Copper Ridge, Oregon’s favorite bachelor is about to meet his match

If the devil wore flannel, he’d look like Ace Thompson. He’s gruff. Opinionated. Infernally hot. The last person that Sierra West wants to ask for a bartending job—not that she has a choice. Ever since discovering that her “perfect” family is built on a lie, Sierra has been determined to make it on her own. Resisting her new boss should be easy when they’re always bickering. Until one night, the squabbling stops…and something far more dangerous takes over.

Ace has a personal policy against messing around with staff—or with spoiled rich girls. But there’s a steel backbone beneath Sierra’s silver-spoon upbringing. She’s tougher than he thought, and so much more tempting. Enough to make him want to break all his rules, even if it means risking his heart…

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Maisey Yates

“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”

—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy

“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”

—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on

Part Time Cowboy

“Yates writes a story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won in the second Copper Ridge installment… This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”

—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy

“Wraps up nicely, leaving readers with a desire to read more about the feisty duo.”

—Publishers Weekly on Bad News Cowboy

“The setting is vivid, the secondary characters charming, and the plot has depth and interesting twists. But it is the hero and heroine who truly drive this story.”

—BookPage on Bad News Cowboy

One Night Charmer
Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dear Reader

One Night Charmer

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Hometown Heartbreaker

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

Dear Reader,

I’m so excited to welcome you back to Copper Ridge, Oregon, where the cowboys are hot and love happens when you least expect it.

Gruff, bearded bartender Ace Thompson was one of those characters that grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go. I never intended for him to be a hero, but he kept showing up in everyone else’s books and making a case for himself. When Sierra West, the rodeo princess of Copper Ridge, appeared for the first time in Bad News Cowboy, I knew she was the kind of woman who would drive a man like Ace crazy. Which was also how I knew they were destined to be together.

Sierra and the rest of the West family have been going through a shift thanks to old family secrets coming to light. I’m excited for you to learn more about the town’s most prominent family in this story and in my upcoming Copper Ridge books, Tough Luck Hero and Last Chance Rebel, coming from HQN Books in July and September, and Hold Me, Cowboy, coming from Mills & Boon Desire in November.

I hope you enjoy getting to know the town’s favorite bartender and fallen princess as much as I enjoyed finally giving them their story.

Happy reading!

Maisey

One Night Charmer

CHAPTER ONE

THERE WERE TWO PEOPLE in Copper Ridge, Oregon, who—between them—knew nearly every secret of every person in town. The first was Pastor John Thompson, who heard confessions of sin and listened to people pour out their hearts when they were going through trials and tribulations.

The second was Ace Thompson, owner of the most popular bar in town, son of the pastor, and probably the least likely to attend church on Sunday or any other day.

There was no question that his father knew a lot of secrets, though Ace was pretty certain he got the more honest version. His father spent time standing behind the pulpit; Ace stood behind a bar. And there he heard the deepest and darkest circumstances happening in the lives of other townspeople while never revealing any of his own. He supposed, pastor or bartender, that was kind of the perk.

They poured it all out for you, and you got to keep your secrets bottled up inside.

That was how Ace liked it. Every night of the week, he had the best seat in the house for whatever show Copper Ridge wanted to put on. And he didn’t even have to pay for it.

And with his newest acquisition, the show was about to get a whole lot better.

“Really?” Jack Monaghan sat down at the bar, beer in hand, his arm around his new fiancée, Kate Garrett. “A mechanical bull?”

“Damn straight, Monaghan. This is a classy-ass establishment, after all.”

“Seriously,” Connor Garrett said, taking the seat next to Jack, followed by his wife Liss. “Where did you get that thing?”

“I traded for it. Guy down in Tolowa owed me some money and he didn’t have it. So he said I could come by and look at his stash of trash. Lo and behold, I discovered Ferdinand over there.”

“Congratulations,” Kate said. “I didn’t think anything could make this place more of a dive. I was wrong.”

“You’re a peach, Kate,” Ace told her.

The woman smiled broadly and wrapped her arm around Jack, leaning in and resting her cheek on his shoulder.

“Can we get a round?” Connor asked.

“Yes, please,” Liss said. “I have a one drink limit and we have a full two hours before I have to get back home.”

“Eli and Sadie are on baby duty,” Connor added.

Ace continued to listen to their conversation as he served up their usual brew, enjoying the happy tenor of the banter since the downers would probably be around later to dish out woe while he served up harder liquor.

The Garretts were good people. Always had been. Both before he had left Copper Ridge, and since he’d come back.

His focus was momentarily pulled away when the pretty blonde who’d been hanging out in the dining area all evening drinking with friends approached the aforementioned Ferdinand.

He hadn’t had too many people ride the bull yet, and he had to admit, he was finding it a pretty damn enjoyable novelty.

The woman tossed her head, her tan cowboy hat staying in place while her curls went wild around her shoulders. She wrapped her hands around the harness on top of the mechanical creature and hoisted herself up. Her movements were unsteady, and he had a feeling, based on the amount of time the group had been here, and how many times the men in the group had come and gone from the bar, she was more than a little tipsy.

Best seat in the house. He always had the best seat in the house.

She glanced up as she situated herself and he got a good look at her face. There was a determined glint in her eyes, her brows locked together, her lips pursed into a tight circle. She wasn’t just tipsy, she was pissed. Looking down at the bull like it was her own personal Everest and she was determined to conquer it along with her rage. He wondered what a bedazzled little thing like her had to be angry about. A missing lipstick, maybe. A pair of shoes that she really wanted unavailable in her size.

She nodded once, her expression growing even more determined as she signaled the employee Ace had operating the controls tonight.

Ace moved nearer to the bar, planting his hands flat on the surface. “This probably won’t end well.”

The patrons at the bar turned their heads toward the scene. And he noticed Jack’s posture go rigid. “Is that—”

“Yes,” Kate said.

The mechanical bull pitched forward and the petite blonde sitting on the top of it pitched right along with it. She managed to stay seated, but in Ace’s opinion that was a miracle. The bull went back again, and the woman straightened, arching her back and thrusting her breasts forward, her head tilted upward, the overhead lighting bathing her pretty face in a golden glow. And for a moment, just a moment, she looked like a graceful, dirty angel getting into the rhythm of the kind of riding Ace preferred above anything else.

Then the great automated beast pitched forward again and the little blonde went over the top, down onto the mats underneath. There were howls from her so-called friends as they enjoyed her deposition just a little too much.

She stood on shaky legs and walked back over to the group, picking up a shot glass and tossing back another, her face twisted into an expression that suggested this was not typical behavior for her.

Kate frowned and got up from the stool, walking across the bar and making her way over to the other woman.

He had a feeling he should know the woman’s name, had a feeling that he probably did somewhere in the back corner of his mind. He knew everyone. Which meant that he knew a lot about a lot of people, recognized nearly every face he passed on the street. He could usually place them with their most defining life moments, as those were the things that often spilled out on the bar top after a few shots too many.

But it didn’t mean he could put a name to every face. Especially when that face was halfway across the room, shielded slightly by a hat.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“Sierra West,” Jack said, something in his tone strange.

“Oh, right.”

Ace knew the West family well enough, or rather, he knew of them. Everyone did, though they were hardly the type to frequent his establishment. Sierra did, which would explain why she was familiar, though they never made much in the way of conversation. She was the type who was always absorbed in her friends or her cell phone when she came to place her order. No deep confessionals from Sierra over drinks.

He’d always found it a little strange she patronized his bar when the rest of the West family didn’t.

Dive bars weren’t really their thing.

He imagined mechanical bulls probably weren’t, either. Judging not just by her pedigree, but by the poor performance.

“No cotillions going on tonight, I guess,” Ace said.

Jack turned his head sharply, his expression dark. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

He didn’t know why, but his statement had clearly offended Monaghan. Ace wasn’t in the business of voicing his opinion. He was in the business of listening. Listening and serving. No one needed to know his take on a damn thing. They just wanted a sounding board to voice their own opinions and hear them echoed back.

Typically, he had no trouble with that. This had been a little slipup.

“She’s not bad,” Jack said.

Sierra was a friend of Jack’s fiancée, that much was obvious. Kate was over there talking to the woman, her expression concerned. Sierra still looked mutinous. He was starting to wonder if she was mutinous toward the entire world, or something in particular.

“I’m sure she isn’t.” He wasn’t sure of any such thing. In fact, if Ace knew one thing about the world and all the people in it, it was that there was a particular type who used their every advantage in life to take whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it, regardless of promises made. Whether they were words whispered in the dark or vows spoken in front of whole crowds of people.

He was a betting man. And he would lay odds that Sierra West was one of those people. She was the type. Rich, a big fish in the small pond of the community, and beautiful. That combination got you whatever you wanted. And when the option for whatever you wanted was available, very few people resisted it.

Hell, why would you? There were a host of things he would change if he had infinite money and power.

But just because he figured he’d be in the same boat if he were rich and almighty didn’t mean he had to like it on other people.

Jack’s defensiveness of Sierra made Ace a little bit suspicious. And he made a mental note to keep an eye on that situation. He didn’t like to think that Jack would ever do anything to betray Kate. If for no other reason than that her older brothers would kill him dead without one shred of remorse between the two of them.

Hell, Ace would help. Kate was a nice girl, and up until she and Jack had gotten together, he would never have said Jack was a nice guy. A good guy, sure, but definitely not the kind of guy you would want messing around with your little sister.

He looked back over at Kate, who patted her friend on the shoulder before shaking her head and walking back toward the group. “She didn’t want to come sit with us or anything,” Kate told them, giving Jack a sideways look.

Now he wondered if she was an ex of Jack’s. If she was, he also wondered why Kate was being so friendly to her.

Kate Garrett was good people, but even she had her limits, Ace was sure.

The Garrett-Monaghan group lingered at the bar for another couple of hours before they were replaced by another set of customers. Sierra’s group thinned out a little bit, but didn’t disperse completely. A couple of the guys were starting to get rowdy, and Ace was starting to think he was going to have to play the part of his own bouncer tonight. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Fortunately, the rowdier members of the group slowly trickled outside. He watched as Sierra got up and made her way back to the bathroom, leaving a couple of girls—one of whom he assumed was the designated driver—sitting at the table.

The tab was caught up, so he didn’t really care how it all went down. He wasn’t a babysitter, after all.

He turned, grabbed a rag out of the bucket beneath the counter and started to wipe it down. When he looked up again, the girls who had been sitting at the table were gone, and Sierra West was standing in the center of the room looking around like she was lost.

Then she glanced in his direction, and her eyes lit up like a sinner looking at salvation.

Wrong guess, honey.

She wandered over to the bar, her feet unsteady. “Did you see where my friends went?”

She had that look about her. Like a lost baby deer. All wide, dewy eyes and unsteady limbs. And damned if she wasn’t cute as hell.

“Out the door,” he said, almost feeling sorry for her. Almost.

She wasn’t the first pretty young drunk to get ditched in his bar by stupid friends. She was also exactly the kind of woman he avoided at all costs, no matter how cute or seemingly vulnerable she was.

“What?” She swayed slightly. “They weren’t supposed to leave me.”

She sounded mystified. Completely dumbfounded that anyone would ever leave her high and dry.

“I figured,” he said. “Here’s a tip, get better friends.”

She frowned. “They’re the best friends I have.”

He snorted. “That’s a sad story.”

She held up her hand, the broad gesture out of place coming from such a refined creature. “Just a second.”

“Sure.”

She turned away, heading toward the door and out to the parking lot.

He swore. He didn’t know if she had a car out there, or if she was intent on driving herself. But she was way too skunked to drive.

“Watch the place, Jenna,” he said to one of the waitresses, who nodded and assumed a rather important-looking position with her hands flat on the bar and a rag in her hand, as though she were ready to wipe crumbs away with serious authority.

He rounded the counter and followed the same path Sierra had just taken out into the parking lot. He looked around for a moment and didn’t see her. Then he looked down and there she was, sitting on the edge of the curb. “Everything okay?”

That was a stupid question, since he already knew the answer.

She lifted her head. “No.”

He let out a long, drawn-out sigh. The problem was, he’d followed her out here. If he had just let her walk out the door, then nothing but the pine trees and the seagulls would have been responsible for her. But no, he’d had to follow. He’d been concerned about her driving. And now, he would have to follow through on that concern.

“You don’t have a ride?”

She shook her head, looking miserable. “Everyone left me. Because they aren’t nice. You’re right. I do need better friends.”

“Yes,” he said, “you do. And let me go ahead and tell you right now, I won’t be one of them. But as long as you don’t live somewhere ridiculous like Portland, I can give you a ride home.”

And this, right here, was the curse of owning a bar. Whether he should or not, he felt responsible in these situations. She was compromised, it was late, cabs were scarce in a town the size of Copper Ridge and she was alone. He could not let her meander her way back home. Not when he could easily see that she got there safely.

“A ride?” She frowned, her delicate features lit dramatically by the security light hanging on the front of the bar.

“I know your daddy probably told you not to take rides from strangers, but trust me, I’m the safest bet around. Unless you want to call someone.” He checked his watch. “It’s inching close to last call. I’m betting not very many people are going to come out right now.”

She shook her head slowly. “Probably not.”

He sighed heavily, reaching into his pocket and wrapping his fingers around his keys. “All right, come on. Get in the truck.”

* * *

SIERRA LOOKED UP at her unlikely, bearded, plaid-clad savior. She knew who it was, of course. Ace Thompson was the owner of the bar, and she bought beer from him at least twice a month when she came out with her friends. They’d exchanged money and drinks across the counter more times than she could recall, but this was more words than she’d ever exchanged with him in her life.

She was angry at herself. For getting drunk. For going out with the biggest jerks in the local rodeo club. For getting on the back of a mechanical bull and opening herself up to their derision—because honestly, when you sat your drunk ass on a fake, bucking animal, you pretty much deserved it. And most of all, for sitting down in the parking lot acting like she was going to cry just because she had been ditched by said jerky friends.

Oh, and being caught at what was most definitely an epic low made it all even worse. Ace had almost certainly seen her inglorious dismount of the mechanical bull, then witnessed everyone leaving without her.

She’d been so sure today couldn’t get any worse.

Tequila had proven her wrong.

“I’m fine,” she said, and she could have bitten off her own tongue, because she wasn’t fine. As much as she wanted to pretend she didn’t need his help, she kind of did. Granted, she could call Madison or Colton. But if her sister had to drive all the way down to town from the family ranch she would probably kill Sierra. And if she called Colton’s house his fiancée would probably kill Sierra.

Either way, that made for a dead Sierra.

She couldn’t exactly call her father, since she wasn’t speaking to him. Which, really, was the root of the evil that was today.

“Sure you are. Most girls who end up sitting on their ass at 1:00 a.m. in a parking lot are just fine.”

She blinked, trying to bring his face into focus. He refused to be anything but a fuzzy blur. “I am.”

For some reason, her stubbornness was on full display, and most definitely outweighing her common sense. That was probably related to the alcohol. And the fact that all of her restraint had been torn down hours ago. Sometime early this morning when she had screamed at her father and told him she never wanted to see him again, because she’d found out he was a liar. A cheater.

Right, so that was probably why she was feeling rebellious. Angry in general. But she probably shouldn’t direct it at the person who was offering to give her a ride.

In spite of the fact that her brain had rationalized this course of action, her ass was still firmly planted on the ground.

“Don’t make me ask you twice, Sierra. It’s going to make me get real grumpy, and I don’t think you’ll like that.” Ace shifted his stance, crossing his arms over his broad chest—she was pretty sure it was broad, either that or she was seeing double—and looked down at her.

She got to her wobbly feet, pitching slightly to the side before steadying herself. Her head was spinning, her stomach churning, and she was just mad. Because she felt like crap. Because she knew better than to drink like this, at least when she wasn’t in the privacy of her own home.

“Which truck?” she asked, rubbing her forehead.

He jerked his head to the left. “This way.”

He turned, not waiting for her, and began to walk across the parking lot. She followed as quickly as she could. Fortunately, the lot was mostly empty so she didn’t have to watch much but the back of Ace as they made their way to the vehicle. It wasn’t a new, flashy truck. It was old, but it was in good condition. Better than most she’d seen at such an advanced age. But then, as far as she knew Ace wasn’t a rancher. He owned a bar, so it wasn’t like his truck saw all that much action.

She stood in front of the passenger-side door for a long moment before realizing he was not coming around to open it for her. Her face heated as she jerked open the door for herself and climbed inside.

