“She fucking used me.” The words tasted as bitter as they sounded.
He replayed every conversation he'd had with her, searching for the moment he'd missed. Their first night at the bar. The barbecue. The horseback ride. Sunday dinners. Their date. And later, in bed. Nothing could've prepared him for the secret she'd revealed, clearly under protest.
He recalled every laugh, stolen glance, and touch between them. How much of it had been real? Had any of it meant to her what it had meant to him?
His chest ached with a mix of anger and something he refused to call heartbreak.
He drove another twenty minutes before realizing he'd made a complete circle back toward Hazard Falls. The familiar neon beer signs glowing in the front windows of the Bar None caught his attention.
Maybe a couple of drinks would silence his thoughts. Or maybe they'd make him stop caring for a few hours. Either sounded better than staying alone in the truck with his own thoughts.
He eased into the gravel parking lot and killed the engine. For a moment, he sat in the silence, his mind a tornado of memories, unanswered questions, and emotions he couldn't escape.
Shylo was still out at the ranch. She'd ridden there with him, and her truck was sitting at the motel. Ordinarily, he'd have worried about how she planned to get back to town. Tonight, he didn't give a damn. She'd lied to him from the beginning. Let her find her own way to the motel.
He climbed out and headed toward the front door.
The familiar scent of grilled burgers and beer mingled with the faint aroma of cedar from the massive beams overhead as he stepped inside. The bar was only about half-full. Sunday evenings were usually quiet in Hazard Falls, with most people choosing to spend the night at home before another workweek began. A few families occupied tables in the dining area while men and women filled many of the stools along the bar. Some were familiar faces. Others he didn't recognize. Soft country music drifted through the room as conversations flowed over bottles of beer, baskets of wings, and the muted televisions above the bar tuned to sports channels.
Alyssa glanced over at him from behind the bar, and her face lit up as he claimed the first open stool he came to. “Hey, stranger.”
“Hey.” He forced a smile he didn’t feel.
“What can I get you?”
“A beer.”
“Sure. Something to eat too?”
He shook his head.
Her smile faded enough to suggest she'd noticed something was off, but she didn't ask if anything was wrong. Instead, she grabbed a long-neck from the cooler, twisted off the cap, and set it in front of him. “Run you a tab?”
“Yeah, thanks.”
As she moved down the bar, he wrapped his hand around the bottle and took a long pull, letting the chilled liquid slide down his throat. It wasn't enough. He stared through the rows of liquor bottles lining the shelves on the wall across from him without really seeing them.
“You look like a guy who needs something stronger than a beer. Bad day?”
The comment drew his attention to the man next to him. He looked to be pushing forty, dressed in faded jeans and a well-worn T-shirt. Expensive name-brand sneakers covered his feet—no ranch hand Seth knew would be caught dead wearing them. Dark tattoos covered both forearms, with another disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt on the left side of his neck. Brown hair that needed a trim framed a face that had seen its share of hard living. A small scar cut across his right cheek, and his nose suggested it had been broken at least once and never quite healed straight. Brown eyes studied him over the rim of a beer bottle.
There was something vaguely familiar about the man, though Seth couldn't have said why, and it really didn't matter. He had bigger things on his mind. Right now, he wanted to get a buzz on and forget about Shylo and her betrayal.
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Something like that.”
The man took a sip of beer before extending his hand. “Troy.”
He accepted the handshake more out of habit than anything else. “Seth.”
The silence stretched between them for a couple of minutes before Troy nodded toward one of the televisions overhead, where the Royals clung to a one-run lead in the seventh inning. “You think they're gonna hang on?”
Seth shrugged. “Ask me after the ninth.”
Troy chuckled. “Good answer. But I hope they do—I’ve got fifty bucks on the game.”
Silence stretched between them again.
A few minutes later, Marla Oberman and her husband, Al, walked past on their way to the door. She tapped Seth's shoulder. “Hi, Seth. Stop by the store tomorrow. I have some stuff Paige wanted.”
