Smooth-Talking Cowboy

CHAPTER TWO

BY THE TIME Luke Hollister pulled his truck into the driveway of Get Out of Dodge, it was lunchtime, and he had been paying closer attention to his texts than he would like to admit.

Just in case Olivia needed a ride.

He shook his head as he took a left in the long driveway and pulled around to the back of the property to the heavy equipment barn.

It was an involuntary reaction that he had to her. One he’d had for the past seven years or so. She always caught his attention when she was in the room. Like a shiny lure dangling in front of a fish.

He made her mad. She didn’t like him, and that fascinated him. Everybody liked him. He could charm the panties off any woman and stay friends with her afterward. It was his gift.

But not Olivia Logan.

He got out of his truck and rounded to the back, opening the tailgate, a loud, rusted sound filling the air as it lowered. A smile curved his lips, imagining Olivia’s prissy little self sitting in the cab of his truck earlier today.

She’d looked like she was terrified she was going to get his uncouthness on her, and she’d seemed particularly horrified by the thought.

And for some damned reason that thought made his gut tight, made his blood run a little bit hotter and a little bit faster.

Hell no. That woman was off-limits for a host of reasons. Starting with he didn’t get involved with women who wanted more than a night of fun and ending somewhere around her being Bennett Dodge’s ex-girlfriend.

Bennett was like a brother to him and there was no way in hell he was stepping in the middle of that.

He let out a long, slow breath, visible in the frigid cold air, and started to unload the bed of the truck. Wyatt had insisted they had to start making a little bit more of a show out of the place, so he’d been sent to pick up curtains, bed sets and rugs.

It was Wyatt’s show, after all.

The Dodge family might feel like his own in some ways, but he wasn’t part of them, not really. Still, if a man could become blood brother to a place, he had certainly become family with Get Out of Dodge. Enough of his own blood had soaked into the dirt, and he had absorbed a hell of a lot of its dust into his lungs.

Not that he and Wyatt were at odds when it came to what to do with the ranch. But sometimes Luke felt nostalgic for how it had been ten years ago. When he’d first arrived with no knowledge of how to work a ranch, no money in his pocket and no one on earth who cared if he was dead or alive. Back then, Quinn Dodge had run the place. The patriarch of the Dodge family was a gruff, no-frills kind of man, and Luke had appreciated his method of doing things.

Wyatt Dodge wasn’t a frilly guy himself. The oldest of the Dodge children was just pragmatic. He had recognized that with the influx of tourism coming into the neighboring coastal town of Copper Ridge, they could certainly capture some of that for Gold Valley. Luke agreed. But he also resented the fact that the back of his truck was filled with doilies.

“You got the stuff,” Wyatt said, walking into the shed and wiping his forehead with his forearm.

“I did,” Luke said. “And, I think we should make Jamie get all of the rooms decorated. Tell her it’s women’s work.”

“Right. I’m not in the mood to die at the hands of my little sister, thanks. She would probably hit me in the face with a shovel and ask me if that’s women’s work, too.” Wyatt leaned back, stretching and then grunting, putting his hand down on his lower back. “You know what else is a stupid idea?” he asked.

“What?”

“Riding bulls into your midthirties. My back was ready to quit way before I was.”

There was a lot of money to be had in the rodeo as long as a man was good at what he did, and as long as he was smart with the money he made. Wyatt Dodge was smart. “Good thing you gave it all up to become an interior designer at your dude ranch,” he said.

Wyatt snorted. “You hungry?”

“Starving.”

“If you want to head on over to the mess hall there’s some leftover chili in there.”

The food situation was another issue they were actively working to sort out. Wyatt had been searching for a cook that could provide an authentic dude-ranch-type experience, but could do it in an elevated kind of way. At least, those were the words that he had used. That was another thing that Luke was fine with as it was.

Luke didn’t particularly like change.

He didn’t think the place needed to change. He’d spent his childhood entertaining himself. Riding his bike outside alone for hours, and when the weather was bad, inside watching old Westerns on the classic movie channel.

He’d always wanted to be a cowboy. A man who lived for the land. Who lived for honor and riding off into sunsets.

Then he’d moved to Gold Valley and found that dream at Get Out of Dodge. Now he felt like it was slipping away, along with his place in it.

Silently, he followed Wyatt into the kitchen, got down a bowl and filled it up with a good measure of chili, then piled a bunch of cheese and sour cream on top. Then, the two of them walked back out into the empty dining room and took seats at one of the long tables.

The benches weren’t the most comfortable seats, it had to be said, but it was familiar. Home, as far back as he liked to remember.

The doors opened again, and in came Bennett, followed by Grant, Wyatt’s younger brothers who had decided to go all in on the ranch when Wyatt had started this reinvigoration process.

“I’m starving,” Grant said. “Chili?”

