“I know that. Can’t even prep sani buckets, but I figure she can do paperwork and make phone calls just fine. That’s the majority of what running a bar consists of, at least during the transfer of ownership,” he says and I hate the small hope that starts to form.
He’s right. Shecoulddo paperwork and make phone calls. It may take her twice as long as usual, but she could even do it from my cabin. Austin always calls Quitter’sherbar and I’vealways thought it was a bit of an inside joke that I was missing, but what if Quitter’s really was hers? Would this be a reason to stay?
“I don’t know that I’m gonna be any more successful in getting her to take it over than you have been,” I admit. Especially considering the conversation she and I just had.
Dale waves that away. “Don’t care,” he says with a shrug, nodding toward the papers on the desk. “As soon as that’s signed, I’m making moves to go live with my daughter down in Florida. I can rest easy knowing I gave Quitter’s to someone I thought was gonna take care of it. Where it goes from here is something I won’t let myself wonder.”
It’s batshit crazy, but that doesn’t stop me from signing.
Just like that, I own a fucking bar. On top of a thousand-head cattle ranch.
Fuck.
“I’m not gonna run off again,” Austin says, huffing as she plops down on the couch with a wince. “Besides, I don’t have a truck anymore.”
I ignore her, tossing her bottle of pills toward her when I pass by them sitting on the counter. I’ve just pulled away from the fridge with a can of Cold Smoke when they come whizzing past my ear, bouncing off the fridge before clattering on the floor.
“Jesus Christ, woman.” I grab them and set them back on the counter, looking through the hollow part of the wall that separates the kitchen and the living room. Austin’s fuming on the couch and I know it’s really grinding her gears not to be able to cross her arms. “Did you play softball in high school?”
She rolls her eyes, but there’s a little twist to her lips that tellsme she’s pleased with how impressed I am. “Why was that kind of hot?”
“Hot enough to fuck me?” she asks, perking up a bit.
“Hot enough towantto fuck you for sure,” I agree, heading back into the living room. I bend down to kiss her hair. “Your ribs are broken, baby. Panting and crying out when I make you come all over my cock wouldn’t be good for them.”
“Arrogant bastard.”
I don’t argue with that, cracking open my beer and taking a sip before setting it down on the coffee table. I take a seat on the other end of the couch and pat my thigh. “I’ll give you a foot rub to make up for it.”
She pouts, contemplating it but then props her boot up in my lap. Dirt knocks off the bottom of it and I snort. “Sorry about that. It's hard to take off my boots at the door with just one arm.”
I tug it off and set it down on the floor by the couch, tossing her sock inside it a second later. “Easy to put them on to run away from me again though.”
“I wasn’t—” She cuts off with a moan that goes straight to my dick as my thumb presses into the arch of her foot. “I wasn’t runningfrom you,” she argues. “I was going to get my job back.”
I hum, focusing on massaging what I can reach of her calf now. It’s quiet, just the barely-there clanking of the ceiling fan’s chain sounding through the space. The TV remote is beside Austin but she doesn’t turn it on, which surprises me. She hates an uncomfortable silence.
“Can I ask you something? Your dad…” I start, half expecting her to wince or change the subject, but she doesn’t. When I look up at her, she’s eying me warily. “This wasn’t the first time something like this happened, was it?” I ask her quietly, looking back down at her foot because I know she won’t answer me if I’m watching her.
I almost give up on an answer in the time it takes her to compose one. “It’s the first time I’ve wound up in the hospital.”
That’s not what I asked, but I get it. He’d broken her ribsbefore—the doctor had damn-near plainly said so—but she hadn’t gone to the hospital. “It’s the first time it’s been this bad?” I ask her, looking up when she doesn’t answer right away again.
She nods reluctantly.
“When was the last time?” I ask her, and I’m starting to learn this is going to be a one-sided conversation unless I ask questions she can answer noncommittally, so I rephrase. “When you canceled all your shows?”
I’ve thought about it a lot. The new lingerie that covered her entire torso, the heavy makeup she’d worn to supper that Sunday, the hollowness of her eyes in the hallway when she asked me if I’d told anyone about her camming. It all added up.
She nods again, finally, and I let out a sigh, hands stilling on her feet. I have to turn my head to the side so she doesn’t see the tears welling up, because god fucking dammit, I’d known something was wrong and I’d taken Kenny’s advice to let it lie instead of pushing. Austin had ended up nearly dead because of it.
Her other foot hits my thigh, still in its boot, close enough to my cock that I’m jolted back into awareness as I flinch to cover myself. “Not your fault, Rancher. Quit that.”
“I should’ve paid closer attention,” I tell her, taking the other boot and sock off.
“Arrogant bastard,” she says again. “You think your powers of deduction are stronger than my stubborn ability to purposefully keep that shit from you? I’m a bit insulted, actually.”
I snort. “Of course you are.”
