CHAPTER FIVE
THE WEEKLY POKER GAME was set up at Bad Billy’s Biker Bar and Burger Palace. Drake could use a cold one, so he approved of the choice. He spotted two of his friends already at the table, then sauntered up to the bar and nodded at Billy in greeting. “Who’s waiting tonight? Thelma?”
“Sure is. Full of piss and vinegar, too. Got into a fender bender on her way to work. You know how she loves that old car. You boys be on your best behavior.”
“Thanks for the warning.” Thelma was a crusty older lady who, like Harry, tolerated no nonsense. Billy didn’t need a bouncer; if anybody dared misbehave, Thelma effectively booted him out, although how she managed it when she was only about five feet high—and that was on a tall day—was a mystery. She never had a problem getting her point across, either. “Tell her I’ll have my usual, and be polite about it, okay? Especially if she’s in a no-bullshit mood.” The place seemed busier than ever that night.
Billy laughed, a low rumble in his wide chest. “You are a wise man, my friend. Our Thelma has a soft spot for you, but she’s about reached her cowboy quotient for the day, so I’ll go ahead and draw your beer myself.”
Tripp Galloway and Tate Calder were halfway through their first mugs of beer, elbows resting comfortably on the nicked wooden table. Tripp hooked a foot around a chair and tugged it out so Drake could sit. “You’re late, but Spence texted and said he was tied up, so you don’t get the slow prize this time. He figures maybe twenty minutes.”
Drake took the chair. In the background a jukebox was playing Willie Nelson and the place was loud, but never so loud that you couldn’t talk to the people at your table. One of the many reasons he disliked big cities was the noise—restaurants where you couldn’t hear yourself think, much less converse with the person next to you. Traffic snarls, horns honking, sirens blaring. The skyscrapers and office buildings made him feel hemmed in, and the smell of exhaust fumes followed you everywhere. Give him the sweet scent of long grass in a clean breeze.
Tate said, “I need to warn you that Thelma’s on the warpath and she’s headed this way.”
“Billy mentioned that she was in some kind of snit,” Drake muttered under his breath, just before she plonked down his beer.
“Carson, you’re always running late. And where’s that worthless Spence Hogan, anyway? I spent some quality time with him earlier.”
Spence was the chief of police, and whatever else she might be, Thelma was no criminal. Drake wondered what she meant, although he wasn’t stupid enough to ask.
Thelma had ringlets of gray hair, pale blue eyes, and wore her glasses on the end of her nose. As far as Drake could tell, she didn’t actually need them; they seemed to be mainly for effect, probably so she could glare at people over the top.
Then he abruptly remembered and said, “Oh, the accident. Yeah, I heard. Sorry about Frankie.”
She’d named her 1966 bright yellow Impala Frankie, and since this was Mustang Creek, he knew that car well. “That out-of-town asshole had no insurance. It’s going to cost me seven hundred bucks to fix the car. I can take that idiot to small claims court, and Spence is going to make sure his license is suspended, but that won’t do Frankie any good, will it?” She blew out a loud breath. “I’m really pissed off.”
Now, there was breaking news.
“As soon as Spence gets here, your food will be out.”
Tripp made the mistake of saying, “We haven’t ordered yet.”
Thelma sent him a look that would’ve scared the average grizzly bear. “All of you will have the special.”
Every one of them wanted to ask what the special might be, but none had the guts to do so.
“Get it?” she demanded, just in case they didn’t know what was good for them, which was whatever Thelma thought was good for them.
They sure did. Not one of them said a thing as Thelma walked away, ignoring a table full of customers madly waving to get her attention.
“I was kind of hoping for the bacon cheeseburger, but I’ll take whatever she sets in front of me,” Tate said. “Whew. I wouldn’t want to be the guy who made that grave error in judgment and hit her car. That had to be one hell of a conversation.”
“If I was Spence, I’d throw him in jail for his own protection.” Tripp drained what was left of his beer.
