“How about….” My throat goes dry. “How about we both dance with him? I…haven’t danced in a….”Not since Cade.
Bree tilts her head, eyes softening like she heard the words I couldn’t say.
“I’ll dance with you any day, Dr. K.” She hops off her stool, grabs my hand, then jerks her chin at Kaz. “Come on, hotshot, you can tag along.”
And somehow the three of us end up bopping like fools to Beyoncé’s “Texas Hold ’Em.”
We can’t line dance to save our lives, and that’s the fun of it. Bree laughs so hard she nearly trips. Kaz tries to look cool and fails miserably, and I…laugh.
For real.
It feels as if a cinch strap got loose, and I can breathe again.
CHAPTER 7
cade
Iwasn’t going to come to The Rusty Spur. I was going to stay home, enjoy the solitude while Evie was having a sleepover with her best friend.
But then Dodge called me from there, mentioned in passing that Sarah Kirk was dancin’ with Kaz, and I decided I needed some greasy onion rings and a beer.
It’s past nine when I get there, and the place is wall-to-wall noise. The band is hammering out an old Brooks & Dunn tune while boots stomp the dance floor in time.
I nod at Moxy, who smirks as she slams down shot glasses hard enough to scare off ghosts.
“Boss.” My foreman raises his beer to me.
“Dodge,” I murmur, feeling like a fucking moron for being here. I came because she was here, and I wanted to see her ‘cause how it went at the Dunns unsettled me.
I didn’t like who I was with her. Didn’t like how I talked to her. Sure, I hate her, but I’ve got no business seeking her out and then cussing her out for existing.
“She’sthere.’ Dodge jerks his head.
“She who?” I ask blandly.
I’m not looking for her.
The hell, I’m not.
Dodge gives me a long, unimpressed stare, and I, as surreptitiously as I can, look for her.
She’s at a table with some folks, laughing at something Kaz says, her head tipped back, hair catching the neon glow. Kaz leans in too fucking close, his easy grin flashing like he’s just claimed her attention for himself.
Something sharp tangles in me, burning, knotting hard.
He follows my line of sight and claps me on the shoulder. “You want a beer, boss?” he asks, his eyes on me, pointed.
“Sure,” I mumble, my jaw tight.
“You gotta start admitting some truths to yourself,” he advises.
My foreman is not just my employee, he’s also my friend.
Barney Holland earned the nickname “Dodge City” in his first week in Wildflower Canyon. He’d come up from Kansas looking for work. A bar brawl broke out at The Barrel & Bridle, and he single-handedly hauled three fighting cowboys outside before the sheriff arrived.
Someone joked it was like the O.K. Corral all over again, and the name stuck.
Now, six years later, Dodge is my right-hand man at Blue Rock Ranch. Calm in a crisis, loyal to a fault, and smart enough to know when to keep his mouth shut.
