Page 9 of She Autumn Be Mine

So I’d gone to work, and honestly, the night ran too busy to worry more. Boots stomped the packed dance floor. Cowboys tipped me like they were trying to outdo one another. Women were flirty and teasing and even a cat fight broke out in the bathrooms.

Halfway through my shift, I caught a quick break, and texted. Avery confirmed everything was fine. I let it go.

What I hadn’t counted on was Jake McCall waltzing in behind Cash. They cut through the rodeo crowd, taller than most, big walls of steely muscles. The sea of people parted for the men all the way to the two barstools at the end.

Then Jake’s face fell upon seeing me.

“Well, hell. Look who it is, Jake,” Cash shouted over the noise of the bar, elbowing him in the ribs. He read the whole thing between us in one glance. “Two beers please, darlin’.”

Jake had more than beer on his mind. Not a hello, nice to see you tonight for me. Just a gruff voice. “Who’s watching Stetson?”

I pulled their two bottles and returned with the quick version—Smitty short-handed, rodeo, money, Harper’s daughter available on weekends.

“All very last minute, otherwise I would have called you,” I rushed to the end.

“You still should have. I’d have dropped my plans, you know that.” A look crossed his face, there and gone. Not anger, because that wasn’t his way. I knew the difference between my ex and Jake.

This appeared more like how dare somebody else watch over Stetson. He’d taken guarding the two of us to a level even Trig probably never expected. Way above and beyond the duty and any promise made through prison glass.

The opposite end of the bar erupted in laughter, hollering for another round.

“Hold on. I’ll be back.” I went and poured shots, served bottles, and with it a brand new guilt gnawed at me the entire time. Which was silly. Stetson was my child. I knew what was best for him. I did not owe Jake or anyone an explanation for hiring a perfectly qualified sitter.

I came back and gave him an explanation across the top of the bar anyway. “Avery is certified in CPR, Jake. Harper’s a phone call away too, in case of emergency. And heck, her step-father is sheriff of the county. I texted her on my break and she said everything was fine⁠—”

“Autumn, you’re his mother. Of course I trust you.” He grinned at me from under the brim of his cowboy hat. “Just wish you could take the night and be on the other side of the bar with⁠—”

“Another round of shots down here, sweetheart!” The loudest of the rodeo group shouted.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” I turned back to Jake. But whoops and hollers came up as well, drowning Jake out.

“Hold that thought,” I cried. But by the time I served at the other end, and fought my way back, he and Cash were talking to some people they knew. Whatever he wished for got lost, going wherever unfinished sentences go in a bar.

As the night wore on, occasionally I’d sense Jake always watching, one eye on me, the other keeping Cash out of trouble. Jake nursed his one beer like it had to last him all year, while Cash went through whiskeys like nothing, getting more boisterous by the glass.

I never felt uncomfortable though with Jake watching out for me, which after Wyoming was its own small miracle. I’d been stripped of any reason to trust another man again.

But Jake had become something more, my protector, like a patient dog, loyal as ever. Someone I could count on.

Every time I glanced over, his hazel eyes were already there, warm and waiting. If I hadn’t been working, I could’ve been out there beside him. A Friday night, boots and music and nowhere to be but living in the moment—I used to love that, before someone in Wyoming taught me to love a locked door instead.

There was one time I looked up, though, and Jake’s eyes weren’t on me, but on a woman who had seated herself next to him. A woman who seemed very familiar to him given the way she leaned into his space, holding onto his arm, whispering in his ear. Jake sat rigid, though, or polite, because that was him, and he didn’t know how to be any other way.

When she clearly moved her arm as if her hand travelled up and down his thigh, I dropped the glass of beer I’d been pouring onto the counter. It didn’t break but made an awful thud, on top of my gasp and light slip of profanity as beer spilled everywhere. “Shit!”

And it happened in front of the rodeo crew, too. They all got a kick out of it, laughing and yelling with rude comments.

“Careful there,” Smitty said, gliding past with a rack of pints, but not stopping to help.

I grabbed a towel and soaked it all up, daring another glance at Jake and the woman. An odd feeling tore through my heart that had no business there. We were just friends.

I had wanted him to have a life, well, here it was. Right in front of me. In the form of a woman wearing a tight tee that barely covered her breasts and with the words on it boasting “Riding cowboys is a sport, Karen.”

I tried so hard not to look again for my sanity’s sake. But eventually, I did, and the woman was nowhere in sight. Jake’s eyes were there, though, waiting once again for mine, a huge apology in them.

I shrugged, and focused on the rodeo cowboys instead. Smitty shouted “Last call” and the tip jar wasn’t nearly as full as it could have been. I licked my lips and got to work, flirting a little more at my end of the bar and ignoring Jake’s end.

The main guy who had seemed like the instigator of the rodeo group, flirted back over one last shot of tequila. Then he planted both elbows on the bar and grinned like he’d won the night.