Drake didn’t disagree. “Now, back to the menu... I’m praying for chicken-fried steak, but I’ll roll with whatever happens to come my way. Did Red have a chance to talk to your dad?”
“About the bull, Sherman? Yeah, Jim will handle it—does him good to get involved. He misses that sort of thing.”
Jim, Tripp’s stepfather, had run the ranch for a long time before Tripp took over. Drake nodded. “I feel regretful about it. Sherman was great in his prime, but he’s not doing real well right now. Slowing down, you might say.”
Tripp got that faint grin on his face. “So, tell us about the student. The one who’s cuter than a pup in a little red wagon. That’s Red talking as you might’ve guessed, via Jim.”
“I already figured that out.” Drake took a long cool drink. It tasted great. “She’s fine. She’s trying—in more ways than one.” Tripp rolled his eyes at the pun, but Drake ignored him. “She’s a pretty graduate student who has no idea what she’s doing.”
“How pretty?” That was Tate, also grinning.
“Very,” he admitted, remembering the gold highlights in her hair.
“That’s what we heard.” Tripp was clearly teasing, but before Drake could respond, he lifted a hand. “I actually think that what she’s doing is important. I’ll bet most of America isn’t even aware we have wild horses, much less that they can be a problem. My two cents’ worth.”
Spence’s arrival stopped the discussion. He slid into the fourth chair at their table. Tall, with a natural air of command that wasn’t overstated, he was both confident and good at his job. “Thelma’s still mad, I take it.”
“She’s steaming,” Drake informed him. “Don’t try to order off the menu, my friend. She’s decided we’re all having the special, whatever that might be.”
“Gotcha.” Spence grimaced. “You should’ve been there when Junie got the call. She’s a seasoned dispatcher and even she was shaking her head. When Thelma asked that I personally respond, Junie threw me under the bus and said I would. Both of my deputies were laughing their asses off.”
They were all laughing, too, but instantly sobered when Thelma showed up with Spence’s beer, glowered at him and asked, “That noninsured yahoo in prison yet?”
“Took him there myself. Straight to the dungeon section. He’s chained to the wall.” Spence said it with a straight face.
Thelma did have a sense of humor and it finally surfaced. “See that he gets no food or water.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your food will be right up. I’ll bring another round when you start your game. But then I’m cutting you off. Y’all have to drive home.” She stalked back toward the kitchen.
Spence said mildly, “I could point out that I walked from the station and Melody’s having dinner with Hadleigh and Bex, so she’s picking me up. But I think I’m just going to keep my mouth shut.”
“Good idea.” Tripp nodded. Since Hadleigh was his wife and Bex was married to Tate, they were undoubtedly doing the same thing. Drake had planned on having only two beers, anyway, so the decree didn’t bother him at all.
Their weekly poker game usually took a couple of hours. He’d be completely sober when he drove back to the ranch.
The special ended up being chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and garden-fresh green beans, which meant it was his lucky night. Until he saw who was walking through the front door...
Ms. Lucinda Hale.
Drake couldn’t believe it. She spotted him and waved. She looked different with all that long hair in loose curls and a denim skirt that reached only midthigh, with some sort of frothy pink top that left her slender arms bare. Didn’t matter how she looked, though. She was still his nemesis. Or, if that was too fancy, he could just call her a pain in the butt. Focus. Poker night.
He waved back. What could he do but be polite? Tate narrowed his eyes. “That’s her? The graduate student? Pretty’s an understatement, I’d say.”
“Whatever.” He finished his first beer in a gulp and grumbled, “What she’s doing here, I don’t have a clue.”
“Maybe she heard that Billy serves the best burgers in town and decided to try one.” Tripp looked amused at Drake’s discomfort, especially when Luce started to walk toward them. “Here she comes. No offense, but I’ve never thought you were all that irresistible myself.”
