I don’t know if it’s the two-tone shades of blond in her hair, glistening in the sunlight, or the soft lines around her mouth as she smiles at her boy, but Vale just takes my fucking breath away.
“That was fun.” A slap on my shoulder and Clint’s low voice in my ear does nothing to distract me from watching Vale walk away. Her body is the perfect shape of infinity. Her legs look toned beneath her leggings. Her arm is around her son as she leans into him and says something I wish I could hear.
Scrubbing my thick paw down my face, I drag my thoughts away from Vale.
“Yeah. We have a good crop of kids this year.” The tryouts are over.
Clint smiles while Tate adds, “And some hot moms as well.”
Clint’s head pops upright, jerking his gaze from the tablet in his hand to glare at our middle brother. Even in his forties, Tate can be a real punk, which might explain why he’s single.
“What is wrong with you?” I snap, turning on him. He’s my height but I’m broader than him. He’s all lean muscle while I’m bulk, and his hair has a hint of gray in the sandy locks which I love to razz him about.
“What? I’m just saying that Ronnie Archer is fine.”
Clint snorts. “And from what I’ve heard, she isn’t too discerning about her partners.”
Far be it for any of us to judge her choices, though.
Tate grins. “Good news for me then, huh?”
Clint scrunches up his nose in disgust at the manwhore ways of our middle brother.
“Parents are off limits,” I remind Tate.
He pouts like I’ve told him he can’t have dessert before dinner. I don’t care what order he eats his meals as long as he doesn’t hunger for any of our parents. Especially one particular single mom.
“Vale’s looking good,” Tate adds, driving in the steak knife, and my entire body shifts to face him, realizing too late he’s addressing Clint.
Clint lowers his head, staring down at the tablet in his hand like it holds all the secrets on how to win a baseball game, or a woman. His cheeks flush. As a single father of a precious five-year-old, I suspect it’s been a while since our brother has hooked up with anyone. He’s closer in age to Vale, being only three years older than her, and once a playmate of hers as he hung out with Sebastian Sylver before everything fell to shit between our families.
And the last thing I want is Clint lusting after Vale.
Despite the separation of families almost twenty years ago—twenty-three to be exact—we never reconciled. I’ve seen Vale be cordial to my brothers and even develop a friendship with our only sister, Trinity, through their ladies-only book club. Stone has always been fair, as a sheriff should be, not that we Havens have caused any unlawful disturbances or trouble. Still, an invisible wall exists between the men in our two families.
Sadly, I’m the one who built it, and I’ve never forgiven myself.
“Beer?” Tate asks, which is the first smart thing he’s said in the last five minutes. “Milton Roadhouse,” he adds, confirming the location of the main drinking establishment in Sterling Falls. The former hotel and bar on the intersection of Main and Corner in the downtown area looks like a Western saloon inside.
I cringe a little at the suggestion, preferring the privacy of Randy’s which is just outside town, wedged between Rogue River and Sterling Falls. It’s more of a locals-only, get-lost-in-your-head kind of place, and less crowded than the Roadhouse.
Not to mention, I’d be less likely to run into one unavailable-to-me single mom.
I’ve done my best over the years to avoid the place that got me into trouble with Vale.
Then again, the spot that pushed me over the edge was next to the famous falls themselves, and a location I avoid as well.
“Those Sylvers are lucky bastards,”Tate mutters as I’m taking a seat on a bar stool inside Milton Roadhouse.
I almost topple off the tall, wooden seat, while craning my neck to scan the bar for what Tate is talking about. Or rather, whom, as four women sit at a table on the opposite side of the place.
Milton Roadhouse is rather dark, with wood-paneled walls and hard wood floors. A three-sided bar takes up a portion of the space with several high-top tables scattered here and there, and regular tables made from whiskey barrels located closer to the slim stage. The Western décor is complete with giant wagon wheel chandeliers and country music piped through overhead speakers despite baseball games on the large screen televisions behind the bar.
Adjusting my ass on the stool between my brothers, I stare across the space at the table where Vale sits, along with Halle Reynolds, a slim redhead who is Knox Sylver’s girlfriend. Also at the table is Mavis Grant, a Native American woman with sleek black hair with thin strips of gray in it, who is engaged to Clay Sylver.
“Heard Knox finally married his girl,” Tate states, sliding onto the seat beside me, while clarifying the relationship status of the former high school sweethearts.
“It was a family-only affair,” Clint adds. Roughly two years ago, when Halle inherited her grandmother’s house, Clint took on the job of painting the exterior of the historic home located on the boulevard outside the Sterling Falls’ downtown business district.
