At the end of the bar, an old cowboy slaps his knee,his voice carrying over the rest. “The fuck is that cunt doin’ here?”
I freeze. He’s talking about me. I have no doubt. I glance at the man.
Jim Probst. Landon’s best friend. His family owns the Canyon Livestock Auction.
“Hey, Jim, who you talkin’ about, bud?” someone asks.
I look up, startled. A tall man stands right behind me in a pair of jeans, a button-down—the cowboy uniform. He has dark hair and a sardonic grin that doesn’t give away much.
Recognition hits. Kazimir Chase.
“Mind your own beeswax, Kaz,” Jim snaps. His buddies laugh.
“Asshole,” Aria mumbles. “Fastest mouth in three counties, and slick enough that half the ranchers don’t notice he’s always working an angle.”
I swallow. This is what I wanted to avoid. This is what I didn’t?—
“You know, Probst, there’s a saying about people in glass houses,” Kaz continues as he comes closer to me. Not crowding me, but just enough to let everyone know he’swithme.
I don’t understand it.
“What you runnin’ your mouth about, city boy?” Probst hauls himself up. He’s a big man—about a hundred pounds bigger than he needs to be. Next to Kaz, who’s all muscle and sharp edges, Jimmy Boy’s nothing but beer gut and bluster.
“Runnin’ my mouth?” Kaz’s grin is lazy as a cat in the sun. “Heck no, Probst. I’m talkin’ about how your wife filed for divorce not a month ago ‘cause she’s shacked up with her cousin.” He leans back easy, raising his voice toward the bar. “Mox, darlin’, line me up a shot of Wild Turkey, will ya?”
“Sure thing, Kaz,” Moxy calls, grinning wide. She’s enjoying the show.
“You keep my wife’s name outta your mouth.” Probst stomps forward, puffed up like a bull, trying to get in Kaz’s face.
“Oh, for the love of—” Joy throws up her hands. “We came here for a girls’ night, not some Goddamn cowboy drama.”
“Bitch—”
“You want to think real careful before you finish that sentence.” A tall cowboy I don’t know steps out of the crowd, one big hand landing heavy on Probst’s shoulder. His hat shades his eyes, but his presence is enough to pull the air out of the room. His voice is low, even, with just enough grit to scrape bone.
“You callin’ my sister names, Probst?” Maverick Kincaid seems to appear out of thin air.
What are all of them doing here? I didn’t even see them, and I freaking looked around for hostiles.
Aria sidles up to her fiancée. “He called Sarah the C word,” she tattles, eyes fluttering.
A spatter of laughter runs through the bar.
“Now, see, that wasn’t polite, was it?” Mav’s got hisarm around his fiancée, but his tone is menacing as hell. The hair on the back of my neck stands straight up.
Silence falls. No one even pretends not to look.
Probst takes a step back.
Mav runs one of the biggest ranches and farms in the canyon, and no one wants to tangle with him. Add in that he’s thick as thieves with Elena Wilder—whose husband’s ranch is not just the biggest in the canyon, but one of the biggest in the whole damn country—and suddenly Jim Probst doesn’t look half as loud as he did two minutes ago.
“I—” Probst stammers, then shakes his head like the words dried up. He jerks his chin toward his drinking buddies, but they’re already staring into their beers, shoulders hunched, silently saying, “We’re not with him.”
“Clear your bill, Probst, and get the fuck sobered up.” Moxy slaps a receipt on the counter.
Probst fumbles some crumpled bills onto the bar, then slinks out, the door banging shut behind him.
The live band starts up again, boots tapping back onto the dance floor like nothing happened.