That was not worth responding to.
They all stood when she walked in their direction.
“Hello.” Luce smiled at them, leaving Drake no choice but to introduce everyone. Once that was done, she said, “Please sit down and eat. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Mace is parking the car. Nice to meet all of you.”
About two seconds later, his brother strolled through the door, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face, as if he knew their arrival would annoy the hell out of him. Mace waved a casual hello and Luce went off to join him at a table in the corner, near the antique jukebox.
As if they were on a date or something. It definitely got to him, which he’d have to think about later.
“I guess you’re not the irresistible one, after all.” Tripp was joking, but his gaze was speculative. “You might want to adjust your expression, Carson, because Mace knows you even better than we do and he’ll be able to read it loud and clear.”
“What expression?” He caught the hint of defensiveness in his voice. Damn.
Spence said to Tate, “Two brothers after the same girl. Not a good scenario, is it?”
Tate took a bite and chewed for a minute as though he was thinking it over. “Especially if they live in the same house. Nope, not good at all.”
“I’m not ‘after’ her,” Drake snapped. He knew they were ribbing him, but he was afraid his current level of annoyance wasn’t solely because Mace had deliberately brought her to Billy’s to irritate him. They were best friends, yet they had fought like two male bighorn sheep their entire lives, arguing so much that even Slater had given up trying to tone them down. Unless it got physical, which it had once or twice when they were teens.
“Why aren’t you?” Tripp asked that as if it were a legitimate question. “Attractive and obviously smart. Gorgeous eyes. Does she snore or something?”
“You’ve known Hadleigh since she was six. I just met Luce. She’s only been around for about a week. Our arrangement, if you can call it that, is strictly business.” He paused. “So I couldn’t tell you if she snores. I haven’t slept with her.”
“He’s always been the bashful type.” Spence was doing a lousy job of hiding his glee. “Tripp has a point, though. A woman like that, following you around, living in the same house—seems like an opportunity not to be missed.”
Tate had to throw in his opinion, too, of course. “Bex told me she’s going to be here all summer. That’s plenty of time to win her over. Unless Mace beats you to it.”
“You three are worse than my mother. All I want to win at the moment is our poker game. Can we change the subject?” The chicken-fried steak was delicious, he was hungry and he rarely took a night off except for their poker game, so he wanted to enjoy it. If Luce felt like having dinner with his brother, that was her choice.
It didn’t upset him.
Not at all.
Well...not much.
A reasonable voice inside him said he resented the intrusion she’d brought into his life, but another nagged that maybe he wasn’t as indifferent as he wanted to be.
Thelma used the same tray to deliver their second round and stack up their empty plates. She cocked a brow in challenge. “Food’s good?”
“Great,” they answered in unison.
“I’ll tell Billy. Deal the cards. Hard to believe, but the four of you are the only customers I’ve seen tonight who didn’t make me say to myself, Damn, it’s them. Hey, Carson, what’s your girlfriend doing here with your brother, anyway?”
He would’ve explained that Luce wasn’t his girlfriend, but Thelma sashayed away before he could comment, moving toward another table, muttering, “Keep your panties on, dammit. I’ve only got two hands.”
They probably all looked shell-shocked. “Did we just get a compliment? From Thelma?” Spence whispered when she was far enough away to be out of earshot.
Tate said, “Can’t be.”
Tripp sat immobile. “I think we did.”
Drake said, “Maybe she likes us. Let’s not ruin it. You heard the lady. Hurry up and deal the cards.”
* * *
MACE CARSON WAS entirely too pleased with himself. “Told you so,” he said smugly.
Luce was torn between tossing her glass of wine at him—Mountain Vineyards, of course—and just laughing. She decided the waitress was too scary and she didn’t dare make a mess, so he won the lottery. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish,” she said. “Drake and his buddies are playing cards, and you and I are only here because Harry’s cousin came to town unexpectedly and she took the night off.”
