He grimaces like he wasn’t the one that started the inappropriate conversation to begin with, grumbling under his breath as he walks back to his recliner with his beer in hand. I don’t botherpointing out that if he’d go back to work, we’d be able to afford more, too. It’ll just get me beat again.
Halfway through supper, my phone goes off and Dale’s on the line asking me if I can come in. He sounds sorry that he’s having to bother me on my night off, but I’m champing at the bit to get out of here anyway. Ten minutes later, I’ve finished my food, gotten dressed and said my goodbyes to Dad, not that he cared to hear them.
When I get to the bar and see Maddox at the Whittaker’s usual table with Jameson and Theo, it’s even more obvious he’s been avoiding me. He looks shocked as shit to see me walking through the front door, which I can only assume means he knew I was supposed to be off tonight. Probably the only reason he came out.
It’s fine. I don’t care.This is what men do, I remind myself as I fit myself behind the bar to relieve Angie. She looks like she’s about to hurl.
“Go home, Ang. You look like shit.”
She snorts. “Thanks, Aus. I can always count on you to keep me humble. Keep your eye on that one,” she warns, her finger down by her thigh as she points towards a man a few stools down so he can’t see. He’s staring at us with a look in his eye that I, along with every other woman in the world, know very well. I look up at the ceiling with a sigh.
“Incredible. How long’s he been here? Think I’ll be able to cut him off and send him on his way soon?”
She shakes her head with a sympathetic smile, pulling her purse out from under the bar and over her shoulder. “He’s been nursing that same beer the past two hours.”
“Fucking Christ.”
“I’m sorry. I told Dale not to bug you.”
I feel bad, realizing she thinks I’m irritated about having to come in on my day off. It’s actually that I’m just more sick of men than usual. Seeing Maddox here didn’t help.
A shrill whistle sounds through the bar and she flinches, eyesflitting over to me like she’s worried she’s about to witness something that’ll make her have to stay behind to give a statement to the police.
“You’re good, babe. I need the money. You’re doing me a favor,” I tell her with a small smile before heading toward Whistle McGee.
“Hey there, darlin’,” he tries immediately, a grin on his face that looks like he practices it in the mirror to make sure it’s as smarmy as possible. He probably has to practice that Southern drawl, too. It doesn’t sound real.
I smile wide back at him, putting my hands down on the edge of the bar and leaning forward to make very intentional eye contact with him. “If you ever whistle at me like I’m your fucking dog again, I’ll have you on your knees in the bathroom with your head shoved so far down the toilet you’ll be able to taste what was on the menu and shat out the day I was born.”
The grin doesn’t leave my face, but it sure leaves his, instead, contorting into an angry disbelief I know well. It doesn’t scare me.
He’s not my dad. This isn’t my house. This is my bar, and I’m in control here.
“Now that we’ve settled that, what can I do for you?”
NINETEEN
MADDOX
“He’s not listening,Jamie. He’s got his eyes on the bartender’s ass again.”
“I am,” I argue, tearing my eyes away from Austin to glare at my brother and Theo. “You were talking about Colt and that city girl he wouldn’t shut up about when you all were there last month. He really doesn’t need to be talking about that shit when Tate’s around.”
I look back at the bar. A seasonal ranch hand has been posted there all night, just being an overall menace. I didn’t like how he’d been treating the other bartender earlier, so I’d been keeping my eye on him since he got here. Now that it’s Austin his shittiness is directed at, I’ve got an even bigger issue with him.
“Tate wasn’t there. She’d walked away to go get food.” My head whips around, but before I can say anything, he’s rolling his eyes. “Tyler went with her. She’s a grown woman now, Maddox. You’ve gotta cut the cord.”
I’m about to tell him it’s not ridiculous for me to want to make sure my nineteen-year-old little sister, who’s as skinny as a goddamn beanpole, wasn’t gallivanting around on her own around a bunch of cowboys, but a movement from the corner ofmy eye draws my attention back to the bar. The man from earlier is standing on the bottom rungs of the stool, leaning over the top of the bar, and reaching for a handful of Austin’s ass while she’s tapping the keys of the old register.
I’m out of my seat immediately, but not quick enough to stop him from groping her. Before I can grab him by the throat and slam him down on the bar, Austin’s taking care of herself. She snatches her pocket knife from her shorts, flips it open, and holds it to his throat with one hand while gripping his hair with the other.
“I don’t know what the fuck gives you men the audacity to think you can just go around touching women just because you’ve got an extra bit of meat swinging between your legs, but I can cut it off for you if you think that’ll help you remember to keep your hands to yourself,” she tells him.
The whole bar is quiet besides the low music playing. The ranch hand is red in the face, embarrassed and angry. He wrenches himself free of her grasp, only to find himself in mine. “Which ranch are you working for, dumb fuck? Cattle Creek or the Cartwrights?”
“Maddie, stop it,” Jameson reprimands, coming up beside me.
“Nah, he needs to learn a fucking lesson, and I’m more than happy to be the one teaching it. I just need to find out who he’s working for first, so I can let them know why they lost one of their workers. I don’t know where you’re from, but we don’t put up with that shit in Cedar Creek.”
