Chapter 12

Alex had never spent much time at Pioneer Spirit. He’d left Blue Valley at eighteen. Most of his drinking days had happened in the navy. He’d been in one hundred bars in one hundred bad situations, flung all over the world, but he’d never spent much time here.

After dinner at Georgia’s, even with Becca’s stories of how Blue Valley had changed, he was glad to be somewhere that held no deep-seated memories for him.

There was a decent enough crowd for a small-town bar on a Thursday night. There was a jukebox blaring country music and two pretty bartenders sliding Budweisers down the slick surface of the bar.

Gabe was flirting with one of the women, who seemed maybe marginally more interested than Georgia, but only marginally. Jack was watching the crowd with assessing eyes. Becca also looked out over the crowd, but with wide eyes and a death grip on her bottle of beer. It was quite the evening.

“Why didn’t you order whiskey?” he asked her over the bar din.

“Because I’m a lightweight and I have to drive us home.”

“Drink. I’m only having one.” Because he wasn’t sure he trusted himself with a buzz—not to keep his shit together and not to keep from saying something stupid to Becca.

Like how he wanted to run his fingers through her hair or press his mouth to the graceful curve of her neck.

Yeah, shit like that was not even acceptable to think, let alone say.

“This is supposed to be your night of fun with Jack and Gabe. I think I can handle being the designated driver.”

“I’m not drinking more whether I’m driving tonight or not. You deserve some fun too. Take it.”

“Do people really think this is fun?” she asked, gesturing out at the crowd with her bottle. “I can’t hear myself think over the noise. It smells like beer, grease, and…and I’m not sure I want to know what those other smells are.”

“That’s why you drink, so you don’t notice it.”

Her mouth curved and she shook her head, hair moving along her shoulders, and he found his eyes tracing one curl that ended right about where her shirt dipped low and—

He jerked his gaze back to the crowd. “Weren’t you the one who said you want to be living life and breaking out of all that sheltered stuff?”

“Does that mean I have to get drunk?”

“Doesn’t mean you have to. I’m just saying, drink if you want to. I’ll drive us home.”

She gave him a sideways glance, mischief dancing in her green eyes. “If you recall, I follow Burt’s truck rules. My truck. Only I drive it.”

He brought his beer to his lips and took a pull. “You know my dad let me drive his truck once.”

“He did not.”

“He did so.” Alex smiled at her, couldn’t help himself. She was something like irresistible magic. He wanted her to smile, to laugh.

You want her.

“Anyway,” he said, looking back down at his beer. “He might not have known he let me, but I drove the truck once.”

She laughed, loud and pretty, and he wanted to lean forward into that laugh and then into her.

Which was why he was not drinking, though he could have used a fucking shot. Drinking and Becca could only lead to bad decisions.

He motioned to one of the bartenders, the one he was pretty sure was a Rogers girl. No, no longer girls. All grown up. He knew they’d lived in pretty crappy circumstances, and he couldn’t help but wonder if they’d gotten out of them. It was one of the few changes he could get behind if they had.

“Two whiskey Cokes.”

She nodded and turned to get the drinks.

“I thought you said you weren’t going to drink,” Becca said.

“I’m not. They’re both for you.” He flashed a smile and was a little too pleased by the blush that crept over her cheeks. He needed to get away from her. “I’m going to check out the jukebox. Be back.”

He slid off the old stool and walked over to the machine. He pulled two quarters from his pocket and took his time figuring out what song he wanted to play.

Most of them were old, a lot of them rowdy bar songs. It seemed he couldn’t go anywhere without being reminded of Dad, because half the available songs read like the man’s record collection—Hank, Cash, Waylon. In a fit of sentimentality that made him more than uncomfortable, he picked one of Dad’s favorites.

He stayed there for a few minutes, letting the familiar strains of the Hank Williams song roll over him. Maybe he had to face the memories to get through them. Then he’d be able to move on. It was a theory anyway. A purpose.

Finally, he moved to head back to the bar and Becca. Gabe and Jack too, not just Becca. The guys were important, after all. He was here with them just as much as he was here with Becca. So he’d keep telling himself.