“My mom is friends with Cindy, too, so coming here seemed like a good plan. The three of them will sit and gossip on the veranda all evening. Did you notice that Slater and Grace went off with Raine and Daisy? And Ryder’s hanging out with Red.”
She wasn’t fooled. “But you chose when and where we’d go—just to be sure I’d intrude on your brother’s evening with his friends.”
His mouth twitched. “Not a ton of restaurant choices in Mustang Creek.”
“Whatever lucky woman’s out there waiting for you, she should be warned that you’re a smooth liar.”
He didn’t even pretend to dissemble. “You think she’s lucky, huh? I’m honored.”
Luce watched him over the rim of her wineglass. Of the three Carson men, he was perhaps the most complicated. Slater was brilliant and driven. Drake was the pragmatic, down-to-earth type who dealt with life head-on. Mace was harder to figure out. All she knew with certainty was that he liked to needle his older brothers and would’ve been disappointed if they hadn’t returned the favor.
Luce liked him. There wasn’t the same pull she felt with Drake, but chemistry was an unpredictable thing. “Hmm. She’d need to be sassy. Sophisticated. Smart. And she has to be able to handle you.”
“You fit the bill.” His smile was flirtatious.
“I’m not sophisticated.” She wasn’t particularly; she’d always been more of an academic than the polished type she pictured at his side. He was equally aware that they weren’t well suited in a romantic sense. And he obviously had some intuition about her and Drake—or at least her attraction to Drake—since he was pressuring his brother. She liked him all the better for his matchmaking because she found it both funny and touching. “I’m all about hiking boots and skinny-dipping in the river. You want someone who can pick up a wine list and recognize every single label.”
“I don’t like snooty women.”
“That’s not what I said, is it?”
“No.” Mace was drinking one of his own red wines, and apparently enjoying the conversation. “I’ll wait for her to come along. In the meantime, you and my brother?”
She had no idea what to say. She raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I don’t think he even likes me.”
“Think again. I recognized that scowl on his face when I walked through the door. It wasn’t because you were here. It was because you were here with me.”
She regarded him dubiously.
With a cheeky grin, he added, “Trust me on this one, Ms. Hale. He just doesn’t know what to do with you. Whoops, badly put. He knows what he’d like to do with you, but the thought of being part of a research project affronts his desire for solitude. You could put Drake in a time machine and take him back about a hundred and fifty years, drop him anywhere in the American West, and he’d fit right in. Even when we were younger, he hardly ever watched TV or played any video games. When we got home from school, he did his homework as fast as possible so he could saddle his horse and ride out. Harry used to get on him because he missed supper so often.”
As Luce took another sip of wine, she was tucking this information away for reasons that weren’t really connected to her graduate thesis. The hum of the restaurant had faded into the background. “Yet he went to college, even played a collegiate sport.”
Mace leaned his forearms on the edge of the old wooden table, which had seen years of use. “Not going to college wasn’t an option. Our father made that clear very early in our lives. What we did after college was our decision, but we were going to college, all three of us. And yeah, Drake is one hell of a tennis player. Think about it, though. Unless you play doubles, that’s not a team sport. Slater played football and I ran track, but you should see Drake rope a calf. He’s got incredible aim, so that’s why he chose tennis. If I was drowning and needed someone to toss me a flotation device, I’d sure hope he was around.”
Fascinating. And not what she needed. She was a bit too fascinated already.
“Do you suppose he’d ever let me film him doing that? The calf roping, I mean?”
“Doubtful.” Mace shook his head. “Slater might be Mr. Showbiz, but Drake is camera shy. I remember that he had to be bribed with this vintage pickup truck he wanted before he agreed to have his senior pictures taken. He just wanted to skip the whole thing. Some sort of compromise was reached because he said yes to the pictures and he got the truck. He and Red restored it. They’re kindred souls.”
She’d met Red and could agree with that. “Hard to reach. Softhearted, but they hide it well.”