It had a bench seat. And she found herself clinging to the door, doing her best to keep the expansive seat between them as wide as possible. She was suddenly conscious of the fact that he was a very large man. Tall, broad, muscular. She’d known that, somewhere in the back of her mind she’d known that. But the way he filled up the cab of a truck containing just the two of them was much more significant than the way he filled the space in a vast and crowded bar.

He started the engine, saying nothing as he put the truck in Reverse and began to pull out of the lot. She looked straight ahead, clinging to the door handle, desperate to find something to say. The silence was oppressive, heavy around them. It made her feel twitchy, nervous. She always knew what to say. She was in command of every social situation she ever stepped into. People found her charming, and if they didn’t, they never said otherwise. Because she was Sierra West, and her family name carried with it the burden of mandatory respect from the people of Copper Ridge.

Her father was one of the most esteemed horse breeders in the entire country, and it wasn’t uncommon for his connections to bring people with big money into town, sometimes on a permanent basis. An entire culture of horsemanship had been built up because of her father, because of her sister Madison’s dressage training. And in addition to that, her family made donations to the schools, to local charities...

And beneath all of that, what no one else knew was that her father was actually an awful human being.

That’s not true. Jack Monaghan knows. His mother knows.

Her friend Kate knew, since she was engaged to Jack and all.

The secret was like a festering wound that had been tightly bandaged for years. But now the bandage was ripped off, and the wound was reopening, the truth of it slowly bleeding out around them, touching more and more people with each passing day.

She took a deep breath, trying to ease the pressure in her chest, trying to remove the weight that was sitting there.

“What’s your sign?” Somehow, her fuzzy brain had retrieved that as a conversation starter. The moment the words left her mouth she wanted to stuff them back in and swallow them.

To her surprise, Ace laughed. “Caution.”

“What?”

“I’m a caution sign, baby. Now where are we going?”

“I’m staying with my brother Colton. He has a ranch just outside of town. After the Farm and Garden. Not as far out as the Garretts, kind of by Aiden Crawford’s place.”

“Does he have an address?”

She blinked, shaking her head. “Right. 316 Highway 104.”

“All right, I think I can figure that out.”

“I can give you directions. Or you can map it on your phone.”

He snorted. “Do I look like I’m carrying a smartphone?”

No, no he didn’t. “Oh. A caution sign. Like on the road.” Suddenly, the meaning of his comment washed over her. “I get it.”

“Good job.”

She sniffed. “You don’t have to be mean. I’m drunk, not stupid.” Actually, she was debating that last thing. Right now, she was heavily debating it. Most of her actions over the past twenty-four hours had been pretty freaking stupid. Apparently anger made her kind of dumb.

“This is a judgment-free zone, little girl,” he said, making her feel smaller, sillier with that very reductive endearment. Was it even an endearment if it was reductive? She wasn’t sure.

She was only pondering that because of the alcohol. She wasn’t sure she would have noticed his phrasing at all if she’d been sober. A lot of men talked to her like that.

Baby doll. Pretty little thing.

She didn’t have trouble with men. Or, more to the point, she could have exactly the kind of trouble she wanted to with most any guy in town. She didn’t, because she was a West, and she’d always been taught the importance of discretion in such matters. That truth had been hammered home when Madison had dealt with her own crazy scandal at seventeen.

Sierra’d had boyfriends at college, but, while she liked to engage in a little bit of flirtation with the men in town, she wasn’t really one to follow through. In a place like Copper Ridge it was too easy to run into an ex at a stop sign, and she had never wanted to deal with that. Had never wanted to deal with bringing a guy home to her family. Too many expectations.

Which, given the recent revelations about her father, was a bit of a joke.

For all his talk about discretion he had apparently spread himself all over town. And he had a child with someone else. A child who was now a man. A man who had been in the bar tonight. A man who had just seen her go ass-over-head off a mechanical bull.

She’d totally lost the thread of the conversation, and her train of thought. Her head was starting to hurt. She knew that she was going to regret all of this in the morning, intensely. She was regretting it now, even with the comforting blanket of alcohol still somewhat wrapped around her.

Tomorrow was going to be a very particular kind of hell.

“I’m not a little girl,” she said, because it was the only thing she could think of to say.

“Of course not,” he replied, his tone placating.

She had known who Ace Thompson was for a long time. He was the guy that almost everyone in town had bought their very first beer from the moment they turned twenty-one. She was no exception. But she hadn’t realized what a butt-head he was.

A hot one. He had dark hair, and a dark beard that was just a shade longer than stubble. It always made her wonder if it was intentional, or if he had just gone a few days without shaving. There was something about that, the careless presentation that still managed to make him look irresistible, that made her think of all the debauchery that occupied his time, and kept him too busy to shave.

“You don’t have to sound so much like you’re patronizing me,” she said.

“But I am patronizing you.”

She bristled. “I guess you’ve never had any crap happen in your life that makes you go out and get drunk and want to...”

“Ride a mechanical bull? Not specifically. But I’ve tried to drown my sorrows in a bottle of Jack a time or two.”

“So, that’s all this is.” She sighed, looking out the window at the dark shapes of the pine trees, like a jagged spill of ink against the night sky. “Just one of those things.”

“He wasn’t good enough for you. It was him, not you. He looked like an ass in that popped collar anyway.”

She let out a harsh breath that fogged the window and obscured her view. “It isn’t about a guy.”

“Honey, I don’t really care what it’s about. Guy, girl.” He paused. “I’m actually more interested in the second option.”

She turned toward him, barely able to make out the shape of his profile in the darkness. “Not a girl, either.”

“Way to spoil a man’s fantasies. Lucky for you, the only thing I’m really interested in is getting you home without you getting kidnapped and mangled by a drifter, okay? That’s something I can’t have happen on my watch. You can get drunk. You can make a fool of yourself riding a bull. I don’t care. That’s all part of how I get paid. What I don’t need is some silly little rich kid getting herself killed trying to get home from the bar because she hangs out with a bunch of idiots who don’t care about her safety. All right? That’s as far as my good deed goes.”

His words were harsh, exceptionally so, given her particularly raw state. She felt...bruised. Completely and righteously enraged. “You shouldn’t have troubled yourself. In Copper Ridge the crime rate pretty much consists of kids throwing water balloons at shop windows.”

“We have a police department for a reason, babe.”

“Sierra,” she said through gritted teeth. “My name is Sierra West. Not babe. Not kid. Definitely not little girl.”

“Well, that puts me in my place.”

“I haven’t even begun to put you in your place.” That was not as hard-core as it sounded in her head. She just sounded kind of pathetic. A little bit whiny. She was both of those things, but she would rather Ace Thompson didn’t know that.

She was starting to bleed her issues all over the cab of the old truck in front of a man she barely knew.

Everything seemed to be falling apart.

She couldn’t say anything else. If she did she would dissolve completely. Into a puddle of big, wimpy girl tears. She was better than this. She knew how to be better than this. She had been trained to keep a brave face on from birth. Where the hell was it now?

It wasn’t his business what was happening with her family. She should have let him think her little mini-breakdown was about a guy.

In fact, she would retract her earlier statement. It was technically about a guy anyway. Her father. Jack Monaghan, the half brother she hadn’t known she had...

“It’s about a guy,” she said, feeling her own subject change like a bad case of whiplash.

It was so strange to feel tongue-tied and clumsy around a man, around anyone. She didn’t usually. She was going to put it down to her weird mood and the intoxication.

“I figured. Girls like you don’t have a lot of problems bigger than that. Except maybe a broken nail.”

Annoyance spiked through her. “Please. If I was the type to worry about a broken nail I would hardly have gotten onto the back of your mechanical bull. I might be spoiled, I’m not going to deny that. But I’m also a barrel racer. I’ve been riding horses since before I could walk. I don’t exactly sit at home with my hair in curlers planning my next shopping spree.”

He chuckled. A real laugh. “Point taken.”

“Anyway. I’m just upset because... You know, sometimes people aren’t what they seem to be. And then you just wonder... If you’re a gigantic idiot. If you really shouldn’t be allowed to cross the street by yourself because you can’t tell that someone’s a bad guy after spending... All that time with him... How can you ever be confident you know anyone?” Her throat tightened, emotion flooding her. She had no control right now, and she hated it. She was used to being able to put on a flawless show no matter what was going on inside of her.

She’d been dumped by her boyfriend junior year—her first boyfriend. First kiss, first everything—right before one of the big games in Autzen Stadium, and she’d managed to parade right in there with her group of girlfriends, a huge smile plastered on her face. She’d even done a little happy dance for the Jumbotron that had made it onto national TV. A big chipper eff-you to the man who’d broken things off with her.

She didn’t let people see her sweat. She didn’t let them see her cry. They thought her life was easier because she let them think so.

But it was all falling apart now.

“You can’t ever totally know people,” Ace said, something in his tone dark now. “People are liars. And they do what makes them happy. They serve themselves. So, of course they lie to you. For a month, for a year. They may not even know they’re lying to you, not until something comes up that means they have to protect their own asses. They’ll forget everything they ever told you to keep themselves happy. That’s people. Sorry you’re having to deal with it.”

Ace’s words were so hard, so desperately cynical. Not the kind of words she would ever have guessed would come from the friendly neighborhood bartender.

“So, you think that’s everybody?”

“I can’t test this theory on everybody. It’s even tough to prove with one person. You would have to live with someone for a hell of a long time and never have it go to hell to prove otherwise. No one in my life has ever lasted that long.”

Tears pricked the back of her eyes, and she felt like an even bigger idiot. Getting emotional not just for herself, but for some guy she didn’t even know. “That’s really sad.”

“Not really. It’s just life.”

“So that means you don’t even feel bad about it? About the fact that people are just a bunch of lying tool bags? I feel pretty bad about it.”

“You’ll get over it.”

His words made her feel hollow. Not just her, the world around her. The ground. The sky. Like all the substance, the very foundation, was gone. “What if I don’t?”

“Then it’s going to be a hard road for you. Though you know what? It won’t actually be that hard. You’ve got a lot of money to catch you when you fall. You’ve got your family.”

Except she didn’t. She had walked away. But he wouldn’t understand that, and he wouldn’t believe it.

Silence descended on the cab like a plague of locusts. Oppressive. Heavy. She wanted to think of something to say, and she didn’t want to say anything to him ever again. It was a minefield. He had all the wrong answers. Everything she didn’t want to hear.

“Aren’t bartenders supposed to be encouraging? Aren’t you supposed to smile and nod and say what everybody needs you to say?”

After feeling like she would sit in resolute silence, the words came as a surprise even to her.

“Sorry. I’m out from behind the bar. You use me as a designated driver and you get my honest opinion. People tend not to like my opinions.”

She didn’t believe that was true. Trying to think back on every event she’d ever vaguely circled around him at, she really didn’t believe it was true. If she was sorting through her thoughts correctly, he had a good reputation. He was a nice guy. He showed up at every charity event her family was ever involved in. He provided free drinks, in exchange for publicity of course, but still, he did it at considerable expense to himself.

She remembered about a year and a half ago when the community had come together to rebuild Connor Garrett’s barn. Ace had been there then. Not just helping to rebuild, but providing refreshments.

He was usually smiling.

She wondered where that guy was now.

Maybe he just doesn’t like giving people rides home at one in the morning.

That was fair. Anyone could be grumpy. She was most definitely off her game, so why shouldn’t it be the same for him?

His life was so much simpler than hers anyway. What he had, he had outright, free and clear. He owned a bar, and it was his domain. He did what he wanted to with it. He was able to help people with it. He was high-profile in the community, but he had a certain measure of freedom with it. There was all kinds of acceptance for what he did, no matter what. He had a reputation for sleeping with anything that moved, but it didn’t seem to damage him.

Yeah, he basically had it made. So for all he could say about the evils of people, she’d never seen any evidence that it had touched him.

And it made her think back to his earlier comment about her breaking a nail. How easy he seemed to think things were for her. How soft he seemed to think she was, and it made her angry. He didn’t know. He had no idea.

He turned the truck onto a narrow, paved driveway, the one that led back to her brother’s ranch.

If she was going to say the words that were bubbling up inside of her like boiling water, she had to say them now. And she wanted to. Maybe because she was feeling bold due to the alcohol. But maybe because it was just the right thing to say. Maybe because he needed to hear it.

“Things are easy for you, though,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

“You said my road wouldn’t be that hard, but you’re the one who has it made. You’re a man. A man everyone just kind of gives a pass to. It doesn’t matter what you do. Everyone just kind of accepts it. You can say whatever you want. Like now. You’re giving me a ride home, after being totally condescending. And you don’t even care. Me? I have to watch what I say. I have to... I have to keep up appearances for the family name. You burned that bridge a long time ago. Aren’t you like...a pastor’s kid? And you own a bar now. But if anything, people just kind of laugh at it. How funny, your dad preaches sermons on Sunday to everyone who’s hungover from being at Ace’s place on Saturday night.”

“You can stop talking now, Sierra West,” he said, his tone deadly now. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You don’t know my life.”

“Maybe not. But you don’t know mine. And you were more than ready to cast judgment on me, Mr. World-Weary, I-Know-People. You think you know me, but you don’t. Maybe nobody does.”

He laughed, and it grated against her skin. It was derisive. Unkind. “Trust me, baby, everybody thinks that. Everybody thinks they’re so unknowable, so complicated. But they aren’t. People are just people, you included. You don’t have any hidden depth to awe and astound me.”

“Stop the car,” she ground out.

“We aren’t there yet,” he said, his voice hard.

“I don’t care. We’re in the driveway. I can walk to the top of it.”

“Right. And I’m going to let you get eaten by a mountain lion now?”

“I’m not going to get eaten by a mountain lion.”

“No, you’re right. He probably won’t eat you. He’ll probably just gnaw on you for a while. But I think I’ll go ahead and keep driving you so that doesn’t happen, either. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

She gritted her teeth. “Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Hell, no. Because I don’t want to deal with any of the fallout that would come from having you get gnawed on on my watch.”

“Asshole.”

“Well, now you know my secret.”

“It’s a poorly kept one. I just had to be around you for about five seconds and it became pretty clear.”

“So we’ve established that I’m an asshole, and you’re a whiny rich girl. You’re going to be very embarrassed by all of this tomorrow. I, on the other hand, won’t.”

That did it. Now she was just pissed. “Embarrassed? Why should I be embarrassed? You’re the one who should be embarrassed.”

“Why?” he asked.

Dammit. She didn’t know why. She had said it, and it had felt strong, and kind of badass, but now she felt like it really wasn’t. Especially since she didn’t have anything to back it up.

“Because—” good one, Sierra “—because, you’re just a bar owner. Serving alcohol and buying mechanical bulls for people to fall off. What is that?”

“Most of the town spends more than a bit of their free time at my humble establishment. And I seem to recall you spending money to ride good old Ferdinand, so I’m going to go ahead and say maybe you shouldn’t throw stones from your glass house.”

“Whatever. Other people grow up and move on from that kind of behavior. You wallow in it. And don’t think I haven’t heard plenty about your reputation with women. You’re just one of those guys. An eternal...frat boy. You were probably hoping to get into my pants.”

“I was very much not hoping for that.”

“So you say.”

He pulled the truck up to the front of her brother’s vast log-cabin-style house. She could see that the porch light was on, probably out of consideration for her. Something Colton had done, she was certain, and not Natalie. Natalie would probably prefer that Sierra not be able to find her way to the front door in the dark.

Natalie wouldn’t mind if Sierra was gnawed on by a mountain lion.

“I’m sexy,” she said, opening the passenger door and stumbling out into the darkness. “And I know it.” Dimly, she was aware that that was a song lyric, and she wasn’t coming across very well.

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart,” Ace said. “I’m sure some men will even believe you. And on that note, good night, Sierra West. It’s been...interesting, but I think you’ll understand when I say that I hope we don’t have occasion to talk again.”

She stood there for a moment, wondering why he wasn’t pulling away before she realized she was still gripping the open passenger door, preventing him from doing just that.

“Same goes, Ace Thompson.” She slammed the door shut. “Same goes.”

CHAPTER TWO

ACE WALKED INTO the empty flour mill and looked around the open space. He had a cramp in his right hand that signified his ownership of the place, and he’d signed his name so many times that morning his signature had started to look like it wasn’t even made of letters anymore.

