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“I hate facts sometimes,” she says softly.

I chuckle. “You tell it true, darlin’.”

She tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “I should get back to work. Again, I’m sorry about the whiskey.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. Just hands off the five-hundred-dollar bottles.”

Delilah touches the brim of my black Stetson, tilts it up. “I could drive you crazy, cowboy.”

“Already are,” I mutter, biting down hard on a smile.

Smiling, she shrugs her shoulder in that flirty little way I like. “Bye, Cole.” Then she turns toward the distillery.

An ache settles in my chest. I stare after her for minutes, for miles, like she’s the only light I can see.

16 Delilah

Cole’s story has taken up space in my head. Ex-pro bull rider. And he looks the part. Massive, chiseled in jagged scars and rippling muscles. A cowboy who could be carved from smoke and mountain. That’s Cole Weston.

The man I thought hated me, helped me yesterday. The way he held me, calmed me down, hijacked my pulse.

Surprisingly, he also opened up. He lost a brother. I ache for him. Because I know the feeling all too well. He and I share that in common at least.

Loss.

Lucy Lou.

My precious little sister would be sixteen now. The same age I was when I left that house, promising her I’d come back. Promising her I’d get her a better life.

“You’re leaving me?”

“Not leaving you. I’m getting help, okay?” I tucked Lucy safely into the closet where Tom couldn’t find her, hating the fear in her big brown eyes. “Stay here. Keep quiet. I’ll only be gone an hour.”

She shook her head and tugged at the locket around my neck. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll come back. I promise. Look.” I opened the locket to show her our photos inside. “I have my lucky locket. It always brings me home to you.”

And it did. But I was too late.

I shake off the memory, slipping into my pointe shoes, letting the music fill me up from the inside. A crisp breeze flitters through the open window, nipping at my skin. The living room of the Creek House is crowded with furniture. Dipping low, I shove the coffee table across the rug and into the wall. Then I bend into a plié, feeling the music wrap around me. My one comfort.

I try to focus on the dance, but once again, my mind strays to Cole.

A current shifted between us yesterday. A change.

There’s so much more beneath his hard exterior. Scars. Danger. He harbors a strange darkness that should scare me, but it doesn’t. The man’s an enigma I want to piece together.

What is it about him? His masculine strength? His captivating presence? He fascinates me, calms me, and infuriates me all in one breath.

Which means I should stay away. I have my own damn problems. Like the cops for one. Puzzling out this complicated, broody cowboy shouldn’t be another.

I don’t want a man and I don’t do relationships. My heart is mine and mine alone. Loss, rejection, pain, I don’t have it in me for more.

I am not the woman for Cole Weston, even though for one brief, foolish second, I want to be.

“Mustang Sally” by Wilson Pickett thrums through the Creek House.

I lose myself in the music, that itch to dance skating over my skin and skittering into my blood. I do my pole warm-up, a few easy spins and stretches, ending with some cat-cows on the rug. As if the dance has cleansed it, my brain empties all my fears, my worries.