Chapter 2
Dylan had held enough women to know the effect they could have on a man. Both physically and mentally. But the heady mix of bravado and distrust in his current dance partner pushed buttons he hadn’t discovered before. She wasn’t the blonde bombshell her friend was, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t beautiful.
The tattered jean shorts revealed incredible tanned legs, while the simple gray tank hugged curves Dylan would be thinking about for days. Chestnut waves framed a serious face, featuring high cheekbones and expressive brown eyes, and as they danced, she fit against him in all the right places.
Unfortunately, looks didn’t always translate into brains or brass, two traits Dylan held in high esteem. Charley possessed brass for sure. Since she hadn’t added the word like to a sentence yet and had been quick enough to suss out his wingman status, he felt pretty good about the brains situation as well.
The notes of the slow song faded into “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and he escorted his partner off the floor. The moment they reached the crowded tables, she pulled her hand from his. By the time he spun around, thinking she might have gotten caught in a stampede, she’d shifted routes and cut a quick path to her friend. Dylan shook his head. She could run, but he wasn’t finished with the birthday girl.
“How are things going over here?” he asked as he reached Casey, now perched atop a stool beside Matilda.
Charley reached for her beer and downed it like a dog newly released from a hot car.
“Good,” Casey replied, his eyes on the blonde. “She hasn’t taken a bite out of me yet, but the night is still young.”
“Mr. Flanagan here is quite the charmer,” Matilda observed, twirling the red wine in her glass. “He’s taken every insult I’ve dished out with a smile and a wink. I’m starting to think he might be bulletproof.”
“Or slow,” Dylan suggested, waving to the bartender for a beer and adding another for Charley. “You need to slow down,” he said, sliding up beside her at the bar. “Like Casey said, the night is still young.”
“I was thirsty, that’s all.” She set the empty bottle on the bar and pushed it forward. “Regardless,” she said, turning steady brown eyes his way, “I’m not a weakling. I don’t need your advice on how to drink.”
From cooperative to combative in less than thirty seconds. This woman would keep him on his toes like a nervous filly. “I believe you.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You do?”
“I do. I don’t think you’re weak at all.”
“But you don’t even know me.”
Dylan touched the brim of his hat. “Call it instinct.”
With a pinched expression, she said, “I’m not a horse, thank you very much.”
Yep. She was quick.
“You have to admit, the comparison fits.” He retrieved the beer set in front of him and turned to lean his back on the bar. “You’re proud. Stubborn. Skittish. And itching to break out and run.”
She chuckled as she reached for her beer. “You got all that out of one dance?”
“Am I wrong?” he pressed.
Sighing, Charley stared into the distance as if pondering his predictions. After several seconds of silence, her lips turned up in a grin.
“No, you aren’t wrong. I’m all of those things, but I’m not only those things.”
In that moment, he wanted to know all the other things about her, but before he could suggest they find a place to talk, Casey smacked him on the shoulder.
“We’re gonna dance. Hold the stools for us.”
Matilda shrugged and handed her purse to Charley. “Might as well have a little fun now that I’m out, right?”
Charley nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Go show him how it’s done.”
As the unlikely pair melted into the crowd, Dylan motioned for Charley to have a seat, waiting to take the other until she’d settled in.
“Did you just wait until I sat down?” she asked, a bit incredulous.
“Guilty,” he responded. “My mama taught me well.”
“And where is your mama?” she queried, surprising him with the sudden change of topic.
“Castor, Louisiana. Where is your mama?”
Her face sobered. “My mother is dead.”
At first, Dylan thought she might be joking, but her eyes said differently.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, feeling like a jerk.
“No.” She shook her head, sending chestnut waves dancing around her shoulders. “It’s an innocent enough question, and I started it, anyway. After nine years, you’d think talking about it would get easier.”
“I can’t imagine that ever getting easier.” Dylan didn’t like to think about losing either of his parents. And if he did the math right, she’d only been sixteen at the time. Damn. That had to be hard.
Silence loomed as she picked at the label on her bottle.
“Your friend must be a real charmer,” she finally said, changing the subject. “Matty is as jaded as they come, and she dished it out pretty hard when y’all first walked up.”
Dylan nodded. “That boy doesn’t have the sense God gave a gnat, but he never backs down from a challenge. Did you say Maddy?”
“Matty,” she said louder, emphasizing the t’s. “Short for Matilda, of course. She hates it, but I think it’s nice.”