But now it was official. The old mill that had been standing empty for years, a ghost waiting to be brought back to life. He stood, looking around at a whole lot of square feet of potential, and expense. The roof had a steep pitch, a mezzanine floor overlooking the vast, empty room. The large picture windows gave a stunning view of the steel-gray Pacific ocean and white-capped waves.

He’d gotten a killer deal on the place considering the location. Of course, it had been a killer deal since the building itself was little more than a gutted corpse lying on the beach. A giant-ass beached whale.

Call him Ishmael, and shit.

But he could see beyond all that. The bar did well enough that he could afford this investment. He could afford to expand. It was a strange thing, committing to that. Committing to moving forward. To really admitting that his life was in Copper Ridge now. That he owned bars. Or, in this case, a brewery.

He checked his watch. Jack Monaghan was supposed to be here any minute, along with Eli Garrett. Ace had the money to put into this place, but he’d really like to kick it off with some investors.

The more interest he had from the community, the better off he’d be.

Buying his current bar had been more of a sure thing. Ted, the old owner, was retiring and that was going to leave a hole. Someone had been needed to step into that hole and fill it with booze.

Ace had been happy to oblige.

But this would be a new place in an old town. Another change to a landscape that had been pretty damn stagnant until recent years. And he had no idea if this was a change that would take, or if it would just get washed away with the next tide.

He turned a circle, his footsteps echoing off the high ceiling. It was easy for him to picture the place filled with chairs. Tables, the brewing equipment in the back. He was getting pretty good at making his own microbrews, and they were popular on tap over at his bar. He had done everything he could to test the venture and make sure it would be something that at least had a fighting chance. But like anything else it was impossible to guarantee.

Business ventures went to hell all the time. Business ventures. Careers. Marriage.

At least, that was his experience.

Still, he was starting to get itchy. He wanted more. Needed more. This was more.

He heard the door open behind him and he turned around just as Jack and Eli walked into the room.

“You made it.”

“Yep.” Jack paused, running his hand over one of the support beams. “I’m always interested in an investment opportunity. Contrary to popular belief, I’m not actually a dumbass.”

“I know you aren’t,” Ace said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “That’s why I asked you to come out.”

Of all the people in Copper Ridge, Ace had had the most contact post-high school with Jack. It still hadn’t been much, but back when Ace was riding pro in the rodeo, he and Jack had crossed paths on a couple of occasions. Ace rode saddle bronc, and Jack had been a bull rider, but they’d made time for a beer or two on a few occasions.

But Ace had quit long before Jack, settling down in Texas for good, or so he’d imagined at the time.

Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Ultimately, Ace had made his way back to Copper Ridge permanently before Jack had to.

But he’d always gotten a sense that there was a lot more to the other man than he liked to let on. He related to that in some ways.

“I like a good investment, too,” Eli said, moving deeper into the space. “But no one really doubts that.”

Jack laughed. “That’s for damn sure. We’re all pretty sure you have the word responsibility tattooed on your ass.”

“I don’t,” Eli said. “I don’t have any tattoos.”

“Of course not,” Jack said.

“So,” Ace said, eager to get things moving along. “This is the place. I plan on having a full restaurant menu, and a brewing facility. I’ll be serving my own microbrews. Which I will also be selling over at the bar.”

“Sounds like a great plan to me,” Eli said. “What kind of food are you talking about?”

“More than hamburgers. I’m thinking we can get a good assortment of seafood. I’ve already been talking to Ryan Masters about him supplying the restaurant with his catch of the day.” Ace was pleased that this new venture gave him opportunity to work with local businesses. Ryan was the kind of guy Ace liked to do business with. Hardworking. Brought himself up from nothing. A guy very unlike the West family. Who he had no call to be thinking about now. “Not too fancy or anything but you know...the type of microbrew pub stuff that hipsters lose their minds over.”

“Great idea, man,” Jack said. “I’m in.”

“That’s it?” Ace asked. “You don’t want to see any credentials, or spreadsheets, or anything.”

“I wouldn’t understand them if you showed them to me,” Jack said. “I’m smart with my money. By which I mean I pay someone else to manage it.”

“Well, sounds smart to me,” Ace said.

“I’m in, too,” Eli said. “I was telling Sadie all about it last night, and she was pretty excited. She would have come today if she had been able to get out of taking a group of people down to go whale watching. But this is exactly the kind of thing that’s going to help bolster her business with the bed-and-breakfast, too. Tourism is really up and coming here, and I think we need more places like this.”

“I’m surprised, Sheriff, that you’d want to invest in a place that encourages drinking.”

“It’s expensive drinking. Microbrews are pricey, right?” Eli asked.

“I guess so,” he said.

“I like that. The cheaper the beer, the more people drink. Bring in some of that fancy-ass stuff and people have to think really hard before they go trying to get hammered on it.”

Ace laughed. “True enough.”

“Hey, before we head out,” Jack said. “I did have a favor I wanted to ask you.”

Oh, there was that other shoe dropping. Ace should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. “What favor?”

“It’s about Sierra West.”

Ace thought back to last night, to the verbal sparring with that pretty blonde, who was a lot less pretty when she was running her mouth. “What about her?”

“She’s going through some stuff. You could probably tell by her behavior last night.”

“Not really. I run a bar. Her behavior seems run-of-the-mill to me. Actually, she was pretty tame. And I don’t know her from a barnacle on the bottom of a fishing boat.”

“Just trust me, she’s going through some stuff. She kind of had a falling-out with her old man.”

“Is that so?”

She’d said that all of her drama was over a man. He supposed that counted. It was difficult to imagine anyone opposing Nathan West. He was such an established figurehead in Copper Ridge, and as far as Ace had ever seen, a decent enough guy.

But hell, appearances didn’t mean a damn thing, and he knew that better than most. Or maybe it was just Sierra throwing a tantrum because daddy wouldn’t let her into her trust fund. Who knew.

“She needs work,” Jack continued. “A job. But she hasn’t had any luck finding one because she doesn’t have any experience that extends beyond working at the family ranch.”

“And how do you know all this?” Ace had observed there was something weird going on between Jack and the other woman last night, something about the way he watched her that went past casual interest.

But if there was anything shady going on he doubted that Jack would bring her up in front of Eli, considering Eli was Kate’s older brother, and he wouldn’t hesitate to cut off Jack’s testicles and feed them to his cows should Jack ever do anything to hurt his sister.

They had only been together for a few months, but everyone in town knew that Jack belonged to Kate. Hell, they were already engaged. Which was really something, considering Jack had spent so many years avoiding commitment.

“Oh, you know, she’s good friends with Kate,” Jack said.

Ace knew there was more than that, but he could also see that Jack had no intention of sharing what more there was.

“So what are you trying to ask me, Monaghan?”

“I was hoping you’d give her a job.”

“So, no one else in town will give her a job because she has no work experience, I just saw her drunk off her ass last night, and you want me to hire her?”

“The chicks in your place serve hamburgers. That’s not exactly rocket science.”

“Watch it, Monaghan, that’s my livelihood.”

“I know. Sorry. I’m not trying to be a dick. But it does come naturally.”

“Sure. But I’m not sure I want a completely inexperienced cocktail waitress stumbling around the place messing up orders.”

That was total crap. He’d hired people with a lot less to go on. He’d hired a borderline drifter, Casey James, a few months ago just to help her get back on her feet. She’d ended up quitting when she’d fallen in love with Aiden Crawford, a local farmer. Working on her own land seemed to be more fulfilling than serving drinks. Which he understood, even if it had left him a little shorthanded.

But he wasn’t admitting any of that.

“I’m helping you out by investing in this place. I’m taking a chance, and I think it’s a good chance. Can you take a chance on her?”

He didn’t want to. That was the simple truth. He so violently didn’t want to that he didn’t want to explore the reasoning. Because it was weird that he should care at all. She was rich, she was a spoiled brat. She had said some ridiculous stuff to him last night about him having it easy. But that shouldn’t matter.

It wouldn’t, if she wasn’t such a pretty little thing.

He gritted his teeth, ignoring that internal voice. He didn’t care if she was pretty. Pretty covered a lot of sins, but Jack had learned that early on. He spread his favors around fairly freely with women, he had no problem admitting that. But there was one type he always avoided.

Sierra West’s type.

He also never screwed around with his staff.

If she was staff, that would put her in a double no-go zone. So, whether or not she was pretty should mean nothing. What she’d said to him last night shouldn’t mean anything, either.

Still didn’t want to hire her. She reminded him too much of another time in his life. Of another woman in his past. Women like her were poison in a good glass of wine.

You could drink the whole thing down before you realized you were already dead.

“I’m not running a charity. I don’t give out first summer jobs to grown women who play like they’re high school girls. If she wants a job, she needs to come and ask me for one.”

Jack frowned. “Do you have something against her?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that. But I gave her a ride home last night, and she was in fine form. Like I said, I’m used to that kind of thing, but it doesn’t mean I need to give that kind of thing a job. If she wants to come by the bar and apologize for her behavior and ask me directly for a job, then I’ll consider it because you mentioned it.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said.

Eli had been silent through the whole exchange, and Ace took a moment to study the other man’s expression. It was unreadable. Unhelpful.

“Is there anything else I should know?” Ace figured he should just go ahead and ask.

“Nope,” Jack answered, shaking his head.

“Okay, then. Have her come down during the slow time. I’m assuming you’re going to tell her she has a job interview.”

Jack rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Kate probably will.”

“However you want to work it out.”

“Thanks. I do appreciate it, for what it’s worth. From what... From what Kate has told me, Sierra’s had a harder time than you might think.”

“If she can deliver french fries to the appropriate table it doesn’t much matter to me.”

“Well, that part will be up to you. In the meantime, keep us posted on everything happening here.”

“Sure,” Ace said. “Did you want to help me pick out curtains?”

Eli broke his silence with a laugh. “I don’t even want to pick out curtains for my own house.”

“I suppose I’ll have to hire someone. That’s the problem with trying to open a place that sits a few notches higher on the restaurant scale than a dive bar. It means I have to cultivate tastes that rise above dive bar.”

“If nothing else,” Jack said, “there will be beer. Beyond that, I’m not sure you can really go wrong.”

“True enough.”

After that, Eli and Jack turned to go. And Ace tried not to think about all the ways this could absolutely go wrong. Sure things, in his experience, were never really sure things. Life had a way of going wrong in spectacular and unforeseen ways.

That was his only defense really. Expect an attack to come from somewhere, even if he couldn’t figure out where it might come from.

At least he would have Sierra West’s attempt at a job interview and humility to entertain him. Or she wouldn’t show up at all.

Either way, he couldn’t lose.

CHAPTER THREE

“JACK TALKED TO ACE about getting you a job.”

Sierra stared at the phone like it was a poisonous snake. Usually, she welcomed phone calls from friends. Particularly Kate. Right now, going through everything, Kate was her best bet for finding an emotional outlet for her pain.

The problem with her typical group of friends—beyond the fact that they had abandoned her at the bar last night—was that she felt obligated to protect her family secrets around them.

The other day, when she had overheard her father nearly bursting a blood vein screaming about Jack Monaghan going back on the deal they had struck years ago, she’d discovered that her entire existence was a carefully constructed facade.

Apparently Jack had confronted their father a few months ago, and now the secret was starting to leak out. In town, and now in their house.

The only reason she had spent many years thinking that her father was a decent person, a faithful husband, a loyal, giving human being, was that Jack had signed a gag order some seventeen years earlier.

In exchange, Jack had accepted a large sum of money. Jack had come and paid her father back, and had dissolved that bargain with that one simple action. There was no protection anymore. Jack could get a billboard and put it up in the center of town, proclaiming Nathan West to be the faithless scumbag he was. And then, it wouldn’t only be her mother, her sister and her brother dealing with the fallout in a contained environment.

If that came out, who knew what else would come out? That was what terrified her the most. If people in town saw one person speaking out against Nathan West, how many others would come forward and reveal wrongs he’d committed against them? How bad was he?

It wasn’t something she was ready to face. Whether or not that was fair, it was the truth.

But Kate knew. Because of her relationship with Jack she already knew the whole story, so while that made it difficult for her to deal with her friend in some ways, it also made it easier. She didn’t have to explain her behavior last night. Didn’t have to go through any awkward or dramatic confessions.

Of course, now she knew Kate’s fiancé was Sierra’s half-brother and it didn’t make her feel too eager to go have dinner at their place.

But phone calls were fine.

This one, though, was a little bit confusing.

“Jack did what?”

“He talked to Ace this morning. He met with him about an investment opportunity, and they ended up discussing you. And the fact that you need a job.”

Heat stung Sierra’s cheeks. She did need a job, and until this past week she had not appreciated how difficult one might be to come by. There weren’t a surplus of positions available for someone without a specific skill set. It was a small town, and most of the shops ran on a very small staff. People coming home from college for the summer had already secured positions at any place looking to hire extra employees to deal with the seasonal influx of tourists.

Sierra had always had a job. When she wanted one. All through school she’d known she would have a job waiting for her when she graduated. She’d been made office manager of the family ranch the moment she’d stepped off campus, because that was what her father had been grooming her for.

Colton had taken over West Construction, Maddy handled dressage lessons and horse training. Sierra had been slated for the business side of things.

Scheduling lessons, managing the horses that were boarded on the property, and the payments. Making sure feed was ordered, the farrier was scheduled to handle the horses’ shoe needs.

Sure, nepotism had gotten her there, but she was good at her job.

But apparently if you took nepotism out of the equation she was like any other sad college graduate who was realizing her degree was barely worth the paper it was printed on.

Hey, at least she didn’t have student loan debt.

“I can’t imagine that Ace wants to give me a job.”

“Why not?”

“Because. He gave me a ride home last night when I was drunk.”

There was a brief moment of silence on the other end of the phone. “That shouldn’t matter. He owns a bar. He understands how easy it is to overimbibe.”

“How charming was I last night, Kate? You talked to me.”

“Okay, you were kind of an ass.”

Sierra frowned. “What did I say to you?”

“You said, ‘Really, Kate? That hat with those boots?’”

“Did I?”

“Yes. It’s okay, though. I knew you were drunk. If you were sober you wouldn’t have said that to me in public.”

Sierra grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. And you were right.” There was another slight pause. “My boots did not match my hat.”

“You know that doesn’t matter.” Kate was one of the nicest people Sierra knew, and the idea of saying anything that might have hurt her made her heart crumble a little bit.

Okay, maybe she didn’t have illegitimate children littering the countryside, but she had to wonder if in some way she was more like her father than she would care to be.

“Please don’t feel guilty. Are you going to go talk to Ace about the job?”

She groaned. “He’s mad at me.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t exactly tell him his hat didn’t match his boots, but I wasn’t all that nice to him, either.” Not that he’d been Prince Charming himself.

“Well, that explains why he told Jack you had to come talk to him in person.”

“Ugh.”

“And why he said you had to apologize.”

Sierra covered her eyes. “Serious ugh.”

“I’m sorry, but you don’t have better options, do you?”

“No.”

“Then, much like my hat and boots, your resistance does not go with your situation.”

Her friend was right. Sierra hated it, but her friend was right. “Okay. When am I supposed to go talk to him and...apologize?”

“Anytime before things get busy.”

Sierra supposed she should go as soon as possible. Like ripping off a Band-Aid. The very idea of working at Ace’s filled her with a deep and abiding sense of nope. Everyone would think it was weird. There was no way around that. A West taking a job as a waitress in a bar was nothing if not conspicuous. But as Kate had reminded her, she was short on options. She couldn’t live with Colton forever. And not just because his future wife breathed fire and left scorched earth in her rather petite wake.

Well, mainly because of that.

“So I guess that means I need to drive over there.”

“Yes,” Kate said, uncompromising.

Kate was like that.

Sierra sort of wished they could meet up for coffee. But she was afraid that would force her to confront Jack, or interact with him in some way, and she really wasn’t ready to deal with him.

“Okay. I’ll go.”

“I’ll check in with you.”

“I have no doubt you will.”

Sierra hung up the phone and looked up just as Colton walked into the room. “Something going on?” he asked.

“Just...still on the job hunt.”

“Honestly, Sierra, if we had a position available in the office at the construction firm I would give it to you. But I can’t justify the expense of adding an employee that we don’t need. If I’m going to give you charity, it just makes more sense to have you stay here rent-free.”

“I know. And I completely understand that. Anyway, I don’t feel like it should have to be charity for someone to give me a job. I’m not completely inept.”