But as he walked back, he stopped short. There was a man talking to her. It wasn’t Jack or Gabe. Jack had disappeared, and Gabe had finally caught the full attention of one of the bartenders, though not the one he’d originally been aiming for.

So there was some other guy, looming over Becca. Something uncomfortable reared in Alex’s gut. It would be irresponsible for him not to step in and say something. Giving her space when she was clearly being bothered would be unconscionable, and if Jack had been around and Gabe hadn’t been busy with his own agenda, Alex was certain they would have stepped in and done the same thing he was about to do.

“Excuse me.”

The man reluctantly looked up from Becca. Like every damn person in this place and in Alex’s life right now, he looked vaguely familiar.

“Alex Maguire! Heard you were back in town.” The man smiled and offered a hand.

Alex knew the polite thing to do would be to respond and shake his hand. Instead, he just looked at the man who clearly thought he could…whatever he’d been doing talking to Becca.

“Mac. Mac Parker. You were friends with my big brother? Tyler?”

Tyler Parker. Yes, Alex had been good friends with Tyler growing up. He tried to think back through his recollections of Mac. A good deal younger, if Alex remembered right. Which put him much closer to Becca’s age than Alex was.

He pushed that thought aside.

“He’s over at that table in the corner,” Mac said, gesturing toward a table Alex couldn’t quite see. Okay, maybe he didn’t try to. “I bet he’d love to see you.”

Alex smiled grimly, though it flattened completely when he looked back just in time to catch Mac winking at Becca.

“It’s been a while. Don’t think I’d know him if I saw him,” Alex said, making sure his tone was devoid of any emotion.

“Oh, well, you won’t be able to miss him. He’s in that table and I bet he’ll recognize you. Your face was in the paper not all that long ago.”

Fully aware Mac was trying to get rid of him, Alex stayed exactly where he was. Unfriendly and unyielding.

“You should go see your friend,” Becca said, smiling encouragingly.

He only glared in response. Did she not have a clue what was happening here? Sure, she was sheltered, but she had to know a guy who winked did not have good intentions.

But apparently she didn’t know that because she gave Alex a cocked-head, confused look for not scampering away as Mac suggested.

“So, Mac, what are you up to these days?” Alex asked, turning his glare to the young guy. He was wearing a button-up shirt and one of those rubber-band bracelets around his wrist. Alex didn’t think it said WWJD based on Mac’s glance down Becca’s shirt.

“Not much. Work with Dad and Tyler on the ranch. Things are good for the Parkers these days.” He smiled wide, and Alex wanted to punch him right in the target it made.

“I just bet they are.” Alex stepped around Mac and took the barstool next to Becca, where he had been sitting not all that long ago. Mac looked at him, then at Becca, and then back out at the crowd. Alex took a sip from his near-empty beer bottle.

“Well, I guess I’ll get back to my group. Come find me if you want that drink, Becca.” He winked again and then sauntered back toward the corner table.

“You know only douchebags wink, right?”

“What do you think you’re doing?” Becca demanded.

It was his turn to give her a cocked-head, confused glance. “Saving you from that turd.”

“I didn’t need saving from anything. I think he was flirting with me!”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly?” She shook her head like he was being ridiculous. “The whole not being sheltered anymore thing includes flirting with guys. I was actually doing a decent job. I didn’t get flustered and I didn’t stutter. I blushed a little bit, but that’s okay. Especially for my first time getting hit on in a bar.”

“You’re too naive, Becca.”

“And you’re not my father, Alex,” she returned. “If I am naive, it’s my own damn business. I can take care of myself. I know the Parkers. Mac isn’t exactly some strange guy.”

“So has Mac ever hit on you before?”

“No, because Mac has been in Denver the past few years, getting his MBA, I might add. He just graduated.”

Alex didn’t know why that burned in his chest, but it did. So Mac Parker was a douchebag with an MBA. Was he was supposed to be impressed by that?

