Brokedown Cowboy. Maisey Yates

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      “You know what you want?” Connor asked.

      “Fish-and-chips. Tartar sauce and malt vinegar.”

      He nodded once. “Snag a table, will you?”

      “Sure. Just a Diet Coke to drink.”

      He nodded again, walking over to the bar. She couldn’t help but watch him go. He had put on a plaid button-up shirt, pushed the sleeves past his elbows, revealing that tattoo that fascinated her so much, and the muscles that fascinated her equally.

      Only Connor knew what the tattoo meant. He’d come back home one Saturday with the start of it and finished it over the next few weeks. But he’d never said anything about it. And she had never asked. Because the omission was so glaring, it had to be purposeful.

      So she let him have it. But after today, she was starting to think she let him have a few too many omissions.

      She’d been livid when she’d discovered the paperwork. But then he’d said all those things, and her heart squeezed tight, and all the anger had sort of leaked out and drained away.

      And it was impossible to be mad at him now, as he was ordering her food and standing there with his broad back filling her vision, slim waist tapering down to slim hips and... Well, there was no use denying the fact that it was a damn fine ass.

      Her cheeks got hot, and she looked down at her hands. She was not going to keep staring at him. Not like that.

      She looked up again when he pulled his chair out and sat across from her. He set her Diet Coke down in front of her, his own hand wrapped around a dark brown beer bottle. “Food will be up in a minute.”

      “Good,” she said, “I’m starving.”

      She looked up, behind Connor, and saw a group of three women, all bleached blonde, all much more made up than she was, staring Connor down. Blonde number one leaned over and whispered something to blonde number two, who then turned her focus to Liss, her frosted-pink lip curling upward into a sneer.

      Well, Liss had clearly been measured and found wanting.

      Blonde number three tossed her hair over her shoulder and stuck her chest out, as if she was gearing up to go on a mission. And her mission seemed to pertain to Connor.

      Oh, dammit. They were headed this way. All of them were headed this way. They made their way up to the table, one moving to Connor’s left, the other two standing on his right. “Hi.” The one Liss had arbitrarily dubbed number three spoke first. “My friends and I had a question.”

      Connor looked up, a crease between his brows, his lips pulled down into a frown. “Yes?”

      He looked so confused, it was almost cute.

      “We were just wondering if your table mate here is your girlfriend or your sister?”

      Liss sputtered.

      Connor’s frown deepened. “You came all the way over here to ask me that?”

      Number three, whom Liss clearly should’ve named number one, reached out and touched Connor’s forearm. Ran her manicured fingertips over the vines of his tattoo. Rage burned in Liss’s chest. She’d never done that. She had never touched his tattoo, and some random woman was trailing her fingertips over the ink on his skin.

      “It seemed important,” she said, winking at him. Her eyelashes were fake. Liss was certain.

      “She lives with me,” he said, turning his attention back to his beer.

      “Doesn’t really answer my question,” Blondie said.

      “I don’t see why I should,” he said, his tone uncompromising.

      The woman rolled her eyes and gestured to her friends to move on. “Sorry you aren’t in the mood to play, honey,” she said, her parting shot as she wiggled back over to the other side of the bar.

      Liss snorted. “Can you believe that?”

      “What?”

      “Obviously, they did not think I was pretty enough to be your girlfriend.”

      “I don’t see why they cared.”

      She arched a brow. “Do you really not see?”

      He shook his head. “Not really.”

      Liss looked closely at his face to see if he was being serious. “Because she was hitting on you. Now, I don’t think my being your girlfriend would’ve deterred her, but I think she wanted to insult me first.”

      He waved his hand. “I doubt she was hitting on me.”

      “Yes, she was. Women must hit on you all the time.”

      “Maybe.” He shrugged, the gesture more uncomfortable than casual. “I don’t really care.”

      She should not be happy to hear that. She should be concerned. “You don’t care at all?”

      “I’m not in the market for anything.”

      “That woman was not in the market for a relationship, Connor. She just wanted...you know, naked stuff.”

      “I’m not really in the market for that right now.”

      She should not be happy about that, and she should not be interested in exploring the topic further. “Not at all?”

      “No. And don’t try to change my mind. You said that you were going to support me being where I wanted to be. Eli has already pushed me about it. Jack won’t shut up about it.”

      “I just... I figured...”

      One of the new waitresses, someone Liss didn’t know, set their food down in front of them. Both in red baskets, piled high with french fries. “What did you figure?” Connor asked, eating a fry.

      “Well, I figured at this point you would be in the market for that. If you had not...gone to market already, so to speak.”

      “I don’t have enough energy to fill out my insurance paperwork. Why would you think I had the energy to screw somebody?” He took the top bun off his hamburger and started squirting ketchup on the patty.

      Her stomach twisted, and she did her best not to examine it. “Because, typically, it’s something people make time for.” She should talk, since she’d been single for two years, and there had been no screwing.

      Connor shrugged and took a bite of his hamburger. “I didn’t come here to get a psychological evaluation. I came here to take out my rage on the cows by eating their brethren. So we can drop the subject now.” He set the hamburger down and looked at his thumb, which had a spot of ketchup on it.

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