“Babe, you’re clenching your glass like it owes you money.”
I loosen my grip on the lemonade. She smirks.
I clear my throat. “So. The Redding boys.”
“Oh… What happened to ‘peace and quiet’?”
“I’m making conversation. I recognized Mack.”
“Mm-hmm.” She doesn’t buy it for a second. “Whole lotta tall, hot trouble over there.”
“Are they heartbreakers?”
“Some of them. Mack flirts with anything that moves, but he’s mostly harmless. Levi’s the sweet one. Got a kid. Good dad.”
I nod, keeping my expression carefully neutral. “What about Beau?”
I ask it too casually. I know it. She knows it. The bartender probably knows it.
Tanya tilts her head, studying me. “That one’s different.”
“Different how?”
“He’s really smart. Like, scary smart. Went to some big-shot university up north. Cornell, I think? Had some research position.” She shrugs. “Then he came back a few years ago. Nobody really knows why. He just showed up one day and started working the ranch like he’d never left.”
My chest tightens. I wasn’t expecting that. A real story. Not just the hot cowboy fantasy I’d been filing him under to protect myself.
“Is he also the type to flirt?” I ask.
Tanya snorts. “Girl, no. Beau’s never been like that. Even before he left. I haven’t seen him with a single woman since he came back. Not one. It’s just bulls and spreadsheets with that man.” She laughs. Then her eyes sharpen. “Why? You interested?”
I laugh. Too loud. “I’m just asking. He seems like the kind of guy who’d keep a rotation.”
“Beau Redding?” She shakes her head. “That man doesn’t rotate. He doesn’t even orbit. He’s been locked in on that ranch like a monk with better abs.”
The story I’d built in my head…him being a player, some smooth-talking womanizer using me for fun…is cracking. Badly. Because a man who came home from a fancy career to work hisfamily’s land, who barely speaks but shows up on your porch and puts his mouth on your body like you’re the only thing he’s ever wanted to taste…
That’s not a player. That’s something much more dangerous.
“Why are you so curious about Beau?” Tanya presses, grinning widely.
But before I can answer, her eyes go past my shoulder, and her whole face changes. “Oh, shit. He’s coming over.”
My pulse spikes. I don’t turn around. Don’t need to. I can feel him. His presence shifting the air behind me. The temperature changing. And then his scent…leather, cedar, warm skin…drifting over my shoulder like a hand reaching for me.
I hear his boots on the wooden floor. Slow. Steady. Not rushing. A few people glance up as he passes. Someone says his name. He doesn’t stop.
Tanya’s watching with her mouth slightly open, eyes darting between me and whatever’s happening behind me. She looks like she’s witnessing a wildlife documentary in real time.
Then I feel him. Right behind me. Close enough that the heat of his body presses against my back through the air between us. Close enough that the hair on my arms stands up and my skin breaks out in goosebumps.
I turn my head. And there he is.
Beau Redding. Standing right there. Towering over our table. This close, he’s even more devastating. I can see the flecks of amber in his golden eyes. The faint scar on his jaw I hadn’t noticed before, the fullness of his bottom lip, the shadow of his dark lashes.
His gaze doesn’t shift to Tanya. Doesn’t scan the room. It stays on me. Locked. Burning. Like I’m the only person in this bar. In this town. On this goddamn planet.
He nods at Tanya. Touches where the brim of his hat would be. Polite. Brief. Then he looks at me.
