“You’re a peach, Kate,” Ace said.
The woman smiled broadly and wrapped her arm around Jack’s, leaning in and resting her cheek on his shoulder.
“Can we get a round?” Connor asked.
Ace continued to listen to their conversation as he served up their usual brew, enjoying the happy tenor of the conversation, since the downers would probably be around later to dish out woe while he served up harder liquor. The Garretts were good people, he mused. Always had been. Both before he’d left Copper Ridge, and since he’d come back.
His focus was momentarily pulled away when the pretty blonde who’d been hanging out in the dining room all evening drinking with friends approached the aforementioned Ferdinand.
He hadn’t had too many people ride the bull yet, and he had to admit, he was finding it a pretty damn enjoyable novelty.
The woman tossed her head, her tan cowboy hat staying in place while her blond curls went wild around her shoulders. She wrapped her hands around the harness on top of the mechanical creature and hoisted herself up. Her movements were unsteady, and he had a feeling, based on the amount of time the group had been here, and how often the men in the group had come and gone from the bar, that she was more than a little bit tipsy.
Best seat in the house. He always had the best seat in the house.
She glanced up as she situated herself and he got a good look at her face. There was a determined glint in her eyes, her brows locked together, her lips pursed into a tight circle. She wasn’t just tipsy, she was pissed. Looking down at the bull like it was her own personal Everest and she was determined to conquer it along with her rage. He wondered what a bedazzled little thing like her had to be angry about. A broken nail, maybe. A pair of shoes that she really wanted that was unavailable in her size.
She nodded once, her expression growing even more determined as she signaled the employee Ace had operating the controls tonight.
Ace moved nearer to the bar, planting his hands flat on the surface. “This probably won’t end well.”
The patrons at the bar turned their heads toward the scene. And he noticed Jack’s posture go rigid. “Is that—”
“Yes,” Kate said.
The mechanical bull pitched forward and the petite blonde sitting on top of it pitched right along with it. She managed to stay seated, but in Ace’s opinion that was a miracle. The bull went back again, and the woman straightened, arching her back and thrusting her breasts forward, her head tilted upward, the overhead lighting bathing her pretty face in a golden glow. And for a moment, just a moment, she looked like a graceful, dirty angel getting into the rhythm of the kind of riding Ace preferred above anything else.
Then the great automated beast pitched forward again and the little lady went over the top, down onto the mats underneath. There were howls from her so-called friends as they enjoyed her deposition just a little too much.
She stood on shaky legs and walked back over to the group, picking up a shot glass and tossing back another, her face twisted into an expression that suggested this was not typical behavior for her.
Kate frowned and got up from her stool, making her way over to the other woman.
Ace had a feeling he should know the woman’s name, had a feeling that he probably did somewhere in the back corner of his mind. He knew everyone. Which meant that he knew a lot about a lot of people, recognized nearly every face he passed on the street. He could usually place them with their most defining life moments, as those were the things that often spilled out on the bar top after a few shots too many.
But it didn’t mean he could put a name to every face. There were simply too many of them.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“Sierra West,” Jack said, something strange in his tone.
“Oh, right.”
He knew the West family well enough, or rather, he knew of them. Everyone did. Though they were hardly the type to frequent his establishment. Sierra did, which would explain why she was familiar, though they never made much in the way of conversation. She was the type who was always absorbed in her friends or her cell phone when she came to place her order. No deep confessionals from Sierra over drinks.
He’d always found it a little strange she patronized his bar when the rest of the West family didn’t.
Dive bars weren’t really their thing.
He imagined mechanical bulls probably weren’t, either. Judging not just on Sierra’s pedigree, but on the poor performance.
“No cotillions going on tonight, I guess,” Ace said.
Jack turned his head sharply, his expression dark. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
He didn’t know why, but his statement had clearly offended Monaghan. Ace wasn’t in the business of voicing his opinion. He was in the business of listening. Listening and serving. No one needed to know his take on a damn thing. They just wanted a sounding board to voice their own opinions and hear them echoed back.
Typically, he had no trouble with that. This had been a little slipup.
“She’s not so bad,” Jack said.
Sierra was a friend of Jack’s fiancée, that much was obvious. Kate was over there talking to her, expression concerned. Sierra still looked mutinous. Ace was starting to wonder if she was mad at the entire world, or if something in particular had set her off.
