“You wouldn’t know anything ’bout that, would you, Wolfe?”
I sidled up to the bar beside the cousin closest to me.
“Nope,” Wolfe muttered. “Sure wouldn’t.”
“So, the bleedin’ knuckles…” I nodded toward the hand currently wrapped around the beer bottle in front of Wolfe.
“Work.”
“Right.” It wasn’t far-fetched, although I knew it for the lie it was. Since Wolfe and his cousin were in the furniture business, scarred hands were par for the course. However, this looked fresh, never mind the gravel dust on their jeans and hats.
“You wanna beer, Sheriff?” Reagan offered, smiling.
I cocked an eyebrow. She knew I was on duty, but it never failed; she always offered and I always refused. “I’ll take a Coke.”
“Comin’ right up.”
Turning around, I leaned against the bar, still standing beside Wolfe.
“Who started it?” I asked, keeping my voice low enough that no one other than Wolfe could hear.
“Coupla dumb asses,” Wolfe said. “They didn’t come back inside. If you hurry, you could probably get ’em for a DUI.”
Tempting. Especially if it meant keeping the residents of my small town safe. However, I knew Wolfe was trying to get me out of there.
“No one hurt?” I turned and faced Wolfe, studying the man’s profile.
Wolfe and I were never what people would consider friends. Not in our small town, anyway. Although I was accepted by the Caine cousins as good people and vice versa, we didn’t run in the same circles. Being that my family was a longtime rival of the Caines, it would’ve been frowned upon. Didn’t mean we weren’t civil to one another, though. And since we’d grown up here, gone to the same schools, I knew everything there was to know about them.
Reagan passed over the Coke and I tipped my hat. Turning back around, I caught sight of Amy moving toward the back. There was something about that woman. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. It could’ve been the fact she always seemed to be looking over her shoulder, or even as simple as my underlying attraction to her. Whatever it was, I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I'd see how things went before I approached her.
“She doin’ okay in here?” I asked Wolfe, again, keeping my voice low.
Wolfe shifted, his arm brushing mine when he did.
Damn, the man smelled good. Always. It was a combination of cologne and the sexy scent of an alpha male, I had determined.
“From what I can tell, yeah,” Wolfe confirmed. “She’s a little jittery.”
Yeah, I had noticed that, too. Whenever the door opened, she was always the first one looking. And it wasn’t a casual move, either. It was as though the cute little waitress was expecting trouble to waltz right in through the double doors.
She must’ve sensed we were talking about her because Amy’s attention turned to us. When I met and held her gaze for a second, the woman quickly looked away.
Truth was, I was curious about her and not necessarily in a law enforcement capacity. The only information I'd been able to get had come from my sister. According to Reagan, Amy was twenty-six, single, and not at all interested in sharing details about herself. From what I could tell, Reagan knew Amy Smith better than anyone else in town.
Still, I wanted to get to know her better.
It’d been a long damn time since I'd met a woman who captured my interest. Hell, it’d been a long damn time since anyone had captured my interest.
“Don’t even think about it, Sheriff,” Wolfe grumbled.
I stood tall and turned to him. I held the man’s stare, daring him to finish the threat. I knew he was warning me off the woman, and I even knew why.
“Jealous?” I didn’t look away. Wolfe knew exactly what I was talking about and it only had a tiny bit to do with the cute little waitress.
A smirk curled the corner of Wolfe’s mouth. “She’s too sweet for your games.”
“Games?” We both knew that he was referring to the fact that I was bisexual, and I didn’t necessarily keep my interactions separate. A man, a woman, both at the same time, I was open to all possibilities. And no, I didn’t air my personal business around town, but word got around. Still, I wanted the man to say it out loud.
