“Welcome to Cedar Ridge, where everything is creepy if you think about it too hard.”
As she drives away, I think about how everything’s getting more complicated by the day—the water rights disaster, the secret romances multiplying like rabbits, our whole situation with her and my brothers. But somehow, with Callie grinning about playing detective and Rita probably planning her next crime spree, it all feels like it’s going to work out.
Or spectacularly explode in a way that becomes Cedar Ridge legend.
Either way, we’ll face it together. And probably get banned from something else in the process.
13
Callie
Friday nightat Rowdy’s Honky-Tonk is always packed, but tonight it’s shoulder-to-shoulder, can’t-hear-yourself-think packed. The band’s playing something loud and twangy, the dance floor’s full of couples two-stepping with varying degrees of skill, and I’m nursing a beer at the bar, trying to remember why I thought coming here would help me clear my head.
“You look like someone stole your puppy,” the bartender says, sliding me a water.
“Hey Kit,” I say, taking a gulp. “I don’t have a puppy. I have a goat who thinks she’s a demolition expert.”
“Same emotional impact though, right?” she asks.
“Rita’s never been emotionally supportive. She’s emotionally draining. There’s a difference.”
Kit studies me. “This is about those McCoy boys, isn’t it?”
Damn her.
“What makes you think that?” I ask, summoning all the perkiness I can.
“Well, the fact that you keep looking at the door every time it opens, you’re on your third beer, and you have that expression people get when they’re trying to convince themselves they haven’t made a mess of their lives.”
“I’m not?—”
The door opens. I look. It’s not them.
“See?” Kit says.
“I’m just people-watching.”
“You’re McCoy-watching. There’s a difference.”
Before I can argue, the door opens again and this time itisthem, and while I adore Kit, I also hate her for being right. The guys, looking good in that unfair way they have, fit in perfectly. Jesse sees me first and his face lights up. I look away.
They take a table across the room, but I can feel them looking at me. Feel the weight of their attention like a physical weight. I stare at the bubbles in my beer, wishing I could disappear into them.
“Go talk to them,” Kit says, gesturing with her chin.
“I think I need some space.”
“Oh? And how’s that working out for you?”
“Great. Fantastic. I’m thriving.”
“You’re miserable. You should see yourself.”
She’s not wrong, but I’m not ready to admit that.
That’s when I see her. Tall, blonde, legs for days, wearing a dress that’s basically a suggestion. Jesse’s ex, Madison. The one who cheated on him with a bull riderfrom out of state but somehow convinced half the town it was Jesse’s fault they broke up.
She heads straight for the brothers’ table, clearly on a mission.
