Gia tossed Chuck a dirty look as he did some sort of obscene bump-and-grind dance with Paula. “It’s a dick move trying to feel up one woman when you’re with another.”
“It’s late in the night.” Brandi reached for a pretzel. “The drunker these rednecks get, the more hands they’re going to grow.”
“We should have gone to Vegas.” Amanda wrapped her arm around Brandi’s shoulders to tug her closer.
“Not you too,” Lacy said. “I just managed to talk Macie off that ledge. Besides, you were both cool with this plan.” Amanda, Macie’s best friend all through school, and Brandi were currently saving up for their wedding. It was one of the reasons why they’d all elected to stay local for the bachelorette party rather than travel to Sin City.
Of course, the main reason was the restaurant. They would have had to close Sparks Barbeque down this weekend if they had all ventured out of town, and that was something they only did on Thanksgiving and Christmas. They’d managed to get tonight off because Uncle TJ, along with Lacy’s aunts and her mom, had volunteered to man the place during the dinner shift so they could go out.
Money was tight for all of them, so they had decided to stick with the tried-and-true bachelorette party, venturing to the only local bar in town, Cruisers. Given its close proximity to the highway, there was always a chance of meeting someone new, but tonight’s crowd was nothing more than the usual faces.
Brandi pointed toward the front door. “That was before the guys decided to crash the party.”
Lacy glanced up then scowled as her cousin Tyson and her big brother, Evan, made their way toward the table. As her Uncle TJ liked to joke, a person couldn’t shake a stick in Maris without hitting a Sparks. That was certainly a true statement. Sometimes Lacy enjoyed having such a large, close-knit family. Sometimes she felt like the only privacy she ever got was in the bathroom.
Then she realized Evan and Tyson weren’t alone. Jeannette’s boyfriends, Luc and Diego, as well as Evan’s best friend, Logan, and a couple more of their high school buddies, Walt and Jack.
“Couldn’t fit the groom in the car?” Gia asked sarcastically.
Sydney’s soon-to-be husband, Chas, appeared to be the only fella who hadn’t decided to crash the party.
Tyson looked unapologetic as he sat down next to Gia. He raised his hand to call the waitress over and asked for a round of beers as the other guys claimed the rest of the empty seats. Luc and Diego instantly flanked Jeannette, and she was clearly delighted to see them as they each took a turn kissing her.
“You gals have been here for three hours. We decided you were probably hitting the breaking point.” Tyson looked around the bar as he spoke, no doubt doing a cousin head count.
“And what breaking point is that?” Gia asked.
“Either too drunk to make smart decisions or not drunk enough to deal with all the wasted cowboys. Figured it was time for reinforcements either way,” Evan explained.
“It’s a bachelorette party, Evan,” Lacy said, all too familiar with her big brother’s tendency to take overprotectiveness to new extremes. “You can’t just barge in here like this. You’re lucky Macie hasn’t seen you yet. She’ll flip out.”
Lacy made sure to maintain eye contact with her brother as he studied her face, letting him see how much his presence annoyed her. Unfortunately, her anger was lost on him. The cop in him was trying to visually assess how much she’d had to drink. She was the first to look away in disgust. “You’re pissing me off.”
However, he wasn’t. Not really. Lacy loved her brother more than words could say and in truth, she was sort of glad he was here. Not because she liked him hovering—that really did drive her up the wall—but because where there was Evan, there was Logan.
Lacy was delighted to see him out tonight. Since his breakup with Jane nearly a year earlier, he’d maintained the “stay-at-home” lifestyle he’d picked up with his ex, refusing to jump back into the dating scene.
Instead, he spent most of his time working. He owned his own furniture business and was a genius when it came to crafting beautiful things from wood or refurbishing precious antiques. He sold both in his store on Main Street, just two blocks away from the restaurant.
Glancing around the bar at the other men, Lacy realized that Logan would always be the yardstick by which she measured every man. So far, no one had ever come close to her ideal.
In addition to his creative talents in the woodshop, he used to play bass in Ty’s Collective, her cousin’s bluegrass band. He could beat out one hell of a rhythm on the bass. What was it about musicians that made them so freaking irresistible and hot?
Plus Logan wasn’t hard to look at. At all. He was six-one, with chestnut-brown hair that he wore just a touch too long, which gave him a permanent just-rolled-out-of-bed look that never failed to send her thoughts straight to sex. In addition to that—and his muscular arms and his chiseled jaw and his five o’clock shadow and his great ass—were his eyes. God. Logan had the most striking blue eyes she’d ever seen. They were ice blue, so light and piercing, she got lost in them.
Like now.
She blinked rapidly when she realized Logan was speaking to her. She hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“Lacy? Did you hear me?”
“Um. Sorry. Music is too loud,” she lied.
“I said I finished fixing your chaise lounge. Wondered if you wanted me to deliver it to your place sometime next week.”
She had found a gorgeous chaise at a flea market a month earlier. Picked the thing up for a song, but it had a couple loose legs and the upholstery had been torn. She’d driven it straight to Logan’s store and asked him to fix it for her.
“That would be great, but I can come get it.”
