Chapter One
Blake
Everything starts with just a few steps.
I took a few steps into Starlight Summit, wanting to start my life over. Or rather, get it started. I spent the past few years of my life wandering the world without much direction or purpose. I always had an idea of who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do when I grew up, I suppose. I just was not ready to grow up just yet.
Tomorrow is a brand-new day. I am taking all new steps. I came to town to work at Meadow Vale Ranch, handling horses. Growing up in Montana as a kid, I lived and breathed horses on my uncle Jed’s ranch. After he passed away, I should have taken the helm of the place, but I was too devastated. That is when the wandering began.
My uncle’s ranch was taken over during my grief. I am not sure I could go back to that place to work with horses again anyway. It was so hard losing him, it felt as if I lost a piece of myself. I am trying to get that piece back by getting back to my roots, by doing what I love most again.
“What can I do for you, sweetheart?” Comes a grunt from behind the bar.
“Bourbon. Neat. Whatever’s on the bottom shelf,” I answer the aging bartender. He sports beard that could house a small family of squirrels and eyes that has seen too many people try to outrun their shadows.
I am not running anymore. I am just not taking big steps tonight.Tomorrow.Tomorrow, I will head to the ranch, I will grow up and start being an adult. Tonight, I want a drink or two, I want to listen to some bad music twanging from a battered old jukebox and acclimate.
Just as I turn from the bartender to survey the scene of The Barn, the single bar in town, a Tanya Tucker song crackles from the old speakers. The air smells of wood chips, and the kind of desperation that only hits its stride on a Sunday night.
Once my drink is slid across the sticky bar, I toss a twenty and a smile at the guy and head for a corner booth. I laugh at the vinyl held together by duct tape and prayer. This little spot is perfect for me to get my sea legs—or my cowgirl legs as it were. My gaze circles the bar, taking in the locals in a cursory glance.
A group of raucous men at the pool table seem to take center stage, growly and territorial. I will keep my distance from them, thanks. Eyeing me from a table covered in peanut shells is an older man who looks to be waiting for someone to ask about how his three ex-wives did him wrong. Hard pass. Are these the locals I will be dealing with here in Starlight Summit?
Sipping my bourbon, I hum along with Tanya until my gaze stops. Hell, I think the whole room stops and watches as he saunters in the darkened space, lighting it up. It might sound corny, but this tall drink of water literally lights the little bar up.
Compared to the others in dusty Levi’s and cowboy hats, he looks a little out of place. Strolling in with a stomp of biker boots, wearing a faded denim jacket over a black hoodie, his dark go hair is a mess in a way that seems intentional. Wild. He is a “I came-here-on-a-motorcycle-I’d let you-be-my-backpack-on” brand of handsome that has me fidgeting in the tattered booth.
I just start to avert my gaze when he catches me watching him. I flush. Because lord he is the type of pretty you don’t see in small town dive bars like this. At least no small-town dive I’ve ever been in before. Watching me, a slow, dangerous smile overtakes his mouth, his focus zeroing in on me as if he came looking for me.
“Oh shit.No. Nope, new Blake tomorrow.New Blakecannot do the stupid shitold Blakedid,” I tell myself, as if I have not had this same talk a hundred times before.
But I mean…I did say there will be a new Blaketomorrow. Tonight is still…tonight. I am debating how important the difference is as I watch the handsome stranger saunter my way with purpose. I want him to bypass me at the same time I would hate it if he did.
“You look like you're waiting for something,” he offers in way of a greeting, voice low and confident as that smile deepens.
In the dim light, his eyes are the color of the pine trees outside just before the sun goes down. He is even taller up close, towering over me in the booth, taking up all the space. I cannot see past him. Not that I am looking past him now that he is standing there smiling at me.
“I am waiting for this bourbon to make me forget how I ended up in this bar all alone,” I shoot back, surprised by my boldness.
That smile of his dials up as he slides into the booth across from me. He smells of leather and the earth and something sweet. Cedar or cigar smoke. “Well, let me fix that for you, darlin’. I will have a drink with you. No, you did not ask, but nothing wrong with sharing a drink with a stranger, is there?”
Before I can respond with all the things that could be wrong with having a drink with a stranger, he waves a hand. In a flash, a bourbon shows up along with a second for me. It is almost as if he has this practice down. I narrow a gaze at him as the waitress who sets the drinks down eyes him longingly. Then she is gone before I can wonder if there was something more behind that look.
“What’s your name? I’ve never seen you before,” he offers the same line I have heard a hundred times before. Tonight, I amafraid it might just work. I can make one last mistake before I take my next big steps.
“Blake. Do you care what my name is?”
“Idocare about your name, darlin’. Mine is Brooks. I also care about keeping that smile on your face,” he tells me with a grin. Sliding from the booth, he holds his hand out for me to take it. I hesitate a moment before I decide that yeah, I want him to take a crack at keeping me smiling.
Taking his hand, I let him lead me to the sawdust littered dance floor. Just as we get there The Chicks tunes up and I almost laugh. To his credit, Brooks does laugh as they sing about being swept away by a cowboy. Drawing me close, he holds me in such a gentle embrace, I wonder if he is afraid of breaking me.
His warm body is solid, cradling me as we twirl across the floor. I nestle close as a calm washes over me. His hands are warm on my back, and I bite back a sound of pleasure when his hand slides beneath my top, as if he just needs to make contact. My hand fists in his sweatshirt as the same need, to touch him, to have skin-on-skin contact, overwhelms me.
“Was I right before? I have not seen you here in Starlight Summit.”
“Yeah, you were right. I just got to town. I am not sure how long I will be here,” the lie slips out with ease. I am contracted for at least six months, but he does not have to know that. The less he knows about me, the better.
“Well, why not? It’s a beautiful place. Lots of wide-open spaces,” he teases as another Chicks song filles the bar. I laugh because, yeah, he is adorable. “Not to mention this gem of a dive bar—where I did not expect to find a beautiful bird waiting for someone to find her.”