“You’re not inept at all.” He opened the fridge and started rummaging for something, pulling out a pitcher of orange juice a moment later. “Where are you job hunting?”

“I’m going down to talk to Ace Thompson, actually.”

“Not about a job,” came a shrill voice from the next room.

“Yes,” Sierra said, “about a job.”

That was Natalie’s cue to walk in. Or rather slide in like an eel cutting through the water. Natalie was sleek, her blond hair ruthlessly tamed back into a bun, her figure ruthlessly trimmed by years of eating little more than salads.

Sierra had no patience for that kind of thing. You could try to make them cute by putting them in Mason jars, but they were still salads, and she still wanted a hamburger and french fries on the side.

“But how is that going to look?” Natalie asked.

It was on the tip of Sierra’s tongue to say that Natalie couldn’t have it both ways. She couldn’t have Sierra out of the house and able to support herself and worry about what kind of job she ended up with. But Colton had instructed her to be sensitive to Natalie, because she was stressed with the wedding getting so close. He assured Sierra that Natalie wasn’t usually so high-strung.

Sierra didn’t believe that. What she did believe was that her future sister-in-law was beautiful, and suitable by the standards the West family used to measure suitability. She had a feeling her older brother was thinking with his trust fund and his trouser brain.

She also hoped that he was making sure there was a prenup.

“I don’t know, Natalie, probably not as bad as if I end up taking a job at The Naughty Mermaid,” Sierra said, naming the strip club on the outskirts of town.

“That isn’t true,” Natalie countered, “because no one could say anything about it without admitting they were there and bringing flack back onto themselves. The same can’t be said for Ace’s.”

“Your concern is touching,” Sierra said.

“I am concerned,” Natalie said, gliding to the fridge and taking out some kind of preprepared breakfast smoothie. “Our wedding is only a few months away. Your family is on the verge of a meltdown. One of my bridesmaids has decided to run against my father for mayor. And everything just needs to calm down until after I say I do.”

“Natalie.” Colton’s tone was patient. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” Natalie said. “Because, I bet you also didn’t think your father had a secret bastard.”

Sierra gritted her teeth. “Don’t talk about him like that,” she said, not entirely sure why she felt protective of Jack.

“That’s enough,” Colton said. “Of course you should go ahead and apply for Ace’s. If you have an in there, take it. Making an honest living is hardly going to disgrace anyone or anything.”

“People are going to wonder about your family’s finances.” Natalie clearly wasn’t ready to let the subject drop.

“Who cares? They’re still going to come to the wedding. There’s a free steak dinner. I know, because I’m paying for it. They won’t care whether I paid with cash or credit. Everything will go off without a hitch. And I’m sure people will be so thankful to your father for hosting such a delightful event that they’ll vote for him without batting an eye. They won’t even read Lydia’s name on the ballot. Why would they? He’s been the mayor forever.”

Natalie seemed somewhat mollified by this. “You make it sound like it might not be so bad.”

“You’re marrying me. How bad could it be?”

Sierra noticed that Natalie seemed to deflect that. But she did turn her cheek and allow Colton to bend and give her a kiss. “All right,” she said, looking at Sierra. “I guess it’s okay.”

Again, Sierra had to grit her teeth and hold back her commentary. “Great. Well, I’ll let you know how it goes.” She was suddenly in a huge hurry to get down to Ace’s. Mainly because she really needed to get away from Natalie. And honestly, away from Colton when he was with her.

He wasn’t totally whipped or anything, but he spent way too much time placating her and managing her for Sierra’s tastes. She didn’t like to imagine that the entire rest of her brother’s life would be spent with a woman who was little more than a temperamental cat in human form. She was constantly needing to be scratched behind the ears and petted in all the right places or she would bite you on the hand.

“I’ll see you both later,” Sierra said, walking out of the kitchen into the front porch before realizing she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, with her hair in two braids, because she couldn’t be bothered to deal with the mess falling asleep on it loose had left it in last night.

She wasn’t exactly dressed for a job interview. But she supposed this was close enough to what she would be wearing if she actually worked in the bar.

Except she would probably have to show a little more cleavage.

She was pretty sure that’s how jobs like this worked.

She heard the door open behind her and turned to see Colton standing there, his arms crossed over his chest. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I don’t know. But I kind of have to.” And if she felt a little spurred on by her future sister-in-law’s controlling attitude, well, that wasn’t so bad, she supposed. “Hopefully I’ll end up with a better job someday, but the reality is I need to do something.”

“You could go back home.”

She made a scoffing sound. “No, thanks.”

“He was your dad for twenty-five years, Sierra, and you were fine living there, and fine taking his money. The only thing that’s changed is that now you know.”

Sierra’s throat tightened. “I know. I’ve only known about Jack and all this other stuff for a couple of days. And you would think twenty-five years would be so much bigger than two days, Colton, you really would. But it’s not. Not for me. This is the biggest, ugliest two days I have ever lived through. I can’t ignore what I know. I can’t go back. Not now.”

“He’s our father.”

“Right. And you need his influence to keep your business running smoothly. And you need to not create a huge rift because you’re having a gigantic wedding and Natalie will completely melt down if you cut ties now, especially since she’s half marrying you for your last name.”

Colton’s expression turned stormy, his brows locking together. She looked at his eyes, that bright blue color so striking and unique with his dark hair. It struck her then, how similar his features were to Jack’s. It hit her so hard it took her breath away.

“You might want to retract the assertion that my fiancée is only marrying me for my name.”

“I said it was half of why,” Sierra said, not backing down.

“You’re a little butt-head, you know that?”

“Ouch. A butt-head? That cut deep, Colton. Right where it hurts most.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure Natalie cares about you.” She wasn’t really. But, she didn’t want to hurt her brother. Even if she did think Natalie was a social-climbing weasel, desperately trying to sink her little claws into Colton so she could use him as a rung on her ascent to the top.

“It’s fine. I’m not an idiot, Sierra. I do understand that if I was a nobody she never would have pursued a relationship with me. Well, she wouldn’t be marrying me anyway. But that’s the way relationships work. It’s not all attraction, or mushy feelings. You pick the person that fits into your life the best. The person that supports your ambitions. I support hers, she supports mine. It’s not a bad thing.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that it would be a bad thing to meet an untimely death at the hands of his wife’s nasty weasel claws, should he ever disappoint her in any way, or should their family scandal grow any vaster.

“You’re not really selling me on the institution, Colton, I have to say.”

“Just wait until your quarter-life crisis is over. You’ll feel differently.”

He turned and walked back into the house, and Sierra made her way over to her truck. She opened the door and got inside, jamming the keys into the ignition, the engine roaring to life. She loved her truck. Cherry red and perfect, with feathers hanging off the rearview mirror and a hookup for her phone so she could play all of her favorite country music.

But it wasn’t really her truck. The thought struck her numb as she put the vehicle in Reverse and began to pull out of the driveway. Her phone wasn’t hers, either. Not really. Neither was the music on it.

That realization stopped the little moment of happy she’d experienced upon getting into the truck. And it weighed her down on the drive back into town, toward Ace’s.

It also reinforced what she was about to do.

Ask for a job. Apologize.

Another thought hit her as she pulled into the parking lot, putting her truck in Park and killing the engine. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever apologized to anyone before in her life. That couldn’t be right. Surely, she’d apologized at some point. To someone. For something.

But she couldn’t think of an example. She could remember fights with friends blowing over with some laughter and a whole lot of hand waving and such, but she couldn’t recall any of them apologizing to each other sincerely.

She blinked, shoving that uncomfortable thought to the side. She climbed out of the truck—not her truck—and made her way into the bar before she could think things through too deeply. She needed to just get this over with. Like ripping off a Band-Aid, she reminded herself.

Ripping off an Ace bandage.

She smiled faintly at her own joke as she ventured deeper into the empty dining area, looking around the space. It was clean, but that was about all she could say for it. She wasn’t a huge fan of the Western decor that clashed with the more nautical elements. There was half a fishing boat mounted to the wall with nets and those weird little glass balls that appeared all the time in oceanic themed decor. She had no idea what they were. Or what they were for.

Lately, Ace had certainly been upping the Western angle. The addition of the bull, and a new little bar seating area that had stools made out of barrels. Even though it wasn’t her personal taste, she realized that it was an accurate representation of the town. This was where the fishermen came to drink when they came in off the water, where the ranchers came to relax after they were finished with a hard day’s work.

It was a cross section of the community, right here in one location. And even if she wouldn’t put a fishing boat or bar stools in her bedroom, she could appreciate them here.

The door to the kitchen swung open and Ace walked through it, wiping his hands on a rag. Her eyes were drawn to the shifting of his forearm muscles, and then the rather firm grip he had as he chucked the rag onto the counter. She looked up, hoping to distract herself from her illicit hand-related thoughts. It didn’t really help. Because from there, she ended up with illicit thoughts about his square jawline, partly disguised, but not completely, by his dark stubble. And from there those thoughts went to his lips. She knew from experience that they smiled easily, that they were shaped nicely, and that when he looked at her, they seemed to get a little sterner.

His eyebrows also seemed to turn sterner when they focused in her direction. Strong, dark eyebrows that were attractive in a way that eyebrows had no right to be. For heaven’s sake.

Apparently, even sober, Ace had an effect on her. Strange, because she couldn’t recall him ever affecting her before last night.

She blamed the emotionally compromised landscape inside her. Severely shifted, rerouted and in general destroyed by all the revelations that had crashed through her like a flash flood recently.

“Hi,” she said, slowly approaching the counter.

“What can I do for you?” he asked. He smiled. Effortless. Friendly. As though he had not given her a ride home last night when she’d been drunk. As though they hadn’t said anything offensive to each other while he’d been giving her a ride home when she was drunk.

“I came to... Jack said—well, Kate called. Kate Garrett. And she said that you might have a job for me.”

“I have a server position available,” he said, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

She took another moment to check out his muscles. She hadn’t decided to check him out, so much as she’d been held captive by an involuntary urge. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. About any of this. Maybe it was all a displacement activity to offset how uncomfortable she was. Being here. About to ask for work. About to beg forgiveness.

“I thought... I thought that maybe...”

“Are you about to ask me if I can donate a kidney, or something?”

She blinked. “No. Why would I want your kidney?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know your life. I don’t know your medical history. But you’re acting like you have something serious to ask me when I was pretty sure you just came to find out about the server position. So maybe stop looking at me like you’d rather be anywhere—including the deepest pit of hell—other than here.”

She could feel her temper starting to warm up. This was hard. Coming here, humbling herself. Okay, she hadn’t exactly humbled herself yet. But she was about to. “I just... I need a place to work. Because I had a falling-out with my father, and I’m not living with my parents anymore. But that also means that not only do I need a place to stay, I need a new job, because my job as an office manager type person was at the ranch. The family ranch...” She was the opposite of eloquent right now, and she knew it. What was it about this guy that made her so tongue-tied? It wasn’t the guy. It was just the situation. Bolstered by that, she took a deep breath and pressed on. “Please.”

“I’m sorry about the situation with your dad,” he said, not sounding it at all. But he said sorry so easily. Maybe it would be easy for her, as well. “But I’m not really sure if you’d be a good fit for the bar.”

“What? My excellent mechanical bull riding skills didn’t convince you?”

“That’s about all you have going for you, from where I’m standing.”

“Ace,” she said, trying again. “I was...not myself last night.”

“Uppity, kinda snotty. Seems to me like it was probably you.”

She gritted her teeth, wanting so badly to tear a strip off him with a very sharp word. But that would run counter to her objective. “I was rude.”

“And?”

She looked up, curling her fingers into fists, digging her nails into her skin. “Drunk.”

“Anything else, little girl?”

He was going to make sure this killed her. Now, if it did kill her, she wouldn’t need a job. She would just need a house to haunt. Maybe she would haunt his ass. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words pulled from her as grudgingly as any words ever were.

“Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“Borderline impossible,” she said. “Can I have the job?”

“Have you ever waited tables?”

“Of course I’ve never waited tables,” she said, belatedly realizing that that was just the sort of attitude he had an issue with. “Because I’ve never had the opportunity,” she added, trying to make the words perky.

“You don’t want to do this,” he said, resting his hands flat on the bar, flexing his fingers in a way that sent a strange sensation down her spine. “I know you don’t. You know you don’t. Let’s not play games.”

“I’ve looked for work everywhere else in town. I haven’t been able to find it. I’m not an idiot. I have a degree in business from the University of Oregon. I know that I worked for my father, but I did my job well. If you know anything about Nathan West, then you know he didn’t give me anything just because I was related to him.”

A fact that was driven home by the discovery that Jack was one of their siblings. Their father had given him nothing, less than nothing. A onetime payout to disappear. He certainly hadn’t been made a part of the family dynasty. Then there was Gage. Her oldest brother. She didn’t know all of the circumstances surrounding his leaving. She’d been too young to fully grasp the situation at the time. But she knew it wasn’t because her father was a loving, forgiving man. “I’m not useless. I’m competitive. I’ve done pretty well with my barrel racing, and you might not take something like that seriously, but it takes a lot of grit. A lot of work.”

“I know it does,” Ace said, a strange look in his eye. “I don’t run a charity, I run a business. I don’t like to hire people that don’t have experience. But if you really want a job, you’ve got one. On a trial basis. You have three weeks to prove to me you can do this. But if you mess up too many orders, or spit in anyone’s food because they make you mad, or mouth off to any of my customers, you’re done.”

She waited to feel some sense of triumph. Some sense of relief. Instead, she felt nothing more than a grim determination and a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Because now it was real. There was no going back. No crawling back to the West ranch with her tail between her legs, begging her father’s forgiveness, even though he’d been the one who was wrong.

“Sure.”

“That’s it?”

“Thank you?”

He chuckled, that same dark sound she’d first heard last night. There was something strange in his happy sounds, his happy expressions. An undertone that didn’t quite match. Of course, she didn’t have time to try to figure out why his expressions didn’t seem to match his deeper emotions. She could barely sort that crap out for herself. “You don’t have to sound so excited.”

“Sorry.” That was easier. “Excitement has been a little bit hard to come by these days.”

“Now that,” he said, “I do relate to.”

“What do you suggest for that?”

He lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know. Fake it ’til you make it? Drink it ’til you think it?”

“Great. I will...use my employee discount to help with that.”

“There’s no employee discount.”

“What?”

“No drinking on the job, either. Working at a bar isn’t actually any fun. Except the part where you’re sober while everyone else is drunk. That is actually pretty funny.”

“Is it?”

“Hilarious. In fact, last night, some little blonde girl got up on that mechanical bull and fell on her face.”

Sierra gritted her teeth. “Ha-ha.”

“You start tomorrow.”

“I do? What if I have plans?”

He shrugged. “Cancel them. Or quit now.”

She blinked. She couldn’t quite work out what was happening between herself and Ace. There was something. Something that wasn’t neutral. On her end, it was that weird moment where she suddenly thought his hands looked capable. Of all kinds of things. Like pushing a strand of hair out of her face or deadlifting a fallen tree. With him...who knew? It wasn’t really a friendly feeling she got from him.

“I’ll be here. Just name the time.”

“Be here at five. Be ready to work.”

CHAPTER FOUR

SIERRA WEST WAS a problem. A bejeweled, bouncy problem.

She’d shown up to work on time, which had kind of pissed Ace off, because he’d been looking for an excuse to fire her out of the gate, and that had been taken from him. But she’d shown up wearing a pair of shorts that looked painted onto the skin they covered. And they didn’t cover much. Instead, they did a good job of displaying a lot of smooth, tanned leg. He wondered how the hell she had a tan.

This was the Oregon coast. In late February. It wasn’t all that sunny.

Maybe she went to one of those fake-and-bake tanning beds. His ex had been a big fan of those. It was how she kept her warm orange glow all year-round. Either that, or sucking the blood of virgins. He wouldn’t really put anything past her.

He studied Sierra, who was talking to a table full of men who were absolutely thrilled with his new hiring choice.

She didn’t look like the type to go lie in a tanning bed. He wasn’t sure why. She probably went and lay out back in the yard, in that private, gated ranch she and her family lived at. She probably lay out in a hot-pink bikini. She maybe even took the top off to avoid a suntan line.

He gritted his teeth and turned his focus to wiping down the counter. It was clean. But cleaning an already clean counter was better than thinking about Sierra West topless. He really needed to deal with these inconvenient fantasies. Get laid. With someone else.