“What does it look like?” Wyatt asked.

“Like you got up on the wrong side of the bed,” he returned.

“Don’t ask stupid questions of a man who has been up since before dawn.”

Bennett snorted. “You’re always like this. Don’t go blaming a lack of sleep. Anyway, this is your venture, jackass. The rest of us are just along for the ride.”

“No one made you come. You got on the ride.” Wyatt spread his arms wide. “Get off at any time.”

“Right,” Grant said, “because there were a field full of options available to me.”

All of the Dodge brothers had spent their lives working the ranch in some capacity or another while supplementing their incomes with other work over the years. Grant had gotten married at eighteen and had taken a job working at the power company, where he had worked his way up over the years, needing a place that provided benefits because his wife had been sick.

He had carried on working there even after Lindsay had died. But when Quinn Dodge had remarried and retired abruptly a year ago, and Wyatt had decided that it was his time to try and give the ranch new life, Grant and Jamie had both decided to go all in with him.

Bennett, on the other hand, had a thriving veterinary practice working on ranch animals. But still, because he was his own boss, working with his friend Kaylee Capshaw, he did get to determine his own hours, and that meant he was able to invest time and a decent amount of money into the ranch.

Also, the fact that they had their own vet was damned helpful.

As for Luke, for him it had always been Get out of Dodge. But the more it changed, the more the Dodge children took control, the more he realized it had never really been his.

“Hey,” Wyatt said to Grant, “you had a desk job. A lot of men would like a desk job.”

“Yeah, those men have never had one,” Grant said drily, moving to the dining room and heading toward the kitchen. Bennett followed close behind.

“You keep giving them a hard time and they are going to mutiny,” Luke commented.

Wyatt lifted a shoulder. “They won’t.”

That was Wyatt all over. Sure of his place in the world. Sure of his authority.

Bennett and Grant returned and took their seats at the table with their bowls of chili.

“I’ve got vaccinations in a couple of hours,” Bennett said. “So, if you have anything you need me to get done, now’s the time to ask.”

“What’s that for?” Grant asked, “Rabies?”

“Scabies,” Wyatt said, “probably.”

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Bennett said.

“Why?” Luke asked, figuring it was time to join in the harassment of the youngest Dodge brother. “Is it something worse? A below-the-belt issue?”

“Vaccinating a litter of puppies,” he said.

“You coming out drinking tonight?” Wyatt asked. The question was directed at Bennett. “Because you really should. Considering you’re a free agent now.”

“You never harass Grant about being a free agent.”

Grant let out a harsh breath. “Because I’m not really.”

“You should,” Luke said to Bennett. Eager to smooth over that momentary rough patch. That was what he did. It was why people liked him around. “You can come, too, Grant. At least just because there’s alcohol.”

“Not my thing,” Grant responded.

Luke wasn’t going to press it. In his opinion, it was time for Grant to move on. Lindsay had died eight years ago. Of course, that was an easy conclusion for him to draw, since he had never been in love before. He didn’t know what it was like to lose someone he felt that way about.

He had lost his mother, but that was different.

“Since when is beer not your thing?” Bennett asked.

“I like to do my drinking alone,” Grant answered.

“That’s concerning,” Wyatt said.

Grant lifted a shoulder. “I’m concerning. That’s not a newsflash. Anyway, you guys go out. Drink. I’m going to go home like an old person and sit in front of the TV.”

Luke didn’t see the appeal in that at all. But then, he wasn’t a huge fan of solitude in general. He found that the louder it was, the less he had time to think. And he liked that. In general, he preferred to drink or fuck until he fell asleep. Because the alternative was to lie there and let memories chase around in his head like rabid foxes.

He really didn’t see the appeal in that.

“I gave Olivia a ride to work this morning,” Luke said, addressing the eight-hundred-pound breakup that seemed to be sitting in the middle of the table at the moment. “She had a flat tire.”

Bennett looked up. “Really?”

“Yep.”

He lifted a brow. “I bet she didn’t like that.”

“No. She did not. But then, you know she’s eternally surprised when the world dares go against her express wishes.”

“Yes,” Bennett said. “I do know that about her.”

Luke always had a hard time getting a read on Bennett’s feelings for Olivia. The relationship had been a funny one. Intense, on Olivia’s part. Which was why it was odd that she was the one who had done the breaking up. At least, from Luke’s point of view.

“She’ll come around,” Luke said. “I mean, if you want her to. She asked about you.”

Bennett took a bite of his chili. “Hey, she broke up with me.”

“Lindsay broke up with me once,” Grant said. They all looked at him, because Grant rarely mentioned Lindsay at least not by name. There was a lot of alluding to the past, to his marriage. But he didn’t say her name very much. “Seriously. We were seventeen.”

“Why?” Wyatt asked.

