Bad News Cowboy. Maisey Yates

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СКАЧАТЬ it still at the Grange Hall?”

      “Yes, it is. And I hope you ate, because they still serve store-bought sugar cookies and watered-down punch.”

      “Ah yes, the official small-town meeting food.”

      “I don’t mind the cookies. I don’t even really mind the punch. I just don’t know why people think they go good together.”

      He put the truck in Reverse, then turned around and drove back down the narrow driveway that fed into the wider main driveway that eventually curved onto the highway.

      “It’s one of the great mysteries of our time,” Jack said. “Personally, I think overearnest meetings like this should come with whiskey.”

      “I would have no problem with that. But somehow I don’t think the budget allows for alcohol.”

      “Well, that’s an oversight. What has to be cut to make room in the budget for alcohol?”

      “There really isn’t much to cut. We kind of pay for our own stuff. In addition to paying dues to be a part of Oregon’s Amateur Riders Association. But you know, support system. Training. And we do get to use the arenas of the fairgrounds a couple times a month at no extra charge.”

      “I guess next time I’ll bring my own whiskey,” he said.

      “There won’t really be a next time, though, will there?”

      “I suppose that all depends on whether or not I’m creating a monster with this.”

      “You feel pretty passionately about it, don’t you?” She so rarely asked him sincere questions that he seemed stumped by this one. Well, she was, too. She had no idea what she was doing. Why she wanted to know more. Why she wanted to dig deeper.

      “I do,” he said finally. “It feels like half the time the odds are stacked pretty high against women.”

      “Seeing as it was my mom that screwed everything up, I can’t say that’s been my experience,” Kate said.

      He huffed out a laugh. “I suppose in your life it was different. Not just because of your mom, but because Connor and Eli would kill anyone who hurt you. You’re surrounded by people who love and protect you. There are a lot of people who aren’t. A lot of kids, a lot of women. They’re either abandoned and left to their own devices, or worse, they’re actively hurt by the people who are supposed to love them.”

      Kate immediately felt stupid for her earlier comment. “Did your dad... Did he hurt your mom?”

      “No. Thank God all he did was leave. But even that didn’t make it easy. It just... This kind of stuff gets me. I don’t want a wife. I don’t want kids. Because I know myself. It doesn’t make any sense to me, these men who have kids just to leave them. Who get married just to mistreat the women they made vows to. At least I know my limitations.”

      “You wouldn’t hurt anyone, Jack.” Kate’s voice was small when she spoke the words.

      “Not with my fist.” He tightened his grip on his steering wheel.

      She studied his profile, the strength in his hands, the muscles in his forearms. He was tan from hours working out in the sun, strong from all the lifting and riding he did.

      And regardless of how he treated her sometimes, regardless of the fact that he had been around since she was a little girl, he was most definitely not her brother.

      She swallowed hard, her throat suddenly dry. “I’m sure that you... I mean...if you wanted to...”

      “I don’t. So it isn’t an issue.”

      His response, so hard and sharp, definitive, made her feel stupid. Young.

      He took a hard right just before Old Town, moving farther away from the ocean and into the less quaint part of Copper Ridge. The Grange was a tiny little building nestled between a modern grocery store and the edge of a residential neighborhood. It looked as if it was built out of Lincoln Logs, and Kate imagined it was supposed to be quaint, when really, years of repainting and foul weather had left it looking worse for wear.

      An American flag and an Oregon flag flew high in the parking lot, which was already filled with pickup trucks. There was no place for Jack to park, so he pulled up to the curb, put the truck in Park and shut it off.

      “Maybe we should have warned them?” she asked.

      “With what? You can’t email them—you don’t have a computer.”

      She snorted. “I could have called.”

      “You don’t have a cell phone.”

      “I have a landline.”

      “You could send smoke signals.”

      “Jack,” she said, exasperated, opening the passenger door and sliding out, not waiting for him. She went ahead and walked into the building, greeting everyone who was in attendance, already seated in a semicircle in the back room.

      The front room had permanent seating and a stage for community theater. But they met in the back in a sterile environment that had a little kitchenette with bright orange countertops, a white linoleum floor and fluorescent lighting.

      Long folding tables were set out with the promised punch and cookies. They looked mostly untouched.

      The lonely punch and cookies weren’t all that surprising. They were more of a formality. An offering of refreshment because if there was going to be a gathering, refreshments had to be on offer. The laws of small-town etiquette.

      There were only two vacant chairs, and it so happened that they were right next to each other, so any hopes she’d had of getting some distance from Jack were thwarted.

      Her friend Sierra waved, but there were, of course, no open seats next to her. Sierra somehow managed to exude both femininity and strength. Kate had no fucking idea how you were supposed to exude femininity. Yet Sierra managed. Her blond curls were always perfectly set; her brightly colored eye shadow made her blue eyes glow. She was the classic sequined rodeo queen. Kate couldn’t even fathom trying to wear a sequin. It would just feel like trying too hard.

      She wasn’t the type to ride with turquoise and rhinestone.

      But sometimes Sierra made her wish that she was.

      Eileen, the president of the group, was reading minutes, so Kate took her seat as quietly as possible. She kept her eyes fixed on Eileen and jumped when Jack took a seat next to her. Did he have to be so...warm? Yes, he was warm. Uncommonly warm. She could feel it even with a healthy bit of air between them. And it was distracting. And disturbing.

      She looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. But then she saw Jack’s denim-clad thighs in her peripheral vision and became completely distracted by that. They looked hard. And if they were like the rest of him, they were probably uncommonly hot. Temperature-wise. Just temperature.

      She forced herself to glance away.

      When Eileen got to the part where everyone brought up relevant business, Kate didn’t speak up, because she didn’t want to СКАЧАТЬ