“I’m sure she isn’t.” He wasn’t sure of any such thing. In fact, if he knew one thing about the world and all the people in it, it was that there was a particular type who used their every advantage in life to take whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted it, regardless of promises made. Whether they were words whispered in the dark or vows spoken in front of whole crowds of loved ones.
He was a betting man. And he would lay odds that Sierra West was one of those people. She was the type. Rich, a big fish in the small pond of the community and beautiful. That combination pretty much guaranteed her whatever she wanted. And when the option for whatever you wanted was available, very few people resisted it.
Hell, why would you? There were a host of things he would change if he had infinite money and power.
But just because he figured he’d be in the same boat if he were rich and almighty didn’t mean he had to like it on others.
* * *
HE LOOKED BACK over at Kate, who patted her friend on the shoulder before shaking her head and walking back toward the group. “She didn’t want to come sit with us or anything,” Kate said, looking frustrated.
The Garrett-Monaghan crew lingered at the bar for another couple of hours before they were replaced by another set of customers. Sierra’s group thinned out a little bit, but didn’t disperse completely. A couple of the guys were starting to get rowdy, and Ace was starting to think he was going to have to play the part of his own bouncer tonight. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Fortunately, the noisier members of the group slowly trickled outside. He watched as Sierra got up and made her way back to the bathroom, leaving a couple of girls—one of whom he assumed was the designated driver—sitting at the table.
The tab was caught up, so he didn’t really care how it all went down. He wasn’t a babysitter, after all.
He turned, grabbed a rag out of the bucket beneath the counter and started to wipe it down. When he looked up again, the girls who had been sitting at the table were gone, and Sierra West was standing in the center of the room looking around like she was lost.
Then she glanced his way, and her eyes lit up like a sinner looking at salvation.
Wrong guess, honey.
She wandered over to the bar, her feet unsteady. “Did you see where my friends went?”
She had that look about her. Like a lost baby deer. All wide, dewy eyes and unsteady limbs. And damned if she wasn’t cute as hell.
“Out the door,” he said, almost feeling sorry for her. Almost.
She wasn’t the first pretty young drunk to get ditched in his bar by stupid friends. She was also exactly the kind of woman he avoided at all costs, no matter how cute or seemingly vulnerable she was.
“What?” She swayed slightly. “They weren’t supposed to leave me.”
She sounded mystified. Completely dumbfounded that anyone would ever leave her high and dry.
“I figured,” he said. “Here’s a tip—get better friends.”
She frowned. “They’re the best friends I have.”
He snorted. “That’s a sad story.”
She held up her hand, the broad gesture out of place coming from such a refined creature. “Just a second.”
“Sure.”
She turned away, heading toward the door and out to the parking lot.
He swore. He didn’t know if she had a car out there, but she was way too skunked to drive.
“Watch the place, Jenna,” he said to one of the waitresses, who nodded and assumed a rather important-looking position with her hands flat on the bar and a rag in her hand, as though she were ready to wipe crumbs away with serious authority.
He rounded the counter and followed the same path Sierra had just taken out into the parking lot. He looked around for a moment and didn’t see her. Then he looked down and there she was, sitting on the edge of the curb. “Everything okay?”
That was a stupid question; he already knew the answer.
She looked up. “No.”
He let out a long-drawn-out sigh. The problem was, he’d followed her out here. If he had just let her walk out the door, then nothing but the pine trees and the seagulls would have been responsible for her. But no, he’d had to follow. He’d been concerned about her driving. And now he would have to follow through on that concern.
“You don’t have a ride?”
She shook her head, looking miserable. “Everyone left me. Because they aren’t nice. You’re right. I do need better friends.”
“Yes,” he said, “you do. And let me go ahead and tell you right now, I won’t be one of them. But as long as you don’t live somewhere ridiculous like Portland, I can give you a ride home.”
And this, right here, was the curse of owning a bar. Whether he should or not, he felt responsible in these situations. She was compromised, it was late, and she was alone. He could not let her meander her way back home. Not when he could easily see that she got there safely.
“A ride?” She frowned, her delicate features lit dramatically by the security light hanging on the front of the bar.
“I know your daddy probably told you not to take rides from strangers, but trust me, I’m the safest bet around. Unless you want to call someone.” He checked his watch. “It’s inching close to last call. I’m betting not very many people are going to come out right now.”
She shook her head slowly. “Probably not.”
He sighed heavily, reaching into his pocket and wrapping his fingers around his keys. “All right, come on. Get in the truck.”
