Spurs Saloon th
at had been in their family for years, but had been neglected after their grandfather had died. Their dad wasn’t interested in running a bar, but he was too sentimental to sell it, so he’d hired a manager who wasn’t very good at his job.
Micah had decided to bring it back to its former glory, but with a twist. He was going to make use of the big industrial space behind the bar to start a club, a BDSM club. Jules had had her doubts. Where would they get enough members? As it turned out, there was plenty of demand.
A bunch of his buddies were charter members, including Murphy Smith, who owned one of the big ranches just outside of town, Dace Lowe, the town sheriff, and a few others. Another dozen or so trusted friends and members acted as dungeon masters and an unofficial board of directors of the club. It wasn’t easy to become a member. It wasn’t even easy to become a guest. You needed someone to vouch for you and take responsibility for your behaviour while before you could visit even as a guest. From there, you could be offered a trial membership and were evaluated by the senior members. It took six months for a Dom to move onto permanent status, if they passed muster. A sub could move up quicker, but it still took at least three months, during which their sponsor was responsible for watching over them.
To the casual visitor, someone who just wanted a drink in a bar with a real western flavor, the bar looked authentic from the front, and sometimes people didn’t even note that it wasn’t a stand-alone establishment and was, in fact, set into the front of a big, anonymous, vaguely industrial-looking building with no windows that had its own entrance that seemed to be always locked. It also served to distract passersby from questioning why so many cars and trucks were parked beside an industrial building late at night on a weekend.
Jules looked around the bar at the red-faced tourists and tired farmers having a quiet drink while Alan Jackson played on the sound system. She nodded to Trace and took a walk around.
She drew the four draft beers her customers had ordered and carried them over to the table in the corner before heading to a booth with a couple of soft drinks.
Ellie Maine and Jess Archer were two of her best friends. Ellie was a full-time teacher and a part-time pool hustler. She was cute and petite with long dark hair and dark almond-shaped eyes that hinted at the heritage of her Korean grandmother.
Most locals refused to play her for cash anymore, but there was always a tourist or two who took one look at her and thought she was easy pickings. They generally learned their lesson the first time she ran the table.
Jess had stopped in on her way home from lunch in San Antonio with her brother and a meeting with her publisher that ran late.
“Ellie called as I was driving home from Kinsdale and we decided to stop by here and say hi to you, and maybe watch Ellie hustle another tourist.”
“Hey, they are the ones who want to play for cash and are convinced a school teacher can’t possibly play pool.”
“Do you tell them that one of the subjects you teach is geometry and calculating angles is your specialty?”
Ellie laughed. “Now why would I do that? But before I scope out my victim, I mean next opponent, I wanted to ask you something. Jess, I’ve heard a rumor that there’s an oil company scouting out the Double S.”
“Me, too!” All eyes swivelled toward Daily, one of the most popular waitresses at the Whips and Spurs. She slid into the forth seat of the booth.
“Seriously?” Jess looked surprised.
“Yeah. There were some guys in a bar near the airport in Kinsdale asking questions and apparently a small plane was seen flying low over the western edge of the ranch, near that swimming hole you love so much, Jules.”
“Tall, bald dude with shifty eyes and a guy who looks so much like a mob lawyer that he might have come straight from central casting.”
“Yup, same guys,” Ellie confirmed.
Jess frowned. “Nothing is ever a secret, is it? I know some oil outfit contacted Murphy a few months ago, but he sent them on their way. He said they were shady and had a reputation for being environmentally unsound in their practices. He basically tossed them out on their ear. It’s kind of alarming that they are still hanging around.”
“But wouldn’t it mean a lot of money? Ranching’s not exactly a secure business. Wouldn’t oil money help? There are other oil companies, reputable ones,” stated Cara.
“Yeah, but the decision doesn’t lie with Murphy. Jess only sold him the land, not the mineral rights.”
All eyes turned toward Jess, who nodded. “I didn’t want anyone putting up a strip mining operation or housing subdivision or something. I trust Murphy, but what about future generations? Or what if he someday decides to sell? Anyway, I’m pretty sure there’s no oil. There were a few surveys done years and years ago. Only one even said there was a very, very small possibility, but it wouldn’t be accessible without destroying the environment. Personally, I don’t think there’s any oil. It’s been twenty years and no one has approached my family since. Does anyone think Micah or I would be working our fingers to the bone to get Whips and Spurs up and running if there was oil?