He looked around the bar, and for some reason, didn’t see any appealing prospects. Not because there weren’t beautiful women here. There were. It was just, for some reason they didn’t really register to his body.

Funny, usually his body wasn’t all that picky. He didn’t do relationships. He did satisfying evenings. Which left his options pretty wide-open. His type was female. Thin, curvy, blonde, brunette, pale, dark... Didn’t much matter to him. Women were a glorious creation. One he preferred in his bed, and nowhere else in his home.

In fact, he had a bedroom up above the bar, so that he never actually had to have women in his home at all.

There was a time when his own behavior would’ve shocked him. Or it would’ve shocked the boy he’d been. But he could barely remember that time.

Now, the most shocking thing was that he wanted one woman specifically.

Yeah, Sierra West was a problem.

She turned away from the table, her walk particularly bouncy in those little cowgirl boots as she made her way back to the kitchen. Everything on her bounced. Her hair. Her ass.

Damn, some other woman needed to start looking good.

She disappeared into the kitchen for a moment, then reappeared a second later. “I think I got everyone for now,” she said.

She was looking at him expectantly, blue-eyed and far too innocent. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“I’m not going to hold your hand, little girl,” he said.

That was unnecessary, and he knew it. But he didn’t particularly care. With most employees, he would be happy to show them what to do next. He would even be happy that they’d asked what they could do. But he wasn’t happy about her asking, because it meant he had to interact with her, and he didn’t want to interact with her.

He supposed it wasn’t her fault that she was far too pretty for her own good. But he was going to hold it against her anyway. Because he was never going to hold her against him, and that was the source of a lot of problems.

The trouble was that he was out of practice with self-denial. He’d spent the past decade indulging himself whenever he wanted to.

When he’d turned away from the teachings of his father, he’d turned away hard. Then life had gone and kicked him in the balls, and made him question every damn thing he’d ever done. Every decision he’d ever made. It had made him question why he’d ever practiced restraint of any kind. Why he’d so firmly believed that self-denial, the greater good, morality and a host of other things would lead him down a smooth path in life.

No. He’d spent a lot of years doing the right thing. Being a good man. The better man.

It hadn’t gotten him anywhere in the end. So when he’d broken free of his marriage, when he’d finally left it all behind, left it all as dust and rubble in his past, he’d set his foot on the road to hell, and figured he’d better make the journey there pretty spectacular.

And he had.

When he’d decided to go for a life of debauchery and sin, he hadn’t gone halfway.

That made it difficult when he actually wanted to employ a little bit of abstinence. He didn’t know how.

These days, he only knew how to do three things really well.

He knew how to make drinks, he knew how to drink drinks and he knew how to screw. He did all those things as often as he could, and whenever he felt like it.

He hadn’t anticipated the effect trying to resist a woman he was attracted to might have on him. He’d figured it wouldn’t have an effect at all. But then, he didn’t typically try to resist women he was attracted to. Because he wasn’t usually attracted to spoiled little rich girls who also happened to work for him.

“You need to keep an eye on everyone, and make sure they don’t need anything else,” he said finally.

“Right.”

But she looked surprised by the directive. “You’ve been to restaurants before, right? I know you have. You come here.”

“Yes.”

“What does a server do? They make sure you have french fries, all the drinks that you need, and they do a little tap dance if you require it. So make sure no one needs french fries. Or a tap dance.”

“No one here has ever done a tap dance for me.”

“Have you ever asked them to?”

“Why would I ask someone to tap dance for me?”

“I don’t know. Hopefully, for your sake, no one wants you to tap dance tonight.”

She rolled her eyes and tossed her hair, the blond curls bouncing again, the glittery shadow on her lids twinkling beneath the light. She was a human glitter bomb. Which, in his opinion, had no place outside of a strip club. Or the rodeo arena.

She definitely looked like a rodeo queen. That thought did a little bit to quench the heat that had settled in the pit of his stomach. He’d made the mistake of getting involved with a rodeo queen once before. He knew how that ended.

“So then should I just hover around the tables like a fly, waiting for french fry shortages or demands of dancing?”

“You could fold bar towels.”

“There,” she said, planting her hand on her hip and cocking it out to the side. He might have noticed the dramatic curve of her waist down to that very sassy hip, only because he was human. “Now, Ace, was that so difficult?”

“You seem to be having a hard time remembering that I’m your boss, little girl.”

“Do you call all your employees little girl?”

“Only when they act like one.”

“I’m going to go fold bar towels.” She turned on her heel and started to saunter back into the kitchen, then paused and turned back around. “Where are the bar towels?”

He smiled, as slow and lazy as possible, because he knew it would make her mad. “Under the bar.”

Her cheeks flushed slightly, a sweet little rosy color that made her look a lot more innocent than he was certain she was. She tossed that golden mane again and sauntered to the bar, bending down and pulling out the stack of unfolded white towels.

Those little shorts of hers rode up high, revealing the sweet curve of her ass. Were his scruples so easily discarded? He only had maybe two of them. You would think he could cling to them a little bit tighter.

She placed them on the back counter, and began to fold them clumsily.

He let out a heavy sigh. “That isn’t how you do it.”

He crossed the space between them, coming to stand beside her, taking one of the towels off the top and spreading it on the empty bar in front of him. He held the edges tight, before folding one half toward the green line that ran down the center. “This. You do it like this.”

“There’s a specific system for folding towels?”

“Of course there’s a system. If there aren’t systems, the whole damn world falls apart.”

“Because of a breakdown in bar towel folding?”

He snorted, folding the other side of the towel in tightly and smoothing the fabric flat with his hands before folding it in half again. “Like this,” he said, setting it off to the side. “Keep it compact. Keep it clean.”

“You do keep the place awfully clean. I’ve noticed.” She copied his movements, dainty hands sliding over the terry cloth. He tried not to imagine them sliding over his skin.

Restraint was a damned nightmare.

This, he remembered from his high school years. The more he had to think about not doing something, the more he obsessed about it. Abstinence in deed led to anything but in thought.

You thought so much about not doing something that it took over your life anyway.

But it had been pressed upon him from an early age that he had to be an example. His father was pastor of the largest church in Copper Ridge, after all. It wasn’t all bad. He’d believed in his father’s lessons. Back then, he’d believed that virtue was its own reward. He’d felt a kind of confidence, a direction that accompanied that belief. He had known who he was.

Then it had all bitten him spectacularly in the ass, and he’d turned away, hard and sharp. Now, he was firmly out of practice.

She matched his movements precisely, producing a very nicely folded towel. Which kind of irritated him. Not that he thought it was going to take her a whole lot of time to learn how to do such a simple task. But he wanted to cling to his irritation, and to his completely unfair thought that this job would be beyond her somehow. He wanted to hold on to his prejudice.

He had earned that prejudice.

“There,” she said, smoothing it down flat and placing it in a stack with the other towel. “I think I’ve got it. You don’t have to supervise me.”

“Good. Because I don’t have time.”

“You’re very busy,” she said, something in her tone irking him. He was certain it was designed to do that.

“I am. I have an entire bar to run. A lot depends on my presence.”

She lifted a pretty, bare shoulder. He swore that it had glitter on it, too. “It is your place. Your name is on the sign.”

“I’m also working out logistics for opening a new brewery.” He didn’t know why he’d told her that.

Actually, he did know why. There was clearly something in him—a part of him that wouldn’t die—that still wanted people like her—people who were born into a certain level of privilege—to understand that he was important, too.

“In Copper Ridge?” she asked, her tone genuinely interested.

“Yeah. In the old flour mill building, down by the beach.”

“That sounds nice. Is it going to be fancy?”

“My kind of fancy.”

“What’s your kind of fancy?”

“You put french fries on a plate instead of in a basket.”

She laughed. Unsurprisingly, her laugh sparkled, too. “Maybe because it’s by the ocean you can get a mechanical dolphin for people to ride.”

“A mechanical dolphin?”

“Yeah. To keep with the theme.”

“No one rides dolphins.”

“They would if they could.”

She placed another towel on the growing stack and smiled at him. All he could think was that he would like to eat her up. Which was inappropriate in every way, all things considered.

“Why don’t you go check on a table,” he said, his words coming out more harshly than he intended.

She shrunk back slightly, looking like a wounded puppy. He didn’t feel bad about it. He didn’t. “Okay. I will finish folding when I get back.”

“If you see something that needs doing, do it. That’s all I ask.”

He did not watch her go out into the dining room. He turned away, heading back toward his office, away from the bar, away from the kitchen. He had stuff to get done and he was not going to allow Sierra West to distract him any longer.

* * *

HER FEET HURT LIKE a son of a bitch. Tonight had been, without a doubt, one of the longest nights on record. And it wasn’t over yet.

She worked hard at the family ranch. But mainly, she managed the office. When she went out and practiced barrel racing, she was on her horse. It definitely worked her muscles, but it also fed her soul.

Right now, she was pretty sure her soul was leaking out the bottom of her feet, which she had certainly worn a hole through walking around the dining area of the bar.

Being a waitress—it turned out—was exactly as little fun as it had always appeared to be.

She supposed some people might enjoy it. They might enjoy interacting with tables full of people and making runs between the kitchen, the bar and the dining area. She, it turned out, did not.

Also, she had discovered that men were slightly different with her when she was serving them drinks, versus when she was drinking near them. Sure, they still flirted with her. But there was a different tone. It was stickier. It left a film over her skin, and she didn’t like it.

“You’re a precious, precious blossom, Sierra,” she muttered to herself as she bent to clear glasses off one of the tables that had just been vacated, before straightening and looking back over at the bar.

Chad, Leslie and Elyssa, the friends she’d been here with just the other night, were half draped over it. They didn’t usually hang out right at the bar, but Leslie had just broken up with her boyfriend and it looked like she was thinking of testing her odds with Ace.

She was grinning and giggling and working the duck face like she was trying to take a selfie, not talk to a guy.

Ace, for his part, didn’t seem disinterested. He was smiling. Smiling in a way he certainly hadn’t smiled at Sierra. That just wasn’t fair. Leslie was not less of a spoiled brat than she was. He should be mean to her, too.

But he wasn’t being mean. He was being...charming. When he handed her drink over the counter his lips curved up into a half smile that made Sierra’s stomach flip from all the way across the room. His dark eyes were glittering with intent. Wicked intent, even. Sierra could imagine that any woman on the receiving end of Ace’s attention would feel like the only woman in the room. Maybe even in the world.

Of course, he didn’t give her that kind of attention. He always acted like he wanted to stick her in the corner and cover her with a blanket so he could pretend she wasn’t there.

She realized she’d been standing there, frozen and staring, for way too long. She mobilized. Holding tight to her bin of dishes, she walked quickly back toward the kitchen, her focus fixed straight ahead.

“Sierra?”

She turned at the sound of an incredulous voice, just in time to see Elyssa and Chad walking toward her. Leslie was still on her bar stool giggling loudly at something Ace said.

“Are you...working here?” Chad asked, his lip curling up into a borderline sneer.

“Yes,” she said, steeling herself as she propped the bin on her hip. “I am working here. Since I’m not working with my dad anymore I needed to get another job.”

Elyssa frowned. “But...at the bar?”

“All the glamorous positions at high rises were filled. Also, in another town. I had to take what I could get.”

Elyssa scoffed. “Come on. Couldn’t your brother help you? This is...beneath you, honestly.”

Sierra bristled. “Why? It’s fine for you to come drink here but it’s not good for me to work here? Leslie can sit over there flirting her tits off with the man who owns the place but this is beneath me?”

“That’s different,” Chad said. “I’d do a waitress, but I wouldn’t wait a table.”

Sierra felt like she was having an out of body experience. Like she was witnessing this exchange from high above the bar. And with that distance came clarity. These people were terrible. They had also been her friends for a long time. And she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have felt the same way a few months ago if one of them had gotten a job here.

She wasn’t even hurt. Or embarrassed. She was mad. Not even at them, but at herself. For all the coasting she’d done for so many years. For doing the schooling her father had wanted her to do, taking the job he’d created for her, having the friends that were convenient for her to have.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel tired anymore. She felt energized. Empowered. Standing there in front of her former friends she felt separate and different. And like she might be more herself than she’d ever been before.

“You’re an asshole, Chad,” she said, her tone crisp. “I mean, do you hear yourself? Do you ever stop and listen to the words that come out of your mouth?” She knew he didn’t. Because she never had, either. “You think you’re above any of this? Trust me, you’re one parental crisis away from being here. Except I don’t think you have it in you to work this hard. You think you’re too good for a job like this? You aren’t good enough.”

She continued on past them toward the kitchen.

“Wow, Sierra.” Elyssa’s voice stopped Sierra in her tracks. “Just wait till the town sees you like this.”

Sierra shot her former friend one last furious glance. “I’m not worried about that. In fact, I’m looking forward to it.”

She glanced over at Ace, who was still flirting with Leslie, and then barged into the kitchen, angrily depositing the bin of dirty dishes by the sink. She wasn’t going to let them make her feel ashamed. She hadn’t sunk to anything.

She was rising to the occasion.

She’d be damned if she felt embarrassed about that.

She spent the rest of the shift working as hard and furiously as possible. As if she could prove the world wrong right here in this bar, as long as she was the best waitress she could be.

Anger fueled her for a while, but that ran out quickly enough, leaving her drained and a bit less full of purpose than she’d been a few hours earlier.

She looked up at the clock on the wall and everything inside of her sagged. It was just after two thirty in the morning. She stayed out late often enough, but not usually this late. And definitely not usually schlepping drinks and hamburgers.

She wrinkled her nose. That was what she smelled like. Beef, bacon, french fries and exhaustion. It was in her skin.

Suddenly, she felt very small, and very persecuted.

She dragged herself back into the kitchen, setting the dishes on the edge of the sink. At least she didn’t have to wash those. That made her feel slightly less persecuted.

She walked back out into the dining area, untying her apron and setting it on top of the bar.

“That isn’t where that goes,” Ace said, suddenly appearing out of his office like a flannel, bearded vapor.

“You certainly have a lot of systems,” she told him, rubbing her temples before snatching the apron back up. “Where exactly do I put it?”

“I’ll take it,” he said, reaching his hand out.

His shirtsleeves were pushed up to his elbows, revealing those muscular forearms that her body seemed to be kind of obsessed with.

She tried to think back to her last boyfriend. Had she ever noticed Mark’s forearms? What had they looked like? Had they been hairy? They must not have been, because she hadn’t really noticed. Anyway, he had lighter hair. She made a mental note to go look at a picture of Mark and see if his forearms were spectacular, and if she was suddenly just now into forearms, and hadn’t been back then.

“Why don’t you let me take it,” she said, snatching the apron back. “I’m going to need to know where it goes.”

“You’re stubborn,” he said. “You know that?”

“Thanks to you, I do.” She smiled so wide it made her cheeks ache.

“Come back here with me.” He opened the door into the kitchen, which was empty now. “Didn’t you get your own apron when you came this afternoon?”

“No, I traded with one of the other girls.”

“Okay,” he said, gesturing to a back wall. “You hang them up here.”

She followed his directions, hanging the little black apron on the hook and turning back to face him. “Don’t you have a manager who normally trains new staff?” It occurred to her then that it was kind of funny that the guy who owned the place was taking so much time to show her what to do. Of course, she was asking a lot of questions. But still, he never referred her to anyone else.

“No. Not really. This is my place. My name is on the sign, as you mentioned earlier.”

“Sure. But when you open the new place you’re not going to be able to be tending bar at both. You’re going to have to delegate.”

“Did you say you have a business degree?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Yeah, that kind of thing sounds about like something someone who has taken a class might say.”

Heat fired through her veins, blood boiling into her cheeks. “Right, let me guess, you went to the school of hard knocks. You’re all street smart instead of actual smart.”

“I can’t imagine why no one else wanted to give you a job.” He turned away from her, walking out of the kitchen, and she scurried after him.

“What do you mean? I did great work tonight.”

“You were rude to the customers.”

She burst out of the kitchen, breathing hard. “To who? The jackasses who accosted me? They’re my...well, they were my friends. And they were being horrible. How did you see that anyway? You were busy staring down Leslie’s shirt.”

“No,” he corrected her. “I made Leslie feel like I wanted to look down her shirt since that was how she wanted to feel. She went through a breakup. She needed a boost. I gave it.”

“Wow. A full-service kind of guy.”

“That’s customer service. I treat everyone better than they deserve to be treated. It’s why they come back.”

“You don’t treat me that way.”

