Swampy slapped Moose on the back, his gaze on me. “Moose here don’t think any of the Kings would turn on their own, but he ain’t been around long enough to know betrayal like we do.”
I sat back, the whiskey suddenly tasting sharper. Most of us who had been around long enough knew what Swampy was talking about. We’d heard stories, at least, but none of us had lived through it. It pained me to think that we might be now.
“So this shits stickin’ to civilians too,” I grumbled, and JD pursed his lips and nodded.
So the cowgirl wasn’t just trouble wrapped up in a tight body and a pretty smile. She was already in the middle of the storm I’d been brought back to help fix.
“That explains why she’s been eyeballing me since I walked in, at least,” I replied smoothly.
The men at the table chuckled. “You could say that,” Swampy said from across the table. Like JD, I knew Swampy from when we were kids.
“It’s why we’re here tonight,” JD continued, “it’s why she’s here. She put in a call to the cops. Seems her ranch is beingtargeted by someone, and she got it into her head that it was us. I went to speak to her and told her it had nothing to do with us and I said I was bringing in someone to look into it. She asked to see who it was. No idea why, but I felt like I couldn’t say no to her. The woman has a way of wrapping men around her finger.”
“Reckon it’s to do with her fine ass,” Swampy said with a wink. “I can never say no to a fine ass.”
JD laughed. “Probably. Anyway, Carter is looking into the situation for us.”
“Carter still on the payroll for us?” I asked, “I thought his wife said she wanted him out?”
Carter was a deputy with the Rocky Pines police department and had been on our payroll for a few years. He wasn’t a good guy, but he was good to have on the books.
Bear laughed. “Yeah, she did, then he found her sleeping with his brother when he got off shift early one day.”
“Wow, I bet that went down well,” I chuckled, taking a sip of whisky.
“Well, she left him for the brother and they moved out of town. Carter ain’t got much going for him right now, which serves us well enough,” JD said. He scratched a hand through his short beard and shook his head. “Poor bastard. Anyway, Rowan didn’t want to be a part of this meeting, but she wanted to see that we were dealing with whatever was going on. Hence the bar meet.”
I glanced across at her again, seeing the tension in her body as she watched us.
“Like I said,” JD continued, sitting back on the bench, “Rowan ain’t a fan of the Kings. And all the shit that’s been going down recently ain’t helped much either.”
I turned to look at her again, watching as she bent low over the pool table to take a shot. A shot that she hit with enough accuracy to color me impressed.
“She works at the ranch? Is it her parents’, or…”
“No, brother,” Bear replied, throwing his whiskey to the back of his throat. “She’s the boss lady of it. Her parents died and she took it over. From what I can tell, she works hard and doesn’t play around. Like at all. So, if you’re thinking?—”
“I’m not thinking anything,” I cut him off, “just surprised I don’t already know her. Hale Ranch is big. How the hell does she run that on her own?”
“She has help, but she’s wound the place down smaller over the past year. Land the ranch is on is endless, though, bought real cheap twenty-something years ago when there was that big recession. She won’t talk to any of us about it, but I know you have a way of getting people to talk.” JD cocked an eyebrow at me.
I felt the smirk rise on my face. “Brother, there’s only two ways I can get people to talk, and I don’t think either of those tactics will work on a woman like her.” I chanced another look over to her. “But I do love a challenge.”
The table erupted into laughter, drawing her attention once again. She looked at me, her expression somewhere between a snarl and disdain. If she could have bared her teeth at me, she would have.
“Well, if you think the view over by the pool table is pretty, just wait until you see her ranch,” Bear said, sipping on his whisky. “It’s a place a man could retire that’s for sure.”
“Like you’re anywhere near retiring,” Confessor snapped.
Bear held his hands up in defence. “I could retire if I had the money.”
Confessor grumbled and picked up his beer. “Like shit you could. You ain’t put in the years yet.”
“And you couldn’t give up the life,” Moose said with a smile, “could any of us? I mean, without this, what is there?”
Confessor shook his head and took a healthy swallow of beer. “What is there? There’s watching the sunset, there’s taking a good woman to bed, there’s not feeling like your bones are going to snap from riding your bike too long.”
“I take plenty of women to bed and I don’t have time to watch fuckin’ sunsets, brother,” Moose laughed and Swampy joined in. “Watching fuckin’ sunsets.”