“Charley is nice, too,” he offered. “Is it short for anything?”
“Charlotte.” He studied her face for several seconds, until she said, “What?”
“You don’t look like a Charlotte.”
Slender brows arched. “Really? What do I look like?”
“A Charley,” Dylan said, tapping his beer bottle to hers. “Charley fits you perfectly.” When her brows met above her nose, he added, “Compliment, I promise.”
“If you say so.”
As she lifted her beer for another drink, a burly guy in a straw hat shoved his way to the bar, nearly knocking her off her stool in the process. Dylan caught her before she landed in his lap, losing his beer in the process. As glass met tile, the shatter echoed above the music, and his IPA became a puddle at his feet.
“Hey!” he yelled at the asshole who hadn’t bothered to turn around. “Watch what you’re doing.”
A wall of a man spun their way, deep-set eyes buried beneath thick, bushy brows. The beard reached his third button, and the lack of sleeves revealed several tattoos scattered up and down his arms. None of them looked as if the artist knew what the hell he was doing. “You talking to me?”
“I don’t see any other dipshits plowing into women around here.”
“Dylan, don’t—” Charley started.
“Are you calling me a dipshit?”
Not the brightest buckle in the bunch. “You owe this woman an apology. And you owe me a beer.”
The bully grunted and turned his back on them as the bartender approached. “Jack and Coke,” the big man ordered, ignoring his other obligation.
Dylan took the matter into his own hands. “Joey, get me another beer and put it on this dude’s tab.”
“I really don’t think—” Charley tried again.
“I’m not paying for shit for you,” Goliath argued.
The idiot needed a lesson in civility. “You see that?” Dylan said, pointing toward the floor. “That’s my beer. I was enjoying it until you tried to knock my woman off her stool.”
“Your what?” Charley squeaked.
“Look, you little pissant. I didn’t do shit to you or your little woman. So go fuck yourself.”
From the corner of his eye, Dylan saw Joey wave for a bouncer. Now to make sure the guy went out the door and not to another table.
“Didn’t your mama teach you any manners?” he asked, rising to his feet. By his calculations, the oaf would either be slow enough to throw a punch that the bouncer would arrive first, or, if they were lucky, he’d land on his ass in spilled beer.
Of course, Dylan hadn’t figured Charley into his math.
“Don’t you talk about my—” the big guy started, taking one step before Charley cut him off.
“That’s enough.” A slender hand flattened on the giant’s chest. “Say you’re sorry for bumping into me,” she ordered.
He opened his mouth as if to argue, and she crossed her arms, careful not to drop her beer or Matty’s purse.
“Fine,” he conceded. “I’m sorry.”
She then turned to Joey. “He’ll pay for Dylan’s beer, but get him an extra Jack and Coke on me.”
“What are you doing?” Dylan asked behind her. The look she shot him said, Shut the hell up.
“Now,” Charley said, “if you two still want to go outside and compare dick sizes, have at it. But it won’t have anything to do with me.” Stepping around the puddle at her feet, she disappeared into the crowd, leaving the men gaping after her.
“That’s some woman you’ve got there,” muttered the now-docile hillbilly.
“She sure is,” Dylan agreed, tapping his new beer bottle against the other man’s Jack and Coke. “She sure is.”
His guess had been correct. Miss Charley was a one-of-a-kind woman. The bit about her being his might have been a stretch, but if Dylan was lucky, he’d get the chance to make it the truth.
“Why do men have to be such idiots?” Charley fumed, pacing the backstage area where Ruby sat propped on a bar stool.
“They can’t help themselves, darling. It’s all that testosterone running through their bodies.” The redhead sipped her gin and tonic. “Sounds kind of chivalrous in a way though. You say the other guy was how big?”
“Too big,” she huffed, heart still racing with fear that Dylan might right now be getting his fool self killed. Charley possessed a lifetime’s worth of experience dealing with a barn-size male, though even Elvis, her best friend back home, would have hesitated before taking on such a behemoth. He’d have still done it, but he at least had Marine Corps training to fall back on. “What was he thinking?” she went on, continuing her rant. “His woman.” The nerve of that claim. And her treasonous body’s reaction only made matters worse.
Charley was not some helpless damsel who wanted—or needed, for that matter—a big, strong man to fight for her honor. Her response should have proven that as clear as the drink in Ruby’s hand.
“You say his name is Dylan?” Ruby asked. “Did you get his last name?”