“You aren’t my customer. And that’s the second thing I was going to mention to you. I’m your boss. You need to remember that.”

“Well, it isn’t like you’re being very nice to me.”

“Nope.” He turned back to face her, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

That was when she realized that no one else was here. They were completely alone in the dining area, possibly completely alone in the building. Which shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t like he was going to do anything to her. He was angry, that much was clear, but he wasn’t going to hurt her.

That isn’t what you’re worried about.

No. Maybe it wasn’t.

“Why?”

“Why what?” he asked, placing his hands on his narrow hips.

“Why aren’t you nice to me? I mean, other than the fact that I kind of said some stupid things when I was drunk, which I apologized for, you don’t really have a reason to hate me.”

He let out a hard breath, rolling his dark eyes. “That’s where you’re wrong. I know you, Sierra West. Probably better than you know yourself.”

“Beg to differ. We don’t know each other.”

“No, but I know your type. You’re spoiled. But you don’t even realize how spoiled you are. Because you’ve never actually experienced life without privilege. How would you know the remarkable pieces of your existence? You don’t know how anyone else lives. Everything you’ve ever needed has been put directly in front of you. You’ve never even had to reach for it. You’re so proud of that college degree, you think it makes you better than me. You think it makes you smarter than me. But you didn’t have to work for it. You didn’t have to pay for it. You’re not in debt over it. You didn’t have to scramble to find a job after you graduated, so in the end, you’ve never even had to use that piece of paper.

“You think you’re too good for this job,” he continued, “you think you’re too good for this bar. You’ve manipulated every boyfriend you’ve ever had with your good looks and your charm, with that little bit of superiority you feel. You do it without even trying.”

His words were rapid-fire, like high-velocity gunfire from an automatic rifle. They hit their marks hard, and they left a lot of damage.

Mostly because he was saying things that she’d been grappling with herself over the past few days. He was drawing back the curtain on the facade of her life. Tearing down pieces of the walls that she wasn’t ready to look behind yet. Parts that concerned herself, and not simply the sins of her father.

The little things that were starting to gnaw at her. Innocuous things. Like getting into her truck. Like realizing she’d never apologized before.

She was raw enough, certain enough that what he was saying had truth to it without him actually saying it.

“Oh, congratulations, you read the rich girl stereotype handbook,” she returned, infusing her words with as much bite as she could manage. She might suspect that he had the right end of the stick, but she was never going to let him see that. Because he didn’t say these things to help her, he said them to hurt her. He didn’t deserve validation. Not from her. Maybe this would be the end of her career as a waitress. But as far as she was concerned he could suck it. “Sadly for you, I read the disaffected hipster bartender handbook. You’re so over life. Money is so mainstream. And so is Coors Light. But of course, you want your business to be successful, and you actually need money to live. So you don’t hate it nearly as much as you pretend.”

She took a step toward him, her breathing labored. “You act like you have some big, deep wound that makes you inaccessible to the rest of us mortals, while you remind me and everyone else that we aren’t really special. You think you’re special, don’t you, Ace? You’re certainly more special than me.” She took another step toward him, and another, and she extended her hand, poking him in the chest. “So complicated and manly. How can a featherheaded little lady like myself ever truly understand you?”

Much to her surprise, he laughed. His lips curving up into a half smile, something dark, dangerous, glinting in his eyes. “Don’t be fooled by the flannel, babe. I’m not a hipster. I’m not that complicated, either. I work, I eat, I sleep and I fuck. End of story.”

His words sent a searing rash of heat burning through her veins. She didn’t know why but hearing that word on his lips made her feel things. All kinds of things.

She hung out with plenty of guys who dropped F bombs like they didn’t mean a thing. She’d been known to do the same herself in the right company.

But when they did it, it was a silly kids’ game. A bid to spit out the most naughty words in the fewest sentences.

It wasn’t like that now. The way he used it...it forced her to see it. Something raw, rough and untamed. Something harder, deeper than she’d ever known before. With that one word he made every other man she’d ever known into a boy, and he made sex something unknown and forbidden, something she was sure she’d barely scratched the surface of.

And they were fighting. Something that should underscore how much she didn’t like him. Something that should douse the heat that shimmered between them. Because fighting was not hot. At least, historically, fighting had not been hot. With him, it was.

If that wasn’t some kind of freaky weird magic she didn’t know what was.

She was breathing hard, and she knew he would be able to tell. If there was anything worse than feeling this strange, errant attraction, it was the fact that it was so completely transparent. She took another step toward him, reached out, her fingertips brushing the collar of his shirt.

Her whole face was hot. Her body was hot. Everything was hot. He really needed to adjust the temperature in here. Or find some way not to be attractive when he was being such a dick.

“Was that supposed to shock me?” she asked.

He leaned in, his face inches from hers. “It did, didn’t it?”

She squared her stance, her breasts nearly brushing his chest. “Do I look like I’m shocked to you?”

“You look like something, that’s for sure,” he said, dark eyes raking over her body. “But let me tell you something, Sierra. I’m not that hard up. You want me, that much is obvious. It isn’t like I haven’t noticed you’re a pretty little thing. But things come too easily to you. You think you can manipulate me like you’re used to doing? You’re out of luck. You need to learn to ask for what you want. If you want me, you’re going to have to ask. You’re going to have to beg.”

That should not turn her on. Absolutely not at all. His words should have been like a bucket of cold water over her head. It should not have been gasoline on a lit match. She took a step back, stumbling a bit, knowing she was doing a terrible job of maintaining her composure.

Somehow, in all of this, with him, she did not have her usual command of herself, of the situation. Was that because of all this stuff with her father? The major revelations and changes that had rocked her existence? Or was it just Ace? She couldn’t decide which disturbed her more.

All of it. All of it was disturbing.

She snorted, straightening the hem on her black tank top, even though it didn’t need straightening. “I’m afraid you have the wrong end of the stick, babe,” she said, repeating his earlier endearment back to him. “Maybe other women routinely lose their alcohol-ridden minds over you, but I’m not going to be one of them. All I want from you is a paycheck.”

“Then why are your cheeks so pink?” he asked, reaching out, dragging his thumb over her cheekbone.

She shivered, a flash of lightning shooting down the center of her bones. It rocked her, rattled her, shook her to her core. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. The problem with Ace was that he was different. He was nothing like those boys she had dated in the past. The silly frat bros who were barely edging into their twenties and were more interested in the care and keeping of their own biceps than they were in dealing with a girlfriend.

They were shallow, silly, they didn’t have the kind of intensity Ace radiated without even trying. Of course, she wasn’t entirely certain that was a negative. She wasn’t sure she liked Ace’s intensity. But it touched her. Deep, way down deep, in places no one had ever touched before.

With nothing more than a look and a brush of his thumb against her cheek.

It was problematic if nothing else. And she had enough problematic without adding him to the mix.

“Pure, unmitigated fury,” she said, taking a step away from him. “That makes my cheeks pink without any kind of maidenly excitement, or whatever it is you’re imagining I feel for you. News flash, not maidenly. Not excited.”

“I’ll try not to lose any sleep over that. Be here tomorrow, five thirty.”

“I’ll be here. And I’ll work hard for you, I swear it. By the end of the three weeks you’re not going to be able to deny me the job, Ace Thompson. I’ll wait tables, pour drinks, do dishes and mop floors. I’ll do all that with a smile on my face. But I will never beg. You have a good night, now.”

Heart pounding so hard she thought it might beat its way straight through her chest, she turned from him and walked out of the bar.

What had happened in there was nothing. Just her extended bout of celibacy beginning to show. It had been a while since she’d broken up with Mark. Closing in on a year and a half. And even then they’d been hit and miss since he’d lived and worked in Portland and she’d been in Copper Ridge. So yeah, tonight’s bout of hormones was perfectly understandable.

The fact of the matter was, with everything happening in her family, and her having this job, she really didn’t have the energy to go looking for another relationship.

You don’t actually need a relationship.

That was true. But she’d never really been a random hookup girl. Her relationships had never been intense, but they had been monogamous, and pretty long-lasting. When they died, they always died natural deaths. In the case of her and Mark it was all long-distance stuff. She was never going to move to the city to be with him, he was never going to come to Copper Ridge to be with her. And once they’d both realized that, there hadn’t seemed to be much point in continuing on.

She was regretting that now. Because a well-worn relationship would have been nice right about now. She could have driven up to Portland for a while, spent a few nights with him. She could have distracted herself.

She wondered, for a moment, if it was worth calling Mark up to see if he was still single. To see if he wanted her to come visit.

Except she had a job now, so she couldn’t just take off and go wherever she wanted to.

And the bigger problem was, she didn’t want to. Because she didn’t want Mark.

She let out a long breath, then inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of salt and pine. She was attracted to Ace. That didn’t mean she wanted him. Not in a serious, real way. She had one shot at this job. If she could prove that she could do it, then maybe other people in town would take her more seriously. Maybe they would hire her. If she was ever going to be self-sufficient here, then she needed to get some job experience that extended beyond the West family ranch, and she knew it. Moreover, at this point it was about pride. Ace didn’t think she could do this. All of those rejected job applications meant that most people in town didn’t think she could do this. They might like her, they might respect her family name, but they didn’t think she was capable of being anything more than the daughter of Nathan West.

Suddenly, she felt like she was standing on the edge of a hole. A void containing all of her achievements. Or rather, not containing them. She wondered if she had any. She’d gone to college, but her father had paid for it. She’d gotten a job only because it was assured due to her family connections.

She put her hand on the handle of the truck door that wasn’t hers.

She gritted her teeth, tears stinging her eyes, determination lashing her like a whip. The bottom line was, whatever she felt for Ace shouldn’t matter. Because it wasn’t as important as her future. She was going to prove to him that she could do this job, and that she could do it on her own merit. She wasn’t going to let anyone make her feel ashamed.

She wasn’t going to play these games with Ace, wasn’t going to let him touch her again. Wasn’t going to allow herself to touch him.

She was a waitress right now. And that meant that she was determined to be the best damn waitress in all of Copper Ridge.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT WAS JUST about noon by the time Ace got himself out of the house and to the grocery store. He had a few hours before he was going to check in at the bar and he needed to get some things for his house that extended beyond beer and ranch dip. Like, chips for the ranch dip.

He walked slowly through the store aisles, basket in hand as he perused the shelves. He stopped, turning toward the produce, toward the heads of lettuce stacked all bright green and pointless. He supposed he should probably eat vegetables. Going to the store was always weird. Because he saw things in it that were reflective of a life he could hardly remember anymore.

Liar. You remember it perfectly.

For a while, he’d lived in a house that was well stocked with this kind of healthy stuff. Salad and tomatoes, and all manner of stuff that was good for you but tasted like dirt. He supposed that had also been true of his childhood home. His mom had always had things like that around the house, but he’d figured when he grew up he wouldn’t have to eat it anymore.

At that stage of his life, he hadn’t factored a wife into the equation.

He turned away from the lettuce. He didn’t have a wife anymore. Therefore, he didn’t have salad.

“Ace?”

He turned around, the impact of recognition hitting him like a punch to the gut when he saw the person behind him. “Hayley,” he said, shock being worn away by a rush of guilt the moment he spoke his little sister’s name.

“I haven’t seen you in... It’s been way too long.”

“You know where I work,” he said.

She smiled. “You know where I work, too.”

“Not really interested in paying the church a visit,” he said, shoving one hand into his pocket, tightening his grip on his basket with the other.

“Well, I don’t drink.”

“We serve hamburgers.”

“I know. We should get together, is my point. And not to fight about places neither of us really want to go.”

Hayley was nine years younger than he was, a late-in-life surprise for his parents who had long given up hope on ever having another child. She had been nine when he’d left Copper Ridge for Texas, seventeen when he’d come back.

He had been distant from his family all those years he’d spent away, sporadic phone calls his only real contact. He had always stopped in to visit when the rodeo had passed nearby, but when he’d settled in Austin with Denise his life had just wrapped itself around her, and it had become impossible to do anything but pour himself into that relationship.

“How have you been?” he asked.

She lifted her shoulder, a half smile curving her lips. In some ways, she looked sixteen, instead of twenty-six. Either that or she looked closer to sixty-five. Her dark hair lay flat and limp against her head, restrained by a headband. She was wearing a dark blue sweater set and a long skirt. She was every church secretary stereotype imaginable. Though he supposed he was every stereotype of a pastor’s son.

“Fine,” she said, “nothing really new.”

“Mom and Dad?” That stab of guilt went deeper, drawing blood inside.

“Also fine.” She looked down. “Well, Dad had a bit of a health scare. A little chest pain. But everything was okay. They’re just having him monitor his cholesterol, and all that.”

He thought about his dad, tall, lean. He had a hard time imagining the older man might have issues with his heart. It worried him. It also made him think twice about the lettuce.

“He didn’t have a heart attack?”

Hayley shook her head. “No. Like I said, he’s fine. Ace, if anything serious happened, you know I would call you.”

And he knew that he should call them and try to get updates more often. He should go over for dinner more often than every few months. But what was he supposed to tell them about his life? His father wouldn’t even go into the bar because of appearances in the small town. Hayley and his mother basically had the same policy. And he couldn’t even get upset about that because he had been well aware of how they would feel about him running a bar before he had ever done it. To their credit, no one ever made him feel guilty about his choice; they asked him about how things were going, expressed interest in the place. They just didn’t come in.

There were no relationships for him to tell them about. He was hardly going to confess to the endless array of women whose names he couldn’t even remember that passed through his bed on any given weekend.

That was the real problem. Sometimes it was just hard to sit across from his father and look him in the eye.

“Good to see you,” he said, reaching out and pulling his sister in for a hug. He should have done that right at the first. There was something wrong with him that he hadn’t thought to hug her until now.

But that was hardly a revelation.

“Good to see you, too,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder.

He released his hold on her. “Tell Mom and Dad I said hi. If anything... If they need help with anything around the house, see that you give me a call.”

“Usually, the youth group takes care of any work that Dad needs around the house. They do a good job of saying thank you for everything he does.”

Hayley was too sweet to imply that they had to do it because Ace didn’t, but it hit him that way anyway. And fair enough.

“Still. He can call me.”

“I’ll tell him.” She rocked back on her heels, holding onto her basket with both hands, awkwardness that should never exist between siblings settling between them. “Well, I have to go. I’m just on lunch break.”

“See you around, kiddo.” The old nickname didn’t help ease any of the weirdness between them.

She ducked her head, turning away and walking over towards the checkout lines, and Ace continued to stroll down the aisles. He did not get lettuce. He waited to pay for his various assortment of frozen dinners until he was sure that Hayley was gone, which was a jackass move, but he was kind of a jackass.

He walked out of the grocery store, loading up his truck and pausing for a moment, looking across the cracked, mostly empty parking lot and toward the mountain view beyond. It was a strange thing, realizing that the near decade spent away, and the decade he’d been back home had changed him into the kind of person who would never fit into his own family. It was his own decisions that had done that. That had reshaped him in such a way that sitting down at the dinner table he’d grown up eating around now felt nearly impossible.

Of course, the fact that he lived in Copper Ridge meant that he had to contend with running into his family at the grocery store. It meant that he felt guilty for not coming over more often, even if coming over only resulted in him sitting there feeling too large in his seat. As though he were being held beneath the magnifying glass, his every sin conspicuous in the eyes of his parents.

He could have stayed away. When he had left Austin, there had been no real reason to come back to Copper Ridge. Except that it was home. Home in a way no other place ever had been.

It was the kind of place that got underneath your skin. He hadn’t truly noticed it until he left. Until he’d spent years traveling across the country on the rodeo circuit, until he had settled in Texas, making plans on the Lone Star State being his permanent home.

But the need for mountains was in his blood. Pine trees and sharp salt air that burrowed beneath your skin. That made every breath taken in any other place taste wrong somehow.

So that was why he had come back. It was why he was here now. It was why he stayed.

Even though when he’d rolled back into town all those years ago, it hadn’t felt quite like he’d imagined. Sure, the air was the same. The main street was the same. Most of the people were the same.

But he was different. He supposed that made everything else feel a little different, too.

You can’t go home again, and all that stuff.

He got into his truck, starting the engine. He had to stop back home, deposit his supplies, and then make his way over to the bar. Where he was sure to have another uncomfortable encounter. With a woman he felt decidedly unbrotherly toward.

He thought back to last night. To his close encounter with Sierra.