* * *
SIERRA LOOKED UP at her unlikely, bearded, plaid-clad savior. She knew who he was, of course. Ace Thompson was the owner of the bar, and she bought beer from him at least twice a month when she came out with her friends. They’d exchanged money and drinks across the counter more times than she could recall, but this was more words than she’d ever exchanged with him in her life.
She was angry at herself. For getting drunk. For going out with the biggest jerks in the local rodeo club. For getting on the back of a mechanical bull and opening herself up to their derision—because honestly, when you put your drunk self up on a fake, bucking animal, you pretty much deserved it. And most of all, for sitting down in the parking lot acting like she was going to cry just because she had been ditched by said jerky friends.
Oh, and being caught at what was most definitely an epic low made it all even worse. He’d almost certainly seen her inglorious dismount off the mechanical bull, then witnessed everyone leaving without her.
She’d been so sure today couldn’t get any worse.
She’d been wrong.
“I’m fine,” she said, and she could have bitten off her own tongue, because she wasn’t fine. As much as she wanted to pretend she didn’t need his help, she kind of did. Granted, she could call Colton or Madison. But if her sister had to drive all the way down to town from the family estate she would probably kill Sierra. And if she called Colton’s house his fiancée would probably kill Sierra.
Either way, that made for a dead Sierra.
She wasn’t speaking to her father. Which, really, was the root of today’s evil.
“Sure you are. Most girls who end up sitting on their behinds at 1:00 a.m. in a parking lot are just fine.”
She blinked, trying to bring his face into focus. He refused to be anything but a fuzzy blur. “I am.”
For some reason, her stubbornness was on full display, and most definitely outweighed her common sense. That was probably related to the alcohol. And to the fact that all of her restraint had been torn down hours ago. Sometime early this morning when she had screamed at her father and told him she never wanted to see him again, because she’d found out he was a liar. A cheater.
Right, so that was probably why she was feeling rebellious. Angry in general. But she probably shouldn’t direct it at the person who was offering a helping hand.
“Don’t make me ask you twice, Sierra. It’s going to make me get real grumpy, and I don’t think you’ll like that.” Ace shifted his stance, crossing his arms over his broad chest—she was pretty sure it was broad, either that or she was seeing double—and looked down at her.
She got to her wobbly feet, pitching slightly to the side before steadying herself. Her head was spinning, her stomach churning, and she was just mad. Because she felt like crap. Because she knew better than to drink like this, at least when she wasn’t in the privacy of her own home.
“Which truck?” she asked, rubbing her forehead.
He turned, not waiting for her, and began to walk across the parking lot. She followed as quickly as she could. Fortunately, the lot was mostly empty, so she didn’t have to watch much but the back of Ace as they made their way to the vehicle. It wasn’t a new, flashy truck. It was old, but it was in good condition. Better than most she’d seen at such an advanced age. But then, Ace wasn’t a rancher. He owned a bar, so it wasn’t like his truck saw all that much action.
She stood in front of the passenger-side door for a long moment before realizing he was not coming around to open it for her. Her face heated as she jerked open the door for herself and climbed up inside.
It had a bench seat. And she found herself clinging to the door, doing her best to keep the expansive seat between them as wide as possible. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that he was a very large man. Tall, broad, muscular. She’d known that, somewhere in the back of her mind. But the way he filled up the cab of a truck containing just the two of them was much more significant than the way he filled the space in a vast and crowded bar.
He started the engine, saying nothing as he put the truck in Reverse and began to pull out of the lot. She looked straight ahead, desperate to find something to say. The silence was oppressive, heavy around them. It made her feel twitchy, nervous. She always knew what to say. She was in command of every social situation she stepped into. People found her charming, and if they didn’t, they never said otherwise. Because she was Sierra West, and her family name carried with it the burden of mandatory respect from the people of Copper Ridge.
She took a deep breath, trying to ease the pressure in her chest, trying to remove the weight that was sitting there.
“What’s your sign?” Somehow, her fuzzy brain had retrieved that as a conversation starter. The momen
t the words left her mouth she wanted to stuff them back in and swallow them.
To her surprise, he laughed. “Caution.”
“What?”
“I’m a caution sign, baby. And it would be in your best interest to obey the warning...”
Don’t miss what happens when Sierra doesn’t heed his advice in ONE NIGHT CHARMER by USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates!
Copyright © 2016 Maisey Yates
ISBN-13: 9781488001659
A Bargain with the Boss
Copyright © 2016 by Barbara Dunlop
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