She shook her head, still pacing the small space. “No, I didn’t. And I don’t care what his last name is. As if all the attention from the bottle breaking wasn’t enough. No. He had to go and make some manly scene. Everyone within twenty feet was watching.”
Ruby laughed. “Is that what you’re all riled up about? Being the center of a scene? You do realize that your job is eventually going to require you to stand on a stage in front of twenty thousand people, right?”
Of course Charley realized that. Didn’t mean she had to like it. She’d picked radio for a reason. The public could hear her, but not see her. And if they didn’t like what she said, they could change the station, and she’d be no more the wiser.
“I guess I should go find Matty,” she mumbled, dreading going back into the club. “She might have grown tired of her freckle-faced admirer by now and be looking for me to save her.”
“You know better than that. Matty can take care of herself.”
A woman with a headset and a clipboard peeked from behind a curtain. “Ruby, we’re ready in two.”
The emcee hopped down to her well-worn cowboy boots. “Duty calls.” After setting her drink under the chair, she turned Charley’s way. “I have an idea.”
“About what?” Charley asked, instantly dubious. The last time Ruby got an idea, Charley found herself singing karaoke with a video jock from the Country Music Network.
“Come on.” The older woman snagged Charley’s hand, sending Matty’s purse to the floor, and pulled her through the curtain the stagehand had just closed. “You’re going out there with me.”
“Are you crazy?” Charley attempted to free her hand, but Ruby held tight. “I’m not supposed to go out there with you.”
Within seconds, they were hovering in the wings, surrounded by musicians ready to take the stage.
Ruby said hello to the boys, ignoring the crazy woman trying to claw her arm free.
“Ruby,” she hissed. “Don’t do this to me.”
“You’ll thank me later, kid.”
The woman in the headset returned. “It’s all you, Ruby.”
To Charley’s horror, she found herself stumbling onto the stage of the Wildhorse Saloon, blindsided by both the bright lights and the sudden roar of the crowd.
“How y’all doing out there tonight?” Ruby drawled into her microphone. “Are you ready for a great show?”
The roar grew louder, and Charley’s heart threatened to beat out of her chest. Her ears began to ring, and tiny black dots invaded the edges of her vision.
“Before we get to the main attraction, I was hoping y’all would help me say happy birthday to this pretty lady right here.” Ruby lifted Charley’s arm above her head, eliciting more cheers from the crowd. “This here is Miss Charley Layton, and she’s the newest addition to our Eagle 101.5 family. You’ve been listening to her from ten to three five days a week, and now I want you to give her some love on her birthday.”
Charley had no idea if she was smiling because she could no longer feel her face. Ruby might as well have thrown her in front of a Dodge and slapped the word “Bambi” on her forehead, but if she looked scared, the audience either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Can I get a Wildhorse rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ for our girl here?”
Oh no. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. And she did.
With one sweep of Ruby’s hand, the crowd broke out in song, and Charley used every mental trick she could think of not to puke or pass out. It wasn’t as if she’d never been on a stage before, but barbecue festivals in Liberty, Kentucky, were very different from standing on the Wildhorse stage in front of nearly two thousand people. Despite her best efforts, Charley’s stomach rolled. Taking two steps back, she braced for a run to the closest bathroom. But Ruby had other plans.
When the serenade finally ended, Ruby wrapped her arm around Charley’s shoulders and squeezed tight. “That’s one way to pop your stage cherry,” she whispered into Charley’s ear, miraculously not making the declaration into the microphone.
There was only so much humiliation a woman could take.
“Now let’s get to the reason we’re all here.” Ruby released Charley to shift the microphone to her other hand, providing the escape she so desperately needed.
With a quick wave to the crowd, Charley backed off the stage and broke into a trot the moment she hit the wings. Ducking down two hallways, she paid little attention to where she was going, only to find herself standing before the VIP tables outside the backstage entrance. Most people were focused on the stage, but a publicist she’d met the week before noticed her passing by.
“Happy birthday, Charley!” the pretty brunette called.
Charley couldn’t remember the woman’s name. “Thanks,” she said, picking up her pace. Keeping to the edge of the room, she rounded a back corner and ran straight into a wall. A wall that smelled like a field after a fresh rain and that somehow knew her name.
“Charley, are you okay?” Dylan asked, his voice heavy with concern.
She shook her head. “Get me out of here.”
The cowboy took her hand. “I can do that.”