“It was when she got sick again. She was in recovery when we started dating. It came back and she wanted to let me go.”

“How’d you change her mind?” Luke asked.

“I proposed,” Grant said. “Told her I was in it for real, and it wasn’t up to her to tell me how to live my life. That I wanted one with her.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Proposing would have worked with Olivia,” Bennett said. “That is why she broke up with me. I didn’t propose to her on Christmas Eve.”

“What are you waiting for?” Luke asked. “I thought that was the plan. To marry her.”

It had seemed inevitable from the time the two of them had started dating a year ago. The obvious conclusion to something that they’d been circling for years. They were the two most respected families in town. Everybody knew that Bennett Dodge and Olivia Logan were destined to be together.

“Yeah,” Bennett said. “It was. But I don’t know. She broke up with me. So I’m taking the time to think about that. I care about her. She’s a sweet girl. I mean, maybe sweet is the wrong word. But she’s... She’s something.”

Luke chuckled. Yeah, Olivia Logan sure as hell was something. He finished up his lunch, then stood, going into the kitchen and rinsing out his bowl before passing back through the dining room. “I’ve got work to do,” he said. “Hey—” he directed that at Bennett “—you can work on decorating the cabins.”

“What?” Bennett asked, frowning. “How did I get nominated for that?”

“I’m your boss, little brother,” Wyatt said. “And I say you need to hang some curtains.”

Bennett laughed. “I’m the only one with a thriving business independent of this place. I’ll pay to have someone else come and do it before I go hang any damned curtains.”

“Save your money for some G-strings down at The Frisky Mermaid,” Wyatt said, referring to the strip club down in Tolowa. “Since that’s about all the skin you’re seeing these days.”

That forced Luke to think about the skin that Bennett had been seeing. Olivia’s skin. Pale and pretty, and easy to turn pink with indignation. He wondered if she turned pink all over when she got like that. If her anger heated her cheeks, and other parts of her body, too.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he added. Feeling like it was a pointless addition, but needing to reorient.

Yeah, Olivia was hot. And there was something about that prim little attitude, that stuck-up manner of hers that got under his skin. Didn’t mean he should be thinking about hers.

“See you tonight,” Wyatt said.

“Yep,” Luke responded, already heading out of the mess hall and back toward the machine shed.

He had work to do. And if there was one thing that had always provided him with some measure of sanity, it was work.

CHAPTER THREE

OLIVIA FELT LIKE there was a spotlight shining down on her as she walked into the Gold Valley saloon. Because she was alone, and she was certain that everybody in the room had taken note of that.

Happily, her boss, Lindy, had agreed to drive her back to her car, so she hadn’t had to call Luke to come and pick her up from work. And also happily, he had made good on his promise to fix her car.

She frowned slightly thinking of that. That had been... Well, it had been awfully nice of him. It had saved her the cost of a tow truck. And the cost of getting the tire fixed. It wasn’t like her dad wouldn’t have paid for it. But she didn’t want to inconvenience him. And he wasn’t very happy with the way everything had gone down with Bennett. Ultimately, he probably would have badgered her into calling Bennett to try and patch things up with him.

She wanted things patched up with Bennett. She did. Which was why she was here in the bar, alone.

She frowned and edged up to the bar, sitting gingerly on one of the tall stools. For somebody who really wasn’t a big bar person she sure did end up spending a lot of time in them. She didn’t do much drinking, and she didn’t especially like loud environments. But all of her friends seemed to. So when everyone went out after work they inevitably ended up either at Ace’s in Copper Ridge or here.

Laz Jenkins, the owner of the bar, sidled down to her end, a broad smile on his face. “Good evening, Olivia. Your usual?”

Her usual was a Diet Coke. She sighed. “Yes.” She looked down at the scarred bar top, at the contrast between her perfectly manicured hands and the rough-hewn wood. Then she looked up at Laz’s broad back. “Thank you,” she added, because she realized she had forgotten her manners. And Olivia Logan never forgot her manners.

It was early, and the bar was mostly empty, but she knew that they would be here. If she had wanted to avoid them, she would have gone down into Copper Ridge. Actually, if she had wanted to avoid them she would have gone home.

Her phone buzzed and she looked down.

Are you home yet?

It was from her mother. She lived in a little house on her parents’ property, so her mother probably had a fairly good idea that she wasn’t home.

No.

Will you be late?

Olivia sighed and brought up the little phone icon next to her mother’s name. “I’m at the saloon,” she said crisply when her mother picked up.

“Okay,” her mom responded.

“Is everything all right?” She always defaulted to worry. Which was funny, because Tamara Logan also defaulted to worry automatically. Olivia knew why. It was Vanessa’s fault. But Vanessa wasn’t within reach, which meant that Olivia was the focus of all her parents’ concern.