“I’m going to go over there and take him up on his drink offer and you are going to stay right here.”

“Like hell I am.”

She looked around and he thought she was maybe looking for Jack to back her up, but Jack was nowhere to be seen. And Alex knew Jack would back him up. Gabe and Jack would agree with his estimation of the situation. He was sure of it.

She raked a hand through her hair and then took one of the glasses of whiskey and Coke and drank it in one dramatic swallow.

He was not aroused by that.

He could tell she was working up to saying something, and based on the anger flashing in her eyes, it was going to be a scathing something. But that was fine. She could be a little bent out of shape about things right now, as long as she understood he was only trying to keep her safe. He wouldn’t be sorry for that.

“You recall this morning when you told me you weren’t going to sleep with me?”

Alex choked on the last sip of beer he’d taken.

“I’ll take that as a yes, you remember. Well, here’s the deal. I want to sleep with someone. Maybe it’s not Mac, and definitely not tonight or anything, but whoever and whenever, it does get to be my choice. I don’t need some fake big brother trying to talk me out of it or getting in my way. I have a life to lead, and I damn well plan to have some relationships. So you can either get out of my way or…” She trailed off, that angry gaze dropping to the bar.

“Or what?”

She took a breath, then raised those flashing, green eyes back to his. She stared at him for the longest time, breathing angrily. Then she shook her head. “No. I have to…go to the bathroom.” She got up off of the stool and fled.

* * *

Becca was livid. Absolutely furious. Unfortunately, she wasn’t just furious at Alex. She was a little furious with herself.

She shouldn’t have said that “or.” She shouldn’t have thought the “or” she’d been too chicken to finish.

Mac had come up and flirted with her. Her. She’d sat there like a scared animal and slowly realized as he smiled and chatted and offered to buy her a drink that it was time she had the types of experiences she’d always wanted.

She’d finally gotten out of her mother’s overprotective shadow, but she’d hidden out there on the ranch. Hidden herself away from everything. But spending a month with the guys under the same roof, navigating a business with them, she’d learned something about standing up for herself and putting herself out there.

She didn’t want a bar hookup or a one-night stand, but she did want to be open to the possibility that a cute guy might be interested in her. She wanted to be kissed or asked out on a date—all of those things normal adult women did. She wanted it. She was going to have it.

She didn’t need Alex standing in her way when it was hard enough to not be in her own way.

She splashed cold water on her face and tried to get hold of her temper. Temper wasn’t going to help her cause, and it wasn’t going to…

She didn’t know what. She didn’t know what she wanted to be. She looked at herself in the mirror.

That was a lie. She knew exactly what she wanted. Alex’s brown gaze on hers. It was his mouth she wanted to kiss her. That was probably all kinds of warped and whatever, but that’s what she wanted. Even when Mac was standing there talking to her, smiling at her, she’d found herself glancing over at Alex…wishing it were him.

That wasn’t his fault, unfortunately. That was her own dumb brain’s fault.

Why didn’t she have any girlfriends? She needed one. Someone who had done this before, who could tell her things she was supposed to know—mostly how to attract a guy and take things as slowly as she wanted to.

But she had no one. Except her mom, and that was a laugh.

She had to get back out there and… Unfortunately she didn’t know what she had to do. What she should do.

Becca blew out a breath, giving herself a stern glare in the mirror. She was almost twenty-five years old. She had no guy experience and next to no friend experience. Which sucked, but it wasn’t going to change if she didn’t change. Nothing was going to change if she didn’t do anything about it.

She walked back into the noisy bar and noted that Mac was sitting with his brother at the table in the corner. Alex hadn’t joined them in an effort to reconnect with his old friend. In fact, Alex was nowhere to be seen. Jack had returned to the bar, but Gabe was now missing. She frowned and went over to Jack.

“Where’d everyone go?”

“Well, Gabe disappeared with the waitress. Alex went outside to get some air. Which I take it had something to do with you.”

“No, it had something to do with Alex being an unrepentant ass.”

