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So much love with this wild, reckless family. One I’ve never experienced outside of Lucy Lou. The type of love where people fight for you, cry for you, are just simply there for you. It leaves an aching feeling in my chest. A deep need to find this type of fierce love for myself, grip it with both hands and hang on.
“So yeah. The Westons.” Eyebrow quirking, Hassie looks at me, leaning her elbows on the bar top. “They’re the traumatized brooding cowboys everyone wants to tame.”
“What about you?” I ask with a coy smile, wanting to get back to a lighter conversation. “You ever set your sights on a Weston?”
“God no.” Hassie feigns a shudder, but her ears are pink. “I need a man like a hole in the head.”
Not me. I need Cole in a way that is irrational and stubborn and pussy throbbing. I’ve made a lot of bad choices in my life, but Cole makes me think he could be the best one.
“What’d you do in Vegas?” Hassie’s husky voice pulls me from my daydream. “I don’t think you ever told me.”
“I was a dancer.” It’s getting easier and easier to say it.
Rounding the counter, she plops the hat onto my head. She stares down at me, gnawing at her lip as she adjusts it with perfect precision. “Like a boobie-tassel dancer?”
“Yes. At a club.”
Hassie quirks a brow, no judgment in her pretty face. “I’d be a stripper, but I can’t stand the thought of men being happy.”
I laugh.
“Turn around,” she orders, making a scrutinizing face. I do. When I turn to face her, she removes the hat and goes back behind the bar. I watch Hassie work as she steams the hat and then adds a small band of leather around the crown. She’s empowered and fierce, and damn if I don’t have a girl crush.
She adds my pink feather to the crown, tucking it beneath the leather strap, then securing it with hot glue.
Her boots scuff hardwood as she walks my way. The hat settles on my head like it’s been made for me. “There.” She smiles at me, and I notice her left eye has a speckle of brown in its blue-green depths. “Now you’re one of us. Cowgirl cool.”
Her words make my heart swell. “Thanks.”
We take our drinks, head to the velvet couch, and sit.
“What made you start your own business?” I ask, sipping my champagne. Two glasses in, and I’m warm and fuzzy inside.
She shrugs a shoulder. “Needed something of my own.”
“I admire you.” I survey her pretty shop. “You’re so strong. You did it on your own. You knew what you wanted.” I look down into my glass. “I wish I did.”
“Don’t let the I-have-my-shit-together act fool you—I wasn’t always like this.” She grits her teeth against a scoff. “I’ve had a lot of bad habits. A bad past. I used to be the hot shit on the gossip grapevine.”
“Why?”
She meets my eyes and pulls in a deep, hesitant breath. “It’s a fucked-up story, Delilah.”
“If you tell it, I’ll listen. But you don’t have to.” How can I ask her to share her truth, when I’m still hiding from mine?
“No.” Her chin tilts decisively. “It’s like a Band-Aid. Every time I let the fucker rip, it hurts less and less.” She nods stiffly, gathering courage. “CliffsNotes version, otherwise, I just spontaneously combust.” Her husky voice takes on a detached, robotic tone. “I was thirteen. My mom had just died. My dad was sad and searching. It was like that for a couple of years, until one day, he met these people who lived down near the river. White tents. Weird clothes. Chanting.”
“A cult?”
“Yeah. A cult.” Her hand drifts to cover the leather cuff around her right wrist.
“My daddy was always a unique man. Off-the-grid. Free spirit.” A nostalgic smile lifts her lips. “Hell, he named me Hassle if that tells you anything about him. So he drifted in that direction. He kept going back until he told me we were moving there. It was weird. I didn’t want to go. My big brother was away at college. And he was my dad, right? So I…I went along with it. He sold everything we owned. Our trailer. My horses. He pulled me out of school, and we went and lived on the compound in the Borderlands.”
She chugs the rest of her whiskey. Exhales. “They called themselves the Halo of the Dawn. They were all about salvation and apocalypse and strange gods.
“My time there’s a big blur. I don’t remember much. Except they wouldn’t let me leave. They drugged me and—” Her voice hitches and she shakes her head.
“It’s okay.” I reach out and touch her hand. My chest squeezes around my heart. I can see there’s so much stuck inside of her she still can’t voice.