She wouldn’t beg. That was the thing. That was why he’d said that. To make it easy to keep his hands off her.

When she had closed the distance between them last night, when those delicate fingers brushed against the collar of his shirt, he had been certain of one thing. He wanted her. More than he could remember wanting any woman in recent years.

In fact, there had only ever been one woman like that in his memory. Only one woman he had ever lost his control with. One woman he had abandoned good sense to have.

And that had ended in a fiery crash of doom that had destroyed him and everything around it.

She wouldn’t beg. So he wouldn’t touch her. It was that simple.

And maybe tonight he would find another woman to take home. Someone who would help him take the edge off of this need, this arousal.

That was a much better thought than his family and Sierra combined.

He would focus on that, and forget the rest. He was good at forgetting the bad things. Everyone needed to have their strengths.

He cranked up the radio, turning up the country station. And he looked out the window at the view, that cleansing, perfect view. Misty clouds dropping low over the pine trees, casting everything in a muted shade of gray that extended down to the ocean, liquid fog stretching as far as the eye could see.

For a few blissful moments, there was nothing except the song on the radio, and that view.

And he definitely did not think about Sierra West.

* * *

SIERRA WAS KICKING ASS and taking names tonight. Well, she was kicking metaphorical ass and taking orders for food and drink. But in her world right now, it amounted to the same thing.

Everything felt a little more familiar tonight, and she didn’t feel quite so much like she was flailing around in the dark as she completed her tasks. And whenever she found herself not busy with customers, she went and folded bar towels. Because she knew how to do that. She also didn’t ask Ace for help.

After last night, she didn’t know how to deal with him. Well, really, she didn’t know how to deal with herself. When it came to Ace she was in a whole seascape of uncharted water. But at least she felt like she had some guideposts here in the bar.

She proudly delivered another order back to the kitchen, then set about to straightening up while she waited exactly five minutes to go check on her last table. She was determined to do an excellent job. And she was doing an excellent job.

She wasn’t a stranger to trying hard. She didn’t half-ass her horse riding. She took barrel racing seriously. Mostly because if she didn’t, she knew she could wind up flat on her back on the ground in the arena, getting trampled by her own steed. But she was starting to realize that life was a whole lot more like barrel racing than she had initially given it credit for.

And lo, she had been trampled by the steed.

But she was getting back up. That was important. If she was sticking with the horse analogies, then it meant that when you got thrown off life, you just had to get back on. She frowned. Well, she wasn’t exactly getting right back on. That implied going back to doing the same thing. She was changing things. Everything. She was after some kind of ownership in her daily existence. Because before this she’d had none. Everything belonged to her father, to the West family.

Well, she was going to get some things that belonged to her. Starting with this work experience.

She turned back around with her stack of folded bar towels, ready to put them under the counter, and paused when she saw her sister, Madison, standing there. “Maddy. What are you doing here?”

“Colton told me you were here.” Madison wrinkled her nose, tucking a strand of light brown hair behind her ear. “He said you had a job.”

“Yes.” She was still clutching the stack of towels. “This is my job.”

“You’re a...barmaid?”

“I’m not a barmaid. It’s not like I’m wearing lederhosen.”

“I don’t think you have to wear lederhosen to be a barmaid.” Madison held on to her purse, clutching it tightly in front of her, as though she was afraid if she released her hold on it she might have to touch something else. As though the place might infect her. “I think you just have to be a maid. Who works at a bar.”

“I’m serving tables.”

“You could just come home.”

Oh, there was the bottom line. “No, Madison,” she said, emphasizing her sister’s full name, which she rarely used, “I can’t. And you of all people should understand why.”

Madison’s expression turned to stone. “Whatever I’ve been through in the past isn’t really about this. I know that finding out about Dad hurt. It hurts me. Finding out that Jack is related to us, that he spent all of his life with nothing so the dick could protect his reputation... I don’t like it. And my staying is not an endorsement. But my life is at the ranch. I don’t see the point in burning everything down because of Dad. Mom is in the car...”

Sierra’s heart twisted. “How is she?”

“I think not as surprised as the rest of us. Upset. But you know she isn’t going to do anything.”

Her throat tightened. “I just can’t. I’m not upset at you, or Mom, or Colton for not... I just can’t.”

“Why? I mean, honestly, you’re right. If anyone was going to leave because of this, you would think it would be me. Cheating married men are basically my least favorite. But my business is tied to the West family ranch, and to Dad’s name. And I can’t just overlook everything that he’s done for us because of a mistake he made over thirty years ago. It’s a mistake that’s older than we are, Sierra. We’ve never known him before the mistake.”

“You keep calling it a mistake. But a mistake is something that happens once. And you don’t mean to do it. Every year, every birthday, he ignored Jack. And he kept on doing it year after year—”

“Don’t tell me you have warm fuzzy feelings for Jack Monaghan,” Madison said.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“He was fine without involving himself in our business from where I’m standing. Anyway, I just don’t believe that’s the primary problem you have with Dad.”

“I don’t know. I don’t really know how I feel about Jack. That’s true enough. But... I’m a West. That’s what I am. My name is everything to me. It got me everywhere I’ve ever gone in life. But it isn’t what I thought it was. This whole reputation that Dad has constructed... How many lies is it built out of?”

Madison’s green eyes softened. “I know. I know that’s hard. But does it matter? Dad loves you. He loves us.”

“And he doesn’t love his other son. He...he sold him. Traded him for a spotless reputation. I understand why Mom can’t leave him. But I wish she would. I wish she would ask for better.”

“It isn’t that simple. Do you honestly think at this point being a sixty-year-old divorcée is better for Mom than just sticking it out with him? Colton is getting married. There will be grandchildren. She needs her marriage for everything she does, for everything she loves. She could let go of it because of pride but then...what would she have?”

“I guess she might have to be a barmaid,” Sierra said.

“I wish you would reconsider. I miss you. You could move out of the main house and come live in my little villa. You wouldn’t even have to pass Dad coming and going.”

“Maddy...I love you. And I miss you. I’m sorry I haven’t seen you since I left. I’m not mad at you for staying, I’m really not.”

“I’m not mad at you for leaving. I just wish I could understand. Why all this... I mean, if you’re going to be upset anyway, why not be upset...not working in a bar?”

“I have to prove this to myself, Maddy. I have to find a way to be something other than a West. I have to do it now. And I should have done it a long time ago.”

“I like hiding behind the name, personally,” Madison said. “I tried to step out from Dad’s shadow once. Now I have a scandal and a ruined career to my name. All before I turned eighteen. Yay me.”

“None of that crap with David was your fault.” Just thinking about that time in Madison’s life made Sierra angry all over again. “He lied to you. People are assholes so they blamed the actions of a thirty-five-year-old man on a seventeen-year-old girl. This isn’t that. I’m twenty-five. I need to... I need to figure myself out.”

“I’m twenty-seven and I still haven’t done that.”

“The dressage lessons, and training and all that...that’s your world. It’s who you are. I just manage the office. I got a business degree so I could do that. I don’t know if I care about business. Not that I regret my education but... I really wanted to barrel race. To travel with the rodeo. But that wasn’t in the plan, so I didn’t. You would be leaving something that matters to you if you left the ranch. I’m not. I don’t know what matters to me anymore. I don’t know if I want to go hard-core after racing. I don’t know how I want to earn a living. I don’t even know how I would decorate my room if it were up to me and not Mom’s designer.” She let out a long, slow breath. “I think I should figure all that out, don’t you?”

“I guess. And I’d better leave you to it. I would stay for a drink, but...Mom.”

Sierra smiled. “You wouldn’t stay. You hate places like this. You’d rather be at a vineyard having chardonnay.”

“Silly.” Madison winked. “I like Shiraz better.”

“We’ll do something fancy with my first paycheck. Like wine and appetizers at Beaches. Or, if I make crappy tips tonight, diet soda and Tic Tacs at Colton’s.”

Her sister laughed. “Right. Well, maybe we’ll land in the middle with Perrier and fish and chips? Dare to dream?”

“Depends on how much I wiggle my hips when I clear out the tables, I suppose.”

Madison leaned in, still careful not to touch the counter. “I’ll call you. I hope you’re keeping garlic under your pillow.”

“Why?”

“To ward off Natalie, the undead fiancée.”

“Ha. No. No garlic. I hung a crucifix on my door, though. That seemed to do it.”

“Good.”

“If I get infected, promise you’ll kill me.”

“I promise. Because I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Sierra said, her heart tightening a little.

Madison turned away, offering a small wave as she waded through the crowd at the bar and walked out the door. Sierra looked out at all the people, all the orders she had to fulfill. Well, she’d chosen this now. So she was going to wait some damn tables.

Tonight’s shift went much faster. She didn’t have any unpleasant encounters with people she knew. In fact, most people she recognized had been nice to her, if a little concerned-looking at seeing her so out of context.

But by the end of the night she wasn’t as ready to fall into a heap on the floor. She actually felt energized, even though it was well past time for her coach to turn into a pumpkin. She might actually get used to this.

Maybe waiting tables was like training for a marathon. You could work up to it. Or maybe she was on some weird high that would end tomorrow when she had to roll out of bed feeling like crumpled newspaper wrapped around chewed-up gum.

The bar was empty, most of the employees heading out. And she was lingering. Because Ace wasn’t anywhere to be seen and she didn’t want to leave before she was in his eye line. She wouldn’t let him accuse her of slacking off or leaving early or...going out to get emergency eyeliner or whatever BS he would try to pull to both compromise her job and mock her poor little rich girl status.

She wasn’t going to give him an opening. She had performed perfectly tonight, and she was not going to give him a chance to say otherwise. He wanted her to fail. She had no idea why he seemed so invested in her failure, even as he had her here on staff. Honestly, it didn’t make sense.

But, regardless of what she had said the other night, she actually hadn’t ever read the hipster bartender handbook. So the workings of his brain truly were a secret. And she was content to keep it that way.

She walked by his office somewhat conspicuously, hoping that the sound of her footsteps would make him open the door. Nothing.

She paced in front of the door again, making sure to stomp a little bit louder this time. Still nothing.

She let out an exasperated sigh, then turned to face the door, raising her hand, getting ready to knock. As she was about to bring it down, the door swung open, and there was Ace. Looking as cranky and attractive as he always did. His dark hair was disheveled, the stubble on his jaw looking all rakish and sexy.

She supposed he didn’t always look cranky. He didn’t scowl like this when he was dealing with women in the bar. That seemed to be reserved for her.

She wondered if she should feel special.

“Hi,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I just wanted you to know that I’m going to leave now, because everything is clean.”

“Okay. Go. You don’t have to check in with me, no one else does.”

“I didn’t figure you would trust that I hadn’t knocked off work early and had a couple of the other employees carry me out of here on a rickshaw.”

He leaned against the doorjamb, rubbing his forehead with his hand. “I don’t think that. Anyway, you can go.” He turned, preparing to go back into his office.

“Are you staying?” She had no idea why she was asking. She should be leaving as quickly as possible. Staying was like willingly putting her foot into a badger trap. “Because it’s awfully late to be doing things in the office.” Foot. Trap.

“Oh, I’m not working. I’m just watching porn.”

“What kind?” What kind? Really?

He turned toward her again, treating her to a lopsided smile that was a whole lot more interesting than it had any right to be. “The kind with spreadsheets. And fabric swatches.” At her blank look, he shrugged. “Actually, it’s just some planning that I’m doing for the new brewery I’m opening.”

“Okay, that makes a lot more sense than the porn thing.”

His smile broadened, and she felt compelled to return it. “I guess that depends on what you’re into.”

“Not spreadsheets. But you do you.”

“I really hate this, actually. Especially all the decorating stuff. It all looks the same to me. There aren’t any curtains in here. Most of the decor was in place when I took over. This is kind of all new. Plus, the brewery is supposed to be a little more upscale. Meanwhile, I’m not all that upscale.”

“You’re not?” she asked, planting her hand on her hip.

He was making her smile. And she realized now that the gesture was a little bit flirtatious. She wasn’t sure she cared.

You should. You’re supposed to be proving that you’re a good waitress, not that you’re good at picking up guys.

She dropped her hand back to her side.

“Do you think I could use flannel upholstery on the furniture? The curtains, too?”

“Why not? Maybe you could go with the whole lumberjack theme. Individual fireplaces by the tables, people could chop their own wood. It would be cozy.”

“I think you might be overtired.”

“I’ll bet you are, too,” she said, not quite sure why she cared, only that she did.

“Sure. But I’m basically running two businesses right now. And one is a little bit of a problem child.”

“I can help you with that,” she said. And as soon as the words slipped out, she realized she should. She had done a good job waiting tables today, but she wasn’t exactly going to win an award for it. It was also a skill a lot of people could hone, possibly faster than she could. But there were a few skills in life she knew she’d honed to perfection. Event planning, interior design. She was such a cliché. She blamed her mother. Or had her mother to thank. She wasn’t sure which. “I mean, my mother hosts a lot of charity events, and I’ve spent a lot of time helping with menus, and wine lists. Decorations... Anyway, I’m just saying this type of planning isn’t hard for me. It’s something I actually know how to do. So if you ever get tired of hanging out in your office until three in the morning, I’m on hand.”

“You have experience with all of that?”

“Yes, I do. And you can pay me minimum wage to help.”

“But you won’t make tips like you do here.”

She didn’t even have to weigh that. She would take less money to do something that made better use of her skills. She was willing to do her best at waitressing, but managing a project like this and helping with decor sounded much more appealing than spending all night on her feet. “That’s okay.”

He shook his head. “No, it isn’t. I’ll pay you more than minimum wage to help.”

She eyed him skeptically. “And why exactly would you do that?”

“Because it would save me having to hire someone, and I guarantee you that it would be more expensive to hire a professional than to pay you minimum wage plus whatever tips you make in an evening.”

“My tips are pretty good. I don’t know if you can afford me.”

“I have a feeling I can swing it. So, what hours are you interested in working? Do you want to trade shifts?”

“Honestly? I don’t really have anything else going on right now. So, if you want to tackle this tomorrow, and I can still come in to work...”

“I don’t want to work you to death.”

She snorted. “I’m not as delicate as you seem to think I am. I already told you, I’m a barrel racer. Not just some pansy-ass rich girl.”

“If you’re sure. Why don’t you meet me out at my place tomorrow.”

She ignored the little thrill that went through her at the thought of being at his place with him, alone. It seemed so much more intimate than being here with him. A lot more dangerous. “Directions?”

He reached into his back pocket, pulling out his wallet and producing a business card. Then he took a pen out of his pocket and scribbled something on the back of the card. “Why don’t you put this in your smartphone?”

“Do I look like someone who has a smartphone?” she asked, paraphrasing their earlier conversation from the night he’d driven her home.

“Absolutely.”

“Fair enough. Because I do.” She took the card from his hand and looked at the back, where he had written his address. “Well, should be easy enough to find. What time do you want me to come over?”

“How about noon? I’m not really human before then. Sometimes I’m not even awake.”

It struck her then, what strange hours a bartender must keep. She was slowly acclimating to the later nights, but she wondered what it must be like to live the way Ace did. He wasn’t really beholden to anybody. He could stay in the office until three in the morning if he wanted to, and then get up at noon, because why not? His entire life centered around what happened after 5:00 p.m.

She wondered what that must be like. To answer to no one, not even the clock in the way regular people did. No wonder he was kind of an ass. He wasn’t used to making concessions for anyone or anything.

She wasn’t sure if she envied him or not. Mostly because she wasn’t sure if she lived by someone else’s rules or her own. Which was really stupid, when she thought about it. But it all went back to what she had been saying to Madison earlier. She just didn’t know what she wanted.

She felt like she was floating. She was just going to blame that on how late it was.

“Okay,” she said, tapping the edge of the doorjamb. “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.”

It was strange, how familiar those words were becoming. How familiar it was to hear them back.

She blinked, released her hold on the doorjamb and waved faintly while she turned and began to walk out of the bar.

Tomorrow would present a new opportunity to show him that she could do this job. This job, and more. And that was the only reason her stomach turned over when she thought about it. The only reason.

CHAPTER SIX

SIERRA WASN’T ENTIRELY certain what she had been anticipating when she pulled up to Ace’s house. But it wasn’t what she saw. The large, craftsman-style house with the expansive porch and the red door was absolutely not what she expected from someone like Ace.

She wasn’t sure what a taciturn house would look like, but she had imagined his was taciturn. Not...homey. Certainly not immaculate and well kept. Which was silly, because for all that his bar wasn’t fancy, it was clean. So she should have expected his home to be the same.