“I’d say those guys were chasing a get-rich-quick scheme or doing some kind of swindle. Now, can we talk about something else?”
Her friends smiled. “That’s our Jules! Always practical,” declared Ellie before adding, “Next topic. Who is that hunk who is staring at Jules from the bar?”
Jules colored. She’d noticed that he’d left the pool room to get another beer from the bartender. She looked over and he was lounging against the counter chatting with Trace, but staring at her. She turned back to her friend and shrugged.
“I’d rather talk about Jess’s two hunks. What’s up with Murphy and Cole? Last month it was Murphy with his shoulder in a sling. Then last week it was Cole with a bandage on his arm. What are you doing to those two hunks? If you don’t want them anymore, I’m sure there are a lot of women in town, hell in the tri-county area, who would gladly take them off your hands.”
“I hope bad luck just comes in threes, Jules. First Murphy gets thrown while riding the property.”
“Thrown? Murphy?” Jules knew her tone was incredulous.
“Yeah, it was one of those crazy coincidences. The sound of a shot from a hunter in the area spooked his horse and when he was trying to get her under control, the cinch snapped. He was lucky that when she calmed down she came back for him, because he was a good ten miles from the ranch.”
“And Cole?”
“He was firing up the furnace to heat the iron and something broke. He was damned lucky that when he moved his workshop out to the ranch I insisted on putting in state-of-the-art fire suppression systems as well as fail-safes on the furnace. Otherwise, the whole place could have gone up.”
“Holy shit, Jess. What more could go wrong?” Ellie exclaimed. “Wait, you said trouble came in threes. What else happened?”
“This time it was the two of them. I told Murphy that his old Jeep was going to fall apart one day, and it did. It has to be twenty years old and it was inevitable that something happened, and it did while the two of them were scouting the north ridge. I can hardly bear to think about it. They were coming down that damned steep track that’s only fit for mountain goats and the brakes and power steering went. It’s only because of Murphy’s skill driving and the roll bar that they made it. Luckily his shoulder had healed so he could control the damned Jeep when the power steering broke. He’s back in a sling, though, and may have to have surgery.”
“Hell, Jess. That’s some string of bad luck,” Jules commiserated.
“Don’t I know it? But don’t think you are going to permanently distract us. Spill, girl. Who’s the hunk at the bar who looks like he wants to eat you up?”
Jules colored again, blushing a bright, glowing pink.
“He first came in yesterday. I have no idea who he is.”
“Yesterday? And you haven’t jumped his bones yet?”
“She hasn’t even tried,” accused Cara. “I’ve tried
, but he only has eyes for Jules. Well, I have to get back to work.” She jumped up. “If you don’t hurry up and test-drive him, Jules, there will soon be a line of women around the block more than happy to give him a ride, and I’ll be at the front of the line. I swear, Jules, it’s not fair. You’ve got Doc pining for you and now Mr. Sex on a Stick only has eyes for you. Leave some for the rest of us!”
She was gone before Jules could rebut both points. Doc was most certainly not pining for her, although, the stranger did seem to be watching her. She turned to Jess, who was looking at her watch with panicked eyes.
“Crap! It’s later than I thought. Murphy and Cole will redden my ass if I don’t get home soon.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing, but we all know that you’ve just been dawdling with us to tick them off.”
“Am I that transparent?”
“No. Just that much in love with your two Doms!”
That left Ellie and Jules.
“Time hustle some tourists!” declared Ellie before hugging Jules and heading to the pool room.
* * * *
Jules followed Ellie. Three of the four pool tables were occupied as were most, but not all, of the tables and booths. She realized that the stranger wasn’t in the bar anymore. He was leaning against the wall, sipping his beer and watching one of the women trying to take a shot. Jules watched, too, as the woman deliberately played up her lack of skill, clearly hoping the stranger would jump at the chance to teach her. Her hopeful gaze was on the stranger, but he just smiled and watched. Finally, clearly understanding she’d been rebuffed, she stopped faking and proceeded to play. She was good, but she wasn’t in Ellie’s class.
She looked around and saw that Ellie was chatting with some college boys over at table four, and one of them was racking the balls.
Jules smothered a laugh. Ellie played up her teacherness, if that was a word, with her studious-looking glasses and bun. Those boys were about to learn an expensive lesson.