For the first time in their almost month together, Jack grinned at her. “God, he is an ass. Means well.” Jack gestured at her with his beer, and Becca looked at the line of empties behind him. He’d downed quite a few.

She decided to join him. She motioned for another drink, and the bartender complied. She sipped and glanced at Jack, who was just sitting there, drinking, watching the goings-on.

“Why aren’t you trying to hook up with someone?”

“My heart is still deeply wounded, Becca,” he replied, covering his heart with his hand in a mocking way, except she didn’t think he was really quite as cavalier as the alcohol was allowing him to act.

“I wasn’t talking about your heart.” Clearly, if she was making comments like that, this needed to be her last drink. But Jack grinned again.

“Why don’t you go hook up yourself?”

“Maybe I will. I have a hookup possibility.” Not that she would take it, but there was something kind of confidence boosting about knowing a guy was willing to buy her a drink and flirt with her.

“Is he about six two and an ass?”

Becca choked on the sip of a drink she’d taken. “No!”

“Well, that guy is outside ‘getting some air’ and brooding over you. I don’t know about this other guy.”

Becca knew she turned a bright, bright red that would be visible even in the dim light of the bar. “The other guy was being very nice until Alex ruined it all.”

“Of course he did. Jealous ass.”

Becca snorted. “Jealous of what?”

“Um, a guy showing interest in you, the woman he can’t seem to stop having interest in. I mean, don’t get me wrong—he’s gotta pretend he’s not. He’s Captain America, and you’re off-limits, but that doesn’t mean he’s not interested.”

She blinked at Jack, who was squinting into the crowd, closing one eye and then the other. She thought about this morning and Alex saying he didn’t want to sleep with her, but…how did that come up if he wasn’t thinking about sleeping with her?

Jack was drunk, obviously, but maybe she’d get better advice from drunk Jack than just about anyone else. “What am I supposed to do about that?”

“Well, you have two choices. You can go find the possible hookup to chat up and prove to Alex once and for all you don’t care what he thinks. That he can’t get in the way of your life, because he has no control over you. He’s not in charge of you, can’t order you around. It’s a good feeling, all in all, telling him where to shove his orders.”

“You are drunk.”

“As a skunk. But drunk Jack is infinitely wise.”

“Oh yeah, then what’s my other choice?”

Jack screwed his mouth up. “Hmm. Other choice. Hmm. Oh! You go out there and you talk to Alex the Great. God knows you’ve got the skills to make his commitment to truth, justice, and the American way a little hard for him.”

Again the blush washed over her face even though the first one hadn’t receded. Skills? What the hell kind of skills did she have? “Isn’t that Superman, not Captain America?” she managed.

Jack shrugged. “All the same, but you only get one life, Becca. So you’ve got to take the reins.”

“So take the reins, Jack.”

He closed one eye again and stared at her as if seeing her for the first time. His mouth curved and he gestured his bottle at her. “You first.”

She turned around and leaned against the bar, looking out over the patrons. She glanced over at Mac. Mac would be the sensible choice. To go over there and let him buy her a drink, have a nice conversation. It could be…not easy exactly. She’d still be her nervous self, and she wouldn’t have the first clue how to flirt back, but he wouldn’t be complicated. Alex was nothing but complicated. Everything complicated.

And wasn’t she tired of taking the simple, easy way out? Wasn’t that the point of her whole life right now? That she wasn’t a coward? That she could stand up for the things she wanted? Regardless of what anyone else wanted for her.

But she just wanted experience. She didn’t need it to be difficult. Hard didn’t mean good or worth it.

Did it?

She swallowed at the discomfort in her throat, took a breath against the jittery, tight feeling in her chest, and gave one last glance at Jack. “If I do this, you’re up on the whole reins-taking thing.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” he said with a salute, and there was something about the way he looked like he didn’t believe her that spurred her on.

She made a beeline for Mac’s table. Certain and sure and positive those were the reins she should take—until she got about two feet away, and then she paused.

Mac wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted experience, yes, but Mac himself, as a person, wasn’t the experience she wanted to have.

And this was about going after what she wanted. Or who.