Chapter 2

Lauralee

I climbed up on my favorite barstool, the one at the very end of the bar that let me lean back against the wall and survey the entire room without making it too obvious. I loved to people watch and often found myself sitting back to observe. But while I was no stranger to Kinsey’s, I didn’t frequent it often. Tonight I had a special purpose. I needed to see for myself what kind of drunken antics my brother, Bailey, had been up to. It helped that I was fairly unnoticeable. Unlike the other girls that prowled Kinsey's on Friday nights, I hadn't packed myself into a dress made out of approximately one yard of spandex and high heels that could probably double as deadly weapons if the woman wearing them got pissed off enough.

In fact, I hadn't done anything after I finished work other than take off my hat, so at that moment my feet were encased in boots still caked with dirt from the workday as they balanced on the center rung of the barstool. I cracked a peanut in one hand and tossed it into my mouth. The bar seemed a bit mellow compared to a typical Friday, but I figured that most of the people who usually came out had come to see David play, so now they were in their formal period of mourning for the loss of their local entertainment.

Just as that thought went through my mind, I heard the antiquated bells on the front door of the bar chime, so I glanced up to see who was coming in. Ted and Mason Dawson swaggered in and scanned the room. Speak of the devil, I suppose. The two men paused just a few steps inside the bar and glanced around like they were on safari, waiting for the next big game to wander by haplessly. Mason didn't have quite the level of lasciviousness in his look that his big brother did. There was a touch more innocence in his eyes even as he tried to follow right in Ted's footsteps.

There was absolutely nothing innocent about Ted, though. He hunted the girls in that bar without a single shred of shame or subtlety. This hadn't earned him too much favor with the mothers in town, whose warnings to their daughters about Ted ranked right up there with not taking gym class when you were on your period because it would exhaust you and always wearing clean panties just in case you got in an accident. Or with the fathers in town, many of whom had special gun cases dedicated to armories designated for Ted and the potential for hasty nuptials. For said girls, however, Ted was seen as a rite of passage of sorts.

If you had one too many Saturday nights all by yourself, call Ted. If you were itching to get rid of that pesky virginity, call Ted. If you absolutely had to try out that new sex position that everyone was raving about that you had studied in great detail in your favorite gossip magazine, but either didn't have a boyfriend to test it out on or wanted to make sure you had it down pat before you whipped it out, call Ted.

All of that reputation had been built in the years since we’d broken up, and despite a few efforts to sweet talk me, I hadn’t given in to him since.

I gave a little bit of a shudder and turned to the beer being set down in front of me by the bartender.

"Thanks, Lucy," I said, holding down the napkin she had placed the glass on and peeling my beer away so that I could take a sip.

"You're staring at that boy hard, aren't you?" she asked suspiciously.

"What boy?" I asked, then realized what she meant and nearly choked on my beer. "Ted? You can't be serious."

I wiped off my mouth and glanced back over at Ted. He had been in the bar for all of five seconds and two girls were already draped on him and vying for his affection. From the stories that I had heard, they didn't have to compete too hard. He would gladly bring both of them home, and if they weren't into that, he would line them up and serve them one at a time, deli style. I wondered if he made them take numbers.

"You aren't making a real good case for yourself," Lucy said, glancing between Ted and me.

"Trust me, Lucy, there's no case to be made. I had my fill of that boy a long time ago, and I'm not interested in a replay."

"Oh, you did, did you?" Lucy said, leaning on her elbows on the bar and giving me that twinkly-eyed look that the girls did when they wanted to start gossiping.

"Don't you start looking at me like that. It wasn't like that, and it never will be."

"What was it like then?"

"We grew up together as neighbors. He was my brother Bailey’s best friend until he noticed me and we started dating. I thought I was in love with him, but then he ruined everything with his nasty temper and overprotective nature. Once we broke up, he got busy navigating the panty lines of every girl in the county."

"Not mine," Lucy said with a pout, straightening back up and pulling the white bar towel off of her hip so that she could wipe up some wayward condensation from the scarred wood top of the bar.

"I would wear that badge with pride, Lucy," I told her. "You could do so much better than Ted."

She glanced over at him and looked back at me as if I had completely lost my mind.

"Honey, they don't come better than Ted. Except maybe for David, but that little agent woman came and snatched him right out of the potential gene pool."

I tried to be subtle looking over at Ted again. She wasn't lying. He did grow up hotter than hell and with a body to sin your way there. The problem was how frequently he gave girls a personal escort then dropped them on their ass and hightailed it back to his family's ranch.

My brother’s voice brought my head around. He was oblivious to my presence from the other end of the bar, and I frowned as Lucy sauntered over and poured him a drink. He staggered off to the back table he’d been at where his flavor of the week waited.

“You think you can cut him off early, tonight?” I asked Lucy when she returned to my end of the bar.

“Cut him off? He’s my best tipper.” She wiped the bar in front of me and then slung her towel over her shoulder. “Besides, he’s not drinking more than anyone else, and he never stays here too late.” She leaned in across the bar, her eyes narrowed with concern. “Is that why you’re here? To spy on your brother?”

“Yeah,” I said as my eyes drifted back to his table. “He seems to be struggling since his breakup. You know who he hangs out with?” I didn’t know much about my brother’s life away from the ranch, and I couldn’t help but be curious what he was up to and if he was trying to win Lacey back. Luckily, our ranch hired out, or we’d be in a jam, but my Dad would never say anything to get him to straighten up. He sympathized with what it was like to lose someone.

“You sure you’re here for your brother?” Her giggle snapped me out of my daze, and I realized I had let my gaze linger back over to Ted’s table.

“I’m sure.” I turned to meet her eyes. “Is there anyone he’s been leaving with?”

“Ted or Bailey?” She put a hand on her hip and leaned against the bar seeming quite pleased with herself.

“My brother.” I sneered. “Have you seen him with Lacey?”

“No, not since they split. He leaves with different people here and there. No one specific, though a couple of girls did get into it about a week ago over him. He seems like a real heartbreaker himself.” She wandered off to pour another drink.

I didn’t want to think of my brother being anything like that. It reminded me too much of Ted, but then again, those two had been friends. Me and Bailey were only eleven months apart, and both of us grew up with all of the Dawson boys. Our families used to be close, and our dads were best friends until Empire Communications had approached us about the communications tower they wanted to put on our land. That was years and years ago, right after our mother died. I glanced back to Ted and remembered the night we broke up.

I’d wanted to go to our senior prom, but he didn’t, and as much as I tried to convince him, he wouldn’t budge. Bailey understood how much going to prom meant to me so he arranged for his friend Andy to ask me. I had waited on Ted, hoping he’d change his mind, but when he didn’t, I had to accept the other invitation. Bailey was going with my best friend Katie, so we were all set for a fun night as nothing more than a group of friends dressing up to go to a party. Ted made sure he ruined that.

He looked so cocky sitting across the room, and it infuriated me that I couldn’t catch him staring at me. I hated the way he made me feel. I hated that a small speck of my heart might still belong to him. I tried to smother it with each thought. Denial was easier than the heartbreak he’d given me in the past.

As Bailey joined Ted at his table, I downed my drink and slipped out of the bar before they noticed me there. I didn’t feel like a confrontation with either of them.