She parked the truck and got out, walking toward that red front door that made a mockery of everything she’d thought about him. “Or it’s just a door.”

She scuffed her boot through the gravel in the driveway, leaving a pale line in the dust. She glanced around. It looked like there was a barn down the path that led away from the house. She squinted in that direction, wondering what was in there. Horses?

Horses were her weakness.

She shook her head and walked up the steps to the porch. She paused at the front door, swallowing hard before gathering her courage to knock. For some reason, no matter how often she saw him, an encounter with Ace felt like a whole event.

She could hear his footsteps as he approached the door, each one leaching a little more moisture from her throat, leaving it dry as sandpaper by the time the door swung open.

And...oh dear Lord.

He was wearing that typical lumberjack uniform of his. Flannel with well-fitted jeans. But his shirt was tucked in, and he had on a belt with a big buckle. And he was wearing a hat. A cowboy hat.

She was so done. She was a sucker for a cowboy, always had been. But put her favorite-least-favorite bartender in a cowboy hat and all the blood in her body rushed to her extremities.

“Good morning,” she said. “Afternoon, I mean. Noon?”

“Morning to me,” he said, stepping away from the doorway and back into the house. “You want some coffee?”

He disappeared without waiting for her answer. Or maybe he’d seen it in the glint in her eyes at the prospect of caffeine. After he retreated, she continued to stand there on his surprisingly homey porch, unsure of what she was supposed to do.

She poked her head in the doorway and blinked. The rest of the house was not as the porch had her believing. It was...pretty, sure. The natural wood beams and large windows gave the place a rustic charm, but it was...empty.

Well, not empty empty, but it contained little more than a couch and a large, rough-hewn table that looked like he’d straight up carved it out of a log. There were no photographs on the walls, no art, no mirrors.

There were empty beer bottles, standing sentry on every available surface like empty vases waiting for a daisy.

Unsurprisingly there were no daisies anywhere.

Ace returned a moment later, holding two coffee mugs in his hand. They didn’t match. One was black with a chip around the rim, and the other was shaped more like a soup bowl.

“I will take the industrial-sized one.” She reached out, flexing her fingers.

“Ladies’ choice,” he said, extending the mug in her direction.

“The lady chooses to have a tankard.” She wrapped her fingers around her bowl-o’-coffee and lifted it to her lips, looking around the sparse room. “I see what you mean about not being very big into decorating.”

“It’s serviceable.” His gaze followed her own, clearly taking stock of his surroundings.

“Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Anyway. You have swatches and samples and things?”

“You sound way too excited about that.”

“I am. Fabric choices get me hot under the collar.”

He laughed. “Excellent. This is my new strategy with women. Come back to my place and look at my flannel.”

“That would...” She looked him over and tried not to let her mind go to very bad places. Like what it might be like to look beneath his flannel. “Work. That would probably work.”

“Okay,” he said, walking across the room and heading over toward the couch, toward that big, striking table. “This is what I have.”

There was a stack of fabric samples on the table. Little square pieces of different material attached to cardboard. She walked over to them, crossing her arms and studying all the options. “Okay, what vibe are you going for?”

“Is there a particular fabric that says I want to spend my money on the most expensive alcohol in this place?”

She laughed, looking down. “I’ll tell you right now,” she said, reaching for one of the samples, “it isn’t this.” She ran a finger along the red-and-white checked fabric. “Unless you’re going for overpriced picnic by the sea.”

“Not so much. Look, I’m not a frilly guy. So this is all kind of beyond me. I sort of know what I want it to be.”

She looked around the room again. “Simple.”

“Yeah.”

“I like your coffee table,” she said. “I don’t see why you can’t go with something like that. Handmade furniture with some softer details.”

“What do you mean by softer details?”

“Lace. Lace with natural wood would actually be really nice.”

“I’m not... Lace?”

“Yes, lace. Unless you’re serving no one but lumberjacks you’re going to have to have something pretty. But I do think that we should do something with the rest of things that you like.”

He snorted, sitting down on the couch, propping his foot up on the coffee table they were currently discussing. “There’s only one way I like lace.”

“And that is?”

“As women’s panties.”

Heat shot down her spine like a lightning bolt. “Well, you are not using my panties for your curtains. But I assure you that lace has other uses. Picture it. We can do tables made with natural wood, I bet we can coordinate with some people in town. Who all have you helped out, Ace?”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean.” He rubbed his chin, the sound of his palm scraping over his stubble making her shiver a little. She held more tightly to her coffee, hoping that its warmth would erase the chill, or whatever it was, that had just raced through her.

“I know we don’t know each other that well, but I see you at a lot of different functions. And even when you aren’t there, your drinks are there. I know that you donated beer and soda for Connor Garrett’s barn raising. You also provide drinks every year for the Fourth of July barbecue. I think there are a lot of people who’d be willing to return the favor, people whose skills you could make use of. Your brewery would be a showcase for local talent. And I’m not suggesting you go around asking people to give things to you, but I think you could probably get some handcrafted furniture for decent pricing.”

He clasped his hands and raised his arms, placing them behind his head. “That isn’t a terrible idea.”

“Please, you have to be more careful, Ace. You’re going to inflate my ego beyond all recognition.”

“Then you’ll be insufferable.”

“Absolutely.” She rubbed her hands together. “I’m already planning on the best method to make your life a living nightmare.”

“Suggesting I use lace curtains in my brewery is actually a good place to start.”

“Don’t be a drama queen, Ace. Nobody likes that. Or so I’m told. Frequently.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. But I actually like the idea about using local furniture, art, whenever we can. Because if the point is to give tourists a great place to get a sense of Copper Ridge, then that’s what we need to do.”

“I imagine you’re not going to have any trouble getting local distribution for your beer, either.”

He straightened, then stood, making a very male noise that seemed...gratuitous. Like he was just stretching noisily to remind her that he was a man and she was...vulnerable to his powers of testosterone. “I imagine not.”

“Your excitement is catching,” she said, treating him to her fakest smile.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not your sorority sister.”

“I was not in a sorority.”

“Well, there you go. Busting stereotypes all over the place.”

She lifted the coffee mug to her lips, taking another sip. “Absolutely to change the subject, because the one we are currently on basically amounts to you being an ass... What’s in your barn?”

“Is that a double entendre?”

She made a face. “No, what could that even mean?”

“Well—”

“No. Please don’t tell me what it could mean.”

“I didn’t take you for a prude, Sierra,” he said, his voice suddenly getting warm, thick. Certainly not the sort of tone he should be using with her, since he didn’t like her, and she was a waitress. His waitress. His waitress that he didn’t like.

“I hide my Puritanical streak underneath my short shorts.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Her throat tightened, her whole body getting tingly. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“What?”

He looked innocent. Which really wasn’t a great or authentic look on him. “We shouldn’t banter.”

“A little banter isn’t going to hurt.”

“Banter is dangerous. Especially good banter.”

“Maybe. But it won’t go anywhere, because you’re the one who has to beg.”

She nearly choked on her tongue. “Well, I’m not going to. I was trying to change the subject. A gentleman wouldn’t stop me from doing so.”

“I never said I was a gentleman.”

“Clearly.”

“And we actually did change the subject.”

“But you commandeered my subject change. You didn’t answer my question.”

He sighed. “I have a few horses.”

“Okay. How do you keep horses and sleep until noon?” she asked.

“Well, I pay a couple of kids to come by and feed them in the morning before school. Seriously. I stay up too late to get up in time to take care of them. But, I do like to ride when I have days off.”

He had a cowboy hat. And horses. He was quickly becoming Sierra brand kryptonite.

Except for the part where he was a giant jerk, and her boss.

“Like, do you trail ride or...”

“Sometimes.”

“Does your family own horses?” Her own behavior mystified her. She shouldn’t be trying to get to know him. She should be sticking to the script. If she was going to be here, then they needed to be menu planning, or discussing wall sconces, or something. They did not need to be discussing his horses, or his background in horsemanship.

“No. They don’t. I got into riding when I took a job at a ranch mucking stalls. One of the guys was an old, retired rodeo cowboy. And, since I was sixteen, I thought riding bucking broncos sounded like a great idea.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

He nodded slowly, touching the end of his hat. “Yes ma’am. Once upon a time, I was a rodeo cowboy.”

* * *

ACE HAD NO IDEA why he was telling Sierra all of this. He didn’t like to talk about his past. Didn’t like to talk about the decade he’d spent away from Copper Ridge. Because it led into dangerous, murky territory that he barely allowed himself to think about, much less have a conversation about.

“I didn’t know that. I guess, I thought you’d been running the bar forever. Or maybe that you worked at the bar. But, I would’ve been, you know, not legal drinking age when the bar actually changed its name to Ace’s.”

“Are you calling me old?”

“Well, you’re older than me.”

“Not that much,” he said, sounding slightly perturbed.

“How long have you had the bar?”

“About seven years.”

“Yeah,” she said, scrunching her nose. “I was only eighteen when you took over then.”

“Ouch.”

He was suddenly very conscious of the decade that stood between his and Sierra’s ages. Of course, he had always known that he was older than her, he didn’t need to tally up the years to figure that out. She was shiny. Sparkly. Regardless of whatever was going on with her father, she retained the kind of innocence that was difficult to keep into your thirties.

“Oh, come on. Men get better with age. Women just start shedding their sequins.”

“Bullshit. Fashion magazines might want you to believe that, but trust me when I tell you I’ve had some of the best nights of my life with women over the age of forty.”

He had said that to get a response out of her. What he hadn’t anticipated was the response it would elicit in him when her cheeks turned a deeper shade of rose. “I only wanted to know about your horse riding, Ace, not about the other kinds of riding you do.” Her tone was biting, dry. She was not as unaffected as she was trying to pretend.

Which was good, because he wasn’t unaffected at all.

She had to beg. Thank God for that edict. Because it was the only thing stopping him from grabbing her and pulling her flush against his body, backing her up against a wall, bending her over some furniture.

He’d made a rule, and he would damn well stick to it. He wasn’t completely beyond the pale. He wasn’t unable to control himself. He was not that far gone.

You are.

Maybe he was. But in this, he wouldn’t be. He would stand strong.

Yeah, that’s a real moral high ground, Thompson. You won’t touch her unless she begs you for it. And if she does, you know you will.

“It’s been said I have no shame,” he said. “It’s probably true.”

“Oh, I would say more than probably.”

“Do you want to see the horses?” He wasn’t really sure what either of them was doing. They could act as irritated with each other as they wanted, and they probably were that irritated with each other, but they were also coming up with excuses to stay in each other’s company.

Probably because she had the nicest rack he’d seen in a while, and he really liked looking at her ass when she walked. He was that basic.

“Yes,” she said, a wealth of subtext beneath the agreement.

Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe she just wanted to see the horses. Maybe he was a pervert.

“You said you barrel race,” he said, heading toward the front door, hoping some of the fresh air would dispel some of the tension between them. “You doing much of it now?”

“No,” she said, walking onto the porch just ahead of him, taking the steps two at a time down to the driveway. And yeah, he watched her ass.

“Why not?”

“My horse is at my dad’s house.”

“And you aren’t.”

She looked over her shoulder, her blond curls bouncing. She was eternally bouncy, even when she was annoyed. “Right. Because, massive falling-out.”

“So you said. So what happened? He cancel your credit card?”

“Do you honestly think that’s the only thing I could possibly worry about? My fingernails, a credit card. Some rich bitch must’ve screwed you over good.”

That stopped him in his tracks. “Why would you say that?”

“Come on. You didn’t just wake up one morning deciding that girls like me are ridiculous. Someone taught you. I’m rich, but I’m not stupid. You’re right, my life has been pretty easy. And a lot of people are nice to me because of where I come from. A lot of it’s fake, and I’m aware of that. But being wealthy doesn’t automatically mean people are nice to you. A lot of people resent you for it. You think you’re the first person to hate me on sight? I already told you, you aren’t that original.”

He wasn’t in the mood to talk about Denise. But then, he never was. Still, the path of least resistance in this case was to tell just enough of the story to satisfy her curiosity. “My ex-wife.”

That stopped her in her tracks. “You were married?”

“Yeah. For a couple of years.” Three years. Closer to four. He remembered every single one, because it was easy to mark them with Callie’s age.

He gritted his teeth.

“To a rich girl. Who had daddy and credit card issues, I take it?”

“Pretty much.”

“Predictable.”

“You keep saying I am.”

“It has nothing to do with a slashed credit card,” she said. “I don’t... My father isn’t who I thought he was.”

“I know how that goes.”

“Your ex-wife?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded, bringing himself into step with her. “The very same.”

“You know what it’s like. And you know that sometimes you have to leave.”

Except he wouldn’t have left. “That’s true,” he said, even though in his case it absolutely wasn’t.

“It was pretty bad,” she said, kicking a rock.

“Are you going to hint around about it, or are you going to tell me?”

“Why would I tell you?”

He treated her to his best smile, the kind that got him laid more often than not. “Because I’m the bartender. Everyone tells me their secrets.”

“When they’re drunk. I’m not drunk. Unless you spiked my coffee.”

“I don’t give out free alcohol. Plus, I don’t let my employees drink on the job. You are technically on the job.” Which he said more as a reminder to himself. Because he also didn’t allow himself to check out his employees’ asses.

“I don’t think I can tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said, “you hate me. Why should I trust you with my secrets?”

“I don’t hate you.”

He didn’t like her. Not beyond the look of her anyway. But he’d hired her, and he was taking her to see his horses. So, obviously he didn’t hate her.

“Well,” she said, “you are not Team Sierra.”

“In fairness, if I’m team anything, I’m probably just Team Tits and Beer.”

“They appreciate your support, I’m sure. Not enough love happening for boobs and brew.”

“I have all the love in the world.”

She upped her pace, walking a few steps ahead of him. “My dad had an affair.”

“That sucks.” It did. He could barely have a conversation with his dad these days, mostly because he didn’t know how to talk to him. Didn’t know how to pick the undesirable words out of his vocabulary anymore, didn’t know what topics to bring up. His dad had no idea what Ace served at his bar, but in fairness, Ace had no idea what his father’s latest sermon was about.

Or any of his sermons for the past seventeen years.

“Yeah. It sucks,” she said. She stopped, turning to face him. “It really sucks.”

“Were you close to him?”

“I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to be close to my dad. Which I guess is kind of a red flag when you think about it. But...” She paused, angling toward the mountains. She closed her eyes for a second, the breeze catching hold of her hair and tangling it around her face. “He was my hero.”

She opened her eyes, turning back to Ace. “I don’t suppose he can be that anymore. And I don’t know how to talk to him when he’s something else. He was Superman. To me. He couldn’t do anything wrong. I remember hugging his leg because it was the only thing I could reach. And even though I grew, he stayed this giant. Really, he’s just a man. And I... I don’t really know how to deal with that.”

He tried to imagine that there was a bar top between them, and a little more alcohol on her end. And then he tried to figure out what he would say in that situation. Well, he probably wouldn’t say much of anything. He would just nod and pour another drink. But that wasn’t an option here.

Apparently, he counted on alcohol being a crutch even when he wasn’t the one drinking it.

“People surprise you,” he said finally. “In terrible ways.” He’d said as much to her the night he’d driven her home. That people were liars and couldn’t be trusted. A grim life motto, maybe, but it kept him grounded.

“Thanks, Ace. I feel like I should really get that put on a T-shirt.”

“Don’t put it on a T-shirt. You can’t read it when you’re wearing it. Maybe mount it to the wall.”

“I’ll keep that under advisement.”

They approached the barn and he pulled the door open, the motion kicking up a cloud of dust and the scent of hay. It was a good smell to him. A strong one. One that rooted him back to a simpler time in his life. Before marriages and custody battles and breweries.

When he’d loved to ride, and that was all he’d needed.

There had been a whole lot of clarity in the ring. Other people might find it crazy. That he’d found a kind of calm on the back of a bucking bronco, but he had. Pounding hooves, flying dirt and people cheering faded into one indistinct blur, until it shrank, receding into total silence.

One wrong move on his end or the horse’s made the difference between glory and getting your ass stomped into cowboy dust beneath angry hooves.

That had been the clearest he’d ever thought. His body, his brain...his soul—if he had one—all worked together in those moments. One unified machine. It was something he could never go back to, because the man that had saddled up for the rodeo back then was a completely different man.

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