In high school, one slip in her GPA and her parents had been terrified she was on the same dark path as her sister. They were twins, after all. And if Vanessa was susceptible, why wouldn’t Olivia be, too?

She’d been treated like a rebellious teenager when she’d never once set a foot out of line.

“Everything’s fine,” her mom answered. “I was just curious if you were sitting at home or if you had gone out.”

“I’m not with Bennett,” she said.

Then, as if on cue, the door opened and there he was. Bennett and his brother Wyatt. Followed closely by Luke Hollister.

Her throat tightened, her stomach squeezing as if somebody had wrapped their fingers around it and made a fist.

“Have fun,” her mom said, clearly sounding concerned.

“I will.”

“Don’t drink unless you have a ride.”

In spite of her general physical distress Olivia laughed. “Mom, I never drink.”

“I know. You always were a good girl.”

That made her feel guilty. Guilty for being annoyed with her mom when her feelings were borne of concern. And not concern that came out of nowhere.

Olivia hung up and put the phone down with shaking fingers, just as Laz set her drink down on a block of wood that functioned as a coaster.

“Thank you,” she said.

He treated her to another dazzling smile, his dark eyes twinkling. He was a lot older than she was, in his forties, maybe. It was difficult to guess his age. But she could definitely see why women came to the bar to stare at him.

Everything in her tensed as she turned away from the bar and back toward the door, lifting her Diet Coke. Bennett would have to come over eventually. Because he would have to order a drink.

The door opened again, and in came Jamie Dodge and Kaylee Capshaw. Jamie was the youngest of the Dodge siblings, a year younger than Olivia, and hadn’t spoken to her since Bennett and Olivia had broken up.

And then there was Kaylee. Kaylee, Bennett’s best friend. Who was only a friend, and Olivia had always believed that. She had always liked Kaylee. She truly had.

But for some reason the sight of the tall redhead made her stomach go from tight to curdled. It could be because Kaylee had been there the night she and Bennett had broken up. Because Bennett had brought her along when Olivia had been certain he was going to propose to her at the opening of the tasting room for Grassroots Winery in Copper Ridge over Christmas.

It had made perfect sense to her. Absolutely perfect sense.

They had been together for over a year and known each other almost their whole lives. It had been Christmas. Romantic. And he had brought her, which had made it clear he hadn’t seen that night as momentous or romantic at all. Then when she’d told him how upset she was, he’d said he wasn’t going to propose yet.

Just thinking about the entire situation made her face hot. Made her feel like she was going to break into thousands of little pieces.

Of course, it wasn’t Bennett whose eyes she caught. It was Jamie. Who looked at her like she was a particularly regrettable beetle that had wandered into her path. Kaylee, in contrast, smiled. The redhead conferred with Jamie for a moment, who frowned and went to sit at the table with her brothers and Luke.

It was Kaylee who made her way over to the bar. “Hi, Olivia,” Kaylee said.

Kaylee was nice. That was the problem. It made Olivia feel mean having bad feelings about her.

“Hi,” Olivia said.

“Are you meeting someone here?”

“I...”

She wasn’t. That answer was sad. That answer revealed that she was very clearly stalking Bennett. She couldn’t deny that. Not even to herself. She was. She was full on stalking her ex-boyfriend. Her ex-boyfriend who was her ex because she had gotten angry and broken up with him because he hadn’t been doing things according to her timeline. She had been so certain that by ending things she would make him see that his life was empty without her.

But he was in the Gold Valley Saloon with his family and friends. She was sitting at the bar by herself drinking a Diet Coke.

Getting chatted up with pity by his best friend.

“I was actually hoping to see Luke,” she said.

The lie rolled off her tongue easily. Which was strange, because she was not a liar. In fact, she was a terrible liar. She was well known for that in her family because her sister, Vanessa, had been such an accomplished deceiver, while Olivia had always turned bright red and been unable to make eye contact with the person she was attempting to fool.

She had stopped trying by the time she was eight years old.

“Luke?” Kaylee asked, her eyebrows shooting upward.

“Yes,” Olivia responded. “He rescued me this morning.” That at least was the truth. “I mean, my car got a flat tire and he happened to be driving by just at the right time. He gave me a ride to work. And then he fixed the car. I owe him a drink.” As if she and Luke had discussed this.

“Oh,” Kaylee said again, regarding her with a thoughtful expression.

Olivia smiled, attempting to look enigmatic, which no one had ever accused her of being a day in her life, and took another sip of her Diet Coke.

“Can I get you something, Kaylee?” Laz asked. He remembered everyone.

“A few shots of whiskey would be great. Whatever’s cheap and still good.”

He nodded. “How many rounds?”

“Four,” she said, “I guess. Because I hear that Luke Hollister’s is on Olivia.”