“See, you’re observant. What else have you picked up on? Have you decided he’s worth the effort?”
Luce kept her cool. “I’ve decided you’re jumping to a few conclusions here.”
“I doubt it.”
The reappearance of the grouchy waitress ended that conversation. Luce couldn’t recall ordering, but she got a plate of fried walleye with homemade coleslaw and thick-cut fries, and Mace got a burger loaded with all the extras. Mystified, she asked, “How did she know what I was going to order? That’s impossible.”
“There are some questions better left unasked.” He gestured at his plate. “Usually, I arrive, she brings me a drink, then she delivers the food. Maybe she’s a witch or something, but like my brother, she tends to hit the mark.”
The fish was delicious, crispy and paired with tartar sauce made from scratch. She’d barely finished the last bite when the poker party broke up and the players headed for the door, probably eager to get home to their wives and kids. Drake, the only bachelor in the bunch, didn’t keep late hours, either, since he got up before dawn.
Speak of the devil... He stopped by their table. “How was your dinner?” he asked.
“Delicious.” She waited; he seemed to have something to say.
“Good.” He planted a hand, palm down, on the table, looking at her intently. “Finish your wine. You’re coming with me. Mace can find his own way home.”
When the ultimate cowboy gave you an ultimatum, it was kind of hard to ignore.
Mace was grinning behind his wineglass and his eyes twinkled. “Sure. Home. The place where we grew up. Sure, I can find it on my own.”
“Don’t even try to be funny. It’s never worked for you before. I just want to show Luce something—not that it’s any of your business.”
“Wonder what that might be,” Mace speculated, his tone easy and unhurried.
A muscle tensed in Drake’s jaw. “Your tactless comments are getting on my nerves, little brother.”
Time to run interference.
Luce finished her wine in an inelegant gulp and smiled apologetically at Mace. If she hadn’t known what Mace was up to, she would never have agreed to leave one brother, who’d treated her to dinner, for the other. But he was the one who’d set everything in motion, so she interrupted whatever he was going to say next. “Thanks for dinner. So...what’s your advice?”
He gave Drake a once-over. “He’s harmless enough.”
Drake didn’t look flattered. “Don’t be so sure.”
Luce stood up hastily, aware that Mace could be right and Drake hadn’t liked her coming to Bad Billy’s with him. Even though it was none of his business. Her reaction to this was both positive and negative. So far, all her interactions with the Carson family had run that way. Three very different brothers who got along well, but there was some head-butting now and then. And she just happened to be the reason for this latest bout.
Drake steered her toward the bar. “I’ll be a second. I need to talk to Billy.”
Billy—a former biker, or so she’d heard—was busy pouring drinks. Smiling, he paused when Drake walked up. “You boys seemed to like the food okay. I see you stole Mace’s woman. That didn’t take long. Ain’t you slick, cowboy.”
“She isn’t Mace’s woman.” Drake sounded emphatic. “Anyway, here’s Thelma’s tip. I didn’t want to leave it on the table. Tell her it’s from all of us.”
Billy’s eyebrows rose as he took the thick wad of bills. “Let me guess. Seven hundred dollars—enough to take care of the car repairs. That’s real thoughtful of you.”
Drake shrugged. “She brought us chicken-fried steak and beer. The least we could do is help her fix Frankie.”
“Dammit, son, don’t make me tear up in front of a pretty girl. It’d ruin my reputation. I’ll see that Thelma gets this.”
Luce would give a lot to see Bad Billy all misty-eyed, but Drake was already leading her toward the door, his fingers firmly around her wrist. Outside, the night was clear and, according to the weather report she’d heard earlier, unseasonably warm. “Do you mind telling me what I need to see so badly that I rudely abandoned your brother?”
He opened the passenger’s-side door of his truck for her. “Explaining would defeat the purpose. See is the operative word here. Hop in.”