But this is okay.
This will all be okay.
Soon.
Hopefully.
Maybe.
I sigh.
If not, at least the views are pretty.
Chapter 4
Flint
I’m feeling the effects of getting tossed off Parsnip this morning as I head into town for a meal at Iron Moose Tavern a few hours after we get the cow buried. Tonight’s a burger-and-a-beer night, then it’s home for a hot shower, painkillers, and bed before my crack of dawn alarm goes off.
But pulling me out of my bad mood is an email from one of my former students.
Kid graduated from college a couple of months back and has been working his dream job in New York City. Couldn’t be more excited for him. He was one of the first kids I took out to Tony’s ranch when he was having a rough patch with family shit and looked like he was on the way to dropping out of school.
Seeing him happy and in a good spot is a win.
I’m smiling as I walk into Iron Moose, glad to be feeling more like myself after a shitty day, but my mood doesn’t last long.
Why?
Because Maisey Spencer is holding court at my favorite table inside the converted log building.
If there’s anything Hell’s Bells loves more than fresh blood, it’s fresh blood that comes with a story. And we get it so rarely that this is clearly a treat for everyone gathered in here today.
But the worst part?
You’d think the worst part is knowing that all my fellow Hell’s Bells citizens have welcomed this woman like she didn’t miss Tony’s funeral when he was one of us. Like she’s not a disaster waiting to happen out here. Like they want a brush with fame so badly—even low-budget, barely hanging-on fame—that they’ll get excited over an inept home-improvement star.
If you can call her astar.
No, the worst part is that in those little milliseconds between hearing a throaty, sexy laugh when I walked in here and realizing who that laugh belonged to, every cell in my body lit up with undiluted, primal attraction.
And I can’t make it stop.
“No, no, tell me more,” she’s saying to Kory, owner of Almosta Ranch next door to Wit’s End and one of my best friends here in Hell’s Bells, as they sit together by the window, under the antler chandelier with the one light bulb that’s perpetually out.
Jesus.
First she moves into Tony’s ranch. Then she has the nerve to laugh like that. And now she’s at my table.
Mytable.
Leaning in and flirting with my best friend. “If there are tricks to being safe around the wildlife, Junie and I are all ears.”
“The moose are super nice,” Kory replies to a round of raucous laughter from the rest of the Hell’s Bells patrons who are gathered around. “Definitely try to pet them.”
He’s a six-foot-four Black man who took over Almosta Ranch a few years before I came back to Hell’s Bells. When he’s not wrangling cows, who are pretty self-sufficient half the year, he’s driving around Wyoming in his jacked up Ram to support his boyfriend, who’s one of the top drag performers in the state.
So I shouldn’t be bothered at all over the fact that she’s flirting with him.
